#38 - The Other G-Word No One Wants to Talk About

Mortality feels different when you’re sitting beside a parent and waiting for the breath that doesn’t return. In this call, we stay close to that moment—not with big theories or tidy comfort, but with the real stuff: complicated love, sudden anger, the guilt that shows up long after it’s “too late,” and the small rituals we use to get ourselves through the night.

He talks about a fractured relationship, the final hours in the hospital, and the split-second when a kind nurse became the target of blame. From there, the conversation widens into the quieter parts of grief—how guilt can rewrite reality, why it hangs on longer than we expect, and how a little compassion for ourselves can change the shape of it.

We also talk about the practical side of death that most people avoid: doctors bringing up end-of-life plans, families dodging hard conversations, and what it means to leave behind a simple manual so the people we love don’t have to untangle everything alone. (Yes, even down to the Costco casket.)

Threaded through all of this is a deeper question: what does it mean to feel accomplished before our time runs out? For him, it's still unanswered—and maybe that’s the point. We build our worldview brick by brick: faith, science, memory, experience. Some bricks hold more weight than others, but together they’re what keep us standing.

Book Recommendation: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube.

The Death Deck: Talk About the Future
A Lively Party Game to Share Stories and Beliefs

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Chapters

• 0:55 Sponsor: The Death Deck
• 1:32 Episode Intro
• 4:03 The Call Begins
• 4:47 Why Talk About Death
• 8:01 What do you think happens when we die?
• 12:06 A Father’s Final Days
• 17:58 Guilt, Anger, And Meaning
• 19:38 End‑Of‑Life Planning Reality Check
• 25:01 Unfinished Conversations And Letting Go
• 35:30 What Counts As A Life Accomplished
• 38:08 Closing Thoughts
• 39:26 Voicemail

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 5:21

Hey, how's it going? I'm doing all right. How are you? I'm not too bad. Thanks for uh being willing to jump on and do a call with me. Absolutely. How's the day going? Everything good?

SPEAKER_00: 5:34

Down here, we have really long summers.

SPEAKER_01: 5:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 5:37

So it's nice when the temperature goes down. It's not fall like, but at least it's tatty weather.

SPEAKER_01: 5:43

We'll take that win, right?

SPEAKER_00: 5:44

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 5:46

Well, thank you again for being willing to do this. Maybe you could just let me know why you even wanted to have a conversation around death, because this is a topic that a lot of people don't want to talk about. So I'm I'm super curious to to hear why you why you wanted to.

SPEAKER_00: 6:02

Yeah, I I I first saw, I guess, posts and it piqued my interest because I'm sure like many people, we have views, we have thoughts on it. And gosh, I, you know, no one wants to talk about it. You know, uh everyone, as soon as you bring it up, people either shy away or they uh automatically think that you're going through something or that you're stuck in this space.

SPEAKER_02: 6:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 6:26

Whereas I don't think that's necessarily true. I mean it might be, but I think it's more of a, you know, I this is how I see the world and this is how I see you know what happens after you die. And I think that in a way we should maximize more of our lives now because there's nothing else afterwards.

SPEAKER_01: 6:45

Well, if you think it's already something that people don't want to talk about, let me tell you when you start a project about death and say that you're talking to anonymous people about death, you even get some weirder looks and some questions of like, are you okay? Do like, do we need to be worried about you?

SPEAKER_00: 7:03

And I would say, you know, people will start assuming or you know, thinking, are you sick?

SPEAKER_02: 7:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:08

Are you an individual that we should be alerting the police about? I would also say your gender has something to do with that, right? People said that males, and I'm assuming here, yes, yeah, there's this male loneliness culture or male loneliness epidemic going on. And and if you're dwelling too much on these thoughts, then obviously you're suffering from that. And and two, you could become, you know, a liability. You could be a safety issue, you know. It's just there's a lot going on.

SPEAKER_01: 7:35

There there really is. But before we dive into that, maybe you can give us an idea of roughly kind of maybe like city-state where you live, and then your favorite book and why. You know, if you had told me to prepare my favorite book, uh I know you asked, and I'm like, this is the one question I really like to kind of just throw at people because I think it I think it says a lot about your personality. So I think if you have time to kind of like think about it and curate it, that's different.

SPEAKER_00: 8:04

I'm in the Gulf Coast of Texas, actually within the Surgoland, Texas area. And I have to say my favorite book, it's a fantasy book that I found a couple years ago called Children of Time. And it deals with artificial intelligence, it deals with science, you know, living in space and creating intelligence life that is of a different species and what it means to be human.

SPEAKER_01: 8:31

Is this a trilogy? Well, actually, I think maybe a fourth book just recently came out. Or am I thinking of yes, it was a trilogy. And they made like the Netflix show out of it.

SPEAKER_00: 8:39

I think it was no, there's no Netflix show.

SPEAKER_01: 8:41

Okay, maybe I'm thinking of a different book.

SPEAKER_00: 8:43

Yeah, it it would be really hard to do a a show or movie. I mean, I'm excited about it, but it would be really hard because I think that some of the main characters would be really hard to design.

SPEAKER_01: 8:54

Okay. I don't know if I've read it then. I'm I think I'm the one that I'm thinking of is from a Chinese author.

SPEAKER_00: 8:59

Oh, yes. That one it's gosh, yeah, it's a good one too.

SPEAKER_01: 9:03

Well, thank you for the recommendation. And now we can kind of get into the the easy question. We got the hard one out of the way, and now we can just start this conversation with what do you think happens when we die?

SPEAKER_00: 9:16

Growing up a group just like most Americans, listening to ghost stories and and you know, wondering what happens when people pass away, and do the spirits linger or do they move on? And you get inspired by television and and movies, and you see what happens, supposedly, right?

SPEAKER_03: 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 9:35

I remember my f one of my favorite comedies is is called Ghost, you know, person passes away. And and a person has unfinished business, and you know, they go through a range of of obstacles in order to pretty much get to the end or to move on. And religion also has a stake in that. I grew up in a Catholic household. And okay. And so um there's this, you know, making sure that you you honor your religion so that way you're able to move into heaven, um, and you're not stuck right in this middle world where you know you're not able to move on. So yeah, I would say uh, you know, ghost is a very American or very human belief.

SPEAKER_02: 10:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:16

But you know, over the years, I guess I like reading. I I like reading a lot of scientists and their take on things. And and one thing that I remember one reading one one line uh out of an article was, you know, if if there are ghosts or if the spirit moves on or you know, whatever happens, we still haven't deciphered or documented what that next stage records or the recorder of the next stage, right? So in in this world or in in life, we know that we have a body and we have a brain, and we have these, gosh, we have these um organs that can at least document, you know, a life, a spirit, a soul. And humans, we still haven't been able to figure out, you know, what documents our spirit afterwards. What happens when we die?

SPEAKER_03: 11:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:07

Where does it go to? Where does it get recorded? And and you know, we'll watch, I'm gonna bring this up again, you know, watching a movie like Contact, right? Where character Jody Foster, you know, she's getting messages from out of space and and they're building a machine, and you know, eventually she travels through time and space, and the person she meets is is you know the vision of her father. And so it brings back to the spirituality part, but you know, we still haven't figured out here on on this planet what happens, where where do we go afterwards? Yeah, you know, does our soul stay? Does our soul move on? Does it join the universe? And I feel like sometimes culture just keeps trying to explain things away of like, yes, of course it goes on.

SPEAKER_01: 11:51

Yeah, yeah, they want to put a pre-bow on it.

SPEAKER_00: 11:54

Yeah, if it's not heaven, then it's the universe. And and if it's not the universe, it's some other ether.

SPEAKER_02: 11:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:00

And sometimes I think, well, if we can't even figure out that next phase, why are we coming up with these stories? And and I I I think I know the answer, which is you want to feel better about it.

SPEAKER_02: 12:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:14

But we're also we're sentient beings, we are, you know, flesh and blood, and we're kind of really stuck on this planet because we're made out of this planet, and that's something else. And my faith teaches me to have hope, and I use my faith daily. In fact, I pray daily. Uh when I go go to sleep, I pray for things that are really important to me from a very humanist view. And there's a moment that I always pray for my ancestors. I pray that they are in peace. I pray there's no unfinished business.

SPEAKER_04: 12:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:49

Every night I think, gosh, I'm so silly. I'm doing this. But I I kind of want to, you know, be at peace before I go to sleep.

SPEAKER_02: 12:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:56

I wake up and then it's all over, you know, back to the oh, nothing happens. You know, we're just living things.

SPEAKER_02: 13:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 13:02

You know, we're connected by by tissue. We have nerve endings and just electrical impulses moving through our bodies. And when something gets damaged beyond repair, that's the end of it.

SPEAKER_02: 13:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 13:14

And it's been a very loose belief in that until, you know, I I got a call one day from a family member, long-distance family member, who said, you know, my father was in his last stage of life. And so I had a very fraught relationship with him, and I decided to find out what was going on. And I found myself actually counting the last three days I had with him, with his body in the hospital when he was when his body was shutting down. And he was connected to a breathing apparatus. I wasn't able to converse with him. You know, his eyes opened, and you know, I could hear the breathing, or at least the difficulty in breathing.

SPEAKER_02: 13:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 13:57

And so I knew that his body was shutting down. I knew that there was no reverse here. And my family member, my aunt, came over and she said, you know, I think that even though you had a very far relationship with him, he's at peace now. I think that you and your presence here have changed his course. And I think he's very grateful that you're here to change that course. And you know, it was a very emotional experience for me, but I wasn't convinced that I was able to reach him in that stage and and you know, make him more comfortable, even though he was passing away and and his body was shutting down. I felt like there was already, you know, a disconnect there.

SPEAKER_02: 14:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:36

Where yes, we had a thought relationship and nothing I could do would mend it, but it was also too late to mend it because the body was going through a very natural process of shutting down. And even though he opened his eyes, and I I could see my aunt saying, Oh, he's he's understanding that you're here and he's understanding that you came one last time. Deep down I felt, no, that's just the body responding, sending the last electrical impulses, trying to stay awake, trying to fight the medication, fighting the tube, but there's nothing there.

SPEAKER_03: 15:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:10

It's perhaps very reductionary to say there was nothing there, but I I could see that it was mostly his body fighting.

SPEAKER_02: 15:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:19

So for me, it was yeah, it was this experience of understanding. Of course, afterwards, you know, I kept thinking, is this presence around me? Is he following me now? I had to kind of come to terms the fact that I think that he's moved on, and that essence of him is no longer there, nor is it anywhere else. It's I I think that his essence is really glued together by myself, by my views, by my feelings, my emotions.

SPEAKER_02: 15:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:50

It's kind of an idea or an abstract created in the mind that still exists of him. It took a while for his body to move from the hospital to the funeral home and then getting his remains back. You go through this process thinking, okay, he passed away, so I'm gonna get his remains in a couple of days. And that actually took around a month and a half.

SPEAKER_02: 16:10

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00: 16:11

And I was told, you know, wait any minute, you're gonna you know get a call. And so at work, I told my tele manager, hey, you know, I might be getting a call, so I might step out, take some PTO, handle this, and six weeks later. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:26

They're probably like you know Did this actually even happen? Not to make light of it, I apologize. But yeah, it's it is wild that it took so long.

SPEAKER_00: 16:34

You start thinking about the horror stories, right? Oh yeah, where you know the body gets you know taken to the long funeral home or or they take the wrong body, and there's plenty of stories. I think there's a couple on HPR right now, um funeral homes at the mortician. Exactly, criminal activities. And so I start thinking about why they're taking so long, but I remember getting his box and thinking this is this is so small. And as soon as I laid my hands below it to hold it up, I I there's this F to this heaviness because you're thinking, you know, you think about uh ashes, you think of the light. In fact, you know, the amount of ashes you produce has a weight to it. And so I remember just putting him in the in my bedroom thinking that's the safest place I can have them.

SPEAKER_02: 17:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:21

And you know, I'm I'm currently in my bedroom and I'm currently looking at him using this box.

SPEAKER_02: 17:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:27

And I thought about all these arrangements of going to a cemetery and and uh getting uh what's called a niche, or it's a special plot of land where you kind of store the ashes behind a wall.

SPEAKER_02: 17:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:39

And and I looked into it and and I thought about it, and I just felt that was kind of removing this memory of him far away from myself.

SPEAKER_01: 17:47

Yeah, distancing it.

SPEAKER_00: 17:48

So I just kind of yeah, and so I decided, you know, I I'll just keep him here for now until, you know, with a passion I know what to do. And I still haven't figured that out. Sometimes I look at the box and and I think, uh, you know, are you looking at me right now? What are you thinking about me? But I know that they're just ashes. And, you know, I don't necessarily feel like there's a bigger presence above me, around me. I I know that the construct I had of him, you know, lies within me, within my mind.

SPEAKER_02: 18:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:19

And and and that's sort of it, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 18:22

Yeah. It's interesting because I hear almost like this this duality almost to some extent of like there is this very, and this is this is probably not the right word to use, but almost this kind of like very logical. And I guess that maybe it makes sense to the book that we were talking about before. Like a scientific kind of approach to believe software. But then, I mean, you also talk about prying every night, and so there's also this kind of thing, and it almost feels like there's this kind of a balance between those two things within you. And maybe I'm reading into it incorrectly from what I'm hearing. It almost feels like there is this kind of very logical scientific side that it's saying, you know, yeah, there is nothing. It's just ashes, and it's not here with me. But maybe at the same time, there's this hope that there is something more.

SPEAKER_00: 19:11

Well, that's how I see it. And and to be honest, I go throughout my day, and it's not just I think about a lot of other things, including my faith in religion, and I think, well, you know, a lot of these problems in the world are man-made problems. They're not problems created by a deity, they're not problems created because of religion. A lot of the issues that we deal day to day are man-made. And so the solution for these problems are man-made solutions. And so I think that we have to look at the world in a very logical way of what created this problem. Is it because we're not funding this, or is it because we're not supporting this, or is it because we find this to be, according to our value system, the opposite of what's good in our value system?

SPEAKER_02: 19:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:53

And if that's the problem, then you know we have to find a solution that is also logical, something that I can do. I can't, you know, necessarily pray something away and expect it to happen. And hundreds and thousands of years later, it's still an issue.

SPEAKER_02: 20:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:07

And so every day it's a very logical day. And then at night, I guess maybe my body and the mind is just tired. It's tired, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 20:14

You've won you've run it ragged and it's ready to just let go.

SPEAKER_00: 20:18

Like, you know what? I I I don't know how it works, but you know, I pray for problems, amenerate, for them to be resolved. And then I wake up the next day and it's you know, a new front of all these problems have a human solution. And that's how I do it every day. And I'm in I hate to say that I'm an only child because I'm not. I had another sibling through my father, but you know, she has her own family now, her own family that she's raised and has a partner to take care of. But in my area here in Sherylin, Texas, I am an only son, I'm an only child. And so I have to take up a lot of responsibilities within my family, including supporting my extended family members, supporting my grandmother. And she's at that age where every doctor's visits, the doctors want to have that discussion of end of life, of have you had a plan for end of life? And it's it's actually her annual visits. And I've been to three of her annual visits where the doctor has straight out asked her, what are your end-of-life plans? And they always reassure her and and tell her it's normal, we don't like to talk about this, it makes people uncomfortable, but it's a necessary conversation and it's one that we have, it's a healthy conversation that we need to practice. And every time it's always of, oh, I haven't thought about it.

SPEAKER_02: 21:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:49

It surprises me because I've been there with her three times now, and I know that I know that I have my home plan.

SPEAKER_01: 21:56

I was gonna say, you've left every single one of those meetings being like, okay, let me figure my device. You're like, wait, hold on, I did the homework assignment.

SPEAKER_00: 22:05

Exactly. I you know, I it comes to stuff, I can get a casket at Costco.

SPEAKER_01: 22:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:11

That's something that I learned.

SPEAKER_01: 22:12

Which is wild. And I'm the future is now. Some weird weird future, but the future is now.

SPEAKER_00: 22:18

Yeah, but I it's it's so it's so obvious to me that everyone should have a plan.

SPEAKER_02: 22:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:23

And you know, I don't want to be caught off guard, and obviously, you know, one day my descendants are gonna be caught off guard.

SPEAKER_01: 22:31

Yeah. Well, that's the big one, right? It's it's not even you. It's the people that you're leaving behind are the ones who have to really deal with the fact that you didn't figure things out and plan for it. And so it sounds like that falls on you in this instance. You're the you're the caregiver.

SPEAKER_00: 22:45

Yeah. You know, I come back home and and we talk about what and I actually I don't bring up you know property or belongings because I think that's something that might be too cross, but I do I do talk about what arrangements do you want. And I look at her and then I start thinking about other individuals in my family of what are their plans, what are they thinking? And of course, no one wants to talk about it, but you're also keeping it real. You're saying, listen, I don't want anyone to go through hard times. I don't want to be have anyone get caught by surprise.

SPEAKER_01: 23:17

Yeah, I don't want to punch anybody else out.

SPEAKER_00: 23:19

You know, and when you're going through your work and you're assigning you know your life insurance or you're assigning your benefits, you want to make sure that it's gonna be inherited by someone. I talked to friends about this and said, Yeah, I saw that and I decided I'll just put it off for another year. I'll figure it out later. And I'm thinking, wait a minute now, because we all think we're gonna die when we're sick.

SPEAKER_01: 23:40

Totally. When we're we're well, I was gonna say when we're 70 or 80, but I think most people now have this thought that they're gonna live to be a hundred and a hundred and ten and hundred and twenty, and yeah, that's that that's not guaranteed.

SPEAKER_00: 23:52

All it takes is just yeah, and all it takes is just watch the news, just see how many people are in car accidents, yeah, are murdered, some are accidents and and some manslaughter. You don't know what's gonna happen, but it will happen. And so do you want to be caught off guard where you really can't do anything? Yeah, or make sure that you left the thing so make it easier for family members.

SPEAKER_02: 24:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 24:15

Because it's they're gonna go through a really rough time of trying to stitch things together, of lining up and saying, wait a minute, yeah, that's a fund here. How do I access it? Oh, yeah, uh, how do I get these emergency funds there?

SPEAKER_01: 24:27

There's a million things to figure out in that moment. And when you're grieving, when you're in shock, and it's like, yeah, don't want to make that harder on people. And not even people, right? I mean, they are people, but like your loved ones, your family, your community. Yeah, you don't want that's the last thing that you'd want to do to those people.

SPEAKER_00: 24:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:46

I would think, you know, maybe there might be some, I don't know. I might want to make it harder on my sister. Maybe I'll throw some like wretches in mine and be like, oh, weird scavenger hunt or something. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 24:57

It would be cool, wouldn't it? You know, I don't know if it's good celebration, but I I you know, you want people to celebrate your life or or people to at least remember you in a fond way.

SPEAKER_02: 25:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:08

But I also know that you know there's an emotional component to it. There's obviously a practical issue to it. There's a lot. Yeah. And I haven't done this yet, but you know, I I eventually want to come up with my own manual. You know, my my own what happens when I pass away manual.

SPEAKER_02: 25:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:25

And it's sort of, you know, just detailing, these are my accounts. Please access them. Please make sure that they don't get lost. And this is what I think is really important.

SPEAKER_02: 25:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:35

And this is how I want to be honored or not be honored.

SPEAKER_02: 25:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:38

You know, I want to make sure that you understand very well that I don't want the most expensive casket.

SPEAKER_01: 25:44

I want the Costco one.

SPEAKER_00: 25:46

Cardboard is fine. Yeah, cardboard is fine. Yeah. You know, totally. It's even more eco-friendly. Yeah, absolutely. I think a manual makes sense here. Yeah. Um, and it's something that I always think about like this is one I want to make sure people understand. Yeah. Because obviously, seeing my father pass away and not having that last conversation with them. My last conversation with him was more than a decade ago.

SPEAKER_01: 26:10

Sorry, you didn't mention, but like, how long ago did he pass, if you don't mind me asking?

SPEAKER_00: 26:15

He died in 2023.

SPEAKER_01: 26:17

Okay. Okay, so yeah. So you had 11th. So you didn't have a like real full-on conversation for a very long time.

SPEAKER_00: 26:25

No, no, not at all. In fact, I remember the last conversation with him. I was in London. I think it was it was chili, chili weather. I was in London, and I called him, and we talked probably 10 minutes, and he he said something that bothered me at the end. And so I said, Yeah, I don't I don't want to continue talking with you. That's it. And I I kind of thought about this like I don't want to talk to him often either. And then I kept putting off trying to reconnect.

SPEAKER_02: 26:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 26:52

Because I as a son, you want to reconnect. And I kept thinking, well, he's in a happy place and I'm in a good place. So why why try to ruin that? And when COVID happened, I kept thinking, Where where is he? Is he fine? Is he healthy?

SPEAKER_02: 27:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:07

And I found myself praying every night, you know, praying that he was well, but I never checked up on him. I never called to figure out what was going on. And, you know, I hate that. I hate that I never did. Because even though he was fine regarding COVID, he was actually starting to go through some rough patches. That's the period he was actually going through a difficult time with his family. And so I didn't know that. So when I got the call, it was really too late. I was there, I held his hand, and there's a moment when the nurse comes in and she says, you know, I'm gonna go ahead and disconnect them. So, you know, he he's probably going to struggle a little bit, but this could be a very difficult thing to see, yeah, to bear witness. A lot of people step out during this time. Let me know how I can help you. God, she was she and the other nurses, there were a couple, they're awesome, you know, they're very nice. Those people are saints. And I said, no, I'll stay here because there's so many years, so much time that I lost. I want to stay here until the beer again, I thought. I mean, it's beautiful. As much time as I can. And they disconnected him. I could hear the shallow breathing become shallower, maybe to a little a gargle, perhaps.

SPEAKER_02: 28:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:22

And then, you know, completely the body just stopped. You know, there's no breathing. He had passed completely. And then a wall came, the nurse came back in, and they're not like connected, so they don't necessarily you know are able to know a person's passed away definitely. Yeah. They just kind of pass through the room and say, you know, just checking on things.

SPEAKER_02: 28:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:40

And the nurse saw that he passed away. And so I think she was documenting something. And in my mind, there was this explosion of thoughts, of ideas, and this very kind individual who, again, doing saint work, was now, you know, someone who I hated.

SPEAKER_02: 28:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:59

And as I as I looked at the nurse, I kept thinking, murderer, you killed him. You're the murderer. And and there's this anger. And I sat looking at his body, uh I sat next to the window, looking at his body, looking at the nurse, and thinking, you know, you're the murderers. You killed them. You took them away from me. And at that moment, I could have blamed it on anyone.

SPEAKER_02: 29:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:19

Because I was angry. And I remained quiet. I cried a lot. I didn't express those feelings. I happened to work also in healthcare, but I was angry. And it just surprised me how I looked at this individual or thought they were beautiful, bedside manner. And this individual turned into a monster for me. And it didn't make sense. But in that moment, the reality changes. And it's not a reality based on what's going on in the real world. It's it's based on your emotions.

SPEAKER_01: 29:49

Yeah. And there's a lot of them.

SPEAKER_00: 29:50

And there are there are a lot of them. I remember my aunt came in. I I cried. I had bouts of crying. Like I couldn't control them. My sister came in. With her husband, we did a prayer. And my aunt mentioned, you know, she kept saying, I know he's happy. I know that he left in peace because we were here. I could see it in his eyes. And in my mind, I just kept negating everything she said. No, she wasn't at peace. No, he wasn't happy, or no, he didn't notice I was here. And again, it's not because I felt a present or because I felt something in my faith. It was just in the mind. Yeah. I kept thinking, logically, his body was literally shutting down. He didn't know that I was here. And it's part, maybe, maybe there's a way of pushing that guilt on myself or self-flagellation of like, you know, I did this to myself. I did this to him. So he didn't he didn't realize that I was here. But yeah, the guilt, you know, starts consuming at you. And while my aunt kept saying, you know, I could see in his eyes, he's happy that you were here. And I kept negating those statements by thinking, no, his his life's just passing him by right now. His body is going and shutting down. So he's if there's anything, he's just seeing his life leave him, all his memories leave him. Playing one last time. And you know, she tried to soothe me. She said, you know, he heard your voice. And I kept thinking, No, if he hears my voice, it's not because he knows I'm there, but he's thinking about the last time he heard my voice.

unknown: 31:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 31:18

Yeah. Guilt is just one of those things that can be absolutely ruthless. So obviously, in a situation there where there's a lot of emotion and guilt takes control, it totally makes sense that you are feeling these ways. Have you because I mean I I'd say it's still fairly fresh, right? You know, two years isn't that long. Like, have you found some peace around it? Or is it still something that you're you're battling with?

SPEAKER_00: 31:43

You know, I would say that I'm past it, but yeah, when I express it and when I say it, there's this little lump in my throat that reminds me that I'm not over it. You know, there's the guilt is still there, the pain still exists, and I want to I still do it, right? I I pray every night for my ancestors to be at peace because it's hard to accept all day long our bodies at one point cease. No memory, no recollection, no satisfaction, right? There is no soul that leaves and gets to take happiness, gets to take anger to another level, another plane, it just ends there.

SPEAKER_02: 32:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 32:27

And so at the end I there's a lot of hope because during the day I'm convinced that the body stopped working and that my presence there was too late, that me touching his hand trying to soothe him was too late, that my voice was too late to do anything.

SPEAKER_01: 32:46

I haven't been through an experience like that. So there's nothing that I can say to to kind of ease that. And I think that's part of our culture too, is like want to fix things, want to make people feel better. But I will say I feel like you kind of going back to this kind of duality, like you just even said it right there where it's during the day, it's this logic, but at night, you know, there is this peace. And so it does sound like that. There is some self-acceptance isn't the right word, but it seems like there is part of you, this part at night, that is allowing yourself to to forgive yourself, to not be so hard on yourself, because that is just the hard thing about life, right? Is we just don't know. Well, I mean, there's a million things that make life hard, but you know, it's like we don't know when people are gonna pass. And yeah, it's hard when people hurt us and we have these, you know, times in our lives where we're not talking to people that we love and and care, and and you just never know when the when the clock's gonna run out. And so I feel so deeply for you because it feels like you've put such an immense amount of pressure, maybe it's not even pressure, just this immense amount of guilt onto yourself. And yeah, I would as a stranger to another stranger, I'd just say, you know, just give yourself a hug and just say, you know, I'm I think at the end of the day, the thing that I try to tell myself and I think of others too, I think it's helped. But I I think it's better for me to believe that everybody's doing the best that they can. Um that might be being a terrible human and doing horrible things. But, you know, for whatever reason, they've been through something or they've done something. I don't know, it just makes me feel better to say, hey, you know what? They're doing the best that they can. And I think in this situation, you did the best that you could. I don't know. Again, from a stranger to another stranger, I would just say, you know, like I I hear the care. Yeah. I hear the care for your father, even though, like you said, that the it was it was strained, like there was this difficulty and this challenge. You know, again, I don't know all the details or anything, but it definitely feels like that there is this love. And I think maybe deep down that like that's enough, but I don't know. I'm I'm just a stranger who doesn't really know anything.

SPEAKER_00: 34:59

Yeah, in the end, that's all we are, right? And it's because of that that being able to show empathy is so important, being able to show an affinity to make connections is so important in the day to day. In the end, we we are all strangers living in our own reality, and our worldview is built by all these bricks that hold us together, that were put there by our family values, by our religion, by our education, our faith in science, yeah, our knowledge of biology, our knowledge of psalms, yeah, and the hope they bring.

SPEAKER_02: 35:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 35:37

And so all these bricks together, you know, they they support our worldview, and sometimes we think, you know, a worldview needs a little bit more support, more strength. So we double down on certain bricks more than others.

SPEAKER_02: 35:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 35:52

But in order for it to help us, we kind of need all of them together.

SPEAKER_02: 35:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 35:57

I've got one more weird metaphor.

SPEAKER_01: 36:00

Yeah. No, no, I I think it really makes a lot of sense because in my head, I was almost imagining, you know, trying to build, I don't know, like a really tall brick structure. Like maybe like a chimney, you know, almost just like a freestanding chimney. And, you know, if you didn't have anything to hold the bricks together and you just start stacking them together and forming them together without anything to bind them together, the more bricks you put on and the taller it gets, it's gonna be unstable. And so it's you either needed someone to help you hold it up or you need something to hold the bricks together. And that's at least my interpretation, what I took from it. So I thought it actually worked. I do have one last question for you. Um what is one thing that you still want to experience in this lifetime?

SPEAKER_00: 36:45

Accomplishment.

SPEAKER_01: 36:47

What does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_00: 36:49

You know, I wanna I want to be able to feel that I've done it and I'm ready to move on. And there, of course, there are days I'm just like, you know what? After today, I have seen it, I've seen most of the world. And if I haven't been there, I've watched it on Discovery Channel. I've watched it on National. Exactly. But I know it exists, and it's beautiful. And I've heard the poetry, and I I think, you know what, uh it's not gonna hurt if today I'm not here or tomorrow I'm not here.

SPEAKER_04: 37:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 37:20

I think I've lived enough and I'm content. And then there's this little pearl inside of me that says, But do you feel accomplished? And it's sort of like, no, not yet. So I know that I still have something I need to accomplish. What it is, I don't know. You're on the search. Yeah, maybe for some people it means having a family. Maybe for some people it might mean a business or you know, community. I know that I still haven't accomplished something. Yeah, your mission's un incomplete. Exactly. Exactly. I know that my time will end. I know that I will have to transition from you know having this body that moves and breathes and thinks on its own to a corpse. And gosh, everyone's had that really difficult day where you think, you know what, I'm done. I'm I'm happy. Yeah, it's over. Yeah, I'm ready to move on. And then, you know, that little ball bearing inside of you saying, No, we're not accomplished yet. And so I want to be able to say I'm I'm accomplished, that I I finished what I was set to do, and I'm still searching for that.

SPEAKER_01: 38:26

Well, I hope you find it. And when you do, you have to let me know. Um I wanted the day, it's like I figured it out, Zach. Um, I want to get a message, but I just want to thank you for applying to be a part of this, to be willing to share your story to a stranger over the course of nearly an hour. Yeah, it's been wonderful talking to you, and I just yeah, I appreciate you taking the time and I appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00: 38:51

Well, you know, thank you for listening to me.

SPEAKER_01: 38:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 38:54

I wish you success in this path that you're taking.

SPEAKER_02: 38:58

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 38:59

Wherever it takes you, and I hope that it builds upon your worldview in a positive way.

SPEAKER_02: 39:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 39:07

In a positive way. You know where to find me.

SPEAKER_01: 39:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 39:11

And you have you know the numbers your way to find me.

SPEAKER_01: 39:14

Oh man. Well, thank you again. I'm so glad that we did this, and yeah, I hope you have a good rest of your day.

SPEAKER_00: 39:19

Thank you. You too. All right, bye.