Oh hey, it's your neighbor who doesn't realize that you can hear him talking to his plants, his beautiful, sweet, strong plants who are growing so fast. Ali Ward back with a full length or this was supposed to be a mini surprise to me and to you, it's a full lengther. First off, start with the phanatology encore about
death and dying that we just posted last week. There's a link in the show notes because this guest is a life changer, she is a death changer, and that encore episode has all the info you need to start at, plus a bunch of twenty twenty two updates and other goodies. And also, just thank you everyone for the sweet notes and the sweet reviews. I always read them every single week, like this one from Stephanie G who wrote, Ali, You're
not alone. After hearing you mentioned you lost your father very recently, I felt compelled to reach out and give you a long distance hug from here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I lost my father three years ago, and so I can understand the grief and sadness you must be experiencing. I'm so sorry for all the new moments you now live without being able to share with him. But please take heart, he will always be within you, and please keep that head up and trust that soon
things will get easier. No matter how dark it seems, my heart is with you and you're not alone. Thank you, Stephanie G. So please, dear listener, know that you're not alone either. I'm in it, Stephanie G's in it. We're all going to be in it at one point, so you're never alone with this stuff. But okay, this follow
up to thanatology a little background. After convincing Cole to meet me in a hotel at night on a week night too, in twenty seventeen, we parted ways, but we kept in touch and now she and her husband Victor, and their two beagles live in LA. We see each other very often and it is wonderful. So it's also particularly wonderful if you're going through one of the hardest times of your life. So the day that my dad passed away, we happened to be back in LA for
a few days. We had been up north for months at his bedside, through brain surgeries, through hospice, and he seemed like he was getting a little stronger. His hospice nurse said he might hang on for a few more months, and so we went back down to la for a few days to just reset and to gather some things. And we were about to have dinner with some really dear friends and officiate their marriage on paper for health insurance reasons.
Jarrett was going to officiate over.
Dinner, and then I got the call from my sister celeast So it was really surreal. It's a moment I will never be able to forget. I just started hysterically crying, as one does, and then we canceled the wedding dinner, as one does. They were very understanding. But earlier that day, Jared and I had rented a motorcycle to ride across town to the dinner because we thought maybe it'll be
a little fun. So right after I found out that my dad passed, I figured he would love that vicariousness, as he always used to say, So between fits of bawling, I got on the back of this motorcycle that we rented and we drove around Griffith Park as the sun started to set, just weeping into Jarret's back, and Cole and Victor came over.
They brought dinner.
We ate outside as this guy turned orange and purple, and I immediately went to take a picture to send my dad, the first of many times that's happened since.
But between his passing and his funeral, I rushed up north to see my family, helped the funeral planning and all the business that one has to attend to, and then I came back down to LA for a couple days before the funeral and Cole and Victor and Jarrett and I played some pickleball and got some hot dogs and some wine, and then we just pulled up an LA street corner to catch up since the last episode, So this was recorded on a street corner after my
dad had passed away, but before the funeral, and it's just an updated interview with Cole talking a lot about grief and the process, what she's been up to. And after the break is a collection of tips that you and Cole and books have given me that I've used and that are really helping. So here is an update with author, teacher, founder of the School of American Fantatology, dear friend and the anatologist cole In Perry. Colin Parry, let's see your levels testing. I know a little bit
better how to use my own recording device. And yeah, the cords don't cost four dollars each. Okay, Colin Perry pronounce she her wonderful.
Thank you.
I'm Ali Ward. I host a podcast called Ologies Cole. Here we are.
We're on a street corner in northeast Los Angeles where you now live.
Yes, it's my home. Now?
When did you move?
I arrived March third and I found that I loved it.
And now you live in LA Yes, like two or three miles away from me? Yes, five years, four and a half years after we recorded the initial episode in a Hampton in.
In Cincinnati, Ohio.
Yeah, tell me what else has been going on with you?
Well, let's see since I first met you in twenty seventeen.
Shortly there after, I got a fellowship the Curtis Gates Vloyd Fellowship through the Voyd Library, and I was researching where plants intersect with death, and then I end up writing some curriculum about pantatology for several colleges, and then the pandemic hit, and then I ended up starting a school called the School of American Panatology, and I now have students in twenty one countries across twelve time zones that are all people from let's see, eighteen is the
youngest and my oldest student is seventy eight.
Oh wow.
Just interested in death, dying, grief and loss globally, So it's like such a gift. And then I got a book deal.
Hell yeah.
And I'm trying to finish my.
First books called A Guide to Your Grief and it's for ten to fourteen year olds. However, adult grieving brains this will be good for as well.
She's also starting to write that book on shadow loss that I mentioned in the updated encore and she's wrapped by w ME in case you're a publisher and want to get in line to give her a book deal. And she just finished writing her first book, A Guide to Your Grief, via Kids Can Press, and it's not out yet, but I got a chance to peer review it and it is great. She literally just finished it a few days ago. So when can we get our grubby mits on it in a bookstore?
I think next year or the year after. I don't know, I should know, but like I don't watch the Space. Yeah, and then there is a show on Netflix called The Future of that just came out and I'm in the episode called Life After Death and then I'm just living in LA. I'm just living in the LA life. Move from Kentucky to Los Angeles. It's quite a difference.
Upending your whole life for the better and playing a lot of pickleball.
Yes, well, actually, you know you. I want to say this. Your wedding was the really the actual catalyst that made this happen, because I had never been to La really before your wedding, and I had prejudices about it. I envisioned just like this dirty concrete leaden like urban place, and it's it's just such a beautiful city. And so it was within a few weeks after we got home from your wedding, we were like, oh, I think we need to move m and then less than a year later we did it.
So I remember you were like, can I call you? I have some news for you, and I was like, yeah, what's up? And this was the last August. You're like, you know, Victor and I really reflected on our lives after your wedding, and I was like, if you fucking people get divorced, I will kill you both. Make you hang out in the afterlife together.
And you were like and.
We've decided to move to la It was such a bait and switch of the best variety. I was like, I was like, oh my god, so do we ruin something And I was like, no, and now, so you moved here.
March third.
I found out March eighth that my dad's cancer had spread to his lungs and later his brain. So you moved here just in time to see me through the worst mental health crisis of my life.
So in a way, it was just great timing. Sometimes it works out.
It was good timing for me.
I don't know if it's great timing for you, but you've been here a ton for me. And I've mentioned this in the Secrets at the end of the episodes, but like you've sent me books, you have sent me daisy chains.
So daisy chains.
Are little beaded necklaces that she makes in honor of the daisy, which is a Thinno botanical symbol of grief, and I've been wearing it for months. You've checked in with me, like, and I feel very very lucky that I've had someone. I've had one of the best people on earth for this, like literally at my side, Like the day that my dad died, You came over with
Victor came over with fried chicken. Jared explained to me later that you guys were talking about how grieving people need salt and fat, and I was.
Like, how do they know that.
Listen, when you're grieving, your body is very depleted.
Yeah, need salt. We ate fried chicken and watch the sunset. And I went to go take a picture to send it to my dad forgetting that he had died that day, which is apparently common. How common is that when you lose someone to think of like, oh, I've got to tell them this, Like, oh, I've got to text them this.
I don't think it necessarily ever completely goes away. Yeah, because you're going to continue to see stuff, and you're going to continue to be like, oh my god, my dad, he would love to see this. You'll get better at being like he would love to see this, Right, But I mean, you never when someone dies, the relationship doesn't stop. You're going to continue to have a relationship with your dad.
What does that mean exactly? Because someone kind of warned me.
Are not warned me of that, but like in a good way told me that the anticipatory grief can be worse than the grief. Grief yep, if it's prolonged illness, yes, and that your relationship will continue to change and evolve. And I'm only a week out, so I'm like, what the fuck does that mean?
Yeah, So, if you want, like the name of like the scientific theory, it's called the continuing bonds theory. And then just colloquially, when when people say, like, your relationship continues, it's because you yourself, Ali, You're going to continue to develop and grow and have new experiences, and all of those new experiences you have will be informed to some degree, others more than others based off of your dad.
You will, like just.
Even thinking about hitting age milestones, like when your dad turned sixty, you probably remember that. Yeah, one day you're going to turn sixty, fucking what, and you're going to remember when your dad turned sixty and you're going to be approaching that milestone and your memory of him from the perspective of being the same age as him, which you cannot do now. Yeah, So that's like a really
simple way of putting it. But also as time goes by, you're going to find more depth and meaning to a lot of the experiences you've had with your dad, and that can be a wonderful joy, it can be a bittersweet joy, and it can sometimes those moments of discovery result in crying because it's overwhelming and it's beautiful.
But that's kind of what people mean.
And that's a really good question to ask people too, because when you needed, it's really important to check in on your friends and to not be afraid to ask how.
Is your grief?
I like to phrase it like, how is your grief today? Instead of being like, you have a dead dad for a weekend?
How do you mean?
Let you say it in a nicer way.
So, but maybe some people that's a better way to ask.
Yeah, I have to say so many of you listeners and friends and famis have just been wonderfully supportive. But the funniest response I got to this just tremendous loss in my life was this text that just said heard your dad died, And it was just something about the use of the intero bang at the end of it. It's like, I heard your dad died, question mark, exclamation point, just like so inappropriate and it made me laugh so hard.
And my friend for like thirty years totally did not intend that to be comedy, even though he's very funny, but it was just so him to be.
Like, heard your dad died and I just laughed so hard.
So I don't know, is there a stage of grief where things sucks so bad that it's almost funny? Oh?
Speaking of what about this stages? Agree?
Because it was Elizabeth Koopler Ross, Yes, right, who started that theory.
But from what I understand, it's not linear, like you.
Go little one and then you get to two and then you get like, yeah, it's all over the place. Right.
I'm so glad you asked about that.
So I serve on the advisory council for the with Koobler Ross Foundation, which is in multiple countries around the world.
So Elizabeth Kopler Ross was she was like the.
Original American phanatologist, although she was Swiss. Her Stages of dying theory, she actually said herself that it was written about people who were dying, the dying and their experience as they coped with that. It was not written about grievers, you know, people who are going to continue to live. And it's it's the most commonly like missited kind of theory.
And I okay, let me tell you.
My One of my worst sides comes out when I see people post on Instagram like the Stages of Grief by Elizabeth Coopler Ross or a joke, and I'm.
Like, no, she didn't say that.
They're not linear.
These five things happened, and like, I just it's that's when I have to like put the phone down. I'm like, do not be this person that is like commenting on Rando's But yeah, but so those heard like that theory, the five stages. You encounter all of those, and they're not linear. They're not one after the other, which you've
probably experienced that. Like you probably have had some days where you've been like, oh, yeah, this is acceptance, but then the next day you're like, there has been nothing accepted.
Yeah, there has been anger, there has been sadness. And I did like it better when I thought they were stacked up and I just knock them down, you know, like sweet. But knowing that they'll just erupt like in fissures of just hot lava of not great emotions is terrifying. And you know, you've given me so much advice going
through this that I cannot imagine not having gotten. Is there anything that is like a kit of advice you would want to give people to be better prepared for when the death tsunami hits.
Yeah.
So I think the first thing I always like to tell people, and I'm say it because I mean it, is that you have everything that you need inside of you.
You have it.
Humans have been saying goodbye to loved ones since day one. I mean this is to some extent built into all of us. Sometimes when we get the news that someone we love is going to die, or that we ourselves are going to die, we can sometimes react by being like, I'm going to educate my way out of this, out of the feelings. I'm going to read every book and do all this. And it's important to have the experience.
There's experience in education. You got to read some things, you got to learn some things, but you also have to experience it. And that's really important too. And while loss is one of the most difficult things to being a human, it's also one of the most important things
to really experience. After a loss, a flourish always follows a falter, and so many times when we lose someone or when you experience a shadow loss, which is the death of something not someone, we falter in life, like you miss deadlines, you have to cancel stuff, you're not able to nurture friendships.
You just feel very ripped out of your.
Own life and like you don't even have a say, and so we falter and we can. It's normal to feel really worried about how am I going to get back into my life? Like stuff is gone, I've missed opportunities. But a flourish always follows a falter. It just takes time, m h. And that is a like it is a human process, because that's another thing when you're going through this is like there are days where you're just like, is it ever going to get better?
Am I?
Am I going to really get out of this? Am I going to have a day where I don't think about it? Those are those are rough?
And there are days when I'm like or moments or hours or whatever where I'm like, I'm doing okay, yep, I'm doing surprisingly okay. Like for example, right now, I'm not crying. Yeah, that's amazing.
I'm not.
You know, picturing the most terrible moments of hospice, you know, and I'm like, is this okay?
Then I'm okay?
Is this okay? Denial or numbness or is this acceptance? If I'm okay, is that a dishonor to the person I loved so much? If I I'm doing all right, if I'm handling it okay. And also I'm like, if I'm handling it okay today, does that mean tomorrow it's gonna be a shit show and I'm gonna break down sobbing and want to throw my phone out the window of a moving car.
You know, this is a great segue to the second mode, like misrepresented, miss said, mis explained aspect of grief. So grief is not an emotion. What grief is that No, you cannot feel grief. You are grieving. Grieving is a response to loss, okay. And that response is made of symptoms in six different categories, okay, And everybody favors certain categories more than others, and then every time you experience a loss, you will favor those categories differently. And those
categories are spiritual, social, physical, cognitive, behavioral. And I can't think about it. Hold on, this isn't my book that I just wrote.
So it is like cited.
This is where sides come in.
I look this up in the review copy of her book that I got, and she writes, grief is not a feeling, it's a process. The symptoms of grief response can be grouped into six categories cognitive, behavioral, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual. So we were missing emotional, just so hilariously hidden in plain sight of course.
Emotional anyway, so like physical symptoms dry lips that you just cannot manage or guest of yes, that could be a physical manifestation.
I've been asking this poor man for lipbomb hourly and he's like, I don't have any of my fans back.
Also bloating and like just abdominal stuff, and it's totally possible for this is why some people just don't cry. And this is also a source of a lot of family conflict because I've seen siblings where two of the three siblings are crying and one is not, and the other two siblings gang up on the sibling that's not crying. They're like, didn't you love mom? Like why are you not crying? Because not all of us, Oh, emotional, that's the other category there we go, so emotional. Not everybody
is emotional in their grief response. Sometimes people are more behavioral or cognitive, like forgetting things or like we would just played pickleball and I mean, you could have missed a shot. Maybe it's because of all alterations in your cognitive state right now.
Sure, because you're freaking grief.
Date last time.
But yeah, so that's what our grief actually is. And I think it can be really helpful to know that it's not just an emotion. It's like a whole body experience. And that's why it can be really overwhelming to go through because like everything can be affected.
But that's normal.
It's a response to loss, and it is as unique as your own thumb print. And you'll never have the same grief like in the future when you lose people, it will not probably look exactly like how it is today because you'll be a different person in the future.
Yeah, what about stifling it, It always comes out a.
Different crack, right mm hmm.
Yeah, so just roll with it. So this is like my.
Favorite advice is too advices to keep your grief moving and every day it'll need something different. Some days you need to take it for a walk, some days you need to take it for a nice bath. Some days you need to take it out to the hillside to cry and look at the sunset. Sometimes you need to take it out for dinner with friends in a good way that like the grieving brain, I think can understand. This is not scientific, This is just me is to ask yourself, what does my grief need today? What can
I do with my grief today? Because you want to keep it moving. I think like a good example is like if you like, do you compost stuff or like, have saved food scraps.
I have composts before before. I've kept a moldy canister on my account. Yeah.
Yeah, So if you.
Leave stuff in there and it doesn't get moved, it will rot and it will not be good. That's and that's a lot like grief. You've got to keep it moving. You got to give it air, you got to give it sunlight, you got to got to take it for some walks, and you know, keep it cooking otherwise it won't transform so that you can flourish again in the future.
The other thing is that might be helpful is like clinically, like if you're a grief counselor a therapist, and how do we assess if somebody may need some additional intervention kind of the loose rule of thumb excluding things like self harm. Is anything kind of within the first six months after a major loss, a big death or a shadow loss is normal. Basically, it's fair game. It's when your life is so significantly impacted that you cannot live your life after that six month period that might be
when some additional interment of strategies might make sense. But kind of if if it's within six months, you're not broken.
You're just gonna be a little bit of a shit show, right.
Yeah, you can bet a messy Yeah.
What about we talked about this earlier.
What about like the anger component, that's the stage or the facet of.
Grief that freaks me out the most.
So a friend of mine was in the middle of a kitchen remodel when she learned that she lost her dad rather suddenly, and she flew home to be with family, and I remember her saying weeks later back in La she had a meltdown over like the width of a cabinet and realized later that that was just grief coming out sideways. And I experienced this myself when my dad was still alive. A few things that should have just rolled right off me felt devastating and infuriating, and I
just had to leave and cool down. Could just confounded by my own brain, I just wanted to exile myself. How how do you deal with that one? Because that's just that can be destructive, you know.
Yeah, So anger is helpful and that it lets you know when there's a problem. So anytime that you have like an eruption or like it really you know, that's a time to be like, whoa, what is really wrong? And sometimes it can be helpful to ask, like what's wrong with my Is it my inner child that's upset
or is it my adult self that's upset? Because sometimes with loss, because when for example, when your dad is dying, you're saying goodbye to your eight year old self daddy, you know, at the same time as your adult self, And so sometimes you can have little funny triggers that show up also because you end up being around family and stuff, usually at the end of life, in ways that maybe you haven't been in a really long time,
and it's just trigger fast. The other thing with anger that I'll say that relates more specifically to people who've been socialized.
As women.
We're often taught that anger is not feminine, that anger is not okay. If you've been socialized this way, and often it is harder for women to deal with anger than it is for men. Yeah, when it comes to just anger in general, but with grief, because it's like being socialized that it's something to be ashamed of, that it's like not a good quality to have, but it is a quality we all have, and it just it speaks up when we need help.
Ooh, Harley got a little wave. What about when supporting someone who's going through this? So I lost my dad, my mom lost her husband. Jared lost someone that he who's been in his life for you know, years, but also like his wife lost her dad. When it comes to knowing someone who is going through this either and his grief or like straight up grief, like what are some good ways to support them?
That's a great question, and it can also be sort of tricky because you like, when you're in the role of supporting, there's always boundaries to be aware of and like you don't want to like overstep, and like, I've thought about this with you because you have a big friend network here and people that have known you longer than I certainly have. And it was like just having I had an awareness like around is this too much? I don't want to be like this freak from Kentucky
that's like, oh my god, there's somebody dying. This is my time to shine, like see what I mean? Like I am, but I'm hyper aware of that. Just in general, I think I did okay. I think I did it maybe overstep, but just having that like awareness around your closeness to the griever to the situation is just a good thing to check on yourself with. I think one of the easiest things for people to do is to just be willing to send a text message. But I think it's good to send a text that says you
don't need to respond, but I just want to. But you know that I'm thinking of you. Like that kind of thing. I think that most often is received well, there's certainly people that they be like that sounds like my nightmare, but you know your friends and your family best.
Cole shared some stats from Penn State professor, sociologist and demographer doctor Ashton for Dary.
He and his team did some research with losses from COVID nineteen, specifically big deaths, and they found that for every death from COVID nineteen, there are nine like immediate sort of grievers to that one COVID death. So if there's been let's say a million deaths by COVID, then there's nine million people actively grieving those deaths.
And that's just in the US, and that's.
Just in the US, and that doesn't include shadow losses like do you know people have you know with COVID you've lost jobs, you've lost your ability to work anymore. There's been millions more shadow losses than big deaths because of COVID. And so I think, how a way that I now live my life, having spent so much of it in thanatology, is I really just try to treat everybody like their grieving. Like even when I go the
coffee shop, my assumption is that they're grieving. And I think that also helps you navigate family situations where you discovered just how different you are. You know, it's really hard to not be loving to someone that's grieving, even if you are very much not the same person. And I think that's just kind of good advice for anybody. And because if you're treating everyone like they're grieving, you're going to be acting from your own best self.
Yeah, So my dad has put on hospice on a rainy Friday afternoon in late May, and it was one of the worst days of my life. My sister Janelle had to break the news that his oncologist had called it and the medical warfare and his body was to stop, cease fire and the farewell was to commence. And the next morning, you know, Star and I rushed around the house just weeping and packing our bags to make this seven hour drive to be bedside with my family. I
heard a knock at the door. It was Cole and Victor and they had arrived with a little package before we got on the road, some handmade daisy chain necklaces, some quick hugs and advice, and a dozen black and lilac buttons that Cole had designed that say I'm grieving, Be kind, be gentle, And as I record this three months later, I have that button on a belt loop of my pants. I wear it all the time still. And Cole is right, it's a good angle to approach
any interaction during these very weird times. To be honest, Any other advice you'd give to someone who's about to go through this, or is anticipating a big loss, or it's been through one.
So for anyone that's about to embark on this or even just has at some point, one of the things we know from research is that you have better outcomes for yourself because you got to take care of yourself. Because when you take care of yourself, you're taking care of everybody around you.
Is you're less likely to have.
Complications with your grieving process if you have something in your life that is meaningful to you and that you know what that is. So for some people it's like, you know, maybe the ritual of making really good coffee every morning and the sounds and that that's like, that's where that's your church, so to speak. For other people,
it is religion. That's where that's meaningful for them. But a lot of people, especially in the United States and as we've seen a decrease in religiosity, a lot of people don't have things that they're like, oh, yeah, this is where I find meaning.
So where do we find meaning? A lot of places, starting.
Outside, plants are a good place to find that because plants are not offensive. Right, Like, any given plan is not attached to a specific religion or a specific political group or so it has like this wonderful opportunity to be something that you can find meaning in that can maybe support and carry you through whatever it is. I think identifying for what what is meaningful to you about life? Where do you find meaning? Where do you find connection?
Where do you find purpose? That's what you need to hold on to in some way as best you can through the grieving process, because it will be there for you on the other side. It's easier said than done.
Yeah.
Cole started making these daisy chain necklaces after her beloved companion, a Dwarf beagle named Ruby, passed away at the age of sixteen, and with each necklace she includes a sheet of paper just about them, and in it she writes, Ruby, my beloved beagle was like my child. She was by my side for sixteen years. The daisy became a meaningful symbol as I navigated my life after loss. Anyone who loses a pet understands how hard that loss can be.
Who else shares our bed, the couch, bathroom time meals. The absence of a pet is often felt more strongly than the absence of a person, because we often share more physical space with a pet throughout each day and week than we do with most of the humans. Lives, She writes, as I moved through life after loss, these daisy chains allowed me to connect with grief and keep my grief moving, She continues. No matter your loss, I hope the daisy becomes meaningful for you too. Daisy's are sturdy,
and they remind us that so too are we. And eventually Cole was able to grieve Ruby and was ready to welcome a new beagle in her life. And she got a call that there happened to be one available through a beagle rescue, which is pretty rare, and it happened to be another dwarf Beagle and the name happened to be.
Daisy. I'll just let you ball your face off about that. I'll let myself ball my face off about that.
When she told me that, I was like, Ahhh, nothing's real, everything's in simulation.
That's beautiful, okay.
So Cole had let people in her life and online know that Ruby had passed and invited anyone who wanted to light a candle to illuminate Ruby's path over the Rainbow Bridge, and that sense of community really helped her
a lot. She told me about it, and then it helped me too, having people who maybe knew you from afar, like you know, hashtag and light a candle for her meant a lot, and yes it did because of that and you giving me that advice of like a way to carry me through it like a critter pick for
grandpad mm hmm. Those first you know, forty eight hours seeing those and just seeing how he was alive in the world in people's minds feel for you amazing helped so much and I didn't feel so alone and I knew that there were and I knew how much how meaningful his life was to so many people who he had never he would never meet, but how his ideas carry on. And so those are like pieces of advice.
The reason I wanted to do this, Minisot is like these were these invaluable pieces of advice that I never would have gotten if I hadn't found you on social media and me you hang out with me in Cincinnati. But those things were really really meaningful.
And that meaning knits you to your people closer, like you have these other connection points. And that's also something that helps we see, like clinically helps people move through the process of grief is when they have social support. And I mean honestly like people can say no, but something as simple as like those Instagram posts, that is medicine. That is grief medicine. It really truly is. I mean, it made all the difference for me when I lost
my puppy dog and for you with your dad. So that's just au nudged to anyone listening that you can do that. That's a way that you can support others through this is share the pictures, share the stories. Take the time to do that because it's not a burden, and it's really nice to see when you were sad.
No, it helps so much. It keeps helping.
And also obviously just the notion of giving yourself grace and giving others grace is knowing that I'm going to go into this and I'm not going to.
Be outperforming myself.
I'm not necessarily going to be writing a book during this time. Like my laundry is clean and unfolding on my couch right now, and that is fine, but it's really I think hopefully I will come out to the other side of this having some perspective on what's important
in life, taking care of myself, enjoying life. While I am on this side of the grass, as my dad would say, so any any last pieces of advice or any any books that you would recommend other than your own, that we have to patiently wait for it to be released.
I think the last thing I would just say is you know what you need. You know what you need. You just have to sometimes listen a little harder, and you have everything that you need already, I hope.
Yeah.
I keep thinking of myself like a werewolf lock it at a basement. But people are much more understanding than I thought.
Mm hmmm.
It's nice to see, isn't it. Yeah, because you're that way to people. I hope sometimes grief going through it, it shows you what you mean to other people.
It shows you who's there for you.
And that is also like a really intense part of the experience is seeing who shows up for you. And I mean it's messy. It's a messy process. Perfect does not equal good, and you cannot strive for perfection right because it's just messy. You can't control it, and you never know what you're gonna get.
And you can tell instantly who in your life has lost someone because they're the ones who are not afraid to send you a text being like this fucking sucks,
but you're gonna be okay, yep. And there are people who have come out of the woodwork where I'm like, I would not expect you to be in my phone right now, or in my DMS right now, or emailing me or sending flowers and the compassion I feel like you gain from it, and the perspective you gain, like if nothing else, I am excited to help other people who haven't been through this come through it.
Yes, because you've been there now.
Yeah, that's like a that's like something in my tool belt I didn't have before, and I feel like that's something I was.
Gonna try to make this that you know, that is that is a gift.
That my dad gave me and and his dying is I'll be better and helping other people, which is probably what he would have wanted.
So it's true.
And it can feel really healing to be on the other side of this and helping somebody else through it, I.
Think, So I hope.
So, yeah, I got to clean myself up a little. But you're not through it out, Okay, we're not going to.
I'm like, I ran a Wikipedia page.
Why am I crying? Still?
No? But I just thank you so much.
You and Victor, have you and Victor and Jared, We're all sitting here on the corner of West tail And AFTERNUE forty six in northeast La V four have really you three?
This four have been so helpful.
And yeah, there's just so many times when you guys have literally been there for me, like in my worst moments. So I'm really really glad that I've found you on Instagram, that I meet you be friends.
You want that too, And thank you for letting me be a part of your life and a part of your journey and being a part of this.
Really big thing in your life. I'm you really like a special part of friendship.
Good'm so sorry you watched your dad.
Should happen.
I would like to say thank you to all the Oligites because since that Pantatology episode aired in October of twenty seventeen, I most days get messages from listeners on my Instagram. To this day, I had to this morning for people who listen to the episode and just you just want to tell me something or I don't know, And I do think I do a pretty good job of responding to most people, but I just want to say that I really appreciate that, and that I find
meaning in that. I find meaning in that, and that is something I never certainly never foresaw and now ologies is like one of the.
Biggest, baddest podcasts in the freaking universe.
Who knew that I want to listen about lizard dicks and death?
Yep, they do. People are weird. People are weird.
I love you. Thank you for being here.
Thank you for having me, Cole and Perry.
Just if you want to take a minute to applaud, be safe if you're driving, but just Cole and Perry. You can find her on social media at the links in the show notes. Her website is linked as well. Google her, befriend her socially, medially check out the school she founded, the School of American Thanatology, which offers education in fanatology and death work and in thanobotany, which is another term that she coined to describe the way that
plants are used in death and dying and grieving. And a donation for this episode will go to them, and you can learn more at americanthanatology dot com, which will be linked in the show notes. So thank you to Cole and thank you to sponsors for allowing us to make that donation. Okay, So for the second half of the episode, here is advice that I would give myself in the past, or you if you're afraid of someone dying or going through it, or trying to support someone
through it. I'm just going to try to do this all in one take. We're going to see how this goes. I have very very bare bones notes. We're just gonna Okay, here we go, in no order at all. First off, there's a thing called anticipatory grief. I did not know about until I was in it, and I realized that I had been kind of experiencing it for a decade or so since my dad was diagnosed. But if you are scared of someone dying, if you are going through the process with someone, look up anticipatory grief.
You'll be like, oh.
That, And I will tell you there were moments in the anticipatory grief phase that were worse than after my dad passed, because I had to grapple with every single moment and how meaningful was it and how much do I get up in my dad's space and smother him versus letting him just be at peace on his iPad. Also the grief of seeing someone you love and a lot of pain and seeing them scared. Anyway, anticipatory grief
get into it. I will also say that the time that my dad was diagnosed with cancer, I remember I mourned and grieved that day as though that were his last, not knowing that he would have nine and a half years after his diagnosis after a two year prognosis. You know, there were so many ups and downs. There's so many ups and downs with all of our lives. All of us just take each day, day by day, no matter what crisis is happening around you, take each moment, moment
by moment. You don't know what tomorrow is going to have. If you are having a good day, have a good day. You will confront each crisis as it comes up and just live in the moment.
That's all that you can deal with.
Handkerchiefs not cleanex people cleanexes, you got to throw them away. Sometimes they rip, sometimes they leave white particles all over your mustache. Handkerchiefs, heroes, bandanas where my best friend I always had a couple of clean ones around and you toss them in the wash. They're more absorbent and they're more fun to honk your schnads into handkerchiefs. Not CLEANX CLEANEX love you. You're definitely here for things that I
want to mop up and throw away. But when you got to stop up some tears and just garden varieties not handkerchiefs are great.
Grief counselors need one.
Get one. I really do use the better help service than I advertise, and I got some solid advice and perspective. But grief counselors might be available through your work, through your health insurance, through your university, through community programs. A hospice often has bereavement and grief counseling for family members, so look into it.
Super helpful.
If you can work remotely and someone is sick, ask people you work with, can you work remotely and be there? I am so lucky, so lucky that this is my job because I was able to take my laptop and my editor who is legally married to me, and go up and do this job from my sister's dining room table and from her garage.
So lucky.
If it's possible, The time that you spend with someone in hospice is the most valuable time. I feel like you can spend with them, the number of days I got to spend with my dad, and also just being there for my mom and being around my sisters. You know, when you see your family for the holidays, like let's say you celebrate Christmas, you might see them for two days around that holiday, and this was like having four months of that.
And the time that.
We got to spend together in the memories that we made are something that helped me every single day knowing that I got to spend that time there. And if it's possible to look into bereavement leave or look into working remotely, ask There's no harm in asking, and it is something that you will never ever regret. Of course, this can be very individual, and it depends on your relationship. You know, if it'll cause more harm to you, or you have a bad or abusive relationship with someone, then
obviously you need to make decisions invest for you. And also I want to acknowledge that my family was fortunate that this wasn't a sudden loss, that we had a heads up to take some of these actions and to really process it. One piece of advice is so many people gave me that was so helpful was take video obviously, I got a lot of pictures in my pop a
lot of pictures in my family. But video who Boy comes in clutch When you are missing someone and you want to hear their voice and their mannerisms, love a video that's helpful. I also voice recorded some of his stories. But that's advice that a lot of people gave me that I'm so happy to have had. Also, if you want to get your mind around what is hospice, what is dying, what's the medical process of it? There's a
frontline documentary called Being Mortal that was on PBS. And my friend Kara Sanna Maria, who has a podcast called Talk Nerdy. She's awesome and she's studying existential psychology. She's about to get her peachc NET. She recommended this documentary, Being Mortal. It's so great at getting some perspective and understanding how many families go through this, how many families.
When a death isn't sudden, how to prepare for it.
I feel like if you have some time, you are one of the lucky ones. And so Being Mortal. It's a frontline documentary. I thought that Frontline was the same as Dateline. Those are different programs. Frontline is PBS datelines like I think like true crime, but Frontline doc grade being mortal. Also, Cole sent me a series of books, the End of Life Guideline Series. A link these on
my website. It's a compilation by Barbara Karnes, who's an RN and they're a series of I think, five very slim, wonderfully written booklets on what to expect if you are dying, what emotions are going to come up, what to prepare for, how to handle it if someone you love is dying, how to read the signs in hospice of what to expect physically to happen. It helped so much in terms of looking for signs of how my dad was doing,
how he was progressing. One thing that helped so much in those books is the knowledge that some people want to die alone. We always think that dying alone is the sign that you have lived life wrong, and that's not true. Some people prefer to pass away with no one else in the room, and they might hang on until they are alone. Just like you might be able to use the toilet with the door open, someone else might be like, I need to go home to pooh
if I'm at work. Some people might feel that way dying. I suppose it's somewhat similar. If you're a private person, you might want to go privately. And so some people spend their whole life thinking I was with my mother at her bedside or my husband at their bedside, and as soon as I got up to go get a sandwich, they passed away, and I missed it, and I disappointed them and I let them down. That is not that random.
Some people don't want to go with people around, and they want to either spare people or they just feel watched. And so my dad, we were around him twenty four seven. He had a bell that he would jingle in the night when he needed to get up to use the bathroom, and tare it would race up out of bed go help my dad in the bathroom in all hours of the night. We were there anything he wanted, any meal he wanted, and it was an honor to do that.
But my dad passed away the day that my sister had to go into the office when my other sister had COVID and couldn't be around for a while. After me and Jarrett took a week off to go back to la to get some more stuff and just kind of reset, and when my mom was in the other room taking a phone call. My mom was away for seven minutes calling his hospice nurse just to check on some things. That is when he slipped away in his
sleep and Larry that's how he wanted to go. So if that has been your experience, or if anyone you know is dealing with like that kind of guilt or feelings, that is not that random. I'll also say during a grieving period or pre grieving, get a hobby that's tac dial if you can. I started collecting little rocks from the gravel driveway when we would walk the dog, and then I would come home and put them in a
color order. It was just fun. Just something with your hands you can do that's not on your phone, that just connects you to anything.
Bead work, maybe make some daisy chains.
I started doing that a little bit and it's just really nice and kind of grounding and gets you out of your phone and out of your head. Also, just know that you're gonna be a little bit stressed and know when to step away and take care of yourself. You know, as they say, you can't pour from an empty cup. And if you need to take a minute to go outside and meditate, if you need to go watch the sunset at night, if you need to make sure that you're washing your hair, things like that.
Take care of yourself.
You will be better able to show up and help other people when you're not worn down and burned out. And I did something where I something to just engage my senses when my dad was in hospice. I bought these tiny perfume samples just because that little like little sprits maybe before I went to bed or something, or just if I wanted to sniff them. Was just something that brought me pleasure. That was twenty four dollars for several perfume samples that will last me for months. And
I just wanted to sniff nice things. So anything that brings you a little bit of happiness, you'll be able to carry that forward to the people that you're taking care of, or if you're grieving anything that is just a little treat and know that you're just doing your best. Parents with infants are playing it by ear and they're doing their best too. And if you're caring for someone who is dying, or if you're grieving someone, you're just doing your best at any given moment, and there is
no perfect. Just showing up and loving someone and doing your best is great. Don't marry an asshole. If you have a feeling you're about to marry an asshole, maybe think twice about it. It turned out having a nice, generous, caring person who understood how important it is to show up for people and love people through the hard times turned out that that was a good decision. Tell your friends that you might need more check ins. Sometimes friends like don't want to bother if they think you're going
through some crisis stuff. And if you give them a heads up that you're, like, I might need you just to check in, they'll be like great, and a lot of them will do that. But sometimes people just don't know what to do, so they were just like, I'm gonna leave you alone.
And sometimes that you're like, why isn't anyone checking in on me?
And so just tell them, hey, can you check in? Send me some pictures of your pets or something. When you're going through this, whether you have someone in your life who's just passed away or who might some friends are gonna suck at this. They're going to be bad at it. Because they haven't been through it. And I I had friends who would call me and they'd immediately start crying.
I'd be having like an okay day.
I'd be like going to the pharmacy to pick up some meds for my dad and be like, Okay, I'm just taking it day by day. He wants he wants mac and cheese tonight, great, get to pick that up. And then I'd have a friend Called'd be like, how are you doing, and they'd just start bawling, and then they'd start crying about what would happen if they're of a loved parent died, And then I would be consoling them.
And you know what, some friends are just not going to be that good at it because they haven't been through it.
Love them anyway, and.
Maybe just let them know what you're capable of talking about at the moment.
But it's endearing and it's sweet.
And know that once you're through this, once you're through a loss that's pretty pretty big to you, you will be one of the friends who doesn't suck because you'll start to understand. And I had friends that showed up out of the woodwork that I didn't expect would be so supportive who were just checking in and just knew what it was like. And you'll be one of those. So if you're going through a loss, if you're grieving,
think of it like a software update. It's a you know how they suck and you have to go offline for a while and whatever. Your phone or your computer gets updated and you're like, ugh, I can't even function with this right now. And afterward things will be different and they will take some getting used to, but it's a software update that you will be able to show up for other people in a way that you just
couldn't before. Also, if anyone in your life, whether they have a diagnosis that's terminal or not, let's all ask each other about funeral arrangements. Okay, let's write that down. Let's start a Google doc and share it with our loved ones. Write it on a notepad, I don't care. Write it on a whiteboard updated daily if you want, but make some funeral arrangements. Do you want to be buried? Do you want to be cremated? What do you want to be wearing? Is there anyone you don't want invited?
If you make a plan for your funeral, your loved ones who are devastated after your pass won't have to make decisions, and that is such a service for them. We asked my dad right after hospice started what he wanted, and he was amazingly specific. He was in the Air Force. He wanted a military funeral, he wanted the rifle volley salute, he wanted taps played, and because he was a Morse code operator in the Air Force, he wanted Morse code that spelled out QCQ. This is Sergeant Ward signing off.
And what a beautiful fucking thing to tell your family that you want. How specific we were able to get that done, We were able to play it at his military funeral, and it was such a gift to us that we knew that we were doing.
Right by him.
So, even if you are going to live one hundred more years, write out some funeral arrangements, because the people who love you will be like, thank you so much. Also, heads up, did you know that if you have a military funeral, you get a bugler and you get like
a rifle volley, like a boom boom boom. But there's a shortage of buglers, and so a lot of times at military funerals they have a quote ceremonial bugle, which is a fake bugle or a real bugle, I'm not sure, but it has a speaker in the horn and they just press a button and it plays recorded taps. There is not enough buglers, but there are nonprofit organizations like buglers across America, and there are volunteer honor guards that if you say, hey, you know my loved one want
at a military funeral, can you perform funeral honors? They if they're available, they will show up and shout out to Steve Mercer at the Service Veterans of Northern California Volunteer Honor Guard, they were able to come out make sure that my dad was honored in the way that he wanted. They had a live bugler. They did a rifle volley salute which was so loud but really wonderful.
So if you've been looking for a place to volunteer and you're not sure where to go, and you like uniforms and funerals, find a local honor guard.
If you can play the bugle.
Or you've been wanting to learn, hook up with buelers across America and honor guards that might be just the volunteer work that's right for you, and it means a lot to some families. Get a will, get a will and trust. I did ask Cole if she's gotten one since our twenty seventeen interview, and she has not, and neither have I. So this is a reminder me.
That's my neighbor's doock. That's a reminder to us.
And everyone put it together a will and trust or else half of it goes into probate. And then also your relatives have to deal with all that. Also, once someone is passed. Cole gave me this advice, which was so wonderful. Maybe find a symbol that was meaningful to that person, like thano botanical, like a certain flower or fruit or vegetable that meant a lot, and put that within the feuderary ceremony and arrangements. And that's every time you see it, you will.
Think on it again.
Actually this was accidental, but I had a tomato plant growing and I hate tomatoes so much, hate them, hate them, hate them.
If they're cooked, I'll eat them.
But raw.
Get the fuck out of here. I don't want to look at you.
And I had this tomato plant sprout out of nowhere, and I send a picture to my dad and the couple of days that we were down in LA and he was like, I'd love some of those, and I was like, gross, you can have them. Anyway he died, I ended up sun drying them and then I put one in the pocket of his suit. At his funeral, my dad had an open casket funeral. I was very, very, very very freaked out about that. I was dreading that. To be honest, I wasn't prepared for it.
It ended up being wonderful.
It was nice to say goodbye, and I kissed his hand and I put a note in his pocket. Each of my sisters and my mom did, and so.
Don't be scared of it.
Cole and Victor told me right before we recorded this that humans have seen their deceased blood ones through time.
There would always be a viewing before burial.
Typically and it's something that helps with the closure and it was helpful for me also, if you come up with something, a symbol or something that is a visual symbol that means something to your family members, what we did is we got pins for all of us to wear.
For my dad.
The symbol that meant a lot to us was bridges and so before the funeral. We designed the prayer card that they kind of give out at funerals. It's like a picture and maybe a passage on the back. We designed it so that there'd be like an inch of space on the bottom. And there's someone on Etsy I found named Jim Clift Clift Jim who has a pin shop and has tons of pins. Anything imaginable, he's got a pin for it, and you can order in bulk.
We ordered one hundred pins.
Of little bridges, little gold bridges that meant a lot to us, and we popped them on the prayer card. And when we were handing out the prayer cards, everyone got to put a pin on their lapel. And I've given some differends and it's really wonderful to show up and see a friend who's wearing it and for me to wear it too and just kind of carry that
symbol around. And we put it on the prayer card because bridges meant a lot to my dad, And so we put a passage on the back, and the passage was the builder lifted his old gray head, good friend in the path I have come, He said, there followeth after me today, a youth whose feet must pass this way, this stream that has been a joy to me, to that fair haired youth, May a pitfall be he too must cross in the twilight, dim good friend, I'm building the bridge for him.
Ah.
That was from a poem called the Bridge Builder, which was written about one hundred years ago by a chap named will Allen Dromgool, who was actually not a chap but a lady with a pen name. And my sister Janal found that passage and it's just perfect, and so we put that on the back of the prayer card and with a bridge pin. And so having a symbol of someone really helps you, gives you something to hang
on to and something to think about. We also made a memory book with a bunch of passages from people who loved my dad that all wrote in their favorite memories. I kind of wanted to do this while he was still alive. Honestly, It's a good birthday gift for someone celebrating a birthday is have people write in their favorite memories and make pictures and put their passages in and someone can really see, while they're still alive, how appreciated
they are. I made a Google form for people to fill out with their name three adjectives that described that person, which was my brother in law Steve's idea, which was great.
And then a memory of them.
And then I used that Google form and I used a graphic designer I found on Fiver who put it into a book, and then I got it printed and we actually buried my dad with one of those books. And it's something for all of us to have in a memento to give out, just to share how loved he was. Another thing during hospice, my dad loved, we all loved, and it's a great way to connect people. Is they're a sponsor of the show, and that's how
I found out about them. They're called Aura Frames, Aurea and a bunch of people who are all logged in and update pictures to this frame, this digital frame, so you can update it anytime. We literally brought that to my dad's bedside in the hospital after he had brain surgery.
It was by his chair all through hospice and Aura actually was really awesome, and they sent me a few after my dad passed away because I told him how much it meant to him to be able to see those pictures, and they sent them for my family and if you're now in the market for one or frames dot com codeologies because I'm not going to steer you away from a discount.
Okay.
Also, if someone's in the hospital, you know you can bring a blanket typically to the hospital. That's really comforting. And when my dad passed away, the funeral home that we used took my dad away with his blanket and that was really lovely to know that he was making the next leg of the journey with something that was
really comforting to him. Another tip is you know someone's spouse or partner is going through a lot, and just understand that their moods may be up and down too, and to make sure that they're supported to I think a lot of times our focus is on the person who's sick, but their spouse or partner is about to lose someone really important. Really sorry about the dog marking, there's really nothing I can do, so he's just saying
I anyway. Also, funeral homes, I didn't know that a lot of funeral homes are owned by the same big corporation. There's some that are privately owned. We had a great one Green Valley in Rescue, California, or amazing to us. We thought that we would have to go in there and get like upsold on a bunch of bells and whistles on a casket and stuff. And they were just very like straightened to the point they were so comforting and comfortable. So ask around maybe ahead of time about
mortuaries in your area and who people like. One person that came out of the woodwork was Julie Lesnik who was in the Eating Bugs episode and just checked in with me. She lost her dad to cancer and then two years later she lost her mom to COVID and she was just like, use this as a chance to say no to everything, say no stuff for as long as you need to say no. And Julie, that is great advice. And also a grief support group is a
great idea. Again, hospice services will have support groups. Sometimes local hospitals will. There might be local groups that meet at like the basement of a church or something kind of like a but a grief support group. There's something called the dinner Party that just started up. I think it's the dinner party dot com where you can join a grief support group. Your insurance plan might have those grief support groups. When it comes to the eulogy and obituary.
Those are hard to write. My dad wrote a lot of people's obituaries in my family. He was like the go to for that, so we were like, well, shit, dude, you're the one that writes these. And my sister wrote the eulogy and I wrote the obituary, and it's really tough. I asked Jarrett for some notes, some opinions on it, no matter what. Tell the person who wrote it it's amazing, no matter what, even if it's garbage. Say it's the best writing. It's the best obituary I've ever read. Then
give notes. I was really struggling writing my dad's and I was like, Charet, I'm really stuck here.
I'm stuck.
And he was like, yeah, reading it, I can tell you're struggling. It's more stilted than you would normally write it. And I was like ah, And I just had a mental breakdown at the criticism, even though I asked for notes, so it ended up taking me a long time. Do you guys want to hear my dad's oh bit just kidding. I tried to read it and I started sobbing within the first a sentence or two, and then I tried to muster through. You know what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna put a link to it. You can read
it online. You don't have to send our family flowers. We're good there. But if you'd like to know more about my dad and his life, it'll be linked. Actually, I'm just gonna I'll link in the show notes. But he was called Pete by his family. Is a nickname, and it ends we wish Pete safe passage through the Golden gates and into the granule everything. We'll miss you MC eighty eight. As you used to say, right if you get work. That was an old timey thing people
would say to those who left for the West. And so every morning my dad would say that he was having his coffee and to write if we got work, no matter like how many jobs we had, it was just his sign off, and to send critter pics and tales of vicariousness.
Every morning. He would say that.
So I just try to live that and have adventures and enjoy it. Hence the motorcycle ride the night that he died. And last week Jarrett and I fucked off and went to Disneyland for the day because we hadn't been in years, and we figured let's go on a roller coaster. Can I tell you secret? Here's my secret. Well, my dad was in hospice. He needed a haircut, and when I was cleaning up all the trimmings, I saved a few locks of hair.
I don't know why.
I'd like maybe to make Victorian morning jewelry. I don't know, but he was buried, not cremated, and I thought maybe it'd be a good way to kind of see the world. And so when we went to Disneyland, I put a hair on the lawn near the flowers at the entrance Disney. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. It was literally one hair. I know he was like it was probably like three. I know people like dump straight up ashes all the time in the Haunted Mansion. Let's not do that, but you know, I had a lock of hair.
It.
I just think it's kind of fun to think a little part of my pop is in the welcome area, just seeing happy faces come in. We're not even a big Disney family, but it was just like, this seems like a fun spot. And you know, I like to think that a fungus probably broke the hair down and fed a plant those nutrients, and then a bug ate the plant juice, and then a bird ate the bug, And now maybe a part of my pop is perched on the top of thunder Mountain Railroad, just preening its feathers.
I don't know.
My point is, we're all just a bunch of legos, and what a shame to glue a lego sculpture in place.
You know.
The beauty is that molecules and atoms and legos can become so many things. So I guess cherish what you are right now and have some adventures while you can, you know, for yourself, for curiousness, and for me. So this is kind of a bittersweet conclusion to the era of encores. Thank you for being here with us, with my family with an awkwardly earnest Internet dad. Also thank you Aaron Talbert Shannon Feltis Body Dutch for admitting the Ologies podcast Facebook group. Thank you Kelly R. Dwyer for
maintaining the web page. Susan Hale also updates it and does so much more. There's going to be more links up at Alleyward dot com, slash Ologies slash Thano twenty twenty two. Thank you Noel Dilworth for scheduling and so much more. Thank you Emily White of the Wordery makes our professional transcripts. Ala Patten helps bleep them. Those are up for free at alleywoard dot com slash Ologies extras
or at the link in the show notes. We have kid friendly all ages shortened episodes called smologies in the feed you can download for family road trips. There's more at alleywoard dot com Smologies. Thank you Mercedes Maitland and zegredviguz Thomas of Mindjam Media for working so hard on those.
Nick Thorburn of the band Islands made the theme music and you just thank you ever to lead editor Main Squeeze, and someone that was by my side every moment of this, by my dad's side for the toughest days, physically helping him out of bed, and who my dad called his guardian angel, Chered Sleeper, who also happens to be legally married to me and is a truly magical rainbow being. As you go about your days, just remember that nothing is permanent, not the sun, not the moon, not anyone or anything.
That's ever lived.
So the best we can do is just live a life of love and have an easy the exit, and if you get those, you're pretty lucky.
Love you lots, Bye bye.
The aversion the first apresibs as the first