About Me
(the long version)

Have you ever heard of someone who helps executors tackle the mountain of unexpected tasks they face? What about someone who wants to talk with strangers about mortality?

Rewind to a year before I started the Untangled Executor, and my answers to those questions were “no” and “maybe me?”.

With that “maybe” in mind, I knew this about myself:

  • I genuinely like helping other people get their work done.

  • I’m good at following directions, even when the logic behind them is unclear.

  • I’m not afraid to ask experts for help.

  • I adapt to shifting priorities and different levels of urgency.

  • I love deep conversations (even the hard ones).

  • I gravitate to sorting through paperwork, categorizing objects, and making lists and spreadsheets.

You can count on me for all of this in our work together.

Many of these skills were at the core of my 17-year grant writing career. It was an honor to raise money for worthy causes like ending homelessness and preserving the natural world. And yet, I wanted something different.

Around this time, I had a conversation with my mom. I was making copies of the updated wills my parents had recently finalized. She commented something like, “I assume someone, like the lawyer, tells you want to do when someone dies.”

That assumption stuck with me.

Was it true? Would someone step in to tell you how to handle everything?

I held onto this question, and I thought about what I’d witnessed when families are going through loss, including:

  • Untended grief that reverberates decades later.

  • Family resentments unleashed when it came time to divide up possessions and property.

  • Promises made without documentation or transparent communication.

Add to this my own chronic health diagnosis (manageable, thanks for asking) that reframed not the length of my life but the quality of it, as well as my own tender grief for visions of my life that didn’t come to pass, and I knew that working with other people facing loss and the very idea of mortality was the right place for me.

With thanks to the many people who have had the same questions, felt the same pull, and defined a new role: the after loss professional.