Lessons Learned from a Personal Loss Part 2

Following the decision, I prioritized my aunt's comfort as we prepared to remove her oxygen support. The nurse and I made her as comfortable as possible, opting for comfort care with a touch of morphine to ease her pain.

Reflecting on the day, I found solace in the serenity of the room. With all distractions muted, I held her hand, conveying love and reassurance, even reading aloud from "A Wrinkle in Time.”Despite initial hesitation, the book's themes of fear and acceptance resonated, offering a parallel to our shared journey. Reading aloud connected us, grounding me in the moment.

As her breath stilled, I comforted her, echoing the words of my grandmother. Watching her peaceful transition, I reflected on life's transient nature, finding solace in the beauty of her final moments. Reflecting on her life, I found comfort in knowing I was there for her. Despite the sadness, I was so happy to be with her for her final moments.

Looking back, I realize now that I should have asked earlier for palliative care involvement, recognizing the value of open communication and advocacy in ensuring a peaceful transition.

Having navigated my aunt's journey, I emphasize the significance of candid conversations about end-of-life wishes, underscoring the importance of support and preparation.

In the days after, I confronted layered emotions, finding solace in shared memories and the opportunity to honor loved ones' legacies. Reflecting on our time together, I cherish the memories and the enduring impact of her smile, finding comfort in the shared moments that define our bond.

Grief is a complex journey, yet amid the pain, I find solace in the shared memories and the enduring connections that transcend life's final moments.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2092749/14343949 Episode with Barbara Karnes that I referenced in this episode. 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Even as sad as I felt, I actually felt really good because I felt so good about being able to be there with somebody that loved me so much and that I love so much. Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly. I'm your host, Jill McClennen, a death doula and end-of-life coach. Here on my show, I have conversations with guests that explore the topics of death, dying, grief, and life itself.

[00:00:27] My goal is to create a space. Where you can challenge the ideas you might already have about these subjects. I want to encourage you to open your mind and consider perspectives beyond what you may currently believe to be true. Welcome back to the second part of my solo podcast story about my experience at the end of life with my aunt.

[00:00:48] I know last week's episode my editing was not done as well as I would normally do and I'm sorry about that. A lot was going on and I did the best I could to get the episode out on time. In this episode, I talk about the moments leading up to my aunt's peaceful passing and I reflect on what I would have done differently and what went well because of the family's open communication about end of life wishes.

[00:01:11] After the decision was made, the doctor had said to me, I don't think it will be long. Once we removed the oxygen and I said, I just want her to be as comfortable as possible. Can we remove any of the other tubes and things that had been keeping her alive? And so the nurse said, just give me a few minutes.

[00:01:40] We're going to clean her up a little bit. And then you couldn't be alone with her. So they took the mask off of her face and they removed anything that they could remove and they cleaned her up. And I heard her say to one of the other nurses, can we switch her to comfort care? Which again, I understood what that meant.

[00:02:07] They were going to give her. a little bit of morphine to just ease any pain that she might be in to help her relax a little bit because her body was struggling to breathe a little. And I remember the nurse that had been in there with her had this pin on her shirt and it was like a big yellow sunflower or something.

[00:02:34] And I had just been listening to her talk to me and just staring at this pin. It's like never gonna forget that bright yellow pin. The day that my aunt died was actually her birthday. So her birthday was March 14th and daffodils were her favorite flower. She had a print of a painting. Long as I could remember hanging in her dining room of daffodils, and daffodils are also my favorite flower.

[00:03:10] I have them tattooed on my arm, and there's a story about why. That I'm not going to get into now, but, but they're very meaningful to me and all the daffodils are blooming right now. My garden is just amazing with all different colors and different shapes. And there's little daffodils, there's bigger daffodils, there's just so many beautiful daffodils blooming right now.

[00:03:40] And so to see this bright yellow flower on this one means. It was just memorable. And so, they turned everything off that was beeping and making noises so that the room would be quiet. They turned the lights down for me, closed all the blinds, you know, closed the door, gave us privacy. And I held her hand and I gave her the kiss on the cheek.

[00:04:11] And then I told her it was from Uncle Bob and that he loved her. And I got out a wrinkle in time and I started to read to her, which If you know the story of Wrinkle in Time, I haven't read it probably in 20 years. I think I was in college last time I read it. And the brief idea of what the book is about, there's two siblings that time travel to find their father.

[00:04:41] And that's really kind of all I remembered about it, other than I remember really loving the book, it was one of my favorites. I remember reading it the first time and just being in love with it. And that's why I read it again in college because I had said to a friend of mine how much I love the book and I hadn't read it in years and he got it for me for my birthday one year.

[00:05:02] And I'm going to just read a little bit about the part that we were at. That I briefly debated on whether I should stop reading because I was like, I don't know if she needs to hear this. So again, the siblings in the book up until this point, we were kind of like setting up the story and they had just met with these beings that were going to help them time travel.

[00:05:27] And so I get to this part in the book and I'm reading, what could there be about a shadow that was so terrible that she knew that there had never been before? Or ever would be again, anything that would chill her with the fear that was beyond shuddering, beyond crying or screaming, beyond the possibility of comfort.

[00:05:52] The shadow was still there, dark and dreadful. And I'm reading this and I'm thinking, well, this is interesting because how many of us fear death? We fear that dark shadow that we know is coming for all of us. We just don't know when and so at this point, I don't know if there was any part of my aunt left that was still conscious and aware of what was happening.

[00:06:25] I'm not sure. And so I continue reading and it says, Meg began to cry, to sob loudly, and one of the beings that was with them said, My child, do not despair. Do you think we would have brought you here if there was no hope? We are asking you to do a difficult thing, but we are confident that you could do it.

[00:06:50] Now, Mrs. Witch said, are we ready? Where are we going? Calvin asked. Again, Meg felt a physical tingle of fear. We must go behind the shadow. And so I'm reading it and I'm like, okay, but I was partially reading for myself. Okay. Okay. It helped me to calm myself a little bit, to center myself. I'd really been enjoying reading to her the last couple of times I visited.

[00:07:21] And it was even kind of sweet where I can fake it and sound more intelligent than I actually am. It was a couple times I was reading in the book and now my aunt was a school teacher. She actually had taught special ed students with learning disabilities and all these things. And So I was reading out loud and there was a couple times in the book that I would get to a word and I was like I don't know what this word means.

[00:07:47] I don't even know how to say it. And she would try to help me pronounce the word to her as I was reading out loud. I was partially reading to her at this point because I needed to do something. I needed to be able to have her hear my voice to know that I was there. She's holding her hand and I'm reading to her.

[00:08:08] And so in the book, they talk about what time travel is and the fourth dimension and the fifth dimension and how it all works. And it was really kind of interesting that she was getting ready to make this transition from life to death that we all know we're going to make. And anybody that works in end of life, we think about this a lot.

[00:08:28] We talk about it a lot. We're with people that are at that transition point. But to be reading this book that's talking about time travel and the different dimensions and all these different things. And I get a little further on in the story, and she says, so now it's time to go. Though we travel together, we travel alone.

[00:08:54] And that's how Lady felt. I was there with her to make sure she wasn't alone. But she had to make this journey alone. I wasn't going with her. And so then, Meg, the kind of main character, she's explaining what she felt. Darkness, silence, nothingness. But this time, she was prepared for the sudden and complete dissolution of her body.

[00:09:23] She tried to gasp, but a paper doll can't gasp. She thought she was trying to think, but her flattened out mind was unable to function as her lungs. Her thoughts were squashed along with the rest of her. Her heart tried to beat, but it could not expand. She was whizzed into nothingness again, and nothingness was wonderful.

[00:09:48] And that's actually where I stopped reading. She was whizzed into nothingness and nothingness was wonderful. And I don't know, it just felt like the right time to stop reading. And I held my aunt's hand with one hand and with the other hand. I stroked the top of her head, and I told her she was loved. And when I was a child, my grandmother, when I couldn't sleep, she used to rub my back, and she would just say to me, just relax, Jill, just relax.

[00:10:20] And so, I held my aunt's hand, and I stroked the top of her head, and I told her just to relax. And that soon, there would be calm and peace. And no more suffering, nothing to worry about. And I said, I don't know where you're going to go. Maybe you'll just dissolve into the universe. Maybe you'll become part of all of the daffodils that are blooming right now.

[00:10:52] And I watched her breathing and I watched it stop and then she didn't take another breath. And then I tried to feel for a pulse in her wrist, and I laid my hand on her chest to see if I could feel her heart beating, and there was no more breath, and there was no more pulse, and I sat with her, and I still held her hand, and I still stroked the hair on the top of her head.

[00:11:21] But it was different. It felt different. She wasn't there anymore. And the nurse came in and the young man that had been holding the mats to her face when I first walked in came in and listened for a heartbeat. I don't even know what he said to me. He said something. I heard his voice. But it almost sounded like he was speaking a different language.

[00:11:44] The words just didn't actually put themselves together. Which was okay. I mean, I knew what he was saying and we just sat in there with her and they told me to take as much time as I needed. And I called my uncle and I told him that she was gone and that she died while I was holding her hand and while I was talking to her and that she was not alone.

[00:12:09] And then he actually said something to me. He said, Jill, she would be thrilled to know that you were with her. And then the reason why I'm just going to keep for myself, but when he said that it helped me to understand even more how important that was to her and that the bond that she had with me was even deeper than I knew.

[00:12:31] And so I stayed with her a little bit longer and I actually talked with the nurses about how interesting it was that she died. On the same day that she was born and that I've often thought about what my death date will be because after I'm gone, the people that love me will never forget that date, but I don't know that date and she took her first breath and her last breath.

[00:12:59] On the same day, 78 years apart. And they told me I could stay as long as I wanted to. But at that point, I felt really good. I felt very sad still, you know, gonna miss her. But I felt really good about having been there. And about how peacefully she went. And she did not seem to be in really any pain or even discomfort at that point.

[00:13:29] And again, everybody at Cooper Hospital was so amazing, but there's still that part of you that you'd walk out of that room and I looked back one more time to look at her and I walked down the hall and people are still doing their jobs and they're still having their conversations and the life is still going.

[00:13:49] And so I got to my mother's to pick up my daughter and she was sitting outside with her neighbors and we talked a little bit. I came home and. Me and my husband and my partner and my daughter actually FaceTimed. So all of us were talking to each other and my husband was on his way home, but he was stuck in traffic and he missed his flight.

[00:14:10] And even at that point, I was like, no, it's fine. Like, don't worry about it. You don't really need to come home. Like I'm okay. Everything's okay. Oh my God. Thank God he came home. And I realized too, afterwards that even though it was my aunt, we spent a lot of time with my family. Because my husband's not from New Jersey, he doesn't have family in New Jersey.

[00:14:33] And the first time he ever came home with me to New Jersey, we weren't even dating yet. We were in college together in New York. And I said I was coming home to have crabs and spaghetti with my family, and he was like, what? Crabs and spaghetti? I was like, yeah, I don't know. It's a Jersey thing. He's like, we cook blue crabs and beer and garlic and we eat it with spaghetti.

[00:14:56] And so I invited him to come home with me. And so we went to my aunt and uncle's house and we had crabs and spaghetti. He was probably 19, 20 maybe at the time. You know, so half of his life, he's known her. And so I realized too that he was grieving. And so I went upstairs and I took a shower and in the shower, I just cried.

[00:15:25] I just allowed myself to cry and to feel the grief. And then with that grief. For my aunt, with those tears, there was other grief that was coming up from things from childhood, from losses of friendships, just the grief and the sadness that I'd been holding in for a long time. And I allowed myself to feel it.

[00:15:54] I allowed myself to let it out. Didn't consume me, didn't swallow me whole. It didn't do all the things that we are afraid it's going to when we allow ourselves to feel it. I just felt it, and I showered and got out of the shower, and I said to my daughter, It's not every day that you sit with your aunt when they die.

[00:16:18] And she said, It's not every day that I see my mom cry. And I was like, Ooh, that's true, because I don't cry that often. And then even for me, there was thoughts about the last time I saw my Aunt Karen, and I didn't spend that much time with her. I didn't have as many conversations with her as I should have.

[00:16:36] You know, there's the regrets that come up with grief. There's the questioning. Did I? Did I? Do enough. Did I say enough? It's natural. It's natural for us to have those thoughts and to question those things. It's part of the grieving process. And it's okay. It's okay to have those feelings and to have those thoughts.

[00:16:59] And my son asked questions and my daughter asked questions. My son wanted to know did I tell her goodbye like he asked me to and I said I did. My daughter wanted to know if I took a picture of her after she died, which I did not, but I did take a picture of me holding her hand before she died, but it was good conversations.

[00:17:24] We talked about it in a way that, again, I didn't try to pretend I wasn't sad. I didn't try to hide the fact that I was crying. I wanted to be open and honest, as I've always been with my children, and That night, I just couldn't really sleep, but it was partially that even as sad as I felt, I actually felt really good.

[00:17:52] I had this energy just like running through my body because I felt so good about being able to be there with somebody. That loved me so much and that I loved so much that I just felt this energy just like coursing through my body. So to feel so sad and to feel so good at the same time, I just couldn't sleep.

[00:18:24] And my husband got home about 1. 30 in the morning. I heard him come in and the kids had to get up and go to school the next day. And he told me to stay in bed and get some sleep. So I stayed in bed and I got some sleep. Well, I stayed in bed, didn't really sleep much. And I do tend to get migraines if I don't rest well and if I have intense emotional situations.

[00:18:49] So, I had a headache most of the next day and after the kids went to school, my husband and I sat together and I just put my head on his shoulder and I said, it's so weird to think that one day one of us is going to die before the other one. And it's okay. It's okay that that's going to happen. But it still makes me sad.

[00:19:13] But it's alright. So we had a really nice conversation about The experience and what happened and how everything happened and nails when I'm going to share the lessons that I really learned, the things that I maybe would have done differently, the things that I think went really well. I think the biggest thing that I would change, and again, it's crazy because I even know better.

[00:19:48] I would have asked to have Pallative get involved earlier. And it's no one's fault that they didn't, you know, like, again, I'm not blaming the doctors. I'm not blaming the nurses. I'm not even blaming myself. This is a common thing that I've seen in the hospital, palliative care being called in the day that somebody dies or the day before somebody dies, because palliative care is is really there for people living with a serious illness.

[00:20:21] It's a type of care that specializes in providing people relief from their symptoms and help with the stress that they're dealing with, helping their families with the stress that they're dealing with. It really is just to help improve the quality of life. for both the patient and the family. You can use palliative care along with curative treatment.

[00:20:46] So I don't know why I didn't say as soon as she got put into the ICU, can we please have a meeting with palliative care? Because I know that I should have. I know better. I wish that I would have done it, but I didn't. And it's okay that I didn't. But that is something that I would change. That is something that if I could go back and do it again, I would do it differently.

[00:21:10] Okay. And on Thursday, when I saw that she had gotten worse and I left and I went home, should have packed a bag then and just gone right back to the hospital. But I didn't. But like I said earlier, even Barbara Carnes, somebody that's been doing this work for 40 something years, we all think that our person has more time than they do.

[00:21:42] And that's okay. It's all right. But I wish I would have gone back earlier. I can say that really having these conversations with your loved ones ahead of time really does help in the end. I'm so glad that my aunt and uncle had the conversations that they had. And like he said to me when I was on the phone with him, He said something like, Jill, I'm a scientist.

[00:22:09] You know, I know these things. I know what's happening. That was just them. They were very science minded, very logical. They'd had the conversations. We knew that she didn't want the treatments. We knew that she didn't want to be intubated. But again, even he said to me, if I wouldn't have gotten that initial phone call in the middle of the night, which is how she ended up being intubated and put at Cooper, In the first place, he would have done something different, but he got woken up in the middle of the night and it's hard, it's hard when you have to actually make the decision and say the words at that time, but I'm glad they had the conversations because then it made it easier for me to advocate for her and what she wanted.

[00:22:59] And. I was able to, with my education from my training to become a death doula, with my education from spending time in a hospital with a palliative care team, I was able to really advocate for her and understand the decisions that were being made. So I don't have. Any of the guilt that maybe I killed my aunt Karen by turning off these machines that were keeping her alive again.

[00:23:32] I didn't turn anything off. I liberated her. I allowed her body to do naturally what our bodies do. But if I wouldn't have had this background that I have, I would not have felt as comfortable. I wouldn't have been able to ask the questions that I needed to ask. I wouldn't have said to the nurse, Please call me, I don't want her to die alone.

[00:23:57] Because I wouldn't have realized. What was happening? I wouldn't have really understood. And so having these conversations ahead of time. I mean, I know I advocate for this all the time on my podcast, but now I could say this not as a death doula, but as somebody that helped someone that they love as a niece helped her aunt and her uncle and her cousins navigate a tough situation.

[00:24:27] Thank you. Because it is hard. I mean, you could hear now I'm crying again, and I'm so glad to having these open, honest conversations with my children to be able to say to them, you know, I've been saying for years now, answering their questions, being honest with them about their All of us dying at some point.

[00:24:49] Death is a natural part of life. You know, again, when my son asked, Is Aunt Karen going to die? I didn't say, Oh, no, no, no. She's going to be fine. I said, I don't know. She might die. And she did. She died. It's part of life. Still weird to think that Aunt Karen's not here anymore. It really was just such a beautiful time for me to be with her.

[00:25:18] I'm so grateful, again, to the staff at Cooper, to the team at Robert Wood Johnson that taught me so much, to my death doula mentor Jill that taught me so much, to all of the people that have ever been on my podcast. That have taught me so much about death and dying and grief. So grateful for my family, again, for my husband and my partner, my friend, Chris, even, that has been checking in with me for a few days when I told him what was happening.

[00:25:50] I just am surrounded by people. that helped make this situation a beautiful and unforgettable situation and time in my life. And it was a gift that I was able to give my aunt and I'm so grateful for it. And I'm grateful for all of you that listen to me and my podcast and just listen to me ramble and cry.

[00:26:17] And when I texted my friend and I had said that my Aunt had died and that I had sat with her and I held her hand and he is afraid of death. He's funny that one of his best friends became a death doula because now I'm kind of forcing him to talk about it But he said to me was it painful and it wasn't I'm confident.

[00:26:40] Honestly, I'm confident That with preparation and educating yourself and having support, having a death doula around, again, this is what we do, we're there to help so you don't have to necessarily know all of the things that I knew to ask the right questions, but having somebody there with you that knows and can ask the right questions.

[00:27:03] It'll really make sure that if it is at all possible to have a peaceful, pain free death, that it can happen. And I can say that now, firsthand experience, that it is possible. It's been two weeks since my aunt died, and I've been reflecting a lot on death and grief over these last two weeks. Right after I had recorded the original recording, I found out later on that day that a family member died.

[00:27:39] And then two days later, I found out that another family member died. So all in that one week, I had a lot of death within my family, and it got me reflecting on just so many different things, right? The different relationships that we have, what these relationships mean to us. My family always said death comes in threes and, you know, Definitely came in three and I don't know what to make of that, if anything, but I just thought that was interesting and a lot of what I've been thinking about these last couple of weeks really reflecting on Greece and how interesting it is.

[00:28:22] Because there's not a lot of regrets or anything that I have. All of the relationships to the people that I had die within that week, overall were good relationships. But I really do feel some grief around The last couple of times I saw my aunt, not taking the time to talk with her more, not making more of an effort to see her in the last few years.

[00:28:55] COVID definitely kind of threw a lot of things off. It's interesting, this episode's actually coming out around Easter and we always spent holidays. With my family, my uncle and my aunt and my cousins would come for all the major food holidays, but Easter was a really big deal to my grandmother. And so it was kind of a really big deal for our family.

[00:29:19] And right around the lockdown in 2020, we were getting ready to have Easter dinner and we said, uh, we'll just postpone it maybe three weeks, four weeks. It'll be fine. And years later, we never had that Easter dinner. And I never really saw my aunt again for Easter after that because life changes and they got older and things just got harder.

[00:29:45] Right now I'm seeing a lot of pictures in my memories. I have like different apps and stuff that show your photo memories and So I'm seeing pictures of my aunt and my family from holidays, and so that's bringing up again just this grief of like, oh, I should have spent more time asking her questions about her life.

[00:30:04] And one of the people that died It's back in the town that I grew up in. That's where she was living. And the last couple of times my mom, when I went down there for different things, we would say, Oh, you know, we should really stop and see her. And we didn't because we would usually go back home for a reason.

[00:30:25] We were going to buy flowers. Cause even though I know most people don't think of New Jersey as farmland, we are the garden state. We have a lot of farms. So we, We'll drive back home further south than where we live now to buy produce and to buy flowers. And there was always a reason we were going down and we didn't always have a lot of extra time.

[00:30:45] So it'd be like, Oh, next time, next time, next time. And so I realized now I haven't seen her in a couple of years. And so I was feeling some grief around that. And my cousin's father, who died, Him and I were not necessarily super close, but my cousin and I were really close at one point in our lives. We have the same birthday, she's exactly a year older than me, and we spent a lot of time together when we were younger.

[00:31:13] And so there was some complicated feelings I was feeling Her and her father were really close, and I feel bad that I wasn't there to support her better during this time. Like, again, grief is so complicated. It brings up all of these different things. And so I've just been sitting and processing and working through it.

[00:31:38] And for, uh, the woman back home who died, I actually was asked to do a reading at her funeral mass. I grew up Catholic. This is the same Catholic church that I grew up in. I went to Catholic school there. The last time I was there was for my grandmother's funeral. And so getting up and reading a passage out of the Bible that I actually really loved that was about death.

[00:32:05] And it basically was saying, if you're a follower of Jesus, like, You're going to die. It's just part of how it is. It's okay. We all die. It was a great reading, and I was very happy to do it. And I was also surprised at how much I was looking forward to that funeral because I don't really identify as Catholic anymore.

[00:32:28] And think that week, having had so many deaths back to back, and really just trying to process all of it. I needed that reason to take a full day and just stop working. I'd already have been like rescheduling things. I had podcast interviews I had to reschedule. I had meetings I had to reschedule. I had a grief workshop that I was doing for somebody that I had to reschedule.

[00:32:56] Like there was just so much rescheduling and phone calls and trying to do all these different things. And so Taking a full day to go to this mass, to go out to the cemetery, to go to the funeral luncheon afterwards, to be with people that I'd grown up with. Even the restaurant where we had the luncheon is one of the first restaurants I ever worked in when I became a chef.

[00:33:24] I might have been like 19 at the time. Coming back home from culinary school, I needed a job. I went to work in this restaurant. So there just was so many complicated feelings tied up with it, but it also was something that I just needed. I needed to be with people that I loved and that loved me and we all loved her and, but I didn't expect that.

[00:33:45] Right. I think that's one of the things that I'm learning even more with death and grief is it's not going to be. The same for everybody, right? Which I knew that. It's not going to be a textbook, like this happens, and then that happens, and you're going to feel this, like it just, it's going to be all kinds of different things.

[00:34:08] And that's okay. It's part of the human experience. It's all right. And it's interesting to go through an experience that now when I look back on the last couple weeks I'd spent with my aunt. And of course, you know, going to the hospital to be with her while she was dying, it was a life changing moment.

[00:34:31] I'm not the same person now that I was before that experience. And you don't always realize it when you're in these experiences that that's what's happening. But looking back on it, I'm never going to forget that room. I'm never going to forget the way the lights were. The window actually from her hospital room looked out into Camden and I could see the building that is right next door to Cathedral Kitchen, which is where I've worked for the last, I don't know, I think I'll be there 10 years this summer.

[00:35:11] I'm still there part time. I used to be there full time. Um, But looking out that window and seeing this building and being like, Oh, that's the building right next to Cathedral kitchen. I'm basically looking at Cathedral kitchen, and it's just all those little things right that you'll never forget. And.

[00:35:30] When I was leaving for the hospital, my daughter had made a bracelet that she wanted me to give to Aunt Karen. And I had put it on my wrist so that I wouldn't forget to take it. But then I actually forgot to take it off my wrist and put it on Aunt Karen's wrist with everything that was going on. So I'm still wearing that bracelet.

[00:35:50] I've taken it off a few times when I take a shower or whatever. I just keep putting it back on. There's just a part of me feels, I don't know, feels something. Wearing this bracelet and when I'm looking at these pictures that are coming up from holidays past and I see my aunt's smile. That's one thing, too, that I'm never going to forget, was when she was in the hospital, even though there was times when her physical body really did not look like she looked in her, I would say, normal life, right?

[00:36:32] Her life before that. Her smile was still the same. And I remember going into the bathroom at one point in her room when I was visiting with her, and I walked out of the bathroom and I looked over at her and she just smiled at me. And that smile was exactly the same as it is in all of these pictures.

[00:36:54] Now looking at those pictures and thinking to myself, I have pictures of her and I when I was a baby. She was holding me when I was a newborn. and thinking, wow, what if we would have known that I was going to be that person with her when she died? That I was going to be that person holding her hand and talking to her?

[00:37:14] I don't know. Doesn't really mean anything, right? And I think that's one of the really Interesting things about death and grief, life in general, is there's so many things that mean so much, and also don't mean anything. It just is, right? It's just part of life. It's just part of being a human. And last night I did a workshop, the ritual, and it was in person and it's a death and rebirth ritual that I do with people.

[00:37:54] And I did this one in person with a small group and I knew that going through this ritual now. versus doing it before I went through this experience. It was going to be different. It was going to be different for me because every time I guide people through it, I still go through the process myself. I'm still picturing in my mind all of the things that I'm asking people to picture.

[00:38:20] And at one point while they're laying in meditation, After they go through death, they do a life review, and part of this life review is picturing all of the people that have impacted your life in a positive way, seeing their faces, seeing the little details, their smile, and I found myself getting a little choked up while I was doing it because.

[00:38:56] It's true, we don't know when it's going to be our turn. And I will always miss my aunt, right, at all of our events. I will always miss her, but I'm so grateful. Honestly, grateful for being able to be with her and to support her at the end of her life. And one of the other things too, is being able to do that for my uncle.

[00:39:26] When I was visiting with him, one of the last things too, that I'm thinking about with grief is when we went down to visit him. So often people will say to us, let me know if you need something, right? And for somebody dies, let me know if you need something. Well, people. First off, they don't know what they need, right?

[00:39:46] And again, I know this from talking to people, I know this from podcast guests, I know this from books, right? All these different things. People don't know what they need. And so when I was visiting, my cousin had asked if I knew somewhere to donate clothing, because at some point we were going to have to clean out my aunt's clothes and donate them somewhere.

[00:40:09] When I got home, I asked my husband, would he be willing to go with me? It's an hour and half away from us, um, but to take the trip down there to clean out my aunt's clothes, because I know that that's something that my uncle needed. Right. It's something that got mentioned. It's something that we're still young enough to do the physical labor of cleaning it out, carrying it down the steps, getting it out to a car, unloading it, doing all these things that he's not going to be able to do.

[00:40:42] Plus, that's one of the things that is. really the hardest for somebody. It's cleaning out those items that you don't need that will really just end up taking up space that maybe other people can use, but it's so personal, somebody's clothing. And so if you have somebody in your life that Has recently lost a loved one, or even if it's not recent, you know, sometimes people hold on to clothes for years.

[00:41:14] If I'm going to be honest, I still have some of my grandmother's clothes and she died almost 13 years ago. Because I had a really hard time parting with her clothing. So, just offer to do things like that. Offer to come over and help out with the tasks because there's things that I can't do, right? I can't necessarily help them out with insurance and, I don't know, paperwork, all that kind of stuff.

[00:41:39] But cleaning out closets, I can for sure do that. Those are just some of my thoughts over the last couple of weeks, and I'll see you next Let me know what you think. This is definitely something where I create this podcast to help people, but also to learn. That's part of why I love to have guests on so that I can learn.

[00:42:01] And so you're always welcome to send me an email. You can connect with me on social media. You can always send me a message on social media. You can get into my Facebook group, which I have a lot of conversations about death and dying and grief. So there's a lot of ways to Get in touch with me to share your thoughts, to share your experiences, to share your feelings.

[00:42:23] And if you're listening and you have a story that you want to share, you don't have to be a professional. I actually really like to talk to people that are not professionals in the end of life. So if you have a story that you want to share on the podcast, let me know. I'd love to have you on as a guest.

[00:42:40] Thank you for listening to this episode of seeing death clearly. My family's on spring break and I will be taking this week off of editing a podcast episode. I'll be back again with a new interview on April 14th. In my next episode, I talk with Chaplain Hank Dunn, author of Hard Choices for Loving People.

[00:43:02] This book and the podcast interview are a big part of how I was able to better understand what was happening during my experience with my aunt. I'm so grateful to Hank for writing it and for talking with me for the show. In next week's episode, we discuss end of life decisions and the emotional complexities behind treatment options.

[00:43:22] Hank shares how his experiences as a nursing home chaplain led to the creation of the book, addressing CPR outcomes and patient rights. Our conversation gets into the difference between TV portrayals and the real life effectiveness of CPR, intubation, and other life extending measures. Hank emphasizes the emotional and spiritual elements of end of life care.

[00:43:45] Advocating for informed decision making and a better understanding of the palliative care approach focused on comfort. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or family member who might find it interesting. Your support in spreading the podcast is greatly appreciated. Please consider subscribing on your favorite podcast platform and leaving a five star review.

[00:44:05] Your positive feedback helps recommend the podcast to others. The podcast also offers a paid subscription feature that allows you to financially support the show. Your contribution will help keep the podcast advertisement free. Whether your donation is large or small, every amount, is valuable. I sincerely appreciate all of you for listening to the show and supporting me in any way you can.

[00:44:26] You can find a link in the show notes to subscribe to the paid monthly subscription, as well as a link to my Venmo if you prefer to make a one time contribution. Thank you, and I look forward to seeing you in next week's episode of Seeing Death Clearly.