11 | Death, Grief, and What Stays: Conversations at the Threshold

What if you were never supposed to get over it?
In this guest episode, Sheila and Hemali are joined by Francesca Arnoldy, creator of the End of Life Doula program at the University of Vermont, who has spent decades sitting with people at the threshold, as a birth doula, a hospice volunteer, an educator, and as someone who has been to the edge herself.

Francesca names something most people in deathcare will not say: that many of them believe they must arrive at zero fear and pure acceptance, as though they have graduated beyond feeling. She calls this out directly. We are meant to feel our way through these experiences. They are meant to be complex and layered and personal. They are meant to rock our foundations.

The three of them share what brought them to this threshold. Francesca's car hit black ice in Vermont in her early twenties; she watched a collision coming and then was simply not there for it, held instead in a darkness with no fear and no pain, and a calm unfamiliar voice telling her to see it through.

Sheila was carried across a threshold of water and sand in 2020 and told she had to go back. Hemali floated above her uncle's body at eight years old, watching a family rearrange itself around a void. And they talk about the grief that came after  Francesca's father, Sheila's twin sister, and the discovery that the connection does not end when the body does.

This is an episode for anyone who has ever lost someone and not known what to do with the part of themselves that still feels connected.

Trust your insight. Act with purpose. Stay in your Knowing.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:42

Today we are talking about death, grief, and what it stays. We're joined by Francesca Arnoldy, who created the End of Life Jula program at the University of Vermont and has spent decades at this threshold. What she names here is the thing almost nobody in this work will say out loud. That you are not supposed to graduate past the feeling that the mess is not a failure of your practice, that sitting in the murk is the practice. If you've ever lost someone and been quietly ashamed of how long it's still taking to process your grief, of the fact that you still talk to them, still reach for the phone, still can't put it down the way everyone around you seems to expect stay with us. By the end, you might stop trying to be done with your grief and start letting it sit with you. Pull up a seat. So today we are going to talk about a tender, personal, and deeply unique, though universal, topic, death. And to help us bring another perspective into this topic, we have invited someone who has made this a big part of her sacred work. A self-described lifelong learner who loves getting to the core of that which unites us all and writes as a way of processing big complex topics such as this one. Let's welcome Francesca Lynn Arnoldy to Insight with Purpose. Thank you, Francesca, for being with us today.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Thank you for having me. Always lovely to share time and space with you, and lovely to now be connected with you, Sheila.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Thank you so much, Francesca. It's so good to have you here with us to talk about this big topic and tell us a little bit more about who you are and the sacred work that you do and why you're here with us today.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

I've been working in the doula realm for quite a long time. Since 2009, I became a postpartum doula and a childbirth educator, and then a couple years after that became a birth doula and practiced in that space for a handful of years, attending 60 to 70 births, and was really moved by what I was able to witness and support and continue to learn from each and every birth. And then we experienced a number of losses in our life, including our dog and my father-in-law, two of my grandfathers, and those losses happened in quick succession, so just in a matter of a couple of years. And I noticed myself during those times shifting into doula mode without really planning it. It just happened naturally, and so I was really drawn to learn more and to spend more time in that space. So I became a hospice volunteer, and then I was offered the opportunity to create the End of Life Doula program at the University of Vermont. So spent a year reading, researching, interviewing people, pulling together different voices and perspectives and experiences to try to make a very comprehensive overview of the end of life and learned so much myself in the process and then ran that program for five years. And so during that time, I also began writing, as Heimali mentioned, that when it comes to complex topics like mortality, like death, like grief, they're just so layered that I have to sit with them for long periods of time. And I have to take them on walks out into nature. And I have to just try to find words that could even come close to what it is that we feel when we're either witnessing them or journeying through ourselves. So that's been a really powerful process for me. And from everything I've learned from the people that I have been supporting as a hospice volunteer, as a doula, I feel like their stories and their lessons have something to offer to other people. So then I try to create and package up what could also be learning for others as well, who are starting to feel that inkling of curiosity in a digestible way that is not too intimidating, I hope. So my focus lately has been on community education. More than anything, I have worked with private practice doula clients as well, but I've really been interested in community education and death literacy and grief literacy.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

That is beautiful and extensive, and we I'm absolutely impressed right now with the amount of background and knowledge you hold on this topic, and it's so easy to stay at that space, but I want to take you a little more into your body and into Francesca asks prior to all that knowledge and experiential practice, what was your relationship like with the topic of death? What did you feel? What was your idea of it? If you can fill us in a little bit, and then we'll we'll touch up on our all of our stories, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:50

As a kid, I feel like death was naturally folded into life, and my grandparents raised animals as not their work, but as a passion. And so we had horses, we had cows, they had goats, they had chickens, and death was part of the cycle of life, and I was exposed to that at a very early age, and it seemed very accepted and part of things. So I wasn't raised with a lot of fear, and it wasn't cloaked in a lot of secrecy like most people tend to experience. I also had the good fortune of not really losing any family members in early life, like in their early ages, until I was older. So my whole childhood, the only deaths that I really experienced were deaths of my elders who lived long lives and thankfully didn't suffer through the end. And so that enabled me to have a level of comfort and openness, I think, that some kids aren't able to have. And I appreciate that looking back. So it was a foundation, and I was able to have conversations with people. My picture book is in celebration of a conversation I had with my paternal grandmother when I just randomly asked her, Are you gonna die, Graham? And she was in good health, and I had no reason to be worried about it at that moment. But I was a kid and had a question, and it just came out. And she caught my question with a lot of grace and she kind of giggled, she kept it light, but she answered me with honesty, and I knew I had an opening if I had more questions there. So that evolved as I grew up, and then I began to experience losses that didn't sort of follow the natural order as much as we would like to anticipate. People living long lives and not suffering at the end. There was more variety that was introduced into my lived experience, and that certainly has had an impact, and I think enables me to have more perspective of just the what-ifs and how loss and grief can show up in very unique ways for people, depending on the circumstances and their dynamic, and also how the death occurred and their own foundation or lack thereof of awareness.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

Yeah, beautiful. Thank you. What about you, Himali? I'm wondering the same thing for you.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

And I think we've talked about in other episodes in terms of um, I grew up in India, so that is also very natural. Um, you see that all around you. Um you have people bring the body home. And so you have the home funeral, so to speak, where they wash the body, they dress the body, depending on uh who it is. And then they have the rituals, they have priests come and everybody's there, uh, including children uh that are close to the family, or if you are the family. Um and we talked about that out-of-body experience that I had possibly when I was eight or nine years old, where my uncle had passed away. And now that looking back in terms of when I had to decide, or the vision kept coming, the every meditation that I did to see if I needed to take uh the end-of-life doula course. It's like I was continuously um reminded of some of the events that happened throughout my life and how close I was to that um the word death or that work that I needed to do around there. So I was shown that even as eight years old, I could picture exactly every little bit of detail around my uncle's death. This is my dad's oldest brother. Now he was like a parent, so he was my grandfather. Um and so watching that, I could feel the void because he was a patriarch, he was the eldest, and how that void created, what conflicts were surging up, what people were talking, different rooms, different settings. It's almost like my body was floating, and I was observing everything from like a higher viewpoint and just watching everything, how he was um like how the body was wrapped, uh, what they do um in terms of you know, in in uh Vedic culture, they believe to uh close all the openings, so meaning both the toes are tied up, noses and ears, they all have cotton, eyes have to be closed, mouth also um has something in it. So it's like so just observing that, observing rituals. So that was my first experience. So I don't think I had fear as much, but just that feeling of how everybody else was experiencing individually and collectively the death and what that void creates, and how now there is a power struggle in the family, who's gonna take up that space of that patriarch, and who's gonna side with who? Like everything was so visual and so clear. Um, like it was clearly shown to me. So that was my first experience with that, and then eventually it's like the showing of how um, you know, I've had so many dreams where I've connected um like a simple dream as where there's a day where we are able to meet with somebody who's passed away, and so there is this bridge that we meet at. So I met that grandfather and his wife's a grandmother, and um how they were reassuring that they're okay, and it's beautiful here, everybody was in white, and that feeling of that connection with the outer world. So, and the stories are always there in India, you know. People always talk about this, so it's nothing new or nothing strange about it.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Thank you, Emily.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, so tell us a little bit about your experience with that.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Um, there were a lot of things that came up while we were sitting to decide about topics and what we wanted to talk about, and death and grief was always there because we all experience it at some point in our lives, but we also deal with it in so many different, various ways, and it's usually informed by cultural, societal, and your own belief systems, right? For me, I experienced the other side spirits coming out of the wall when I was very young, around the age of seven or eight, and it was never attached to fear. I just thought that was normal. I thought, well, this is what happens when everyone goes to sleep, and in that process, getting used to the experiences of the other side, the way in which the air heightens the feeling of sparkles or something in the room with me, and then being able to and open to see what else is there. For me, I approached that from that young age with curiosity, and I was very grateful to not walk through the path on my own. I had Archangel Michael, and I had developed language around this very recently. Um, so I had Archangel Michael teach me how to navigate, how to process, how to integrate. And for me, the difference was when I tried to touch the topic with the adults around me, it was we don't talk about this. No, no, no, shh, shh. That's not of God. You have to let people rest. And that was the difference. I was approaching everything from whoa, this happened. There's people still here, and everyone else was terrified. Um, and it only made me question not what was happening to me as being wrong, but am I of God? Is what's happening to me keeping me from accessing heaven when I pass on? So, and that's where those were my very first interactions when it comes to death, grief, and and the other side. Um unfortunately and fortunately, um we would move to the US when I was fairly young still, and I decided to bury that aspect of me that saw, felt, heard, and understood the other side to fit in. And my boyfriend passed when I was fifteen years old. Boy, was that a completely different experience. It's one thing to communicate, live, breathe, understand, and work with others who have crossed over. It was viscerally different to feel death incarnate in my being. The absence of the person who saw me fully for the first time in my life was gone. And it completely changed how I would understand and navigate the other side. It gave me more of a personal connection, um, and it also stripped me from wanting to hide because it completely plugged me back into I want to see him, I want to communicate. And that was 30 years ago last month, and still to this day, 30 years later, I can in my flesh recall the wound of that call. This is why this episode exists for me to give voice to the tender feelings that arise, even for those of us who work in the threshold in any way, shape, or form. And um thank you for for being here with us, Francesca, and thank you, Himali, for keeping this episode here. Um but yeah, this is where that comes from for me.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

So we talked about the threshold. Can we really talk about Francesca? One of your experiences that you had shared with us, um that out-of-body or uh near-death experience that you have experienced and that description of the threshold. Can you share a little bit about that with us?

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah, sure. I feel like it was a it was sort of like I was able to peek into that threshold. I wasn't able to fully step through it, thankfully, because I was safe and I was okay. But what happened was I was driving in the wintertime in Vermont, and this was when I was in my early 20s, and my car hit black ice, and I lost control of my car, and in the middle of that, could tell that I was careening toward a pickup truck, but could do nothing about it. And I do remember that time of just knowing that it was going to happen and not being able to change the outcome at all. But then I wasn't there when we actually hit. Thankfully, and I can't totally find the words to explain what happened. I was not in my body, I was not in my car, I was not there for the collision. Instead, I was in a space that was completely dark. It was just darkness, but not in a scary way. It was there was just like nothing but darkness. And what I heard was a male voice, and he was very calm. I didn't recognize him. It's not a familiar voice to me. And he very calmly said to me, see it through. And so I felt like I looking back, maybe I had the opportunity to check out at that point and not see it through. And he was reassuring me, it would be okay. You know, you're going to survive this, see it through. And so the next thing I remember, my car was spinning after the collision and kind of slowly coming to a stop. And I was okay. And I and I truly was okay. I had horrible whiplash and things like that, but was okay. And thankfully the other person was okay as well. And it was really terrifying, of course, but also incredibly comforting to know that in that moment, that could have been the worst moment of my life if I had really. Seen what was coming and had fully been in that moment. I don't think I don't even know what that could have been like for me in terms of my psyche and emotionally. I mean, it was still very scary for me to drive in the wintertime. It still is. It makes me very nervous. It brings back feelings of that loss of control of my car. But it was there was no fear in that space wherever I was in those moments, which felt like it lasted for quite some time, but probably was instantaneous. There was absolutely no fear, absolutely no pain. All there was was just this comforting, like entirely neutral darkness that enveloped me, and this calm, comforting voice that talked me through. And that brings me a level of comfort as I think about what it might be like to approach the actual time of my dying.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

And Sheila, how about you?

SPEAKER_02 23:41

I I gotta say, wow, first, that that we have these, some of us have these experiences in which spirit, the other side, intercedes in a way that is so life-changing and gives you so much of a broader perspective while you're walking this life. And that I'm always amazed to hear other people's stories of uh near-death experiences and how they see, navigate, feel what we cannot see. Um so thank you for sharing that. That's big, and that fear of still experiencing wintertime driving or having that fear still be there. Yeah, I I can relate to that. Um for Somali. So, and I've talked about this in other episodes. Um this happens a lot, and I get something that needs to come through, and I you oftentimes don't want to share, but I have this near-death experience I've talked about in other episodes, but it has not been the only one. I have angels that work over time, I guess. And but the one I often touch on is 2020, and I got COVID. I had COVID for 45 days, and I I ended up going into the hospital, um, not knowing whether or not I was coming back to my children. Um there was this feeling of this is it for me that was in my body, and it wasn't that I gave up, it was the this knowing that the person who went in would not be coming out. Um, I remember everything kind of like a movie in slow motion, the lighting is different in my memories, and there are also a lot of gaps in my memories. We will later find out that this is because of COVID, but I went in very disoriented, I had a high fever, could barely breathe. And at some point, in the flashbacks that come up, I am in this black void where there's nothing, but there's everything. I'm not in fear, and at some point, I feel myself held, cradled, like like like this, carried. And who is carrying me is walking. I feel the movement of the body. I look down, and for some reason I will never be able to explain with words anyway. I knew him before I knew it was him, and I saw his feet in sandals. I saw the sand and that threshold of where the water meets that sand. And before I was let down, he said to me, You have to go back now. You're not done yet. You still have a lot of work to do. My eyelids flutter back into the picture window in my hospital room. And before I could land back in the body, I heard or remembered or something. The last lines of a poem called Footprints on in the sand rushed into my head. It was then that I carried you. My eyes come open, and I am seeing blue and pink and tints of purple. It would take me a long time to process it. It would take me longer to talk about it. And the doctor and the nurses could not explain my recovery, and I was able to go home that day. I would still be sick for a total of forty-five days on medication, processing everything, still with a hazy mind. But the person that went into the hospital was not the person that came out. And I will never be able to put into concrete words or words that could clearly transmit what I felt and what came through with me that day, but it fully changed everything for me.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Wow, thank you. And yes, I've heard the story, but I still get the chills when you talk about it. And um, I remember that one of our conversations that we had had, and I've done this work with a few people before that when Sheila and I spoke about helping people, and I could not express, I could not put it in word where it was, but I knew that it was that in-between space, and I knew that whole um the space of that darkness that you both have talked about, and space where it feels like this infinite space, and it's dark, but it's not dark, and this feeling of that peace and calm, this feeling of, and I would have conversations with people either that you know, some family member would send their name and their picture, they're an ICU, are not are not able to uh converse um or tell anyone what's going on, or I've done that with few people that don't want to speak about it. So it's almost I knew that I was doing more so of soul-to-soul conversation, where I see this space, it's like a hole where they're sitting with their feet dangling out there and having this, we're having this conversation in terms of what's going on with them, what are they waiting for, or how are they feeling right now? Are they waiting? Are they going to um cross over, or are they gonna go back into their body? Because there were some uh clients that they were younger, um with new family, um very little kids, and you know, family wants to know what's going on with them, and so this these in-depth conversations uh with these souls, and I didn't know how to express it, and to the point I know that I was able to help, even if they crossed over, I was only able to help this soul up to a certain point, like where there is light, like just to the point before the steps, and after speaking with Sheila, and few other people that help with that spirit, help the spirit um cross over or go to their next phase, wherever it may be, to realize that okay, I wasn't just making that space up, that it did exist, and it really felt um sort of like confirmation, also feeling of okay, so this space does exist, it's not just me, and also to know that where my um limit is in terms of where am I able to work up to, and I honor that, that I can only go up to here, I can only take you up to here, and it's okay. Then I call in the higher beings to um whatever the soul or wherever the soul needs to go, that's where um the higher beings will take them. But knowing that some people can take them up to certain steps, and then or some people I've spoken with that they can take them beyond that. And so I appreciate that conversation, and I think that if I would not have opened up and talked about it, and because there was a space and people understood what I was talking about, it makes it so much easier to um just put words to what we are feeling, what we are doing. And also, uh, like Francesca and I, when we met um at her retreat she had hosted, when we were speaking about the space, someone else was there, and she's like, ooh, that's what it is, and that she had already been there or had experienced that space, but never knew that something like that existed. So I'm really um glad that we are speaking about this today. So, Francesca, how did so the work that you've been doing in terms of with um the death and dying and just uh helping them? Was your accident recent experience? And did that kind of bring about more uh light into what people experience or may experience at that time?

SPEAKER_00 35:41

My accident was over 20 years ago, so it was a long time ago. Um before I even became a birth doula, let alone had an interest in the end of life. I think that it has it it planted a seed of the possibility that maybe it's not so full of suffering like some people assume it to be. I still have so many questions and I'm okay with that. I feel like it inspires a lot of awe, and I would never try to claim that I have all of the answers, especially for another person. But for me, it does bring me a sense of comfort in that when I'm in that space again, whenever it will happen, if it really is time for maybe the voice comes and says, go in the other direction, and it feels comforting and trustworthy that it will be with just as much ease that I say yes to it. I hope, but I can only hope. And maybe I'll be able to check back with you after, I'm not sure. Sheila, how about you?

SPEAKER_02 36:54

It's funny because I I never I don't think I ever experience a fear of the passing over. Um, I experience a fear of losing people more so than what would happen to me. And because the space for me has always felt familiar, that's all I remember. Um it's I've I've been held through the understanding, and I've been held throughout my life in understanding it, and have insights about that all-encompassing love that is experienced in that space. So for me, it was never a sense of my own mortality, but other people around me no longer being there, and not necessarily their their how do I say this? I know from experience that we still communicate, that there, that what stays is that bond, that it transcends the limits of the body and where we are. But I also want to smell the person's smell. I also want to feel their arms hugging me or me hugging them. And for me, that was the the biggest thing. Um not being able to let go of the person's person and be okay with that. Um and that's still something I navigate, and I've lost key people in my life. I've known death since a fairly young age and have dealt through the grieving process differently because of more experience and navigating the other side. But I'll tell you, when my twin sister passed three years ago, everything went out of the way. Uh, and we didn't grow up together for various reasons, but I felt a physical disconnection to this planet. It was as if there was a little thread that, even though we weren't in the same house, was holding me down. And I was with Himali when I got the news that she had crossed unexpectedly. And I didn't have that thread anymore. And people, or I haven't heard many people describe a twin bond separating, being separated by death. But all of my experience, all of my previous understanding, all of the guidance and being held from the other side, I just wanted her. I wanted one more moment to be able to hold her and smell her and touch her. And I think it may be a universal thing. We always want a little bit longer. Um, what the process of working with the other side has taught me, though, is that once we live the experience and cry our tears and yell our anger and process the real deep emotions that come through with grief, we can reconnect with those who have crossed over. Um, and even to a point expand the relationship we had in person. And that is what has happened with me and her. Um, we didn't grow up together, and we did not have a geographically close um location, but now all I have to do is enter this space of gratitude for her life and connect to my heart and remember her, remember her eyes, her smile, and she comes through. Her energy is ever present for me, and I understand death as a transition into something else rather than an ending. Now I will I still experience it as I want one more day, but I don't stay in that as long as I have before because I understand how to reconnect with that essence and still feel that closeness, not embodied, but of spirit and presence. So I think that's a lot of what's missing in this work, and where I feel myself gravitating to is speaking of the fact that we may all experience levels of fear when it comes to this, but we those of us who can should share more often the other side of that coin. That there's a connection beyond this body, and death is part of us, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

I I agree, and I think that is the hardest part, right? Being um like what happens to the people that are left behind, and the people that are left behind, that that is the hardest uh part for them, and I think I have the same fear of losing the loved ones, my children, husband, you know, any family member. And but the experience when you are in that grief, especially like when I experienced when my dad passed away, in terms of that that questioning, that deep questioning, or any one of us that we attend funerals, right? Of friends or colleagues or anyone, we go there, we're standing there. It reminds us of our mortality, of this bot being in this body, you know, in that this space. And we start maybe questioning, you know, what is life? And oh, or are we at that moment while we are in the funeral home or experiencing that with the family, if we are just a friend or colleague or someone, that oh, I'm gonna do better now. I'm going to make sure I reach out to my loved ones. I'm going to live better. But then how long does that last? You know, it may be for a day or two or a week. But after that, you forget, you get back into the busy life. But the people that are experiencing in terms of it also depends on how much you loved that person, that grief. The amount of grief that you carry for that person that you just lost. And that need or want to feel all the senses, right? That touch, the smell, um, and everything from them. That that voice, you want to hear their voice. Um but the the whole point is like, and then, but the person that is experiencing also when my dad passed away, I felt that until and unless someone else hasn't experienced that loss or the death of a loved one, close loved ones, they don't know what it feels like. So they are not able to even offer that in terms of that connection. So sometimes it feels very lonely. And that's when the whole uh process of you know that awaken, right? We say the whale is very thin when someone, when you're near and dear, has passed away, where you experience everything. It's that moment of awakening if you take it further, but that also knowing that how disconnected this world is and seeing and experiencing how certain people you're not able to connect with them. You may have thought of them as a very good friend or a family member, but or like at this moment, you can see the performance from them and not the true authentic self of them. So all that is like the insomnia, the feeling of that hopelessness, or what is the meaning of life itself? And those are some of the things that I feel that I went through, I experienced, and just kind of questioning, questioning. And I know Francesca, you've had even recent, um, recently you've lost your your dad, sorry, and how because you've been doing this work, did it make it easier? Or in terms of grieving, or in terms of just handling everything around that? What was your experience around that?

SPEAKER_00 47:31

Well, my dad had dementia for a number of years, but he wasn't end stage, so it actually felt pretty surprising when he began to actively die. And otherwise, he had been in pretty good health, other than you know, his brain. So it was shocking. And I think because of that, because it wasn't maybe months of a terminal level condition where we had a little bit of time to anticipate that goodbye, it felt like afterward, it still actually feels pretty surreal. And I still have moments that I catch myself just picturing him doing what he would have been doing, and and then like having to remind myself that he's no longer here. But what I think my work affords me is that I just say, of course, that's really natural. Of course, that's happening, and that's gonna continue to happen. And your brain's trying to process this and you're trying to work through it, and you're trying to come to terms with what actually happened. So I do a lot of allowing and I try to be really gentle with myself, just as I would be with other people. The practice of impermanence is really helpful in our life because then we don't jump to this assumption that everything's gonna last forever. And yet the reality when that actually springs into your life in unexpected ways is still difficult. And so I think there's a lot of value in thinking about our own mortality, processing our losses big and small, and recognizing that that doesn't mean that we're not gonna feel it when it does happen. And that we my approach is to really try to offer to myself what I would offer to other people. Because I think, and I've even heard from people in our community in deathcare, that they feel like they need to make sure they have zero fear of death, even when it comes to their own or other people, and that they have to have this pure acceptance that this is what it's it's what it is, it's what's gonna happen. I know it's what it is, I know it's what's gonna happen. And so they are sort of like graduated beyond feeling anything through it, and that's not it at all. We're meant to feel our way through these experiences, and they're meant to be complex and layered and personal and universal, and they're meant to rock our world and our beliefs and our foundations. Like, I really believe that there is a reason that all of this is happening, and so I try to lean into like what is this asking of me and what is this offering to me in the thick of it, and I think that it evolves, and and I also really try to allow myself the opportunity to not like when we think about me making meaning or making sense of something, I think sometimes we jump to the conclusion that we have to be able to tie it up in this neat bow, maybe this sort of like one profound conclusion, and I don't think that's it either. There's so much and it shifts, it's fluid, it's in flux, and that's it. Like that, the mess of it is actually what it is and what it's meant to be. So when I'm thinking about the meaning of my dad's life, the trickier parts of our relationship, the memories that I hold with heaviness, I let that all come to the surface alongside the love I still do hold for him. And also things like the pity I hold for him, because he didn't get to live his life in this full, vibrant way. He was really weighed down by a lot of things that I will never fully understand because it was his and not mine, and because I have limited access to it. And I still feel just like with you know, humanity in general, this like tenderness toward him and his existence and his end and whatever it is that he's doing in the process of leaving this world behind. And and then our evolving relationship, which will continue as my perspective continues to take shape and change shape, that I carry him with me, I hold that, and I know he had such a profound influence and impact on me as a person, and that will never change, even though he's not here anymore. I don't have a lot of clarity, but I I sit in the murk of it and I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

Well, thank you for that. And then we, as we speak about this, the connection, and I'm sure um you also have the connection to the spirit. Like, how are signs and how do people recognize that they are speaking to their loved ones beyond the space, that they are able to connect with them? Are there moments in your life that um you felt that you've connected deeply with uh someone loved one beyond the space?

SPEAKER_00 52:58

Yes, definitely. And at different points in my life, I feel like I had a different kind of access to certain people, and even within that particular person, like my very dear aunt, we had a very strong connection open up that I hadn't anticipated after she died, and it lasted for years, and then um, in one of our kind of final connections, I mean, I still sort of feel her to a degree, but not how it was then. She told me in a dream that she had to go and that she had she was going to help with the birth of a second baby, and she had work to do, she had a task to do, and it was going to take her away from the closeness that we had shared throughout those years after her death. I so I personally have felt that. I would never say that that means it's the same for everyone. I feel very blessed that I've been shown that and that I've experienced it myself. And it means a lot to me, but what it means to me is very different from what it could mean to other people. So I hope that people could see the possibility of connection, but I also think that whether that fits within their belief system or not, I was just speaking to a friend recently who also lost her father a number of years ago, and she was speaking to it not from a place of like so much clear channels of communication back and forth with her father, but just this feeling of connection in other ways, whether it's signs, but also just that she talks to him a lot. She speaks to him and she feels that sense of connection. So it really doesn't have to be any sort of specific way of communicating with them and receiving that communication back. You know, I like to meet people where they are. So if that's not where they are in terms of their spirituality or their religious beliefs, that's totally fine. But there still could be other ways that they can feel connected. There was a person I worked with, she came to one of my retreats and she was speaking about the loss of her husband. And the way that she still felt connected to him was more so through ritual. And at the end of the day, to say goodnight, he would usually be in his office writing something or working on something, and she went to bed before he did. So she would go give him a hug while he was at his desk. And after he died, she would still stop by his office and hug his desk chair to continue that ritual that they had established when he was still alive, and in that way she still felt connected to him. So I feel like there are so many avenues for connection that people could explore if they wanted to continue with that, or sharing stories, right? Speaking their names aloud, sharing memories with other people, doing things in their honor, creating things, building things, changing things, so many ways.

SPEAKER_01 56:10

Thank you. Appreciate that. And Sheila and I have shared many signs and things that different ways that we get connected to our loved ones. Um Sheila, would you like to share anything or um I just want to say I appreciate so much that you call that out loud, Francesca, of your process of staying in that murky, right?

SPEAKER_02 56:44

Because, and we talk a lot about this on the podcast, but there are so many paths to get to that personal experience of whatever you name it, um, death, grief, continued communication, spirituality, religion, everything has that ability to be personalized is what works for you. And is and staying in that murkiness within the questions that come up, within the feelings that come up, is so important. Even for me who has I've had the blessed experience of feeling, understanding, hearing, and connecting to the other side from a really long young age. Um, that is how I process, and not just grief and death, but everything, because we were given these bodies that guide us so beautifully, and a lot of times there's a desire to speed things up for people and get back to the nine to five, and it's been this many days, and then grief should be done by now. But just as I was saying earlier, it's been 30 years since Ramon passed. I still remember, I still feel, I still honor, I still connect. And those the way in which that happens is personal to me. But a lot of times what happens in circles is that we feel as though we cannot say how our way works for us. And this podcast is here to explore different ways in which we navigate, surf through death, grief, communication, the things that stay, the things that we cannot name to other people, but are very personal to us. And so I really appreciate you bringing that up because it's very important to understand that just as uniquely as the three of us are, we're all very uniquely oriented, very unique experiences, uh, experiencers of death, grief, and the processes that happen. And this is an uh an opening into going with yourself, sit with your murky, feel the feelings that come up, explore the questions that come up for yourself. All is valid, that's what we're saying. There's we're all going to get there at some point, somehow, somehow. The way in which we do and how we navigate through it while we're here in this body is different for all of us, and that's okay, it doesn't have to match anybody else's experience, and that's the same when we explore communication after someone crosses over. It's very personal. Explore what that is for you, tune into your heart, your body, the level of familiarity that you have with a person. No one can give you that, no medium can give you that. No other person can give you that. You give it to yourself, sit with it, explore it, and then reach out and then breathe in, and then connect. So I deeply appreciate the fact that we have had time with you today, and that we have touched on aspects of what the journey is and how it was for us, and how we come we've come to understand it, and continue on. And I don't want to leave without asking you through the years, through the many experiences you have had, you've developed this sacred way of sharing in the threshold work. What makes this what you do, what you dedicate part of your life to? What is that for Francesca? And what is your hope that others can understand from the work that you do?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:46

There's such a strong draw for me to be with people in these moments where when everything else feels like it fades away into the background, everything else that sounds so loud in our noisy, busy day-to-day lives, it's all quieted. And there's this purity of presence and emotion and hearts that is like nothing else. And I found that within birth and the intensity of birth, and I found that within death and dying, and I found it within grief and grieving. I often find it in spaces, even like this, where people come together and they allow themselves to speak with more honesty and more openness about what we often hold a little more deeply, and when we're a little more guarded to be able to share, I think there's nothing else like it. It's beautiful, it's human, and it just keeps drawing me back. And I feel like if people could recognize some of the fear that they might hold to step into these spaces, whether it's their own experience or the experience of other people, their neighbors, their loved ones, their friends, if they could hear that fear, acknowledge that it's really natural and still show up with love in their heart, with openness, and without feeling like they're taking on the responsibility of someone else's life, we could find the courage to show up for each other. And then we wouldn't feel so alone as we're navigating times that are challenging and intense.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:53

Um this episode. We really appreciate your uh time, and we are so grateful for the work that you bring out into this world. Really. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:06

Likewise, and it was wonderful. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:14

My gosh, Himali, what an amazing episode that was with Francesca sitting with us and bringing in her beautiful perspective into this work and her stories. And it was it was kind of different having someone in the same space with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:34

I really enjoyed this conversation with her. Uh, as I said earlier, she has uh been a mentor to me, a friend, a guide. And so uh bringing her on this episode really appreciate um her knowledge and her uh wisdom on the perspective of death and grief and everything around it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:59

Absolutely. Um, as we finished up and wrapped up, we realized we could have just continued to talk about it and continue to delve into the many other areas and what it means to us individually and what we have come to learn through our various journeys, right? Through the various lenses which we explore and go through life. And this is what I loved about this episode is just added a little insight from someone else who has had such a beautiful, lengthy journey and process and has been able to educate so many people and help so many people in her sacred work. Thank you so much all for being here with us. We hope that you navigate this episode with us and remember to sit with yourself and be in the murky, be in the question, explore what it is that comes up for you when death and grief and that wish stays comes up. If there's one thing to sit with from today, no one graduates best the feeling of grief. Not the death doula who has sat with the dying, not the woman who has been carried across the threshold herself and been sent back. Not the one who has been speaking to the other side since she was seven years old. We are meant to feel our way through these experiences. They are meant to rock our foundations. So if you're still in it, still reaching, still talking to someone who isn't here, you're not alone. You're not behind, and you're not doing grief at all wrong. You're doing exactly what a human being does when love outlives a body, feeling