SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hello and welcome back, everybody, to End of Life Conversations, where the Reverend Joaquill and the Reverend Annalouiza are about to embark on a new journey with End of Life Conversations. And we're going to begin with our favorites from the past three years. The first person that we wanted to uh share an encore uh listen with is our uh our the founder of the death design uh of the death designer, uh Isabel Knight.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

And um take it away.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Yeah, she really emphasizes bringing kind of breaking the monopoly of the funeral care industry and the uh casket care casket industry with younger people, people of color, uh trans, all you know, the LGBTQ folks. And we've really seen that. I mean, I've we've witnessed, we've had a couple of people on that were in that role or in that realm. And uh so I really thought, wow, what a great thing to talk about. And one of the first ones, it was an early one we did long ago, so like in the very first year. Um so Isabel is also uh on a board of funeral care alliance. Yes, and so she's really making a difference. And I think you're really going to be interested to see what she has to say and follow her and follow the work that she's doing.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

That's right. I hope you stick around and listen to her again, or for the first time, maybe if you're just joining us in the last year on our podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25

Young, vibrant, excited to do this work. And for all the folks who think that, you know, funeral care is like old futzy dudes, this is somebody completely different. And she's coming in with a big heart and a big smile.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Yeah, yeah. So much thanks to her. So stick around.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

On today's episode, we are looking forward to a wonderful conversation with Isabel Knight. Isabel is the founder of The Death Designer, a company that provides end-of-life planning services, including funeral and vigil planning, digital account password management, advanced directives, and assistance with reconciling fears of mortality. She takes a human-centered design approach with a focus on promoting individual autonomy, sustainability, and home death care options. Her goal is to create a more humane and equitable end-of-life experience for all.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Wonderful. We're looking forward to this. Uh Isabel is also the president of the National Home Funeral Alliance, a board member of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Pennsylvania, and the program director for the Jewish Association for Death Education. She helps do-as and death positive businesses create a more inclusive and accessible experience for their clients through home-centered design workshops and also creates online courses and offers freelance graphic design work. You can find her on Instagram at the Death Designer, all one word, and we'll have all these links in the podcast notes for you so that you can find out more about her and her work. So great to have you. So we'd like to start out with the question of when did you first become aware of death and how does it affect this story?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

I don't know if I can say that this is quite the first time, but I will say one of my earlier life experiences with death is I had a friend in high school. Actually, even before that, I had a friend when I was in eighth grade who actually died in a dirt bike accident the day after our eighth grade graduation. And it was quite tragic. He had a friend that he played with next door, his neighbor, who was basically just trying to play a practical joke on him and tied a rope across the path that they would both go dirt biking. And he really unfortunately closed lined himself on that rope. And the kid who tied the rope was like, I want to say 13 years old. And so that was, I think, my first sort of major experience with someone I actually knew dying. And it was, it was quite unfortunate because then later the parents tried to basically wait for the kid to turn 18 to sort of adjudicate that as a manslaughter case, which I don't really know why you are allowed to do that in our legal system, but it was, yeah. We're definitely starting off on a downer on that one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

But well, wait a second. It's a real lived experience, and that's what it's okay. So not to worry.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Totally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yeah, exactly. Thank you for that. Uh that's um, it's amazing. Well, many things in our culture are amazing. Uh and uh, but it's amazing to uh reflect back on where where these things first made an impression on us. So I appreciate you being willing to share that story.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Yeah, and even you were young, so these are stories that I think generally kids don't get to tell, right? At that time of your life when that was actually happening. It made an impact on you no matter what. So, well, from that point, how does death continue to impact your story in your day-to-day and your life?

SPEAKER_00 5:21

I would say that overall it has made me really feel like I can live in a much more intentional way, given that I work in a space where I think so many of the people who surround me are also very much experiencing these like intense experiences because like when you when you work in deathcare, like you know, you you have to show up for people. Like it's not even, it's not like on a timeline, right? And um, I I I feel very, very appreciative that I sort of came to this work. There's a lot of people who kind of come into deathcare because they kind of experienced a personal crisis in their life and they were like, oh, I really need to, like, this is sort of what's calling me. I just had a friend be like, Isabel, uh, you should start a casket business, because I was just like trying to start a business, and they were like, you know, my uncle just died, and we were trying to get a casket, um, and they couldn't really find an affordable one, so they made one for themselves and they were like, Oh, this is just this should be the thing that you go into. So I was just very much in that, you know, general phase of life where I was like, yes, ending it, you know, that improv concept. So, so that's exactly what I did, and it totally worked out. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I I just feel very grateful that I get to work with people on a daily basis who are sort of like, I might not respond to your email, you know. Like I have a I have a person I work with in Hawaii who's like, if the waves are good, you know, uh that's where I'm gonna be, right? And like I think that there's quite a number of people. Like a few years ago, I I I worked on a medical aid and dying training for this nonprofit in Seattle called End of Life Washington. And I got to interview a lot of their volunteers, and just so many of them say, like, yeah, I'm retired, but this is like the real work of my life.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Yeah. Yeah, we interviewed one of those volunteers on one of our episodes.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

So Oh, who was it?

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Um, do you remember what her name was, Annalouiza?

SPEAKER_03 7:28

Yeah, uh, so Yana Johnson was our guest.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yana Hansen. I think yeah, Yana Hansen, yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 7:36

I don't think I actually spoke with that person.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

I spoke with a lot of them, but not that one.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

Yeah, I I was going back, you know, it's funny how that still was a death experience, like not your lived experience, but your friends in the casket. So I want to make caskets as well, but because my ex-husband left all of our woodworking tools in the in the garage, so I'm like, I should just make caskets and coffins. Like, why not? Because it's there.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

It's a it's yeah, I I I had a casket made when I was trying to start my casket business, and it's just sitting in my house. Like every time I move, I have to schlep it around with me. So yeah, I mean, it is, I really make sense. Like he was like, Why is this so expensive? It's just a box.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Yeah, we wanted to just kind of go from there and to talking more about what's your current work or what your role is. Tell us more about that. And uh, and then of course we'll, you know, post things so people can reach you later if they're interested. But please tell us a little more about what you do day to day and how this how this has evolved.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yeah, totally. So yeah, like I did for a few months try to work on this casket business. Um, I used to live in DC, so I had it made in DC, and then I was moving to Philly, so I was like, oh, when I go to Philly, there's a lot of artists in Philly, so I can like maybe try to find people who are artists who can help me find, you know, when people are pre-planning, use the casket to be a legacy project and turn it into a piece of art that's really personalized for the person who's pre-planning. So that was my idea originally. And then basically, it really is difficult to break into the casket industry in particular because there's like one main company that has a huge monopoly and they have these contracts with funeral homes that are like if you want to buy our products, you can only do business with one vendor, and that's us. So basically that that ended up being too difficult. I was thinking of doing direct to consumer, but then you're kind of competing with Walmart and Costco and you know, people like that. Um, but the thing that I kept hearing from people as I was doing this market research was just that they wanted some, like they didn't know what to do, right? Someone dies similar to I think like a a lot of experiences that you have in life where you you kind of come upon them and you're like, wow, no one prepared me for this whatsoever, like being a parent, like going figuring out how to pay your taxes, like all these things that like we teach you a lot of things, but like I feel like we often neglect the most important ones. And I think death is one of those really key, you know, topics that applies to. And so then, like everyone else on Amazon, I did a dual training. And from there, I was sort of like, well, I already do human-centered design as my day job. I used to work at Fannie Mae in mortgages, and so it's just very funny going from the mortgage space to the deathcare space because you know, nobody's doing mortgages because they just love mortgages or feel passionately about it, you know. So it was been it's been really nice being able to get to work with people who feel really passionate about what they do, and I didn't sort of have to pay the trauma toll to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

Isabel, you know, we there's a gentleman here in uh Colorado who also makes caskets. Oh yeah. He had the exact same thing that he talked about with regard to that monopoly. Uh, and they're big, they're really big. And what he ended up doing is just uh working with the funeral home. Just like one funeral home, and he just does like the work for them, and he's like, I don't need to be doing it any bigger because it's it's too much of a of a racket out there to get into it. So you're not the only one who's had that experience.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Yeah, and our our friend Bodhi, who is one of our first interviews uh and episodes, um, has a nonprofit funeral home on Maui. And um they do all of their own design and uh creation of urns and different kinds of baskets and shrouds and and uh they have some great pictures. You can go to his um website, Doorway into Light, I think it's called, and um, and you can see the pictures of you know kids pounding, you know, pounding the nails into grandpa's uh uh casket or or drawing on it or painting it, or you know, it's just it's really beautiful. And it's uh but again it's a one on one off kind of thing. He doesn't try to make a business out of just doing the caskets. He has to, he has a whole funeral home service there for green for green green funerals.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

So yeah, absolutely. That's amazing. I really feel like it makes you think about your relationship to making things too, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

Well, and the relationship not only to the making, but the thought behind what you're making, right? Like as you're making your casket or as you're creating something to hold your loved one, you're imbuing it with memories and you're getting tired. I when I worked with um my mentor for natural funerals, she said, you know, people get tired. Like when somebody dies and they have to make a casket and they have to prepare food and they have to like set up the space in the house to keep this person, and it used to be three days. And and somebody asked, like, why is it three days? And she's like, Because by the end of those three days, they're exhausted. And that's when they finally their body understands like there has been a loved one who has passed, and I am ready to uh, you know, enter them or whatever, but I'm done. And I just love that idea. Yeah, like creating something is physically taxing, it's emotionally taxing, it could be spiritually taxing, but that's a way to get to that grief process in the end.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Mm-hmm. Sounds like that's the work you're doing. That's really being support, being that support for them. So that's great as well.

SPEAKER_03 13:30

Yeah. Yeah. So what are your challenges these days with the work that you do?

SPEAKER_00 13:36

It's it's really interesting over time. At the beginning of building my business, the main challenge was really just how do you do something and not be lonely every day? That was really my main challenge. But then I kind of addressed that by getting involved with the National Home Funeral Alliance. I I actually had quit my previous job three separate times because it just didn't stick the first two times. I was just like spinning my wheels a lot. And I was like, I need to be around people during the day. And, you know, if you're just kind of cranking away on your own, it's really difficult to do that. And so I was like, okay, let me at least get involved in a volunteer basis then. And I don't even remember how I found the National Home Fear Alliance originally, but now I think over time it has evolved into trying to understand. I mean, I still don't quite understand the full, like how to crack the nut of getting to the real people who need the help. And I know that that's something that is, I think, very pervasive across the death care space generally, is that there's so many gatekeepers in the form of hospitals or home care agencies or hospices or whatever it may be. And I think that that is something like it's it's one of those phenomenons where it's like when you host especially death focused conversations, it's it's often like the same 10 people who will be in the room at any given time. But I'm very lucky because like the the medium-term problem of needing uh to figure out how to build community in a way with my other deaf care professionals in Philadelphia has been solved. Like I really have a very robust community of end-of-life professionals that I meet with on a regular basis. And so that part is really great because it feels like you're in it together with people. I don't understand how people do any of the solo practitioner stuff by themselves. I think that that can be really draining and exhausting for people.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Yeah. Yeah. That's really good, good point. And uh good that good that you found that and it's a good thing for our audience to understand if they're thinking about doing this work or or helping this, you know, supporting this work. Uh I love that what you brought up about the the gatekeepers. And um, that's a whole group of people we should probably be talking to about. Here's here's something that you should be allowing through your gate. You should be encouraging, you should be supporting. So that's great. I'm glad you brought that up. What do you need to feel supported in your work? What other things do you call on or bring in to support yourself?

SPEAKER_00 16:18

I think so much of it is about trying to understand where people are coming from. I mean, I I mean the main thing that I need to feel supported is just social, but like I am really explicit about what I'm talking about, right? Like I used to do tabling uh a lot more, like where I would just set up a table and be like, oh yeah, this is my end-of-life planning business. I last year I did one at the Broad Street Run in Philadelphia, which is one of the biggest 10-mile runs in the country, apparently. And there would be people who would see my table and see the death designer and just like actively run away. And it's funny because I'm just so surrounded by, you know, death care people all the time that I am just like, oh yeah, this is like totally normal. Like, you know, people will love this. And it's it is often quite surprising to me how much of a bubble that I'm in, basically, far away from maybe like the mainstream and the norm it is for people, despite the fact that like there is so much media, there's so much like other avenues that people have as entry points into thinking about mortality, basically, that I really think that we're in a watershed moment right now. So, like the thing that makes me feel really motivated every day is feeling like I am part of some some like very dynamic movement that's happening. I was just speaking to Sam Perry, who's the head of the Green Barrel Council, one of the arms of the Green Barrel Council, if you're familiar with them. And he was like, he's a professor at a mortuary school, and he's he and it's a four-year program. And he said that his outgoing class is nine funeral directors, but his incoming class is like 75 people. So that really highlighted for me that, like, wow, there's a lot of people who've been like, especially I think during the pandemic, sitting down and really having this moment of introspection of like, what do I really need to be doing? And that's really, really exciting to see this energy. And for me, that the I really enjoy grappling with those high-level challenges about like, okay, how do we, on this macro level industry perspective, take that energy and really harness it? Like, you know, especially because a lot of these people going into moretory schools in particular are it's 72% women right now. They're like younger, more progressive. There's like a major basically changing of the guard that's happening. And that I think is really, really exciting. And I think that this is the time to be figuring out how to have this conversation of what is the future of death tier going to look like. And it feels so cool to feel like I'm a part of designing that.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Yeah. Very good.

SPEAKER_03 19:11

I do, I do think that you're right about it's coming right after that pandemic where we watched like very viscerally loaded images of people mourning the death of some folks, right? Their families, the fear around death. And and now my daughter just always is like, people always want to talk to you about death. I don't think they they're comfortable openly discussing death, but if you sidle up to somebody, you know, on an airplane or whatever, they're like ready to talk about death and dying, like all the time. And I'm like, pay me for my services.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Right. I'm like, I people will often assume that, like, oh, it's really hard, and you know, people are really and it's like, well, I also think that perhaps it's like a a lot of the people who are my peers, it it may be I I haven't quite like tapped into the groups of people who are quite sort of death phobic. I think a lot of the people who I surround myself with are feeling like it's such a far like thing that doesn't feel quite, you know, real in their lives, that they're actually okay with talking about it. But at the same time, it's like I open my phone every day and see death and destruction in my feed, right? I've been at these, you know, encampments for the last few weeks, and it's just like I don't think that there's anything that we're not like ginger about this anymore. You know?

SPEAKER_03 20:33

Well, we shouldn't be, right? It's like we're openly to especially the youth. I keep saying the youth are talking about it, they're screaming it in in all these boomers' faces, and the boomers are like, you know, no, no, no. Like so it's like, yeah, you gotta talk about it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Yeah. I love that you that that the trend is toward younger and and uh yes, and women women and probably people of color as well, the the people who have generally in the past been excluded from the work. I mean, if I'm sure the history, if we looked at it, is pretty white and pretty uh upper class or at least middle class people that have been funeral directors. And I I think at least I don't I don't know that for sure, but I would guess if it's like other things in our culture that it's been monopolized for a long time. And it's great to hear that. 75 people signing up and majority women, that's awesome. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

And totally.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

And queer as fuck, the like death carers really like really, really I I mean, I I'm I I don't I don't know if this is a disproportionate number, but I also just think that there's so many people who are realizing like we die earlier.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Right? Like one of the things that I talk about a lot in human centered design is basically this concept of inclusive design, right? Designing for the most vulnerable as opposed to designing for what you think quote unquote the average is.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Right? Wow, so important.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

And um, you know, that's something. That comes out of tech basically is like this notion of like, you know, don't just design. There's this idea that often when you're designing in tech, your incentives are to scale as quickly as possible and fail fast. And how do you do that by designing for like the average user, right? Which often ends up being cis white men. When actually, so are you familiar with the brand OXO that does kitchen implements?

SPEAKER_03 22:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Yeah. They design all of their products for people with arthritis and mobility conditions. And that actually produces a better product for everybody, right? Um, and so if you are able to create a a system that works for the most vulnerable people, then that's actually a system that's gonna work better for everyone. And that's like a really fundamental principle within a human-centered design. And it's also the case that often the thing that happens when you're at the most vulnerable point in your life is you die. Right. So it's like we're not designing for some hypothetical other person. Like we have to really think of ourselves as like these dynamic beings instead of just one static person with one static identity. Like, you know, we are we're gonna be so many different people over the course of our lives, and you're not necessarily designing for the one that you are right now.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:18

So, Isabel, with that though, you're we're designing for the most vulnerable moment of our lives, which is dying. Okay. How about designing for the people who are left behind and their perceived trauma around your dying, right? Like also, also talking about those because part of this designing of funeral homes with very little attention to creating a space where people can actually see their loved ones or touch their loved ones or or go in and help clean the bodies, that's also creating a trauma for down the road when they're just like their grief is like stunted. So designing for those gatekeepers to step aside so that we can actually be in process at the end of life with our loved one would be a really great design. And it's an ancient one.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

It's an ancient and original thought, right? Like totally. Yeah, I mean, that's why human funerals are so cool, is that you can just control all of that yourself and you don't have to be beholden to what someone else has designed for you. Obviously, it takes more work, but it's really intentional work that I think a lot of people get an immense amount of gratification from in terms of helping their grieving process, in terms of just there's so many people who I who feel like, you know, I just wish there was something that I could do, like it satisfies that need to do something. There's just there's so many ways in which I think that it can be really, really helpful and powerful to curate that and put some intentional thought into that for yourself. And for myself, I have really been able to learn a lot from the people that I help with funeral planning, and that has informed, you know, how I go about celebrating my own life. Like I'm throwing a ginormous birthday party for myself this summer where I'm inviting everyone in my entire life, and it's gonna be like a wedding-level celebration because, you know, I've just been really thinking really deeply about what do I care about and like what should I be spending my money on? And what do I, you know, I don't, I don't think that it should be the case that a wedding, for example, should be like the one time in your life where all of the people in your life get to meet each other. So I'm like, okay, well, if I believe that in theory, I should just go make that happen. Yay! Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Yeah. We've been, we've been um in in a lot of the work I do with end of life, we're finding people doing their own memorials before they die, right? You know, I'm I'm getting older. I might do that myself, actually. And or or if you're doing made, um, you know, that you know when you're gonna do it, to have a memorial service before you die and invite all the people and be able to be present. You know, you'd probably be present some fashion, but to actually be physically present at your own memorial is a wonderful gift to yourself and to everybody. So that's great. I love that that you're doing a a big, big hoopla birthday party. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Yay, congratulations. Thank you. And it's not just it's not just for me. It's like also like I really, really appreciate that I get to really formally recognize all of my friends and all of the people in my life who have been able to contribute to to my life and do that in front of all the other people who have done that for me. Right. I'm to me, it's sort of like this is such a missed opportunity if you're not doing that. Because I think that I was so, I think, in earlier parts of my life, so beholden to these sort of externally created benchmarks of success in terms of like, I wanted to do like the 30 under 30. I wanted to do these, like, you know, I just spoke at South by Southwest, and I was like exciting, but it was also like, oh, you know, it's like not the thing that I think you make it up to be in terms of in in your head, right? Of like this is what success looks like or whatever. Because for me, in reality, like the only thing that really matters to me at this point is like this party. And like, and like being able to say all the things that I feel like I need to say to the people I need to say that to.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 27:17

Well, I think it's delightful because you know, I've been to funerals where people start meeting them each other for the first time. They've all had this one person that they've loved and adored for a hundred years, and nobody's known each other because they've all been in these little separate circles and not knowing how much they share in common with, you know, like this love of this person. Yeah. Uh I kind of like that. I I'm gonna have to like put that in my little ideas book.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

And it makes me so like I feel like often people the part of the reason why people don't do this is because they see it as being this narcissistic thing. Like we I do think we have this thing in the culture where we're like, oh, but you know, like that would be too, you know, it's it seems either like selfish or something to people. And I so vehemently disagree with that because we love celebrating people. Like that's why we have celebrities. We love being able to sort of like fangirl over someone, right? And like, you know, and that's just something that we find so unifying. And I think that giving people the opportunity to do that for each other and for yourself is a gift to everyone. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 28:26

Yeah. I okay. Second level to that is like, I think moms do that for other people, for kids, for parents, for spouses or whatever. Um, I want to do that. I'm a single mom and I'm like, I need to have a celebration for me because I have done a lot of cool shit.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

Yeah, totally. And I also think that there's this, like, I think especially as as more and more people I think are thinking of doing these celebrations of life earlier and earlier. I also think that it really gives a lot of legitimacy to this idea that like there are so many people who are raising you right now. We're all raising each other and being like, you know, how do we legitimize and appreciate those ways in which, you know, like my best friend has raised me? You know?

SPEAKER_03 29:14

I love this, Isabel. You're the coolest.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Cool. That is great. That is really great. I love that idea. Ugh, yeah. Okay. Well, let's see. Do we have any questions we want to ask?

SPEAKER_03 29:27

I mean, yeah, but I could talk to Isabel all afternoon. It's so great. I love this.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

This is just fine the way it's going. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:33

And and I want to actually just note that we're on a podcast to hold a conversation about the end of life and how difficult it is. But there's so many different aspects of living that are difficult for people to actually have a conversation about, right? I want to have a party to celebrate my life and how you've all raised me. That's not really done, right? We just have this like trope that a birthday party should be like, you know, a cake, some balloons, maybe cocktails, and then you're done, right? You know, the playlist from the Spotify. But the reality is like you end up inviting those people into your life. You you have a toast for, you know, those who birthed you and those who birthed little aspects of you, who birthed stories about you. I mean, it's it's it's living and it's dying. It's living and it's dying over and over and over. And we celebrate all those little tiny moments.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Right. And and I do think that like it actually decenters the notion of individuality because like it is such a I think even the way that we conceive of birthdays now is it's like, oh, it's all about what you have done as you, a single individual, and like trying to break that apart and say, no, we've all co-created who I am and I've co-created who you are, and it's all one thing, you know. Like, I mean, that's actually really the central premise of my business too, is that like you can't have a good hospital if you didn't co-create that hospital with someone who's eventually gonna be a patient in that hospital or a doctor in that hospital, right? And that so rarely ever happens when we design things, right? Right. Like this notion of how do we co-create and and intentionally think about the fact that we are trying to make an effort to co-create everything that we build with everyone else, right? Because we think of things as this very lone wolf genius person sitting in their office and like, you know, having the strike. And it's like that's not how things work, right?

SPEAKER_02 31:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

I know. I think about that all the time because Albert Einstein, he had his cousin who cooked and cleaned for him for his entire life. Like that's who gave him the space to like think these thoughts, right? And all these other so yeah, celebrate her.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Right. It's ridiculous how we we we only uphold people as individuals as if they are just by themselves in our narrative of history and our narrative of of ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

And it's just like that's that's that's ridiculous, right?

SPEAKER_03 31:56

Okay, well, let's let's also talk about death and dying in terms of co-creation, right? So yeah, somebody loses a loved one and then they're left alone, right? They have to make the all the decisions around how you know they will have a funeral for like that's I mean, I guess I hear this a lot when people come out of a death. They're like, it was the hardest thing. I had to pick a casket. I had like, I had to figure out where to have it. I had to have food, I had cousins, I had where to put people when they came into town. There should be a community of people who just show up and be like, I'm gonna take care of this, let's do this, or pre-plan it. Have you ever gotten it? Yeah, totally, right? That's exactly it. Yeah, it's like it's a lot of work for the individual, but community-wise, if we all shoulder a piece of this, it's it creates more life.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

You know, it's its own like life-affirming event.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Totally, totally. I mean, like that is that is, in my opinion, the way to do it, right? Like, you know, instead of just putting everything on one person, giving them no direction, and then they're super stressed out, which I think is happening majority, maybe 90 plus percent of the time, right? Yes. Sitting down and being like, okay, this doesn't have to be morbid, this doesn't have to be terrible, like, we don't have to stress about this, let's do this. And you're just make it really fun, right? Like, who are all of the people? And I really think that once you sit down and really think about it, there's actually so many people who are supporting you. That's not just your one child, that's not just your spouse, that's not just the nuclear family that we're really conditioned to believe is everything. And that makes things so much easier. Like for the month of April, I was just um in DC caretaking for my friend who just had a major surgery, and they had an entire meal train planned out in advance. I didn't have to cook once, basically. And that would have been so much more difficult for me. And like basically doing that exact type of thing for your funeral and mean like, no, like I don't need to have one person do literally everything. I can have I can spread the wealth. There's so many people who would probably love to be given a task. People love being given tasks. You know, like just tell me what to do.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

Well, it's not just I want to do a task, it's that this is how I can show love. Yeah. This is how I can connect with you, this is how I can support you. And people, when they say, Oh, don't worry about it, don't worry about it, they are really losing the benefit not only of being supported, but of giving that person a chance to show their love and to give a gift of what they can do, cook a meal, you know, show up and babysit, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Right. It's really hard for us. We don't have a lot of graceful language to even talk about that dynamic. Because it is, it can be very fraught to like, you know, really ask people for help. I mean, we know we all have, you know, this is like such a thing that that, you know, in America, people are just quite bad at. And I do think that a lot of that is couched in this question of how do we conceive of our value as human beings. Especially once you're dying, you're often retired, you're often feeling like you are a burden or are worthless because you're not contributing or whatever it may be. And that had so many layers of difficulty to being able to accept help from people.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

And I love that what we're talking about here is uh changing that paradigm, changing that in a way that we start talking about this ahead of time, we start making plans ahead of time, we start working with people. All the work that you're doing, Isabel, and that we're talking about on this podcast, is just to try to change that so that people can come into it with that new perspective of that we are all here to share, to give love to each other, and that we're not alone, that we are connected in so many ways that we don't even think about, but to start thinking about it and start sharing that. I think that's such a great step forward.

SPEAKER_03 35:45

It is. And one last thing, I'm gonna put a plug in here. If you're listening and you have somebody who's going through a grief cycle with the death of a loved one, don't say, What can I do? Because in that moment, that person doesn't really know what to ask for. And there's a conditioning that we shouldn't ask for much. You say, I'm gonna show up on Tuesday night with a covered dish, I'll leave it on the porch. You take it, just eat it and have, you know, move forward. Because we forget that we can also just show up and gift something.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Or just show up.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

Or just show up, right? Like mow the lawn. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Yeah. Great conversation. Thank you, Isabel. This has been really good. There's a lot of other things, but I think we've kind of gone over most of them. Maybe something would be interesting to hear, and is always interesting for me anyway, is the kinds of practices or tools that you have for resourcing yourself for holding, you know, holding these spaces for people when you're doing when it gets hard. Um what kind of things do you use to keep yourself resourced and be able to get up every day and feel ready to go?

SPEAKER_00 36:53

I just have a short list of friends who I know will always pick up the phone. That's really the number one thing for me. I also think it really, really helps to live with other people. I don't like the fact that our society is really like all about as soon as you can, you should be wanting to sort of like live by yourself and be your own sort of like tower of one. And so, like, I feel just very appreciative that I have two roommates that I, you know, that I support and who can support me. And that's something that I that I think is integral to being able to to do a lot of this work. But also, like, in my opinion, it's not a draining thing. I think it's really like all conversations about death are conversations about life. And that's really life-affirming, in my opinion. It's such an amazing, fun, and also just interesting, like mentally stimulating thing to be doing, I think. And it really makes me think about the broader, like, you know, what is this going to look like in the future? Because the the reason why it's so important to me to figure out like how to get this model to work now is because I think a lot about the AI revolution, basically, right? Of like, I do think we're about to have mass waves of unemployment and figuring out how we can create a society in which we are able to truly value emotional labor, like labor that is historically coded as feminine labor. You know, all of these things are things that we have not figured out how to appropriately price out in the market. And that's something we seriously need to figure out how to do. And I think it's extremely possible to do that because we have seen that happen with therapy, for example, in the last like 20 years. In the grand scheme of things, not that long a time period, right? But I feel like one, two generations ago, it was such a taboo to talk about therapy at all, right? Like to even say the word therapy. And now if you go on like Tinder, people will be like, don't even bother swiping if you're not in therapy. Like, God forbid, you're not in therapy. You know what I mean? Like so, like that happened in a relatively short period of time. You know, it's like I totally think that that could happen for doulas. I think that can happen for death work and have it just be considered a norm that over time people are just like, well, of course someone's gonna help me with this. How would I possibly do this without support?

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Well, may it be so.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

That would be absurd, you know. I really think that that's gonna happen. I don't think it's even that far away. Right.

SPEAKER_03 39:48

Let's having more of these conversations and alerting people that yes, ask for help. We're here.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Like Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:55

Yeah. So cool. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Great. Well, this is awesome. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 40:01

Is there anything you wish we had asked you that we didn't cover in this wonderful conversation so far?

SPEAKER_00 40:07

That's a good question. Yeah. I mean, I really think that that we've covered a lot of the things I wanted to talk about. My my main message to people is really just to like start thinking actively about how all of this stuff applies to your own life. I think often deathcare people, as they're doing the work, I think it is sort of like you see a lot of deathcare people who don't even necessarily have like their own funeral plans and stuff like that because they're like, you know, it's we're obviously all plagued by the same things as everyone else, where we're just like, oh, you know, like whatever. But it's so fun. Like, have a party, an advanced directed party, just sit down with your friends, make it happen. Because like you, you literally never know. Like, even just having emergency an emergency context for like my roommates, for example. I didn't realize that I didn't have that until like yesterday. And like my roommate was in the hospital, and I was like, oh shit, I really need to like make sure I have his like parent numbers and stuff like that. And like that was just a wake-up call for me because I was like, I'm like the person who's always telling people to do this, and like I need to do it too. So, you know, that that's something that I've just been thinking about today in particular.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

Yeah, and actually to to go with that a couple hours ago, I wrote down a list of my little list of things to do. For parents with 18-year-olds, kids who have just come out of high school, they don't have, if they don't have an advanced care directive plan, suddenly if they're in a hospital, it's really hard for parents to be right. They're not necessarily gonna tell you what's going on with your kid because they're an adult. No. So it's it behooves us to have a party for families with seniors, with kids, whatever, like 20 year olds.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Like we still it's time. Time is now that's such a great important thing, yeah. Yeah. Class that I do on end of life planning, uh, we always so we say you should have an advanced care directive if you're over 15 years old, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

And I think that's what you're getting at as well, is that nobody's too young to start thinking about who's there, who are their emergency contacts, who what do they want to have happen? Um, and and you know, and then also sharing it. I love the uh party you said, you know, have a party with your extended family, with whoever's gonna be doing this work with you, and say, and do it regularly, you know, it should be like your birthday party only. Right. Your death day, death, death party, you know, like what what do you really want me to uh what do you really want me to uh what parts of this are you gonna play with me and and and how do you want to participate? And yeah, I think that's so important.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

Right. And I think that the key to everything, to making everything easier is to make it social. Like every possible thing that we tell people to do, like exercise more or whatever, it's like, okay, well, how do you do that? You have to do it with your friends. Like you can't just expect that people will just wake up and like do it by themselves and like just grind, and it's like this, this, this thing that like we don't want to do, but we have to force ourselves to do. I really believe that if you just do it with other people, it just it it it turns it from being this chore to being something that's actually a joy to do. Yeah. Like that's true for almost everything.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

I like it.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

Beautiful. Yeah. So true. Thank you so much. This is great.

SPEAKER_03 43:16

Yeah, Isabel, thank you so much. You're a delight. Of course.

unknown 43:20

No problem.

SPEAKER_03 43:22

As usual, we like to end with a poem. Today's poem comes from the poet Nezawakoyotl. Uh, this poet was a 15th century poet, warrior, and a ruler of the Azatec city-state, that's Koko. Could it be true we live on earth? On earth forever. Just one brief incident here. Even the finest stones begin to split. Even gold is tarnished, even precious bird plumes shrivel like a cough. Just one brief incident here.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

So real. I'll read it again. Could it be true? We live on earth on earth forever? Just one brief instant here. Even the finest stones begin to split. Even gold is tarnished. Even precious bird blooms shrivel like a cough. Just one brief instant here.

SPEAKER_03 44:38

So good.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

Yeah, so uh here forever, but only for an instant. At the same time. Well, thank you. And thank you all for being here.

SPEAKER_03 44:52

Yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 44:53

Thank you, Isabel.

SPEAKER_03 44:54

Adios.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

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

SPEAKER_03 45:11

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 Tack. Each guest additional information will be found in the podcast number. And of course, if you have a good end of life story to share, please reach out. We're always eager to hear from you.