Rev Wakil David Matthews (00:05.081)
Welcome everybody. On today's episode, we are joined by Jamie Dravecky. 
Her journey in funeral services began when she was 19 years old. She's a graduate of the Worsham College of Mortuary Science and holds a bachelor's degree in business management. She's a senior account executive for, I'm sorry, she's a senior account executive for Homesteaders. Homesteaders is an organization providing products and services to promote and support the funding of advanced funeral planning and end-of-life expenses. So it's important, we were just talking about this.

Annalouiza (01:31.342)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (01:31.705)
And it began all the way back in 1906 in Des Moines, Iowa. I want to hear more about that. Before joining Homesteaders, Jamie held almost every role in funeral services.

Annalouiza (01:44.546)
Wow. When Jamie decided to step away from direct funeral services, she joined Homesitters. She understands what it's like to wake up early in the morning, take the calls, and support the families going through the most difficult times with compassion. She loves working with funeral homes that are looking to try something different. She enjoys helping funeral home owners find new ways to reach communities.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (01:45.674)
haha

Jamie Dravecky (01:46.363)
You

Annalouiza (02:10.658)
whether through events or out of the box ideas, which I'm very curious about that. Pop-up funeral service. So thank you so much for being with us, Jamie. I'm so delighted and excited to hear more about you.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (02:15.417)
Yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (02:24.047)
Well, thank you. I'm very excited to be here and have this important conversation with you.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (02:28.973)
Yeah, yeah, so glad you could do it. So yeah, we always like to start with kind of getting a feel for our dear interviewees, our hosts, our guests, I mean, and asking you when you first became aware of death.

Annalouiza (02:28.994)
Yes.

Jamie Dravecky (02:44.291)
Yeah, I really thought about that question. So my first experience with death was when I was about 15 or 16 years old and my grandfather, who I just absolutely loved, died very suddenly and very quickly. And that was really my first experience with any type of death at all. It was a massive loss and not just my family, but our community as well. He was very beloved and helped

build this small town that I lived in. so the visitation wound up being two days long because the line was about a four hour wait. Yeah. Yeah. He was a great man. So it was a very, very hard loss for not just my family, but the entire community.

Annalouiza (03:26.254)
it's amazing.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (03:28.761)
Wow.

Annalouiza (03:36.846)
It's amazing. think that oftentimes I worry like, will anybody show up to my memorial? And then I hear those I'm like, four hours of waiting will not be part of my repertoire. I mean, I guess but I'm like, wow, that is amazing.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (03:43.519)
Hahaha.

Jamie Dravecky (03:48.315)
Mine either, mine either.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (03:55.523)
That's amazing. Yeah. Is that in Iowa where you live now or where that was happening?

Jamie Dravecky (03:59.964)
No, that was in Indiana. I grew up in Indiana, very rural area of Indiana, and then I moved to Illinois to go to Warsham and then wound up staying in Illinois.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (04:12.011)
Okay, gotcha. Excellent.

Annalouiza (04:14.572)
Yeah, so that was your first impactful meeting with death. throughout the course of your life, how has death impacted your story? where has it been?

Jamie Dravecky (04:28.941)
Yeah, it's kind of funny the path I took. I always like to ask other funeral professionals, like, how did you get here? Because it's not just, some people just, most people don't wake up and say, hey, I want to be a funeral director. I think my husband was like one of the oddballs who actually knew from a very young age that's what he wanted to do. But that was not me. Matter of fact, when I was in elementary school, one of the...

Rev Wakil David Matthews (04:35.683)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (04:35.747)
Right.

Annalouiza (04:40.098)
hahahaha

Annalouiza (04:47.307)
So cool.

Jamie Dravecky (04:55.703)
One of the field trips that you took every year was to the local funeral home to have a tour and kind of start your first experience, so to speak, with death. I faked that I was sick. I wanted no part of that. I thought, uh-uh, nope, no thank you. Yeah, no, not at all. So fast forward to my grandfather passing away. I wound up babysitting the local funeral home owner's children.

Annalouiza (05:06.382)
Ha!

Rev Wakil David Matthews (05:06.947)
You

Rev Wakil David Matthews (05:10.679)
Not going there.

Jamie Dravecky (05:22.283)
I started learning a little bit more about death and funeral service that way. it takes kind of a weird turn here. So my grandmother actually had pre-arranged her funeral and I had helped answer some questions for her, some things she wanted to do that were a little outside the box thinking. But if you knew my grandmother, that it tracks. Yeah, it made perfect sense. She wanted a big party versus something sad and depressing, so to speak. So anyway, so...

Annalouiza (05:40.887)
It made sense.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (05:42.104)
You

Jamie Dravecky (05:51.608)
she had actually pre-arranged her funeral and the funeral director that I had watched his children, he actually took the pre-need funds and did not put them where they were supposed to go. And so I thought, there's gotta be better people out here that are good, kind people. And so that kind of led me on the path of exploring death a little bit more, even so.

Annalouiza (06:03.866)
no.

Annalouiza (06:08.151)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (06:15.865)
Mm-hmm.

Jamie Dravecky (06:17.167)
Then I went to school and I thought I wanted to be a forensic pathologist. That just sounded like such a cool profession. I love the science and the whys and the data and all of that that goes along with forensic pathology. And so our forensic professor said, you really should go volunteer at a funeral home to make sure that you can handle being around someone who's deceased. And I thought, well, if I'm going to fight for medical school and have 20 years of education under my belt,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (06:23.159)
haha

Annalouiza (06:23.363)
Ha ha ha.

Jamie Dravecky (06:45.275)
I better make sure I can handle that part of things. So I got connected to a funeral home in the town over and I said, hey, can I just come hang out for like a couple of weeks? I just want to make sure I can handle all this. And I fell in love with it. And I realized I don't need to go to school for 20 years. I can do this, on a different scale and impact more families. And so that's how I wound up going to Warsham and landing where I landed. Yeah.

Annalouiza (06:47.715)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (06:47.736)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (06:59.006)
Rev Wakil David Matthews (06:59.321)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (07:04.792)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (07:09.966)
That is a beautiful story. I love it.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (07:13.707)
Yeah, that's wonderful. I love that. That's so great. So, yeah, right, exactly.

Jamie Dravecky (07:17.147)
It's definitely got some twists and turns.

Annalouiza (07:20.93)
What I do like about those twists and turns is that it really kind of fostered you actually knowing that this is the choice that you made rather than, you know, like, maybe, maybe, maybe. But no, it's like, here you are. You're just every step of the way. It's almost like you're calling, right?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (07:37.453)
Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful.

Jamie Dravecky (07:37.889)
Yes, yes, yes.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (07:40.909)
So tell us more about what you're doing now with the homesteaders and about homesteaders in general and again what your current role is there. And really I just think in general finding out that it started in 1906 was the first thing I went what? That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool.

Jamie Dravecky (07:57.0)
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of crazy to think that you work for a company that's over 100 years old, right? Especially when it comes to funeral service, and not being a funeral home. So yeah, so I'm an account executive, senior account executive with Homesteaders Life Company. And basically what my job is, is I go out and speak to funeral homes and just kind of help them develop a really good business plan to be able to educate.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (08:02.553)
Yeah, yeah, right.

Annalouiza (08:07.265)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (08:07.609)
Mm-hmm.

Jamie Dravecky (08:21.487)
the community on the importance of pre-planning. I am a huge advocate for pre-planning before I took this role, ever since my experience with my grandmother is really kind of what sparked my intrigue and realizing how important it was because she even had little pieces of things hidden from us to make sure that it was really all about her. And I loved that. So I've been a big advocate of pre-planning for a long time.

Annalouiza (08:24.898)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (08:44.065)
You

Annalouiza (08:44.11)
Ha

Jamie Dravecky (08:50.029)
And I work for one of the best companies to do that with. Like you said, they've been in business for ever since 1906. I think it was a group of farmers that got together in Iowa that started this, which is just a little bit mind blowing. pre-planning kind of took off in the 80s and 90s. And now it's a much bigger factor in most businesses today. But it's great to be able to help.

Annalouiza (09:02.414)
No.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (09:04.97)
That's great.

Jamie Dravecky (09:18.989)
educate communities. That's really how I look at things is people don't know what they don't know what they don't know and they don't know about pre-planning or funeral planning in general until they experience a loss. And by then it's too late because then they don't really have a chance to focus on the grief. They have to think about all the steps that go along with planning the funeral.

Annalouiza (09:34.766)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (09:38.552)
Yep.

Jamie Dravecky (09:40.537)
And so that's where I really feel lucky to be in a position to help educate people.

Annalouiza (09:44.845)
Right. You know, I was going to say, so I'm really curious. Two things. This is two-fold question. What happened to your grandmother's funeral then? Because the person never did what they were supposed to do with the money. So what happened?

Jamie Dravecky (09:59.12)
Yeah, so the funeral director went to jail for a while. There was a whole big lawsuit, which I'll never forget. yeah, the whole court proceeding was just a little bit crazy. a few of the insurance companies that had policies that weren't real, but he had written as they were real, honored those dollar amounts and helped the families out that way. So in her case, she actually had a homesteaders life policy.

Annalouiza (10:06.542)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (10:20.974)
Mmm.

Jamie Dravecky (10:28.571)
They paid the claim to, I think it was our family or the funeral home that she had used at that time. And then they had gone after him separately in a separate lawsuit that he had to pay that stuff back was my understanding. Yeah.

Annalouiza (10:39.534)
Okay. So, and the reason I bring this up is last year when we were at a funeral conference and I remember there was a woman who talked about how she mistrust pre like subscription plans, especially for our POC communities where they're like targeting poor people and then they really don't actually show up. So tell me more about how we can help like prepare people.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (10:40.697)
Well, well.

Annalouiza (11:08.142)
How can they know the right information so they don't get taken advantage of?

Jamie Dravecky (11:13.015)
I love that question so much. So in Illinois, because I totally agree with you, especially when it comes to people of color, there's mistrust and it's understood. And so some different communities are targeted a little bit harder than others, which just breaks my heart. But there are ways to kind of help combat that. One, go into a funeral home and ask questions.

Annalouiza (11:30.061)
Yes.

Jamie Dravecky (11:39.83)
One of the most important things I think is you have to feel comfortable with the people that you're meeting with. And if you're not, that is not your funeral home, period. Two, ask them, what are the legal requirements for the state as far as pre-planning goes? So in the state of Illinois, we actually have a consumer protection fund. So if God forbid somebody did do what happened to my grandmother, we could have actually filed a claim with the state to still get that money back.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (11:47.171)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (12:05.282)
Mm-hmm

Jamie Dravecky (12:08.077)
I know not every state has that, but I would ask that question if I was a family. I would say, hey, what are the legal requirements? What happens if I move? What happens if I die and my family doesn't realize I have this policy? Ask them those questions. Make sure that they're working with a reputable company. There are a lot of really good companies that handle prearranged funerals. But as always, there's some bad eggs out there. So just making sure, find out who they're using.

Annalouiza (12:16.344)
Beautiful.

Jamie Dravecky (12:36.549)
Do your homework on that company. Find out how long have they been in business? What are their methods? Ask the questions about the state requirements. Like I said, in Illinois, there's a lot that go along with, they have to report financials and everything that goes along with pre-need to make sure that the families are protected. That's really, really important.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (12:57.347)
Go.

Annalouiza (12:57.44)
It is, and it happens to so many people in so many different arenas, right? Like we could pre-plan with good faith. And you brought one up, like the family doesn't actually know that there's something there available. That's a big risk, right? know, what Keela, we're just talking about, you know, hospice care and planning for that and asking questions. And when you're in that moment of grief, and people seem to kind of like, you know, push you aside, like, yeah, I don't know, I don't know.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (13:07.651)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (13:25.922)
You really don't have the energy to like actually step away from the process of grieving your loved one and go out and do the the yucky labor of finding the money and finding the people who need to help you. Right. So it's tricky.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (13:35.833)
Thank

Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (13:40.252)
Yeah, it is. It is. And it breaks my heart every time I go online and I see a hundred GoFundMe's for funeral services. It's like, man, they're so focused on the money aspect of it that if I always, I always tell people in my own family included. I'm not, I'm not saying anything. I'm not practicing anything. I'm not preaching here or preaching anything. I'm not practicing, I should say, but at least get your wishes down so that your family can focus on at least a fraction of what it's one less thing they have to do.

Annalouiza (13:46.732)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (13:47.065)
All right.

Annalouiza (14:03.372)
Yes.

Right.

Right.

Jamie Dravecky (14:09.877)
and I always tell the story when I give presentations that one of the very last families I met with before I left kind of the day to day, a funeral service was, a woman, she's about my age. And so she was, I'd say late thirties and her mom had died from breast cancer. And we had done the funeral, done the arrangements, done everything, obviously didn't have a pre-plan. and she came back about a month later and I always follow up with families to make sure they're doing okay. Just checking in, making, you know,

doing that aftercare, a little bit of aftercare to make sure they don't need anything, things like that. And she came into the funeral home and we sat down and I could tell she was off immediately. I knew my gut was just screaming that something here is not okay. And so we sat down and we had a conversation and she finally broke down and told me that she was really upset about the casket she picked out for her mom. To the point that she wanted to disinter her mom.

Annalouiza (14:43.235)
Mm-hmm.

Jamie Dravecky (15:05.875)
And in case your listeners don't know what that means, that means actually digging mom up out of the ground and taking her out of that casket and putting her in a different casket. That can be very traumatic, to say the least. So we had a really good conversation about it and she left feeling much better, but that's the kind of thing people don't think about when it comes to their passing. It's like, it's so much more than just the financial aspect of it.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (15:10.745)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (15:14.412)
Wow.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (15:14.615)
Wow.

Yeah.

Annalouiza (15:27.596)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (15:34.254)
Right, yeah, all those details, that's so important. When you're helping people with planning for the funeral, how big of a spectrum is there? Is there also, like you said, advanced care directives? Do you help people with that or with directing them to lawyers for wills and trusts and all the other pieces that go along with, like you said, the things you can do to be kind to your beloveds, know, to have as much in place as possible. Do you work with those things as well?

Annalouiza (15:36.878)
Mmm.

Jamie Dravecky (16:04.963)
Yeah, I like that question. That's a great question. Yes. So the answer is yes. Now, not every funeral home does, but I believed in kind of full service care, so to speak. forming those relationships with hospice and forming those with one of the most fascinating things I think right now are death doulas. I am trying to learn as much as I can about death doulas because I find it so fascinating. Finding local attorneys that you can refer families to that you trust, that you know.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (16:11.235)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (16:14.658)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (16:25.006)
You

Jamie Dravecky (16:34.733)
making it more full-compassing versus just, come in for the funeral, okay, bye. It's so much more than that. it's, when I kind of give my presentations to the communities, I talk about, you know, the funeral home is a continuum of care. Whether mom was in the hospital or dad was in the hospital or in hospice, we are just the next step of continuing his care. And then that also includes into their care after the fact, including, you know, estates, wills, settlements, things like that.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (16:39.0)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (16:47.8)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (16:54.818)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (17:00.48)
Yeah. That really reminds me of the woman we interviewed from New Orleans who talked about how there's like the whole advanced care directive planning and the executor of that person before they die. But she's like, then there really needs to be another person who can carry that, you know, the descendant, I guess, the decedent through the funeral. And I think at a really good funeral home, that person would be someone like you would say like, OK.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:01.752)
Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (17:29.388)
Now I'm going to take this body and we're going to like take it through the next step. So yeah, so important. And we don't think about those things, right?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:36.961)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and we have several episodes with death doulas, so check them out until an audience check them out. You want to know more about death doulas? We've got a lot of them.

Jamie Dravecky (17:37.465)
Yeah. No, right, right.

Annalouiza (17:43.728)
yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (17:48.726)
I have that bookmarked. have that bookmarked. And it's one of the topics we've been talking about a little bit more in the death care collective too is that.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:55.15)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, tell us about that, about the Death Care Collective.

Jamie Dravecky (18:00.867)
Yeah, I realized I probably should have mentioned this a little earlier. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So the Death Care Collective got started during COVID. We realized with COVID and everything shutting down, we weren't having our conventions, we weren't having places that we normally kind of get together and meet and.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (18:03.769)
Yeah, I think that is, yeah.

Annalouiza (18:03.95)
Well, and that's how I found you. Because you had a book club. I was like, I want to be part of this book club.

Jamie Dravecky (18:23.951)
My friend Erin reached out to me and she said, hey, I just had virtual coffee with this gal named Olga and you have to meet her. Your energies are like perfect for each other. And Lord, was she right? So we had a virtual coffee together, got to know each other and we just said, okay, if we're feeling this way, there's gotta be other people who are feeling this way too. And so we put a couple things out, talk about vulnerability here. We said, hey, does anybody else wanna hang out online with us?

Annalouiza (18:30.318)
Love it.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (18:52.857)
you

Jamie Dravecky (18:54.223)
And that kind of led into our book club. then from there, were, you we were just having these book clubs like once a month because it was COVID. There's nothing else to do but, you know, read and watch TV, I felt like. so so fast forward to January of that next year, some people got together. I believe it was at ICCFA at Dead Talks. And they said, hey, let's all grab breakfast since we're finally in face to face and can meet some of these people in person.

And that led to the nine of us launching the Death Care Collective. And it really is. And when I went to Warsham, my class was the first class that was 50-50 women men. And so to see that advance to now, I think the national average was 72 % women graduating mortuary schools. And there's just not a lot of support for women in this profession. Now, I will say there's been a lot of groups that have popped up, which is awesome.

Annalouiza (19:26.888)
That is so amazing. Love it.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (19:27.033)
Hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (19:36.185)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (19:42.658)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (19:42.807)
Yeah. Yeah.

Annalouiza (19:51.726)
Mm-hmm.

Jamie Dravecky (19:51.964)
Because I feel like people are finally realizing there's a need to help nurture women into either ownership or mentorship or just being there to support each other in different avenues. So it's been a beautiful thing to watch. We've got virtual events, usually once a quarter. We have our book clubs, which we just had the author on, which was so cool.

Annalouiza (20:00.994)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (20:14.734)
I gotta get it on this.

Jamie Dravecky (20:16.461)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's definitely worth checking out. We have a lot of men that support us too, which I think is fantastic. you we've even had men reach out to say, hey, how do we help? We were trying to help our coworker. We don't know what to do. Can you help us? And so, you know, there's been times where we've even had some of that conversation as well, just to make sure that women are seen and heard and felt in funeral service because we're important.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (20:40.313)
That's so important, yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned that last part because I was thinking, okay, how do I help? How do I use my place of privilege? It also occurred to me that something else Anna-Louise and I were just talking about might be something that the Death Collective could talk about was the support for people who don't have means.

Annalouiza (20:46.733)
Yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (20:50.693)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (21:04.195)
for their end of life costs and end of life stuff, or don't have people they can count on for their agency or for their healthcare agent or their fiduciary agent. We've been talking about that a while, because both of us teach classes and we, almost every class, somebody says, I don't have anybody can do that for me and I don't have any money to hire anybody to do that for me. And I think it'd be a wonderful thing to create some kind of way of supporting people like that. So anyway, cool. Well, that's great. Thanks for sharing that.

Annalouiza (21:11.278)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (21:14.754)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jamie Dravecky (21:23.673)
Yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (21:29.081)
Yeah, definitely.

Annalouiza (21:31.491)
Yeah. I was also going to say, I really appreciate the death care collective to support women in this funeral industry. Just like the women we met through the death dual is in California who meet weekly, think, or monthly to support each other through this is what we do. Sometimes it's heavier than other times, you know, and at least I bear witness to your services because

It is not always an easy left, right? And we're here to support you. So I really appreciate that that's kind of this very organic formation of support for women, which I love, but that, but that men can also form their own places, you know, and then maybe there's a third where like, it's like, we are all equals in this place and can work. But I do hear that happening in the death care industry, the death.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:11.811)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (22:28.642)
you know, all of us death focus folks are talking to each other and talking about these things that are really important that most other people do not want to come and talk to us about. They're like, no.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:32.214)
haha

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:39.245)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (22:39.641)
Yes, yes, that's exactly it. That is exactly it.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:45.113)
Yeah, yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (22:45.891)
Yeah, the stigma is around just the word of death. just blows my mind. But I think it's, I think.

Annalouiza (22:50.572)
Yes, I know, I know.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:51.469)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because we, you know, we kind of self select here for all the people that are willing to talk about it.

Annalouiza (22:58.402)
Mm-hmm.

Jamie Dravecky (22:58.883)
Yes, right, right. And I think one of the most beautiful things about the Death Care Collective is I've watched it grow into, I mean, I think we have over 3000 followers now on LinkedIn, which is just, my mind in an awesome way. It's been very humbling in all the right ways, but seeing all the people in the different community inside of it. knowing that we have, know, in certain cultures and,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (23:08.921)
Wow.

Annalouiza (23:09.944)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (23:20.973)
Mm-hmm.

Jamie Dravecky (23:27.021)
ethnicities and backgrounds, people, it's so taboo to talk about death. And if you talk about it, it's going to happen. So to see some of those people from those communities be a part of the death care collective, it just makes me excited and kind of re-energizes me because they're having conversations in their community, which I think are just, could be huge, huge for those communities. Yeah, absolutely.

Annalouiza (23:30.86)
Yeah. Right.

Annalouiza (23:46.177)
Yes. Invaluable, right? Yeah. Well, and I also think it's a practice too. I mean, I have been death mongering for like 13 years now. And, you know, my kids are like, my God, mom, like we'll never get invited to a party because of you, because you just are so casual about talking about death and dying. And what I realize now is like, I'm so comfortable in this. And you know, my kids swim meet dinner last spring.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (23:46.915)
Yeah.

So good, yeah, wonderful.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (23:56.793)
You

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:03.083)
You

Jamie Dravecky (24:06.843)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (24:16.002)
I didn't have anybody to talk to and it was just this older gentleman and myself sitting there and we talked about the podcast. And then he says, he's like, I'm very nervous talking about this with anybody, but I want to talk about it, but I'm afraid. And I was like, what is practice with me? What would you say? And I was like, it's just about like really letting go of the, of that structure that makes you feel like it's going to make you feel embarrassed or ashamed or scared or put somebody off. So I love that we taught, we practice it.

constantly.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:46.115)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (24:46.979)
Yes, yes. And I love, I kind of joke that we get invited to all the parties because I'm the favorite party trick, me or my husband, because everybody has like the most random question to ask about like whatever part of funeral service. And I'm like, so I kind of joke that we're the party trick. But you just said something that actually triggered a thought in my brain too. You know, one of the things that people don't think about when it comes to prearranging that I always try to point out is that you are going to face your own

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:54.349)
Hahaha

Annalouiza (25:04.017)
Ha

Jamie Dravecky (25:15.727)
mortality in this and it's uncomfortable. It is so uncomfortable and if you go home and tell your kids, hey, I just made these prearrangements yesterday, they're going to say, my gosh, you're sick and dying. No, it's not what that means. So I like to, I like, do like to tell people that like, hey, be prepared. These are the two, two things you might have happened to you that you're probably not going to expect.

Annalouiza (25:15.874)
Yes.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:27.469)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (25:39.042)
Mm-hmm. Ugh, that is so true.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:39.322)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, very true. Yeah, well said, well said, that's important. Yeah, I mean, we all, because we are the death positive people in our communities, we tend to have those conversations and that's, you yeah. Yeah, which is great. I mean, it's good that there's somebody they can talk to about it and that we can, and that's really good advice to recognize it. Yeah, there are gonna be people that are uncomfortable with this, so.

Annalouiza (25:51.534)
All the time ad nauseam.

Jamie Dravecky (25:56.451)
Yes, yes.

Jamie Dravecky (26:05.753)
Yeah. Yes, absolutely. And it's funny too, because you could be sitting on a plane and talk to someone, but I'd rather them ask me than go to Google and get wrong information. Because there is a lot of that out there, where somebody might hear something and think that that's the truth everywhere. It's like, well, no. That's true there, but not here. It could be regional or cultural as well.

Annalouiza (26:17.102)
Right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:17.208)
Yeah.

True.

Annalouiza (26:24.59)
Right, right.

Annalouiza (26:31.33)
Yeah. there's so much work to do. I sitting here thinking about this. like, I, I want to still be talking about this to strangers, right? Because it does open up conversations and hopefully it'll make somebody feel more at ease and talk about it with loved ones, you know?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:31.853)
Yeah, exactly.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:48.119)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (26:49.84)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (26:51.662)
All right, where are we at? What are your biggest challenges in this work?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:52.409)
We're having fun.

Jamie Dravecky (26:56.731)
gosh, it's funny, you'd think that the biggest challenge would be getting people to understand pre-need and that's definitely one of them, but I'm always surprised at how many funeral homes are also just...

Jamie Dravecky (27:14.341)
I say this the right way. It's not that they're not open to pre-need, but they don't see it as a value add. And that kind of breaks my soul a little bit because I do think it's so important to educate, educate, educate, because families typically only do this once or twice in their entire life. So we have the opportunity to make or break that experience.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:16.099)
Yeah

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:21.593)
Hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:30.915)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (27:35.49)
Right.

Great.

Jamie Dravecky (27:41.762)
for me, that's my biggest challenge probably is getting them to realize like, you've only got once or twice to make this right. And if you get it wrong the first time, they're not coming back. So how do we fix that? How do we make it so families actually want to walk through your door, want to pick up the phone and call you to ask you the questions? How can you be the resource to that? So I think that's a big challenge is getting people to talk about death one and two.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:50.745)
Wow.

Jamie Dravecky (28:07.831)
understand the importance of not just pre-planning but having those educational conversations.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (28:12.697)
For the funeral homes specifically, that's really interesting.

Annalouiza (28:16.268)
Yeah, it is. And we had Seth who actually he lost a loved one and realized how wrong it felt that he went out and became a funeral director because he's like, I could do better than this. Right.

Jamie Dravecky (28:16.955)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (28:26.337)
Yeah, exactly.

Jamie Dravecky (28:27.963)
It is funny how many people go into funeral service for that exact reason. That exact reason is they've had a bad experience and they say, mm-hmm, nope.

Annalouiza (28:32.332)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (28:32.665)
Interesting,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (28:37.561)
That didn't work, yeah. Well, does anything frighten you about the end of life?

Annalouiza (28:38.936)
Yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (28:40.633)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (28:48.759)
Not really. I think it's just the unknown of what happens next, right? Like once we die, then what? that's, but no, I don't think so. I know exactly what I want in my funeral plan and my funeral service. It's going to be a big old party. I, not much, not much frightens me other than just the unknown of what that looks like.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (28:55.575)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (29:06.487)
Hehehehe. Hehehehe.

Annalouiza (29:08.45)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Annalouiza (29:13.87)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (29:15.993)
Yeah, yeah. Well, we don't get to know that, I guess. Although we've had several guests on our podcast, least a few of the guests on our podcast now that have said they're talking to people who have gone over. so, you know, we never know. Maybe they're telling the truth. Who knows? But it doesn't sound like a bad gig for the people that have talked. It sounds like they're having a good time. Right, exactly. Yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (29:20.539)
Right.

Annalouiza (29:28.29)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jamie Dravecky (29:31.311)
Yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (29:40.207)
Well, that gives me hope. That gives me hope.

Annalouiza (29:45.046)
I love it.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (29:46.019)
Yeah. Okay.

Annalouiza (29:48.344)
So how do you keep yourself resourced when you're going through either like a tough narrative of somebody's end of life passing? What do you do to make sure that you can keep doing it the next day for another family?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (30:01.326)
Yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (30:02.011)
Oh, I love this question. I didn't do enough for myself when I was in the day-to-day. That I know. And it was also hard because I'm still married to a funeral director. So we kind of got on opposite schedules for a bit and couldn't quite find the groove of how things should go, which also led me stepping away from the day-to-day. I think I wish I would have found more ways to help myself.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (30:14.541)
Thank

Annalouiza (30:14.978)
Ha ha ha.

Annalouiza (30:20.462)
Mm.

Jamie Dravecky (30:32.367)
have better balance. Now I'm finding that a little bit better, reading different books that can help me navigate different situations, listening to podcasts. I'm always trying to read and better myself in some way so that I can help more families. Going for the walks outside, getting that fresh air, getting that sunshine when I can, that's a big one. Just probably I would say mostly as much self care as I can.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (30:33.849)
Mm-hmm.

Jamie Dravecky (31:01.549)
navigate. Ironically enough, my biggest one I realized is baking. So I love to bake. Yeah. So I made. Yeah, thank you for that. I think so. Yeah, I made I made some cinnamon rolls and muffins yesterday to try to find my groove back.

Annalouiza (31:07.576)
Beautiful.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:09.543)
Yeah. Bakers are the best people. All right, we'll be right over. That's great. I love that.

Annalouiza (31:14.286)
Mmm.

Annalouiza (31:21.122)
Yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (31:23.033)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (31:25.254)
I, that's so beautiful. it is, it's, it's also you being in service. mean, I, one of my teachers always said when you get really in a dark spot, you need to figure out how you can be of service to others. And, know, creating food stuff to feed other people is in service to allowing the, the, the nutritional goodness to come back in for you too.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:38.403)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:43.31)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:49.207)
Yeah, absolutely, I love that.

Jamie Dravecky (31:50.236)
Yeah, yeah. It was definitely hard when, like I said, when I was in the day-to-day of the funeral home, I wish I could have found more ways to make that balance work better. I'm proud that I found it now, but I wish I could have had that then. So if anybody is in that spot, you need to figure it out and really kind of make a pros and cons list of what brings you joy and what doesn't, and focus on those things that bring you that joy. Yeah.

Annalouiza (32:13.261)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (32:13.497)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, many people have said getting in the woods is, or into nature. Yeah, so that's a recommendation really for the audience, anybody who's doing this work. It's make it a priority. Yeah, any kind of, yeah, make it a priority to give yourself a break and get outside or whatever works for you, yeah. Take a nap.

Annalouiza (32:16.098)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (32:21.144)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (32:25.516)
Yeah, or caregiving, anything. Yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (32:26.543)
Yeah. Yeah. Which would.

Annalouiza (32:34.178)
Bake.

Jamie Dravecky (32:34.907)
Yeah, which is funny to me because my yeah, right. Well, that was my typical thing is I would like, OK, let's just curl up in a ball and sleep and watch a movie or something. And my husband's like, you haven't seen the sun in four days. Can you please go outside? I'm like, OK. So like he was the one pushing me to get outside, go for walks and things like that. And I'm like, I don't want to do anything about that. That doesn't sound enjoyable right now. But I realized really quickly that he was correct, that that did feel really great by the time you're about half a mile in. Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (32:43.171)
You

Annalouiza (32:45.816)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (32:49.838)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Well, it's, know, and, and you will, all of us will suffer through times when we can't even take care of ourselves. And that's a very honest and real thing. And it'll take a little bit of maneuvering to figure out what can kind of get us back small steps towards better, you know, health, but it is feeding the mind, body and soul, right? Like, you know, reading a book, going outside for a walk, sitting in nature.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (32:59.629)
Yeah, right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (33:09.688)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (33:28.578)
making some cinnamon rolls, like self care right there.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (33:30.233)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love that, you know, as your husband was helping, we can all be advocates for each other. You know, we can all help each other out, say, by the way, you haven't seen the sun in four days. You want to go for a walk? Yeah, right. Well, is there anything we haven't asked that you would wish we would have asked you?

Jamie Dravecky (33:31.291)
Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Annalouiza (33:39.042)
Yes, yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

Jamie Dravecky (33:45.369)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm grateful for him. He's a good rock to have, that's for sure.

Annalouiza (33:50.478)
That's great.

Jamie Dravecky (33:58.116)
I can't think of anything.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:02.987)
Okay, that's good. We did our job.

Jamie Dravecky (34:04.717)
Yeah, if anybody's interested in checking out the Death Care Collective, we have a public Facebook, a public Instagram, and a public LinkedIn page, but we also have a private Facebook group. I just ask that you fill out the questions because I am the one that monitors that. But it's where some really good conversations happen. That's the area where we only allow women and non-binary folks in to really have those conversations that are personal, private, that they may not want shared with.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:22.455)
Right?

Annalouiza (34:22.606)
Okay.

Jamie Dravecky (34:34.221)
outside of our group and we kind of joke that the Vegas rules apply there. So we also have a website which we need to update because some people have changed jobs since we launched. yeah, so feel free to check any of that stuff out because I'm really proud of it. Yeah.

Annalouiza (34:44.003)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (34:48.224)
I'm so excited.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:48.823)
Yeah, yeah. And how can men support you? me more about that real quick.

Jamie Dravecky (34:56.051)
I love that question. we have a lot of men that ask, how can we help? I think the biggest way that men can support women in funeral service is when we're not being heard, lift our voices, allow our message to come through. And if you hear us say it, you say it, but you say that we said it. Because I think sometimes that can make a huge difference of actually being heard of, OK, well, this is what I just heard. you hear Jamie say X, Y, C? That's important.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:57.355)
you

Rev Wakil David Matthews (35:08.984)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (35:15.82)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (35:15.863)
Hahaha.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (35:24.931)
Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (35:24.942)
That's great.

Jamie Dravecky (35:26.307)
So I think that's an easy way for men to help us navigate some of those situations for sure.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (35:33.421)
That's great, I love that. Definitely on my list. And I'm glad that we can share that with our audience and hopefully all the men out there will remember this because it's so important, such an important.

Annalouiza (35:42.316)
Yeah. And you know what I feel like that's such a simple way to help anybody who's marginalized, right? Like it could be a POC and a disabled or LGBTQI and a white person. Like it doesn't matter, but if we just, the person who's trying to say something that would really help the rest of the community just continue to like lift up those voices as we move along.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (35:46.775)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, lift their voice.

Jamie Dravecky (35:49.305)
Yes. Yes.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (36:06.419)
Absolutely. Yeah, good lessons. Good lessons for all of us.

Jamie Dravecky (36:06.841)
Yes. Yes, agreed.

Annalouiza (36:09.708)
The caregiver who is stuck and sad in a caregiving situation, let's get them also their voices heard so that they can find more help.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (36:15.449)
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Well, you sent us a poem, I think. Let me see if I can find it. A quote, yeah. Do you want to? That's a beautiful quote. Do want to share that with us?

Jamie Dravecky (36:18.723)
Yeah, yes, absolutely.

Annalouiza (36:24.855)
quote.

Jamie Dravecky (36:25.987)
A quote, my favorite quote.

Annalouiza (36:27.478)
Yeah, I love it. I've been staring at it. like, I've

Jamie Dravecky (36:31.831)
It, you know, I, I, let me pull it up just to make sure that I say it correctly because I tend to get it backwards. I,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (36:38.324)
haha

Hahaha.

Annalouiza (36:41.674)
We can put it in the chat too if you need it.

Jamie Dravecky (36:45.677)
That would work too, because I did pull it up right offline.

I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that it won't work. That's by Thomas Edison. I think that is one of the best quotes because it gives power to whatever it is you're trying to do. It gives positivity to whatever you're trying to do. You haven't failed, you just haven't found the right way to make it work. I love that.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (37:04.344)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (37:09.794)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (37:09.933)
Yeah, 10,000 times maybe. Yeah, there's a great roomie quote. There's a great roomie quote even though you've broken your vows a thousand times. Come again. Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. Thank you. Thanks for sharing that.

Jamie Dravecky (37:15.191)
I love that quote.

Annalouiza (37:16.76)
Yeah.

Jamie Dravecky (37:23.215)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (37:25.582)
This is, it is beautiful. Thank you so much. That's going to help me in my way today.

Jamie Dravecky (37:30.085)
My pleasure. Good. Good.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (37:30.732)
Yeah. Well, thank you, Jamie. I'm going to go ahead and stop the recording, but we need to hang out a bit. It's taking a bit of time to finish. What happens is it will finish up after we stop, and I'll let you know when that happens.

Jamie Dravecky (37:40.421)
Sure.