AWC Going Dutch Sept Oct 2021

Unexpected Gifts (cont.)
Continued from page 39
We then had one night to fill before
checking into our rental house in the Morvan
region of France (two hours south of Paris),
and it was time for the next unexpected “gift.”
When discussing where to stop, I suddenly
realized that I knew someone who, with his
historical architect partner, purchased a house
in the French Alps five years ago and they
have been remodeling it ever since. So I messaged
Eric and, lo and behold, he invited us to
their mountain home just south of Albertville.
And what a treat! A historical museum on
one floor, an (almost) modern private living
area, their private waterfall, and the views,
the views, the views! We were lulled to sleep that night by the sound of the mountain stream
behind our gite. Ahhhh….
Our French house rental was lovely and just what we needed after a busy week in Italy.
This was the first time I’ve ever stayed in a hamlet with no stores or restaurants. The closest
supermarket was a 30-minute drive; we enjoyed our drives through the many French villages
and local towns. I can enthusiastically recommend Beaune for its renowned roof tiles, the
exceptional Hotel Dieu (a hospital from medieval times), and the many wineries offering
tastes of the excellent local wines. This is the HEART of the Burgundy wine region.
We decided to take the road home through Luxembourg, so stopped there for the evening
and had dinner with a long-time Toastmaster friend. Just like our AWC and FAWCO networks,
my husband and I have an extensive network of Toastmaster friends. So almost 20 years of
shared Toastmaster experiences were discussed and rediscussed over dinner and drinks, and
it was a perfect way to end our two-week journey.
When any of us plan trips, we have a vague idea of where we want to go and what we
want to do, but when a well-planned trip has space to include unexpected surprises and
“pearls,” well, I say “shine that pearl!”
Death Brings Valuable Lessons
by Melissa White
Unlike the other writers for this issue, my summer vacation was planned for mid-August
(and hopefully was able to actually happen with the everchanging COVID-19 restrictions),
and thus took place too late to write about for this issue. That, however, doesn’t mean that
I don’t have some wisdom to share. The title was already a big hint that this wisdom isn’t about
summer or travel, but rather some lessons I learned after my father’s recent death that I thought
are worth passing onto others.
Share Passwords and Logins with Partner
After a long fight with prostate cancer, during my father’s final hours of life, he “bricked” (permanently
disabled) his iPhone and locked everyone out of the house computers. We can only
assume this was an effort to make sure that the rotating healthcare workers couldn’t have access.
Clearly he was quite lucid to be able to accomplish these technical tasks, but not rational enough
to realize the chaos that this would cause for my mother. If he had merely shut off his phone’s
facial identification password, no one could have accessed his phone without his consent. And if
my mother had the passwords to his phone, email and various banking and utility accounts, the
transfer of the accounts from his name to hers would have been much smoother. In hindsight,
much of that process should have been completed while he was still alive.
Lesson: Make sure you and your partner have access to the passwords and logins for each
other’s electronic devices and accounts. If you both would rather not share those passwords
immediately, you could place them in separate sealed envelopes in a safe place with the understanding
that the seals are only to be broken if you are gone or incapacitated.
Interview Your Parents
Months ago my mother suggested that I interview my father to give him something to look
forward to. He asked me to write an outline of what I wanted to discuss with him. Instead of
cranking it out, I dragged out the process, always thinking I’d get to it once I finished this or
that other project first. By the time I was finally ready to set up a schedule for our video chats,
it was too late. Now those personal stories are lost forever. Luckily, he had been interviewed by
the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley in 2003 and I could draw upon those details to
inspire me while writing his obituary, by far the hardest thing I have ever had to write. Imagine
my guilt that I had never bothered to read that interview until he was already gone, and it was
too late for me to tell him how proud I was to be his daughter.
Lesson: Don’t wait to interview your parents. Take steps now so that their most important stories
are captured to share with future generations.
Set Up a Legacy Contact on Facebook
In order to inform my father’s Facebook friends of his death, I posted a message on his wall.
However, only a handful of people were likely to have ever seen the message due to Facebook’s
mysterious algorithms taking into account that we had few mutual friends and he rarely posted
on Facebook.
Lesson: Facebook has a mechanism to “memorialize” an account when you pass away, but first
you need to assign a “legacy contact” to handle your account. This is extra helpful when trying to
let someone inform your friends of your passing. Your legacy contact can write a “pinned post”
for your profile to share a final message on your behalf or provide information about a memorial
service. Or if you’d rather, your legacy contact can permanently delete your Facebook account.
40 GOING DUTCH
SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2021 41