Rev Wakil David Matthews (00:04.021)
Welcome one and all. I am the Reverend Wakil David Matthews. On today's episode, we have the privilege of speaking with Andee Kinzy. Andi is the creator of Kicking the Bucket, a fiction podcast about caregiving, family, and an older couple plotting to bite the dust. Only they're not very good at it. And I've listened to some of this and it's fantastic. It's really, really beautifully done and I recommend it highly.

Annalouiza (00:35.662)
Well, I am the Reverent Mother Annalouiza Armendariz and Andee is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist whose work dives into what we rarely say out loud. From a short film on body insecurity and mother-daughter relationships to a multimedia festival exploring Peri and menopause, Andee leans into life's big, messy, and often taboo topics, the kind most people avoid.

We're going to discuss how kicking the bucket helps families and caregivers open up tough conversations around aging and end of life with laughter, plot twists, and maybe a little crying in public. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (01:18.145)
Which we absolutely love that crying in public. I'm just going to quickly share the screen just to show everybody the Kicking the Bucket podcast that you can find online. just the part that I love right away, as soon as I saw it, is that beautiful couple. It's just, it's a great graphic. Thank you for that too. Anyway, want to make sure everybody gets that and takes a look. We'll definitely put that in the podcast notes. So.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (01:19.462)
Thank you.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (01:39.578)
Thank you.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (01:46.783)
Yeah, thank you, Andi, for joining us. It's so good to have you.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (01:50.51)
Thank you. I'm very, very excited to be here. And we were talking earlier about, feel like I'm joining such illustrious company and I feel very honored to be part of the company.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (01:59.989)
Ha

That's how we feel. Everybody we meet just blows our minds and we get such a growing and loving community. So really appreciate you being here. We'd to kind of, I guess, set the bar, if you will, and just kind of hear from everybody. When did you first become aware of death or end of life yourself?

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (02:23.012)
Yeah, yeah, so you know, my dad was in family practice. I grew up, also worked in the ER. So I grew up with this, you know, conversations about death and dying and blood and guts and injuries and like all of these things were fair game at our dinner table. So I was never uncomfortable around the idea of it, but I would say that it didn't really hit home.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (02:43.776)
You

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (02:51.686)
home for me until I was the, well, I wasn't, I was family pets. There were four of us, four kids. And I somehow had the unlucky ability to always find the pets when something had happened to them. So I came across them when they were injured or dying or dead. So that seemed to be my lot in life. I also did a lot of

Rev Wakil David Matthews (03:10.506)
Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (03:20.516)
reading and I was really into all of the spunky redhead adventurous girls like Anne of Green Gables and Jenny and Pippi Longstocking. So they of course were all orphans. I became I think at the natural age it's a it's a development right an age development when we start to connect

ourselves to the wider world. at that point, it was somewhere around seven or eight or nine, I became super, super terrified that my parents were going to die overnight. Right. And I remember I couldn't go to sleep unless I went into their room before I could go to bed and said, good night. I love you.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (04:04.181)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (04:15.622)
because I was so terrified that something would happen to them overnight. And then I would go to bed and then I'd have to make all sorts of barters with the powers that be. If I do this XYZ before I go to sleep, then they're gonna be okay. So it was more so than a specific incident.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (04:19.594)
Hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (04:26.875)
Hahaha

Rev Wakil David Matthews (04:33.792)
Mmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (04:42.214)
that happened to me, you know, this kind of speaks to my storytelling background. It was the stories and the imagining and the potential of what could happen that was more powerful than anything that did happen in real life to me. it was, it was in that kind of age range of seven, eight, nine.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (05:04.448)
Wow, yeah, yeah, that's great. I love that way of thinking about it, and especially since you're bringing us storytelling and for that to kind of been the way things came to you, that's beautiful.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (05:17.294)
I would say that having pets or animals be part of your initial introduction to death and dying means that I have this unhealthy relationship with movies where animals die. I get really, really traumatized. And a little way my sister is like that too, because if you get to listen to Kicking the Bucket, there is a dog in the story.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (05:25.192)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (05:30.496)
Ha

You

Rev Wakil David Matthews (05:44.384)
Hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (05:44.582)
And at the end, I was coming to the ending and I was like, well, should the dog die? And my sister said, no. She was like, you can't make the dog die. If the dog dies, everyone will hate you forever. They will never want to listen to the story ever again. was like, yeah, I know you're right. Okay, no.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (06:00.001)
Ha ha. Ha ha.

Annalouiza (06:03.034)
yeah, my kids hate movies that the dogs die every time with the pets. They're like, why, why? That's not okay. That should not be allowed. So, Undy, as you moved from the awareness that, know, dying is happening around you, how does that story link up to who you've become now?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (06:05.056)
know it.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (06:07.237)
Yes!

Mm-hmm. I agree.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (06:10.93)
Yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (06:27.43)
yeah, so the dying weirdness, I think that contributed to my super large imagination. So I did continue in the arts, know, did theater, film, and now this audio storytelling. And in terms of death and dying and just what we were kind of comfortable with in my family, it, you know, I sometimes joke.

that I wrote it because I could not have the end of life conversation with my parents and that I needed a story to start the conversation, to help start the conversation. That of course was actually before I really knew how hard it is to have that conversation. So I didn't realize it. I didn't realize that there's this whole giant system in place that makes death.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (07:01.737)
Mmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (07:16.543)
Yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (07:23.27)
and dying so complicated in the United States. So I kind of stepped into it from this more human aspect. My mom always talked about end of life autonomy. And she has a story that she shares about my grandmother that will be familiar to anyone who has Alzheimer's or dementia in their family. She was at a checkout, know, checking out at a store one time with my grandmother who had already entered.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (07:43.593)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (07:52.646)
She was probably, I guess, in the middle stages of Alzheimer's at this point, and they'd gone shopping. And the checkout person looked at my grandmother and said, is this your daughter, referring to my mom? And my grandmother turned around and looked straight at my mom and said, well, she's somebody's daughter, but not mine. And so, you know, that is like that heart, you know, that's the, that's like, my mom laughs about it. We all laugh about it.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (08:21.983)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (08:22.618)
but, and she didn't take it personally, but as my grandmother's disease kept on becoming more and more debilitating, my mom knew that my grandmother would not have wanted to end up like that. And she always knew that she would not want to end up like that either. So she's been regaling us with tales of hemlock society, you know, like all these.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (08:35.562)
Right?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (08:45.512)
Right?

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (08:46.406)
Like all these things for many, many years, you know, like I'm going to do this. I don't want to end up where I don't know all of you. So that of course is kind of seeped into my conscious as well. But then the story itself of kicking the bucket came about during the pandemic. So we were separated from our aging parents and as all of us were separated from our aging parents and

or most of us. And at the time, our lieutenant governor in Texas was saying things like the grandparents would be willing to sacrifice themselves for the state of the economy. All these things that made society value our elders much less than I think at any point in my living history. And so that was kind of playing in the back of my mind.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (09:38.238)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (09:41.566)
Mm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (09:46.266)
And then shortly after that, women started to lose bodily autonomy in Texas as well. So this feeling of helplessness, think kicking the bucket actually began around that question of autonomy, right? And it kind of comes to like, what is death? Death is the ultimate loss of control, right? So when we, it's also paradoxical.

What's that? How do you say it? Paradoxical. Right? So it's the ultimate loss of control. But it is also like at the point while we can't stop it from happening, we can choose how we're going to engage with death and dying. Right? Whether it's faced with fear or curiosity or secrecy or humor or, you know, denial connection, whatever it is, those little choices are the autonomy that we have around it.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (10:16.362)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (10:29.364)
Yeah, yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (10:43.106)
So maybe you could say that watching animals die and having no control over that led to my need to discuss topics about autonomy or my parents' relationship to it. I don't, yeah. I wonder if that was kind of how it transferred through my journey.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (11:07.658)
Blossomed. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, looking at this wonderful story of Dolores and Howard, who are such sweethearts, the characters in the Kicking the Bucket podcast, it just really is so embodied, embodies the way that so many of us are going to deal with the end of our lives.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (11:17.828)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (11:34.057)
one having a diagnosis and one having Alzheimer's. Just, you know, so many of us, we've talked about that a lot in the podcast and so many of us have dealt with the difficulty and the pain and the misunderstandings and the anger and the fighting and all this stuff that happens when people haven't made those choices. So I love the word choice. Yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (11:56.472)
what your workshops are all about, right? So your workshops bring the people together to have these conversations in advance.

Annalouiza (11:56.696)
Mm-hmm.

Right, yeah.

Right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (12:04.222)
Yeah, yeah. And I think this book is, mean, this podcast would be a really good thing for people to share with their families. As you said, a way to get the conversation started. People always ask me, how do I even start this conversation? My parents don't want to talk about it or my sister or my brother, my kids, whatever. say, well, yeah, yeah, watch this. It's really fun. You'll enjoy it.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (12:11.302)
you

Annalouiza (12:19.638)
It's like priming the pump, right?

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (12:22.043)
Yeah.

You know, in some ways, because we do hope that it becomes a tool that can be used in that way. And I feel like sometimes with fiction, you can judge the characters more than you can a documentary or a real person. So you can use those fictional characters as your examples and say, you know, what they're doing. I don't agree with it at all.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (12:40.736)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (12:52.696)
or what they're doing, that's really interesting, in a way that you can't perhaps with a real person, because there's guilt around that, right? You don't want to judge real people for their actions and behaviors, but it's very easy to judge a fictional character for their actions and behaviors.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (12:52.776)
Yeah, right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (12:59.956)
Yeah, yeah.

Right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (13:09.696)
That's true, yeah, I hadn't thought of it that way. Well, I'd like to hear more about your process and how this came about, how kicking the bucket came about, maybe more about what the story is about a little bit. Not too much, we don't want to ruin it for people.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (13:21.72)
Yeah. Okay. Well, you mentioned a little bit about it at the beginning. So that's a good introduction. is an audio. It's fiction podcast. So we're listening to a nonfiction podcast right now. So fiction podcasts are fictional stories. Sometimes they're called audio dramas. It is a limited series. So there are only

Rev Wakil David Matthews (13:28.48)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (13:49.016)
eight episodes, nine. It's a choose your own ending. So technically there are nine episodes, but you may only listen to eight of the episodes. The story is about family caregiving, like you mentioned earlier, and these two older adults, Dolores and Howard, who both have terminal illnesses. So they've decided to take charge of their own deaths, only they're not very good at it. So

Rev Wakil David Matthews (13:53.087)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (14:14.528)
Thanks.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (14:17.952)
When we think about fiction, not that many people are familiar with the idea of these new fiction podcasts. Some of them are taking the style that we've done with this series of, it's kind of like a movie for your ears. So we have designed an entire beautiful soundscape around it to help you imagine.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (14:37.62)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (14:44.174)
what they're doing, where they're going, how they're moving in the space, perhaps even you can feel them looking at each other, giving each other a look. it's this really kind of intimate listening experience. I mentioned that I come from theater and film, and this is a new medium that is different from both of those other mediums. But I think in some ways that it allows the audience to be way more

Rev Wakil David Matthews (14:48.618)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Right? Right?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (15:08.276)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (15:13.958)
participatory than some of these other mediums. I say that because in film, often say the story has three lives, right? You have your life during pre-production before it goes into production. That's the writer. The writer wrote it, and that's the life there. Then it goes into production, and you have all of these things that kind of can affect the story in terms of cost or time or all of these other issues that come into play.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (15:15.423)
Yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (15:42.502)
And so the story changes a little bit and then you go into post-production and it becomes a little bit of a newer story there too, as you're editing it for the audience. And I feel like the audio storytelling kind of brings the audience in to this collaborative process because you are listening and you feel like you're part of the characters. You feel right there in a different way.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (15:51.231)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (16:12.706)
than I mean, I say that I don't know, do you feel like that with fiction podcasts?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (16:15.87)
Yeah, absolutely. I love the detail, the sound details of birds singing right down to the sound of the toilet flushing and washing your hands. It really does. You really are just right in the... You get to open your imagination to just being there with those people and imagining everything that's happening to them. yeah, absolutely. feel that way. Sure. And appreciate it too.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (16:40.304)
I have a funny story about that toilet flushing. the whole project was able to come about thanks to a grant from the city of Austin, Economic Development Department. And so we received this Elevate grant, which enabled us to find this incredible sound design team, Hemlock Creek Productions and...

One of them is based in the United States and the other one is based in Portugal, I believe. And the flush, as you're listening, like you listen to it after the design comes in and you're listening to this, I said to the team, said, does anybody else feel like that toilet sounds like a European toilet flush? Because there's a different flush. And then our sound designer was like, I never thought about that before.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:25.565)
Hahaha.

you

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (17:34.244)
That was kind of fun too, is like you don't think about your environment having such distinctive sounds that really set you in a place and make it comfortable and familiar to people who live in it. yeah, so it kind of became, sorry, go ahead.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:35.902)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:42.014)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:47.873)
Yeah, yeah. And it really does. It really does set the stage. I really did make you feel like, and a lot of little things that you don't really even pay attention to, but they just put you in that space. So yeah, very well done. Very well done. And I love the irony of the company being called Hemlock.

Annalouiza (17:49.66)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (18:09.41)
Have luck.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (18:10.298)
I know.

Annalouiza (18:12.564)
Yep. So, Andy, what are the biggest challenges you face with doing this audio drama out in the 21st century?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (18:20.757)
or with people who's, know, result, yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (18:21.542)
See.

Annalouiza (18:23.148)
or people accepting the stories, yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (18:26.246)
So it is, know, fiction podcasts are fairly new. I mean, we've had radio dramas like around from a long time ago, but we kind of lost our knowledge of this as a medium. So we're familiar with audio books. We're familiar with interview style podcasts. But when we come to this fiction podcast, it's a new medium.

And within this medium, they've found that very specific genres do the best. So we're talking thriller, horror, comedy. In fact, I did a fellowship at Sundance and they did not even list drama as a genre for fiction podcasts. And I said,

about drama?" And they're like, well, nobody really like, no, people don't really listen to drama. So it's like, okay, so I first kind of created a, you know, niche genre, like this dramedy genre. So that's a niche. Talking about death and dying is a niche as well. So I've like, also a limited series, so you're not like constantly putting content out.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (19:26.378)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (19:36.564)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (19:43.252)
Thank

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (19:47.984)
So I kind of made the niche of a niche of a niche with this project. So finding listeners is one of the hardest things, like how you get it out there to people. But as part of the grant that we received with the city of Austin, they required an in-person event along with it. So necessity is the mother of invention, right? So I was...

Rev Wakil David Matthews (19:56.896)
Sure.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (20:08.884)
Mmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (20:14.45)
Yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (20:16.294)
trying to figure out how to have an in-person event for a podcast. And I came up with this idea of listening clubs. And the idea was that we would listen to one episode as they were released and then have an expert facilitator and guide us in a discussion, conversation about that episode afterwards. So.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (20:25.248)
Mm.

Annalouiza (20:39.197)
So cool.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (20:41.364)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (20:42.244)
We did this and I was able to, had a great team. have our producer, Dana Wing Lao, and then our listening club producer, Chloe Carcamo, and then Kiata McCarty was pushing it out there on all the marketing channels. And we had a great partnership with the library, our librarian here in Austin, who connected with us, us with some other branches. She said, you know, if one person walks out of there.

moved or changed, then it's a success. So they also were one of the places that were not afraid to have these conversations. So we had approached some senior activity centers, we had approached some retirement communities, and a lot of the resistance that comes from there is, death, dying, know, we're not interested. And so it's been hard to kind of

Rev Wakil David Matthews (21:14.133)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (21:20.352)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (21:37.73)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (21:40.582)
present it more as a, you know, this is thinking about the things in advance so that you can actually get it all taken care of so that you can live your life, right? So that I would say has been the most challenging. It remains to be seen if it was a good idea or not. We'll find out when time goes on. Maybe it would be.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (21:47.616)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (21:50.52)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (21:52.66)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:03.584)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (22:05.75)
It's going to be a great idea. You're going to be ahead of your time. You know, in like 10 years, there'll be so much drama. You know, is it? Drama, fiction, drama, fiction, podcasts that you're the OG. She's, she's the OG of this. Yeah. So I feel like we just, those, know, we get it early. We hit it earlier than we before people are like, that's a thing.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (22:12.004)
I know exactly.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:12.16)
And they'll go back and say, Andi was the queen and the beginner.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (22:17.424)
They're like, one person way back then.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:27.754)
Yeah, that's great. And are those still ongoing?

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (22:30.328)
It seems natural, doesn't it? mean, I feel like even these interview podcasts are very dramatic. Like you're like sitting there so intimately connected to the people that you're listening to. You feel like you're right there. Yeah. So it seems like people would be interested. We'll see. Okay. I'm going to hold you to it. 10 years from now, I will say. Guess what?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:35.721)
It can be.

Annalouiza (22:40.578)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:46.57)
How, okay, we'll check in. If our podcast is still going, we've got 10,000 podcasts. We'll call you back and say, come on back and talk again. So, so are those ongoing still the, the groups or did that just end at the after eight episodes?

Annalouiza (22:52.622)
That's right.

Annalouiza (22:58.179)
Yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (22:58.662)
Next.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (23:04.366)
You know, we're trying to find a model that can work. I'm working with two occupational therapists and end of life doulas to design a facilitators guide that could be used by anyone to start these conversations similar to your conversation that you had with Monica at the beginning of September is when it went up about your values, right? You were talking about the values. So using the

Rev Wakil David Matthews (23:25.536)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (23:30.078)
Yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (23:32.772)
the story to help perhaps discover those values and creating a model that can be used by communities or educational institutions or other organizations. So we're kind of planning that right now. Also, you know, it's out there. So it's not like anybody can't go, you know, especially

Annalouiza (23:37.013)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (24:00.068)
end of life doulas, people working in the space, it's not like they can't go, know, hey, go listen to this and, you know, see what you think. We've been entertaining the idea like you guys do about online, like an online listening club that could happen. It was extremely, extremely...

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:02.729)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:06.73)
Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (24:07.02)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (24:19.448)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (24:26.606)
beautiful and moving to have these listening clubs. did not realize how powerful they would be. I didn't realize how many people want to talk about this, but don't have the chance or the opportunity to do it. And by doing it over an eight week period, we connected like we created a community like, you know, one of the people at the end of the summer is like, thank you for spending the summer with me like that.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:28.723)
Mmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:38.42)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (24:38.648)
Yep.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (24:48.174)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:49.664)
well

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:54.72)
Thank

Annalouiza (24:54.766)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (24:55.59)
That is what we did. it's also like, you know, it could be the jumpstart to creating a community that continues to stay together and continues to have these conversations about death and dying and preparation, all the preparation that needs to be done.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:12.81)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (25:12.921)
I think that you should continue with a theater piece too and like kind of sculpt this into a theatrical piece so that you could launch it out there too, you know, so I could see that I would go to that theater piece.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:24.554)
Yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (25:24.89)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:28.106)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, and I've definitely.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (25:28.772)
Yes. Yeah. And then I always went theater where you can have a conversation with the audience afterwards. You do that and then, yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:34.802)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Annalouiza (25:38.562)
Well, it could go to a comedy club then, and that way you could have a lot of, you know, back and forth with the audience, because that's where, you you could really tap into the visceral reactions of people.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:50.442)
Sure, yeah, yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (25:50.574)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because that I work with youth and Shakespeare. so part of our the scripts that I adapt are very interactive. Like through the whole thing, they're talking to the audience and then, you know, doing the verse and then talking to the audience. So I that's like one thing that I love is like collaboration. So I think that that's really

Annalouiza (26:04.066)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:04.102)
huh, yeah, yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:10.4)
Nice.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (26:18.278)
An important part of any sort of project, is your collaboration and play, like that's, that's brings the human-ness together. and. Right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:24.628)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:28.224)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And we get to laugh and have fun. That's what I love too about this thing. It's really lighthearted and yet, yeah, it's a deep subject, deep subject. And it seems like to me too, it's certainly something that I will, the question I get more often than not is how do we even begin this conversation with folks? And I think one of my answers is gonna be this. Send this out. Yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (26:48.186)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (26:52.546)
Good listen. Yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (26:55.91)
can be a Thanksgiving challenge. Like you're driving on your road trip. Like just listen to it on the road trip. yeah. You know, it's funny. I was speaking with another end of life doula who works in this field and still cannot get her mother to have that conversation. Yeah. It's even with this. It really is. And I,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:57.79)
Yeah.

Exactly, and we'll talk about it at dinner.

Annalouiza (27:01.56)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:15.846)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (27:17.194)
It happens. It's normal. It's like it's like the cobblers children have no shoes kind of thing.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:22.526)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (27:25.378)
I think the only reason that we've kind of made another step with my parents is because of this. So they came to the listening clubs. They were there. and my dad did joke. He was like, I didn't like being the, you know, your example or your guinea pig for all my parents. but it, you know, it, it becomes a conversation that

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:32.352)
Mmm.

Annalouiza (27:32.63)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (27:54.97)
Like you said, I think that this was mentioned in the interview with Monica. That's why I love that your podcast is titled End of Life Conversations, the plural, because when we think of it as a one and done kind of thing, it's never going to happen that way. So it's got to be these conversations that we just start and keep on having.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (28:05.201)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (28:11.406)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (28:12.564)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (28:17.76)
Exactly. Wonderful. Is there anything that you feel afraid of when you think of the end of life for yourself?

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (28:26.566)
Hmm, yeah, I am mostly afraid of being the one left behind. So that is my fear.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (28:35.904)
Yeah, talked our last guest we just talked to, we spoke about one of her favorite authors and friends who is probably in his nineties now. I'm remember his name, Yalan, Yalan, Yalan, yeah. Who was a psychotherapist and his wife died and the last few years of their life, they wrote a book together. The last part of their life, they wrote a book together.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (28:37.626)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (28:37.838)
Hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (28:51.696)
Yeah. Yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (29:02.758)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (29:03.568)
And they'd been together 67 years, right? And so just this sense of, yeah, that both she and him talking about what's my life going to be like if you're gone, if you're not in it, you know? Yeah, so I totally, I really do relate to that on many levels. So yeah, that's an important thing to think about. And it's again, it's something you can think about and think about how you want to treat that, how you want to be with that, with your family and what you want them to know, right?

Annalouiza (29:15.042)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (29:15.952)
you

Annalouiza (29:19.468)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (29:32.176)
Yeah. Yeah.

Annalouiza (29:33.593)
It's a, you know, here's the thing. Um, I'm going to really mix it up right now, but a year ago I was at a bunch of teenagers gathering with parents and I was talking to, I think somebody brought up sex and it's coming up and oh my God. And this person said, I don't know what to say. Like, like, what am going to say about sex and safety and all this? And I'm like,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (29:38.688)
You

Annalouiza (30:00.641)
Our kids are 16 and you've never talked about it. And I literally said that to her and I was like, this has been an ongoing conversation since the kids could speak and point at the pictures at the Grey's Anatomy. And it was always like, this is what's different. This is what's careful. This is what we say, you know? And so I just am flummoxed by people's inability to consider like, there are so many topics that we can be holding with everyone.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (30:03.104)
Right?

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (30:04.196)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Annalouiza (30:30.286)
from forever, right? Like sex and love and like how do you even find a good partner if you don't talk, if you're parenting and not telling your kids, like you might want to think about these things when you die, when I die, when the pet dies, you know, like, I just don't understand. Like what, what are people talking about? Like, I don't what I'm, I'm, I'm shocked.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (30:31.85)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (30:44.96)
Yeah, we're a little different maybe.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (30:45.604)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (30:55.054)
mean, am I really that weird? this really why I'm not invited to parties?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (30:59.731)
Hahaha!

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (31:00.358)
I know. She's gonna come and she's gonna talk about sex and death. Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:05.376)
And wait supremacy.

Annalouiza (31:06.03)
100 %!

and white supremacy. Easy peasy.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (31:10.63)
Yes, yes, Can't have her, can't have her. No, yeah. I know I once heard somebody say that, no, it was a friend who told me, she's like, I always talk with my son about sex in the car when he's in the back and I'm in the front. So you don't have to look at each other. So we can think of, you know, like death the same way, right?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:13.28)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (31:24.61)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:26.09)
Hahaha

Annalouiza (31:30.102)
Yeah, well, and that's actually a psychological piece. I've learned that any conversation that you have, if you're talking to a male, it is better received as in there if they're side to side. Right. So you walk together or you're in a car. So I talk to my son a lot as I'm driving him to. But with women, they want to be facing each other so that we could like really get that connection. But again, it's like, you know, all these conversations should just be really normal. Like.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (31:40.375)
side side, yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (31:46.948)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:58.369)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (31:59.085)
You know, because there's so it's not a one and done. Like you said, it's it's a curiosity. You know, I mean, I grew up in a family where, you know, I had a disabled sister who she was always dying. So there was always like, this is it. This is it. But also my parents fought about who was going to be the pallbearer for my father. Like, I don't want him to be in there at your funeral. And, my dad's like, well, I would like my blah blah to be there at my funeral. I was like, like, what?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (32:04.576)
Yeah, yes.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (32:05.67)
Yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (32:18.662)
Thank you.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (32:26.042)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that is like what helps make it so natural, right? You're like just we my, know, I'm sure part of the reason that this story has the humorous twist is because, well, I like to joke that Shakespeare was my writing teacher and I learned that you can't have tragedy without comedy, but also

Rev Wakil David Matthews (32:26.656)
You're not even gonna be there. Yeah, I do need to...

Annalouiza (32:32.344)
So.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (32:55.702)
my immediate family, know, spouse and kids, we're the ones who always laugh through the hard times, right? And so we're always going, okay, like, you know, that we even created, like, we, if we have a hard topic to talk about, we break out a terrible accent. You know, what was it we were doing? Like,

Annalouiza (33:04.066)
Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (33:23.32)
That's great. Those are coping mechanisms and it's okay to do that even if it's about death. It's okay.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (33:25.549)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (33:26.772)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's a good idea.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (33:29.434)
Yeah, It kind of gets you in there in a way that makes it not as scary because, you know, I guess it's the whole thing is that you're it's the vulnerability like you're making yourself so vulnerable when you tell somebody how much they mean to you. And and that brings up so many emotions that it's overwhelming. And so if you have some little thing that just kind of

Annalouiza (33:33.132)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (33:38.152)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (33:38.232)
Right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (33:48.894)
Yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (33:58.798)
is right there that kind of helps support it so the emotions don't just fall over the place, that can kind of help. It's like when I think about when you creation, right? You tell a kid, okay, create something. They kind of stop and they don't know what to do. But if you say, here are some markers and here's a piece of paper, here's a piece of cardboard, create something within these parameters, then

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:03.392)
Yeah, exactly.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:18.432)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:26.912)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (34:27.366)
they can create. So we just need to put a few parameters around it that kind of help us feel safe so that we can then have the con, you know, I just, I just made that up right now. I'm like, Oh, why did we do that?

Annalouiza (34:31.458)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:33.14)
Yeah, yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:37.824)
Well, that's a good kind of thought about how you can take care of yourself in this world too and this method, this way of being. We also like to, we do like to kind of ask at the end if there's anything we didn't ask you. I will mention though, when I was thinking about this, what we were just talking about, the laughter that one of the favorite scene that I just listened to was of them being told of his diagnosis and laughing their way out of the office.

And just sort of, you know, the person who was talking to them being kind of, what's going on here? You know, it was such a beautiful scene. Anyway, yeah, is there anything else that you wish we would have asked you about?

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (35:13.786)
you

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (35:19.974)
So you mentioned that I'd love to just give another shout out to the talent. Like, so the the actors who were involved with this, Mimi Strum played Dolores and Richard Gartner played Howard. And we had a large contingent of other actors to play the other characters. Richard and Mimi were both part of the table read. So we were able to

Rev Wakil David Matthews (35:26.725)
yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (35:49.584)
have additional rehearsals, the theater background, I love the rehearsals. So they were able to kind of come into the recording with so much backstory. Like they were part of some of the changes that we made and they just enveloped the characters in a way that I had never imagined that they could be.

it was so moving to have them make the words come alive. But they also were like sitting there, we were recording in studio for them. We had some people who were recording remotely as well, but they were right next to each other and everything you could feel that connection with the two of them. So I was so lucky that they came into my life to be part of this project.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (36:21.97)
Yeah, they do beautiful job.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (36:36.437)
Mmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (36:44.102)
And Richard is actually 92 years old now. So it was like a really fun thing to have him be there. He has been a performer and, and the team has been incredible. I did have one other thing that I was thinking of, but it just went out of my head because I was thinking about the actors and how wonderful they are. Yeah. So.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (36:47.712)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (37:07.25)
Yeah.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (37:10.574)
I don't know. It may come to me. It may not. It'll come to me after. After I'll be like, you guys, I forgot to mention this. Can you just throw it in there? I'll just go on and record myself.

Annalouiza (37:14.164)
At some point. Yep, that's okay.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (37:14.304)
That's right.

Annalouiza (37:19.736)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (37:21.192)
Yeah, we might be able to do that. It's true. Well, great. This has really been a pleasure. I really can't wait to finish the podcast and share it with more people.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (37:34.182)
Oh, you know what, you just brought up what I wanted to say. I just wanted to iterate like this whole idea of the choose your own ending. So it's, you know, you can't do that in an audio book format and you can't, I mean, you could do it on stage. You can't do it on film, but it came about because during our table reads, I ended it, the table reads at the, what would, is the end of episode seven and said, so what do you think should happen?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (37:41.535)
yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (37:47.049)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (38:01.792)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (38:03.55)
And literally half the people wanted it to go one way, like following Dolores and Howard's path and idea. And the other half were like, they need to talk to the kids. They need to talk to the family. So I was left with these two ideas. And because it was such a very, you know, literally half and half, I was like, well, maybe I should do both.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (38:09.12)
You

Rev Wakil David Matthews (38:15.826)
Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (38:29.834)
haha

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (38:30.372)
My producers are like, yeah, do both, maybe do three endings. And I was like, no, no, So they became two different endings. They start out the same and then they diverge. And really, like that was such a gift too, because I love them both now. I love both of those endings. I love what they both bring up and what they both do.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (38:33.246)
Hahaha!

Rev Wakil David Matthews (38:50.613)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (38:55.84)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (38:56.126)
And I would never have explored the other ending if I did not have people say, you know, communicate, like it's all about communication. yeah, so you too can choose your ending or you could listen to both, which a lot of people do.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:03.477)
Yeah.

Great, I'm probably gonna have to listen to both of them.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:11.775)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (39:12.078)
That is such a like a junior high kind of thing, know, like choose your ending. And honestly, we could choose our own ending.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:18.56)
That's right. We get to do that,

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (39:19.556)
Yes, it all comes back to that because no one death or dying circumstance is the same as anybody else. So we're all unique. So thank you.

Annalouiza (39:23.864)
It's the same.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:24.896)
It's all unique. Yeah.

Annalouiza (39:26.67)
That's right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:29.024)
Well, you sent us these quotes. Do you want to read those or would you like us to? You should probably read them because you're the Shakespeare person.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (39:34.808)
I should probably read them. Let me just like open it up. I thought about like I should have those quotes out. Okay, have them right there. Okay, so this comes from Hamlet, Shakespeare's Hamlet. Shakespeare is a big part of the story because Dolores is a retired Shakespeare professor. It kind of pulls from my experience with Shakespeare. So I love this.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:40.665)
I can put it in the chat if it's easier.

Annalouiza (39:41.09)
We could put them in the chat too, if we need it.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:54.452)
Mm-hmm.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (40:03.558)
quote that Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, says to Hamlet when he is very upset and stressed about his father's death, murder, and she looks at him and she says, do not forever with thy veiled lids seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou knowest his common. All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.

that quote because we are all that lives must die. We pass through nature to eternity and whatever's next.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (40:34.784)
Yeah, perfect, beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.

Annalouiza (40:35.148)
I, yeah, it's a great one.

Yup.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (40:43.796)
Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate your time and I can't wait to finish. I'm sure a lot more people will at least I'm going to push it around a bit. yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (40:53.814)
Yeah, I'm gonna start get it started.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (40:54.758)
Excellent. Thank you so much. And I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (40:58.772)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (41:02.878)
Yeah, and we'll let you know when this is live. So thanks so much. Take care. Bye-bye.

Annalouiza (41:05.538)
Yeah. Thank you. Bye bye.

Andee Kinzy, KTB Creator (41:06.598)
Awesome. Thank you. Bye. Bye bye bye. Now leave. Okay.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (41:14.56)
boy.

Annalouiza (41:17.85)
boy, something else to think about and do go listen to a podcast drama.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (41:24.38)
Yeah, what a great idea. Dramadion on podcasts. I love it. And yeah, just what I've listened to so far. It's wonderful. Wonderful. Well done. Beautifully done. You can really hear the energy between the two, the couple. They're so fun together. So yeah, she braids that point that they kind of fell in love. They were, you know, they totally embodied the characters. So yeah.

Annalouiza (41:28.257)
Yes.

Annalouiza (41:32.654)
I can't wait to listen.

Annalouiza (41:37.132)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (41:44.938)
Yes, the characters. I am just so delighted that people are so creative and can continue like lifting up what is important in a myriad of ways. So wonderful.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (41:56.784)
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So everybody should listen and we next one will be another excellent opportunity to meet more wonderful people. So come back. Take care. Adios.

Annalouiza (42:01.783)
Yes!

Annalouiza (42:07.232)
Absolutely. All right. And adios.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (42:12.861)
Okay, boom, there it is.

Annalouiza (42:14.427)
Ha ha!