A Taupō mother and her teenage son have turned personal loss into a practical tool designed to make conversations about death easier for families.
Suzanne Stevenson wrote "Wishes" in 2021 following the unexpected death of her father-in-law, but the book remained unpublished until her 13-year-old son Quinn stepped in with both financial backing and encouragement.
"When my father passed away it was quite unexpectedly from an asthma attack, but he always joked about death and what he wanted," Suzanne told Lake FM. "It made organising his funeral really easy."
However, when her father-in-law died three years later, the experience was very different. "No one really knew what my father-in-law wanted, he'd never really spoken about it," she explained.
The book provides a framework for people to document their funeral preferences, eliminating the need for difficult conversations about death while ensuring family members aren't left guessing during a time of grief.
Quinn, who studied business at Tauhara College, invested his own earnings from his weekend bakery job to help get the book published.
"I just was thinking why hasn't she published it yet," Quinn told Lake FM. "I wasn't sure what the problem was and I just wanted to help get it up. I thought it was really cool."
"But then he also negotiated a 20% return on investment so that was quite smart of him, he's got his money back but yeah it was fun to do it together," Suzanne added.
The investment has already paid off. Within 48 hours of launching, orders for "Wishes" came in from across New Zealand, Australia, and even the United States.
"After that initial shock of finding out that a loved one has died, you've got to sit with a funeral director, you've got to tell them what you want, music, poems, all sorts of different things," Suzanne said. "That can be really confronting if you don't have a clue what the deceased wanted."
Anyone interested in learning more about the book can visit wishesbook.nz.
