My Life at the Cemetery with Sandy Doyle

Sandra Doyle, author of My Life at the Cemetery: It's Not as Dead as You Think, shares fascinating and unexpected stories from her years working in a cemetery. Her book features 88 captivating tales, ranging from heartwarming to shocking, each offering a glimpse into the lives and emotions of those left behind. Whether readers laugh, cry, or shake their heads in disbelief, every story provides a unique perspective on life, death, and everything in between.

While revisiting old notes and obituary records, Sandra realized she had a wealth of stories that needed to be told. A firm believer that every life has a story, she carefully changed names to protect privacy while ensuring the events remained true to life.

For Sandra, working at the cemetery was more than a job—it was a calling. She witnessed raw human emotions, from deep grief and enduring love to family conflicts so intense that law enforcement sometimes had to step in. Other stories were just as surprising in their own way.

Through it all, she emphasizes that while bodies may rest in cemeteries, the spirits of the departed remain connected to their loved ones. Sandra firmly believes in the presence of the spirit world, sharing accounts of widows sensing their late spouses or receiving messages in dreams. Her own experiences after losing her husband only strengthened her conviction that love transcends death.

In her interview, Sandra captures the beauty, chaos, and unexpected moments of life in a cemetery, reminding us that even in death, life’s stories continue to unfold.

https://www.optimist.org/

https://www.facebook.com/sandy.doyle.393

https://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Cemetery-Spiritual-Journey

I have a collection of death-positive shirts featuring inspiring quotes and original designs, all created by me. These shirts are perfect for anyone who values open, honest conversations about death, dying, and grief.

 https://www.endoflifeclarity.com/store 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Sandra: You realize that when you're dealing with death, just how precious. Life is it's just precious. 

[00:00:08] Jill: 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 My goal is to create a space where you can challenge the ideas.

[00:00:25] 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. In this episode of Seeing Death Clearly, I sit down with Sandra Doyle, author of My Life at the Cemetery, It's Not as Dead as You Think, to explore her unique experiences with death and grief.

[00:00:46] Sandy shares how working in a cemetery gave her a front row seat to love, loss, and unexpected drama. Her book captures 88 unforgettable stories, from heartfelt tributes to eerie coincidences, reminding us that even in death, life's stories continue to unfold. Thank you for joining us for this fascinating conversation on embracing mortality.

[00:01:07] storytelling and the deep connections that remain beyond the grave. Welcome to the podcast, Sandy. Thank you so much for coming on today. I'm really looking forward to hearing about. I know you wrote a book, so you're going to tell us all about it, but if you just want to start us off, just tell us a little bit about who you are, where you're from, 

[00:01:27] Sandra: whatever you want to share.

[00:01:28] Well, I'm from the Midwest, Indiana, to be exact. I have seven children and 19 grandchildren. When COVID hit, I'd always said I was going to write a book about working at the cemetery and. You know, time flew by when COVID hit. I was also diagnosed with cancer, lung cancer, and my kid said, you're not leaving the house, period, point blank.

[00:01:51] I was home for almost two years. Outside of going to the doctor's office, I never went out. I started Going through my desk, I had what we call obits that they would always give us, counselors of the people that we worked on. Some of the stories I thought, Oh, these have got to be told. I'm a firm believer that every life has a story.

[00:02:13] I changed all the names of the people. Because I didn't want anything about them to surface, but the stories are true. And I just started writing and I, which is, you can see on my background, I'm an optimist and as of next week, I will be vice president of middle America for the optimist organization. I believe in positivity.

[00:02:39] Spirituality, goodness, and love. That's me. My time at the cemetery, I felt that I was called to be there. Some of the things I saw, I did find out that people, when they lose somebody, adrenaline kicks over. It just kicks in and, you know, there was times that I had to have sheriff come out, you know, because maybe they would be arguing over finances or whose fault it was that mom died or.

[00:03:06] Who was going to get what, or who was going to pay the bill. There was a story at the funeral home where a gentleman, he was a famous in the area, business owner, and he had been married, I don't know, something like 40 years and had two grown children. He decided that he wanted a younger wife. He had been married a couple of years with this younger wife, and lo and behold, he passed away with a heart attack.

[00:03:33] So, the funeral was very interesting because she got very upset, the younger wife, because all the attention was being paid to the Older wife and the kids and so she told the funeral director get her out of here I shared him before and I'm not sharing him in death So she had the funeral director The first family out and had the sheriff there the next day at the funeral Things you don't expect to happen will happen another story in my book A lady who had devoted her life to her son who was very ill, he loved Halloween and so she decorated the grave with skeletons and had the wheelchair setting out there and ghosts and goblins and spider webbing all over and playing all kinds of monster mash songs.

[00:04:29] Uh, you know, I, I saw a lot of different things and things that I never thought I would see. 

[00:04:35] Jill: I'm sure you 

[00:04:36] Sandra: saw 

[00:04:36] Jill: the good and the bad, both of 

[00:04:38] Sandra: you have been working there, yeah. Yeah, but I tell everybody the very first story in the book, um, a young guy had passed away and he had left an ex wife. And a 21 year old son in the military and a 16 year old daughter.

[00:04:53] We found a space for him close to his mother. And I told the ex wife that there was three other spaces around and that I would keep them on hold for the family, friends, or whatever. And so, three weeks later, I always followed up with my people. To make sure everything went okay, to see if they had questions for me.

[00:05:15] If they were grieving, I wanted them to see a counselor. And I had a list of ministers at a local college that provided a little bit of grief therapy. And so the ex wife told me that she had been thinking about it and thought that she would buy the space next to him because. He was her husband for many years.

[00:05:38] And if something happened to her, that's where the kids would want her. And if something happened to one of the kids, that's where she would put them. So she bought the space next to him. About a couple of weeks later, a beautiful young lady walked in and wanted to buy a space close to him because. She loved him and they had been lovers for 10 years and she wanted to be as close to him as she could get.

[00:06:05] So I sold her the space at the guy's feet. A few days later, a gentleman came in and asked to speak to me privately and he told me that him and the deceased had been lovers since high school. Gosh. And that he needed to be buried. He wanted to spend eternity with him because they were emotionally, spiritually, and physically connected.

[00:06:32] So I sold him the space next to the girlfriend at the foot of the ex wife, the family may never know, but the cemetery knows it all. Wow. Yes. That is. And I'm sure that's more common. I'm sure it's more to think. Yes, I'm sure it is, especially in this day, but it was just, I guess I kept telling myself I lived a sheltered life.

[00:06:57] Then when I went back through some of these stories, I thought, yes, I lived a sheltered life before I went to work at the cemetery. Well, what exactly did you do at the cemetery? Like, what was your job? They called us counselors. But if somebody passed away and the family came in, I took care of them. I took care of the space they were going to use, just send out back to the guys in the grounds so they would know where to dig the hole, what kind of vault they were going to use, that kind of thing.

[00:07:30] If a memorial was already down, they had to be careful. If it wasn't, then it was for me to get with the family either then or later. To sell them the marker, the memorial with their name and dates on it. Also, I would be when that, if it was my day on, cause it was usually I work three days a week. So in the office, I would meet the funeral.

[00:07:56] as it started through the gates and take them either to the chapel area or to the grave space where they were going to be interred in the ground or in a mausoleum crypt. So I would stay with them until the vault was sealed, the family left, and then I would leave. But there was many, many Blessings and what I related with you is that I found myself saying after every time I witnessed a burial, eternal rest grant unto them.

[00:08:26] Oh, Lord, let perpetual light shine upon them and may they rest in peace and bless their families. So it became kind of like a mission thing there for a while. I felt that I was doing a service in some way to that person or to the family that was, you know, left behind. That there was a lot of good things that happened, a lot of bad things.

[00:08:49] On the days I didn't work in the office, maybe one or two of us. If we didn't have appointments, we'd go door knocking, which, you know, you wouldn't want to do now, but we did a lot of door knocking. So met a lot of fantastic people. We would come away with new flower starts, recipes, banana bread, pumpkin bread, fudge, anything like that.

[00:09:11] The one big one, I guess, as far as door knocking was the gentleman had lost his wife and his wife was buried at our cemetery. He had retired and his wife bought him a whole garage full of woodworking saws and planes. She wanted him to make new kitchen cabinets. Well, he did, and then they found out that she had cancer, and it was She wanted him to make a bed headboard and dresser and all of that for her.

[00:09:47] He said he did. When me and my friend were there, he said, would you like to see the bedroom suit? And I looked at her and she looked at me and we went upstairs and it was the most beautiful cherry bedroom suit I'd ever seen in my life. You could tell he made it out of love for her. His ex wife passed away and he was still making things and giving them away.

[00:10:12] Jill: Yeah, it's beautiful. So when you did the door knocking, what was that for? Was it to go out in the community for people who had been buried 

[00:10:20] Sandra: there? Or how'd that work? No, no, no. It was basically to get leads. Leads on people that needed cemetery spaces or answering questions for people or having them. I had no idea.

[00:10:33] One gentleman was working on his truck and we walked up and I told him who we were. And he said, we've been thinking about this. He said that I have a disabled son. So we need three spaces. And he said, how much would that cost me? Or I told him and I said, right now there's no interest or finance charges.

[00:10:53] And he said, write it up. And he opened this glove box, got his checkbook out, wrote me a check. Three cemetery spaces on the hood of a truck. And how 

[00:11:02] Jill: big was the cemetery that you worked at? 

[00:11:04] Sandra: We did approximately 300 funerals a year. 

[00:11:08] Jill: Oh, wow. 

[00:11:09] Sandra: Yeah. So we didn't have the stand up tombstones or it was, everything was flat markers and stuff like that.

[00:11:16] You know, when you drive by, you see all these different colored flowers and we had a little girl that said, Oh, grandpa's buried where all the ice cream is at. That's what it looks like. So 

[00:11:27] Jill: yeah. Oh, why no stand up ones? Why the flat ones? 

[00:11:30] Sandra: It was easier to maintain when the cemetery was created. It was just so much easier to maintain.

[00:11:37] And they had a trust type thing that makes sure that the cemetery always looked good for people to visit. Or when they visited their loved ones, it was immaculate and it looked 

[00:11:49] Jill: good. Okay, because I've seen some where They were all flat stones and I wonder why they do 

[00:11:55] Sandra: that. That's the reason it's easier to maintain because my in laws are buried in an older cemetery and the big tombstones and the grass may be cut, but there's still a lot of weeds growing around the stones.

[00:12:10] You keep thinking when you go there. Well, why doesn't somebody. You know, well, they don't have the manpower to do that. So it's up to the families. The cemetery is so old that families don't visit cemeteries like they used to. 

[00:12:24] Jill: Yeah, I see that even with my family, my grandma, we went for all major holidays to her parents and we would clean everything up and we would bring new flowers and wooden crosses.

[00:12:35] Now We're not doing it as much and it does look different when I go out there. 

[00:12:41] Sandra: I tell people they're not really there, but yet if you're very intuitive and you visit a cemetery, it just seems like you feel, I don't know how to describe it, but you can feel that there's a spirit. thing there within the cemetery, I think.

[00:12:58] And I'd ask, I've had two or three people have asked me with the book, if I, that they would clean like the small little cemeteries in their town and asked me if I felt that when I worked there. And I said, Oh, definitely, definitely feel that you can feel 

[00:13:14] Jill: this. I love cemeteries. I've always loved cemeteries.

[00:13:16] I just I find them very calming, which I don't know exactly why, but I've always loved to just go and walk around and sit sometimes and just look at all the stones as well because I like to read the names and the dates and just wonder about the people and who they were and yeah. And I always 

[00:13:39] Sandra: ask people what they would like to have.

[00:13:41] Cause we could put in God's loving care, together forever, words around the base, or when we could put a symbol or a word or something right by their name. Sometimes you're astounded at what's there. And then you stop and think, wonder what the story was. I have it in my book that there was a couple ordering their memorial.

[00:14:03] She said, I want praying hands on both sides. And he said, I don't want a praying hand on my side. I won't. The emblem of a golfer. I'm a golfer and I don't want a praying hand on my side. And it turned into a big argument. She said, I can't believe that you would put a golfer over God. And he said, God knows me and he knows I'm a golfer.

[00:14:25] There's a memorial out there and on his side and her side, there's roosters. And I couldn't understand why, and one day I happened to be working with a daughter. He was into what they call chicken biting. Then he had a bar called the Rooster Tail. And that's how he made his money. And so there was roosters all over this and I thought, well, thank goodness I knew because I often wonder why they had roosters on the, on the memorials.

[00:14:55] Jill: Oh, that is interesting. Interesting. Everybody is. individual and what means something to one person. It's definitely not going to mean the same thing to somebody else. 

[00:15:03] Sandra: That is true. Yeah. It was good going back through the book because it helped me at that time. I was watching a lot of ministers on TV and self help.

[00:15:14] People with masterclasses. One day it just dawned on me that of all the things that I had been through at the cemetery, and then with my own husband passing, the spirit doesn't die. The body may be buried there, but that spirit is going to hover. Over the loved ones that they left behind. I do believe that wholeheartedly because I had several people, but one lady in particular, who kept saying that her husband kept coming to her and telling her to come on, it was beautiful where he was, wanted her to come on, needed her.

[00:15:50] And this went on for probably a month and then she passed away. She kept telling me, I can't get any sleep. He just keeps coming. And then after the death of my husband, I had a couple of experiences where he would be standing beside my bed and you'd feel somebody touching your shoulder like he used to.

[00:16:11] And I opened my eyes and I'd say. I'm okay. Go. I'm okay. We're spiritual beings having a human experience. I do believe that wholeheartedly. And I believe that at the cemetery, their body's there and the spirit may hover over, but the spirit is with the loved ones because love abounds. 

[00:16:30] Jill: I like that idea. I hope that that is true.

[00:16:33] And I've talked to a lot of people, whether it's mediums, people that have had near death experiences or all kinds of stuff. And it does seem to align with. what people experience. Did it scare you at all when you were like, I think I feel my husband? Like, I feel like I would be scared. But then I don't know, like, if it was my husband, I might actually really feel comforted.

[00:16:56] I don't know. 

[00:16:57] Sandra: I was in training when it first happened at St. Louis. And I was in a hotel room and it had been a long day and I was asleep. I sleep on my side. We buried my husband in a white golf polo with black jeans. Cause he was a golfer too. He loved golf. There he stood in his black suit and red tie.

[00:17:21] And I looked at him and I thought, I know it's you, but how did you get that black suit on? And that's, I mean, I said, no, I'm not going down this. Right now. And so I turned back over on my back to sleep. And then my kid said, Mom, you didn't even talk to dad. I said, No, not at that moment. And then a couple times afterwards, it was the same thing.

[00:17:45] I'd feel somebody touching the shoulder and I'm going there. He would be Yeah. 

[00:17:51] Jill: And again, this is not uncommon. I don't think some people talk about it because they feel that somebody's gonna judge them, but it seems like our loved ones do visit. 

[00:18:03] Sandra: Yeah. 

[00:18:03] Jill: I'm a 

[00:18:04] Sandra: 78 year old grandmother, great grandmother, and I've seen a lot.

[00:18:08] Experienced a lot of things. Experienced a lot of death with my own family and friends. That is the only thing that makes sense to me. If you are a child of God, and you are love, because he's love, you're not gonna just sit there on the ground and deteriorate. It's just not gonna happen. You have to be a spiritual being having a human experience, not a human being having a spiritual experience.

[00:18:32] There's a difference. If you stop and you think about it, there's a difference. That was the reason I had reached out to you because I thought, oh my gosh, you know, I didn't even know what a doula was. Since then, I have a friend that has taken some classes and I'm going, how interesting is that? It has to be such a gratifying experience to hold that person's hand as they leave, because that's what I did with my father and my husband.

[00:19:00] I did not get that opportunity with my mother or with a couple of friends that I lost that still. That's a beautiful thing that you do. A lot of people need it and they just don't know they need 

[00:19:12] Jill: it. And that's probably the biggest hurdle, I would say, is that a lot of people need it, they just don't know that we even exist.

[00:19:21] That's right. But it does feel to me, it's like a gift that other people are even giving to me to allow me into that space with them during that time. 

[00:19:31] Sandra: To hold somebody's hand and know that their last breath. And for some reason, the feelings that you have is that you've seen a miracle. You see a birth, but for them to hold somebody's hand and know that they took their last breath because something higher, more powerful is breathing us because we can't breathe ourselves.

[00:19:52] We can't make our heart beat. So there has to be something inside of each and every person. It's up to them to find it. That's what I believe anyway. 

[00:20:01] Jill: That actually makes me think of a question that I wanted to ask you because you talked about being an optimist and that you're part of this group. I've never heard of, but I think that's pretty cool.

[00:20:11] Do you think that your work with people who are grieving and, you know, with death and dying, do you think that that's part of why you are such an optimist? Did that lead to that at all? 

[00:20:23] Sandra: I don't think it led to it, and I have grown since then. You have to have, I guess, if you've read the Bible at all, you know, you have faith.

[00:20:33] And the opposite of faith is fear. If you have optimism, the opposite is pessimism. It just kind of fit in with me. The Optimist Organization is a, it's been around since the early 1900s. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. That's a long time. Okay. Yeah. And it started as they called themselves the Optimist Friend of Youth, a friend of the boy to start with, and then the friend of youth, because that's what pretty much we do is to do things in your community for the children.

[00:21:05] Whatever is needed that you can do. We have Optimist Clubs that buy shoes when kids start school. We have Optimist Clubs that do backpacks full of all kinds of stuff and snacks for kids starting school. My club does Head Start Christmas, which we provide Christmas. And a party, and then two weeks of groceries for the family, because we don't know whether those kids are eating during those two weeks or not.

[00:21:35] This year, not only did we sponsor a ball team and some scholarships, but we have sponsored like a jiu jitsu guy. He comes in and he wanted to be able to teach kids. You know, martial arts and the power within them, but he couldn't afford it. And he was pretty much doing it on his own. So we sponsored a couple of young boys for that.

[00:22:01] Optimists do a lot of things all over the world. I found out in the course of all of this, that optimism is derived from a Greek word, bringing out the best. So that optimists do their best to bring out the best in themselves. And the best in children and the best in your community. So that's what we're all about.

[00:22:23] And that's 

[00:22:24] Jill: much needed in a lot of communities. 

[00:22:27] Sandra: Exactly. Because I have watched, I mean, I tell people I've gone into Optimist Clubs that should have been known as the Pessimist Club. Because it has to do with us since we get older. Everything hurts. The kids aren't doing what you want them. The grandkids never come to see you.

[00:22:44] It's, you know, the only thing they've got is they go and socialize with their buddies or cronies that they have had forever and a day and to see which one has the worst life. They may do things or write a check, but as far as optimism, sometimes it's hard, especially as people get older. Staying, staying optimistic.

[00:23:05] Yeah. 

[00:23:06] Jill: And like you said, things start to hurt more. I can understand it on one hand, but also as much as I try to practice what I preach, I do believe that you attract more of what you put out there. If you're putting out optimism, you're going to attract more good things. If you're putting out all of the pains and complaints and all the bad things, you're going to attract more of it.

[00:23:31] Or maybe the. It's just what you train your brain to notice more. I think, I 

[00:23:36] Sandra: do really think, I've always believed in affirmations to kind of change the brain. About four years ago, I couldn't understand something with the optimist. I just didn't understand how I could be a distinguished governor and I kept thinking, what was it?

[00:23:55] What happened? And. Going back through that year, it was that I was going and visiting these different communities and I was thanking them. I was thanking them for all that they did, all that they did for their community, for the kids in that community, for themselves. And then I'm just getting in my car and cranking up Elvis gospel and singing away.

[00:24:17] So then I started looking at the power of gratitude and that will have a tendency to help change your mind, literally. And it'll also change your life. I can tell you at 78, I'm happier than I've ever been in my life. I love life. I start the day with gratitude. Everything else will work itself out. I'm thankful that my eyes woke up.

[00:24:39] That my heart was still beating. My lungs are still breathing. I can walk and I can talk 

[00:24:45] Jill: so I'm good. I hope I can say that when I'm 45 now so you know I've got hopefully a long life to live ahead of me and I hope that every day no matter what my age is, no matter what's happened, what's going on, that I can wake up every day and just Have gratitude for that day.

[00:25:05] Have gratitude for that 

[00:25:06] Sandra: day. I told my daughter that she needed to have more gratitude or something and she said, why do you come up with this stuff? And I said, well, if you think about it, God has blessed you with so much. Why should he bless you with any more if you're not grateful for what you got?

[00:25:23] That's a great point. That is a great point. Why should he bless you with anything else if you're not grateful for what all he's already done for you? If you're not grateful for your life, when they tell you that you have lung cancer and you've never smoked a day in your life, you are very thankful that you can breathe.

[00:25:41] And they said I had second stage COPD. And I thought the first stanza of the Optimist Creed is promise yourself to be so strong that nothing will disturb your peace of mind. Yeah, that's what I said all during that promise yourself. I'm not going there, you know, gonna beat this is what it is. I lost both parents with lung cancer, and I lost my husband with lung cancer.

[00:26:07] Jill: And then you ended up getting lung cancer, but you never smoked. How does that, and that just, I don't know, that's the kind of stuff that sometimes I think about it. I try to eat well, I try to take care of myself. Yeah, I try to do all the stuff. And that I'm like, but then in the long run, we never know. 

[00:26:25] Sandra: We never know.

[00:26:26] You never know. You never know. But that doesn't mean that you have to, you do what you can to beat it. But you've also do what the doctor says. Well, with me, I did that. And then I took every herb imaginable that would help. And then I started doing the healing meditations. And then I started doing. Healing affirmations.

[00:26:48] I mean, it wasn't just one thing that I was going to do. And I did that because I came home and my son gave me a hug and he said, mom, I can't fix this for you. And I thought, no, but I can. 

[00:27:03] Jill: You said that was four years ago during early COVID when you got diagnosed? Because yeah, 

[00:27:08] Sandra: early twenties, early twenties.

[00:27:11] And then how you doing now? It's been four and a half years. I see my cancer doctor next week. I already got the results back from the CT scan. Everything's the same. Nothing's changed. That's great. Happy to hear that for you. I am blessed. I am blessed. That's for sure. I think the cemetery book was the best for me because it made me really stop and think as far as spirituality and it made me really stop and think how precious life is.

[00:27:40] And it made me stop and be grateful for the experiences that I had. Every time I go to the cemetery, my husband's buried out there, I still say, Eternal rest, God, unto them, O Lord, let perpetual light shine upon them, and may they all rest in peace, and those of their loved ones. 

[00:27:57] Jill: I love that so much. When I do my transcript, I'm totally going to cut that little section out, because I want to read that a couple times.

[00:28:04] I just think that's beautiful. Is that an affirmation? Is it a prayer? Like, what is that? I, it was an old, old 

[00:28:10] Sandra: prayer in the Catholic faith, I believe. Somebody had told me that anyway. I worked with a gentleman that was, well, I worked with a couple of them. You don't deal with death unless you are very aware that there is something higher.

[00:28:27] Some people call it God. Some people call it divine. Some people call it, you know, whatever. But it is. It's that little spark, that little spiritual spark coming from God that's inside you. And you realize that when you're dealing with death, just how precious life is. It is just precious. I think the book, as I wrote it, I always ask, okay, how am I going to make this story?

[00:28:55] Resonate with some people and there was a couple stories I had to put together in the book. I had one gentleman I was doing at his memorial and I said, is there anything you want me to put on your side? And he said, yes, but damn, I wish I was reading this. And I thought, okay, well, what kind of story will I say about that?

[00:29:16] What would I write about that? I thought that should be in there. Well, I had a gentleman come in one day. So I got on a Saturday and he said, honey, this is your lucky day. He said, I'm going to finish up everything that I need. And then I am headed for parts unknown. I've sold my house, I've sold all of my furnishings, and I'm going to travel.

[00:29:38] And he said, let's just get all this done. So we did the memorial and I said, what do you want on there? And he said, mountains and a biker. And I said, okay. And so I thought, well, after I read that and reread it and was putting it together, I thought, you know, that's a perfect place, but damn, I wish 

[00:29:56] Jill: I was reading that.

[00:29:56] I hope that I can face. my end. That is if I know when it's happening, right? I could die from an accident and not know, but I hope that I could face my end just thinking, you know what? I'm going to sell all my stuff. I'm going to travel. I'm just going to enjoy this existence. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:30:15] Sandra: It's, you have to enjoy life.

[00:30:17] You don't enjoy it. What's the purpose of it? You know, those people that you're with, whether they're positive people or whether they're negative people. They're there for a reason. I don't think anybody comes to you. I think you're destined to be there. 

[00:30:31] Jill: I like to think that the people, I don't know, I don't know if it's like, but the people that I meet that were like meant to meet, but I think sometimes it makes.

[00:30:41] sense to me when I meet somebody and part of me is like, I feel like we've known each other forever and we just met. How could I feel that way? I don't know what that means. And sometimes that person, I only have them in my life for like brief moments. Maybe somebody that I meet when I'm traveling, we're sitting on next to each other on an airplane.

[00:31:01] I never see them ever again. Other people, they're still in my life. And they've been in my life a long time. So I don't know if the length of time that person's in your life matters, but maybe it is just for those five minutes or an hour. If we are spiritual 

[00:31:16] Sandra: beings, like I believe that we are, that probably you have encountered them somehow, some way before, or they're part of you.

[00:31:25] There's many, many people that all of a sudden you feel like. Oh my gosh, I've known them forever. Or oh, they just feel like we're connected. I don't know either, but that's why I love to talk about it. I enjoy it. I can understand that. Yeah. I mean, there's so many aspects of life and people. And I do believe people are all searching for their maker.

[00:31:48] Sometimes it just takes some of us longer to get there than others. 

[00:31:52] Jill: And some of us maybe don't ever get there in this lifetime. Hopefully, whatever we move on to next, we find it. Well, we're getting close to our time to wrap up. I do want to give you a couple moments to talk a little bit more about your book, what it's called, where people can find it, all of those things.

[00:32:10] Sandra: The title of my book is My Life at the Cemetery. It's not as dead as you think. I like 

[00:32:15] Jill: that. 

[00:32:16] Sandra: Yeah, and you can get it on Amazon or at any of the bookstores. They may have to order it, but you can get it there. Barnes and Noble has it, so does book M Million and Rift books has it, so you know you can get it there, but it's, it's a good.

[00:32:34] It's a series of probably, I think there was like 88 different stories in there and they may be three pages long or it may be one page, but I can definitely guarantee you that you will either laugh, cry, or shake your head and say there is no daggone way. It's a nice, easy read, especially if you're on an airplane, you can always stop because.

[00:32:59] That chapter on that one story is done, and then there's something else going on. A different chapter, a different event. I like to call them events. I didn't have chapters, I have events in my book. The book, basically, I talk about funerals, funeral directors. Making sure pre need, the cemetery, and being in some homes.

[00:33:20] I tell people I was in a million dollar homes that did not have any furniture. I was in homes that had a dirt floor, and I was in homes that it would stink to high heaven that I would have to go home and take a shower and throw my clothes in the laundry because the stench inside that home was unreal.

[00:33:40] So, been into homes that had, I don't know, one of eight cats, you know, four or five dogs, and, and I'm trying to breathe, putting my nose down and my scarf, you know. So, you know, everybody lives differently, too. 

[00:33:54] Jill: Yes, we do. That is for sure. And yeah, I can only imagine going into many different homes. The things that you see and the smells that you smell because houses really do, even if they don't smell bad, houses have a very distinct smell, which I still find fascinating.

[00:34:11] I 

[00:34:11] Sandra: do too. And I was just amazed at that. You know, I used to think, Oh, well, you know, I've got all these kids. My home is always a mess. You know, that kind of thing. Let me tell you. It was a castle compared to some of the homes I went into. Didn't know that people lived like that. You know, 

[00:34:30] Jill: some days I'm so grateful for the little things.

[00:34:35] And I'll think to myself how even Queens, hundreds of years ago, a thousand years ago, they didn't have hot running water where they could just shower, right? No, 

[00:34:44] Sandra: that's exactly 

[00:34:45] Jill: right. So there's a lot of things. Maybe I don't have the jewels that they have. But the things that really matter, I've got air conditioning.

[00:34:52] Oh yeah. Burning water, comfy beds, like I got all this stuff. A dishwasher and a 

[00:34:57] Sandra: washer and dryer. Thank you. Yes. So I remember, I remember going to visit my grandmother that lived in the hills of Kentucky. And she would boil water outside and then do her laundry. She would scrub it on a board with Lysol, which, that's out of high heaven.

[00:35:17] Every time I do the laundry, thank you, thank you, thank you for this horse machine, cause she did not have that. That was awful. She would throw them over the fence for them to dry. And if it rained on them, then they were there for three or four days. Gotta let them dry back out. Yeah. Life has changed a lot and not that long of a time.

[00:35:37] Not that long of a time. You're right. I was telling a friend the other day, I said, I can't even believe that I existed when the phone was right there by the Chair and you could not go anywhere but stand right there and hold that phone and there might be other people listening to your conversation. Now I take my phone with me everywhere and it has all kinds of information for me, where I need to go, where I don't need to go.

[00:36:04] It's just fantastic. It's a fantastic time to be alive. It really is. see the things that we see. 

[00:36:12] Jill: Yep. And there's that optimism again, because there is still negative things in the world. Not saying that there's not, but I do try to focus on the positive things that we have in this time while we exist.

[00:36:26] Sandra: Right. And if you basically want to really learn how to be a good optimist, join an optimist club because I'm sure there's one close to you and there isn't. Let me know what start when 

[00:36:38] Jill: I'm going to look it up and put a link to the Optimist Club in the show notes. So if anybody wants to learn more, I'll put a link to your book.

[00:36:46] If there's anything else that you think of later on that you're like, Oh, I want to link this, just let me know. This way people can easily find information on anything we've talked about today. I really appreciate you taking the time. This was really interesting. I enjoyed it. I 

[00:37:00] Sandra: just am so enamored by What you do, and thank you for talking about death because it is part of life and we need to talk about it.

[00:37:11] Well, thank you, Sandy. I appreciate you. 

[00:37:14] Jill: Appreciate you. You take care. Have a great day. Fish Chaplain Hank Dunn for another thought provoking conversation. This time we're going to focus on artificial hydration, nutrition, and voluntarily stopping of eating and drinking, also known as VSED, at the end of life.

[00:37:32] Hank shares insights from his years guiding families through tough decisions about feeding tubes, CPR, and medical interventions. decisions that are as much about emotional and spiritual readiness as they are about medicine. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or family member who might find it interesting.

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