About Us
Lastwishbook.com has been created by Victoria Vanstone and is the first website of its kind, but how did it come about?
Victoria first created the site yourdeathwish.com which has been very successful. From the positive response the site received Victoria wanted to evolve her original idea into something that users could incorporate into their everyday lives. The development of a new and more interactive site started at the beginning of 2009.
"There have been a lot of copies of my original idea popping up all over the web," she said. "But now with all the feedback I have had from users and investors I believe our new site adheres to the public's needs."
But how did the idea come about?
"I was sitting having dinner with some friends and the topic of our funeral songs arose. I told everybody there that I wanted Bill Withers 'Lovely Day' at my funeral but then thought how on earth are you all going to remember that – so my mind began to spin with all these ideas – how to create an online archive that people can use after you have died."
Victoria was living in Thailand at the time of the Tsunami. In the aftermath of the wave she saw a new way of dealing with death. A more accepting view point: an eastern influence on her westernised views of the inevitable.
"I saw a lot of death and destruction and witnessed how the Thai Buddhist people coped with the horror that surrounded them. This experience also made me consider my own death more than I ever had before and I realised if I had been killed in the wave know-one would know how I wanted my funeral to be. So, I created lastwishbook.com."
"So it all went from there and as time went by all the other fantastic functions were added... instead of just music, I could create a way for all your final wishes to be followed and people can then use your site as a memorial page that you have created yourself. It can be upbeat and fun but most of all I thought it needed to represent the member as they wanted – not a morbid and sad memorial – a celebration of life."
Lastwishbook.com has taken nearly 2 years to create from Victoria's original drawings and power points to employing a web company that really got the point of the site. Some people she approached could not understand the upbeat way in which she wanted death represented.
She says "I want people's attitudes to be more accepting. I agree that death is a very sad and emotional time for everyone especially if the person is young. A friend of mine died recently and I had no way of contacting the family as I was out of the country. If lastwishbook.com had been around I would have been able to write a condolence on her page, looked at photos and videos of my friend and found out all the details of her funeral. It just made me believe in the site more."
"My aim is that lastwishbook.com will be a part of every one's life – you can update it and let people know by email that the profile exists, it will make you more comfortable that your wishes will be followed but also will take some pain and hassle away from loved ones. It's free and it's positive, I hope people are not scared to think about this difficult topic, just accept it and organise it!"
Victoria, with the help of Code7 Web Design based in Brighton, has created an extremely useful and relevant site.
The Internet is now used for everything, so why not to deal with death?
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