It's Time to Talk About Death w/ Doulas Valoria Walker & Laura Lyster-Mensh

there are more funny duddies than you. You are the funny duddiest. Yes, welcome to go ask Alli. I'm Allie Wentworth. You know I've spoken a lot about aging parents and how we're dealing with our own mortality, and actually, right now I have a father in hospice, and I'm sitting nearby a Boston hospital where my mother is being taken care of. She just broke a rib and her femur.

And a few weeks ago, I was reading the Washington Post and I read an article about death dulas, and I was fascinated because death dulas or end of life dulas are people that help you. They can advocate for you and actually make the transition a little bit smoother, and so I was dying to talk to these death dulas. Laura Lister Mensch used her downtime during the pandemic to be trained as an end of life DULA and volunteers

her services in hospice care. She currently is the first Death Dula in residence at Historic Congressional Cemetery in Washington, d C, where she holds weekly Death Dula day gatherings and the Lauria Walker. She's an end of life dula and the founder of Dula by Destiny. She partners with organizations to promote, serve, and educate communities about holistic end of life and advance auts care planning. She's an International End of Life Dula Association educator and has a master's

in Management of Aging Services. My father is in hospice in Washington, DC right now, and I realized I didn't even know what that meant exactly. And then I realized that I have grown up in a world that doesn't talk about death very often. And then I was reading in the Washington Post and I saw two words death dula, and I thought, what the hell is that. So let's just start in the most simplistic way. What is a

death duela. I'm going to let Val take the definition, but I do want to say that the training is called end of life dula. So it was a little bit of a stretch that we called it death dula for this other project. But they're interchangeable. Yes, it is a more shocking way provocative way to say it. Yeah, end of life dula sounds a lot more calming and digestible. So Val, tell me about an end of life dula. So end of life dula is my preference, and end

of life dula starts out. Let me just say with listening, but we come into a sacred space, a space where a person is transitioning to serve them and their families with assess of humility while we're supporting them to bring back the humanity and the compassion that we often don't see in the dying process. We work in a capacity of being non medical, so we're not in there a minister any type of medication. We are listening to build

trust in a nonjudgmental way. So if a patient or a client is saying something to me that may conflict with me. It is not my place to say, well, let me try to save you on that, or let me try to change you on that, or let's think about it another way, because this dying process is not about the duela. It's a person that's in front of us. Caregivers are burned out, confused, under trains, so we try to help them go through the process by providing a as much support as we can. And so that's what

a duela is. We bring death awareness. We empower the clients and the caregiver to speak up because a lot of times, because you don't know things, or you don't

know a medical terminology, you may not feel comfortable. So we bring in a conversation where both parties are on the same page and under the same understanding, and then we go in as a team member, most of the time in hospice, not to go in to change the plan, but to see what we can do to enhance the plan for the care team and also for the person

that's transitioning and their family members. That's fantastic And Laura, you during COVID decided to train to be an end of a life dula and so what made you come up with this decision and how was that process. I've always been someone who felt more comfortable about death than a lot of people around me, and I thought about being a birth dua when at a certain stage. But I really felt like I'm reaching a certain age in early sixties where I'm seeing a lot more death and

friends and family. A lot of people I know are losing people COVID, and I like a lot of people decided to lean into this during COVID. It's a phenomena. I think people are really thinking about deathcare and end of life care in a way that was not perhaps

happening before. So I'm one of many. One of the things I love about that article is that I've heard from callous people who'd never heard of it before, and so I feel like the service of making sure people know this exists is part of this passion, part of this project. It's interesting because people that I've seen in hospice or in the hospital dying, they don't have an advocate.

Usually is particularly in a hospital, it's usually a family member saying, you know, excuse me, my husband's uncomfortable, or the famous scene in terms of endearment, when the mother's screaming, you know, give my daughter the shot, and so what you said earlier valves, so you can't. You don't administer medication. But it sounds like a important, almost imperative part of dying is to have someone there to kind of represent you and represent you, know, your wants and your desires.

One of the things that I think we all know, especially when it comes to death and families, a lot of family members have different ideas about how family members should die, and it creates havoc and a family and lots of anger. And so have you found that you have to kind of be an intermediary within families too? Absolutely? I can give you a situation where there was a

family member that I supported in the first meeting. She said, VOW, I want you here, but my family is not going to accept the way that I want to die, and I need to make sure that you are sure with support parding me. And I said I am, and sure enough, I set up a virtual meeting with the family member, and the sister came on and she was saying, you can't die like this and we need you to keep on fighting. And I talked to the caregiver that was there.

Of course, the person that was transitioning. And I looked at him and I said, now is the time that we have to intervene. And he agreed with me, and he was the one who told the sister, this is what she has accepted. This is the way that we're gonna let this process flow. You can come on board with us, but we can't let you interrupt this sacred space that we're holding for her to honor her the way that she wants to be honored. So you can get with the program, or you cannot get with the program.

And she flew in the very next day, and she was okay for a while, and then she flew back and she started the family dynamics all over again. But the family member was already deceased by then, right, No, she was still she was still alive. But we still did not allow her to interrupt the space that we was holding for her who was transitioning. M Laura, what have some of your experience has been? So my work is is is a little different because I volunteer at

a hospice board in a hospital. Um, I'm there for anyone who's there. They don't know my name, I don't know theirs, And I especially focus on people who have no friends or family and are in their last hours weeks of life. So it's it's a little different, but my training as an end of life to a law really helps me do that work more mindfully and thoughtfully.

What I find is that there's there's a real fear of all just family and friends, about death, and that that fear brings out the worst in all of us.

And the antidote to that would be another part of what DOUST do, which has helped people who are dying, or maybe way before you're dying, that would be preferable to kind of write down and share what your desires would be that are according to your values and your wishes, so that when someone like VOW or me or someone else comes along and plays that role as that non medical supporter, that we know what that person's values were and what they wanted, because as you're experiencing, sometimes the

person who's actually dying isn't really fully oriented to the situation and they need an advocate family to kind of get on board. And I was going to ask you, guys, what do you do when somebody has had such cognitive decline. You know that they're nonverbal and they're not really there. They've already written down their wants. And so if somebody had written down, let's say six months earlier, you know

I love birds. Then when they sort of lose, for lack of a better phrase, lose their mind, you still know to talk about birds or to play bird music, like you implement what they wanted. Whether they're lucid or not correct, they aren't as if they're sitting there speaking with us like you and I speak it today. If they're in hospice or if they're at home, I would be looking for a way to bring in a bird in a cage so that that bird can sing in the morning time, or so that it can be And see,

this is what a duela does. We think outside of the box. I've had a person who I've actually taken her outside of acts or I said, do you want to go outside? She said sure. It was in July. It was hot, we're in Maryland, the humidity was up. After five minutes of moving her entire bed out, she said, I want to go back inside. Okay, our poorness just had a high slash. But took her back inside alley.

She she died the next day. She transitioned the very next day, but she had a moment of being outside for five minutes, and that's what stirs up our heart and our spirit as end of life duelas walk me through. Um, there's nothing typical about it, but walk me through sort of one of your experiences as an end of life Duela. So, Laura, I mean, how does that work in hospice. I think it's different in different systems of hospice and different situations.

I'm on a hospital ward and I'm not at liberty to give their exact protocol, but I will say that because I'm able to be with people who who are not surrounded by friends and family and are often very close to the end of their life, my work mainly has to do withholding hands. So I just sit and I hold people's hands and I breathe with them for as long as I'm there. And that, you know, being able to be present for somebody who's alone is a

really meaningful thing. I wish more people did it. In DC, we have a lot of people who end their lives alone and without any resources or personal effects or not to mention Adula. So I think we as a society should be doing better and this should not be something. But those of us who want to volunteer to do that, get our training and go do it. And it's very

I think meaningful work and valve. For somebody that, let's say, wants to age at home and ask you to come to their like some of your clients ask you to be with them, how does that process work? So it really depends on where they are in their journey. If we are six months out, then of course I'm supporting

them before the transition. So I'm talking about different developments like VCA, a volunteery, stopping eating and drinking, because I want to determine how what's their mindset for when they transition. I'm listening actively. They may want a vigil during that last breath. They may want to work on a legacy, so I will talk to them about a legacy projects.

I had an individual lady. This is the forty eight year old lady who wanted a body donation, but she wanted her body to be returned back to her family and the institution that she had filled out the paperwork with. She was unaware that they cremated and they returned the remains to the family member. So I had to go in and find another organization, which I did luckily, that would do the research on her body and return the

whole body back to the family. And then at that point she wanted a green burial, so she had a lot of dynamics as a part of what she was thinking about. But I had some time to sit with her and talk that through. So after that process, then the doing part is educating the family member on the signs and symptoms. Was changing the breathing, that's changing, the discoloration of the skin that may be changing. We also address because we are very much focused on food and eating.

That's how we gather and that's how we comfort ourselves. So I educate family members on the body is shutting down. You don't have to bring in a three course meal, especially if they are refusing food. You don't want to force that because I understand that that makes you feel better. You know, when we get sick, mom says, get some chicken noodle soup because that makes mom feel better and

it also makes the child feel better. But in this case, we talk about force feeding, so it's education, education, education. Then we're bringing in what we talked about in the befour months, the playlists, you know, we're holding space and we're dealing with family dynamics if that's the case, and then afterwards we are helping with reprocessing the whole event that took place, just to see and check where the

caregivers are emotionally. If we see that they are just stuck, grief stricken, can't move, then we do referrals to license clinical social workers or grief therapy. We also enact the after death care if they want the hands washed or defeat washed or anything like that. And all of that goes right back to the beginning of listening actively and having a conversation of what the individual wants, brother it's

at home or any hospice facility. If I had a terminal disease and I hired one of you to be my duela, and I said to you, will you help me take my own life? Could you slash? Would you I consider being an end of life to it to be a non medical role, and so that's not my purview at all. But if you're asking if as a as an end of life dula, if I was supporting someone in their value, I wouldn't call that ending their life.

You know, we all have different values around that, but I think this is a conversation that people are having about choosing when they want to do that, and there are different ways that that happens. I think we all should be talking about it, and we should be sharing it, and people should be able to state their own wishes. In my case, I would want to get an understanding of what you are thinking about when you're talking about ending your life. Are you talking about medical aid and

dying which is not legal in many states? It's only legal and about eleven states, So if I'm in Merland, I can't assist you with that, you know, anyway legal if you are talking about yeah, legally, if you're talking about VSA volunteeringly stopping eating and drinking, anyone can assist you with that, And that really depends on how comfortable the Duela feels honoring that request for you, and people

choose that to hasten their death. In most cases, they will begin to stop eating, they're not taking in any fluids, they're not taking in any substance, and you will see that the dying process will begin fairly quickly. So that would be my determination, finding out what is it that you're really talking about? When it comes now, I would help with VC and I will provide resources for you. If you're talking about medical aid and dying, well, can

you talk about the different stages of death? I know you were just touching upon it, but what are the stages? So if you're a couple of months out, you are mostly still able to communicate. And this really is not I'm going to give you a general description, but it depends on the disease, your age, your genetics, you know. So in the beginning you're still a fluid, You're able to have a conver sation, but you begin to turn inwardly.

There's a period of quietness, reflection. Many people will start talking about their childhood, you know, what's meaningful to them. We also address concerns around guilt. You know, anything that anyone wants to confess to us. We address that, any unfinished business, forgiveness, we talk about that. And then when we start moving closer to the ending part of death, we notice that there's a what they call a death rattle.

If you've heard of the death rattle, where the noise is right, the gurgling and the throat, that's an indication of getting close. You may see marbling of the skin where you see where the veins are not really as puffy as they normally would be. The skin does a return back to its regular position. At this time most of the time that the person is not talkative at all. You may be able to say wake up, and they may come up for a couple of minutes, you know,

then go back. So now you're not really able to communicate with them. And then the last minutes two hours there's basically no communication. They're sleeping with the mouth open, You're not seeing any breathing from the chest. A lot of times you can look at the chest and see that there's no movement. And so these are some of the signs that happen across the course, depending on where you catch a person at in their journey. Has anybody

ever confessed things to you? They have not, but that I have heard of other dulers saying yes, wow, yeah, that's fascinating. Yeah, I heard some confessions from family members. Oh wait a second, yeah, what do you they confess to you? Yeah? I do find that that as as we've all seen, right, when when you're with someone in a moment that is really profound like that or the moments around it. Um, I think it. People become very personal and even a stranger will will speak of things

that they might not normally do. And I have found that family members want to talk, and maybe it's better that it's not a family member. Maybe it's better that it's someone that they, you know, have not had a long relationship with, and they want to they want to talk. I've been very, very surprised by that and very honored. Yeah, there's a lot more to come after the short break and we're back. I wonder this is a question for both of you, but what an extraordinary time it is

when somebody is transitioning and you're with them. I mean, it's it's religious almost And how do you not feel sad yourself after somebody has passed. How do you deal with the connections that you make with the people that you're helping and advocating for. Where's the self advocation and the self love for you when you're helping so many

people do this? I would say on my end as a newer person to this, before I was allowed to volunteer at hospice, or before I was able to come on as an annealda training as a DULA, I was asked questions about what kind of attitude I was taking and whether I had self care. That's a really big

part of the training. It's making sure or that people are not making it about themselves as well said, and know how to do what you just describe, which is really hard, which is not to be about you, but still be in the room and you know you can't disconnect And I know I do cry and I do after process that when I leave. For me, you know Laura talked about we do have a self care section that we talk about when we are doing the training. But for me, like for instance, Ali, I supported someone

over a year, ninety three year old lady. It's very hard not to connect when you're supporting someone for that amount of time. And I also was asked to attend her funeral service. Aterwards, I stayed in contact and checked on her son, who was her primary caregiver a couple of months, three to six months afterwards, and I took got three months. I needed to clear my own space before I could help the next client. Also a part of our training we talk about rituals and last breath

rituals for family members. So as a ritual, I have a very strong connection to water and so I have to get myself to a place where I see water. Here water thus my ritual of how our process and cleanse myself from the person or the client that I

just served. I read about a woman who wanted so much to be by the beach or on the beach when she died, and her duela got sand and put her hand in sands and sort of scented the room with coconut and created a world that felt like the beach, you know, put the music on of the waves, which was so extraordinary, you know, because it's it's simple, but it's such a beautiful way to help that person die, especially if they're in a very antiseptic room, to have

that imagination. I know when my stepfather was dying, he turned to my mother. He died during COVID, he was ninety nine, and he said, I'm so tired. Can I go? And my mother said, oh, yes, you can go, And she talked about him being in a canoe and they were going down the river and she sort of created, like Adula, a wonderful picture and he just kind of fell asleep, which to me was the most beautiful way

one can possibly die. But I believe that that Duela's can kind of create those wishes and those atmospheres that people dream about or want when they are passing. You know, I've never been in a hospital where somebody said, oh here, let me turn on some classical music, and you know it just that kind of care is not there exactly, It's true, and you know, the alternative to that kind

of experience is often the shopping channel. I'm surprised and how many times I see that people are watching something that really shouldn't be end of life TV fare and I wonder if the person in the hospital, you know, if that's what they wanted or not. But I don't like to think of people exiting this world to the shopping channel. Oh no, just my Peppie, please don't not with QBC Wow, we also use a tool called guided imagery.

So in that case, you know, we would ask you what is your favorite place, and we would incorporate all the sounds and smells and everything that we can make that scessery happen and that connection happen for you. It sounds like your mother instinctually did god imagery exactly. She did. She didn't realize she was doing that, but she did. It's amazing. Yeah, So Laura, you're the resident Death Duela at Historical Congressional Cemetery, right, yes, which makes me really

pretty pretty nutty. And tell me about those We created this as an idea. It's not been done. There are artists in residents at some cemeteries. Congressionals are really special place. They're allowing a space now for death positive activities, and so we're just creating it as we go every Saturday, having people come and just talk about these things and do activities. I'm really into active what do they mean? And certainly I'd love one of you to talk about

the death positivity movement. What is a good death? I hear that phrase over and over again, a good death. I'll jump in and give you my definition of death positive. And I have to say that my mother is death negative. So I often have conversations with my mom about death positive and death negative. But I used to be involved with talking about sex and the term sex positive came up, and I remember thinking, well, that's weird, like what does that mean? What it means is that you accept that

this is part of the normal experience. Death is part of the normal experience, and that death is neither good nor bad, and that the idea that a good death to me would be one where you I think most people would say, has dignity, peaceful. It's a peaceful situation, It is without undue pain and where someone feels that they are loved. And that is part of what we're doing, is as end of life dulas is, we're providing an environment of love for fellow human being, whether there's family

there or not. And that, to me is what we're describing when we talk about a good death and death positive. What does your mother mean when she says death negative? I think she feels that death is somewhere someone has made a mistake and she says it's fine afterwards, you can be positive about it. But I can't feel positive

about this. And my mother is a black woman who has fought all her life to live and has has faced enormous challenges and had to scrap and fight for herself in a world that wasn't wasn't really supporting her. So I totally understand her failing and I understand her distrust of medical um you know, expertise. Does your mother want to have a duela with her that would require a conversation about about this, and I you know, I think a lot of us live in families where that's

that's a difficult conversation to have. I'm willing to talk to my mom about it. Hey Mom, Yeah, but I think that we start the conversation. That's what we're trying to do with this project that you read about, is start the conversations. Yeah, I have aging parents now. Like I said, my father's in hospice and I can't help but think about my own mortality. It keeps me up sometimes at night and I think about death and I

think about my children. And it was always, like I said at the beginning of the podcast, it was we never spoke about it in my family ever. And I have a series of grandparents that took their own lives and that was never spoken of. And so for me right now, at this moment in my life, I'm actually fascinated by all of this information because I think there is a way to have some kind of control over how you leave. And there's so much of it, like

you said, Laura, is discussion. You know, at some point I'm going to talk to my children about it. I want to talk to my husband about it. What are we thinking, how do we want to do this. Where do I want to be? What do I want to be? And I think most people ignore the subject until either it's too late or they sort of, you know, look to the medical community and so like you deal with this, we can't deal with it. So true, I agree with that. I think we often seek hospice care too late, you know,

and we often have the conversation too late. And I think on one of your previous podcasts you had a guest that was talking about near death experience. Right, thank you for listening. Val sure like and subscribe. But you know, we we we can be at a restaurant and choke and die. We you know, we don't have to be eighty and ninety. You look at the young of those

that are dying on the streets, you know. And I went back to my university to train or to talk about advanced care planning and dying, and I was absolutely amazed at the students in the age range of twenty two to twenty eight that were willing to listen and had comments afterwards. And so I just connected with a business here in Columbia, Maryland. She put out a death cafe, which I did two weeks ago. We hadn't had one in Columbia, Maryland since twenty thirteen. We had a waiting list,

we had to refuse people. So individuals COVID unfortunately helped us bring out death, you know, and so the fear is still there. But to have someone be able to hold a space without judgment while you are considering your mortality is a good thing that's happening in our society. Now, now for my listeners, can you explain a death cafe? Because I don't want a reservation? What am I going to order at the death cafe? A conversation, Laura, So tell me about it. I've been too many death cafes,

but I facilitated one for the first time yesterday. And just like Val said, there's a real interest among young people. This was not just a bunch of eighty year olds. It wasn't even you know, us sixty some year olds. There were There was quite a mix of people. But one phenomena that I've found in Val and I've talked about this is it's almost all women. It's like the Union of Men decided that we will send one to each of your events. But that's it, just one. And

I don't understand it. Why are women so interested in going to death cafes and coming to death positive events and becoming duelists. I just think the connection to our emotions. You know, big boys don't cry and wipe your tears, and you're the man of the house, you know, So

they don't have opportunities to grieve openly. And a grieving man has a reputation of and I'm not speaking about all men, but has a reputation of being a weak man, and so they are not get ready to come into a space to talk about death, to show their emotions. So a lot of that conversation with men go unspoken. For instance, you know, I have brought my family along because I've constantly normalized the conversation. When I first started talking to my son about it, he would sneak out

of the room in the middle of the conversation. I'm like, where is the boy? Where's the child? You know? And then the December before COVID, my son came to my home and said, MA, this is what I want you to do if I die. And it was completely completely honest to God, differently than what I would have done. And so when we don't have these conversations Ali, we don't honor the very people that are in our homes, the people that we sleep beside, the people that we love.

You know, we assume this is what they want, but because we don't have enough carriage and our throats to say, let's sit down and talk about it. But look after you normalize it. It took eight years for me to normalize the conversation with him. But guess what, I now know how to serve my son and I feel at peace with being able to do that. And he's only

thirty years old. So you have to get past the fear of thinking that just because you talk about death, you're going to die, you know, to have a better death, have the conversation about it. And so when you go to the death cafes, basically there are forums in which you discuss preparing for death, how you would like to transition in figuring that out. Is that correct? There's no

real agenda, We just let discussions flow organically. Yeah. I think that death cafees, which were they were a UK phenomena originally, they are one of the many ways that people are starting to have these conversations, and I find it a very profound one for the reason Bell just said, which is there is no agenda, there's there isn't actually

any advice given or tools. It is a bunch of unique strangers come into a room and it's a space in which you have to discuss dying and death and you you listen to each other, you talk, and everything that happens is because of the people in that room that day, which is a kind of a unique experience. And I just it's funny. I just had one of the young ladies in her early thirties maybe latter twenties, she attended the death cafe that I had. I just got an email from her yesterday saying that I set

with my father who transitioned. I use some of the topics that we talked about in the deaf cafe, and I thank you so much for holding that space for us to learn. Wow, and we'll be right back. Welcome back to go. Ask Gali, so, how do how do I approach this conversation and how do other people talk to their loved ones. I have two answers to that question, really briefly. One is start with humor. I think that's

very important. I also think to look at it as kindness rather than as some sort of burden or something creepy. It is a kindness to let your wishes be known and toss your values to your loved ones. And it doesn't have to be you know, at the end of life. So it's kindness and humor that I can do. I suggest to start from a place of yourself. So when you're sitting down at the table with your loved ones, you're saying, this is what I would like for you to do for me. I have been considering more my

mortality lately. This is how I want you to honor me. I want to be at the beach. I would like to have a certain type of music played. So now it's I I I. Because you're if you're sitting down saying tell me what you want to tell me what you want, that's abrupt. You know I'm not ready. You may be considering your mortality, but what makes you think

I'm considering minds? And so it's more of I I. And that's how I got my son to the place, because I normalized the conversation with I eye so much he was comfable enough to say, Okay, well let me now tell a mom what it is that I want her to do for me, and so start with the eye and then be open to whatever it is. Rather thy are willing to accept what you're saying or not,

you know, share it. Come back a couple of days, a couple of months later, go back with the I have been considering my mortality and this is what I want you to do for me to honor my life as I transition. That's great. You know, I've done a podcast with people about money. You know, people are very reluctant to talk about money, and one of the things we discussed was putting together a book for your children

that just tells you where money is. And I'm wondering if there's a way for people to have conversations and even create a book that's sort of your my transitioning to afterlife book, you know, if later on you're not lucid enough to maybe verbalize it that says this is how I would like to leave. It's interesting, Ali, because there are quite a few tools like that, but people don't know they exist. They don't have anyone to help

them work on it. And I think if people knew that they were out there and that was like your Thanksgiving activity, some of the family members will leave the room. But it's a really wonderful experience to do it. I have, for example, what we call a death binder, and there are a lot of death binders out there that you can create. You can create one that's already got all the tabs on it, and there are books and workbooks

and end of life duelists also do this work. We help people find the tool that suits them and they help them get to work on it. And that's really my mission. I want to get people to start working on that and then edit it throughout their lives. That would be perfect. Do you encourage people to write their own obituary? I do, and we had a workshop on that at Congressional Cemetery a couple of weeks ago, and

fascinating to me, it was young people mostly. It was a big group and the question that got people got stuck on surprised me. I don't know if either of you would agree, but it was the part on the form where I asked them to fill out who they were leaving behind, and people got stuck and really felt a lot of emotion. Wow, that's something to think about, right. And here's the best review I could find of the

people who participated in that. Last month, a young person wrote back to me later and said, I did not like my obituary as written, and so I'm making changes in my life so that my obituary will be different. Oh that's amazing, that's great. Yes, that's great. I can think of no better outcome. Yeah, that's why we're doing this projects. It's not just about dying, it's about how we live. I love that. Yeah. I think people have

dreams a lot. You hear people say, oh, I had this dream, or sometimes I have this idea about going to my own funeral and you know, who's going to be there, who's going to show up, what does it look like? And I think it might be an interesting exercise for people to kind of have a creative writing assignment where they got to be kind of a ghost at their own funeral. What would they want it to look like? Right, who would they want to be there, what are the flowers like? What? You know? Just that

would be kind of a wonderful exercise. We actually do that as part of the training. You do yes, yeah, oh, well look at me. You're halfway there exactly. You know my last question because you have been so incredibly insightful and helpful. What are you seeing when people are preparing

for their own death? Now, besides the people that come to the Deaf Cafe, are you seeing that the majority of people are not dealing with it, They're not confronting it, and they're not talking about it or I mean, Laura earlier you said you sort of see a shift where people, particularly young people, are starting to discuss it a lot more. I definitely admire the fact that there are younger people

that are willing to have that conversation. I'm really worried about people who don't because it causes chaos and fear. But I think the answer is people generally do not make plans and have not figured out what their values are, and are not living as if they're mortal. I always forget that word we are mortals. Yeah, you know, even in hospice, a lot of people don't have a plan.

I've walked into people who just lost a loved one and had no plan for where even the body of the person was going to go or what that person wanted as far as disposition or memorialization. So I think we're in denial as a culture, and I think we live better if we get out of that denial. So maybe the young people will lead us on this. Yeah, I hope. So the young people have a lot of work to do in our country. Sorry kids, yeah, sorry kids.

But I say to my daughter's every day like it's up to you fix the climate, fix all of it. So I've asked you many questions about death and transitioning and being a duela. So now I'm going to turn the tables and allow both of you to ask me a question. And I'm going to start with valve. You can ask me anything you want. Wow. Well, I'm going to ask you a serious question, but I really want to ask you a funny question. I have squirrels that are eating up my lights. I really want to know

how to give rid of squirrels. They're disrespectful. But let me just go to the real question. You need to borrow my hound dog. My hound dog will hunt a squirrel. I'm telling you he pulls me on the leash because he chases squirrels all the time. I'm gonna I'm gonna FedEx him to you for a week. Yeah. Yeah, But but well, now that you know the row of the duela, and if Laura and I were your duela. What would be one element or what would be something that you

would like for us to do to help you transition peacefully. Well, one thing is I do like touch, so I would definitely want Laura holding one hand and Value holding another hand. I would like music, a nice classical box, masks and be minor. I would like in This is where I'm really going to challenge you. I would like to have my bed covered in dogs when I die. I love dogs, My dogs sleep on my bed. I just you'd have to go to the pound. I don't know the neighborhood.

You'd have to just rally up a whole bunch of dogs and put them on the bed. And I think that would that would be And this is just you know, I'm just starting this process, and believe me, when I start writing in my journal, I will add things. There'll be mint, chocolate chip ice cream somewhere in there. But to me, that would be a nice, peaceful thing. To have the touch of two women maternal and to have all these dogs on my bed, That to me is heaven.

There would not be any shopping network. Thank you for sharing, And Laura, can I answer anything for you? I'm envisioning you surrounded by dog. It's beautiful. So mine is a little serious. Okay. You mentioned your father, and that's he's working his way through the process. And I know that you mentioned that he had dementia as my dad, one of my dads did. And I remember the minute that I was I decided, I'm going to remember you this way, Daddy, and I held his hands and I said, I'm going

to remember you like this. He was teaching me how to grow. What is the moment that you think of when you when your dad was your dad, the way you remembered him, and that you're going to hold. Oh, what a lovely question. I think the image that I hold is my father. He was a reporter for the Washington Post, and later in life he discovered painting and he loved to paint, and he could sit on a

grassy knoll for hours and meticulously paint a watercolor. And I think that's when he was most at peace, when he was happiest. So those are the moments I hold close and remember and like to remember about him. Is when he would be, you know, in his tattered corduroys and an old sweater, sitting there painting away. Because that was sort of him in his essence, that's beautiful. Thank

you for doing this, Thank you for enlightening everybody. It's a incredible subject and it's like you said, I think it's something we should all be talking about all the time. And when I put down that roast chicken tonight, George Stephanopolis is going to get an earful because we're going to start talking about this. I'm gonna say to him, if you don't tell me what you want to do, that I'm going to have my own plans for you and you're not gonna like it. Thank you, guys, thank

you very much for this. We appreciate it. You know, I'm sitting in a hotel room and it's snowing outside in Boston, and as I said at the beginning of this podcast, I'm very immersed in this. And after I sign off, I'm going back to the hospital to see my mother. And one of the things I've really realized, and you don't really realize until you're in that situation. They and when I say they, I mean my parents and people in the geriatric community. They need that hand holding.

They need to know that they're supported and loved. And particularly when I was talking to Laura. You know, the idea that she's in these hospitals where people have nobody else around them and she holds their hand is so huge because at the end, if you're transitioning, the idea that the touch of human being is right there is so imperative. So thank you both Beloria and Laura for telling us their stories, providing such an important service. And for more info on what you've heard in this episode,

check out our show notes. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review Go ask Alli, and follow me on social media on Instagram at the real Alli Wentworth. Now. If you'd like to ask me a question or suggest a guest or a topic to dig into, I would love to hear from you, and there's a bunch of ways you can do it. You can call or text me at three two three three six four sixty three five six, or you can email a voice memo right from your phone to Go ask Alli podcast at gmail dot com.

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