When We Die Talks

#42 - The Ripple Effect: How Loss Continues to Shape the People Left Behind

• Zach Ancell • Episode 42

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Suicide touches more lives than we often realize. And yet, it’s still something many of us don’t know how to talk about.

In this episode, an anonymous caller reflects on losing their brother to suicide and what it’s been like to live with the impact since. Rather than trying to explain what happened or search for answers, the conversation stays with the ripple effect. How loss lingers, how it reshapes relationships, and how it continues to move through the people left behind.

This is a gentle conversation. There’s grief here, but there’s also care, thoughtfulness, and room to speak without being pushed toward certainty. It offers a way to listen to a conversation about suicide without panic or sensationalism, and to better understand how much our lives affect others, often in ways we never fully see.

If conversations about suicide usually feel overwhelming, this episode offers a more approachable way in.

In this episode:

  • Living with the ripple effect of suicide
  • How loss continues to shape families and communities
  • The impact we leave through small, everyday interactions
  • Imagining what happens when we die without needing certainty
  • The Egg by Andy Weir and how stories evolve in memory

Book Recommendations: The Botany of Desire (Michael Pollan)

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

Memorial Jewelry by Nia Emberly
Transform ashes into pendants and bracelets that carry love every day.

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

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About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.

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Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

SPEAKER_02:

And I think that that's a a really interesting way to think about it. And it it helps I find that it really helps me cope.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I'm sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, maybe this particular life did not serve my brother the way that it was meant to. And maybe he's kicking asses like a medieval knight or some shit. Like, I I don't know.

SPEAKER_03:

It all starts with a single question asked to an anonymous caller. What do you think happens when we die? And from there, the conversation goes in completely unexpected directions. Some speak with certainty, others with doubt, some are still trying to make sense of it all. I'm Zach Ansel, and this is When We Die Talks, a podcast about death, meaning, and how that shapes the way we live. This podcast was born from my own fears around death and the need to talk about. Thank you for being a part of this conversation. I'm glad you're here. This episode is sponsored by Naya Emberly. We often think of ashes as something that has to stay tucked away in an earth. But what if they could become something you carry with you, close to your heart, every single day? At Naya Emberly, cremes are transformed using a proprietary process into timeless jewelry. Pendants and bracelets that hold both beauty and meaning. It's a way to keep your loved ones' presence with you, not hidden on a shelf. Because memories aren't meant to gather dust, they're meant to be lived with. Discover more at nayaemberly.ca or ask your local funeral provider for more info. Hey, welcome back or welcome here if this is your first time. Before we begin, I want to be up front and note that this conversation is about suicide. So if you're not in the headspace for that today, please feel free to skip this one or come back to it when you're ready. Chances are you already know someone who's been affected by suicide in some way. Most of us do. And yet it's still a topic we tend to avoid or talk about in ways that feel distant, uncomfortable, or incomplete. This call is important because it lets us see inside the impact, but not in an overly dramatic way. To hear from someone directly what it's actually like for the people who live with the loss afterwards. But what makes this conversation different is how it's held. It's a lot softer than you would expect. There's thoughtfulness, there's care, there's an incredible amount of love expressed in a really beautiful way. It's about understanding the ripple effect of this kind of loss, but presented in a way that's not overwhelming. Let's get into the call. I hope you enjoy. Hello? Hey, how's it going? I'm I'm doing good, thank you. How about you? I'm good. You know, I feel like I mean, I feel like that's kind of the name of the game. And maybe I put the bad energy into the universe or something, but I was just like, for some reason, I just feel like this one's it's just not gonna connect. I just had a I had a feeling, so thanks for bearing with me. But besides that, things are good. I just feel like I don't know, I'm trying to cram a lot of these calls in and I'm trying to get a lot done before Thanksgiving. I don't know. The word that keeps on coming to mind is flustered, and I don't feel like that's the the right word I want to use, but a little flustered.

SPEAKER_02:

Sure, sure. I I totally get that. My hobby is community theater. Okay. And right now I'm directing Mel Brooks, the producers.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

And our show, unfortunately, our sound system is I don't know, from the dinosaur time. So it's like we, you know, I am no stranger to like tech issues, sound issues.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Like almost every night I'm like in the audience, I'm texting the booth, I'm like, turn on Max's microphone, you know, like just panic all the time.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. That's that's kind of how audio feels to me. I I used to be a photographer, so like visual stuff is fine, but audio has been just a whole different animal. So yeah, you you understand the pain.

SPEAKER_02:

Totally, totally.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, hopefully the show goes well. Uh that sounds super awesome. I guess kind of just to kick things off, and this maybe just kind of briefly, because this could go into the full-on conversation, but maybe you could just let me know why you even wanted to do a call about death, something that a lot of people don't want to talk about.

SPEAKER_02:

I think it's important to talk about. I lost my brother to suicide in 2017. I'm sorry. It's I mean, it's weird to say like it's okay because it's not.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, totally. But but it's also weird to say I'm sorry, right? But it's just kind of like the things we say, which sucks.

SPEAKER_02:

But it's why I think it's important to talk about it. There's not a lot of language to to be able to really, you know, put into words like I am acknowledging your loss, yeah. Even as have not spoken to each other before.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And maybe that's exactly what I'll start saying is, you know, I acknowledge your loss, and you know, that's a beautiful thing to say. I like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks. I I I I was a senior in high school when it happened.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Um tough time. So I it was yeah. So I was I was about to I was about to graduate, and I did end up graduating, but it I mean, it made me confront a lot of things about myself, about the people around me. We had lost kids in the area to suicide at least multiple a year. Oh wow. At least in my school district. Very competitive academic environments and bullying, feeling like you're not good enough. Our valedictorian had like a 5.7 GPA because you know, they took like every single AP class. They were taking college classes. Oh and so even though my my yeah, right, my GPA was like, I don't know, like 3.7, which is not bad.

SPEAKER_03:

No, that's I mean that's that's like that's a great GPA, and you probably felt like you were a complete slacker. I don't want to put things in your mouth or anything, but like with that scale, that's insane.

SPEAKER_02:

In a class of 400, I was, you know, pretty middle of the road. Wild. It was so academically challenging. And you know, my my dad and my stepmom have been doing a lot of work with we've made a foundation in his name. Oh, that's awesome to help like like support the school. We've raised several thousand dollars to help get the girls' wrestling team all new uniforms, and you know, he was he was a big wrestler. He loved it.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02:

So it was a long-winded way to say I've experienced this in in my life and being able to talk about it.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And I don't know. Yeah, it's it's important. Yeah, it's necessary. All of us.

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely. That's why I'm doing this. And I want to say I love this setup in the sense of you being willing to talk about those things and share those things. Again, obviously kind of going back to where we kind of started with your answer of, you know, obviously wish that that wasn't the circumstance that you hadn't had these things happen in your life and experiences. But I am excited to chat with you and have the conversation. I also want to clarify one thing that I said when you said that you were a senior and you already had led with your brother dying by suicide, and I said hard time, I meant that senior year of high school is just already a hard time, let alone anything else happening. So I want to clarify that a little bit. So you already had kind of the high school pressure and just that kind of difficult time of life, and then this immense tragedy happened. And so yeah, I just wanted to clarify my language there. I'm sure we're gonna loop back into that conversation, or maybe we won't. Who knows where this will go? But maybe just to kind of get to know you a little bit, obviously keeping the anonymity and everything so you feel comfortable sharing. Maybe you can give an idea of like roughly maybe like city-state of where you're calling from, and then your favorite book and why.

SPEAKER_06:

Ooh.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

It's my sneaky question that nobody's ever planning for.

SPEAKER_02:

Which I should be because I've I've gone back and I've I've listened to uh your previous conversation.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

And then I was so enraptured in the conversation that I forgot.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh it happens.

SPEAKER_02:

Let's see. City State, that's the easy one. I'm living in Corvallis, Oregon.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. I'm in Portland, so we're not far from each other.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, cool, nice, nice. And favorite book. I really enjoyed this book I read a couple years ago. It was called The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollard. And it follows his journey into what he considers the the four uh staple plants in the world.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_02:

Like there's a chapter about apples, there's a chapter about potatoes, there's a chapter about cannabis, and there's a chapter about tulips.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_02:

And yeah, it was it was fascinating because you would expect.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, right, right. I mean, maybe Apple kind of lands, but then the other ones I'm like, oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, like these these plants and how they've not necessarily manipulated by is not the right word, but how they've grown to coexist with humanity.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_02:

And and like biblical or you know, spiritual references to all of these different plants. And like the tulip, you know, for example, was completely modified to fit, you know, human desire on what they should look like and what shape they should be, and what it means when you look at one and how it makes you feel as as a person and how we sort of coexist with these with these different plants. I highly recommend it. I'm not doing it justice.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I'll definitely check it out. The author's name sounds very familiar, so I feel like I might have another book of his. I can imagine kind of this book cover, kind of like very colorful, and it might even be about like mushrooms or something like that. So it feels like it's in the same vein. It might be the same author, or I could just be completely making this all up, but it sounds familiar. The book doesn't, but the author does for some reason. So I'll have to like go through my my library and see if it is there is a connection there. But that does sound fascinating, and I'm definitely gonna add it to my list.

SPEAKER_02:

He's a great writer. He wrote a book that was called Omnivore's Dilemma.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I remember that book.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. It was like critically acclaimed, you know. Yeah, but all that stuff.

SPEAKER_03:

All the awards and whatnot. Well, it sounds like we could we could talk about books and other stuff forever, but that's not what this is about. And so maybe we can kind of jump into the conversation and see where it goes and just start with the question of what do you think happens when we die?

SPEAKER_02:

So here's my kind of like fun theory that I like to ponder.

SPEAKER_03:

I like this.

SPEAKER_02:

I like to believe in like the multiverse.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02:

So I think we are in sort of one set timeline, but there could be another timeline where I woke up today and put on a green shirt instead of a blue shirt, or you know, yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And that version of me is out in the world or in another place.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I read this short story once, and I'll be darned if I know who it's by. But it was about a man who dies and he goes to some version of the afterlife, and you know, a Saint Peter kind of figure is going through his life, and and he goes, Oh, you know, well, you were fairly, you know, a good person. You know, you you did what you were supposed to do. You had a couple mishaps. But I think I think you're you're good to be back in the cycle. You are gonna come back as a Chinese peasant in the year 400. Well, and the guy goes, Well, what? Like that uh uh already happened, and he's like, uh uh-uh, not in this universe, not in the one I'm about to send you to. And then you know, the the next chapter of the story is the story of this this young girl who's a Chinese peasant in the year 400.

SPEAKER_00:

Whoa.

SPEAKER_02:

And it yeah, I was so taken by this. And yeah, this concept of time and how we don't understand it. Yeah, yeah. And I think that that's a a really interesting way to think about it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And it it helps I find that it really helps me cope.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I'm sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, maybe, you know, this particular life did not serve my brother the way that it was meant to. And maybe he's kicking ass as like a medieval knight or some shit. Like, I I don't know.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, hopefully not a a Chinese peasant. I mean, although maybe that I don't know, maybe that is a great life. Who knows?

SPEAKER_02:

The thing about the Chinese peasant is you know, the the little girl in the story just went on to have a very average and fulfilling life. And then, you know, the implication is when she became an old woman and passed away and went up to the St. Peter kind of figure, he would maybe be like, Okay, cool, now you're a DJ in 2035, or like whatever.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh god, that might be my hell. Oh, I don't know if I could do that. It's like please, please let me be a peasant again.

SPEAKER_06:

I sent him due to DJ, you know.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, that's fascinating. I I number one, we need to figure out the short story or whatever it is, because I definitely want to read it. I don't actually think I've thought about this at like a death capacity, but kind of like you started with, you know, I woke up this morning and there's a version of me. Well, I only wear black clothes. So there's a version of me that put on a different black shirt than I put on today, but maybe more like bigger picture. There is a version of Zach that went to the University of Oregon, and there's a version of Zach that went to UCLA, and there is a version of Zach that has probably died in many, many different ways. And and so I think about kind of the multiverse or other dimensions just in kind of the concept of life, but I really like this lens of death tied to it, and especially the time factor, because you know, I think the time that we understand as humans is very much a construct that we make that makes sense of how things work on this planet. And so I'm curious to maybe take your theory or concept a little bit further. Is there an end? Or is it we're coming back to learn lessons, or is it just kind of an infinite loop of lifetimes?

SPEAKER_02:

I'm not sure. Yeah I know there are many people, myself included, that that believe in the concept of like a past life, and I don't know. I don't know how to conceptualize a future life, you know? Yeah, because if a past life ex surely this is not the last one. Yeah, right. Totally.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, there's been past lives, it'd be weird for this to be the last one.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, or or maybe not. I mean, like if if this is it, the question is then what?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Right? Like that's what I'm that's what I'm that's what I'm here for. Then what, everybody? Yeah, totally. I mean, it's it's one of the most fascinating questions because I firmly believe that they're just like there's no way that we can know until we do, you know, until that moment comes. And I know that others have different beliefs on that, but uh it just feels like to me that it's unknowable.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, definitely. I think with this particular theory, I think it makes sense that we don't know because the lives that we live might still be, I mean, I don't know if they're necessarily confined to humanity, but maybe there is a world out there where like I get reincarnated as an alien on the planet Xenon, and they're like, Oh yeah, when we die, we you know come back as as a blade of grass. And yeah, like they know. Yeah, I don't. I'm not in the timeline where where that's knowledge to the general public.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I love ideas like this because now I'm even considering the idea of, you know, you said that you and others believe in past lives, and that's not something I've explored a lot, but in the scope of this, and we've already talked about time being a weird thing, couldn't a past life also be technically a future life? Yeah, like your your past life of being, I keep on going back to it, fourth century peasant is a past life, but it's also in your future. I love stuff like that where I can just like really sit and ponder about it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, me, me too. I was also I'm also kind of inspired by have you seen the the movie The Lobster?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, I have. It's been a minute though. I don't remember it super well.

SPEAKER_02:

But the the crux of the movie is a man goes on, I believe it's like a relationship retreat where his goal is to find a life partner. And if he doesn't find a life partner within like an allotted amount of time, he is like returned to the universe forcefully as an animal of his choosing. And so he chooses to be a lobster.

SPEAKER_03:

I do remember this movie now, and but also I'm like, I don't remember it well enough, and I'm gonna put that on my movie queue of things that I need to watch, which is also growing uh exponentially.

SPEAKER_02:

It's always something like don't when I die, I'll be like, don't check my watch list. Like I I have a list on Letterboxd that's called movies I'm too afraid to tell people I haven't seen. I'm just like slowly working my way through it because I mean I'm so sick of like, what do you mean you've never seen The Godfather? I'm like, I look now, I got other things going on.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, I think that's that's a brilliant. I love that. If you're okay kind of going into this territory, you did mention, I mean, we've talked about your brother, but you also talked about how this fun theory helps with thinking about your brother. And I don't exactly know what my question is here, but maybe it's about your relationship to death and maybe some fears around it, and then this theory and how that relates to your brother.

SPEAKER_02:

I I get what you're trying to say. I think for me it's the thought that when someone passes, that they're just gone.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm sure I'm sure you've heard this a lot, but you know, energy can't be destroyed or created. Yep, that whole thing. And what I would hope is that if his being or essence, whether he remembers it or not, is passed on to another lifetime, that maybe he can live a life where he's fulfilled, where he feels happy, where he feels safe within himself. But then we also have to explore the possibility that he could be, you know, reincarnated, so to speak, and it could still be miserable or it would still be painful. And I think that's just kind of the gamble of being alive. Thanks, Mom and Dad. Sometimes it's exactly seriously. Yeah. So, you know, sometimes you get dealt a really shitty hand of cards, but then you know, the game ends and you can choose to play again. Or you don't choose. Maybe we're just constantly being dealt cards.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Now, I don't know a lot about who's doing the dealing. I don't consider myself particularly religious.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But I would hope that he's getting another chance somewhere. He was about to turn 19 when he passed.

SPEAKER_05:

That's so young.

SPEAKER_02:

I know. And and I you know, me now, I'm 26 years old, and I'm just like, God, I I mean, I remember being 19 and thinking that everything was the end of the world.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And then my frontal lobe started to develop, and I'm like, wait, this isn't necessarily a no other way to say it, a life-ending catastrophe.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And I hope that somewhere out there, in a place that we will never be able to access, uh, at least not now, he could be out there feeling that, experiencing, hey, this whole life thing isn't isn't as bad as I as I thought.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, whether he's conscious of that or not, I mean, like in the story with the Chinese peasant girl, she had no recollection that she used to be like a salary man in New York or whatever.

SPEAKER_03:

Totally.

SPEAKER_02:

So I hope that that whoever he is or they are or whatever, that there's there's still life there. There's still an opportunity to have that experience again.

SPEAKER_03:

And so if he was I mean I was gonna say if he was 19, you were very close in age when it happened too. So you must have been, I guess it's maybe making uh because things with siblings can always be really interesting, but being that close in age, you you probably were fairly close.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So my parents divorced in 2003. Okay. So I was like four years old. My dad remarried in 2005, so he's he's my stepbrother.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

But we did our whole lives together, and you know, I he's just my brother, you know?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

We were not in the same state. He went and and lived with his dad for a little bit. And it was hard because my my dad and my stepmom, his mother lived in California, they they still do. I was in Virginia, where I went to school, and he was in Tennessee. So we went through the griefing process. I was pretty isolated from the rest of the family.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, which I mean, that's gotta be hard.

SPEAKER_02:

They had each other. Yeah. My my younger brother, my half brother was 10, and my older sister, she's just a couple years older than me. And they all had had each other during this, and I was, you know, living with my mom.

SPEAKER_05:

Man.

SPEAKER_02:

So it was really hard.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, having to do it a I d I don't really remember where I was going with this, other than just providing context.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Well, I I think I cut you off and said something about, you know, doing the math in my head, and I was like, oh wait. And not that it changes anything, right? But you know, being 10 years apart is maybe a different experience. And also, like you said, your prefrontal cortex might not have been fully developed, but it's more developed than you you are at 10 years old. And so I don't know. I I think it was just something that I was kind of putting together, but I took us off track and went more background on context and stuff. But yeah, I can't imagine feeling isolated from all the people that were in kind of the direct radius had contact or connection to grieve, and you were kind of isolated away from that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I I I my mom and and my dad, I mean, you know, they they divorced forever ago.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, I don't I don't remember uh a life really with the two of them together.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I sort of started to gain consciousness when my brother and my sister were in my life.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, which makes sense that they are your brother and sister, that there is, you know, no difference. They were there as long as I can remember.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, yes, exactly. And so my mom, she never diminished the the bond that I had with my siblings. She, you know, even though they weren't her kids, yeah, and even though they weren't like big air quotes, like technically my my dad's kiss, they the love that I had and have for them is immense. I mean, my brother and I were really close. He he kind of started to withdraw and you know do his own thing, and he moved back in with his father, who I mean, I'm I'm anonymous, so I can I can kind of talk about it.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

He was he was not good to them. He was not good to my brother and sister. And so trying to navigate this alone as a 17-year-old, I I really kind of disappeared into dissociation and understandably so uh yeah, like i it uh escapism, yeah. Trying to make sense of your best friend is gone. I I think it's interesting or at least somewhat comforting to think he's not gone, he's just somewhere else now.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I will never be able to access that, at least not in this lifetime.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But how special it was that we had uh through these circumstances, our we got to meet.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And we've got each other.

SPEAKER_03:

It's a tragic story, but I love that aspect of it, right? It's just that beauty of the appreciation of would have loved to have more time, but I love the time that I got, you know, and I appreciate the time that I got. And like you said, even just to some extent of just that's just life, right? Of just the random occurrences that happen to connect us with just the fact of us being born is wildly mathematically improbable. And sort of like to end up as we are with the people around us and stuff. I think it's beautiful to hear that. And to some extent, you're probably thinking, like, well, obviously, I love my brother and we had this connection and I appreciated it and stuff, but it is beautiful to hear that stuff, and I think that's part of the podcast too, is getting to hear people talk about love and connection and not about hate and divisiveness and and all that stuff that that we hear way too often. So thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for for giving me a platform. I absolutely agree with you that that love and death are twins, you know. They they go they go hand in hand.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Grief is is love with no place to go, right? And it's it's a testament, you know, the the pain that I feel to me is a testament of how deeply I I loved him and how deeply he affected the lives of everyone around him. I mean, he was he was a great intelligent, hilarious, tender-hearted guy. And and anyone who met him had something positive to say because he was always trying to to uplift people.

SPEAKER_03:

One of the good ones.

SPEAKER_02:

And yeah, he was. And so maybe this life didn't work out for him. I know it did not always serve him the way that he deserved.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Maybe we'll cross paths in the next one. Maybe we'll know. You know?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Is there any fear and anxiety around death? Or did that change his experience?

SPEAKER_02:

My fear, one of my biggest fears, truly, is seeing what it did, what his death did to the people around me.

SPEAKER_03:

Like the ripple effect.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. I mean how it has completely changed chemically the people around me, my family, and knowing that I were to pass prematurely, uh, that the effect that it would have on the people in my life, the people that I I know that I've touched and have, you know, have have touched me back.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

The thought of putting those people in such an immense amount of pain is frightening.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Understand. I think that's maybe one of the most natural fears, right? Yeah. For there to be, I mean, I don't know. I think there's people that I talk to that that that, oh, I'm not afraid of death at all. Um, which I'm always like almost like a cartoon, like, what? What are you talking about? You're not afraid at all. But I think that's the human condition, right? It's just to have these people in our lives that we love and to be fearful of what it'll be like for them when we're gone.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. It's not always the people you'd expect. We had a a website where people could leave comments for for my brother. Oh, that's awesome. For the for the family to I mean, most of them were were anonymous, but some were I went to I went to school with your son, and we were we were gym buddies in in PE class or in weightlifting or whatever.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And he was always so helpful, you know. He I mean, just random people that I I never even would have known that he had a connection with. Maybe people he didn't realize that he had a connection with or had affected in some way. But I know that the whole school grieved when when he left.

SPEAKER_03:

It's interesting to think about that too, of just that is true of all of us, right? This really complicated web of people that we've interacted with. And there's a lot of people that we don't I don't want to say that we don't even think about, but the people that we maybe it's the people that we don't think think about us at all. Like, oh yeah, that person doesn't, you know, know who I am or care about me or anything, but you know, I think they're a nice per whatever. And there's so much of that in our lives of these people that actually do care about us. And whether you have a best friend that you talk to every day, or just these like very ancillary people that you think about, you know, every now and then and and wonder.

SPEAKER_02:

But we all have that kind of web of the guy who like gives you gives you his coffee or totally like barisa. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. They'll notice if you're not if you're not there to pick up your morning milkshake. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's wild to think about just the the connections that we have, the the depth of it that we don't really even consider.

SPEAKER_02:

Totally. Humans are are an ecosystem.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Now we're back to plants again, aren't we? Oh, I don't know. I can't help it. You just love plants. I I don't blame you.

SPEAKER_06:

I do.

SPEAKER_03:

I do well. I have one last question for you. What's one thing you still want to experience in this lifetime?

SPEAKER_02:

Maybe this is a cop-out answer.

SPEAKER_03:

Nothing's a cop-out answer.

SPEAKER_02:

Um I think I don't know what I want to experience until I'm experiencing it. And and that and that realization of this is something novel. This is something I haven't experienced before. And uh hopefully positive, hopefully not negative, but just getting to to further develop my understanding of the human experience. I I won't I won't know what it is until it happens. And that's kind of scary. Yeah. It's kind of exciting.

SPEAKER_03:

I was gonna say it's very much the human experience, but yeah, it just sounds like you're saying, I just want to experience more life. And I think there's something beautiful in the way that you said it too, because it's almost just and I might be projecting, but it almost felt like just this very present awareness of it's not something that I'm reaching for or thinking about, but it's just this kind of presence, and I'll know it when I'm there. And that's enough of just it doesn't need to be more than that. And I think that I think there's something beautiful in that simplicity.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you. I try, you know, when when life throws you huge curveballs, you kind of have to learn to expect the unexpected.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And sometimes those little unexpected moments may seem inescapable, and then you kind of, you know, you claw your way out and you go, man, that sucked, but I learned something.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_02:

Totally. And I like learning things. So I I'm excited to be older than 26 and learn what that life is like.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I think that's beautiful. I just want to thank you. I think death as it is is a really hard topic for people to talk about. And I'm I'm doing my best to hopefully make it more approachable. I mean, like we just said, you know, we've talked about a very, very heavy topic, but we've also laughed, I think, throughout the whole time. Um, and that's not playing light on the situation. It's just that you can you can talk about hard things, but then you can also enjoy the company of another person and just, you know, having a deep conversation. And so death on its own is a hard thing to talk about. And then suicide is even more difficult. I guess maybe what I'm trying to say is like societally. It's, you know, okay, I don't really want to talk about death, but I really don't want to talk about suicide. And it is tragic that we don't talk about it more because it is a very, very important topic. And it's I don't know statistics, but it is a problem, especially in young men. And so it's it's something that needs to be talked about more. And so yeah, I I just want to thank you so deeply for being willing to share your story and talk about your brother because it's hard, but it's important. And so thank you so much for doing that.

unknown:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank thank you. Thank you genuinely. I absolutely agree with you that there's a huge stigma around it.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And it's oh, there are things we just don't talk about.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But I try not to think about the what ifs. I try to think about what we can do to help someone in the in the future.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And if that means having a conversation about and feeling open and receptive to hearing, you know, if someone is is potentially suicidal, being able to have the language to talk about that and what that means and not, you know, have the people in their lives running around like chickens with their heads cut off, you know.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Being able to have the tools and say, let's work on this.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Because your life has has value, so much value. Even even if you can't see that in that moment. I mean, it's like we were talking about earlier with the whole community, people that I I didn't know that knew him and loved him and cared for him. Every single human being has that. It's impossible unless you've literally lived under a rock, like, you know, isolated in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. That you haven't touched somebody's life.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I think that was a wonderful and perfect way to wrap up the call. And so again, thank you. I'm so glad that we did this. I'm so glad that you found the project and were willing to talk. And yeah, we'll definitely have to stay in touch. And thank you again. Thanks. You too. All right. Have a good rest of your day. You too. Bye-bye. I just want to say thank you to the caller for this conversation. Not just for being willing to talk about something that's often avoided, but for the care and thoughtfulness they brought into it. This call is a good example of what it looks like to sit with something difficult without trying to force it into meaning or resolution, and how we're all capable of holding this kind of space for others. After we talked, I tracked down the short story the caller mentioned. It's called The Egg by Andy Weir, and I ended up reading it pretty soon after. The caller and I ended up exchanging a few messages about it too. What was interesting is that a lot of what we talked about together during the call isn't exactly in the story itself. The story had shifted in ways over the years in our caller's mind as things do. It expanded and took on a shape that, in my mind, was much more personal to the caller. And that didn't feel wrong. It felt revealing. It made me think about how memory works, how we don't just remember things, but reshape them based on our own experiences, our losses, and the questions we're living with, especially when we're trying to make sense of something as big as death. I do recommend reading this story, and I'll make sure to link it in the show notes. It's quite short. But I also really love the version of it that lived inside this conversation. The way it became something more than just the text itself and helped open up a different way of thinking about what happened over there. Thanks for listening to this episode of When We Dietalks. These conversations don't offer answers, but they do open space. Space to reflect, to feel left alone, and maybe to see things a little bit differently than before. If you'd like to explore your own beliefs out loud, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at WhenWedietalks.com. And if the full call feels like too much, the voicemail is always open. Leave a message at 971-328-0864 and share whatever death has stirred in your life. Listener support truly helps keep this project going. If you'd like to support the podcast, you'll find a link in the show notes. And as always, please like, share, and follow. Every bit makes a difference. Until next time, have a good life.

SPEAKER_01:

Obviously, I didn't know them personally. They're a part of Hollywood, but I don't know, it's just something I can't shake, and I feel terrible for the daughter. And it's just something I keep replaying in my mind and a sense of tragedy, and I can't help but wonder why these things happen. And I don't know, I just can't stop thinking about it. And I guess I was wondering, like, you know, people that we don't know personally, but if anyone else feels this way, it's just a sense of tragedy and it makes you think I just can't stop thinking about it. You know, I had kind of an image of Carl Reiner in heaven and he's you know, hanging out doing his thing, and then all of a sudden he turns around and he sees Rob walk through the gate, and all I could think of that he would say is you're not supposed to be here. I don't know.