Why I'm Doing This

Most of the time, when people find out about the podcast they are really supportive. But every once and awhile I get a “hmmm, and aren’t you worried about being the death girl?” Honestly, sometimes I am, but most of the time that thought doesn’t even cross my mind,

Grief and death are such isolating experiences no matter how many friends you have and how big your family is. When you lose someone who means a lot to you, it breaks you a little bit. Eventually, you heal but the crack is always there. After my dad died all I wanted to do was read different stories of other people who had gone through loss because I wanted to feel less alone. I felt like I had been hit by a truck. And all I could talk about was my dad and all of the administrative hell that is end-of-life. People would ask me how I was and I couldn’t provide a better answer than “shitty” for a while. Once I started to get my social graces back I figured “one day at a time” was a platonic enough answer that let the person asking know I wasn’t ok but was polite enough to give someone over drinks.

I have always been a very social person but I had trouble being in public with all the small talk. “What did you do today?” “Uh, ordered the box we are burying my dad’s ashes in and then went to pilates.” That was not something I could tell people unless they were my closest friends but it felt wrong to lie. What I found out very quickly when my dad was sick and after he died was that most people have no idea how to talk about grief, loss, and death. All of us, at some point or another, will lose people we love. And all of us, at some point or another, will leave people we love behind. We can talk about - and plan - for everything else, but people are so uncomfortable talking about this subject that will touch us all.

With this podcast I’m hoping to better equip all of us (those who have lost someone and those who are grief adjacent) to be able to talk about grief and loss. I’m hoping that by exposing people to different stories of loss we will all be able to be more empathic. I truly believe that each loss experience is unique but there are common threads that weave us, the bereaved, together. Hearing these unique stories will open our eyes to different ways of processing grief, different types of grief, and coping mechanisms that may be helpful. Something that was very important to me when I was thinking about how to structure the podcast was to provide practical advice in addition to stories. I could not believe how much I had to learn as I was going along when my dad was in hospice and then after he died. How many millions of people had died before him and how did I not know what I was supposed to do as a power of attorney, or an executor, or what it was actually like to sit and watch someone you love die??? Why doesn’t anyone tell you how expensive it is to bury someone? How come we don’t know how to best provide comfort to our friends who are experiencing a devastating loss?

After experiencing what I did, I knew I had to do something about this. We can’t be learning all of this at the same time we are grieving someone we love. I really became that person, people would ask me what they could do to help me after he died. To which I’m sure they were expecting “nothing but thanks for asking” and I would look at them point-blank and say please talk to your parents about where they keep their wills and what they want as far as an advanced directive. Needless to say, not the answer people were expecting.

If we don’t talk about grief, loss, and death, it makes it so much harder when we do in fact experience it. I’m hoping that through the podcast, you’ll feel less alone and ultimately will be able to hold space for your grief when you lose someone you love, or better be able to comfort a friend after a loss because you aren’t hearing about the crazy world of death for the first time.