From Prison to Peace: Rah Rah’s Story of Survival, Loss, and Healing

In this episode, for Black History Month, Jill interviews her longtime friend Rashine Curry (Rah Rah), a mother of six from Atlantic City. Rah Rah describes how poverty, racism, and systemic bias shaped her life, including incarceration, untreated mental illness, and medical neglect in prison. She shares major losses: her daughter’s father was murdered when the baby was six months old, her longtime partner and father of her other children was murdered, and she was not allowed to attend his funeral while incarcerated. She also recounts her brother’s murder, being raped in prison, and witnessing incarcerated people die after requests for medical help were ignored. 

Rah Rah talks about how she welcomed a woman, who once sheltered Rah Rah and her children during homelessness, into her home for hospice. Rah Rah provided hands-on care, kept family visitors close, used music meant for hospice patients, and says Ms. Denise died peacefully on December 20. Rah Rah also speaks about her father’s ongoing incarceration: he received a 65-years-to-life sentence for snatching a bag of money from UPS, has been imprisoned about 35 years, is now 75, blind, and showing signs of dementia and being denied clemency despite petitions. 

00:00 From Prison to Peace: Rah’s New Life

00:15 Meet the Host + Black History Month Episode Setup

01:21 How Cathedral Kitchen Opened Jill’s Eyes to Systemic Bias

03:03 Rah Introduces Herself: Atlantic City, Motherhood, and Reentry

06:16 Grief Piled on Grief: Murders, Separation, and Mental Health

11:38 Survival, Crime, and the Inhumanity of Prison

14:29 Paying It Forward: Bringing Her Benefactor Home for Hospice

19:43 The Final Days: Love, Exhaustion, and Letting Her Rest

23:04 After Death: Signs, Spirits, and What Still Lingers at Home

24:01 Spirits at Home: Feeling Ms. Denise Still Around

25:12 Signs & Comfort: When the Spirit Tries to Calm You

26:10 Remembering Ms. Denise: The Life of a Beloved Friend

27:54 Show Up Before It’s Too Late: Visiting Loved Ones at End of Life

31:31 Her Father’s Prison Story: A Final Visit in Handcuffs

34:34 Aging, Dementia & Prison Reform: Why Keep Him Locked Up?

35:52 Clemency Denied & Life Inside Blind: The System’s Failures

39:51 Coping With Grief: Music, Grandkids, and Staying Busy

41:36 Cathedral Kitchen Changed My Life: Certificates, Community, and Purpose

43:50 Protecting Your Peace: Choosing Solitude Over Toxic Relationships

Transcript

Rah Rah: [00:00:00] I've been through a lot in my life. I've gone to prisons for the things that I did in my past. I changed my whole life around. I love my new life. I love the peace that I had. I love living alone. It's the best thing that could ever happen to me. 

Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly. I'm your host, Jill McClennen.

I'm creating a space for honest conversations about death, grief, and what it means to be fully alive. In honor of Black History Month, I'm joined by someone I've known for many years sharing her powerful story as a Black Woman living in the United States. In this episode, I talk with my friend Rashine Curry, also known as Rah Rah.

One of my former students at Cathedral Kitchen and a mother of six from Atlantic City, Rah Rah shares her journey through poverty, incarceration, grief, and ultimately healing. She speaks openly about the profound personal losses, the trauma she endured in prison, and the strength that helped her rebuild her life after her release.

We [00:01:00] explore racism, systemic bias, prison reform, and her father's ongoing incarceration, as well as the powerful act of caregiving when she welcomed a woman who once sheltered her into her own home for hospice care. She also shares how music, cooking, and family help keep her grounded today. Thank you for joining us for this conversation.

Jill: Welcome, Rah Rah to the podcast. You and I know each other. We've known each other now. For quite a few years, you were actually one of my students at Cathedral Kitchen and we've kept in touch after. When were you a student? 2019. 

Rah Rah: Yes, I was. 

Jill: Okay, that's what I thought. It's been a long time now that we've kept in touch.

I know a little bit about your story. I've learned more about your story over the last few years from things that you've posted on social media, things that we've talked about, and I really wanted you to come on and be a guest on my show so that. We can share with listeners. It's not the [00:02:00] experience that every Black American has, but it's for sure an experience that a lot of folks just go through in our country.

When I first started teaching at Cathedral Kitchen, which was 10 years ago, I had had friends growing up that were black. It's not like I had not been around black people until I started teaching at Cathedral Kitchen. But I've not been in such intimate settings and been part of the conversations and able to hear stories the way that I heard them at Cathedral Kitchen.

It definitely opened my eyes to a reality that I didn't see because I couldn't see it. I think that it's important that people hear these conversations. I wanna see our country change for the better for everybody. So. I'm happy to have you here today. And I definitely wanna say too, if I say anything that's stupid outta line, please correct me, right?

I'm not perfect. I'm still learning as well. So do not feel any hesitation of being [00:03:00] like, yo, chef Jill that, nah, don't say that. 

Rah Rah: Okay. I won't. 

Jill: So just start off, tell me and the listeners a little bit about you, where you're from. 

Rah Rah: Hello, my name is Rashid Philly. Everyone calls me Rah. I'm born and raised in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

I'm 53 years old. I have six children. I love them all and I've been through a lot in my life. I've gone to prison for the things that I've did in my past. I changed my whole life around. I've been free for six years and I plan to continue that good journey that I'm on. 

Jill: That's where I met you and you were still in the halfway house, which for people that don't know, that's transitional.

From prison to being free. Out on your own. Living on your own. When you first came to Cathedral Kitchen and you told me your story, there's a lot of things about you that remind me of me as far as the personality and the instinct to fight and do what we have to do to take care of ourselves and take care [00:04:00] of our family.

When I really sat with that, you grew up in Atlantic City. I grew up in Vineland. 30 minutes apart. They're not that different. 

Rah Rah: No. 

Jill: The biggest thing that's different about us is that I'm white and I was born in a white family and you're black and you were born in a black family, and it just set us up for different experiences in life.

I find it frustrating because I hear the way that people talk, right? I hear the things that people say and the fact that they're just not understanding. That it's not that there's a difference in black people as far as whether you're smarter or less smart than white people or whatever. The stupid bullshit is that people say it's our society.

Our culture is just keeping people in these basically caste systems, right? We don't literally have caste systems in [00:05:00] the United States, but that's really what it is. And one of the main things that I think has struck me so much. Because teaching baking, I mainly had female students. I had a few males along the way, but it was mainly females.

So sometimes I would be in a room with eight women, usually almost all black. The grief that black women carry was something that I had never experienced and never understood between the death of partners, of children, of parents, of brothers, and also. Having people go to prison is still a loss, like death in a lot of ways, or going to prison yourself.

I know you've had to leave your children and I know how much you love your children. 

Rah Rah: Absolutely. 

Jill: So that grief that black women carry is just something that. You can't understand if you don't experience it. And even I can't fully understand it, even [00:06:00] sitting in this space and hearing the stories and feeling the emotions and like literally crying along with my students as they're telling me these things.

And so I know you have dealt with a lot of grief. What's that experience been like for you? 

Rah Rah: First thing I wanna say that is really sad that black Americans get judged differently from Caucasians. Like you said, everybody's all the same. We're all equal. You know, I have a lot of grief. My daughter's father was murdered when she was just six months old, so I had to deal with that.

I had to stop breastfeeding her to get on psych medication because I couldn't really cope with his death. Then I got forcely arrested when she was just 18 months old, and I had to stay in the county jail for approximately six to seven months. Once the prosecutor saw that I was telling the truth, I was released.

I still was ripped from my daughter and also because I did go to prison. My other five children's [00:07:00] father, he was murdered and we was together for 16 years and the judge wouldn't even allow me to go to his funeral to be by my children's side. That was just horrible too upon my release. My brother was murdered in Atlanta, Georgia.

He was shot in the back of his head, and I executed by carrying a lot of DR and pains from all of those things. I'm just happy that upon my release, I found out that I suffered from mental illness way before the age of 21. I suffered from PTSD, schizophrenia, bipolar depression during my time in prison. I was medically neglected.

I blessed for nine months and they would not take me to the hospital. I had a spinal injury, they wouldn't even take me to get spinal injections. Once I got released, I still was promoed from seeing doctors due to the back of COVID, so I still had to wait six long months to get all of these things in order and in line as far as getting my back, spinal injections, having hurt [00:08:00] surgeries on my stomach, even still to the day, I always think about.

How awful the prison system is and how awful the world is. I don't understand why we're so hated, like we didn't do anything wrong. And for us not to do anything wrong and still get treated like trash, it's mind blowing when them people gonna stop being so racist and pressure. Just wake up and learn to love everybody.

Everybody's equal. That's what everybody should do. Everybody should love everybody, you know? 

Jill: I wish there was an easy solution to that. Unfortunately, there's not an easy solution because for a lot of people. It's because they're not exposed to folks that aren't like them. And so it's easy to put somebody in an US versus them when you've never been around people that don't look like you and they'll think like you and don't talk like you.

Where when [00:09:00] I am with a group of any people, right? I'm like, I don't know. We're all just people. We all want the same things, peace, safety, to feel loved, to feel connected. We all have the same desires and needs, and we're all human. It's just really frustrating because I wish I could fix it. I wish I could solve it, and I'm definitely one of those people too, where at first when I started to really see that society treated me differently just based off of how I looked.

I have in a lot of ways the stereotypical version of what societies considers as beautiful blue eyes. I've always had blondish hair. I'm slender, and I couldn't actually see it that they were treating me differently because again, I, you're just living your own experience. And then once I started to realize it, that me driving in a car and you driving in a car could potentially be doing the exact same thing.

[00:10:00] We could be treated completely differently just based off of how we look. And the people that are doing it don't even always know it in their head. They're not realizing it. They're not saying to themselves, oh, I'm gonna pull this person over 'cause they're black and I'm gonna let her go because they're white.

It's this belief that we've been taught since we were children that kind of like runs in the background that we don't even consciously see it and we don't consciously know it. Then when I first started to see it, I did feel. Guilt, I felt shame. I felt this heaviness within me because I physically was feeling sick over it, where I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe, first off, that I hadn't seen it, that I didn't realize it, that I didn't understand it, and that in a lot of ways I was participating in it, even if I didn't mean to, even if I didn't know it.

And especially the more that I hear about the prison system in the United States. I feel like the stories that I've heard, [00:11:00] people are not being treated as human in prison. They're being treated almost like animals. The abuse. I don't know the answer to fixing that. I know that we can fix it. I know that we should fix it, and unfortunately for a lot of people, even hearing your story, they might be saying, well, if she went to prison, she did something that deserved it.

I know your story. I know that you didn't do things. But you did it out of survival starting at a young age. If there's anything about that you want to share, of course you don't have to share any of it. It is your story to share if you want. 

Rah Rah: I grew up in Gravity. I grew up in Sydney Village. My mother was a single mother.

I sold drugs and I'm not proud of it. I always apologized even to the people I'd sold drugs to. When I see 'em, I tell 'em, I'm so sorry for doing that. You know, I didn't know that I suffered from mental illness. I'm just finding out this in 2020. I deeply [00:12:00] apologize, but no one deserves to be treated like an animal when you go to prison.

I was raped in prison just because I committed a crime. Did I deserve to be raped when I was in prison? Absolutely not. Just because the person does something wrong and is trying to rectify it doesn't mean when you go to prison that you should be treated like an animal. Everybody deserves medical care.

If something's wrong with 'em, if somebody's having a heart attack, you don't tell 'em to go back in the room and lay down. You take 'em to the hospital. I watch many people die in prison because beg, then ask officers, please, I'm really sick. Can you take me to the hospital? Can you 9 1 1 me out in this building?

They didn't, and the next morning the inmates were gagged. I'll say this over and over again. Nobody deserves to be treated like an animal just because you committed a crime. Some people, especially me, committed the crimes that I did and I came home and changed. When I went to prison, I wanted to figure out [00:13:00] what's the problem, why am I going to prison?

And I didn't. I didn't know that I suffered from mental illness. But I found out, and I'm on the right path now. I'm happier. I got a beautiful journey going on. I love my kids, I love my grandkids or my hands on grandmom, and I always try to tell people they're still incarcerated. You gotta get to the root of the problem, and when you find it, you come home and you change.

Being around you guys at the kitchen, you guys are beautiful. You guys are amazing and there's a lot of Caucasians there, but you treated everyone equally. You never ever show any racism, you never downplayed us. You treated every one of us equal, and I appreciate you chef Jill. To this day, I officiate CDI Kitchen.

Sometimes you just gotta give people a shit ass 'cause you don't know how they grow up. You don't know if they was abused in the family, if they was neglected in the family. [00:14:00] So you really, really have to give people a chance. You can't be an outsider looking in without trying to figure out what happened to the people and what happened in their past.

But she was out of their life. I was locked up with a girl, but she was sexually abused by her father. Her mother didn't believe it 'cause she didn't wanna know his hell. So, you know, and, and she's in prison because she had a lot of anger going on. You, you just can't judge people like that. You can't judge a book by its cover unless you know what a person's really been to.

Sometimes you should dig deeper before you judge anybody. I've been through a lot. December on 20th, you, before my birthday, I took, my friend's mother went to my home because they put him on hospice. I'm not gonna say I didn't know what I was getting into because I watched my grandfather on hospice. My girlfriend Tasha, and my sister Ami, you know, they both work, they they supervisors of their jobs, so it's not like they could have took care of their mother.

And I said, no, your mother's coming to my home. And they said, you sure this is a big job? [00:15:00] I said, no, it's not really a big job. Your mother's coming to my home. This is my address. Don't ask me again. And the reason why I took her to my home is because. When I was homeless with all my babies, I was standing outside in the freezing cold and this woman walked up to me and said, what are you doing outside with these kids in the cold?

I said, I don't have nowhere to go. She said, come on, go with me. She took me to her house. I stayed with her for six months and she treated me like she knew me for 30 years. Her children, who was at the age of 11 and 13, took me in like they knew me forever. Now Tasha, she's 40 and her sister's 44. And I had to do it because I had to show my gratitude of how much I appreciated her and now me to live with her and not even knowing me or my children.

So it, it wasn't really a hard task. The hardest part was watching her pass away. When the hospice, you know, Baptist would come here [00:16:00] and nurses, they would say, I never seen such a beautiful place. This place is beautiful, clean. You're taking such good care of her. I had to. She would've done it for me. And you know like when you're sick and you have cancer and you get sores and sometimes the sores won't heal.

When they told me that her behind was not gonna heal, I said, oh it is. And my cure is gonna heal. I told her daughter, she'd go out and get some Neosporin. You'll get Vaseline and Golden Seals. They were very impressed because I healed her behind. I healed her. I know it's a natural herb and I wanted to show them that it works.

I said in my bedroom, her bed was right next to mine. I pulled it close together, like the king size bed, and I held her head every night before we went to bed. It was hard watching her fight 'cause she fought like it was no. Tomorrow. She knew that she was passing away. She would never know that. I know I'm dying.

I don't want to. It was really hard [00:17:00] watching her struggle 'cause she started sleeping with her eyes open because she did not want to leave this world. I just tried to do everything in my power to soothe her. December 19th, I said, let me see if I can find some music that's relaxing for somebody on hospice.

It popped right up on the screen music for hospice patients. I put that phone to her ear at night and the next morning when I woke up, she wasn't here. 

Jill: Hmm. 

Rah Rah: So I'm really happy that she passed away peacefully in her transition with no noise, no children, no nothing like that. I'm very pleased that her daughters trusted me with their mother.

Jill: Yeah, it's so beautiful. I remember when you were doing that. It's such a gift to give someone that she took care of you when you needed it. And nobody should stay alone at the end of life to be able to give her that, to sit with her, to hold her hand to care for her, it's so beautiful. It's a gift that [00:18:00] you were able to give her at the end of her life, and I'm sure she appreciated it.

I'm sure her daughters did as well. 

Rah Rah: I did 

Jill: love that. 

Rah Rah: I loved it when she called on me. Her daughters would be in the back and she would be getting bathed. She would say, y'all look, y'all doing it too rough. Where's Rah? I tell Brian why they come here. Even when the daughters gave me a break just to go outside to breathe, she would always say, where's Brian?

One day she got ill, but I plugged the, the ambulance anyway because it looks like she was having a seizure. And they was like, well, she's on hospice. There's nothing we can do. So I put a breathing machine on her oxygen. They gave her a week to live and she did the month. And I blame me because I didn't.

Force her to take that morphine. I only gave it to her when she said she was in extreme pain. So I did the best I could to keep her hair as long as she wanted to stay. And I told the daughters, you don't really have to give her the meditation because if you want her to stay alive longer, she can stay as long as she's [00:19:00] showing work, signs of living.

So, you know, that's what I did. I love her. You know, she knows her number and I love when she g on me and when her daughter slept over, she was like. I don't know how you do it. You got energy of a superwoman every time you hear my mom. You jump up. You jump up. I know that she was ill when she needed me.

And believe you me, I had a line of sleepless spice. One day her port came over. I took my blood pressure medication 'cause my blood pressure had spike. I went to sleep at one o'clock in one o'clock in the afternoon and they get up to seven o'clock the next morning. That's how tired and I have been. From taking care of her and I don't regret it at all.

I don't regret it. She needed me and I was gonna be there for her no matter what. 

Jill: It is exhausting work, though. Caring for somebody at the end of their life, and that's probably why she lasted longer. Because she was getting that care and the attention and the love. I think some people at the end of life go faster because [00:20:00] we neglect people that are dying.

We just kind of wanna push 'em off to the side. It's easier to not face it, not deal with it, because it is emotionally draining when it's somebody that you love that's dying. Of course it's sad. Of course you're gonna feel some of that grief. I'm sure she felt your love the entire time. 

Rah Rah: She did. She would always say, I love you, rah.

And I would always say, and I love you too, baby. My little baby was like me taking care of a baby. When she would make a mess, she would say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I said, Mr. Denise, you don't ever have to be sorry you didn't ask for this. He's an answer for dancer. So it's nothing you should be sorry about.

I got you. You don't gotta worry about it. I'm not angry at you. You're not a burden to me. I love you and when you love somebody, this is exactly what you do. I was never going to, now to go in the nursing home. Even a nursing said if she was in a nursing home, she would've been passed away. And I, I just couldn't see it.

And I just wanted the girls to know [00:21:00] that why your mother's here. Consider her at the hospital. She can have as many visitors as she wants. So I put cheers surrounded by her bed. So when her family came, they can all come visit her every single day. And she loved it. Like some days she would be a little bit drowsy and sleep and then.

She would open up eyes and hey, hi to, to the people that she seen. So she was a warrior. She was a strong warrior woman. Even the hospice people said, they was like, she's moving backwards. She's not moving in a hospice stage. I said here that she's got me here taking care of her. I'm not gonna let her move in a way that she don't want to until she wants to stop fighting.

And when she stops fighting, that's when y'all can come get her and do whatever you gotta do with her. And she fought. She fought. I never seen a person so strong. I mean, I've never seen it. People don't know that watching somebody on hospice when their transition is almost over. There's [00:22:00] something, I don't know if it's an angel.

I don't know if it's monstrous. I don't know what it is that tries to tell you to come on there. Whatever it was, she would. Make her eyes big and push it away, like no. And me and her daughters would be like, what is calling her? Something's trying to tell her to come on. And she's like, no. She would jump up.

She would say, put my feet on the floor. I believe she wanted her feet on the floor so she could notice that she was still here, even telling me to sit her bed all the way up and I couldn't set it up no more because it was all the way up. She just wanted to know that she was still on this earth, and I assured her that.

If you're ready to go to sleep, 'cause I never wanna use the words pass away or die. If you're ready to go to sleep, you can go to sleep now. Nobody's gonna be mad at you. Mm-hmm. You can really rest if you wanna rest, we all here for you. You're surrounded by your family. You're surrounded by loved ones. If you wanna go to [00:23:00] sleep, you can go.

You can go now. And she did it December 20th. 

Jill: What do you believe spiritually happens to us after we die? Do you think the soul goes somewhere? What's your thoughts about that? 

Rah Rah: I definitely think the still exists. I think her spirit is in my home because she really didn't want to go and this is where she last was, and I got this light over top of her 'cause I got a big poster in my living room and I got this light that's over top of her and I got a remote control for it.

Everybody else change is colors, but hers only wanna stay white. If I push it with my hand it the turn colors. But I was sitting here arguing one day and husband had was playing. I go and listen the light them off. I said, oh, she don't want me to do that 'cause she knows I'm upset 

Jill: Uhhuh. 

Rah Rah: Then one day me and my son is in the room and I got my granddaughters here 'cause they don't really like to stay here because of what happened.

My jewelry box just shut. The soul fell and my son started crack it up. He was like, this was easy. My grandkids like, I ain't stand here down hill. [00:24:00] I ain't standing here. So she's at my home. I could feel her sometimes. I could hear her still crying. So I just believe that spirits exists. 

Jill: I don't know.

Sometimes I do fully believe that some people's spirits can stick around. I've kind of wondered That's what Chef Jonathan at Cathedral Kitchen. Sometimes I feel like he's still there and I'll stop and I'll look around like, where are you at? Like, where were you hiding? It feels like you're still here. If he was gonna stay anywhere, it would probably have been Cathedral Kitchen.

'cause he loved that place so much. Yeah. That was like his heart and soul. I don't know. I'm not sure. 

Rah Rah: No. Believe him, me, I, he's probing, braining down your back. He probably really is because even like some days I wake up in the middle of the night, I wake up and I've been looking, I pick somebody standing in my door and be like, no, it's probably really Mr.

Denise. And then I just feel safe and I go back to sleep. 'cause I know she means so hard. And just like when my granddaughters do stay here. [00:25:00] And they see things and hear things. They'd be like, see, I told you I wanna stay here. Something that I'm like, no, Mr. It's a good spirit for Mr. Denise. It's not like she's not gonna harm me.

It's a good spirit because she didn't want to go. And when a person does not want to pass away or die, they will show you signs of their entity being around because they didn't want to leave. So like I told my grand. She's here and you're safe. She's not gonna harm you when you hear something's wrong.

That's not supposed to fall. Like my jewelry box. You would have to shut it with your hands and for it to shut. She didn't wanna see me upset. Mm-hmm. She did not wanna see me upset, and like I said, when I was back here yelling, that light fell. It's, she wants me to be at peace. She don't want me screaming and yelling, so I believe in spirits.

Jill: Yeah, and I think there's times when they would especially want to communicate with us if you are upset and angry, and she's like, please stop. I don't want you to feel this way. Please feel [00:26:00] more at peace. And I could see how that would startle you out of it and then be like, oh, okay. I guess I should not do that anymore.

Rah Rah: Makes sense. That's what I'm like. Okay, Ms. Denise. Okay. I calm down. Yeah, I do. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Rah Rah: Yeah, I really miss her too. I really, really miss her. Yeah. She had a heart. Everybody that spoke about her, she had a her. And even in visitors, I would tell 'em how I met her and they would be like, I met her similar, and she was a line dancer, so she had many, many friends.

And while she was here, she was able to answer her phone, but I saw her getting weak and I saw the phone not being able to stay in her hand. It was just always fraud. Her oldest daughter came over, I said, Natalie, I think the time for you to forward on her phone calls to your phone. Let the friends know what's really going on because she was telling everybody I, I don't know Terry, I'm coming home.

'cause she don't wanna hurt nobody. She's just that type of person. She did not wanna hurt nobody. One day she had 10 Women Depot, she kept telling 'em she was coming [00:27:00] home and they sit put out. 'cause they was just like in disbelief. She had about 300 people at a funeral. And even when she had a party I couldn't go 'cause I was sick.

But my son and my daughter-in-law went. She had 250 people at a birthday party, so she's very well loved. Just what a decent person she is. I mean, she would take her shirt off her back 'cause she was off her feet and give it to you if she see that you needed it. That's just how silent she was. Like I said, I didn't know who she was at all.

I didn't know her. And when she said, come stay with me, you know I did. I felt out a name the next day. Not even the same day the next day, but it was really nice. It was really nice. She was a special person to me and a lot of people, and I'm just happy I took the line. 

Jill: I'm happy you did too. I think it's something you will never regret doing.

You will always look back on that time and really feel glad that you did do it. 

Rah Rah: I saw one of her family members and she was like, oh, I couldn't come see her at your house like that. [00:28:00] But you can go see in a grave like that. So when people say that to me, I don't get it. Like you'd rather see a person in a grave than see a person alive.

I don't care if a person is sick, they would love for you to come see them while they're alive. Why wait until they pass away to go see anyone? I don't like that. If the person is alive, and especially if they're calling for you, just go see your family members, you go see 'em, you know they're not gonna be here long and it's just the right thing to do.

Go see your family if you know they're going to pass away, or if you have the family member going on hospice. Surround a person with love so they can know that they're love. 

Jill: That's people's discomfort with the end of life that they fear it so much. I see it all the time, and it is heartbreaking because the person who's at their end of life.

They want to see the people that they love, especially if it's somebody that's a little bit younger and their friends are younger. [00:29:00] There's so much discomfort with it that people just don't come around, even if it's just illness. So many times you hear that somebody was sick and their friends just stopped showing up.

They don't come around. They hang out with 'em. They don't talk to 'em. To me, that's what we're gonna regret. Well, we're at the end of our life. We're reflecting on our life, it seems to me like that's the kind of stuff we're gonna regret not being there for people when we could have and when we should have been.

Rah Rah: Absolutely. 

Jill: I think it helps with our grieving process if we are able to show up and be a little uncomfortable, even if it makes us feel sad, even if it makes us uncomfortable, even if it's hard for us to do it. It in my own experience as well as observing other people. We still grieve when the person's gone, but it's not as overwhelming.

It's not that grief where people are stuck in it. For years, I've talked to people [00:30:00] still stuck in grief for somebody that died 20 years ago and they just can't get out of it. I think that helps us not end up in that position. 

Rah Rah: It's a hurt and ceiling. To know and see the song score pants away, but it's even a bigger hurting feeling when you don't show support.

My grandfather was surrounded by love. Everybody in his family was there and he told us he loved us and songs to us and transitioned very peacefully, and we were surrounded by him. We held his hands. He was kissing on him, nothing on him, and that's what they need. They need you to support them while they're still alive, regardless of them getting ready to pass away.

You should definitely be there for your family, your loved ones, your friends, and that just shows that you're gonna love them. Nobody likes to go to CLOs because that's another thing. Oh, I hate going to funerals. Do you think people love going funerals? We don't ask nobody to pass away, and when they [00:31:00] do, you go to sales because that's just a decency.

The right thing to do. 

Jill: I think too, funerals, we could do them better for people, make 'em a little bit more of a celebration of the person's life. Not so overwhelming of just like the sadness and the grief. Of course. You know, again, it depends if it's a child, if it's somebody that's younger, it is gonna be harder to accept that death, but I don't think they have to be quite as heavy as we sometimes make them.

Do you mind if I ask about your father? Because I remember you sharing, I think it was on TikTok that got a lot of views on, 

Rah Rah: my father's name is Large Kawa. They gave my father 65 years for snatching a bag of money from UPS. Get the harm. Anyone didn't kill anyone. Why? My grandfather was in Memorial Hospital on hospice.

They, my father to come from Triton State Prison to be by [00:32:00] his bedside before he passed away. The whole family was at the hospital and when my father came in, we all started screaming and yelling, telling him we love him to keep his head up. My father just turned 75, February 6th, he's blind down and he got 73 million views because they saw the sadness of him having to come from prison handcuffed and shattered to be by his father's bedside.

Although he had officers there, they still did not take the handcuffs off. So he was able to see his father before he passed away. 'cause that's one thing I say about my grandfather, he kept saying, I'm not leaving this birth until I see my son. Mm-hmm. My father's his oldest son and that's what he kept saying.

So we called the social workers and told them at the Trenton State Prison that my grandfather is requesting to see his sons. Can you please allow him to see his. Son before he passes away. So they did. They broke. My father from Trenton State [00:33:00] Prison, they called him the TikTok dad, and he's got a lot of deals.

They told us if we got 10,000 signers, they will release him because he's been locked up approximately 35 years now and we got all the signers and they still had released him. So we just gonna wait till March to see if he gets paroled. But it was a devastating thing for my father's world. My brother was killed in the Atlanta, Georgia, like I said early on, and they pretended they was going to take my father to see my brother, which is his first and only son.

They claimed that my brother's body wasn't at the place where they said it was my be, and so they took my father back. He has to deal with that pain as well. His brother passed away while he was in prison and they still didn't let him go to his brother's funeral. His mother's still alive, which is my grandmother.

She's what, 92 or 93 and she's holding on strong. My father, he's been through a lot in there. He has long eyelashes and they, they said they gotta get that, cut the eyelashes out [00:34:00] and they pulled ass in his eyes and bud his eyes out. So that's why my father's blind. 

Jill: Oh my gosh. 

Rah Rah: And that's supposed to show you the things he do in the prison system.

Jill: Yeah, I know. I. Just like the fact that your father is spending so much of his life in prison. I'm glad they did allow him to come out and see his father before he died. But at this point, why, why are they still keeping him in prison? Like he's reaching towards the end of his life, right? Would you say he's 75 now?

Absolutely. 

Rah Rah: Absolutely. Any dementia, 

Jill: and that's one of the things because prison for reform. Is something that I'm interested in. I read a lot of articles and I watch a lot of videos, and that's one of the conversations that's starting to really come about now is how many people are aging in the prison system.

Dementia can, they [00:35:00] don't have the ability to take care of people. So now there is this, you know, should we be letting people out? Should we give them release so they can be out and live out whatever of their life they still have. But then we don't really have programs to take care of people if they come out.

You know, if somebody's got dementia, where do they go? If they don't have family, if they don't have a place to go, it's kind of a mess. Some prisons now are starting to train. Other inmates on how to care for somebody at the end of life, basically do hospice for folks that are dying. In some ways, I'm like, all right, that's a beautiful idea, but it is not still a good solution to a problem where people should be able to be home with their families.

Rah Rah: They got this clemency program where they are now. If you did 50, 40 years did release you. My dad [00:36:00] snatched a bag of money and got 65 years to life. The clemency program just released 37 people who were killers, murder charges, and if you look them up, trouble things they did and they got released on clemency.

They came to see my dad and denied my dad for clemency. He did something by snatching a bag of money, but he didn't do anything to deserve a 65 in life sentence. He didn't shoot anyone. He didn't kill anyone in the process. He reached behind the account and snatched a bag of money, and that's how Lash Shalee gave him.

They don't help my dad in jail. My dad is blind and he calls me every day twice a day, and I hear him screaming and I be like, what's, what's wrong? He was like, oh, I just put the boil in the water. I thought I was pulling in a cup. I pulled it all over my clothes. So he don't have help. Like he should have another inmate in the cell that's helping him preparing like his food or you know, [00:37:00] he does have one guy who does his phone calls 'cause he can't, you know, see the pad, but he needs somebody in the cell 24 hours a day to help him because he can't see, but he doesn't get that help.

Jill: And I'm sure for your father, like you said, you grew up in Atlantic City in. A state of poverty. It's not like your dad was stealing the money to go out and buy a yacht. Exactly. He's stealing the money to take care of his family, and yet we let rich people steal money from us constantly by not paying taxes or literally just stealing it by being employers and stealing from employees, working us at a rate that.

We should increase because nobody's making enough to live off of at this point. If they're making minimum wage or even slightly above minimum wage, they could do whatever they want, but this man stealing some money to take care of a family is now gonna spend 65 years in prison, and [00:38:00] then the taxpayers are paying for it.

It's not like it's cheap to keep somebody in prison where we could use that money and actually help people. Live a life where they don't need to steal money to support their family. 

Rah Rah: I think it's $20,000. A person that's incarcerated so much shouldn't get to each inmate. It's a lot of money to keep an inmate in prison and when some people can get released on parole.

You know what I'm saying? For example, like him, he's lying. What can he do? He self Mitchell, I talk to him. We could talk about something. Yesterday. He'll call us today and ask the same thing over and over again. And I'm like, oh yeah, this is what's happening so long. 'cause even when we all went up the last month, because he told us he was coming home.

Jill: Mm. 

Rah Rah: They never even told him that he suffered, assumed, mention it was Sam when we got together was like, wow, he really suffer. They never even told him that. He had all of us travel along way to Trenton State Prison thinking he was getting released. 

Jill: Oh [00:39:00] no. 

Rah Rah: Yeah. 

Jill: And I'm like, what could we do to help him get released?

They don't necessarily listen to people. I'd gone into the halfway houses more than once to fight for my students to try and get whatever it is that they needed, and they really don't wanna listen. I try to have compassion for the folks too, because I understand they're also part of a system that. It must be terrible for them as well, but they're in some ways choosing like I didn't choose to be part of that system because I would not want to be, I try really hard to be compassionate towards people, but sometimes my compassion only can go so far.

Rah Rah: Absolutely. 

Jill: Oh man. I need a deep breath after this and I'm sure you do as well. 'cause it's a lot to talk about. Yes. How do you work with your grief? Like is there anything that you do in particular to help you kind of work through it? 

Rah Rah: Sometimes I have great music. [00:40:00] I listen to music. I, I have to be around my grandchildren and I love watching TV every weekend.

What I, we have my grandchildren, we do a different scene. Like a different party. Ms. Denise, who I had in my house on hospice, her children gave me every last one of her beautiful parties. So I have all the stuff, and then when I posted, everybody was like, whose birthday is it? It's nobody's birthday. I'm just throwing this because she left it and I'm gonna make use of it.

Like right now, it is red, black, and white. Hearts on my wall. A big balloon arch. The chairs just decorated and everything. It's the Valentine's Day. I got their candy, their teddy bears, their bags on the table. I'll do things like that to keep myself busy so that I don't wanna lose my mom or my sanity. I keep my grandchildren as much as I can, and my brother-in-law, she's off Monday, Monday, Tuesday, and every other Wednesday.

So I'm at the house putting him on the bus, getting him off the bus. I love my new [00:41:00] life. I love the peace that I have. I love living alone. It's the best thing that could ever happen to me. That's how I keep myself busy. I love to cook and I, you know, make cupcakes every single day, things like that. So I'm busy.

Jill: You're living life fully as you should. 

Rah Rah: Yes. 

Jill: You deserve it. I know how far you've come. I know recently you posted on your Facebook all the different certificates that you've gained over the years from different classes that you've, you've taken. Oh yeah. You've put a lot of work in. To be the best version of yourself at this next phase of your life.

Rah Rah: Yeah, I got a couple ate certificates from Cathedral Kitchen. Money Matters. Something else after that. What it is, it's up there. That'll just serve certification. So I got a couple of certificates from Cathedral Kitchen. Like I said, I appreciate CED Kitchen. You guys do an amazing job. Know I, I've always said that even when I was in there, they got the best food.

They feed the homeless people, the same food we eat. It's a [00:42:00] beautiful place. If you wanna change your life, they go to culinary school. They got people that pay for your seats, get your life together and go. It's the best thing that could happen to anyone. 

Jill: It is a great place. I love that. I'm still part of it even though I'm not there full time.

I love so many of my students that have graduated. I'm so happy that I met you and that you allowed me to hear your story and you trusted me with your story and. It changed me. I mean, I remember still, I could still remember where we were sitting in the dining room the first time you told me your full story.

I think you're amazing. I think you are a beautiful human. You've gone through so much and yet you still try to make the best out of life and give back to others. And I'm just glad that you came on today to talk to me 'cause I've been wanting to ask you. And then finally the other day I was like, all right, I think it's time to invite her to come on the podcast.

So. I'm so glad you made. 

Rah Rah: I appreciate you too, chef. The met you. We had a [00:43:00] lot of fun in class, made a lot of things with the dough in class, so I appreciate you. I kept you laughing, you kept me laughing. You gave me a couple readings that were straight old point, so I appreciate you. I only do, I love you.

You know what time it is. 

Jill: I love you too, and I'm just so grateful that we found each other and we'll stay friends for a very long time. 

Rah Rah: We will into death to be part. 

Jill: Well, and hopefully that won't be anytime soon for either one of us, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean we don't have control over it, but we'll still hope to live nice long lives.

Rah Rah: You my family on my mother's side of my fountain side, they never long time. So I'm hoping I take that trait. My grandma was 94. My grand pop died when he was 90. Even his father died when he was 103. So I'm hoping I can get that 75 eighties stay. That would be nice. 

Jill: I do believe some of that is our mindset and the way that we view life and how we live our life and what we allow to [00:44:00] disturb our peace and what we don't allow to disturb our peace.

And I know you've been 

Rah Rah: absolutely 

Jill: focusing and cutting things out of your life that don't make you feel good. 

Rah Rah: Yep. If you don't make me so good and if I can't have my peace, I really don't care who you want come by. 'cause I have to have my peace. I got a blood pressure problem. So I need to be in peace and at peace and if that means getting rid of everybody for my peace, then you gotta go.

'cause I really love my peace and that's what I try to tell people. It's a beautiful, beautiful feeling, you know? 'cause I talk to a couple of their, in the relationships with their spouses and they're not peace. Get rid of them and get your peace. Don't have nobody having your mental go to mental illness 'cause they carry.

If you love yourself, you have to love yourself more for your peace. Don't stay in any kind of the relationship just because you don't want to be alone. I'd rather be alone and peace [00:45:00] than be with somebody miserable and angry, and that's just that 

Jill: being alone was better than being lonely while in a relationship.

So yeah, I agree. 

Rah Rah: Bingo. 

Jill: Is there any last things you wanna share before we wrap up? 

Rah Rah: This was a good podcast if I love it and I hope we can do this again. I would love that to the people is watching. Thanks. 

Jill: Thank you, rah. I appreciate you and I love you. I'm glad we did this today. 

Rah Rah: I love you too. 

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