End of Life Conversations: Normalizing Talk About Death, Dying, and Grief
Death touches us all, and yet our culture rarely makes space to talk about it openly. Why is it so hard to have honest conversations about death, dying, and loss with the people we love? What do we do with grief when it inevitably arrives?
End of Life Conversations is a podcast dedicated to normalizing these essential conversations. Hosts Reverent Mother Annalouiza Armendariz and Reverend Wakil David Matthews — both seasoned hospice chaplains and end-of-life companions — invite experts and everyday voices alike: funeral directors, death doulas, poets, researchers, grief counselors, and people who've walked right up to the edge of life and returned. Together, they explore what it means to prepare for death, sit with loss, and grieve in ways that are as individual as we are.
And weekly, we share a conversation with our friend Sam Zemke about something that is currently speaking to us.
Whether you're supporting a loved one through a terminal illness, searching for the right words to start a difficult conversation, or simply curious about what a more death-positive life might look like, this podcast meets you where you are. No question is too strange. No path looks the same.
Subscribe, reach out, and join the conversation. Because the time to talk about it is now.
We want to thank our excellent editor, Sam Zemkee. We also acknowledge that we live and work on unceded indigenous peoples' lands. We thank them for their generations of stewardship, which continues to this day, and honor them by doing all we can to create a sustainable planet and support the flourishing of all life, both human and more-than-human.
What are we actually allowed to say when we grieve?
Grief doesn't always come out in polite, carefully chosen language. Sometimes it sounds angry. Sometimes it's profane. Sometimes it's confusing, blunt, funny, or completely incoherent. And sometimes we simply can't find the words.
In this episode of End of Life Conversations, we explore the complicated relationship between grief and language, and what happens when the words someone uses to express their pain make other people uncomfortable.
Rev. Annalouiza reflects on a difficult conversation about language, emotional honesty, and the expectations we place on grieving people. Reverend Wakil shares a deeply personal experience of losing his beloved dog, Captain, and how grief changed his relationship with the words he used.
Together, we explore how to express grief, why people grieve differently, how to talk to someone who is grieving, and how compassion and curiosity can help us stay present when grief becomes difficult to hear.
This isn't about finding the perfect words for grief. It's about making room for the imperfect ones.
In this episode:
Why grief can make language difficult
How people express grief differently
Why strong language can emerge during grief
Grief, anger, and emotional honesty
How to talk to someone who is grieving
How to listen without immediately judging
The relationship between language, loss, and compassion
Why curiosity can be more helpful than correcting someone's grief
Keywords: grief and language, expressing grief, talking about grief, grief and communication, how to talk to someone who is grieving, grief and loss, raw grief, emotional honesty, grief support, grief conversations, talking about death, death and grief, grief without judgment, End of Life Conversations, Weekly Dispatch
This podcast helps anyone dealing with loss. It can guide you with end-of-life planning and death-positive resources.
Check out our introductory episode to learn more about Annalouiza, Wakil, and our vision/mission to normalize and destigmatize conversations about death, dying, grief, and loss.
And we would love your feedback and want to hear your stories. You can email us at endoflifeconvo@gmail.com.
We want to be transparent that we use AI tools to help us with titles, show notes, editing, and introductions.
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SPEAKER_02
Hello and welcome back, dear beloved listeners of End of Life Conversations. I am the Reverend Mother Ana Luisa Armandares, and I'm here today to introduce a bit of actually off-the-hot press news. So it happens that this weekend we received an email from one of our listeners who was very upset with I think it was my language because I'm the only one who says things that are probably off the cuff. And I want to talk about language today. And I want to talk about the friction between people when they take umbrage with how uh people's lives are expressed. And in particular, this uh woman wrote that she took umbrage with me saying that an eight-year-old who had leukemia felt like ass. And I'm gonna make a lot of assumptions about who this person is. I'm going to assume she's an older woman and I'm gonna assume that she she monitors language very carefully because it is something that she probably will make assumptions about others as well. Like I make assumptions about her right now. And I want to just tell the listeners, and if she is indeed listening to this, if she just wants one more little shot at us, I'm gonna say I am very, very deeply sorry, my dear, that I caused harm in your day. You wasted a bunch of time probably fuming over it. You were disgusted by me, and then you wrote us, which is time that you have lost. Yeah, right. And I appreciate that you you that you said something because I'm always wanting to hear back from folks and their experiences with what we say. So I apologize that I cause harm. What I will not apologize for is my language. And you may indeed think that eight-year-olds would never use that language, but you have not been around a lot of eight-year-olds on different spectral areas of the world.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
Uh, there are eight-year-olds who feel that way, who know this language, but will not say it because parents uh police their language, for lack of a better word. And as somebody who grew up in an evangelical conservative Christian home, language was tough because God was all God was always listening. You're if you don't, if you say it wrong. And because of all that, I grew up being literally physically bullied by kids who were like, you're just such a goody two shoes. You don't ever curse, you don't ever say these, this, and that. And my dear lady, get off of it. Like I, you know, like people's experiences are all over the place. And especially with grief and loss, people oftentimes say things that are maybe a little uncomfortable for others to hear. And also, I want you to know in the moment of great sorrow or distress, our language just falls by the wayside. We will just like we will just say things because we think, oh my God, what, what, what? So, anyhow, I opened this up to, and also, by the way, I looked it up. Feeling like ass came out of the 1990s. It is considered part of our lexicon in North America. Nobody thinks it's inappropriate or evil, wrong. So I want you to, I want to teach you something that, you know, maybe you're not with the language times, but let's get on the horse and get to learning.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well, I mean, even though it it is that um I mean, I could I can totally see how that felt overwhelming to somebody, and I feel bad about that. But I love the fact that we got something to talk about here, you know. And I think it's important to um to really be well, and what you're saying earlier about the way things just fall by the wayside when you're in grief, it reminded me of when my dog was killed. I had a a dog that I love so much, and it was like when I was in my 20s, right? And I was uh I was working in the Forest Service, so I was gone on an uh extended trip up in the mountains. When I came back, my good buddy Captain Um had been killed by a police officer. Um and the reason he was killed was because he was running around outdoors. Um, the the local um animal folks knew Captain really well. He was a great dog and he was friendly and they knew him, and they didn't, they wouldn't ever have shot him. Um but this police officer, the guy was the animal control people were off, were on a vacation. And so this police officer thought, oh, there's a dog running around, and he loaded up a uh tranquilizer gun with not knowing what he was doing, and loaded it way too much and killed him. And so I get home, and of course, you know, what the hell, you know. I remember being in a space where I didn't care what the hell I said to people or how I said it. And as you said earlier, Ana Luisa, that's not my nature, you know. And but here I am, and and you know, I I am not I'm not usually the kind of person who doesn't want to cause any offense, you know, and wants to get along and maybe to to too much of an extent, you know. But in that time, I didn't give a damn what I said to uh anybody. And I was I was really kind of off the wall, you know. I remember thinking afterwards, whoa, I mean, I think people were like, I I think people knew that, you know, what had happened, and so they gave me some grace, but I was really in a space where I didn't care. I didn't care. And I totally hear you. And I think that's important for people to realize, especially because we're talking about uh people in grief, and we want to be able to be there for people and hear what they have to say without allowing ourselves to be triggered away from um participating in the conversation. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02
I also wanted to say too, so I am in perimenopause right now, and this weekend I had a moment when um I could not remember between gophers and prairie dogs, and I was very upset and also scared. I came home thinking I need to write my you know, advanced care directive dementia plan because I was just like, okay, I'm I'm done for. And I went out that afternoon, I had to go do some other things, and I couldn't find language in my mind. And so I got home and I, of course, like I said, I was very distressed and I had to sit down with my daughter and be like, I think this is there's something happening in my brain. And she's like, Lady, it's called brain fog.
SPEAKER_03
You're gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_02
Well, and you know, we noticed that, you know, I haven't slept well for two weeks, and you know, I've been just super really busy and taking care, taking on a lot of different things. Again, very similar to what happens when people are in, you know, in experiencing a death or you know, the a grief of knowing that somebody is dying in their family, like you go into distress and your brain can barely like link a couple words together. So again, you know, sometimes when I'm speaking here, I I can't find the language quick enough and I like just throw whatever's on, you know, simmering at the top of my, you know, my noggin. And uh, you know, but again, I want to just really, really drive home that language is very important. Language can also be thwarted by any kind of mental distress.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
And it it's it behooves the listener to either have a little grace with that person or be curious enough to ask them questions.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
Hey, what's what's happening? You know, and you know, for the woman who wrote us, you know, I might have asked you, like, could you have written maybe I had one of those like menopause moments. I don't know. But be be curious, right? Like, what's going on?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah. And we'd still love to hear back if that's something that they they'd like to convert, can if they'd like to talk to us further. Sam, we haven't heard from you yet.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, Sam. Chatting over here.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01
Um gosh, there were when when we first started talking about this, when it first came up, there were like a few different things um that that uh that came up for me. And in the interest of not leaving you in the in the fire, Ana Luisa standing there alone.
SPEAKER_02
Um like Joan of Arc.
SPEAKER_01
I get it. Like my my first reaction was to roll my eyes. Like, like you said, like if you know an eight-year-old, the eight-year-old I was, I mean, I had a filthy mouth. I had a filthy mouth as an eight-year-old. I got in trouble for it a long time. A lot, a lot. But but my initial thought was like a kid who is who is in that space. And in talking about it, there's this there's this common piece of breaking the tension. We're talking about something heavy. Maybe you're talking to that kid about something heavy, and to say, man, I bet you feel like ass right now. That kid's gonna laugh. And and the the content of that conversation as I remember it was around finding whatever joy, whatever joy, whatever positive, beneficial, you know, light moments in a kid's life when they are dying of leukemia. Yeah. And so, like the personally, the the use of the word ass when talking about like we're like, I feel like ass, or you bet you feel like ass, or this kid feels like ass. When when you're talking about like in the context of death, in the context of leukemia, in everything else that's going on, is the smallest potatoes in the world. Seems like that, doesn't it? Yeah. And at the same time, like the the counterthought I had to that is in being curious with what you know, this person who wrote us is going through, what's getting activated for them. And and I don't want to like argue with somebody who's not here, or you know, like you said, there's all these assumptions that we can make, but the ideas of what might lead to that kind of reaction is like, you know, the the death of a child is is tragic. Yeah. And and the hardest. And and maybe, you know, it's this feeling of like we need to be as somber and serious solemn. Thank you, solemn is the word I'm asking for with it as possible at all times. Yeah. Yeah. And and certainly for somebody who's not in the death field, right. I can see where like that could that could come across as like glib or, you know. Right. But we're also, we talk about this. The the whole point of what we're doing here is normalizing these conversations. And so to be able to be like, man, you know, just real casual, like to and I get where that's jarring. I get where it's jarring to talk casually about the death of a child. Right. But that happens every day. Every day. Kids die every day. And when you're in this world, you deal with that every single day. And so to have like a casual, fluid heart and the ability to speak directly and speak easily, and use the words that are available that you know that like are how you speak to that kid. And you're it's there. And you're talking to that kid's mom. Yeah. Who's been in that situation. Right. And so, you know, there's also a little like suggestion of maybe like also part of the con the curiosity is read the room a little bit. Right. You know, there is getting heated up for somebody or about a situation, and and having stuff come up in a really hot way can blind you to the what's going on and reading a situation. Right.
SPEAKER_02
Well, and uh two things just came up for me. One of them is I I would really like to encourage us specifically, uh, when we use our language to not center young deaths as more difficult or you know, like, oh, that's way worse of a death than an elder, right? Like, I don't, I actually don't even think that. I I think that all deaths are equal. And I write about that in my piece. Like, you know, we all think of ourselves as unique individuals that who whose own experiences are just so like the one, but honestly, they're really kind of not. So centering a young death versus an older death, I don't think that I mean, if this is what this woman is is kind of upset by, because I've also known in my years of hospice, I've heard language too from older gents who said far worse things about how they felt, you know? And so, you know, so that is also kind of a consideration. And the second part I was gonna mention, oh, I just already forgot it. Um, keep talking amongst yourselves as I forgot my three hot.
SPEAKER_00
Okay, well, when that comes back, but what one thing I was thinking would be nice for us to maybe, well, I I feel like I want to share is that, you know, I I hope that people are I I really applaud this person for you know putting down what she felt like. But I would really hope that instead of saying you are horrible, I'm never gonna listen to you again, that somebody would be curious and would say, wow, that was a little bit much or something, you know, let's have a conversation about it. Because we we are very, very open to conversations about these hard things. In fact, that's what we want to do, that's what we love to do. That's that's what I would really hope some people would. If you're if this happens, yeah, let us know. We want to hear about it and we want to talk about it.
SPEAKER_02
That's the other piece, too, is uh that's that's what I had forgotten. But, you know, our languaging around what we're doing, normalized and end-of-life conversations. Right now, I'm assuming that most of the listeners are older people, right? Older people or so the sandwich folks who are dealing with children and with elders who are at the later end of life. And, you know, speaking in glib terms sometimes might excite a 20-something year old who feels like, oh my God, that's the kind of language I actually want to hear around this topic and not be so like, you know, conservative and like stuffy. Stuffy, right? Like, no, this is very real and it's nasty and sometimes it's hard and stinky and whatever. And the more we we pretend that it's not by using language to keep to kind of it's almost like gatekeeping um reality.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, uh sanitizing it, sanitizing it.
SPEAKER_02
So it's like, no, no, no, no. Like, I'm not here for that. And if this is what you want, if you want clean and pretty death talk, I there's probably another podcast for you. But I really do want us to have honest conversations about what people go through, how to talk to people, what should you do to plan for this? Yeah, how do you talk to somebody who's who's sick? Like all the above. And it's not always going to be easy. It's not, you can't, I can't give you, you know, these are the only words you're able to use.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
Explore language. Yeah. Like, yeah, you know, did you read that article this weekend that says we're using like 33% less language now because of phones? Like that's how bad it is. Like people just are not speaking to each other, so we're forgetting more words. And, you know, people who depend on AI, AI is not, you know, teaching you anything or helping you remember things. So, you know, we will mess up language, and I hope we mess up some more so we stay away from you know, this this the machines, the machine thought.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. Well, and I think that's part of the the hope anyway, is that we can be straight up with each other. And as you as we've talked about, when you're dealing with people, when you're working at the end of life, um, you're probably gonna say stuff that you wish you hadn't said. You know, it's very likely that happens.
SPEAKER_02
That happens.
SPEAKER_00
And so that's where you, you know, that's where grace comes in. And and you get to say, oh, I'm, you know, I feel I you get to either say or feel like, oops, you know, I I love that, you know, oops, I forgot again, you know. But just uh, you know, just just be kind to yourself and compassionate with yourself and with others, and I think that's an important piece of this.
SPEAKER_02
So I've also been on the other side of this where uh somebody who I'm working with is like potty mouth all the way, and then constantly like, I am so sorry, I am so, you know, because I am a chaplain and it's like, oh, like I can watch, you know. I have heard more priests, chaplains, evangelic evangelical pastors have the worst potty mouths ever. Just watch righteous jumpstones and we'll know, right? And I'm like, no, baby, like your honesty can be easily mirrored and held by me. I do not begrudge any of this. You be you.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
So, anyhow, that's what I got for you today.
SPEAKER_01
That's such an that's such an interesting piece at the the that expectation of who you are given the role that you carry.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
If you if we're standing in this place where we're, you know, like spiritual authorities or whatever, like how do you comport yourself and and whatever. I just uh in in my schooling was listening to a lecture by a guest chaplain who was working in in a hospital, and some guy came in causing a ruckus, you know, really, really agitated. And and he went up and he was like, What the fuck are you doing, dude? And he did like, what are you doing? And it and it snapped the guy out of it and he changed and he went, Oh yeah, what the fuck am I doing?
unknown
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
But the guy got written up for it.
unknown
Oh.
SPEAKER_02
The chaplain did?
SPEAKER_01
The chaplain got written up or or called into the office and and critiqued because he approached the situation in a way that was not becoming of that position. Of a chaplain. Oh my god. Right.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
And so our language, you know, uh uh oh, that was the other thing that that uh came up and and a phrase or a concept that um that came up for me around this is around respectability politics and and how how you know, just like the validity of a work, the validity of approaching a situation um is determined by how respectable you act in that. And I think that does speak some to like maybe a generational thing or a certain cultural cultural expectation of what's proper and what's what's reasonable and and acceptable.
SPEAKER_02
And and those are the shape with with the shape shift all the time for that though, because I don't want to be speaking to 20, 30 year olds the way I would speak to a 70, 80-year-old. Like it's just not gonna be the same thing.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah. I think a great example of that is watching uh Mam Dani speak with um that orange guy.
SPEAKER_02
Um redacted is how we call him around here.
SPEAKER_00
Um it's it's really fascinating. This guy, Mam Dani, I really respect that guy. He he is um he's the ultimate um diplomat, diplomat. Yeah, he can he can manage to be the exact opposite of this other human being and still have a conversation with him and still um you know charm him, even, which is bizarre. But but that to me is like, yeah, you can but again, as you're saying, sometimes that's not appropriate. You know, that's that's appropriate in that pers particular example. But you know, very often you don't want to just be diplomatic to the point where you're not saying anything or where you're just not even being honest or being per being there, being present. And being present sometimes means just harsh stuff, you know.
SPEAKER_02
Speaking of Yeah. Well, I did I tell you last week that I that I started getting really interested in clowning.
SPEAKER_00
Oh, great. Yeah. I did.
SPEAKER_02
I've so I've been doing this deep dive into clowning culture. Nice. And and you know, I think about profits. Like they've always been around courts and with, you know, the high powerful folk from early, early on. And they're kind of being a little silly, but they're trying to speak truth to power.
SPEAKER_03
Right.
SPEAKER_02
And so, you know, there are different mechanisms in place to speak. And, you know, let's just not be so rigid with how how we have to talk to everybody. I just am not that person. And you know what? Let me just say this. Maybe some people have to be 24-7. They are these kind of people. Maybe this particular woman is that kind of a person. Her language doesn't modulate because her world is like very like she's in her lane. She only speaks to this kind of folk. I personally, as an interfaith chaplain, as a mom of teenagers, as you know, an activist who works with like 20 somethings to like 40 somethings, like my language is not going to be always the same. In fact, you know, talking to I change all the time. Uh, and I and I'm not going to Make apologies for that because it's time's too short to be trying to like be something I'm not.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it's honest and um real communication. I I really appreciate it, you know. So I agree, and we should probably um all think about that. And and I, you know, again, I I'm a little worried about judging this woman because we don't know who she is or what what she's going through. In fact, that's why I wish that instead of just saying that was horrible, I'm never talking to you again, um, we could have had a conversation. I would love to know much more about I would love to have that conversation. Like, what tell us more? Yeah, you know, tell us more. Why did that hit you so hard? I would love to know about that, you know.
SPEAKER_02
Okay, uh I think that's fine. Um, I'm not gonna apologize for it, right? Like I don't know that, but I'm gonna remind you, I'm gonna remind you one of our early conversations we had with one of our guests who got really angry when I talked about um the having bodies of our dead in our house in wakes, and how she became very excited that somewhere in Montana this was like suddenly a new thing, and they were training for it, they were offering it. And I just happened to say, you know, that's actually a very old uh way for people of color, like blacks and brown people, indigenous people have been doing this forever. And that's all I said. And she ended up turning around and and got really angry and didn't and only wanted to have a conversation with me because she wanted to say that I had made this a political conversation. So I'm not always interested in having a conversation if people just want to like shut me down. So yeah, I want to be clear, Joaquil, that if this is kind of like that, I'm not interested in like pursuing and spent like my life is so short right now. Like I don't, you know, I'm gonna apologize for my part and I just need us to keep moving along. So talk to Joaquil wherever you're at. Yeah, there you go. Not me.
SPEAKER_01
And we can have different we can have different capacities for meeting these different moments, right? And and maybe in this situation, Joaquil, you have more curiosity about who this person is than I and that's okay too. That's okay too. It's so it's you know, it really does, it's it's contingent on that curiosity too. I think, you know, like like that past conversation with all the anger and all the you made this blah, blah, blah. That doesn't sound like a very curious conversation either. It's that's not where it's that's not the foundation of it. And so I think that really comes back to like the foundation of being curious with each other about what's going on and what we're saying.
SPEAKER_00
And I I'll just, you know, a good example is that I did go back and talk to that person in it. I went to Cedar.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, but you remember.
SPEAKER_00
And the my my experience was that you know, I tried to be grace, this gracious about it and really try to hear her side. And there was a point at which I realized there was no no further point in having that conversation because there was nothing I was gonna say or nothing she was gonna say that was gonna change either of our perspectives on this. And there really is no point in it. And as you said, you know, very likely if this person had asked us to have a communication about it, um, they that might have come to that very same place. It might have just come to the place where never mind, you know. But I always like to at least open the door. So Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
Well, they they opened the door and that was great.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
I'm also interested and curious. I just might be a situation where I will never do this right. Like that was never gonna be there was never gonna be any any grace for that conversation whatsoever. But I don't know, you know.
SPEAKER_00
Well, that was the message that was sent. You know, we're never never gonna listen to you guys again. You have nothing more to teach me. That's you know, which is terrible. Profoundly uncurious. Profoundly uncovered. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01
Not curious at all.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01
So anyhow, I think before before we wrap up, that also is such such an important you know, piece of wisdom on a lot of these. Like sometimes sometimes you're gonna have the conversation that needs to happen. You're gonna talk about childhood leukemia. That's a conversation that needs to happen. And and you can't have it in the right way. There's no way to to approach that situation that is going to make an ex person feel seen or heard or held because of whatever they're dealing with. And that's not there's only so much you can do.
SPEAKER_02
I am not that powerful to make all people feel better. I am not powerful. I cannot do it.
SPEAKER_01
Everyone, especially, especially, you know, we can be conscientious, we can have curiosity, we can but we're releasing this out into the world, yeah. Where it's gonna bump into people's stuff. We are intentionally bumping into people's stuff. That is like normalizing conversations about things that make people uncomfortable. Yeah. Right. And so there's there's no way around causing friction. It's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. So we very much hope that all of you are listening and passing it on to more people who will be bumped into and having a conversation with us.
SPEAKER_01
And have curious conversations with us. If something comes up, yeah, directed at Wakil first.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. Hey man, I'm going through Minipause. Come on. I my bandwidth is like and I'm clowning. I'm learning about clowning right now.
SPEAKER_00
So and Sam's going to Divinity School. We got no time. No time. No time. But I'll be here to talk about it. So okay. Well, thank you so much. Please uh like and you know email us. Email us and do all the things. Yeah, tell all your friends. All right. Much love. Adios. Adios. See you next time.
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