Death, Dying, and Grief - Grief is Grief, Loss of Pets, or Loss in a Small African Village with Stephanie and Jeffrey

In this episode, we had the honor of sharing a conversation with Jeffrey and Stephanie, a married couple who live on an island near Seattle.

Jeffrey has his master's and a Ph.D. in agriculture and has been working in food security in Sub-Saharan Africa for over 20 years. He has found that our humanity comes before our agendas, that we must connect as people before we work together, and that laughter, tears, and sighs bring us together in times of joy and sorrow. He is currently the program coordinator for an agricultural development project at the World Food Program and works in Togo and Ethiopia and remotely from an island near Seattle.

Stephanie has her master's in animal science and her doctorate in veterinary medicine. She's been a veterinarian since 1993 and blends her technical skills with compassion and sensitivity to do what is best for animals and their owners. When not caring for animals, she volunteers at a local nonprofit that supports senior citizens and at a nonprofit called Reading with Rover that helps kids gain confidence in reading by bringing her dog Kip to libraries and classrooms so that kids feel relaxed. Stephanie and Jeffrey were co-directors of a health center in Ethiopia from 2002 to 2004 and started and continue to operate a nonprofit called the Ethiopian Education Fund that enables girls and boys in Ethiopia to complete their education. 

The Ethiopian Education Fund - https://www.ethiopianeducationfund.org/

Veterinary housecall euthanasia support page

https://www.lapoflove.com/pet-loss-support-resources

Pet Owner: Pet Loss - Washington State Veterinary Medical Association

https://wsvma.site-ym.com/page/54

Book - Tear Soup: a recipe for healing after loss
https://griefwatch.com/collections/tear-soup

Book - How You Live is How You Die by Pema Chodron
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61142207

Song - Smile in the Face of the Devil by Matt Maltese
https://open.spotify.com/track/0h6X7BCq7IYKHNoXln3LX3?autoplay=true

Transcript

Wakil
Welcome to our new episode. Today we have the honor of sharing a conversation with Jeffrey and Stephanie, a married couple who live on an island near Seattle.

Annalouiza
Jeffrey has his master's and a PhD in agriculture and has been working in food security in Sub-Saharan Africa for over 20 years. He has found that our humanity comes before our agendas, that we must connect with one another as people before we work together, and that laughter, tears, and sighs bring us together in times of joy and sorrow. He is currently program coordinator for an agricultural development project at the World Food Program and works in Togo and Ethiopia and remotely from an island near Seattle.

Wakil
And Stephanie has her master's in animal science and her doctorate in veterinary medicine. She's been a veterinarian since 1993 and blends her technical skills with compassion and sensitivity to do what is best for animals and their owners. When not caring for animals, she volunteers at a local nonprofit that supports senior citizens and at a nonprofit called Reading with Rover that helps kids gain confidence in reading by bringing her dog Kip to libraries and classrooms so that kids feel relaxed. Stephanie and Jeffrey were co-directors of a health center in Ethiopia from 2002 to 2004 and started and continue to operate a nonprofit called the Ethiopian Education Fund that enables girls and boys in Ethiopia to complete their education. We will have links to the Ethiopian Fund in the podcast notes.

So great to have you guys. Welcome.

Annalouiza
Welcome!

Jeffrey
Thank you.

Stephanie
Thanks, we're really happy to be here to talk with you both.

Wakil
Excellent. Well, we usually start with a question of when did you first become aware of death? But again, as we said, when we were talking earlier, this is your conversation, so you can pick what you wanna talk about.

Stephanie
So I distinctly remember when I was six or seven, my mother and I were at home alone and she brought me over to a picture of a friend and bishop in our church. She knelt down by that picture and she said, we need to pray now because Bishop Lewis has died. And that really struck me early on.
Later, she brought me to an open-casket funeral. I was probably 10 at that time and for some reason she felt like that was important. And then when I was in high school, my mother and father were co-founders of Hospice in Seattle. So that was in the 70s. So death and dying actually became a dinner conversation topic. Yeah, all through high school and kind of the rest of my life.

Annalouiza
Wow.
Beautiful.

Wakil
Wow. Excellent.

Jeffrey, did you have a different experience or...?

Jeffrey
Yeah, and so for me, I know I must have been around five or six when my grandfather on my father's side died, but I don't remember attending that funeral. I may have been, but maybe it was just us five kids being seven years apart in total. We're just sort of shipped off to the aunts or kept at home with the babysitter.

But what I do remember is about six years, seven years later when my grandmother, again on my father's side, died. I don't remember much of the funeral itself except just looking over and seeing my father crying.  And that was a real shock to me.  And it was something that was like for a kid who maybe was 10, 11, 12, was like, wow, this is a big deal, I guess.

I mean, up until that time I don't know if I really thought about death. It was more about riding bikes and climbing trees. But things started to change after that.

Annalouiza
Yeah, both of you have very early awareness of death in our landscapes. So to each of you, how has death impacted your story of your life? What is it? How has it transformed you?

Stephanie
Well, of course, having both my parents work in hospice and social work, I was really aware of how they wanted to die and that one needed to start to think about it. Pretty early on, my father had said, you know, be sure that you live your life now. So many people retire and then they die.
And they're not, they have all these hopes and dreams for their life after retirement, but not before. That was pretty impactful.

And then as a veterinarian, of course, I saw death every day, absolutely every day. And I came to terms with it in a certain way, but also I realized at some point in my career that I needed to take space for myself. I needed to have some downtime. And so I, I usually worked part time. That was one way to handle that. And I think the relationship between people, their animals and death, and the decision making around that, I think that was one of the most stressful parts of my, job.

Wakil
Yeah, yeah. We've had several people on the podcast so far talk about the most impactful deaths in their lives have been their pets.

Annalouiza
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie
Yeah, it's a huge thing. I saw so much of either older people, they've lost one of their spouse, they only have the dog and the dog was the spouse's dog and then they put all their love and devotion into that dog and then when it comes time for that dog to die...

They're just in such grief compounded over time and at such a loss. Those were the really super hard points where I knew they would survive the loss of their dog, but they were not sure that they would survive.

Annalouiza
Yeah. The hard part about that is we don't equate the loss of a pet with something that should be considered a grief cycle, right? Like, get over it, keep moving on. If it were a relative, you're allowed a little extra time. But for a pet, that actually, it's like a placeholder for humans, right? That's really tough.

Stephanie
Yeah, yeah, and now, when I think of myself in the final third of my life, and I think about death and my own death, and that really is informing what I'm doing now, because I want to die peacefully, obviously, not causing anyone any trouble or any burden, but I want to have done what I came here to do.

Wakil
Mmm, beautiful, yeah?

Jeffrey
And I'll add that we have the collars from all the pets that have lived with us and that have died, we've had to put down. And so we still have those memories of them. It's not like it didn't happen or we moved on, but there is that thread you can talk about, the different ones.

Annalouiza
Yeah, it's like a little tapestry that you've created with stories.

Jeffrey
Yeah.

Wakil
Mm-hmm. Beautiful. I love that.

Annalouiza
Mm-hmm.

Wakil
Yeah, we've heard along those lines of what Annalouiza was saying earlier that especially with pets, that people will say, "well, you can get another dog."  And it's such a sad way of thinking about it. And so I appreciate that this comes up a lot. And I think it's really important for people in our audience to really note that it is as important a grief time as any other grief time. Grief is grief, right?

Stephanie
Yeah, and you're right about that. And I think it could be a whole other podcast about pets and grief, because it is that compounded situation of multiple griefs, but also the unconditional love that pets give or that people consider that they give them and they don't get that unconditional love from really anyone else we all love with conditions, I'm afraid.

So, that is such a tight bond for so many people. I think it's changing, you know, more people are aware of it, of that grief.

Wakil
Yeah.

Annalouiza
Yeah. And Stephanie, do you, did you, how did you support families who lost pets? Like, is there a place in the veterinarian office or, you know, when you have studied it that we talk about the role of like a grief bereavement counselor for folks who have lost pets?

Stephanie
Yeah, nowadays there are quite a few grief counselors for pets. The veterinary schools often now have a social worker or a grief counselor that works at the veterinary hospital because they have to as students go through they need some support around grief and how to deal with their own and their new clients.

But also we can refer people to the veterinary schools or other places where people are specializing in pet grief.

There's a lot that's being done. And I usually, for people that were having a harder time, I always called them the next week to check on them. We sent cards, of course, and I would often include some websites that they could check out that have grief support. There's quite a few online things but also people as well, counselors as well.

Annalouiza
And, you know, the Reverend John Mabry a few episodes ago also talked about how he wished his parishioners would come to him when people's pets were sick and or they had passed. He's like, I want to be there with them. So I'm hoping folks hear this and know that you could try your own minister, pastor, priest, and just check in because this is part of the unfolding of our own spiritual road that we're going to be going on.

Jeffrey
And also it seems to me our own building our own or determining our own relationship to death With any species yeah, it's something that we're close to

Annalouiza
Mm-hmm.
Yes.

Yeah. And Jeff, how has this story of death impacted your story?

Jeffrey
It's funny, I hadn't thought of this until listening to Stephanie talk and listening to your question is that after I got my Ph.D. and did my postdoc, I actually worked not in agriculture, but for a startup drug company based in Seattle. I was their science writer. But what we were doing was developing an inhalable antibiotic to treat lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients.

So the the cystic fibrosis patients, it's this really devastating defect, genetic mutation in chloride transport across membranes, which affects so many things, but especially nutrition and ability to clear bacteria from your lungs. And we're trying to do something that would really dramatically change the way the bacterial infections were treated.

And so, from a very clinical point of view, I never saw,  actually only once, a cystic fibrosis patient, but I was working in front of the computer, looking at drug trials, looking at people, numbers who died, people who had severe effects and why, and trying to get this drug approved. Knowing that if it did work, it would dramatically improve the life expectancy of these folks. And we did.

And it was one of the accomplishments that I really consider. So it was very kind of mental, but still dealing with death and dying.

And then after that, Stephanie and I left our work and we went to Ethiopia. And we did volunteer work running a health center. We're not the doctors, but we were the directors of it. And for two years, in 2002 to 2004,

And we saw there 100, it was the end of a dirt road at this little village that didn't have electricity or running water. And multiple languages were spoken. It was, you think of Ethiopia as remote, but this was remote for Ethiopia. And we saw a hundred patients a day, that's 25,000 a year. And among those, you saw people, you saw death.

Stephanie
Several times...

Jeffrey
I'd say several times a week, whether that's someone, a newborn dying of neonatal tetanus, the 20-year-old young man dying from complications from hepatitis, or an old man who's walking across who has a heart condition dropping on the grounds of the compound. And it was every day. And it was just, to me, it was like...

It's amazing that any human actually, any human actually lives to the age of 40. It was just all around us. And death was, and illness was…

So, like here in the US, illness is like something you go and you get treated. But there any sort of illness was the potential for death and dying. And that just, it was just beat into us in a very visible way.

Annalouiza
Yeah.

Wakil
Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey
Just week after week after week.

Wakil
Hmm, wow. Was there, being in that culture, it'd be interesting, I think, to think about or talk about a little bit what the cultural response or the cultural rituals were around death. I assume they were something different from what we are used to here.

Stephanie
Yeah, it's hard to make a statement about the whole Ethiopian culture around death. But what we could say from what we saw in our small part of the country was oftentimes there was loud crying, screaming, falling to the ground and beating oneself in the chest. It was very open and very, very visible.

And then after the initial, shock and screaming, then there was sometimes a one or two-day ritual or a five-day ritual, or a 40-day ritual. It just, it kind of depended on who you were and what you had to do and who needed to go to work, but, and how much money you had.

But if you could, you'd set up a tent outside your little house and people would come and sit. And people would, we often went to those and sat with the family. And you could eat, you could play card games, you could chat, but you just sat there. You just were with the family. And that could go on for a week or it could go on for 40 days. So death, the response to death was super visible to us.

In some ways that initial just getting the grief out there was super helpful.

Jeffrey
And one other story is that there's about the 20-year-old young man who died from hepatitis that his mother was there and at the health center he died at the health center and it was I still remember it was after hours so about 4 p.m. - we close at three.

And she was just wailing. She was hitting herself. And then what happened was the staff who were there, it was the cleaners, it was the on-call nurse, came over to her and just surrounded her, just sat with her, just listened to her, tried to help her not hurt herself, but did not try to restrain her from expressing her grief.

And me, I was in charge of the solar panels and the batteries that needed to be charged and for the day's work to come tomorrow. And so I'm walking through there and I sit with that. I'm just witnessing what's happening, just being present, showing my respect, and for about 20 minutes just sitting there being open, being supportive. And then after 20 minutes, the health center still needed to have electricity.

And so I, you know, acknowledged the loss and with the bow and the touch of the heart, and then walked behind the scene and went over to the shed that had our solar panels and batteries and generator to keep going.

So it was this funny balance between getting things done and being present for what is actually happening.

Annalouiza
Yeah, you know, it's that keening, right? That's kind of lacking for us here in this culture, right? The physicality of grief. And if you do come upon somebody who is in the throes of grief, generally people want to shut it down. And there's a lot of like weird embarrassment from witnessing this. And I love how, in that culture, in that specific little space where you were working, people sat with it and sat with the stories or the food and, you know, breaking bread or the keening and the physical, like just, you know, horror of having somebody pass.

But it's so hard to imagine it and it's so beautiful to hear it. Because that's something that is so needed for us.

Jeffrey
One point is that sometimes here in this culture in the US, is people are embarrassed to show that. But we did not see that, I never saw that embarrassment in anyone who was grieving. It just was. No one apologized for shedding a tear, for being in black, for dressing in black, whatever it was.

Stephanie
It reminds me of a book called Tear Soup, which I don't know if you've seen that book. It's sort of a children's tale, but it's also an adult's tale about a woman who's grieving. And I gave it to a good friend who was in grief. And it's all about crying. And you cry, this woman cries for as long as she needs to cry.

And I gave it to this friend and she said it was the most helpful book she'd ever had. And she gives it to everyone she knows now that is in grief. And I, it's really meaningful because of that. I had a friend just the other day say to me, I lost my dog three weeks ago and I'm still crying and I think people don't like that.

I think people are afraid of that. And I said, well, who cares what people say? You need to keep crying. So it's that book has been really amazing. And this is about the only thing I've seen where, yes, it embraces the outward physicality of grief.

Annalouiza
Yeah.

Wakil
Beautiful. We'll get a link to that and put it in the podcast notes. Thank you for sharing that.

Annalouiza
Yeah, I love it. And again, you know, normalizing, dying, normalizing that death will happen to each one of us and normalizing that grief will stand behind, right? And that sometimes people are embarrassed by what they're seeing. And if we could just like, be embarrassed, but still stay there. Like, stand like, keep saying bear witness to this and then that's what it means. It means you don't have to have platitudes in your back pocket. It doesn't mean that you have to touch people. It doesn't mean that you have to say anything. All we do is just bear witness and just like, yes, I see you and you're grieving.

Jeffrey
In Togo, in the capital Lome, where I work now, weddings are on Sunday, funerals are on Saturday. And so Saturday and Sunday morning, I go for bike rides. And in all the many neighborhoods of the capital and even outside, funerals are parades. There are trombones. There are drums.

There is dancing, there is, you know, there is celebration almost practically of, you know, the life that was lived. It's incredibly visible, incredibly showy and incredibly present every weekend. Every weekend.

Annalouiza
That's wonderful. I always say I prefer a funeral to a wedding. Personally, I do love me a good funeral.

Wakil
Ha ha ha.

Annalouiza
I'm always inspired. I'm always like, wow.

Wakil
Thank you. I'm really enjoying this conversation. And where we're going with it, it's great.

Yeah, one of the things we like to check in on is what are your biggest challenges? You've talked a little bit about that, but are there other challenges that you faced in any of these cultural things or any of this work that you've done around death and dying and grief?

Stephanie
I'll just talk about one personal challenge I had when my mother was dying, my mother had Parkinson's and she had dementia. So I knew from these many conversations I'd had with her how she wanted to die. But because she had dementia, she forgot how she wanted to die.

And so we got into a lot of these situations where the medics were called or she went to the doctor and asked for different medication or wanted to get, you know, she wanted to get a mammogram because it was time to get a mammogram. And all these different medical interventions that she could have had, but in her right mind, she would not have wanted to have those.

So the challenge for me was to keep faith with the person I knew she was and what she wanted.

And to get her that peaceful death that she wanted. And ultimately, I had the support of my siblings, my one sister especially, who was a hospice chaplain. And so we were able to give her that death that she wanted. I mean, it wasn't perfect, but it was close.

And the challenge with that and the challenge with the pets that I've had to euthanize, the pets that have died with me is getting them and their families together on the same page, so to speak, of what it is to relieve suffering, what it is to want to keep having more and more intervention. When can you say no to that? So that's been a big topic and a big challenge for me.

Jeffrey
I think for me, it's this bouncing from, like I mentioned, working on developing a drug that can help extend the life of a cystic fibrosis patient, but that's all computer work and writing. Then going into the ground zero at the health center in Ethiopia, and then jumping back over after that to the Gates Foundation where you're developing strategies and looking at numbers and trying to figure out causes of death of the 65 million people who die every year in the world and what is it that you can do and how much are age-related and all of that stuff.

The challenge I have is not to lose connection with the people who need the help. So right now, this is happening in two ways.

One is half my time is spent in Sub-Saharan Africa on the food security work. It's a lot of the thinking part and institutional development, but I'm in the place where I see the suffering, where I see the need. The other way that we, both of us, stay connected to that world is through the nonprofit we started called the Ethiopian Education Fund.

That's in the village, located in the village where we worked for two years at the health center and decided we don't forget, we remember. And then we remembered the need and we saw that education was the way forward.

And so we have at any one time, 40 students that we'll have in the program for seven, six, seven years until they complete their education through secondary school, college, university, and so on.

But it's not just scholarships, these kids, these students have families and have lives and they're, you know, teenagers and young adults and a parent might die and they need to step out of school. They need to bring the body somewhere from their village to a place where they can bury that person.

Someone else, you know, has a mental health issue and needs to withdraw. Other people, anyway, we live with them, we hear what they go through, and then we continue to support them in their life. And often that life includes death, parents, a brother.

Stephanie
Certainly more often than it does here.

Jeffrey
Yeah, and so I think for me, the challenges are being disconnected from the person, and this is how I try consciously not to do that.

And the other is the challenge of not being overwhelmed or frustrated or depressed because it's so massive. The issue, you don't do food security unless you're food insecure.

And whether you're in Togo, Ethiopia or America, there's millions of people who don't have food security. So it's, you know, that's some of the challenges.

Stephanie
That overarching always being in the middle of it, even if you're working in food security, like he is literally in the middle of it. He's always thinking about people and keeping people fed.

Annalouiza
Wow.
Mm-hmm.

Wakil
That's great. Thank you.

Annalouiza
Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. I was just thinking about Jeff, you know, the challenges of knowing the numbers of need, like the cystic fibrosis pieces, and then knowing the people who have the need and knowing the faces, like it's all kind of one big continuum, you know?

Jeffrey
Yeah.

Annalouiza
So how do you both feel supported in the work that you do?

Jeffrey
Well, I'll say that we both know what each of us is going through, and we're there to support each other. I think that's the most important. We're not. Although we don't work together anymore, we did in Ethiopia.  We live this life that has, you know, death and dying and suffering woven throughout it that you can't ever escape from.

And so having, you know, living with someone who understands that and has been through it is a great support.

Stephanie
That's true. It was really helpful that we worked in Ethiopia together for two years. We were living and breathing it. And then I always visit him where he's working in Africa. So we know deep down what that feels like. And then because we've always had pets, he knows deep down what it feels like to lose them. So he, he understands my job as well. So having someone who really understands you, that's huge.

And then we both have these really deep friendships with friends, being with people who again really understand you and will listen to you. For me, that's the most important thing.

Jeffrey
And even if they don't understand like they're still there for you. Maybe you know they are there you know they're there for you. Right.

Wakil
Hmm.

Annalouiza
They're walking alongside.

Jeffrey
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think also what's very helpful for me is we live, we have a small forest around us where we live, and being able to just sit in nature and just relax, whether it's with a cup of coffee or huddled around a campfire, there's something that's kind of elemental about it all that kind of strips away the sometimes the chatter, the mental chatter and just makes it about, you know, the beauty of the trees or here's a tree that fell down that needs to be cleared from the driveway. Okay, get out the chainsaw, which is what I was doing yesterday. And that's really resetting.

Stephanie
Yeah, it’s really grounding to live in the middle of nature. And we're sitting in Jeff's office, which has a big window, looking out into the trees. And we're both just looking out into the trees as we speak. It's definitely a way to keep us centered.

Jeffrey
And this morning, you know, we're looking out there and here's a varied thrush, which comes hopping along, turning over leaves that have fallen to the ground, looking for bugs to eat.

You don't see it varied thrush very often, but there's just moments like that. That really  call your attention and are really, really beautiful.

Annalouiza
Right? Bring your awareness to the beauty around you.

Jeffrey
Yeah, and that actually that's a really good point. I I've been using the mantra. "Yes, there is suffering. And there is beauty. And, and yet there is beauty." So not yes, acknowledging that death is happening and suffering is happening. And essentially, I put the and yet there is beauty helps me not get caught in that helps me pause to not stay too long in that suffering world, but to also be aware and recognize the beauty.

Annalouiza
Mm-hmm. That's beautiful.

Wakil
Yeah, I love that. It speaks to one of the questions that we usually ask. You've already pretty much answered is how you resource yourself. And it's often the case that people reference being in nature, the trees and the soil, and growing things is often the way people get their resource themselves for going forward. 

We also like to check in about anything that you fear. Do you fear anything about death or do you feel any sense of fear?

Stephanie
Fear isn't a huge part of our lives. Because we've done so many things that could have made us afraid and we go and we do it anyway. Um, what I, I think, I think the way I would answer that is that I would really like to be able to stay peaceful and present at my death. And like I wouldn't want to not be peaceful and present. I guess maybe that's a fear, but it's a thing for me. And so being present and peaceful is something that I need to practice.

Annalouiza
Yeah. It's a plan, right? It's a plan.

Stephanie
It's a plan. It may not work out. But I'm not really super fearful about it. But I really like it to be that way.

Jeffrey
I once worked with this guy who talked about a dream of he was from Burkina Faso a dream of coming to America. And this is when he was younger. And his friends all said, Oh, you'll never get there. You'll never, that's just a dream. He goes, No, I've turned that dream into a plan.

And so he actually ended up in the US working at the Gates Foundation, which is where I met him. So I always wanted to start a business that says, you know, no one would ever go for it, but it would say, helping you turn your dream into a plan. Like, whoever wants to like, I want my dream. You're telling me I have to like put it in an Excel spreadsheet? Anyway.

Annalouiza
Beautiful.

Jeffrey
I think for me, there is a certain amount of planning that I like to do. It gives me comfort. And then what I most fear is probably being poor and dying. And it's unlikely to happen.

But when I was, I must have been 11 or 12. And my dad took me to visit my great aunt Rosalie, who was in, this is a while ago, right, was in a nursing home. And I remember going into her room and she was on like a twin bed with starchy white sheets, white walls with no artwork. I don't even think there was a window from what I remember. And it's like, wow, this is, this is... I didn't, couldn't even complete the sentence.

And that stuck with me for, well, it stuck with me. And so there is this deep-rooted kind of fear in a way that it, that I guess that might be a, maybe a metaphor of dying alone, dying without friends, because what I would like to die is have that process of dying, of having friends be there and knowing that I'm loved and the people I love are around.

That's my orientation or vision for what I'm looking for and my fear is that I'll die on a twin bed on starched white sheets.

Annalouiza
Woof.

Wakil
Oh, beautiful. Yeah, I get it. I get it. I agree.

Annalouiza
I did too. May you find that peaceful end, my dear.

Wakil
May we all.

Annalouiza
Yes, may we all.

Annalouiza
So we're at, what do you wish that we had asked you about?

Stephanie
Um, I wish you would ask me what book I'm reading now

Annalouiza
Yes please! What book are you reading?

Stephanie
Because I am reading "How We Live is How We Die" by Pema Chodran. And as part of this final 20 year, final third of my life plan, and I'm finding that book really fascinating and approachable in some ways and like really crazy in other ways, uh, but I love Pema Chodran and it's her, her conversation about the book, the Tibetan book of living and dying. I take one small chapter a day and it's really been interesting.

Jeffrey
Yeah, you've been sharing readings of it with me and I find it really fascinating and insightful and helping with orientation for you talked about the next, you know, this call it the last phase of your life, you know, and an orientation for that phase. So it's been a really good book.

I'm listening. I'm what is it an audible book by Stephanie for me.

Annalouiza
Yeah! Read by Stephanie!

Jeffrey
Yeah. For me, I think if you'd asked me the question, do I think life is fair? And because I don't see fairness anywhere, I see that good things, bad things happen to good people.

But lives are cut short unexpectedly for no reason at all. And that is just the way it is. And it's unfortunate and we try to do our best and I try to do my best to help people live better lives, but it still is bottom line is unfair.

Annalouiza
Jeff, I want to tell you that I've become obsessed with this young songwriter out of the UK. His name is Matt Maltese. And on Saturday night, I was going to Kirtan, which turned out to be the most amazing Kirtan I've sat in for years.

But all the way there, and it was a half-hour drive there, half-hour drive home, I obsessed over this song, and it's called, um, smile at the devil. And he talks about how good things happen to bad people. And yet we have better hair, is what he says. I want to just, I'll send you this song because I, I kind of want to like learn this song and sing it because at one point he's like, just shift your lips and smile at the devil. You know, you feel like you're in a dark place and you can't get out. And it has actually kind of buoyed me this last weekend. So I'm gonna share that with you.

Stephanie
Yeah, we'll look for that.

Wakil
We’ll put it in the podcast notes too. Why not, right?

Annalouiza
Yeah, I think if you're going through a dark space, this is the most lovely song to just belt out when you're driving in the car. It's great.

Jeffrey
Oh, yeah. Oh, good.

Wakil
Well, thank you. Thank you so much. This has been an amazing, wonderful conversation. We really enjoyed it. We really hope your work and your life continues to feed you and that you have everything you need. Thanks for sharing all those wonderful stories and your perspectives on life in the world.

We'd like to end with a short poem.

This week's poem is by  Naomi Shihab Nye and the title of the poem is Kindness.

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Annalouiza
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Wakil
Mmm, sweet, beautiful, thank you.

Stephanie
That's beautiful.

Jeffrey
Thank you.