SPEAKER_01 0:01

You know, on this podcast, we often talk about the impact uh on caregivers. Uh and we've had several episodes about uh caring for the caregivers, right? We kind of you know because we wonder what does caregiving really do to a person emotionally and and how do people continue after they've lost the person they've been caring for. In this episode, we get to meet Angela Nistalski shares a really wonderful, deeply honest story behind her memoir, which I love the title of Good Grief, Past the Bread, Mom is Dead, where she explores the complicated emotional terrain that many caregivers quietly carry. Exhaustion, love, resentment, humor, guilt, tenderness, and heartbreak, all existing at once and being held by those caregivers all at once. It's it's amazing. It's very complex and really fascinating conversation.

unknown 0:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Good. Some of the key pieces that Angela, Ana Luisa, and Joaquil will touch on today are caregiving for aging or sick parents or anyone really. Anticipatory grief before a death. Losing a parent, uh specifically a mother in this case, and and navigating that particular grief, a caregiver burnout and emotional exhaustion. Humor as a coping tool during grief. Thank God for that. The ways family relationships are impacted during during illness and the relational dynamics therein. So whether you're currently caregiving, grieving the loss of your own parent, supporting a loved one through an illness, or just recognizing the loneliness that is often a part of caregiving burnout and grief, spoiler alert. The episode uh offers a compassionate and grounded conversation about what caregiving really asks of people and ways to stay present and support other caregivers too.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yeah, so important. So stay tuned. Stay tuned. Welcome everybody, and thanks for joining us today. We are so looking forward to speaking with author Angela Nissle. Angela is the award-winning author of three books, including the national best-selling memoir, The Broke Diaries, and her latest, which is what really got us interested in talking to her, called Good Grief, Pass the Bread, Mom Is Dead. What a cool title.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

It is.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

It uh came out just this week, I believe. And uh we'll link, of course, to the podcast notes to it, and you'll be able to get it, get it, pick it up yourselves. Um, her work has been praised as fiercely honest, deeply moving, and laugh out loud, funny, often all at once. And from what I've read, I would totally agree with that.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Ooh.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Angela seamlessly translated her distinct voice to television, launching her Hollywood career on Scrubs in 2002. Over the past two decades, she has written and produced on a wide range of acclaimed series, including The Boondocks, Ginny in Georgia, and the other Black Girl, earning a reputation for blending sharp humor with emotional depth. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Angela still carries that energy with her. I can see that. Whether she's covered in dog hair at the at home or throwing elbows at the goodwill bins in pursuit of a great find by the pound. Girl, I am your sister.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

I saw your face when I said, I said, oh yeah, yeah, we gotta talk.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Oh yeah. No, even better. This today is like large item pickup day in in my town. And so on my dog walk, I picked up a an a vintage chandelier that I hauled home. Wait, girl.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

I got a whole patio set left.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Where's we're sisters? I know. I see you. All right.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

I'm gonna, I'm gonna be very careful not to go uh thrifting with either of you think they'd be the elbows, you know.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Yeah, well then uh yeah. I'm not I'm not an elbow gal, but you know what the mystery provides. That's all I have to say. Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

Good opins are a different breed of thrifting, I'll say. Sometimes it gets rough in there. I don't do that.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

I'm a little, I'm like, you really want this now, thank you. But tell us, tell us what inspired your work and the the the desire to share your stories.

SPEAKER_03 4:33

Tell me more. I wanted to share my story because nobody, not even my mom, who's an RN and should know about life and death and all the illnesses that come between, prepared me for her own death, or even brought up that she might die one day, you know. You just and in my telling of the story, I found that a lot of moms do this too. And my mom hid her breast cancer from me. So you talk about, yes, it was, I mean, hid it physically, covered up her, you know, breasts where they used to be with scarves and just really. I had never had a talk about death, had tons of talks about childbirth plans, even though I don't have a child, but no one talked to me about death plans. So I had to get it all together in like two weeks.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah, yeah. You really jumped in. There's no way about it. Right. Um, well, that's great. And I thank you for sharing that. And and just to say, when I was looking at the excerpts I got to read, that uh it did sound like um just all of a sudden you're in it, you're in the middle of it, and now you've got to figure out how to be a caregiver, which we talk about a lot on this thing, is that caregivers are working hard and not to have any way, not to have guidelines, guidance or you know, nobody nobody tells us about how do you do that, you're right. It's like it is yeah, there's not really any good books about how to be a parent either that I found, although maybe a few, but but uh no, no uh the kids don't never generally come with a a book, you know. Um but yeah, to get jumping into the work of taking care of somebody who's dying is just incredible. First that you did that, and second that you did it without any kind of um training, if you will, or you know, conversation beforehand. And and all we want to do here is talk about this stuff. So we talk about it all the time.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

So yeah, it's you know what I think even with because I've become weirdly too comfortable with the end of life now, and like I talk about things and people will be like not weird, not weird. Thank you. I was like, again, found my people, but um, you know, and so even now when I talk to people who because I lost my mom when I was 35, and now I'm 51, and a lot of my friends are starting to go through it. The things that we read about caretaking are very you should make sure you have this set up, make sure you have that set up, but not about the emotional weight and how to just be present with someone when they are at the end of their life or when they are very ill. We make it, at least the things I've read, made it more of a checklist than just a love up on each other and and be there and listen to each other. And I think I fell into that a lot too.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's one way of coping, I guess, is to just have the checklists. But yeah, I love that you're bringing up how important it is to be present, to be human with each other. Can you share? Oh, go ahead, go ahead, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

Oh, I was just gonna say, you know, it's um we used to learn all this from our family members when people died in-house. And there were conversations about the aunties and the uncles and the grandparents, right? Or the neighbors. And so people had the the the kind of the ancestral knowledge of care taking at the end of life, uh, caregiving, not taking, caregiving. And now um we are in this culture of both get the checklist, do the checklist, but you know, kind of divorce yourself from the the the emotional weight bearing that you're doing. And so I really am curious about this, like the checklist piece because uh it is it is a thing people like to do, but it's not necessarily it doesn't have the the GERD, the weight of what you're actually doing.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

Yes, I for me, I have spent my whole life as a checklist girl. And I remember when my mom just how I was raised, you know, make sure you work hard, you know, work hard, you'll receive. And well, that wasn't true, but right, but so I just thought, I'm gonna be the best caregiver, I'm gonna read what I can. And but then I remember the hospice worker telling me, Your job is to just be her daughter. And that blew my mind because I honestly didn't know how to do that. Right. I what does that mean? And my mother was a very old school mother where children stay in their place, you know, and and there's no way I'm gonna let you wipe my behind, you know. I don't even want to wear a diaper. So I just had to do things like I would walk around with my pants down so she could see my butt. So she wasn't like, it's just a butt. We all have them, you know, there's no shame in letting me do this. Yeah, and having to think on the fly about how to give my mom, very to herself person, the best care I could. And the biggest, the hardest thing weren't the chess checklists. I could call the credit card companies, I could call and make her appointments and all this stuff, but learning how to deal with an individual personality that doesn't want to be taken care of, and teaching her that there's no shame, that I actually when I tell you, and this is where I say that people think I'm weird sometimes, it was hard taking care of her. It was hard, it consumes your life. Yes, but the moments we had are some of my best memories with her. Instead of us both working and calling each other just to catch up on work and things that happened at work, that was our life before she got ill.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

That's beautiful, yeah. I love that. I think the other thing that we are lot what's lost in our culture um is that that community, that sense of community and village, you know, like you're saying in normal and and in the days before uh capitalization capitalism and uh patriarchy, you know, and all this stuff that's got it's created this uh separation, this sense that you've got to take care of yourself and isolation. Um we talked to a man from Africa who said when somebody dies in a village in Africa, the whole village comes together. The whole village knows about it, right? And we don't do that here. And we would probably, I mean, my neighbor upstairs could die, and I probably wouldn't even know. You know, they they whisk them away as quickly as possible in a gray van and you just don't know what happened.

SPEAKER_04 11:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Um so yeah, it's a different, different culture, and and without that support, you end up with what you came into, you know, just like I don't know what I'm here doing, you know, I don't know what this is.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Right. Well, and the other side of that, the the the culture changing is like our hygienic modalities around bodies, right? Like you cover them, you don't share them, you you ex you have to excuse yourself because you're normal or you actually poop or you fart. Like, you know, it is really interesting how we don't do that on the regular with anyone. It's very shaming if it happens on accident. And so when we have elders who are like this, or friends or family, you know, it is really hard to caregive when there's just so much like don't see me in my most vulnerable spaces.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

Yes, yeah. And when you just said that, it made me think about how easily my niece, especially when she was younger, would just say, I have to fart, my butt itches until we teach them. Right. Hey, you can't talk about that in public. Why not? You know, the world would be a better place if we could all just my butt itches right now, excuse me. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Yeah, and you know, it goes with like the whole spectrum of like women's bodies and the needs that it has, and like aging bodies and babies poop and fart and dribble and vomit, and we don't allow anybody else the the the beeness at all.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Yeah, yeah, not to mention crying.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

So uh w go ahead, Wachil. I was gonna say the challenges, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Well, I'm I'm dear, I'm just curious if you have a moment when you were with your mom that you could relate that's just that was something really important and really special. Maybe even if you've got the book, read from the book if you want, but just something that really stands out when you think about those experiences you had caring for her.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

If you wanted the overall thing that stands out for me is just the moment when I earned her trust that I because again, she probably just looked at me like I wanted to drop out of high school to become a rapper. So she would already had her, like, I don't know about you know, if you can do this. But just I remember giving her her medication, making sure she got it, and giving her whatever food she wanted. I feel like she kind of would tiptoe into what she wanted. And then one day she told me, I want some cheesecake. And so my mom is not the type of person cheesecake is expensive, you know. That's so, but I rushed out and I got her that cheesecake, and just the greatness, the gratefulness, and the look up, and she'd said to me for the first time in my life, she said, Wow, you really do love me, don't you? And I right, I wow, and I thought, of course I love you, of course I love you. But the look when she said it, like, and I realize now after talking to other parents, parents always don't think they did a good enough job. And that to her saying that wasn't that I never showed her I loved her before, but just she did a good job. She could take it in, she could see that I could be a caregiver. Like she was her whole life, you know, and it just filled me with such pride thinking about that. Like, of course I love you. Thanks for letting your card down. Like, oh, just the love that was in that room the whole time that she was sick, and the ability to know that our bodies with the poops and the farts, they're just a shell. There was nothing else that taught me that more than just sitting there because she was the same person, and the energy in the room was always the same, whether she could talk or walk. And so I thought, wow, life is such a gift, but it's not all there is. And I had never thought about that until my mom got sick at all.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Yeah, you know, it's actually kind of uh I love that moment that was so critical for your story making in that the eyes of love showed up to towards you, whereas mothers' parents usually do that towards their babies. Like we do what we can in those owie moments to like show up with those cheesecakes, but the the the reciprocity isn't necessarily considered as we age, right? Like somebody would show us. Um, I really think that is key to understanding how we transmit, you know, as we age. There are younger people, there are our children who will be transmitting the skills that we we've used on them. So you love her.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

She loved you. And that to me, when we talk about the unchecked capitalism and how we don't, as a culture, view bodies as worth anything unless they can contribute and be productive. My husband and I have been thinking about that and talking about that a lot, and we've decided to uproot our life to be closer to his children because like yes, it's great that we can move across the country and if it makes you happy, but what really makes us happy now is what you just said, making sure that the next generation we pass down that love and how to take care of each other. And he has a new grandson, and I'm the only um grandmother on the paternal side. His wife passed away. And just the look in that little three-year-old baby's eyes when he says grandmom, and I'll do little things with him, like we pretend DJ and DJ grandmom, and he does it right after me. You know, I'm like, they are sponges. I want to put things into that sponge. Yes, this world a better place. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

Um, so I think that that's what we are failing to see in our, you know, birthing, living, dying, you know, circle of life is that we do tend to our elders just as they tended us. And without that, you know, it's like it made your comment made me also think about how many ways capitalism has also enforced not spending our time with our children to be more productive, to make more capital, right? And so that our children are bereft of this like knowledge of the lovingness that we have as parents. So so yes, we're on to something.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

You spoke to because one of the things I talk about in my book, my mom was a single mother. And so one of the things I was most jealous of as a child was something I that was called double overtime. And so she always, you know, picked up those shifts. And oh yeah, I had when I was talking to my brother, we have more memories with the people who cared for us than we do our mom sometimes because she was working so hard. And I honor that that's what she felt like she needed to do and probably did need to do in our society, right? Right. But I've also thought, how much is enough for me to live on? And that's why we're moving to Minnesota because it's much cheaper there. But it's you know, it's I don't want anyone I love to look back and have to search for memories of me because I was trying to get more and more so someone could have to clean it all out when I die. Like I literally like, I hope that people have a ball in my house when I die and all this stuff I found on the curb, you know. Me too. I can't wait. I literally I literally have boxes called might not want to open this one, just trash it. This one might be worth something, you know. Have a party, have a party. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Yeah, that's so great. Yeah, so precious. I love the the conversation that you had with your mom and that that opportunity for her to actually let you know that she did trust you, that she did love you. I mean, that it's so sad that we lose that in our culture from the fact that, yeah, that people just have to go to work every day. I mean, that's for me, it was my dad. I never saw him all all my life, pretty much, because he was never home. You know, he'd come home for some dinner and then sit down and watch TV, and that was, you know, that was the last, that was it. And uh the relationship just was much less than it could have been. And so we we need to reclaim that somehow. And I think it's a cultural thing as much as anything else, you know.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

It's a cultural, it's a capitalist thing, too. I think a lot of people are are are striving to to tend to our babies, to tend to our hearth, and it create and we need capital, and our bodies make capital, right? So we have to go away to do that.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

And one of the things that I've learned too is retired people are the happiest people in the world when I go to the dog park when the retired people are there, and I've learned so much from them. Just I've lived in Los Angeles for over 20 years and never went bird watching. Like, and there's a man in the dog park, he's maybe like mid-70s, he's like, There's a Cooper's hawk. And I'm like, I don't even know what that is, but it's beautiful. And now I'm gonna go home and look it up. But just the ability to decide what we want to do with our own time, I am aiming for that in whatever manner I can get it. Because that is, I just it is so sad how we do not think about just the art of being a human being until at least for me, until something like this hits us in the face. And we stop being like, okay, boss.

SPEAKER_04 20:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

Um I'm it feels again, I'll use the word weird to say I'm so grateful because if we all have to go, I learned this at a younger age than I know a lot of other people learned it at.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so true. And as uh probably the only retired person on the call here, I'll just say that I I still stay very, very busy, but I stay busy what I in stuff I want to be busy with, right? And I'm just not, you know, half spending half my life on the uh freeway being clogged up waiting to get downtown, you know, which I was so happy for. I hate going downtown as much as possible. I don't do that anymore, but uh but still, you know, it's it does it's like our ministry now is this bringing of this conversation, right? And so that's pretty much where I spend all my time, which is how beautiful is that? How blessed is am I to be able to do that? And we every time we finish our conversations on these podcasts, we look at each other like, oh my god, we're so lucky.

unknown 21:47

You know.

SPEAKER_03 21:48

You are, and here's one of the things I'll say thank you for your ministry because there are a lot of people that I didn't learn until I was taking care of my mom that look at end of life and caretaking as An opportunity to scam people. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Yes. Especially POC. What do you say? It's a big, it's a big deal.

SPEAKER_03 22:09

What is going on? I'm just like, and I know it's well, also, it's funny. Anything relating to our emotions, because you guys are real reverends my mom married guy who probably wasn't. It's in the book. But she fell in love, and it was just, you know, he's closer to God. So she just thought anything he says is true. Then we ended up having to. That's why I moved her off to Los Angeles. We were like, hmm, you had to change churches three times. Something's going on there. But um then just I talked to after my mom passed, everyone's like, she's gonna send you a sign, gifts from heaven, all this stuff. And I thought, I want my sign. So I hired a psychic who ended up talking to the wrong damn person. It wasn't my mom. Oh my god and I just thought, you know, I but it was the emotion of missing her. And I thought, I have never paid so much to one person in my life who couldn't even call the right heaven line.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

Like what it speaks to like our emotional pieces that we want to hold on to, you know, that we want connection. And yeah, maybe it's scammy, but you know what? Maybe you got to meet a very lonely ancestor.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

You know what? You might be right. I'm gonna take I love when somebody reframes something for me.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Yeah, because there are lonely ancestors out in the world, you know, people who also have died without anyone and are are hoping somebody will commit to them. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 23:38

I truly have never thought about that. You know, I wow, and wow, no, you just blew my mind with that one.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Thank you. You might have to go back and reach out again, right? You know what?

SPEAKER_03 23:50

I've learned to just do it on my own.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

You could just like write it down on a piece of paper and put it under your pillow for just talk to them.

SPEAKER_03 23:58

I talk to her every morning and I write in my gratitude journal, you know, and I get it's funny when you try to force a sign. I think, at least in my experience, what and even this is what the psychic who talked to, and again, we're gonna reframe it, talk to a lonely ancestor because I love that told me. You can't expect people to be in the afterlife what they are aren't in light. So it's like if my mom was reserved and shy, all of a sudden I'm not gonna get the mom who's turning on and off the lights and makes birds fly into the room. Right, yeah, that's right. Maybe, maybe your mom was like, you go talk to her. I know when my mom she did. She'd be like, anybody else have something to say? I just spent the whole night.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

We have to be playful. We cannot, you know, there's so much mystery. We just do not know. And we make these these decisions, these uh we make the queries and then we don't like what we hear, right? Because we're like, that's not the way it should be because somebody else had it this way. It's like, wow, like that's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

Like, all right, tell me more. Yes, you nailed it. I wanted to have the perfect experience. And I wanted, and if this happens, I know my mom, I gave her a good death. And if this happens, you know, and nothing in life goes like that. So why would we content?

SPEAKER_02 25:16

You gave your mother a great death. Thank you so much for your work.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

Thank you. That's all I mean, and I am I know I have my death plan now. That's how I want it to go, surrounded by love. You know, I think the worst thing in the world would have been to get a phone call your mom has passed. I mean, to be by somebody's side when they and to also see what she saw. My mom was very religious. I'm not quite as religious as her to put it mildly, but to see that, and I'm literally I'm sitting in the room that she passed away in, to see her, the room fill up with love and to see her talking to people that you can't tell me those people weren't there, whoever she was talking to. You know, in the book, you'll learn I've been in the psych ward. I know when people are talking to somebody that's not there. There was somebody, you know, people there, and that she was not scared at all. She was ushered in by the uh the community, and it was just any fear I had of it is just gone. You know, it's like I'm not rushing it, but I've never seen my mom so at peace in her life, and she was still verbal, she was still, but it was just like wow, this isn't something to be afraid of. Great, yeah, yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_04 26:44

Yeah, you're definitely my sister.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

So wait a second. So I'm gonna jump into Joaquil's because I've heard those challenges, but uh, are you afraid of anything at the end of life?

SPEAKER_03 26:57

I'm afraid of my family tossing away my plan and being like that's legit. She because every from working on scrubs, I remember talking to doctors because we had to consult with doctors a lot of times, and they always said, I don't want any of that end-in-life stuff. You know, it's painful, it doesn't right, it's just horrible. And I I think my family's good with it because my brother and my husband have both we've experienced death, and but I'm just afraid of languishing and just not having that peaceful exit. I want everything my mom got. I want the lady coming in singing to me on the acoustic guitar, singing somewhere over the rainbow, you know. I, you know, and because to me it is it's the it's birth, but a different type, you know, it's just right. And when I tell people there was absolutely no fear in my mom's eyes, the last thing she did, we held her hand and we said, Mom, because she's a tough one. She was hanging on for so long. And the nurse said, you know, sometimes families wait or people wait until their family is out of the room. My brother and I wouldn't shower, we wouldn't do anything. This room was stinking up, and we were like, We're not leaving her side. But then my brother and I decided to just go out and just give the room, air it out a little bit, and that's when she started to pass. So we came back in, and the nurse was literally holding her arm over the door, like, I think she's passing. We went, we're coming in there, and I just held her hand, said, Mom, it's okay. You can go, we're gonna take care of each other. And the last thing she did, just one single tear. And I looked, and the hospice nurse was in tears, and it was just, you know, there's something to the hardest part was talking to people afterwards because it was so beautiful. We had been through the tears and the crying and the F cancer, and uh, you know, so to see her after days of hanging on just release, there was a beauty in that. And when I talk to people afterward to tell them, because you gotta go back to the real world and tell people, yeah, she's passed away. People say, like, oh, you don't sound too sad. And it's like, oh god, now I gotta rearrange my voice because people don't want to hear that it wasn't it was peaceful, it wasn't like I write on TV, and you know, there wasn't like ah just you know, it was peaceful, and people were not prepared to hear that.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Yeah, that's so true. Wow. Like it's always treated as a tragedy, and very many times it's actually very beautiful and sacred moments. And I love that you're making that point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:45

And like you said, it's a couple generations ago it wasn't like this. I've heard people say, I would never buy a house where someone died, and well, you better not buy a house. That was like I'm like, I actually would like to have a house that someone felt comfortable enough to have be surrounded by love and died in, you know, rather buy a house where someone hated each other and that energy is still in there.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Oh, so true, so true. So well said, thank you. I love it, I love it. This has been so fun. Um I guess, you know, is there anything that you wish we had asked you about? Um or and yeah, actually, the other question we always love to hear from people is how do you resource yourself? You know, how do you take care of yourself when you're dealing? How and and while you're doing this with your mom, you know, were there times that you just felt like I need to just go take a walk or hug a tree or kiss my dog or whatever? You know, what what kind of things really help you get through? Because so many people I think benefit from hearing those words.

SPEAKER_03 30:44

I would say, and I didn't do this well enough because I am my mother's daughter. Make sure that your friends are prepared for this and don't be afraid. If there's one time in your life you get to tell people, I don't need that, I need that, just bring me over some food. Don't ask me what type of, just send me a DoorDash gift certificate. Right. Please don't ask me what I need, just do the basic human things: food, water, you know, hugs.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Yeah, wash the dishes, right? Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 31:13

If someone had to come over and washed my dishes again, I didn't let people because it was you gotta do this by yourself. But just those things, be prepared, get your boundaries straight before you go into this job, you know. That would be my number one. And if you can afford to have any help, I was so lucky that by the time I got to caretake my mom, I did have a hospice nurse coming, even though I fought that, coming in for a few hours a day, and just knowing that someone else was there who would take care of her, probably a little better medically, you know, in terms of like making sure she gets her medicine right on time, knowing things like her eye when it splinches up like that, it's a little bit of pain, you know. Having someone there you can trust just meant the world to me. So I could go outside for a little bit, even though I didn't want to ever leave her side.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Yeah, so beautiful and so important. We talk about that a lot. How many people don't take advantage of hospice until it's like a week left, you know? Yes. Um six months or a year or two years, whatever you can have that kind of loving, compassionate care for a long time.

SPEAKER_04 32:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

And um, and and most a lot of people don't use that. So yeah, thank you for sharing that. That's so important. Thank you.

unknown 32:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

So what do you wish we'd asked you? You know, I enjoy this conversation so much. I'm I'd really, there's nothing you I wish you had asked me because I feel like I I might spoil the I might spoil the book.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

No, no, okay. All right, so don't spoil the book. So are you going on tour? Are you doing a book tour? Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

We're just getting some dates up if people are on Instagram. Um I literally have to make the graphic of where the dates are. Okay. Because my last book didn't came out about 15 years ago, and it's a whole different, like it's a whole different world. We had tons of barns and noble back then, and now it's like there might be three in the country, you know.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Well, let's see if I can help you come to uh Denver.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

I know some folks who I would absolutely I've always wanted to come to Denver to be honest. I would absolutely love it. I would love it. All right. I'm gonna see if I can reach out to uh a bookseller.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

There we go. But we got some great bookstores in Seattle too that we'd love to have you come to.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

Oh, any you guys, I'm there. That'd be awesome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

Yeah, and we'll post that um link so people can find you and find a way and keep track of that so they can find out if you're coming to their story. Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

Do you guys want me to read the poem my mom wrote?

SPEAKER_01 33:37

Absolutely. That would be lovely.

SPEAKER_03 33:39

This is and here's what the thing is, she wrote this when she knew she was gonna die. And she was this affected me so much, and whenever I read it, it just reminds me that this is not the end. It's called places, it's in my book, too. Sometimes we wonder why a loved one is not allowed more time with us on earth. Sometimes we wonder why they are taken to heaven before us. Could it be that their energy is used to open the windows of heaven, so that blessings can be poured out onto us? Could it be that their creativity is used to design imaginative dwellings so that when we get there we will have comfort? Could it be that they were taken to heaven before us so that when we get there we will recognize a familiar face and voice to smile at us and say to us, You're here and I'm here, and never in eternity will we be parted.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Oh, thank you. That's so beautiful. Never in an eternity will we be parted. Never, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

May it be so and they're gonna be there to open up the windows. I know they are. I know they are, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Yes, pour down the blessings. Yeah, yeah. That's that's so beautiful. Well, I really appreciate you and thank you so much. Yeah, it's been just a blast. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 35:00

Thank you too. I hope to actually meet you guys in person. You're wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Oh, thank you. That would be awesome. We will let you know.

SPEAKER_03 35:06

Oh, I got thrizzy with you. Oh, girl, we will.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Yeah, and I'm not gonna get in the way. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you to Charles Easton, the composer of the original music you are listening to now.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

And of course, thank 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 Taco. And of course, if you have a good end of life story to share, please reach out. We're always here to hear from you.