Locally founded website preps for responsibilities following partner's death

When Waterside Place's Nancy Castro embarked on her latest nonprofit adventure, she found her daughter and son weren't all that interested.

They always had helped with the other endeavors when they could, but this was different.

This one was about death.

Considering Catalina, 21, and Colin, 20, have other more pressing concerns, it is not a big surprise.

But at 53, Nancy Castro wouldn't seem to be at an age to be thinking about the Big D either. 

"I was the executor for my parents," Castro said. "And I am a planner. I need to be prepared."

Castro began to wonder if most people truly were ready in case their spouse or significant other died.

"The resources are disjointed," she said. "From my perspective, those resources are not good enough."

With that in mind, Castro decided to put together a workshop for those at Harvest United Methodist Church. One of the parishioners who attended was Mote Ranch's Dennis Larson.

At the time, Larson's wife of 58 years, Olive, had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. They learned a lot about being prepared, but when Olive died in March 2019, Larson realized he could have been even more prepared.

Immediately after Olive's death, Larson thought he should cancel the phone that she used for her business. But as he started to cancel some of her other business affiliations, he found he needed two types of identification for her, one of them being her phone.

He experienced another nightmare trying to cancel or transfer Olive's credit cards. They also had split many of the responsibilities around the house, and he wasn't very familiar with hers.

And passwords? Forget about it.

As time began to pass, Larson felt a calling to help others in some way. He had an idea.

He went to Castro for help. Could they design a website where people could go for free to prepare for the death of a spouse or significant other? Although Castro never thought her workshop at Harvest United would amount to anything more, she agreed.

In April, End of Life Ready was born.

For free, anyone can go to the website and read through the nine chapters of information. The site offers quizzes on all the chapters, and all a visitor to the site needs to do is print or download them. No personal information is gathered or kept on the site.

The site goes through personal finances, legal planning, home management, and even the spiritual and grieving process.

There could be more in the future.

"We're open to adding chapters," Castro said. "I didn't want to have a maintenance chapter, but Dennis wrote that one all himself."

Even though Castro had no plans to take her initial workshop any farther than the church, Larson said she is the genius behind the operation. Larson is the founder, CEO and president and is footing the bill for all the website costs. Castro is the vice president. They both gave a tip of the hat to fellow Harvest United parishioner Judy Boehm, who helped create the website and now is a board member.

Castro, who works as an administrative assistant at Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club, said she always has loved to give back to the community. Both Nancy and her husband, George, who used to own the Paradise Dental business, are U.S. Air Force veterans.

Larson, who is 82, retired in 2008 after working most of his life in the "data.com" business. He had been working as a vice president of manufacturing operations in the Washington, D.C. area for a company at made modems. He and Olive had five children — Matthew, Steve, John and Eric Larson and Denise Fox.

Although Castro said most people understand the value of being prepared for the death of a loved one, she said they simply don't put the time into doing it. One of the beauties about End of Life Ready is that you can read as much or as little as you want or take as few or as many quizzes as you like.

She said there is little doubt you will come upon some information you haven't considered.

She said one of her favorite chapters is what to do with the remains.

Larson likes the information about maintenance and electronics. He said you might find you don't know anything about your household sprinklers or your stereo system. He also said the bill paying and insurance information is vital.

"You have to understand if you are not ready, you will be doing all this at the worst time of your life," he said. "Our hope is that couples will do this together."

The website debuted in June, and Larson and Castro hope it draws readers from all over.

"People don't want to talk about death," Larson said. "But none of us are getting out of this. The odds also are strong that one of you will die before the other. You split responsibilities now, and then 'Boom!' Now you are a survivor. Do you know how to do the things your partner did?

"I felt I received the call to do this mission. I needed to commit to it, and now I am willing to do whatever it takes."