#46 - My Partner Has a Terminal Illness (Caregiving in College)

What happens when you’re 19 and you’re loving someone with a terminal illness?

This week’s anonymous caller is an anthropology student who’s been studying death, grief, and ritual. But that interest isn’t abstract. Their partner has a terminal illness, and it’s been sitting in the background of their life and relationship for a long time now.

A big part of this conversation is what it does to time. The way the future starts tapping you on the shoulder in normal moments. The way regret shows up early. The way even small arguments can feel “expensive” when you can’t stop doing the math in your head.

And somehow, even with all of that, this call stays surprisingly grounded. There’s love here. There’s fear. There’s humor. And there’s a level of care and perspective that’s hard to wrap your head around at that age.

In this episode:

• Loving someone with a terminal illness at 19
• Studying death academically while living close to it personally
• Anticipatory grief, and living with the awareness of what’s coming
• How conflict changes when time feels short
• Regret, presence, and the pressure to “do it right”
• The comfort of personifications of Death in literature

A few moments from the call:

• “The life expectancy was 18… and then they turned 18, didn’t keel over.”
• “We just spent the last 30 minutes arguing… that’s now 30 minutes closer to the end.”
• “It’s like a metronome… you’re just swinging.”

Book Recommendations: Hogfather and Reaper Man (Terry Pratchett)

More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list

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

Transcript

Opening Monologue And Premise

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Honestly, it's one of those topics that is really important to me that I think isn't talked about enough. I'm an anthropology student right now. I did a really interesting class last semester about how we process grief as a society and all that kind of stuff. But it's always been a very large part of my life just from a like interest perspective.

SPEAKER_03 0:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

But then it's also my partner has a terminal illness. And so it's something that's kind of on my mind a lot. It's not something a lot of people I feel tend to ignore it and just kind of put it off as long as they can. But me and my partner, you know, had that luxury. We kind of, it's always in the back of our mind. And so it just makes you think about it a lot more.

Show Intro And Sponsor Message

Framing The Caregiver’s Perspective

Caller Introduction And Book Talk

SPEAKER_01 0:43

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 brought to you by Woven WordPress. One day, your name will be written on a family tree. Just a line between two dates. But who were you between those years? What did you love, learn, overcome, become? The Fabric of Me is a guided journal to help you capture the stories, memories, and meaning behind your life. So you're more than just a name to those who come after you. This thoughtful, crafted book is an heirloom piece intended to outlive us all. Leave something real. Begin your story at wovenword.net. Hey, welcome back or welcome here if this is your first time. When we hear about someone who has a terminal illness, most of the attention naturally goes to the person who's sick, what they're going through, what they need, how they're handling it. And that makes sense. And of course that matters. But there's another experience sitting right next to that one that doesn't get talked about as much. The partner, the caregiver, the person trying to love someone while also watching time move differently than it used to. That's who you're hearing from today. And I'll just say this up front. I came in with some preconceived notions and I was surprised at how young the collar is. It changed the way I heard everything that came after. Not because it makes the situation more tragic or anything like that, but because it's hard to imagine caring this much this early in life and still showing up with as much care as this collar does. You can hear two instincts pulling against each other. The pull to be here right now and the pull to race ahead and ask, what am I going to regret when they're gone? What should I be doing differently right now? And when you live with that question close enough, even the normal stuff in a relationship can start to feel loaded. Even conflict, even a random bad day. All right, let's get into the call. I hope you enjoy. Hello. Hey, how's it going? Are you all right? How about yourself? I'm doing okay. You know, another day. Thank you for being willing to do this. Oh, of course. Awesome. Well, the first kind of thing that I'm always very curious about is a lot of people don't like to talk about death. It's a a weird and hard topic for a lot of people. I obviously know a little bit about you because of your application, but I always think it's an interesting place to start of just briefly why you're even interested in having a conversation about death with a complete stranger.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Honestly, it's one of those topics that is really important to me.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

That I think isn't talked about enough. I'm an anthropology student right now. I'm actually doing all my emphasis in ban anthology, the study of death. I did a really interesting class last semester about how we process grief as a society and all that kind of stuff. Very interesting. But it's always been a very large part of my life just from a like interest perspective.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

But then it's also my partner has a terminal illness. And so it's something that's kind of on my mind a lot. It's not something because a lot of people I feel tend to ignore it and just kind of put it off as long as they can.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

But me and my partner, we don't have that luxury. We kind of it's always in the back of our mind.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

And so it just makes you think about it a lot more. And I think that's something that more people should do.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Absolutely. Yeah, I'm obviously very interested in diving more into that story and all that. I mean, I'll t I'll say something. I usually don't, I usually then jump into kind of a little bit of getting to know you. But I think one of the things that really intrigued me about speaking with you, we hear so we don't talk about death as you kind of stated, and you know, we have our issues with that. But when we hear about people going through like a terminal illness, we often hear about the perspective and the experience from that person. My experience is a little bit different than yours. It was not terminal, but I had a partner who had cancer. Everything turned out fine. But it's an interesting story to be told from the perspective of the caregiver. And so yeah, I'm really interested in hearing about your experience on that side of things because I think that is often forgotten that you are also going through something very big and very impactful. So yeah, I'm very interested to dive into that and hear your perspective. But before we do that, maybe we can just kind of get to know you a little bit, where you're calling from, you know, roughly like city-state. And then the second question is what's your favorite book and why? And I think you actually answered both those questions in the application.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Absolutely. As far as where I'm calling from, I'm calling from Los Angeles, down, California. Great city. Love it so much. We have a great museum of death down here. Oh, do you? I had not had no idea. We do. It's actually it's absolutely amazing. It is not for the weakest stomach.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Okay. I had no idea. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Absolutely. The I the only thing I could not do was a taxidermy room. I can't do taxidermy. The rest of it, absolutely fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Interesting. I've talked to multiple people from LA in this project, in this process, and nobody's mentioned it. And I think it's probably one of those things that a lot of people don't even know exists. Or maybe they do and just don't talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

I definitely think it's one of those things which is shocking to me because there's a giant skull mosaic on the outside, big old science says Museum of Deathman, just no one that I know has ever heard of it.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Next time I'm down there, I'm definitely going to check it out. Thank you. Sorry, I took us off on a tangent because that that's very fascinating. Your favorite book in Wall Street.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Oh, the tangents are the best part.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Of course. I feel like there's gonna be a lot of them throughout.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Oh, absolutely. As far as my favorite book, it is split between two that are in the same series by the same author.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

So the series is Discworld by Terry Pratchett. Yep. It's a 42-book series. It's 42 books.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

I had no idea it was that.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

It's 42 books, all in all.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

But they're all like they're all decently standalone.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

So you can read them in whatever order.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

But there's also different like sub-series within it that focus on different main characters. So you have a series that follows the the city of Wands, you have a series for the wizards, one for the witches. So my favorite, as one might guess from the topic of our conversation, is the death series, which focuses on death on the Grim Reaper. But my two favorites in the Death series are Hogfather, which is a Christmas adaptation.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Where Santa Claus is assassinated and death has to take over the role.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

But it it focuses on why we tell certain stories, why we create Santa Clauses and tooth fairies and grim reapers and that kind of thing. Because we need those stories in order to believe the bigger stories.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

And it's very tongue-in-cheek, but also very poignant. And that's the best kind of writing for me.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Awesome. That sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

And then there's the other book, which is actually the one that follows more, if you were to read them in order, called Reaper Man, where the auditors of reality, who kind of maintain the order of the universe, they look at death and they they figure, oh, he's he's getting too much of a personality. He's caring about people too much. And so they force him into retirement. He's not deaf anymore. Oh no. He's mortal. And death gets to experience what it's like to just be a person. He just little town, say someone from a fire becomes like a local character.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Just experiences what it's like. But then because there's no death anymore, nothing can die. So all the different living things start making new deaths from their collective consciousnesses. So now you have a death of turtles, there's a death of rats, who is a recurring character in their books. There's interesting death of Mayflies, and then you have the new death of humans, where the original death was just classic skeleton, cloak scythe, calm demeanor, pretty chill guy. The new death has a crown, has a skeleton horse, and the worst part, a sense of dramatics. Because he comes for the old death when it's his time, but he has to wait until midnight because that's the most dramatic time.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Which gives the old death time to prepare. But then uh at the end, to spoil it a little bit, old death goes up to the death of universe, the ultimate authority, makes his case that there has to be a death that cares. We have to care about the souls that we take because what can the harvest hope for but the care of the Reaper Man? Oh, it's there has to be someone to hold your hands along the way. And honestly, I really dig personifications of death in literature and and mythology and all that kind of stuff. This is the most well-written death I've ever seen. Interesting. And honestly, it's the one that I hope I meet at the end.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

It sounds like we could probably go on and on about books. And I think we're gonna go off on a lot of tangents anyway, and the books are gonna come back into it as we talk more, but maybe we can get into the kind of thick of things at least and start with what do you think happens when we die?

SPEAKER_00 9:59

It's one of those things that I am comfortable saying I don't know because it's one of those things that I think there's a lot of people that claim to know. There's a lot of people that claim to be able to communicate or or what have you. But I think it's one of it's the only thing that we can't know.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Because we can't send someone over and then bring them back to to give a mission report.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

But it is one of those things that I'm also comfortable not knowing. Like there's a lot of things where I'm like, okay, what's at at the the bottom of the ocean? We don't have a great answer, but I I want to know the answer. Yeah. But as far as the ultimate end, it's one of those things that has definitely been influenced by by my partner.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

If you know what happens, you're going to spend all of your time before it happens thinking about it. So I think not knowing is a great way to just not worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

That's really, really interesting because at face value, you would say it's very similar to what a lot of people do, is just don't think about it, right? You've taken a different approach at it where it's like the acceptance of it. The acceptance of I don't know, I'm not gonna know, and that's okay. And not from a fearful place, but from an understanding that if I do think about this all the time, it's gonna impact the time that I have left with my partner. Definitely. Interesting. That's yeah, that's not something I'd ever considered. So I guess maybe what do you hope happens then? If there is a hope. Or is it, you know, like you said, you have that acceptance, you know, it's like it doesn't really matter because I'm okay that it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Honestly, as far as what I hope happens, is a little bit kind of what happens in Discworld of just you wake up next to your body, death is there, he says, All right, it's time. And he's like, Well, all right, and you just walk towards the horizon together. But part of being anthropology students is that I've kind of collected a bunch of different afterlife stories. I really like the Egyptian underworld. It's gonna say the whole process.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Can you explain it a little bit? Because I think we have we have this idea of the pyramids and you know, and this and that, kind of these little stories that we've heard, but this is not a perspective that anybody's brought up so far. So if you could explain that a little bit, I think that'd be amazing.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Of course. Honestly, uh Egypt is one of my favorite mythologies, so I love just thinking about it a lot.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Yeah.

Egyptian Afterlife And Judgment

SPEAKER_00 12:27

But as far as like Egyptian funerary practices, most people were not mummified. You could only be mummified if you could afford it. But the burial rites kind of surrounding mummification were very common, as far as people very frequently would be buried with things that they want to keep into the afterlife. There were different spells you would cast to bring those things over to give them protection on their journey, all those kinds of things. But the big thing, so the mummification process, different organs are stored in those four canopic jars, but then the heart is left in the body because the heart is important in the ceremony where Anubis, the god of mummification of the afterlife, will take your heart and weigh it against a feather. And if you are a good person, you haven't done a lot of things, a bad lot of bad things, you're you're a pretty chill person. The heart will be lighter than a feather, and you'll be able to go off into the afterlife. If your heart is heavier than a feather, you've done a lot of bad things, you or what have you, you are fed to the monstrous Ameth, who I can't quite recall her combinations, but if she's if I remember correctly, she's a combination of a lion, a hippo, and a crocodile.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Oh, yeah, that's it. If I remember correctly, that's quite the combo.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

But the whole thing of you were a bad person, you are devoured by this monstrous being because your heart is heavier than the feather. But then if you are a good person that's larger than a feather, you you go forth, you enjoy your masterlife.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

So it is a little bit, I mean, not exactly heaven and hell, but there is an element of like judgment, right? And the scales and weighing. That's very interesting. I I feel like I remember hearing about the scales at some point. I have like a very random question off of this. I do really want to talk about your experience with a partner with a terminal disease. Like, I think that is a very, very interesting story. But the the anthropology thing you threw at me, what would you be buried with? Assuming it was the same type of thing. Like, what's one thing that you would want to be buried with that you would take to the afterlife?

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Okay. I'm gonna go with there is a very fancy cup that I have that I got at a Renaissance fair.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

It's nice and fluted. The body is ebonized oak wood, so it's oak wood that's been created to be black, and the handle is purple heart, and it's just a really, really sexy cup.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Nice. And that's gonna be your afterlife cup. Everything, the beverages are gonna be flowing in the afterlife cup. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

It's such a random question, though. But yeah, maybe we can kind of bring the conversation back around now if you're willing to talk about it. Because I I don't want to sit here and say, tell me your partner story. That's not what this is about. Like this is about you and sharing what your experience has been like. So I am curious, what is it like being in that situation? How do you take care of yourself in the midst of it? Like I know that was something for me that was like, you're trying to take care of your partner, but then like it's the whole airline emergency mask thing. Like, you do need to put the mask on yourself first. And it's hard, and it's not necessarily selfish, but like it's hard to be selfish in a moment when you're when your partner's going through something. So I am curious what that's been like and how that's impacted, you know, your thoughts around death of this acceptance a little bit. But I am curious of you know what that's been like for you.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Honestly, it's been very easy, but also very hard.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Because I've had an interest in death for long before I even met my partner. And so I've had a big kind of internalization for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Yeah.

What Would You Be Buried With

SPEAKER_00 16:03

But then when we started dating with naming for a year and a half, and when their health started declining to the point where it is now, it's been a lot of well, I have all this famous pontificating on the matter. Yeah. And I've oh, I make a big deal about how I've internalized it all. That all goes away once you have to actually start dealing with it more seriously.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

There's been a couple of kind of scares of my partner's been like, I think now is getting to the time. And so we sit down, we have a nice dinner, we watch a movie that we like, and then it's just we lay down and hey, why don't I stop reading call my woman? And that's happened twice. And both times it's been just all the thinking about it's gonna be fine, they'll be okay. I don't know what happens, I'm okay with that. Yeah, all that just goes away because it's suddenly real.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Yeah, it's so present.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

And those times are when it gets hard.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Yeah.

Living With Terminal Illness Up Close

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Being a caretaker, honestly, for me isn't super, super hard. Because we go to school together, we dorm relatively close to each other. And so I can just I go over all the time, they come over to my place all the time. So the actual like taking care of all the illness parts of terminal illness hasn't been super, super hard.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

It's all the terminal parts that are a little more difficult.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

But it's honestly, I would say the the hardest thing has been communicating it to other people because very often it'll be, oh, hey, this is my partner. And being with someone who is terminally ill, who is disabled, who is all these different intersectional things has definitely opened my eyes to things like accessibility, yeah, about like social stigma around these kinds of things. Because there have been a lot of times where I'll introduce my partner to my friends from back home who I've known for years and years and years, and the first thing that I notice them do is look at my partner's cane. And it's those kinds of things that I think have really influenced me the most of just starting to notice those things. Or like on our our campus, my partner primarily uses their cane, but occasionally they're fixed up they have to use their butcher. It has also made me see, like, oh, these sidewalks aren't quite wide enough. This building doesn't have the automatic door for wheelchair access.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

And it's just starting to notice those things that you didn't notice before because they didn't they didn't affect you. And it just makes you think about other people more.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

There's a lot of things that are coming to mind, but I guess one of the things contextually, you both are fairly young.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yeah. Yeah, we're both um sophomores in college, we're both 19.

Visibility, Stigma, And Accessibility

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Wow. Okay. I mean, and that's not information, and not that like it's information that I expect to get. Like nobody ever tells me how old they are in the application. I don't ask for it, but I get three sentences from people. So I, you know, I I make some conclusions or whatever, but yeah, I was not expecting you to be so young. Dealing with death at that age is a completely different ball game for both of you. I mean, that's this is not supposed to happen, right? You know, quote unquote not supposed to happen. I don't want to make any presumptions or anything, but how does that play into it? Is there like this isn't fair or anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Well, there's been a there's been a lot of nights where either me or my partner or both of us are just sitting screaming at the wall that it isn't fair.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

It's definitely had the age play into it, especially because so my partner's disease has two, I guess, sort of variants.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

One that's more severe, one that's a little bit less severe.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

The less severe one, the life expectancy is normally 36.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

The more severe one is usually 18.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

And my partner has the more severe one, but as I always say in my very crass way, outlasted the respiration date. Because they their life expectancy was 18, and then they turned 18, didn't keel over.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

And so it's yeah, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

It's also definitely living with that.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

It's definitely living with that of okay, here was the expectation. We've exceeded the expectation, but we know we're not gonna get to the other one. Let's try to figure out between like blood work and whatever the doctors say, and just trying to parse how much time there is.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

But then it also gets to that that thing I mentioned earlier of when you know what's gonna happen, you start thinking about it. When you know that there isn't a certain end date, just that it's soon. Yeah, it makes you think about the day to day a lot more.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

There were after the the first scare where we thought it was time, I started absolutely freaking out for like a week of well, we haven't done this, we haven't done this, we haven't done this.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

Yeah.

Youth, Prognosis, And The Clock

SPEAKER_00 20:47

We need to it was almost like a like a checklist of a relationship. Because it's you expect that okay, I'm gonna be with this person for let's say best case scenario, we graduate, we get married, we grow old together.

SPEAKER_04 21:00

Yeah. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

That's 70 odd years that is being truncated into maybe at most three. And it's just all these these milestones and experiences and everything that you all at once realize that you aren't gonna have.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Because it's in the back of your mind the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

But again, you don't you don't think about it. And so you realize it and it's all just that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yeah. If I ask any questions that are like completely, I don't want to answer that, or dude, that's a stupid question, please let me know.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

But the thing that I'm I'm also very interested about is so when you first got together, like it was known, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:44

It was.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

I mean, that's I think that's amazing because I think there's a lot of people in a similar situation who be like, eh, no, this is uh this is not what I wanted my college experience to be like. Yeah, no, I'm out. But I think it's beautiful that like I don't exactly know the right words. Like, it's not like committed, or maybe it is committed, but like I think there's a lot of people that would have run away from the situation. And it's really amazing that you didn't.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Honestly, it was one of those things of we both have the right set of interests that collide together in a way that we're both a lot a lot chiller with this than we probably should be. Because it was when I when I went off to college after graduating high school, my best friend from high school was like, All right, dude, you want to make friends in college. Don't talk about death the first time you meet someone. Because that's weird. And I said, Oh, screw that. And so I did, and now I'm dating the person that I talked about it to. But then because we sort of had that initial comfort with it all, they felt comfortable telling me sooner than they might have told someone else.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Yeah.

Milestones Compressed And Regret

SPEAKER_00 22:54

And this is almost verbatim the conversation that happened. My partner says, Hey, I'm turning the ill. This is this is a deal. I wait about 10 seconds. I go, okay, so we have an expiration date. And just that blase attitude, I think, is what has carried us through that. Because we can make jokes about it, it's easier to just compartmentalize it, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

But maybe also to be more I I and you know, I'm an outsider or whatever, and I think this is a thing that comes up. And I've kind of been preaching it a lot lately. And, you know, again, I have your application, you know, I go into this call, and it's like, oh yeah, this is probably going to be one of the heavier conversations. And I would say, even in the heaviest conversations that I I've had, there's a lot of laughter. And so we can say compartmentalizing, but I would almost say compartmentalizing to me is not talking about it and not being authentic around it. And like it sounds like you both are being authentically you. And so I don't see that as compartmentalizing, but doesn't sound like it to me. It sounds like being very truthful and honest. And I think that's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

There's a passage in Dracula, the original by Bram Stoker. Great book, read it if you have a chance. But there's a passage where Van Helsing is talking to, I think, Seward, and he's talking just about the power of laughter, of just this whole everything is can be all doom and gloom all the time. Yeah, bad things can happen. But then King Lass comes in and he fixes everything.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Because nothing, nothing is that serious. You can always laugh about something.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

There's always a way to find find that silver lining, I believe. What does the next couple years look like to you with you two? And I know that is incredibly unknown.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Honestly, looking at Li-Bi Partners' recent blood work and just like what their primary doctor has been saying, the next couple years are looking probably more like the next couple of months.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

It would be an absolute miracle if they make it to graduation.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

But then you said you're a sophomore?

Humor, Honesty, And Coping

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Also yeah. Yeah. Just start just started spring semester with sophomore year. Yeah. But it's honestly it's one of those things of we both already walked in having a tendency to bottle things up, but then when the impending doom is on the horizon, yeah, it I think makes us more prone to that. Because it's every every time that we have an argument or we have a spat, it's all okay, we just spent the last 30 minutes arguing, and that's now 30 minutes that could have been spent doing anything else.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Yeah. Yeah, it definitely puts a perspective.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

And it's all we spent this time doing something that ultimately won't even matter.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Not even in the whole like, oh, cosmic, we all die nothing matters kind of way, but in in the we're both gonna go to bed and forget about this kind of doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

And it's it's one of those things that just makes you think about that specifically. And I think when you think about okay, I don't want to fight, you ball things up more, which then leads to more fights.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

And it's a whole cycle that is just one of those things that honestly is one of those, I think it's a little unavoidable and just kind of happens. But it's one of those things that is definitely gonna bite in retrospect. And I think that is the main thing that's been influencing me recently is how am I gonna look at all this in retrospect? Because when you're constantly thinking about the future, you're not living in the present.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

But when you can't not think about the future, it's very, very hard to be in the present. And I think that's what's been influencing me a lot.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

And so what do you think about? I know this is another weird question, but what do you think about looking back in retrospect? And like how does that change how you interact day to day?

Months Not Years: Planning The Near Future

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Honestly, it's a lot of thinking about well, if I take, oh, let's say we're we wanna go out to dinner today, yeah, but neither one of us quite has the budget for it. But if a couple years in the future I'm looking back and looking at old photos, I'm like, we could have gone out that day.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

We we could have we could have made it work, we could have done something, and then we didn't. And now that's lost forever because it's just kind of one of those, one of those things where it's kind of like there's an episode, this is gonna be so loud left field. There's an episode of the amazing world of gumball that I think about.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Never even heard of this show. I've never heard of it.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Absolutely amazing cartoon. But the like main family starts renting out their spare room as like an Airbnb.

SPEAKER_02 27:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

And a pair of a couple of fainting ghosts come in and they think they spook them and think they killed them.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

But so they stage all the like vacation photos and everything that when they wake up, they think that they had a great vacation. And I'm like, I'm literally living that right now.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Yeah, yeah, it's hard.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

And it's one of those things of in the future, I'm gonna be looking back on photos and it's just that constant mindset of well, we could have gone out that day.

Arguments, Time Cost, And Bottling Feelings

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Yeah. And we didn't the really interesting thing that you can't go ahead and cat back. Yeah. The thing that's interesting is what I'm hearing is like essentially what your experiences and going back to what you said earlier of you know, 70 years down into three, is you're just living the human condition on a much more extreme scale, right? Like everything's compressed because that same thing is true for a lot of people, right? Of well, you know, I I could have done that thing or could have gone out to that dinner. But because the timeline of things is sped up so much that there's just it's all still ever present for you. Because a little bit, and I think that's why I asked that question about like what do you mean, you know, in retrospect? It was kind of me trying to understand what you're saying. And I now I totally get what you're saying. There are a million opportunities now that you could beat yourself up about in the future that I didn't do more, I didn't do this. And I think that is the human condition to some extent. Do you find moments where you can live in that space and really enjoy the time together that you two have? Or is there so much pressure of the future?

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Honestly, it's all this is both a blessing and a curse. All of the happy moments are when I forget about it, about everything.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Like if we're watching a movie that we like, or one of us is showing the other an episode of a show, like I've been periodically showing my partner random episodes of house.

unknown 29:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

I love house so much.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

House is a great show.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Or if we're out to we have a sushi spot in Pasadena that we go to all the time.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

All of those times are okay, we're sitting down, we're ordering the same thing we get every time.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

The staff starts recognizing us and starts knowing what we're getting.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

And it's those kinds of things. This is a microcosm. This is a third place. This is we're sitting here just doing a thing that we always do because it's a thing we always do. And in the moment, it's absolutely fantastic. They get a different thing every time. I get eel every time because I love eel. But it's just that microcosm of sitting down, or we go to a museum, or we we're just in class together and we're fucking around.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Pardon my French.

unknown 30:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

And say whatever you want here.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Oh, hell yeah. But just those times of we're just here.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

We're only thinking about this.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

But then the converse is all the bad times whenever we fight, or just it's a slow day or anything. It's just you have time to let your mind wander, and so it does.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Yeah.

Choosing Memories Over Money

SPEAKER_00 30:59

And then it's also even their times like when we both go home like for winter break. I live 40 miles east of campus, they live 40 miles north of campus, so we're we're a decent ways away from each other.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

And it's those times of I could call them up because the past thing is like between us. So we could we could go, we have dinner and everything.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

But then those times of I'm thinking about it by myself, which then makes me think about the fact that eventually I will be going to that sushi spot by myself. And just those kinds of things of they say every cloud has a silver lining, but I think every silver lining has a gray lining. All those moments of complete uninhibited joy are eventually going to be half as joyful in the future. Those things of everything is great and fine and dandy, except when it isn't, except when it is. And it's just kind of a it's like a metronome. You're just swinging into the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Yeah, just a a back and forth. And that's so human. That's so realistic, right? Like, and it just sucks. And I'm sorry that you have to go through that. It's really unfortunate.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

That that is one thing that I hear a lot.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Is whenever I I talk about my partner's illness.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Like when I first started dating and I called my sister and I was like, hey, guess what? I was a girlfriend. Um and I just started talking about it. My sister was like, Well, why are you dating someone that you know is gonna take it before long? And that entire thing is like, yes, it's a matter of going back and forth between the happy and the sad and the happy and the sad, and just back and forth the entire time.

SPEAKER_02 32:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

But then eventually, when my partner eventually does die, it'll still go between the happy and the sad.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Totally.

Finding Joy In Rituals And Third Places

SPEAKER_00 32:51

But then time will do what time does, and it's still gonna be sad. Grief never fully ends, but the happiness will also never fully end. Because it's like like our sushi spot in Pasadena, we went there because my partner recommended it. That is the place where I first tried sushi because my partner encouraged me to. And look at you eating eel now. Exactly. And that's the thing that whenever I can my final meal could be an eel roll, and my partner will be there in the eel. And it's that kind of thing, there's actually I did technically lie. I am not an anthropology student, anthropology is my minor. My major, I'm a theater major.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

Okay. Good storyteller.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

And a storyteller, yeah. When my partner and I have been dating for around six months-ish, I started writing a play that is kind of a metaphor for our relationship that tells it through vampires. Nice because monsters are just my favorite thing. But it's there's a line that I wrote in a musical motif that carries through the whole thing of when the vampirism is revealed and the non-vampire is like, well, I still want to do this. It's a whole her line is I would rather die having been loved by you than live forever having not been. And there's a whole thing of that before curtain rises and then during intermission, the song that plays is Always Forever by Colts.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

And just those things of yes, everything is going to end at some point.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

But I will have been better because it ended.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Yeah. And I want I want to clarify a little bit on my end. Like, I say I'm sorry, and it's not like I I wish you didn't have this experience, right? Like, I wish that you didn't have the pain, the suffering. But ultimately, what I mean by I'm sorry, and I think there's probably a better way of saying it, but just ultimately that, you know, you do have to have these ping-pongs, you know, or the I you use metronome, I use ping-pong. Like the metronome. Like, I'm sorry that you have to go through that. But yeah, it's obviously it's a part of the circumstance. And so to take that away would to be to take away the situation. And I, you know, I from my perspective, this sounds like true beautiful love. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't take that away from you. So um, I guess I wanted to clarify that. I hope I didn't offend or anything. But yeah, it seems like Oh no, don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

You're fine.

The Gray Lining Of Every Silver Lining

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Yeah, I just I just wanted to say that like you seem like a very good person. And it sucks to see good people. Your and your partner sounds like a great person. You know, it's uh it it's duck to see people going through through hard things, but that's also part of being a human. So yeah, I just I just wanted to say that. Maybe I can ask you one last question before we wrap up, which I think this will be kind of interesting for you. You have so much life ahead of you, most likely. What's one thing you want to experience in this lifetime?

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Honestly, I don't think there's any singular experience. I think it's more just a general theme of I just hope that the majority of my life is happy. Because it's like I also distinguish between sadness and bittersweetness.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Because I would classify bittersweet as happy. Because it's a sad situation that has a happy undertone. And I think like anything like with my partner and everything, I would file that under bittersweet. Whereas something like, oh, if I got fired from my job, that would just be a unilaterally sad thing. There's not really anything happy about that.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

Unless it was a shitty job.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

But yeah, totally totally. But honestly, I just I just hope I'm happy.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

I think you will be. I hope you will be.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Oh, so do I.

Love, Loss, And Lasting Happiness

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Thank you for being willing to do this again. It was a fascinating conversation. I love the the anthropology angle too. I'm like jealous of the classes that you've you've been able to take. And you'll have to like let me know if there's any other books or or stuff I need to check out because it seems like you've you've got a good read on uh the good books in this category. But yeah, I just want to say thank you and for being willing to share your story and and to some extent your partner's story. This is stuff that we need to talk about. This is stuff that people need to hear. And I think I've been saying this a lot because I've been doing this for over I've been doing the podcast for almost a year and a half now, the project for almost three years. And when I tell people, and it's probably very similar when you talk to your friends about death, it's oh yeah, you know, why do you want to talk about that? That's weird or whatever. And people were just like, Man, that's gotta be so depressing. That's gotta be so heavy. Once again, you know, we laughed, we had fun, like we were able to have this conversation, talk about something very serious. But this was incredibly enjoyable. And so, yeah, I just want to say thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Yeah, of course, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

We'll definitely stay in touch. I I'm gonna start working on the the disc world books and just the I think I'm just gonna work on, you know, I'll start with more. I don't know if I'm gonna tackle all, I think what'd you say, 42 or is it 47?

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Oh, 42.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

Yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna tackle all 42 books, but maybe I'll get hooked or something. But I'll definitely report back on that. You let me know if you come across any other books that I should read. But yeah, let's definitely stay in touch and I wish you the best. Um, I hope that as many moments that you have left together that you can be as present as possible and that there's not too much worry about the future in the past.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

One can hope.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Well, have a good rest of your day and uh take care.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

And you as well. Thanks. All right, thank you.

A Play About Vampires And Forever

SPEAKER_01 38:42

I appreciate how this call stayed grounded in the day in and day out of it. Not just the big emotions, but the small moments that start to feel strange when time is short. How a normal argument can suddenly feel expensive, how love and the awareness of what's coming can exist side by side, and how you can be doing your best and still feel like you're getting it wrong the second your mind jumps ahead. If you're living anywhere near illness, caregiving, or anticipatory grief, I hope this made you feel a little less alone in it. I've mentioned this side project I've been working on multiple times over the last couple months, but I haven't actually explained what it is. It's called mnemostony, and the name is a nod to the Greek goddess of memory. It's a guided conversation meant to preserve someone's voice. There's no script, no performance, nothing to get right. We move slowly and talk about what matters, the stories that shape them, what they've learned along the way, and the smaller details that give a fuller picture of who they are. And yeah, part of why I'm building this is the simple fact that we don't get forever. People leave, voices disappear, and having something real to return to can matter more than we realize until it's too late. The goal is to make a recording that the people they love can keep, not a highlight real, just their voice, held in a way that lasts. The website should be live by next week's episode, and I'll share it then, along with the listener discount code. 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 WhenWeDietox.com. And if a 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.