SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello everyone, and welcome to uh let's call it our weekly digest, where we process together all the stuff that we eat daily about death, dying, grief, and boss.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Yeah, so what are you guys thinking about today? What should we talk about? I mean, we we've always got something, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

We always do. I really appreciate having this consistent time talking about what's on our hearts on a weekly. And what what I have woken up to is the um we had the loss of a political person. And I don't know him. I just know the news. But it seems like some people disparaged him even after he was died. And the thought that somebody could die and somebody else could say, Well, that's good, made me pause because it it was it's it's uh there was an origin of respect around when people died, the community showed up and there was a loss, there was a loss of of a family member, a father, you know, a son, a community member. And the fact that humans in this country can say it's good that they're dead, I I find it a little bit repulsive. Yeah, I think that no matter how hell-bent an individual might be in harming other people, and I think this is like my kind of my foundational theological value. It's still a sibling to me, this relationship, and their harm is their harm, but they are still my brother and sister, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:47

So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

So let's talk about how we don't respect somebody passing anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

I mean, ultimately, you know, even as I was, you know, I was thinking about who are there in this world, and there are some who, when they died, I would feel sort of relief, if you will, because I would feel like, oh my God, maybe they won't be able to harm people anymore. And uh, but I probably wouldn't say out loud, especially on a public forum, like, oh good, you know, like who needs that person, you know, because that would be that would be against my feeling of, yeah, we are human. We're all human. Even even the worst of us um are children of somebody and and have come here on the planet to do some kind of to represent something for all of us to learn from. So that's my belief. And so even if even the worst, um, there's some kind of lesson that came from that that we should acknowledge and care about. And so, yeah, and I and I think that you know, we see that too often in our world because we don't really connect with each other on a community basis. We don't know, like we we met Masanko a bit back. You'll see an uh episode with our friend Masanko who was talking about in Africa the whole village knows when somebody dies, and and they all participate in that in the grieving and the loss. And it's not it's not like a a mystery. Like who knows if somebody in their neighborhood dies or somebody even you know, I even was thinking that I have a lot of people that I know from my current work. Um, somebody just died recently and nobody told me about it because I haven't been in touch with them for a while. And uh and I heard secondhand, well, it would have been nice to know that, you know. But we lose track of people and and then we don't know. And so it's not yeah, there's what a loss. I think that's a big loss we can talk about today.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Sam, do you have any thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Oh my god, so many, but which ones do we share here? Right. Um yeah, as as both of you were uh speaking ahead of many, many things uh flitting through from the the increases in in public deaths and the polarization in in our culture in our country and how that get I don't know, either gets in the way or is indicative of the disconnect, that communal disconnect where it's in-group, outgroup, and if it's the out group, you're glad they're dead. And and that has happened multiple times in very public ways in just this last year or two. And um but I don't I don't think I wanna get dig deeper into that right now. Um what what you're talking about, Joaquil, about about the community coming together and and when you said um you know hearing second hand, hearing third hand. Right now I'm I'm staying with my mom and her uh sort of retirement independent living community uh down here in California. And part of the conversations on the street when you're walking around is who in the neighborhoods died this week or this month. Did you hear Doris down the street died yesterday? And um, and so there's some of that talk, and it's and it it is in the field, but every time I encounter it on our walks or whatever, there is still a disconnect. Even in a in a tight community village insular like this, it's still, you know, there's not like, oh, let's go do a vigil, or are we all gonna meet in the clubhouse and talk about Doris and her place in this community? Even in a in a community of like a uh uh a community of like 50 houses. You're right, it's not happening necessarily.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

There isn't, I mean, this country is is really lacking the tools to facilitate connection. You know, Mansaco, Masako's talked about Masanko, yeah, Masako. Masanko he talked about how when someone dies, someone will show up with um you know, a chicken, the bowls, the the firewood for the the fire, and like all the elements to do a vigil or a community uh ceremony, right? So people understand that there is a need we're gonna like show up, even if it's probably a bowl of beans, whatever. When I lived in France, I remember that there was there's like florists everywhere, people constantly buying flowers for every occasion, right? In this country, people don't generally give flowers unless they're ordering it for the the the funeral. There's nothing that we have been taught to to say, I'm going to go, you know, stop by the grocery store and buy a little, you know, a fruit basket or something and just go drop it off. People don't know what it takes to show up for others. They don't understand. And it's still, I think it's that makes them queasy to think about like going to do that. Like, I don't want to disturb. It's too weird. Like, I don't under I don't know what to say. But this we don't have a culture where we've been um, what are it's been modeled. Everything's been usurped. The power of of community has been usurped and taken by funeral homes. And so now the only thing people do is donate online so that there could be like a floral arrangement, one of those big gaudy ones, you know. Like there isn't anything sweet for the families at hand. And so, yeah, Sam, I think that I think people just don't know how to do it.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Yeah, and we often don't show up at all until until there's a ceremony, and even then only if we've heard about it or something, you know, and if somebody that that we get that notice because we're on their list or whatever. I was thinking about that the other day of the the lists, you know, part of what I include in my class about planning is making a contact list of all the people you know you want to have notified and the ones you don't want to have notified. And um, but that leaves out and that's where this thought came to me the other day when I heard about um a person I really cared about when I was doing that career and haven't been haven't heard from for 20 years since I quit, you know, or 10 anyway. Um, and I thought, you know, none of those people are on my list. So if I died, none of them would hear about it either. And they might they might be bummed out about that. But I think it would also occurred to me is, and I don't know if it's the United States in particular. I wonder, you know, I think maybe Britain, Britain has similar kind of angst, you know, or similar kind of way of looking at things. I don't know, maybe maybe it's Europe, maybe it's not, maybe it's the Western world, maybe not. And there's probably examples all around the world of of places that do this better than we do and maybe do it worse. But but the point being that what would be the ideal, you know, how could we find an ideal? What could we change? I guess you know, not only to talk about there's a problem, but what could happen that would be different? And one of the things we've all been we all work on to some extent is this idea of um uh helping each other out in our you know, creating community and helping each other out, like a mutual aid. Mutual aid, thank you. That's the word, you know, the mutual aid idea. We talk about this in my a lot of different areas, but maybe one of those is um finding out about your neighbors, getting to know your neighbors, making making relationships with your neighbors so that even, you know, like I'm I'm kind of thinking Sam's where you are now, Sam, is kind of an interesting example because they kind of have done that, right? They've created a community um that's closer, people know each other better, they're walking down the street, they're saying, Oh, did you know Doris died? Um, but they're still not, they still don't have the tools. And this is where I think we could work to create this kind of one piece of mutual aid is having those tools to say, Oh, well, somebody died. What what kind of ceremony should we create around that? And what can we do immediately when that happens? And what can we do going forward? And what kind of rituals should we create? We had a a really nice episode about rituals, you know. And people talk about that a lot with me about what I really feel like that would be important.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

So I don't know what you guys think about it is so important. People are so uh I'm not sure they're resistant or they're there's this like barrier to like having having things like I can't imagine having people ask about ceremony for somebody that you barely know. Like I really don't, or ritual. These are words that are almost verboten on the in common parlance. And you know, I was I had a bunch of really young ladies over this weekend, and I there's some hardcore, you know, liberation folks who are the collective is where we need to be, like straight up, you know. And then there's other young ladies who are like, what is mutual aid? I've never heard of it. I'm like, oh my gosh, the work is like so like big. You don't like like people, and then as soon as you start explaining it, they're like, I really want to get, you know, get to understand this better. But liberation is like, you know, taking the time to explain to people the the essence of how we can support one another. But in this, you know, it's so hard to do. It's so hard because also language, the semiotics of all this words makes people very uncomfortable. I mean, if death, if death is something that like makes people shut down, imagine talking about like a collective to go help with you know, ceremony. Like, what? What is that? Yikers.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

You know, so I don't know. I I I think that it's needed. I think that human beings are uh have so lost when they when they just don't understand that a part of our collective has passed and it matters. Even for the really, you know, harmful people who live and and and create lots of harm in our communities. I you know, I still pray for those folks because there's something. I I just have to believe. But um I was also thinking about how and I looked on in the Denver roster, but we need to take off that. Um so many people die and nobody goes to claim them because there's not enough funds, right? And so in our city coroner's office, there's a whole bunch of pictures of people who are been found and nobody's collected them. Again, like the the the the community at large is like, hey, what happened to your son? He's disappeared. Like, you know, I haven't seen him for a while. And you know, mom might be like, Well, he he he got killed and uh I don't I can't afford to pull him out of the you know, the the city morgue. Why can't people just like be like, oh, we gotta get him out, you know? Like you know, this is not something that people want to spend their time and energy in, I think.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Yeah, I think it's want I mean, want to have the tools to the understanding uh understanding it's there's uh so much of the disconnect I think is that is is on a cultural level. We're so disconnected from just like being a part of the life and death cycle. F being able to look at that from ideas of of uh collective action. That's that's a dirty word in so much of our culture, especially right now. Like there's so much rhetoric around any sort of collaboration, cooperation is socialism or caveat, dirty, dirty, dirty words that all you know feed into a certain sort of perception that cuts off so many people from even being able to like understand that. Yeah. That's like a natural part, you know, the and the the narrative that it's natural to just be this atomized, isolated, being totally disconnected from everything else, which is just I mean, schizophrenic. Uh oh god. Um it's it's hard, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:42

It's a heavy lift to get folks to to get to that point to have that conversation.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

To even, yeah, to even be talking about coming together as a neighborhood collectively until you're in crisis. And you know, there's silver linings around around crisis. You know, a long time my as as a community-building oriented person, you know, studying it, I've seen, you know, crisis brings people together. And the trick is how do we get people cooperating before the crisis happens so the crisis isn't as decimating and people don't have to scramble. And sometimes it's just out of our hands because the the wounds, the damage to the collective spirit is so, so deep. And and as you were talking on Lisa, I I the the word like reciprocity and accountability came up. And that can be a terrifying concept for people too. That that I don't want to be accountable to my neighborhood. I don't want to be accountable in a in relationships of reciprocity with anyone in my neighborhood or anyone around me. Because what if they ask too much?

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Yeah. Yeah. That's to that fear we talked about a long time ago. You know, maybe there's not enough.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Right. And, you know, what if I can't show up, or what if I ask and and they can't show up, or they judge me for asking for help. And all these messy little little like cultural enculturated pieces. And and like you're saying, all we said, the the work, it's such big work. It's such big work.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

And just I wonder if it maybe even goes as far back as the um the Western culture's separation of the body from nature, you know, or the are like the way patriarchy has grown up to say there's no don't, you know, don't have feelings, don't have, you know, that separates the cowboy mentality. We lift ourselves up by our bootstraps, you know. And um, and that's the right way to be. And and uh and we certainly wouldn't want to have, you know, crying or be sad or you know, we've we're tough, you know, we can fight our way through this. And yeah, um, and that sense that which separates us and and really that you know comes in in the Christian religion cut goes all the way back to like the third century where they said, you know, that we're polit where politics were actually where, you know, when the beginning of Rome saying this is our religion was to use use it as power, and to do that, they had to separate out the feelings for each other, the community, and create this power structure, you know. And um, this this you know, separating the male from the men from the women or not not even that, the masculine from the feminine. I think it's uh that split is almost almost seems like that has become that's like we are the epitome of what happens if you keep that split going long enough, you know. And it's become in our culture and specifically in the United States culture, it's just become so deeply embedded that we can't, it's hard to see beyond it. It takes a real effort of will and a real effort of community and gathering and thinking about it and working on it to find a way around that and to find a new way to be. So let's yeah, I'd like to do that. I would too.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

And I think that our conversations are modeling what this means, right? To have to be the springboard for, you know, thoughts that are like, wait, you know, do I know my let's just even say my extended family. Some families are so, you know, cut up and far away from each other. How do we, how do we mourn the loss of someone, whether we know them intimately or not? How do we show up when people are in crisis? How do we know like we don't have to like you know send money to a funeral home for flowers? We can actually show up at the grocery store, get a bundle, and you know, we do this in in respect to the loss that somebody has has encountered, right? Like these little small tokens of I see you, I bear witness to your loss. I'm really sorry. I mean, where is that? That's all we need.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Yeah, well, that's where we start by by ourselves taking on and thinking about and sharing, like we're doing here with others. Um, this is a better, how about this is a different way of reacting to things or being with things, and it can grow from there and it can grow, and we can purposely set aside time to be in community and say, let's practice what it looks like to um take care of each other. And uh that's another way I know, you know, used one of my jobs in the past was emergency response, you know, and we had all these emergency response plans that we practiced. Um and and I just was realizing that that kind of idea it might be what you were talking about, Sam. You know, how do we how do we practice being in crisis? How do we get used to that so we don't have to wait till the actual thing happens? And maybe one of the ways is to create these communities and then say, what would it feel like if we had a an earthquake right now? You know, how would we respond to each other? How could we help each other?

SPEAKER_01 19:58

What were you gonna check on?

SPEAKER_00 19:59

You know, yeah, and build that into the community from up front, you know. Um, so yeah, I love that idea.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Well, I was just thinking, I had this funny thought just crossed my mind. Uh, one of my late uh Diaz, my auntie, um I heard tell. I don't I've never got to ask her personally, but she liked to go to random people's funerals and sit in the back and cry.

SPEAKER_04 20:23

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

And like, you know, she was like one of those, you know, people who cried. And and I think one of my uncles who asked her about is like, you know, are you crazy? What are you doing? I feel like crying and I want to make sure like people like think, oh, there is a loss. I'm so you know, like somebody actually cares. She's sitting in the back and she's crying. And so I love that as um as a practice, like you don't have to know people intimately to feel a loss. Yeah, right. I'm so sorry, you know. Yeah, I'm so sorry. Um, I I mean, this is why I loved uh when I was in hospice and got invited to uh I would meet somebody for like a week or two and then they would pass. They would die. And then I would get invited to the funeral. And I love the funerals. People would just like tell all these stories. And I I would always think to myself, I had this small kind of interaction with this person, but I am so much better of a human being from having that this moment with them. And and I hope that people would could could like find those those moments that are gems of for our humanity, right? You know, for our story, our collective story, our own personal growth is embedded into the story of so many other people. How how can we, you know, be brave and acknowledge the loss?

SPEAKER_00 21:42

What a gift that is, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Yeah. So I'm sorry for the loss of of the person who passed away this weekend. Many people have passed away this weekend. I don't, I don't wish anyone to be told that it was good that they passed, unless There was pain and suffering, and maybe they did want to, you know, they were ready. But to to to desecrate the loss of a human being by saying that it's you know good riddance feels like not a good model for us to follow.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

That is a good that's that's a good way to put it. Bad modeling. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Let's do better, folks. Oh my precious people. Anyhow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Humans, we love them. Yeah. Well, um, yeah, we've we've uh I don't know. Any any other thoughts? Sam, do you have anything else you want to share or think about this before we say goodbye to folks for this time?

SPEAKER_02 22:46

Yeah, the the last little piece that comes up for me definitely bringing up those those counterpoints. We talked a lot about our um cultural disconnect from from showing up for each other and from you know ritual being a scary word and community or communal efforts being being somehow um what's the word I'm looking for? Um disparaged? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Yeah even disparaged, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

Um or just uncomfortable, unfamiliar. Um and also acknowledging that there are a lot of people waking up to the necessity of that, uh doing a lot of work to untangle and un uh uh extract themselves from those enculturations. And there are a lot of people really into the idea of showing up for each other, mutual aid, collective effort, community rituals, all that stuff. And so I don't want to get too down on us. I don't want to lift up. Oh, thank you for that. Yes. Because of the housing situation that we're in. But putting in the effort and uh and if you do have the the privilege to stay in place for a while and get to know your your neighbors, you know, some people want to you know keep an eye on each other. And uh and if somebody dies, you know, gather your neighborhood and and just talk about the person, talk about their yard.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Um where you know baby steps and yeah, pay attention and be and be willing to look for that and find that or create that yourself. Yeah, so for the folks in our audience, there are probably groups in your area and look for those and um and or begin to create them. And you can do it like you said, baby steps, you know, just one step at a time. Go go meet the person next door that you've never talked to and just get to know them a little bit, have them over for a cup of coffee or um you know, just these like kind of what we're doing right here. Just have a little chat. Sit down and have a chat and talk about what's important to you and and what you wish was going on in the world and how you wish things were different, or how things are for you now. So yeah, we have that. We we can we can do that. I think we can do that.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

And if you're particularly extroverted, um start do block parties. I it keeps coming up. It keeps coming up that that block parties to get to know your neighbors, whether it's around something, you know, maybe it's like, you know, we're all parents, and so we wanna, you know, uh let's all meet uh each other's kids so that we know, you know, our kids know each other and know who to keep an eye out for in the in the neighborhood or you know, whatever it is, whatever it is. Um block parties have have been up as a way to really initiate community building. And I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Keep doing that, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

Meet your neighbors.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Yeah, yeah. That's the first step. That could be I'll just remind my, I'm just remembering how challenging that was. We had a neighborhood that we were in that we tried to do that with, and um, we would get half a dozen people out of the 30 people who lived that we invited, you know. Um, but even that, I mean, I and and that at that point that was like, okay, that's a that's a drop in the bucket, but it's a drop in the bucket and it'll ripple, you know, and it did. We found that, you know, even so those six people then would talk to next their next door neighbors and say, you know, this is a group of us who are thinking about how do we support each other. And this was emergency management at that point. It was like, how do we support each other in an emergency? Um, and who who needs to be taken care of? And that was actually what happened is we found about an elderly woman who whose um son had a mental health issue and she was kind of reaching out for help and nobody was helping her. Um, but that one of her neighbors, who had been one of the six, heard about her, and then the group came together and we helped her with a lot of stuff that she needed help with. And so um, like I said, that you know, even though it might feel like it's slow, it's drops in the bucket. But remember that those drops cause ripples and that we can that just it's worth it. It's worth it to whatever step you can take is gonna be another step. All right.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

That's right. Uh I am gonna finish with a poem. Oh, beautiful For Whom the Bell Tolls by John Dunn. Junior High School, you know, English class. But truly, this is it.

SPEAKER_04 27:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

No man is an island entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manner of thine own or of thine friends were. Each man's death diminishes me. For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Yeah, yeah, beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

It is beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Thanks for reminding me, reminding us of that. That's great.

unknown 28:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Okay. Yeah. Thanks so much, everybody. Um, we hope you will listen again next week and um subscribe and like and tell all your friends.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

And um email us. Yeah, check in. What do we want to talk about?

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Yeah, yeah. We want to we we would love to have this community grow and create um you know an actual conversation um going on on an ongoing basis. So, yeah, get in touch. Much love to all of you.

SPEAKER_04 28:54

Adios, adios the last conversation is not the end of life.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Thank you for joining us today. Thank you to Charles Heastan, the composer of the original music you are listening to now.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

And of course, thanks to you, our audience, and all of our amazing guests. Please come back next week for another great episode. Share this with your friends, family, and community. We hope you will subscribe and follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky, and Substack. Each guest additional information will be found in the podcast notes. And of course, if you have a good end of life story to share, please reach out. We are always eager to hear from you.