Let’s plan for your big sleep.
Ensure your wishes are carried out and make the planning of your death much easier for those you’ll leave behind.
What is Death Planning?
Before going on a big trip, you might hire a travel planner. After getting engaged, you might hire a wedding planner. Well, the same idea applies to your death.A death plan is a comprehensive process that encompasses all the preparations for when you pass away, both before and after death, and is designed to reduce the burden on your family and friends. It includes a wide range of topics, from end-of-life wishes, digital legacy planning, emotional and family considerations, dependants and pets, funeral and burial planning, as well as making sure medical things like living wills and advanced directives are in place.We’ve heard of making a will and checking off a bucket list before you “take the big bus uptown”, but what are the smaller details that need to be discussed? What accounts need to be closed, what outfit do you want to wear, what music do you want played? Do you even want a funeral at all?Most people have never thought about these sorts of questions and they don’t know the answers off the top of their head, which means those answers have not been communicated or written down for those around them to meaningfully plan and execute on their ideal pre, during, and post-death experience.I’m here to help change that. I’m here to ask you questions so I can record your desires, wishes, fears, needs and anything in-between, so when your time comes, the people around you have one less thing to worry about because they know how to make your last big event exactly how you wanted it.
Testimonials
"Completing this plan was as important, if not more so, than updating my will.A will is essential to provide written instructions for distributing physical assets -- after death. But now I also have a document clarifying other key requests, such as preferences before dying as well as for my funeral, burial, memorial service, how I'd like to be remembered, whom to contact, and favorite memories to share, etc.The planning exercise by Emily was sobering, yet extremely clarifying and helpful. She was well organized, knowledgeable, considerate, professional and readily accessible throughout the process. I can't recommend Emily, and her planning process, highly enough."-Tom, Rochester NY
"It was very easy to talk about death with Emily.Everything felt relaxed and natural, she’s a very good listener and manages to extract the main lines from a scattered conversation.As she has had personal experience of confronting death she’s able to give excellent advise which will be adapted to each individual case.I felt very much at ease to discuss this normally difficult subject with Emily and it helped me to point out essential technical and practical aspects concerning organization after death to my daughter.Thank you so much for this valuable and unique experience spent with you Emily!"-Maija, Nice France
"Emily’s first value is in having the insight to offer what she does - I’ve never thought about proactively arranging the particulars of my death before, but immediately saw the value.You might wonder, “who wants to think about death before you have to?” but I say, “who wants to plan all the particulars while dealing with the emotions of dying?”Working proactively with Emily is much easier, and she and her approach make it even easier than expected to talk about. She can relate to me, and her questions are empathetic yet practical, cutting through the dark veil that keeps our death shrouded in shadows, mystery, and fear. She replaced those with a light, pleasant, yet valuably meaningful experience and I’m grateful to have worked with her."-Dan, Buffalo NY
"I recently met with Emily regarding my end of life wishes. She and I met 1:1 twice and then we met with my children.Emily was kind and respectful and a great listener and had very insightful questions guiding me through a very thought-provoking process.In the end, I feel confident that my children will never say, "I wonder what mom wanted" because Emily has helped our family put together my wishes for a well thought out end of life and final resting plan.While we might not always think of such a service, I’m relieved to know that I went through this process to make what could be a very difficult time little easier on my family."-Eileen, Buffalo NY
“My Big Sleep planning sessions with Emily were much more helpful than I even expected. Now my family and I have clarity that will help us all when the time comes. Many of us are taught to plan for our careers, finances and wills but not for our death.This impactful process with Emily gave me much more peace of mind about my death. She asked important questions that I never would have thought of.I highly recommend her Plan Big Sleep process to anyone who would like to get more clarity for themselves and for their loved ones! I will certainly be telling people about Plan Big Sleep!”-Susan, Nelson B.C.
“This is such a wonderful and much needed service! I don't think many people take the time to do this, but it is really valuable.Emily led me through a set of thoughtful questions that allowed me to clarify many things for myself and for my loved ones. She did it in a compassionate and open way that will work well for almost everyone. In the end, I feel grateful that my wishes are now documented in a way that makes sense to me and will help my people in the future. There is a sense of peace that comes with this process.After benefitting from this service, I have talked about my positive experience with many people. The biggest recommendation is that my wife is now pursuing her own Plan Big Sleep sessions.Thank you Emily and Plan Big Sleep!”-Vic, Rochester NY
“I could not recommend Plan Big Sleep more. As an estate attorney, I have seen first hand how important it is to plan for the big sleep so that your loved ones do not need to guess or argue over what your wishes are.Emily not only helped me articulate the decisions I had already made but also asked very pointed and thoughtful questions that made me think more deeply about my eventual death, funeral, etc., than I had before. She then organized those thoughts, desires, fears and concerns into an easily digestible document for my husband and daughter to follow.I am so grateful to Emily for all of her help. It gives me peace of mind to know that my daughter will know exactly what my wishes are.”-Elizabeth, Westfield NJ
“I loved my session with Emily! She asked truly thought provoking questions and made me feel very comfortable during the session.The write-up she provided was accurate and was in a digestible format, making it easy to share my wishes with my loved ones.I would highly recommend Plan Big Sleep to anyone.”-Sally, Brooklyn NY
“Working with Emily on my end-of-life planning has been one of the most profound experiences I’ve ever had. Each interview felt like a deep, compassionate conversation rather than a formal consultation. She asked thoughtful questions that encouraged me to reflect on how I view death, guiding me to articulate wishes I’d never put into words before.I walked away with a clear, comprehensive plan—but more importantly, with a sense of peace and self-understanding. Knowing that my loved ones will have this blueprint when the time comes is an immeasurable gift.If you’re looking for a death-planning service that combines expertise with genuine empathy, I can’t recommend Plan Big Sleep with Emily enough.”-Duygu, Bristol RI
About Me
The Short Version
After my mom died in 2020, I realized how crucial it is to have a death plan. Not only for her, the one who died, but also for us, the ones who lost her. In the years since she’s died, I’ve come to realize how little we talk about death and how we want to die. We often don’t know what our parents want, what our siblings want, what our spouse or partners want.But death happens to all of us, so why don’t we talk about it more? We plan who we want at our wedding, our child’s birth, at our 30th birthday, at our retirement party. But who do we want at our funeral? We talk about what outfits we will wear for those big life events, but what do you want to wear as your final outfit? How do you want your final event to be celebrated or remembered?I hope to help bring awareness to the necessity of planning and talking about your death, and the death of those whom you love. I hope to make it a little easier for you and those around you and I hope to bring a little bit of lightness and humor instead of only sadness and doom.I spent 7 years in the User Experience field talking and observing customers on what problems they had and then tried to create a solution to solve those problems. I was an integral part of the planning and executing of my moms death (no I’m not a murderer). I love planning and organizing, I love having deep, meaningful, and difficult conversations about the things that matter in life to people, and I want to give back. I want my work to be meaningful in some way. So, I took my skills and my interests and my experiences and I’ve landed here, in what I call Death Consulting, a place where I hope to help you plan for The Big Sleep in a way that makes you feel understood, comfortable and safe.
The Long Version
In 2019 it became pretty clear that my mom would die from her metastasized breast cancer. We didn’t know exactly when, and of course we were all holding out hope that she would survive, but either way we decided it felt right to make a plan, with her, for if she did die.I’m not sure if my mom had come to terms that she would die and had accepted it then or if she was in complete denial, but either way my mom, dad and I sat down and started planning her death as if we were planning something normal, like a wedding. We had a spreadsheet with names and phone numbers that eerily resembled my wedding guest list. We talked about what dress she would wear, which reminded me of going wedding dress shopping with her a couple years before this. We talked about how she would want her hair, her makeup, and what color nail polish she wanted.We talked about how she wanted to die, where she wanted to die, what she wanted to happen to her body. We went and looked at gravesites as a family and walked around wondering if this felt like the right place for her to be buried one day and for us to come visit her grave. Again, eerily similar to when I was touring wedding venues only a few years before. We talked about what kind of casket she wanted to be buried in, what kind of ceremonies and celebrations she wanted, as well as what my dad, brother and I wanted. We hired a death doula who had a lot of expertise in alternative ways of dying because that’s what my mom wanted. We had more planning sessions with her. My parents talked with hospice and the palliative care doctors to make sure no matter where she died, we were able to honor her desires as much as possible.I learned you can bring pets into the hospital in the palliative care wing so I always brought my dog when my mom was there. We learned that insurance doesn't cover hospice forever, so we had to plan around when and how we wanted to leverage the extra help from them.We had a lot of difficult but necessary conversations until we had a plan in place. My dad was in charge of contacting the first group of people with health updates on my mom. My aunt was in charge of contacting the second and third groups of people. My brother was in charge of food and drinks whenever the time came. I was in charge of her outfit, her makeup, and the little details. Our death doula, Lauren Sample, educated and guided us through the process of dying as my mom decreased in health, and eventually passed away.She wanted her body kept in the house for three days so family and friends could come say their goodbyes. She wanted to be buried in a wicker basket instead of a traditional casket. She didn’t want to be sent to a funeral home. We knew all of her wishes because we talked about it, we planned for it, we did research and hired necessary people to make sure her wishes were carried out. None of that would have happened if we didn’t plan or talk about death.None of this planning was fun. It was uncomfortable and I hated doing it. But after going through the experience of her death, it became so obvious to me why talking about and planning for your death is so important. And how nice to have already planned it? It’s nice for you, the person dying, but it’s also helpful for the people around you. They aren’t left to make these important decisions about what you might have wanted while they're grieving.Death is going to happen to all of us. That’s a fact.We also don’t talk about it. For whatever the reasons are, we don’t like to talk about it, we don’t think it will happen to us, we think we have time. Hopefully that’s true, but eventually it will happen.So, here I am, trying to take what I learned from my mother’s death, as well as my professional experience in interviewing and understanding people from my 7 years in User Experience, and also my knack for organization and planning and turning that into something that can hopefully help some people prepare for The Big Sleep.And at the very least, I hope I can at least make the topic of death a little more digestible for people to think and talk about.
by Rebecca Rafferty September 29, 2023
“Emily Benner’s mother, Elizabeth, died at home in the afternoon. That evening, Emily sat next to her mom’s body, gently holding her hands and feet by turns as she painted her nails a bright, pinkish-red. Then she did her makeup.Earlier in the day, Emily and other members of the family had helped wash Elizabeth’s body, applied special oils, dressed her, and for the next two days periodically changed out the melted ice from beneath her body while she laid where she wanted to linger, before her burial at Mt. Hope Cemetery.”…
Services
1:1 Death Planning
We will spend two separate one-hour video call sessions where we will discuss logistics, desires and wishes, religion, finances and anything else needed to develop your death plan.After our planning sessions, I will organize your plans and wishes into an editable and sharable Google Doc. Finally, we will have a review video call to go over everything and make any necessary changes.$500
Core Circle Review
After we have completed your Big Sleep Document, we can schedule a video call with your core circle. This call will be to go over your death plan and make sure everyone understands your wishes and plans.This will also allow your core circle of people to ask any questions they may have, express any opposing views, and to make sure they fully understand what they will need to do.$100
Do It Yourself Death Plan
I will send you an editable Google Doc of all information, questions, and planning materials I use during the 1:1 Death Planning sessions so you can create your own death plan.
Plan Big Sleep Gift Cards
Purchase a gift card for someone else to create their own Big Sleep Document. Send me an email and we can organize the amount and recipient.
Contact / Schedule
If you have any questions or would like to schedule with me, you can do so on my scheduler below or by sending me an email. I look forward to working with you!