Life + Legacy Projects
Every person has a story worth telling. Most never get told.
A guided, personalized experience that captures the irreplaceable stories of a life — in whatever form brings it most alive — so the people who love you can know you not just as you were at the end, but as you truly were.
Think about the person in your life who tells the stories
The ones told every holiday. The ones that started with "did I ever tell you about the time..." The recipes that exist only in muscle memory. The chapter of their life nobody fully knew. The jokes only your family thought were funny. The things they learned the hard way and never quite found the words to pass on.
Now think about what happened to those stories when they were gone.
Most families have felt that specific loss — the reaching for something and finding it isn't there anymore. The story you meant to ask about and never did. The voice you'd give almost anything to hear again, just once, telling you the thing they always meant to tell you.
A Life and Legacy Project is how that doesn't happen to your family.
Interested in this service?
Book a conversation. Tell your story — while there is still time.
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what it is
Not a book on a shelf — a real story, told completely
A Life and Legacy Project is a guided, personalized process — led by Barb — that captures the full story of a person's life in whatever form fits them best. It adapts entirely to who they are, how they communicate, and what they most want to preserve.
What it is not: a fill-in-the-blank book. A subscription service that sends weekly prompts nobody answers. Homework that starts with enthusiasm and stalls by February. Those things are well-intentioned. They also, for most people, end up exactly that — good intentions sitting on a shelf.
What makes a Life and Legacy Project different is Barb. She shows up. She asks the questions nobody else thought to ask. She draws out stories people assumed weren't worth telling — and discovers, almost every time, that those were exactly the ones worth capturing. She has 25 years of professional storytelling and interviewing experience, and a particular gift for getting people to open up in ways they didn't expect.
The grandmother who had never told anyone about her youth. The father whose creative work had never been explained. The person who said their life was pretty ordinary and discovered, an hour into the first conversation, that they were entirely wrong.
The story is already there. Barb's job is to bring it out.
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what a project can look like
Every project is built around the person, not the other way around
There is no standard format for a Life and Legacy Project because there is no standard person. The form is always chosen to serve who they are and how they best express themselves.
Projects can include recorded conversations, video documentation, written memoirs, letters to family members for future milestones, photo albums narrated in their own voice, family recipes captured on camera, family lore and traditions preserved for the next generation, and combinations of all of these.
Some projects are intimate and small — a single letter, an afternoon of recorded stories. Others are comprehensive, spanning multiple sessions and multiple formats.
All of them produce something the family returns to. Not once. Again and again, across years and generations.
[See examples of what a project can look like →]
(Coming soon — examples and stories from real projects)
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who this is for
This is for anyone who
has a story worth telling (which is everyone)
For the person who wants to do this for themselves. You have things you want your family to know. Things you've never quite found the right moment to say. A version of your life — the real one, not the abbreviated one — that deserves to exist somewhere beyond your own memory. This is how you give that to the people you love.
For the adult child who wants to give this as a gift. You've been trying to figure out what to give them — not a thing, something that actually matters. Something that says you see them. That you know their life was worth more than an obituary will capture. That you want to know the real story before the window closes. This is that gift.
For the family facing a serious illness. When time is limited, the urgency of capture becomes real in a way it wasn't before. A Life and Legacy Project can be initiated at any point — including during active decline — and Barb adapts the pace, the format, and the scope to whatever the situation allows. Even a small project, done now, becomes something the family holds forever.
Not ready to book a call? Start here.
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What a 'good death' looks like (and how to design yours)
Most people have never thought about what a good death actually means to them — because nobody's ever asked. This free course changes that. In five short daily emails, you'll get a real framework for thinking about your end of life: what matters, what a good death can look like when it's been planned for, and how to start designing yours.
Free. Five minutes a day. It might be the most useful thing you do this week.
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what you end up with
Create something loved ones can return to again and again
The specific output depends on the project. But what every project produces is the same thing: a person, captured completely. Not the public version. Not the summary. The real one — with all of the stories, the voice, the specific humanity that makes them irreplaceable.
The grandchild who watches the recording will watch it again when they're older and understand something different in it. The letter written now will be read at a milestone the writer won't be alive to witness. The recipe captured on video will be made in kitchens that don't yet exist, by people not yet born, with the particular joy of feeling connected to someone they never had the chance to meet.
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how it works
How it works
Every Life and Legacy Project starts with a scoping conversation — a discussion about who the project is for, what they most want to preserve, what format makes sense, and what the timeline looks like given their situation.
From there, Barb designs a project structure specific to them. Sessions are scheduled and held. The story gets told — warmly, enjoyably, in a process most people describe as one of the most genuinely pleasurable experiences they've had in years.
Because Barb shows up, asks the right questions, and does not leave the outcome to motivation that may or may not sustain itself, the project actually gets done.
Pricing is by project scope — smaller projects start lower, more involved projects are priced accordingly. High-production video, if desired, can be arranged with an outside videographer at additional cost.
The starting point is always a conversation.
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Why this work matters
I've sat with a lot of people at the end of their lives. And one of the things I hear most — from the dying person and from their families — is some version of the same regret.
I wish I had asked.
I wish I had written it down.
I wish I had done this while there was still time.
The people who carry the stories always think their stories aren't interesting enough to bother with. They're wrong. Every single time, they're wrong. The life that seemed ordinary from the inside is almost always remarkable from the outside — and the stories that seemed too small to tell are exactly the ones the family would have given anything to have.
A Life and Legacy Project is the antidote to that regret. Done now — while the person is here, while the stories are intact, while there is still time and energy and the particular joy that comes from being genuinely listened to — it produces something no amount of wishing afterward can replace.
The window doesn't stay open forever. But it's open right now.
The story is ready to be told. The person who knows it is still here to tell it.
Don't wait for the feeling you've already felt somewhere else — the reaching for something and finding it isn't there anymore.
A Life and Legacy Project starts with a conversation. That's it. Let's talk about who this is for, what they'd most want to preserve, and what a project could look like.
Virtual sessions available — work with me from anywhere.
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A story is ready to be told. The person who knows it is still here to tell it.
Don't wait for the feeling of reaching for something and finding it isn't there anymore. A Life and Legacy Project starts with a conversation. That's it. Let's talk about who this is for, what they'd most want to preserve, and what a project could look like.
Virtual sessions available — work with me from anywhere.
Minneapolis, MN-based death doula and advance care planner. Personalized end-of-life solutions for busy professionals and families.
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