Anonymous #30 — What Happens to a Family That Grief Breaks?

This weeks caller lost their baby brother on Thanksgiving Day when they were five, and has spent their whole life with what they call "a little bird called death" on their shoulder. They're a death doula, a trauma-informed yoga instructor, a Reiki master, and an adventure motorcyclist, and they're still  terrified of death.

But somehow, that's exactly what makes this conversation so good.

The caller is funny, self-aware, and refreshingly honest about the contradiction of doing death work while being afraid of death. We talk about watching grief reshape their entire family after their brother died, what it actually feels like to hold space for mass shooting survivors, and a late-night fight that ended their relationship with their father for good. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, they work out, out loud, a theory about death that involves dimensions, dreamlike transitions, and shedding the skin to see what's really there.

In this conversation:

• What death anxiety actually feels like when you're wired for it, including the moments it just crushes you out of nowhere
• Losing their brother at five, and how that grief quietly shaped everything after
• Holding space for trauma survivors, and what they get out of it that they didn't expect
• Their working theory on what happens after we die: dimensions, metamorphosis, and coming into a new space without trauma

A few lines from the call:

• "I've been sitting with a little bird called death on my shoulder my entire life."
• "We're not actually dead until we're dead. We actually are alive all the way until we die."
• "Maybe when we die it's like having a dream. And when we wake from this dream of death, we come into being in a new space."

Book recommendation: Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul by Stephen Jenkinson

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.

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Transcript

A Childhood Loss Returns

SPEAKER_04 0:00

When I was little, my little brother passed away. Okay. He was born with heart defects. He lived to be a little over one, and then he died on Thanksgiving Day. And so I watched my entire family like change.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:17

Like I watched how grief changed their faces, their tone of voice, their mannerisms, the way they were able to parent for me and just this people in the world.

The Big Question About Dying

SPEAKER_00 0:30

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.

A Personal Audio Keepsake Offer

SPEAKER_00 1:03

This episode is supported by Nemostheny, a project I've been building alongside this podcast. Nemostheny is a simple way to tell your story in your own voice. It's a guided, audio-first conversation with me where we capture the parts of your life that matter to you. Where you came from, the people who shaped you, the seasons that changed you, and the moments you don't want to lose. It's not therapy and it's not a performance. It's just a real conversation that becomes a private audio keepsake you can share with the people you love or keep for yourself. If you want to learn more, you can find it at Nimostony.com. That's N-E-M-O-S-E-N E.com.

Schedule Changes And Resetting

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Hey, welcome back or welcome here if this is your first time. It's probably pretty obvious at this point that I've decided to switch release dates for the podcast. So from here on out, you can expect new episodes to drop on Tuesdays. It just works a little bit better for my week, so if you're used to finding new episodes on Wednesdays, just nud your expectations by one day. And we're also back after kind of a strange month for the podcast. I took last week off for myself, intentionally stepping away. Was barely on social media, didn't really check anything, and it was exactly what I needed. There's a lot up in the air in my life right now, and sometimes you just need a few days not to think about any of it. I spent some time with my dad, watched some March Madness, ate some good food, it was all good. But enough with the updates. Let's talk about this week's caller. They lost their little brother when they were five years old. He was born with a heart defect, lived over a year, and died on Thanksgiving Day. And they watched their whole family change because of it. The grief, the instability, the way it shifted everything that came after, including a complicated relationship with their father that never quite recovered. What's interesting is that instead of running from all that, they ran toward it. They trained as a death doula, they became a trauma-informed yoga instructor. They're currently working with survivors of a mass shooting. They're sitting in rooms full of heavy grief. And while they're doing that, they will still tell you that they're afraid of death. It's a rare thing for me to get on the phone with someone who shares the same fear and turn toward it anyway. All right, let's get into the call. I

Starting Honest About Not Fine

SPEAKER_00 3:11

hope you enjoy.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

Hey Zach.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Hey, how's it going?

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Can you hear me?

SPEAKER_00 3:17

I can. You sound great. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Perfect. Good. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Oh, I'm all right. It's been, I don't know, it's been a strange start to the year. So I'm doing okay, but I'm excited that we are on the phone and get the chat. I know we've been talking about this for a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 3:32

So Yeah, me too. Thank you so much for this opportunity. Yeah, I'm psyched. I can't wait. Awesome. I mean, it's so funny because it's like really interesting that the first thing you say is, How are you? And I'm like, I'm good. How are you? But like honestly, I'm not good.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Okay. Okay. I don't want to say good to that, but like, yeah, I think we need to I think we need to normalize being like, you know, because I did the same thing. I was like, I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

You know, I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

No, I'm actually like it's been kind of a weird start. And like, yeah, we need to normalize that.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Really weird start. Yeah. Let's do it. Yeah. Here we are.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Well, I'm sorry that you're you haven't been doing great, but hopefully we can have some fun and in in this conversation and stuff. And I don't know if we'll solve each other's overall. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

Overall, I'm doing okay. I think it's like the general state of the world. Yeah. And I live in the uh the frozen tundra of Maine. So it's just been it's been cold. We're in misery time up here.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Yeah, it's hibernation mode where we shouldn't where we shouldn't be doing anything.

SPEAKER_04 4:33

Yeah, yeah, working hard on that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Well, yeah. I wish that we could solve the world's problems in this call. I don't think we're going to, but you never know where it's gonna go. But I'm excited to chat with you. And

Why Talk About Death At All

SPEAKER_00 4:45

so maybe just to kind of like kick things off a little bit, and just kind of briefly, because we'll dive into more of this and kind of the full part of the conversation. I'm just very curious why you would even want to to jump on the phone with me and and chat about this.

SPEAKER_04 4:57

Well, I think my entire life I've been sitting with like a little bird called death on my shoulder. I've been fascinated, intrigued by it, terrified of it, like anxiety ridden about it. Okay. To the point where I just started stepping forth into learning more about it. I think the same thing that I've heard you say on some of your podcasts, and the whole reason why you started this podcast, right? Like you were sort of having anxiety about death and what's going on. So I think the reason why talking to you about it and hearing that hearing that there's somebody out there in the world that's like, okay, I'm gripping the floor right now. I'm gonna die. Yeah, you know, totally um, and I think the only way that I can kind of walk through this anxiety and be able to live my life is if I start opening up the conversation or at least the education to understand what it's all about. On whatever level, I'm not a religious person. My thoughts and feelings, beliefs, they all come from like my own weird world, you know, in my own weird inner world. Which makes sense. Okay. So why do I want to talk to you? Because I am fascinated. I think we have a similar feeling that lives inside of our bodies about it. Yeah. And I would love and really, really honor normalizing talking about death and our death probic culture.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Yeah, super important.

SPEAKER_04 6:15

Absolutely. We can't embrace it. We can't do it right. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Yeah. I have some things that I would say off of that, and maybe I'll just maybe briefly, because I'm like, then we'll get into the full conversation and we won't talk about some other things before we get into it. But I think that aligns very much with, you know, my journey, as you mentioned, and just having that kind of feeling of I can't keep avoiding this because that's not working. So I might as well try to figure out what I can about this this fear, this anxiety. So I would say it's pretty uncommon that I get on the phone with someone who shares that same sentiment. A lot of people that I talk to are, let's just say, more comfortable with death. And so it isn't very often that I get to talk to someone else who who also is kind of you know gripping the floor, like, you know, just like the floor. Yeah. Like I it's it's interesting. So I'm excited to chat with you. We'll get into more of that in a second, but maybe we can get to know you, you know, obviously the anonymity and everything, but maybe get to know you just a little bit. You already kind of loosely answered, and I don't even know if you need to answer it any more than you already did, but usually I ask where are you calling from? And

Books That Teach End Of Life

SPEAKER_00 7:21

then what's your favorite book and why? So you kind of said Maine. If you want to say a city too, awesome. If you don't, that's totally fine too.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

I live in very rural Maine, middle Maine, mid-coast Maine.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 7:32

So we're in the the throes of what I like to call open vein seasons where I would rather open a vein than step outside. It's so cold.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

And yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:41

And when I was a younger, a younger woman, that was okay. You know, like I was up for the challenge. It's getting a little older and like, all right, this is this is cool.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

It's an experience.

SPEAKER_04 7:52

And uh let's see, okay. So I'm from Maine and a book. I don't know. I attach to things like very tactily, like so with my hands and the words that I read. So it's kind of a combination. If I'm talking about like my favorite book, there's two, and it's and I there's a third volume, but it's volume one and two of the dictionary of myth mythology, folklore, and symbols by Gertrude Jones. And I've only been able to find the first two volumes, and it's just very old and crispy book, and the pages have a smell, and it's also a reference manual, which feels really sexy to me. It's just something just so I don't know. There's something about a reference manual that just gets me.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:38

I have a second book because I kind of thought you were gonna talk to me about this, so I was like, I'm gonna be mindful and think of something here. Um, because there's so many, like as everybody has like 45,000, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_04 8:51

I just read this book called Die Why.

unknown 8:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Great book.

SPEAKER_04 8:58

Yes, and it was like a job getting through it. Like I felt like I was over Jenkinson's tone by like quarter of the way through, and I was like, oh my god. And I was like, How many pages is this? It's like, oh my god. Yeah. But now I find that I don't know that I absorbed it all. Like as I was reading it, it was like a marathon. I'm like, oh, I just keep reading and reading.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:21

But I look back on it all the time. It's like I'm always referencing his really cool quotes and his very like boots on the ground approach to viewing end of life. Totally cool.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

He has a very, I would say what feels like to me a very different approach than a lot of people do, and then writes in a very, I guess, poetic way. Cause it is beautiful, but yeah, it is. I read it, I don't know, probably about a year ago. And maybe this is, although I do not need to be adding more books or rereading books, but this might be a recommendation for me to go back and kind of just like and maybe it's just like flipping through to random pages and being like, okay, yeah, just like going back to like, I don't know. I think there's something cool about going back to a book that you've read before and just flipping to a random page and being reminded of, oh yeah, okay, I remember this because that is a wonderful, wonderful book.

SPEAKER_04 10:10

I turned out a lot of corners while I was reading it. So when I was New York Call was coming in, I was like, oh, I think that might be my book. Like, you know, as far as a book that's really fun to talk about and a different topic.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

And it's definitely one that everybody should read.

SPEAKER_04 10:24

I was looking back at the little turned corners and I was like, oh yeah, this book is gold.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:29

I'm glad I turned those corners.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Totally.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

Yeah, it's really good.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think there's so much more that I could say because that book is wonderful and and he is a very wonderful and unique human, but we're not here to talk about him. We're here to talk about you and to dive into kind of your thoughts and everything. So

What Happens After We Die

SPEAKER_00 10:47

I think we can jump into the main part of the conversation and kick things off with what do you think happens when we die?

SPEAKER_04 10:53

Well, first off, I think that the body always knows what to do when we die. I don't know why I think that. I'm trained as a death duo, but I haven't I've found that going and attending another person's end of life isn't something that I have done or have experienced.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:08

So what happens when we die? I'm gonna try to stay on topic and not go off into a five-year-old.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

That's that's what this is about, too. You know, it's it's all about the tangents and and the weird places we go. So I'll try to I'll try to hustle over the yeah, I'll try to kind of guide the ship a little bit, but you know, who knows? It's it's more fun that way.

SPEAKER_04 11:26

Let me see. I think but when we die and on a very like boots on the ground, kind of physical biology way, I think our bodies just know what to do. Yeah. We have so many different ways that our life can come away from us, and our bodies just I believe are really built to know what to do. I used to be I was so fearful about it being painful.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

Getting in an accident and it hurting. And then I was like, oh, but I have this thing called adrenaline, you know, and I have these other things in my body that will help, you know, to make me feel better and more at ease. And I was like, Oh, okay, you know, so I got to know like the different stages of death and just from reading, you know, and talking to other people. And then it's like, so then what happens? Like we die and we start to decompose, and all the things go happen in the physical world, but like, is there a soul? Like, does something happen to that after we die? Like to me, that seems like a really far reach, you know. Like, I'm sorry, I I'm also a writing master, which is crazy because literally I'm questioning this idea of spirit and soul, like all the time. It's just like what is up? It's so dualistic, you know? Totally. Okay, it's just crazy. So I have a couple ideas. Like, I I believe that our existence isn't necessarily a spiritual one. I feel like it's very, very biological, very scientific. Um I almost feel like it's a space-time thing, like when we die. Like we this may sound completely crazy, but I'm just gonna say I'm I'm anonymous, right? I think that we live in these very delicate dimensional kind of tendrils, and that we cross over into new ones, like we are as energetic beings, we cross into and out of other dimensional beings, other dimensional spaces, but to us it's kind of all the same place, so that if we die, I never really said this out loud. I can make sense of it when I see it in my brain, you know, it's all grabbed out in my head. But like, seriously, maybe when we die, it's like having a dream. And when we come into we are waking from this dream of death, we come into being in a new space. Maybe we look the same and maybe we don't, but maybe we come into this new space without trauma, right? So we come into this world very traumatically.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:54

And like may like just being born is so crazy, and birth and death are like the yin and the yang, you know. So maybe when we're dying, there's that sense of yeah, there's not trauma there. Yeah. There's a sense of relief or relief.

SPEAKER_02 14:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:08

You know, I'm still shittily scared of it. Like, but like I just think, yeah, I don't believe in the pearly gates. I don't believe in gods or deity. I have seen and experienced lots of very mystical, interesting things, ghosts or feelings, or very universal kind of synchronicities with numbers or patterns, but that's what we do. We all we always seek out what that pattern is, you know. So my brain is just super wired to find those patterns. And when I do, I see dimensions in them. I see our life now and our afterlife. It all sort of seems to sit on the same sort of dimensional universal plane, but I don't know. I don't even know how to explain it past that. Holy shit. That's hard. That's weird. That's strange.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

That's okay.

SPEAKER_04 14:57

And that's the same words inside of my body.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

I'm like, so hey girl.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

And you may and maybe this is you kind of alluded to it a little bit, but you said you're still scared. But has has this helped at all? You know, like there's there's so many questions that I have, you know, of your death do that training. And it it sounds like you're journeying kind of like I am, obviously in in different ways. How have these experiences and this kind of theory that you're working with, how does that work with your fear? You know, does that help balance it out? Does that create more fear, anxiety, or you know, yeah?

SPEAKER_04 15:33

I think

Death Anxiety And Early Grief

SPEAKER_04 15:34

in this body, in this world, in my life now, I'm wired for anxiety. Like my brain is wired for anxiety. That's sort of I'm not medicated. I'm not, you know, it's not like I'm freaking out all the time, or I feel my heart's jumping out of my chest 24-7. But definitely wired as a super sensitive person. So because I am so anxious, that rides over even into I get anxiety if say I'm going to the grocery store and I'm not driving, I say my husband's driving, and then he's like, Oh, I have to stop by like Napa and pick up a car part on the way. My body gets anxious. It's like as soon as I'm off court from where my brain was going, yeah, I get this like spike of anxiety. And I think it's based in fear, you know, and of change. And so I think that that fear is fear of change. The fear of death is fear of change. That makes sense to me, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

And losing control, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:32

Yes, yes. I mean, so when I was, I'll just if I can just sort of digress a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

You can you can go wherever you want now.

SPEAKER_04 16:40

So when I was little, my little brother passed away. Okay. He was born with heart defect, he had open heart surgery, he was very ill. He lived to be a little over one, and then he died on Thanksgiving Day. And so I watched my entire family, like I was a little girl, I was like five, but I watched my entire family like change.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:05

Like I watched how how grief changed their faces, changed their tone of voice, their mannerism, the way they were able to parent for me, the choices that they made moving forward as parents and just as people in the world. And I think that that instilled an immense amount of fear. Yeah, a lot of caution. I was too young to have like these feelings of of sadness when he passed away.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

You know, it wasn't Yeah, you have at that point you don't really have a you don't really have a baseline, really, at five. I mean, if you remember anything, it's you know, little things, right? But barely anything. So you don't really have a baseline before of this is normal and this is not normal, or and normal is probably not a great word for it, but you know, this is everything after that was basic like you didn't have a pre, really.

SPEAKER_04 17:59

Well, when I mean when I think about my brother, the first remembrance I have is seeing I was across the street at my grandmother's house and looking out her bedroom window across to our house, and the emergency people were carrying his little body out of the house blue, and I saw him, and then my cousin was with me, and she screamed bloody murder. And I think at that point I just sort of shut down. You know what I mean? It was like that, okay, well, I'm gonna go into freeze fawn mode now. And then I got this huge burst of energy, probably just because that's what happened. My body after it goes through something major.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:39

And I just started to play, just started to run and yell and play and just burn energy. Yeah. But I was really, I am really hyper aware of every single thing that happened from the time I saw him carried out of the house to the rest of that Thanksgiving day, which was you know, pretty depressing.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Yeah. Um yeah, not a great Thanksgiving for sure.

SPEAKER_04 18:59

For sure. So I think that a lot of my death anxiety comes from knowing what grief does to people. Yeah. I work right now, I'm uh also a yoga instructor, and I specialize in trauma and trauma and torn yoga. And I'm currently working with a population of survivors from the latest mass shooting.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 19:19

So I'm really able to sit in spaces of heavy grief with people, and I guess that's where my descular training came into play, right? When some people went off to volunteer at hospice, and I was like, I think it's grieving and taking care of the living where where I'm most useful, yeah, taking care of this living space so that I can move through it knowing that death isn't gonna get off of my shoulder. Yeah, so he it's always gonna be there.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:50

But if I'm moving in the space of accepting the grief that other people have and to just leave space and hold space with loving kindness for people to be able to change with their grief, yeah, that's huge. So that's sort of the work that I've been doing in this field of death and dying and grieving.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:11

And it's it's been a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

You're doing way more important work than me.

SPEAKER_04 20:15

Oh, I don't think so, Jack. I don't think so. I mean, no, it's all important. Please don't see it as like, yeah, so I'm up on some pilots. I'm not. I'm like, you know, I'm struggling just all the time looking in books, trying to learn, learn, learn. Oh my God. Speaking of learn, learn, learn, I listened to so many of your podcasts. Okay. And I love them. Thank you so much. I know. I listened. Oh, yeah, podcast. You're you're so kind.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

I'm just like, I'm just me trying to trying to figure my own thing out. And in general, I think everything that I'm doing is like almost just a message to myself and talking to these people and I'm putting it out there so that I can listen to it again if I want. And if other people get something out of it, awesome. So very kind of you to say, but this is not about me. This is about you.

Holding Space Through Trauma Yoga

SPEAKER_00 21:00

I think one of the interesting things that you kind of put forward into the conversation right out of the bat, and so I'm probably going to keep coming back to it a little bit, but you are holding space for people who are going through extreme grief, right? Like trauma, like trauma. Yeah, trauma. That's that's the better word for it. How do you hold that space? How do you my version to some extent is jumping on the phone call, and sometimes it is incredibly heavy. And I show up and I do my best or whatever. But I'm curious, how do you find courage to show up to hold space for people who are talking about this thing and intimately connected with death, which is something that you are afraid of?

SPEAKER_04 21:42

I think in the space that I show up in for my clients with trauma informed yoga, is that I have yoga as sort of the tendril, sort of the teaching point, the elephant in the room, so to speak. So I can teach just a very basic restorative Yoga class, but I can just instill kind words of allowing people to be in their own space.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:07

So I'm holding their space, I'm holding the space so they can be in the space and they can let go and release anything they want without judgment.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:17

With nothing. It's like the safest space I try to help nurture. I think that having the tool, which is kind of like the tool of movement with yoga, breath work, and meditation. I will sit in that space with clients and I'm also doing the work.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:35

So for me, I guess, wow, that's a cool realization. It's like I'm also getting something really beneficial out of it. Sometimes people share what the experiences that they went through, and I thought it would create more panic inside of me or fear inside of me about what could happen. But instead, it feels so incredibly human to share space with a vulnerable person who is experiencing real feelings in the world. It becomes so much bigger than me like feeling pissy or sad about like, oh no, I'm gonna die someday. It's gonna lie. You just watch somebody like get blown to pieces in front of you. Like, are you okay? Like it really starts to pull things into perspective. Like we're not actually dead until we're dead. We actually are alive all the way until we die, you know, and who knows for sure what happens afterwards. I'd love to think that it's something very cool, sci-fi, like we just keep existing, you know, we keep existing. Or when I try to make sense of us coming back like into the planet, I'm like, we're already the planet, you know? We're already here on and in the planet. We are the planet, you know, we are connected to all living things. So to die, maybe we see new things that we didn't we can't see with our human eyes on Earth. Maybe if we have shed the skin almost like a metamorphosis, we get to see maybe the different layers and dimension or the different colors or sounds or shapes, or I don't know. I want it to be fantastical though.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Yeah, and and maybe maybe it will be. Fingers crossed. You said something really, really wonderful. And I would say it echoes some of what I've felt too. But it's when you hold space for others, which is what this has become, you know, and maybe not on every single call, but on a lot of calls, there's people that have grief and holding space, it's almost like there is this like symbiosis or this like cooperative thing that happens that the other person is also kind of holding space for my fear. And that kind of sounds like what you're saying is, you know, you're in this space, but you're also healing from it. And I think that's a really beautiful thing about what we can do as humans when we actually sit down and talk and like have meaningful conversations instead of bickering about and not saying that politics isn't important. And this is I we're not gonna devolve into politics because we know how that can devolve so fast. Um that's not a conversation that I think we need to have more of. We already have that conversation so much, but it's wonderful that we can come together and help heal each other in spaces like that because it's just humans showing up for humans.

SPEAKER_04 25:29

Yeah, I think that's just compassion. We feel that in our energy too, you know. Like you feel that when you walk into a room, you can tell if everyone's having a good time, or you can see who the pissed off person is poking in the corner, or you know, like we we all read each other all the time. So it's a really beautiful thing to share space with vulnerability, with authenticity, with humanity.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Yeah, those those little things that we're led to believe that don't exist anymore.

SPEAKER_04 25:58

We we're all just hiding under our rocks.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah. For sure. For sure.

Family Fallout And Losing Dad Alive

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Some some days it's easier that way. If you're up for it, I mean I'm curious about long-term grief with your brother and like how you've seen that shape your family. I feel like that's a a a jump in a completely different direction, but I think that's also a very interesting thing to talk about is what does that look like and what have you seen, you know, around your family?

SPEAKER_04 26:22

Because death and and grief go going hand in hand. Yeah. You know, like this is uh this is uh all in one thing, you know. Well, my family broke up. Like my father was do he did a lot of drugs. We lived in an RV, like we used to live like by the water, it was really beautiful. But after that family trauma, we moved into an RV. My dad was like a self-proclaimed rock star, him and all his rock star buddies. We went on tour, you know. So we had like it was the 70s RV army traveling up and down Route One to Florida. That's an experience along the way. Yeah. So I was like, I was just an only child at that point. I had a dog. I spent a lot of time by myself. My mom was really sad, and she was there. She homeschooled me, but she was a different person. She was like depressed, you know. She was just a different woman. Yeah. In in trauma and grief, and it wasn't like you could call a hotline, you know? It was kind of a different time.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

It was absolutely maybe it's because I've started creating this in this space, but like it really feels like grief and trauma are like almost brand new words in the past like five or ten years. It's like we didn't really, it was just kind of like, oh yeah, that's grief or that's trauma, but it wasn't actually something that was discussed. Like it feels very new in a lot of ways, and uh, which is very, very strange.

SPEAKER_04 27:44

To be able to apply it to like, oh, I'm having a problem doing this now. Oh, that's because you didn't release this grief or you're grieving over that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Yeah, so it was absolutely a different time in the 70s. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:00

But I guess like overall, I kind of watched the general mental health of my family unit break down. Yeah. And eventually my parents divorced. My dad moved south back to southern US where he was from, and my mom stayed her name. And I think it mirrored a lot of instability for me. I depended on myself so much growing up because it's hard to be little and witness family going through something that doesn't even have a name yet, you know, like grief or trauma.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_04 28:29

And then just sort of be be on the receiving end of it all. Nobody was like abusive or terrible or anything like that, but there was definitely some neglect there, you know? Yeah. There's definitely some this I wish this kid would just go in the other room and shut up, you know, kind of vibe. And there were also a lot of partying, a lot of drunk people, uh, a lot of drugs that would come and go out of my life when I was a little kid, so that it became pretty normalized. And as I became older, I noticed that things that were really taboo seemed really normal to me. Not to say that I was doing them, but they were normalized. They were so that the choices I was making weren't based and grounded decisions.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:10

You know. I'm 56 now, so it wasn't a lot of time, but anyway, I'm 56 now. And I've I've definitely come around to be able to recognize these things, and you know, that doesn't mirror in my life anymore that I that I can see. I'm very hyper-aware of like how this grief and trauma has affected me. And moving on even more forward, I think that it changed my father in a way that made him really non-present in my life in particular. Even if he was around, he wasn't around, you know, he was really checked out. And so, in the I think in my mind, I created a reality where because he lived far away, I was, you know, I was his daughter and I was really important, and you know, I had this whole idea of what our relationship was. But the reality of it was that he never really showed up. So about six years ago, he and his wife came to visit, and it was a really strange visit, and I couldn't quite pick up on the energy. It was really odd, a lot of weird conversations about end of life, actually. Like, if I were to die, would you take care of my spouse kind of stuff, you know? And it's like, wow, okay, like that's a big conversation. And then like, let's have them, you know. I'm all for it. Like, what I'm talking about what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Had you already done your death doula training by then, or no?

SPEAKER_04 30:26

I was currently doing death doula training.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Okay, cool. So you were like, All right, perfect. This lines up with what I'm learning about and everything. Let's let's chat.

SPEAKER_04 30:34

Totally into it. Yeah, it was like, do you have your paperwork? Let's talk about lateral intestinates, let's tell, let's do this, you know, you have a plot, do you have like just all those things? And then after, how do you want your teacher to look as a as a widow or a widower, you know? Like, how do you want that to be for you? And I don't know if that was intimidating to them because I'm all like, let's do this, let's talk about it, you know. Like, I'm not sitting in the corner crying. I'm like, we're alive, we're gonna deal with this and it's gonna help us in the end, you know. And a really petty fight got started by the stepmother, the father hopped in, there was a rift. They left in the middle of the night. And I wonder now, telling you the story, if it didn't have something to do with the fact that having to come around to manage their end of life means that there has to be some sort of recognition of my brother's end of life. Maybe to my father. I'm not sure. But telling you this now, it sort of brings it around to me a little bit. So I just want to acknowledge it. But yeah, they they left in the middle of the night. They didn't call me for three days, and then I got a text and it said, Don't ever contact me again.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 31:42

And that was that, and I was just like, What the fuck are you talking about? You know what I mean? Like, are you kidding me right now? And he was just like said, I was a disappointment to him. They left. I haven't spoken to either of them since.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

And so that's wild. I really feel like that's interesting that you would ask about what happened after. I wonder if that's the story you were looking for when you asked what happened after.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

I wasn't necessarily looking for anything because I mean I don't I don't know. But I mean, that's that's very that's wild. I mean, and it's life is so complicated, right? You know, I mean, I was definitely not expecting that story. I mean, I feel like there are so many twists and turns throughout that story. And so that's another interesting thing about kind of grief. That happens in life too, right? Where we like lose people before they're even gone.

SPEAKER_04 32:32

Yeah, that's a yeah, that's been a big one for me. I really have been struggling with a friend who does some energy work with me, and she it's like, what happens if he dies? What are you gonna do? You know, you're gonna feel guilty for the rest of your life. And I was like, why do you get to assign that to me? Like, what if I what if I don't? You know, like what if I don't feel bad? Like, what if I've said my goodbyes? What if this is what if it's okay?

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:02

Like, I don't know what to say, you know? Yeah. I'm I'm kind of at I've I struggled with it for a couple years. I've thought about it a lot.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Yeah, not surprising at all.

SPEAKER_04 33:13

Yeah, where I'm just like, no, I'm okay. Like I don't actually have to have full responsibility for the life and death of my father.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:21

That's not my job.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:23

My job is to live and be well and be honest, and you know, oh yeah, and I think that's not put up with people's shit.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

And I think that's such an interesting place because I think sometimes that can come off as being selfish. And I'm saying this from my like personal experience, it's the people pleaser mentality, right? Of oh, I should, you know, fix this because you know it'll be better for them. But there is a point where you have to step back and say, well, what's what's good for me? And to your point, I think you said it was your friend, but who knows what it's gonna be like when he dies? There's there's no way of knowing until that moment, right?

SPEAKER_04 34:00

You know, like we are all doing the best we can. I really feel that way.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

I do too.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

Like all of this is leading me to think about forgiveness.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:08

Right. So basically, it's like, do you do I forgive him? Sure, absolutely. Yeah. Like, why not? You know what I mean? But forgiveness is such a loaded word. Like, just because I forgive, I'm forgiving myself for not feeling poorly about our breakup, you know. But I where I was feeling really bad and I've worked really hard to come into a good center about it and uh done a lot of meditation about it, and I'm in an okay place with it. You know what I'm saying? So forgiveness, I'm I'm okay. Do I want to try to figure out how to have more of a relationship? Not really. Yeah, you know, like actually not at all. Like, do I want to answer the call at Christmas? Fuck no, I don't. You know, like I'm all set.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:50

You know what I'm saying? Like, it's fine. Because it's we're uh we're good.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

I think, and again, this is not a therapy session because I don't know, I don't know anything.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

But like, why not?

SPEAKER_00 34:59

You have a pattern, you know, going back to your patterns, it's like like it's not like this was a one-off occurrence in terms of he was amazing my entire life and and did all these amazing things. And then this one time he blew up, and then I'm not forgiving him, and this and that. Like, that's a different, that's a different scenario. That's very interesting. I had another thought, but I I lost it somewhere.

SPEAKER_04 35:22

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

If it was good, then I'll remember it. If it wasn't, then it wasn't great.

SPEAKER_04 35:26

Have

Existential Attacks And Sudden Dread

SPEAKER_04 35:27

you ever had have you ever had that feeling where all of a sudden you really just understand that you're gonna die all at once? Like in a very real way. Yeah. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:38

I I think you have, because I think it's part of my anxiety too. It's like I'll it I'll come to this point where all of a sudden it's like crushing out of the blue. I'm like, holy fucking shit, I'm dying. I'm gonna die, you know, and I panic. It's like, what the fuck have I got? What? Like, no, I think those matters. Like, what am I even doing?

SPEAKER_00 35:59

I think those were what those what I kind of called like existential attacks were. And I still have them. Yeah, I still have every now and then kind of maybe mini ones, but I was having some like pretty aggressive where it just like everything felt really, really heavy, and it was just like, shit, this is gonna happen. You probably did a better job of describing it, but I still feel like it's one of those things that I don't know if I can even put into words what it's felt like. That really is what kind of kicked off the journey.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

A lot of swearing. It just feels like a lot of swearing.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

I mean, it's for probably me just saying fuck over and over and over and over and over again for like 20 minutes, you know, under my breath, or if there even is kind of like a pattern breath at all. But yeah, I mean, that's so that's kind of how that journey went. But I do have one last question for you.

Bucket List Roads On A Motorcycle

SPEAKER_00 36:49

What's one thing you still want to experience in this lifetime?

SPEAKER_04 36:52

Just like an experience.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

However, you want to.

SPEAKER_04 36:56

I'm not gonna even try to come to mind is I I'm an adventure motorcyclist. I just sold two of my smaller bikes and bought a Bonneville 1200 yacht. And what I would like to do is I would like to take that motorcycle and I would like to travel across Canada and spend as much time in Canada on that motorcycle as I can because I'm so close. There's no reason not to.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:21

And I would also, on the lines of motorcycles, I would love to motorcycle from Lisbon, Portugal, south, and then up and around the Mediterranean over to Italy to the motherland. Yeah. Sounds like those are two things that are on my bucket list. I'm sure definitely on my bucket list.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

That sounds awesome. And definitely, I kind of say this to everybody, but like when you do that, please let me know because those those sound like amazing adventures.

SPEAKER_04 37:50

I will let you know. Every year I go off, my husband and I get on bikes and we go on a long journey.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

So nice.

SPEAKER_04 37:57

We're working, we're working on getting to Europe, but for now we just try to kick it up to Canada and whenever we can when the weather is nice.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

Yeah. Well, if you make it all the way across Canada and then come down into Portland, let me know.

SPEAKER_04 38:10

And are you in Portland?

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Yeah, Portland, Oregon. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:13

You're in Portland, Oregon.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Yep. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 38:15

Yeah, you might see me in Portland this year. You need to know.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

Yeah, let me know. It'd be great to to meet in person. Well, yeah, thank you so much for doing this. I'm so glad that we were able to do this. And you're one of the earlier applicants. And so I think all I had for you for the for the more recent application, I have people jot down a sentence or two about, you know, what do you want to talk about? Just to kind of have an idea of like what I'm coming into. But I still love doing these ones where I have no idea what we're gonna talk about. Because it's just a complete mystery. And so I mean, there are so many different elements and we went so many different ways. And so yeah, thank you for being willing to share and open up. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 39:00

I'm really grateful for it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 39:03

Thank you so much for the time.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Yeah. Well, I hope you have a good rest of your day.

SPEAKER_04 39:07

I poured my guts out anonymously. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Which is awesome. I think. I don't know. People keep on telling me they like it. I don't know. I always feel weird about it, but I'm glad that people continue to to want to do it and uh are willing to do it. And yeah, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 39:22

Thank you, Zach.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

All right, take care.

SPEAKER_03 39:24

You too. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Bye. This

Host Reflection And Why It Matters

SPEAKER_00 39:27

call is about someone who's carrying real grief. Grief that started when they were five years old and watched their family change in ways they couldn't fully understand yet. They will tell you that they're still afraid of death. They describe that fear as a fear of change, of the unknown, and yet did the death do the training anyway. They became the trauma-informed yoga instructor anyway. They're sitting in rooms right now with people who have experienced unimaginable loss and they're holding space for all of it. And they're holding that space for all of it while still carrying their own. I find that genuinely remarkable. One thing I really love that our color said, and I've been thinking about a lot we're not actually dead until we're dead. We're actually alive all the way until we die. And I think in the middle of a conversation about fear and loss and all the things we can't control, that landed differently than it might have otherwise. Before we wrap up, I do want to be honest with you for a second because that's kind of the whole point of this project. March is a strange month for me. Last year, around this time, I got into a real lull with the project, questioning whether to keep going, whether it was worth it, what it even was. And after I got through that period, I figured out the anonymous format. The first anonymous call happened April 18th last year. So there's something about this time of year that seems to shake things loose for better or for worse. This year, there's been a lot going on. Jackson, my 18-year-old dog, has been having a lot more ups and downs. I've been trying to get mnemostheny off the ground. And there's just a lot in my life that is uncertain right now. I don't have a lot of clarity. So I took the week off partly because I needed to stop trying to figure it out for a little while, and partly to avoid some burnout. But then I sat down to edit this call and I just got pulled right back in. It reminded me why I love doing this. I don't exactly know what this project is yet or what it's building towards. But when I'm in the middle of one of these conversations, or inside the editing of one, it feels like something that matters. And maybe that's enough for now.

Apply To Call And Support

SPEAKER_00 41:25

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 less 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 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.