Funeral & End of Life Planning with Jamie Sarche

In this conversation, Jamie Sarche discusses her mission to help people confront their mortality and plan for their funerals, which she believes leads to more meaningful lives. She shares personal experiences with death, the importance of open conversations about grief, and the various options available for funeral planning. Jamie emphasizes the need for rituals and the emotional landscape of grief, advocating for a society that embraces these discussions rather than shying away from them.

Jamie's calling is to help people be less afraid of death. By arranging for them to provide their loved ones with a planned and funded funeral or memorial service, she helps them create a path for bereavement, long before it's needed. And by facing their mortality, her clients can live better, more meaningful lives.

Jamie is a seasoned speaker who brings deep experience in death care to a broad range of audiences around the country. She shares insights and approaches on how to have difficult conversations and address sensitive issues. Her message extends well beyond death and dying, resonating across industries and individuals. She is bridging her passion to demystify death while enlightening communicators on overcoming challenging conversations.

Breaking down the taboos about death | Jamie Sarche | TEDxCrestmoorParkWomen
Talking About Death Won't Kill You
Talk on Death Ritual

To contact Jamie:
Personal email messages and Pre-Arranged Funeral Plan questions: jamie@feldmanmortuary.com
Professional, at-the-time-of-need email message: director@feldmanmortuary.com

Transcript

Wakil  
Today we are pleased to be able to talk with Jamie Sarche. Jamie's calling is to help people be less afraid of death. By arranging for them to provide their loved ones with a planned and funded funeral or memorial service, she helps them create a path for bereavement long before it's needed. And by facing their mortality, her clients can live better, more meaningful lives.

Annalouiza  
Jamie is a seasoned speaker who brings deep experience in death care to a broad range of audiences around the country, sharing insights and approaches on how to have those difficult conversations and how to address sensitive issues. Extending well beyond death and dying, her message resonates across industries and individuals, bridging her passion to demystify death while enlightening communicators on overcoming challenging conversations. Welcome, Jamie.

Jamie  
Thanks so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be with both of you.

Wakil  
We're so glad to have you here this morning or afternoon I guess for you all or close to it. And we always like to start with this question - when did you first become aware of death?

Jamie  
You know, I think I've kind of always been pretty aware, maybe even as a small child, but I remember my first experience with someone I love dying was a woman who was basically a nanny to my brother and me. Her name was Lou and she died when I was in fourth grade.

And I can still really picture her funeral and I don't have a lot of childhood memories, but that is one of them. I can picture her dress, I can picture her in an open casket. So I was very aware from a very, very young age. Sometimes I just feel like I came in with this connection.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Yeah, yeah. I think that's true of perhaps of Annalouiza and I as well.

Annalouiza  
Most of us. Yeah, I was going to say, I think you step into this world and you have that thread already woven into your being. So how has death impacted the story of your life and your worldviews?

Jamie  
Deeply, deeply, I've always been somebody who likes to talk about hard things. I like to push up against taboos. I don't believe that there are things that shouldn't be talked about. 

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
And so, always I was doing those kinds of things. I was an AIDS educator in the early 80s when I was in college. In high school, I was a peer counselor. I was the person who, if people had a problem, they brought it to me because they knew that I had a real sense of agency and I would help them figure out what to do if they were worried that they had, you know, a sexually transmitted infection or they were worried that they were pregnant, I was the person that they turned to and I think that they understood I wasn't going to have judgment for them and I was really just going to help them figure out what they needed. 

And when I was 26, that showed up for me in a real big way. I had an incredibly close friend who I had known since ninth grade and whose husband I've been friends with since we were four.

Her name is Michelle. She got a glioblastoma, which is a terminal brain tumor. It is the one that killed John McCain. Ted Kennedy had it. I've known way too many people with this, quite honestly. 

Wakil  
Yeah.

Jamie  
And it is a terrible, terrible disease that is not possible to survive. However, when Michelle got diagnosed and threw out her illness, everybody approached it the way most of us do and they said to her, you know, you're young and you're strong and you can beat this. And I didn't do that. I'm not sure exactly where the words came from, but I just, you know, showed up in a way to say I can be here with you in all of this and I'm not going to tell you it's going to be okay. And you don't have to tell me it's going to be okay.

Wakil  
Oh so important, Yeah, yeah.

Jamie  
Because it's not going to be okay.

And quite honestly, aside from her minister, I'm not sure she had those conversations with anybody else because everybody was afraid to acknowledge the truth because they thought it would make her feel worse. And she didn't want to acknowledge the truth with them because she worried it would make them feel worse. And I'm just not a believer in that. I'm not sure we can make people feel worse. I just want to give them space to feel what they feel.

Annalouiza  Right.

Annalouiza  Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Right.

Jamie  
and to be able to say it out loud.

Annalouiza  
Or actually just hold space for that possibility, right? The mystery of the unknown rather than having this language about it's you're going to be okay. You're going to overcome this. It's like, I hope you overcome this. And if you don't, I love you. And, you know, I'm with you all the way. there has to be people tend to be like black or white about the possibilities. It's like, but we have a lot of options.

Wakil  Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
Well, in this case, the possibilities were not good. What I wanted for her was for her to be able to share her feelings and her fears. And that was really important. And it really worked well for me. I hope it worked well for her. But I know for me,

Annalouiza  
Yeah.

Wakil  
Right.

Wakil  Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
The fact that we talked about all kinds of things. She had a child who was 10 months at the time of her diagnosis. I had a two and a half year old. And we talked about what it would feel like not to know she wasn't going to raise that kid. And actually that child, Max, got married last March and I got to be at that wedding. And it just was very, very powerful to be able to give her.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Wow, yeah.

Wakil  
wow.

Jamie  
her space to talk about all this and for me to just be able to just allow her to share. You you can't do that with everybody because she wanted to. A lot of people don't want to go there and that when somebody is in it, you got to go where they want to go. But it worked really beautifully and it allows me to live with her death.

Annalouiza  
you

Wakil  
Right.

Annalouiza  
Right.

Right.

Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
with a lot more grace. She's been gone now, I think 26 years. And yet she really sits on my left shoulder. I don't know why it's my left, but that's where she is. And she really brings me into this work, I believe, because I didn't start doing this until I was 40. And she died when I was 28. And so I am very sure that she guided me to this work. And...

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  Hmm.

Jamie  
She's very, very present in my life because of this work. And I talk about her with so much regularity, and that is a beautiful thing for me.

Wakil  
Nice.

Annalouiza  
So beautiful.

Wakil  
Yeah, yeah. Wow, very, very beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that. It reminds, I mean, we talk about a lot of these things a lot here. And we had a conversation on a video that we did, that Luis and I did about the kinds of things that are appropriate and useful and helpful to be with people who are grieving and whatever their grief is. And on the other side, what's not. And often what's not, it seems like, is about

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
paying more attention to your own needs instead of the needs of the people who were there. And that example you just gave is just really being present and really soliciting and opening to what that person truly needed from you at the time. So what a great story. Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
And it's scary. It's scary because A, we don't have practice in this. And it is very hard. It's very uncomfortable. It's very, you know, we're all sort of certain that there are some magic words that are gonna make this all better. And the truth of the matter is, I can't make it, just like I said, I can't make it worse. I don't think I can really make it better. I certainly couldn't take away.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Wakil  Right.

Annalouiza  
Hahaha

Jamie  
what she was living with, but that whole idea of what we do with that language, like the whole idea of like fighting our illness, you know, which we do a lot. Our community talks about that a lot of like, you know, so and so fought valiantly and then ultimately succumb to their disease and that whole thing. I just, I cannot stand that. I just think, first of all, why are we putting somebody at war with their own body?

Wakil  
Right?

Annalouiza  
Yep.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Right.

Annalouiza  
Right.

Jamie  
and what's happening to them. And it really often, like in a scenario with Michelle, it set her up to fail because she can't win. She can't win. And she's just ultimately, her body is going to do what her body is going to do. And so I just wish that we could allow people to have different language around that and just be with them on that journey.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Right.

Annalouiza  
Mm

Wakil  
Right.

Jamie  
without saying what that journey exactly is going to look like.

Annalouiza  
Mm

Wakil  
we don't know. Yeah, yeah. And it's, I love what you just said. It just made me think that we treat death as an enemy and actually death is not an enemy and it's not a failure. It's a friend in a way. It's that chance to rejoin the planet or whatever. Yeah, it's amazing to think of it that way. Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza  
right.

Jamie  
Mmm. And a failure? No. No.

Annalouiza  Mm -hmm.

Mm -mm. Mm -mm.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  
Right.

Jamie  
Yeah, and sometimes it's really tragic. know, Michelle's death at 28 years old, that's tragic. But last week, my aunt died at 86 after many years of dementia. That's not tragic. It's sad.

Annalouiza  
Mm

Wakil  
Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
No, that's right. Yeah.

Jamie  
But it's not a tragedy.

Wakil  
Yeah, exactly. Very well said. Thank you so much for that. That's really, really well put. And that really leads well to kind of having you tell us more about your current role, your current work. So if you could talk about that a bit.

Annalouiza  
Right.

Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
Thank you.

Jamie  
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, my pleasure. So what I do is help people to put their own funeral memorial service plans in place. I help them figure out what method of disposition is right for them. And in Colorado, we have a lot of methods. You have them in Seattle as well, which is really cool. We're really on the forefront of this. That there are many, many choices, one being

Wakil  
Yeah.

Jamie  
traditional burial, which would mean, you know, embalming and likely burying in a metal casket. Not a great choice from the Earth's perspective, but maybe reason to have it. Or green burial, which is burying without embalming and with a biodegradable container. Maybe no container, although I have some real feelings about that, but...

It actually is beneficial for the earth and we're getting tucked into the earth. One of my mentors, Thomas Lynch, talks about the importance of taking our person from where they are to where they need to be and tucking them in really helps us in our bereavement too, to go along the path. And that really is a sustainable method. It actually is exactly what people have been doing for millennia.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Annalouiza  
I like it.

Annalouiza  
you

Wakil  
Beautiful. Yeah.

Wakil  
You

Jamie  
and everything that grows comes from something dead. So that green method is really a good choice. There's of course fire cremation, but most people have no idea how detrimental that is to the earth and truly what a brutal process it is to the body. A lot of people will tell me I don't wanna be in a box, but I don't think they ever give any thought to what is it like to be in a fire.

Wakil  
Exactly.

Wakil  
Hmm.

Wakil  
Mm

Jamie  
And some cultures, that's what they need to do. And I honor that. But if you don't come from a culture that that's what needs to happen, I just think it's incredibly important to talk about it. It doesn't match your values. There is, of course, cremation by water, which is a newer method. And instead of fire being used to burn away all the tissue,

It is an alkali that's similar to liquid soap and in the method that we use it takes only 12 gallons of water and it's really a beneficial situation and then you still get what we would call ash in a fire cremation scenario the the cremated remains the ash are going to be They have no nutritional value anymore because of the burning and also they're filled with gas so they actually can be toxic to plants and they're

Annalouiza  
Yep.

Jamie  
not a great choice. In the water cremation scenario, it really is a fertilizer. So that's really a great choice. And then in Colorado and in Washington and a few other states, there's natural organic reduction. Some people are calling that taramation now, body composting, where instead of composting in the ground, like in a green burial scenario, it's in a box outside of the earth.

And in a couple of months, everything has turned to soil. And that method is, a really beneficial one for the earth. And you could have as much of that soil as you want. There's nothing human about it at the end, but you could use that in your backyard garden if you want, or it can get donated for land restoration. So what I do is I sit with people and talk through all these methods. What's best for you? And then we talk about the importance of ritual around that.

Annalouiza  
Mm

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Mm.

Jamie  
Many of us, because we have become much more secular, we've stepped away from religion. We also have stepped away from ritual. ritual has so much value just from itself. I always ask when I do a speaking engagement, I always ask the audience if they understand why or know why we wear a cap and gown at a graduation. Did the two of you know?

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
So true.

Wakil  No, I don't think so.

Annalouiza  
Well, the cap is like you, you cross the threshold, right? You have to move the little thing.

Jamie  
I don't know, but do you know why everybody has always done that? I mean, we have some ritual around it for sure. I don't know why we do it either, but we just do. And that's how we know where we are. And it helps us know how to feel. And it gives us a path to walk on. Like Ana Luisa, you said about crossing the threshold. Death is also crossing a threshold.

Annalouiza  
Mm -mm. Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Right.

Annalouiza  Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
certainly for the dead person and for the people who care about that person and we need a path to walk on and ritual is what gives us that path.

Annalouiza  Hehehe

Annalouiza  Right.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Mm, so sweet. Yeah, what a perfect way putting it. Yeah, yeah. So can you tell us a little more about the different ways that you do, I mean, does it include, it includes both disposition, but you also said memorial services.

Annalouiza  
Hmm. Yeah.

Jamie  
Thank you.

Jamie  
Then I'm gonna talk about where's the service gonna be? Who's the officiant at that service? Should there be a newspaper notice? Do you want your family driven to the service? You know, all kinds of stuff. Some people might share, I want this song, and I want this poem, and I want this, that, and the other thing. That's great. I'm happy to put that in the file. I even have a client who is a surgeon, and I'm certain he really plans his whole life.

Wakil  
Okay.

Wakil  
Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Okay.

Wakil  
You

Jamie  
And every couple of years he gives me a new, it's really a script for what's gonna happen. And Joe's gonna walk up the left side of the aisle and he's gonna say this. And as he's coming back the right side, Joanne is gonna come up and she's gonna say this. And that is what feels right to him. And every couple of years he gives me a new thumb drive with different pictures. And that's an unusual scenario. Most people don't plan that much, but that's what feels right to him.

Annalouiza (17:00.3)
Wow.

Wakil  
well.

Annalouiza  That's amazing. Yeah.

Jamie  
And so that's, meet people exactly where they are and give them what their needs are. And I do suggest to them that anything they want to make sure happens at the, whatever the service is, that I have it in my file. Cause I'm going to know where it is. If you give it to your kid or what your friend or whatever, they're going to put it in a very important place. And on the day of a death, they might not remember.

Annalouiza  Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  
Leave it in the box. And forget.

Annalouiza  I still do that, ugh, that's true.

Wakil  
Yeah. that's great. That's really, really funny. That's so true.

Jamie  
Yeah. Although if they have the knockbox, you could put it in there.

Wakil  
Yeah, there's that, right? Yeah. Great. Yeah. Thank you. That's funny. I mean, that's where all the socks are, right? That same place. Somewhere.

Annalouiza  
Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Yeah.

Hahaha.

I know.

Jamie  
But those get there on their own. I put the things in the important place and then I don't know what that important place is. My mom has, I'm so grateful to her for this. My mom has what she refers to as her kaput file. We were talking about a little Yiddish earlier. Kaput file is a red folder in her hanging file drawer and she can just drop things in there and so I'll know where it is.

Wakil  
You

You

Wakil  
Annalouiza  
Yeah.

Jamie  
The one thing that's hilarious though, she refuses to put the key for her safe deposit box in there. That's got to go in the kitchen.

Wakil  
Okay. As long as you know.

Jamie  
Whatever!

Annalouiza  
Yeah, yeah. You know, I as long as you know, although I was just with my father last week and we had this he was in surgery and when we ended up spending time talking about death and dying and and you know, I said, Dad, and I really want to get this knockbox because what he's been doing is puts everything in his briefcase. But every time he travels, he hides the briefcase somewhere else.

Jamie  
you

Jamie  
Mm

Annalouiza  So, you know, like, because he's like, I'm afraid, like when I'm out of the house, like somebody will break in and it'll take my briefcase with everything in it. And so was like, Dad, we have to like figure out a safe place for that little, that little box of yours, because he lives in Fort Collins.

Wakil  Dear.

Jamie  
Does he live locally?

Maybe he could bring it to your house on the way to the airport.

Annalouiza  
That's what I recommended to him. I said, you know what, from now on, that you just transfer it over to me and we will just figure it out. Yeah. Right. So it was just a, but it was funny cause we were going through it and we're talking about, for some reason he just decided he was going to start literally telling me about all these things to do that, you know, and I'm like, dad, first of all, I'm tired. I'm just lying here at the floor of, you know, his, he's recovering.

Jamie  
Yeah, because you're the one who will need it if, God forbid, anything happens.

Annalouiza  
And I don't have my notebook. don't like now is not the time. Hold the thought, Dad. Hold the thought.

Wakil  You

Jamie  
That's when the voice memos are a good idea.

Wakil  Write it down. Yeah.

Annalouiza  
That's true. just, I, in that moment, I was, I had set up a little sleeping pad next to his bed and I was just like, so tired. but I love that my dad has actually spent a lot of my life always reminding me that that briefcase exists. So, you know, so he's been on it for a long time. So aside from, files and briefcases that are always on the go, what are other challenges that you find?

Jamie  
Mmm.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Jamie  
Mmm.

Annalouiza  
in this, in this gift that you're offering people that what's, what's hard.

Jamie  
The biggest challenge that I'm facing is just our society's inability to talk about death You know when I first started doing this work and this is already fifteen and a half years ago I thought how am I gonna talk to people about this stuff because if I do They're gonna think I think they're gonna die And it really was I'm not kidding two or three years before I

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Right.

Annalouiza  
Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie  
thought, well, I do think they're going to die. And I'm right. They're going to die. It's not my doing that they're going to die. This is the natural state of life. We're all terminal. Some of us might know more about timing or method, but we're all terminal. So I just started to embrace the fact that that's okay. I don't make anything happen. I don't know what's going to happen. I just know that it's going to happen.

Annalouiza  
Right. Right.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
And so that is really the challenge that I face is people being like, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to talk about this. But it seems to be shifting a little bit. really, for years, I've always asked people, what brings you to talk about this today? And for many years, people would say, well, I'm old, or God forbid, I got a diagnosis, or my sister died.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
But now what I'm hearing is, we are talking about it in my book club. The guys I play poker with said I need to be doing this. So now it really feels like my goal of helping people be less afraid of talking about death is actually coming to fruition, where it's starting to become more normalized to have these conversations and to just recognize, just like we were talking about earlier,

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Right?

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  Right.

Annalouiza  Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
Death is not a failure. It is the ultimate goal of our life.

Annalouiza  
You're right. It's yeah.

Wakil  
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We had a.

Annalouiza  Yeah.

Jamie  
And if we could embrace that, could A, have a much more beautiful death and B, have a much more meaningful life because recognizing that it will someday end informs how we live it.

Annalouiza  
Mm

Annalouiza  Yes.

Wakil  Exactly. Yeah. We had a guest on from Europe actually, who was a scientist working on extending life, who had decided that was a really bad idea. And just basically for the the reasons you're saying is that part of what death gives us, the gift that death gives us is the living, the remember to live each day to it. And he had a lot of other good reasons too, but,

Annalouiza  
Thanks

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
That's interesting. I need to go back and listen to that one because that's what I see a lot of people being like, well, I don't want to die. That sounds just horrifying. And I hope it won't be painful. can make sure. Well, we can't always make sure, but we can do our best to deal with pain. But the idea of it, it's not so terrible.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Right.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  No, it's not. Yeah, it's great. I love that. It's the acceptance of what is. Yeah, yeah. Great.

Annalouiza  Mm -hmm. Yeah, my kids get a little irritated because I'm always like, you know, I could just die. It's OK. I can just let me go. Right? And they're like, you're always so death -like forward. And I'm like, well, you know, why not?

Wakil  
Hahaha.

Wakil  
You

Jamie  
I am also death forward. I am very death forward. In fact, I mentioned that my aunt just died of dementia and my grandmother also had some kind of dementia and I do not want that. And what I don't, first of all, I don't wanna get it, but I'm doing my best. I'm trying to learn Spanish. I'm working on it. I do puzzles. I'm doing my best. I eat healthy. I exercise. I do the things, but I don't know.

Wakil  
you

Annalouiza  
Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  
Right, right.

Wakil  
Hmm

Annalouiza  
Right. Yeah.

Wakil  
Yeah. Right.

Jamie  
And I don't want to live like that for a long time, especially I don't want my family to have to live with me that way. Like my aunt, my aunt, thank God, got, if there is a good kind of dementia, she got it. She was loving and kind much more so than in her previous life, quite honestly. But she was funny. Like it was fine for her until probably the last two months of her life. But it was a long time.

Annalouiza  
Right, right.

Yes, yes.

Wakil  
Hahaha.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
And thank God she had long -term care insurance that paid for her. She had things as well. They went as well as they could. But I don't want my family, I don't have what she has. I don't want my family to spend all that money. I don't want them to spend all that time. I don't want them to kind of feel like I'm not me.

Wakil  
Mm

Annalouiza (25:24.8)
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Mm

Wakil  
All right.

Jamie  
And so we talk about it a lot and I kind of have some plans. I have a client who just went to Zurich to use Dignitas to end his life. And his wife was so sweet and like sent me a message because he's my client. So wanted to make sure I knew what was happening. And I think she was a little bit scared to share with me that this was their plan because she didn't know how I would respond.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
I'm a big proponent of doing whatever is right for you. I love that Colorado has medical aid in dying, although you cannot use it if you are cognitively impaired. So that's why you'd go to Zurich. You know, I just think this idea of we can own some of this.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. We've heard a lot about too, like having agency about the end of life. I mean, we give so much information about birthing, and you have choices, and you can decide. And yet for another interstellar birth, we're not allowed to do much, right? Like, it's just, mm -mm.

Wakil  
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Wakil  
Yeah, yeah, we don't have that agency. Yeah, and there is now. Yeah.

Jamie  
Yeah, and it's a much longer timeframe. know, like for birth, like maybe you have two days and then they're gonna get that baby out. That's not true in a death. I mean, my aunt didn't eat for probably 15 or 16 days.

Annalouiza  
Mm

Wakil  
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I just watched a very beautiful movie called My Elastic Static Days, which I highly recommend. A young man who had the same blastoma chose to film his last couple of weeks of life. And they did a whole documentary on it. It very beautiful.

Annalouiza  
wow. Okay.

Jamie  
She was holding on.

Annalouiza  
Mmm.

Annalouiza  
Hmm.

Jamie  
live.

Annalouiza  
Mmm.

Jamie  
Hmm. Hmm.

Wakil  
Right up to the last breath, literally, they had the camera on him when he took his last breath. And it was, I think it was 14 or 15 days without food and water when he finally died. So very, very moving. I also, with the dementia, and boy, I just recently dealt with that too, found I had a dear friend who's now in her home and basically they're very happily sucking $10 ,000 a month out of her.

Jamie  
Hmm. Hmm.

Jamie  
Mmm.

Wakil  
and her family and her inheritance. And she's not there. She's really not there. And I've gone to visit and I've sung to her and I've talked to her, but she's just not even responding anymore. And they do now, I think the University of Washington actually has created this dementia care, advanced care directive that you can fill out if you think you might be possibly dealing with dementia in your life that you can do before you have dementia.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
which gives basically, it's like you're talking about kind of this is my agency, this is what I want to have happen if I become unable to make that decision myself.

Annalouiza  
If this is a.

Jamie  
But are they allowing you to use medication to facilitate a death?

Wakil  I don't know if that's in there. It's called the dementia care directive. I'd have to look and see. Probably not.

Jamie  
I would love to look and see. I don't think so. I don't think in the United States that you're allowed to use medication.

Annalouiza  
I think they do. I think we are actually, I actually think that it is. I remember what, he'll like got the book from one of our speakers and I ordered the book and that's what her mom did. She actually did have a, an advanced care directive plan and they did do medical aid and dying. I think it was in Washington, but it was around dementia. They just like figured it out. My book is around here, but I do have it. And it is a current book. It's like in the last two years.

Jamie  
Hmm

Well, I will definitely look into that. I'm really under the impression that in the United States, you could not do anything to facilitate someone's death if they're cognitively impaired. But I will look into that too. Thank you.

Wakil  
Very good.

Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Yeah.

Annalouiza  I'm actually, I'm going to just look at my, yeah.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Let's find that book and post it somewhere. Yeah, we'll post it in our podcast notes for sure.

Annalouiza  
I will let you know.

Wakil  
Okay.

Jamie  
Well, you could use V said I just looked at this. You could use V said, which means that you it's voluntary stopping eating and drinking.

Wakil  
Stopping eating. Yeah.

Annalouiza  Right. But they will give you medication to keep. Yeah, that's the V said handbook. That's what it was.

Wakil  
Okay, that's what it is.

Jamie  
Yes, so that's a little bit different than what I'm talking about because medical aid in dying in the way that I'm talking about it is more like here's a couple medicines that are going to end your life in hours versus this could be 14, 15 days. And yes, you would get some medicine to make it easier on you, but not to actually end your life. It's the not eating and drinking that ends your life.

Annalouiza  
It's medication, right. Yes, right.

That's true, yeah.

Annalouiza  
Right.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Right.

Wakil  
correct.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's Well, yeah, it's good that we got that clear because I was thinking that too. Very good. All right. Well, let's keep going here. And we also like to ask, and this is, think, really important, how do you, what do you need for support? What supports you in this work? What kind of, what could help you feel regarded, feel supported, but also what kind of practices do you have that

Annalouiza  
practices.

Wakil  
help you feel supported and continue to stay centered and grounded.

Jamie  
Well, I think for me, I am so very, very lucky in that I have found the work that is my soul's purpose. I don't think that that's very common, that to find that work. And when I learned about this 15 years ago, I knew nothing about funerals. I mean, almost nothing.

Wakil  
Mm.

Jamie  
and I had never, I'm not a social worker, I'm not a psychologist. I really have no business doing this job. However, when I heard about it, it was a lightning bolt. And I absolutely knew that this is the role for me.

Wakil  Ha ha.

Jamie  
The person who I work with at Feldman Mortuary in Denver never had anybody to do this before. I've created this out of whole cloth. I got no training whatsoever, which actually has been incredibly beneficial to me because most people who are pre -arranged funeral planners have training and you do it like this and then you do like this and then you do like this. And I never did it that way. I really figured out what works for me.

Wakil  
Hahaha.

Jamie  
And so I show up in an incredibly authentic way. So the fact that I am absolutely meeting my soul's purpose helps me to feel very good about the work that I do and is really very much a practice. I also will say that I think it's just so meaningful that I can provide safety for people who need to talk about stuff.

Like the medical aid in dying law in Colorado came into being because of a man named Charles Sellsberg who had ALS. And he called me to ask me about Oregon's law. And at that time, I don't know what the rules are in Oregon now, but in that time.

Wakil  
Hmm.

Jamie  
You had to be a resident of Oregon and you had to live there for, I don't know, six months or whatever. And he didn't have that. And he didn't have the capacity to move there. And he didn't want to be here with the ALS for six months. And so I was able to introduce him to a state Senator, Lois Court. And she brought this legislation.

Wakil  All

Wakil  
Okay.

Jamie  
Now, he did not benefit from this legislation. He ultimately stopped eating and drinking, I believe. And that's what facilitated his death. But all of these other people can now benefit because I was there for him when he needed to talk about this. Like, it wouldn't have occurred to me to call Lois and to say, hey, we need this.

Wakil  
All right.

Annalouiza  
Mm

Wakil  
Right.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
But because I'm a safe person for him to bring this to, I could help him navigate that. And I see that in a lot of other realms. And so that really feeds me. And just being able to support people and to help them know that they're not alone in whatever they're dealing with for six minutes feels valuable to me. So it really just...

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Wakil  
Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
I am a real caregiver by how I'm made. And so to just to hold up people in that way, feed something for me because I need to show up in that way. That's how I value myself.

Wakil  
Ha ha ha.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  
you

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm. That's so beautiful. love that.

Wakil  
Yeah, makes sense. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. But I would just, I guess I'll just circle back with this and just ask if there's, are there times when it just overwhelms you or when it just, you run up against something that's just too hard. Are there people that you can't get past that barrier and do you have, do you have anything that helps with that?

Jamie  
Yeah.

Jamie  
You mean get past that barrier of they're not going to talk about this?

Wakil  
Yeah, or just that, yeah, just that there's a really, really sad, as you said, there's tragedies that happen. Yeah.

Jamie  
Yeah, I mean there have been many tragedies that I have been part of. And what I find, I don't want to say this like I'm an emergency responder, I'm not. I'm not running into danger in any way. But I do find I am drawn to the emotionally challenging stuff. So one example, this is many, many years ago, there was a young man who I believe was 22 or 23, Andrew.

Wakil  
Right, right.

Jamie  
who had been walking home from the light rail in the middle of the night, maybe two o 'clock in the morning, and was shot. And he was found on a corner. And we took care of his body. And I felt very compelled to, he was cremated, and I felt very compelled to bring his cremated remains and his death certificate and the other things that his family wanted to their home.

and go through and walk, go through it all with them and share what everything was and how to do things. so I was in their home for a while. And as I was leaving, his mother, Cindy, hugged me really tight and she just said, you know, hold your kids. And then I went in my car and I just wept and wept.

wept and then I thought, well, I can't sit outside of their house in this. And not because I can't feel it. I feel very strongly that professionals in these realms need to feel it all the way through. But I did not want in any way for them to feel that they needed to come take care of me. And so I drove to the corner.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Annalouiza  I'm gonna take care of you.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Jamie  
and allowed

Wakil  
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Annalouiza  Hahaha

Jamie  
I don't feel sympathy for her. I feel empathy for her. And I think what often happens in a place like that is people blame that person for what happened to them because it's so scary to think, that could also happen to me. And so I'm sure that lots of people have said, you know, in situations like this, well, my kid wouldn't be coming home at two o 'clock in the morning or my kid would take an Uber. And maybe they would be smart enough not to say it to her.

Wakil  
Well.

Jamie  
But there is that judgment because we don't want to think that we're all vulnerable. And I realize we're all vulnerable.

Wakil  
Right?

Yes, yes, absolutely. So true. Wow. Very well put. Thank you. Thanks for that.

Annalouiza  Mm -hmm.

Hmm.

Yes, so what what frightens you about the end of life?

Jamie  
worry so much about the end of life for myself. I feel very confident that this is not the end. You know, there is something else. I feel very confident about that. I have been with people as they die and you can literally see, I know the two of you have also been with people as they die, you can literally see the light go out of them and that

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Annalouiza  
You feel it.

Jamie  
Yeah, and they look a certain way when they're living and they look completely different when they're dead. And that is in my tradition, the nishama, the soul. I am certain about that. And so I feel very comfortable with, know, our loved ones are still with us. I feel closer to my grandparents now than I did when they were living. I know that they are there as my spirit guides.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Jamie  
I am quite certain I will be that. So I don't worry about it particularly for myself, but what I do really worry about is what that will be like for the people that I love. And God forbid I die when my children are, my children are adults, but they're young adults. I want them to be grown up and have their own families. you know, so I don't want them to have to.

navigate a life without me or for my husband to navigate a life without me. I am quite committed to, like I have any control of this, but I'm to my husband being the one to die first because I am certain that I will be okay and I'm not so certain that he will be okay. I don't want that. I don't want to live a life without him.

Wakil  
Yeah.

Wakil  
the

Annalouiza  
You

Wakil  
Hahaha.

Annalouiza  
-huh.

Annalouiza  
Mm

Jamie  
but I worry he would be in a dark room. So those are the things that I worry about. Again, not so much like what would it be like for me, but what will it be like for the people I love?

Annalouiza  
No.

Wakil  
Yeah, yeah. And a lot of the work you're doing is really about supporting the people you love and giving them what they need. Yeah, yeah.

Jamie  
That's right. That's right. The fact that I have a funeral plan in place and have had that in place since I was 42, that is literally me holding their hand on that day.

Wakil  
Exactly. Yeah, that's such a great way to put it. Yeah, I love that. Great visual. Yeah, thank you. So we kind of talked about that one. Is there, I think we're pretty much through our questions. So I would like to just leave it with, is there anything you wish we had asked?

Annalouiza  
Ugh.

Jamie  
Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
And now I really appreciate the fact that you're giving me the opportunity to talk about this stuff. Again, it's just, it's so incredibly important because aside from birth, this is the only experience that every one of us is going to have. And if we're lucky enough to love people, we're going to experience their death too. That's one of the things that I think about with grief. You know, we're very,

Wakil  Yeah.

Annalouiza  
Mm -hmm.

Jamie  
grief denying society too, we're really toxically positive and we want to save people from their grief and we want to give them, you know, two or three days and then get on with it. Let's just get on with it. And I don't think that that exists. and I don't, I want people to feel things all the way through and I want them to recognize that grief is not linear and it's not a short term. It is a lifetime practice.

Annalouiza  
you

Jamie  
Grief is really the mirror of love. And we're lucky if we grieve.

Wakil  
yeah.

Annalouiza  Hmm.

Wakil  
Yeah, yeah, so true, so true. Thank you. Well, I appreciate that very much and we appreciate you and all the work you're doing and we will in the podcast notes, we'll put links to your work and so people can get in touch and yeah, thanks again so much for being with us today.

Jamie  
Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Jamie  
Such a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Wakil  
Yeah, so we'll turn off the...

Annalouiza  I love it.

Wakil
We always like to end with a poem, and Jamie has sent us this lovely poem, “When I Die” by Merrit Malloy

When I die
Give what’s left of me away
To children
And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,
Cry for your brother
Walking the street beside you
And when you need me,
Put your arms
Around anyone
And give to them
What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something,
Something better
Than words
Or sounds.

Look for me
In the people I’ve known
Or loved,
And if you cannot give me away,
At least let me live in your eyes
And not on your mind.

You can love me most
By letting
Hands touch hands
By letting
Bodies touch bodies
And by letting go
Of children
That need to be free.

Love doesn’t die,
People do.
So, when all that’s left of me
Is love,
Give me away

Again, that is by Merrit Malloy - thank you so much for sending that beautiful poem