Death And Dying Well (with Dave Berg)

[00:00:01] I still think there's something to be said that's very profound about going out without fear and without hatred. Because that's the way you came into the world. Death and Dying Well.

[00:00:24] Hello everyone, I'm your host Victor M. Sweeney and I'm welcoming you to another episode of Death And. This one is a, well it's kind of a mix. It's part monologue, part little reappearance of a friend of ours, the show, Dave Berg. Today's episode, Dying Well is, I mean I don't really quite know exactly where I want to go with it. Except to say that dying well is extraordinarily important.

[00:00:54] I think at the end of the day there's no one I meet that wants to die poorly. You might die poor, that's okay. You can die poor, you can die rich. Turns out those things don't matter so much. But what does matter is dying well. Right? And at least for the old folks that I talk to. An old man friend of mine died a couple years ago. His name was Ray.

[00:01:25] And I went to go visit him in the nursing home where he was living at the time. And he's like, Victor, I'm going to die here. And we sat and held hands and we cried at each other. And, you know, it's a strange thing for an 80-year-old and a 30-year-old man to do, I think. Especially when you're not related. But, you know, the defenses come down when death is around the corner.

[00:01:54] And we actually talked about that, right? Are you ready to die? And really, you know, his thoughts were all focused on his family. On his wife, who was in another room at the nursing home. His kids. His grandkids. His kids. And it turns out that these are the things that matter, right? He wasn't really terribly concerned about his pension. You know?

[00:02:23] That's over and done with once you're dead. But I do believe that those familial affections, the bonds of love, maybe with a friend, those things remain. And as we sat and talked and he told me stories of his life, which are seemingly out of place on a deathbed, right? Why should he be talking about his time in the Navy with me? You know, a guy that worked with him and was a friend with him on his deathbed.

[00:02:53] But it turns out, too, that those stories kind of linger, you know? And I wrote about him in my book. I think about him all the time. Ray was quite the guy. But the fact is, like, he shared his life with me. And that kind of still lives on in its way, right? He shared his life with his family. And that still lives on in a way. And I think that's part of a good death.

[00:03:22] That's part of a good death. Leaving behind stories and love. And having a certain detachment. I think detachment is important in a good death as well. Having detachment from those things that, I don't know, give us anxiety. Maybe things that are more focused on the material and less focused on the immaterial. Anyway, we'll get back to that.

[00:03:52] Part of every episode of Death And, and a part that I really do enjoy, is people sending in their questions. If you would like to do that, you can go online. Find us, deathandpodcast.com. If you are here on YouTube, people leave their questions in the comments. Sometimes we get to them. But truly, the best thing you could do for me is subscribe to the channel. You know, it always gets so tedious when people say like and subscribe.

[00:04:21] But it does actually help. A subscription or two, if you just click the button, hell, even if you don't really watch it, it helps. It helps. It helps get this out maybe to someone who does need it. If you're like, Victor, I don't need to worry about dying well. I'm going to die wonderfully when my time comes. If you subscribe, it could put this video in front of someone who might need it. So I don't know. You know, maybe, maybe it's an act of generosity that you could do for me.

[00:04:50] And if I can do an act of generosity for you and answer your questions, I will, I will do that. So without further ado, let's get into the questions. Let's see what we have in the grab bag today. And as always, I'm kind of excited to do it. We'll see what's in there. Here's a question from Andy Sleeper.

[00:05:16] My wife has diseases that will take her life at some point. She wants to be buried with no embalming for some Buddhist or other reason. Will a family visitation be impossible without embalming? Okay. This is a really good question, Andy. And I think, one, I like your reflex that you want to give your family a chance to say goodbye. So it's going to depend on where you are.

[00:05:45] Most places in the United States will allow a family viewing without embalming. So embalming will not be required. Typically, embalming is not required at any time unless certain criteria are met. So, for instance, where I live, if the body is transported by a public carrier, you're going to need embalming.

[00:06:06] If the body will be not finally disposed, so that it is buried, cremated, whatever that method might be, right? Human composting. If it's not done within a certain number of days, then embalming will be required. Sometimes for certain diseases, they want to require it. But generally, it's not unless you make certain decisions. And in this case, a family viewing, right? Not something that's open to the broad public, but to a smaller group of people.

[00:06:37] They will not require embalming. We might do, like when I have unembalmed family visitation, I'll wash the body. We'll get the hair done. We'll do a little makeup if necessary, right? Close the mouth. Close the eyes. But just very simple things. Nothing invasive. No incisions. Nothing that's going to create, you know, any sort of fluid or blood leak. So just very simple things.

[00:07:03] So yeah, there really shouldn't be anything that would prevent your wife from being buried in a very natural manner while also having family visitation. So really good question. Thanks, Andy. Here is a really good embalming question from our friend Annie. She says this. If a person has lost an immense amount of weight and the extra skin hasn't been removed and is left hanging, how can you embalm all the tissues? Thanks. Just curious.

[00:07:33] Okay. So here's kind of the interesting thing. When you have someone who is either very overweight or has been overweight for a long time and isn't now, typically they have great vasculature. So nice big veins, nice big arteries. Distribution of embalming fluid typically goes really well with bigger people, which seems kind of contrary to what you would think.

[00:07:59] But the reality is it almost always goes well with someone that's quite big. Getting to the arteries, getting to the veins can be very tricky. But once you're there, you're set. And you can even see pretty quick distribution and profusion in the fingertips, in the extremities. And that is not always the case maybe with someone who is thinner. So with someone who once was really big and is now thin, you usually get pretty good distribution.

[00:08:27] That said, even that dermal tissue, right, the skin that might be hanging loose, that typically will embalm quite well, although you might have to be creative in how you position it, right? Like big skin folds hanging under the elbows, let's say, down from the chest might cause posing problems. So yeah, typically not a big deal.

[00:08:53] And the fact is almost nobody is in the casket naked, right? So skin folds, flaps, excess tissue, just not a big deal once a person has a sweater on, you know? Good question. Now back to the idea of detachment.

[00:09:19] It's very popular in the Buddhist world, you know, to think about detachment and to think about how one lets go of not only clinging to life, right? Or actually being alive at the end, but letting go of those things at the end that made our lives less, made them somehow weaker instead of more powerful, right?

[00:09:48] I think love makes our lives very powerful. And I think hatred and nurturing grudges makes them small and weak. I've got a few grudges that I nurture. I shouldn't. I tell myself all the time I shouldn't do it, but I'm not ready to detach from them yet, dear listener.

[00:10:10] But I have seen people on their deathbed let go of those things and the immense power that's in them. Another friend that I made, she had called me, her husband had called me actually, to come to their home about 30 miles away from me and pre-plan her funeral.

[00:10:36] And what I didn't know until I got there is that Anita was on her deathbed, her literal deathbed. The literal deathbed we picked her up off of less than a week later. I came into the home and there's the ad hoc bedroom set up in the living room. For any of you that have had family members on hospice, you know what it looks like. It's the kind of quasi-institutional, not terribly comfortable hospital bed.

[00:11:05] It gets rolled into the living room and the couches get pushed off to the side. Maybe it's the dining room, right? And all the actual furniture that you'd normally use starts lining the walls for this strange piece of furniture that comes only for a time. And came into the home and sat down in a chair next to the deathbed. And Anita had me put down the rail and we introduced ourselves.

[00:11:33] And she started telling me about her life. And the interesting thing about it is that her life was not all roses. There were a lot of real challenges along the way with her family of origin, with a marriage she'd made before that didn't turn out that well. But to watch her say very earnestly, all that's in the past. I don't have to worry about that now. I've got bigger fish to fry.

[00:12:04] And I don't think it was all a kind of myopic focus on legacy, right? It wasn't a focus on, well, I have to be strong so that way my grandchildren, when they see me die, will have a good example. Or I need to make sure I tell all my stories so someone remembers them. Right? It wasn't that. It was, I want to show my family how much love I have left,

[00:12:31] even in this declining, crippled, dying body. And it was very interesting because as she's telling me, she's let go of these grudges. She's trying to forgive everyone who's hurt her. And there was some substantial hurt. I watched her grow. Right? She's a small, shrunken woman with six kinds of cancer.

[00:13:02] And yet she was looming very large in the room. And she was talking about the things that mattered. And when it came, she did die well. She didn't die harboring hatred for the people in her life that may have rightly deserved it. But to let go of those things, to have a certain detachment from them, to know that there are more important things coming.

[00:13:29] Even, listen, dear listener, even if you believe that when you die, you are nothing more than a dead body who is no longer animated and you are going to be sucked back into an uncaring universe. Okay? And nothing will happen because there is nothing afterlife. I still think there's something to be said that's very profound

[00:13:55] about going out without fear and without hatred. Because that's the way you came into the world. You came into being in your mother's womb as a tiny clump of cells without fear or hatred. These were things that you learned along the way. And to shed yourself of them at the end. To try to purge yourself of these instincts at the end. I think it's really lovely.

[00:14:24] In the Catholic world, we talk about the four last things, which are heaven, hell, death, and purgatory. And, you know, these four last things, I think, are, you could almost map them onto anybody's particular spiritual experience, right? You have either perfection, right? Or you have imperfection. You have the act of dying.

[00:14:53] And you have the act of letting go of the things in your life that made you small. I had another experience some years back now where a large family, maybe eight kids, and they all just fought together in various configurations, right? You'd think it'd be like a 50-50, but there were like three confederations of siblings and they kind of all swapped and they had this round robin

[00:15:21] where they all kind of hated each other. And they were fighting over a piece of heirloom furniture, like a dresser or something, right? Great-grandpa's dresser. And we had to have a big debate and finally settled it without lawyers, thank God. It was one of my great successes in funeral service. But we managed to bury one of the single sisters who passed away next to mom and dad because there was a contingent that wanted it and a contingent that didn't and a contingent that didn't care.

[00:15:51] And navigating that was awful. But I heard from the siblings even that this sister that died, right, didn't die reconciling to the family. And I'm not saying it's possible. I'm not saying everybody is able to forgive, okay? But she was still really worried about who got the dresser. You know what I mean? Who gets the dresser? And to think that you could be so attached

[00:16:19] to a piece of furniture, right, that you cannot take with you. It seems so small. It seems so petty in the face of death. You know, while we live, we get hung up on petty things. Right now, I'm, like I said, I'm trying to get over a grudge against someone I have. And here's the sick thing. Do you want to know what it is? The sick thing is that this grudge I hold, the person doesn't even know, the person that I kind of, I shouldn't say despise,

[00:16:49] loathe, dislike. I don't know. Maybe it's stronger than that. I'm not really sure. I'm trying to tell myself it's less. But I have this grudge against this person and they don't even know, right? I see them uptown and they wave at me and I wave back and they don't even know that I have a grudge against them that I need to purge myself of. And now imagine, imagine if I've held onto this grudge against this person who does not know that I have a grudge against them.

[00:17:18] They have no qualms with me. They don't even know about it, right? They don't think twice about me. All right? I'm not that important as it turns out. But I'm still self-centered enough right now to think that this matters. Imagine, dear listener, if I was on my deathbed griping about so-and-so who I perceived did a wrong against me. I mean, I'm happy that I know maybe it's, I'm perceiving wrong.

[00:17:46] But wouldn't I look small? Would I die well? Would I die well? Well, so I had an interesting experience last week. As it happens, a previous guest on the show, Dave Berg, he'd be in the episode called Death and Attitude. He texted me. And we were going back and forth. How's it going? How's the ice cream therapy?

[00:18:15] Sugar beet harvest is starting. He spent his career dealing in sugar. And he said, Victor, things aren't going that well with me health-wise. And he had some aspirations that have had to change a little bit as his cancer has progressed. And he said, you know, could I come on again just briefly? And to quote him, he said,

[00:18:45] the shit's getting real. And I thought, you know, why not? We talk about death so often. And yeah, look, I'm around a lot of death, okay? But I think there's something valuable in talking to someone who's a little bit closer to the real thing, to the happening, right? To the shit. It's getting real. And so I wanted to invite Dave Berg on for a little mini segment. And I want to ask him

[00:19:14] these very questions. How do you plan to die well? Hey, Dave, welcome back. Thank you. What'd you like to do? I, uh, I gotta say, you said I wouldn't recognize you and you're looking pretty rough. Thank you.

[00:19:44] I feel rough. Well, you're, you're, you're still, do you miss the hair? Uh, well, I'll tell you just straight up. First thing is you go outside. It's like somebody takes a bottle of ice water and spritz it on your head. I mean, you just can't believe the amount of insulation that disappears when that hair comes on. And I, I don't like wearing hats. I've never liked wearing hats. I gotta wear a hat now, like in the house even. And I just, my wife offered to buzz it fresh for me here

[00:20:13] and I see some stray hair sticking up here. Maybe I should have let her do that. And you're like, I'll, I'll just take whatever I can get. Yeah. Well, it's, it's, I, I had two brothers-in-law who are both been bald for years and years and years. I had two years that came on and kept my hair and they were so mad. So now they're kind of gratified that it finally did come out. Well, I, no, Dave, I, I, I appreciate you reaching out. We were texting

[00:20:43] the other night and, uh, and you said, well, Victor, as they say, the shit's getting real. When was it? We recorded before. It was sometime in the winter months, like eight, nine months. Yeah. Yeah. It must've been, yeah. Towards the end of the year. Surely. You know, I knew what was happening. I knew what the prognosis was. I knew what the treatment was. I was feeling a lot of the effects, but I think maybe the triggering event is the chemo I'd been on for two years, stopped working. They put me on new chemo and this stuff is, it was the second line for a reason

[00:21:12] because it's really tough. So, I mean, the cancer has advanced and the effects of the chemo are much worse and, you know, there's other stuff going on that just indicate that it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not theoretical. I'm not planning this. I'm not looking, it's happening. So, one thing we'd been, we'd discussed, you know, in, in whatever, probably sometime in between your first coming on the show was that your, your son was having a baby, but he lives in Luxembourg, in Europe.

[00:21:42] Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And, and at one time you're like, I'm going to get well enough to travel, but I understand plans have changed. Well, I, I'm, I'm just not strong enough to travel. I'm not strong enough to travel up the stairs. I mean, really seriously, that's, it was kind of like the one flashing red light here. It is about a three minute effort to get up a flight of steps just, just because I have no muscles left or anything. So getting on multiple stops, transatlantic flight, no, that can't happen. There there's, there's a wrinkle here, which is,

[00:22:12] it's more emotional and real. Oh, it's real. There was a new drug for this cancer. It's been in development for two years. They gave it emergency approval, but they will not give it to me. Explain this one to me if you can. They will only, then this is a decision by the drug company. It's approved by the FDA, but they only give it to patients whose tumors have metastasized and that big word means it's spread from its original locations, affecting other organs. Well, the good news is mine is not metastasized.

[00:22:41] The bad news is it's going to, but I can't get this drug and get ahead of it. Now the drug is a miracle. It's the first new drug for pancreatic cancer in 40 years or something. And it, it's very beneficial. It is not a cure. It will extend your life and you have less side effects. That's a big deal. That was my hope. I can get on this list. Get this drug and then be able to travel to Europe to see the family, the new grandson. But doctor just said,

[00:23:10] this is the way the protocol reads because this is how they did their clinical trials. So you just don't get the drug. So yesterday afternoon, I sat for three hours and got two different other forms of poison. So is your, is your son going to come to visit you? The whole family, the four of them, they'll be, the baby's doing three weeks. My emotions are right here. So I'm, I may start to get a little weepy, but due dates in three weeks and, uh, Lord willing and everything goes right with the, uh, with the birth.

[00:23:39] They're going to get on a plane in Luxembourg and late December, and they're going to come visit us in Arizona. So I'll get to, I get to see the little fellow fingers crossed. Okay. So you've got, you've got two, two tough months, but then you've, you've got, you, you can, you can achieve your goal. And that's, that's something I was thinking about this conversation. It's like transactional. Give me two months. Let me, let me, let me get to Christmas time. Let me see this baby and the rest of the family, obviously.

[00:24:08] And then whatever. But, uh, I've decided, uh, you know, it's not even a hard decision. If this chemo stops being effective and it will, it's just the nature of the way these drugs work, stops being effective. The cancer marker starts to go up again. That's it. No more chemo. Just let, let the disease take its course. So that's when you say it's getting real. It's it, it, it will happen. And I will, I will progress towards death. Yeah. Well, I remember from the last episode, you know,

[00:24:38] you said like, you're not, you're not really afraid. No, I'm not. You, you, you'll regret leaving your family behind, but I think everybody does. That's not fear. I mean, I, I, you know, I, I get it. It's, it's, it's a tremendous unknown. I mean, one of the themes in almost every show that you do is the, you know, that the aspects what's on the other side. Um, I don't think there's anything on the other side. That's me. That's my belief. And so, uh, this system shuts down.

[00:25:07] Then I have left my family and what are other memories that I've left around, but that's it. And I'm okay with that. You get your time and then it, it ends and you, what you have left behind will carry on in your place. Can I ask you a really, just a really blunt question, Dave? Absolutely. How would you define dying? Well, and how do you plan to die? Well, well, I can,

[00:25:34] I can say the absence of consciousness, unconsciousness, you know, obviously I don't want to have weeks and weeks of excruciating pain. I'm already starving to death. You know, I've lost 70 pounds. And I don't know if that's what's going to, going to finally take me, but, but I mean the, I, I, I don't want that long lingering, these horrible symptoms just go on and on forever. I'd like it just to be fairly quick. I think you talked about that one time on your podcast. Quick is good. That's just kind of the, you know,

[00:26:04] that's how the switch gets flicked off. You know, how the biological processes work so that my body is no longer working. The dying well to me is, is much more about, like I said, why did you leave behind you? Did I leave a family that I'm proud of? Yes. Will I, some things I did outside family life that I think were worth doing. Yeah, I certainly hope so. I guess that's dying well. So if people open the, local newspaper and say, Oh,

[00:26:34] Dave Berg died. Oh, he was cool. I liked him or some will not say that. That's what I'm going to say. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Put up, put out the word. Some will not say that I, you know, I through various things I did in my work life and other places, people are going to say, what a jerk, but you do what you do, what you do when you're upright and, and, and fulfilling your life and its goals. And then you live with what you leave behind. And I'm, you know, completely in touch with that. And I accept it. I love that.

[00:27:04] No, I was, I was, um, I've just, I've been ruminating a lot about this question about how to die well. And I guess for me, like I, I keep coming back. I, and this is, this is born of, of like just something in my own life. When, when my great grandma died, she clung to death or she clung to life. She was like in her nineties, going to dialysis, like a hundred times a week. And like, just clung to every minute. And, um, so I guess for myself, I'm telling myself, like, if I would like, if I would wish to die well,

[00:27:33] when my time comes, I want to do so unafraid. Um, cause that's really what it is. I, I just, I don't want to have any fear. I don't want to have any fear. But what happens next? If there's nothing, I don't want to have fear of that. And like, I don't want to be afraid of pain. And I don't want to, I don't want to, um, diminish myself by being too attached to like these little things that I've enjoyed. It's, it's not important in the grand scheme. exactly. And, and I, to what end? I mean, because at this point in my life,

[00:28:02] and if, if I knew that I had a eternal diagnosis, but I didn't have any physical symptoms now, I'd feel entirely different, but I heard all over and I can't do anything. And I can't enjoy a mouthful of food. And, you know, you name it, you know, poor me, I understand. I'm not just whining about it, but it, it makes the attractiveness of still being alive kind of, kind of shrink. What things can you actually enjoy? You can't enjoy a mouth of food, but what do you enjoy? Dave still? Well, Face times with the family, you know,

[00:28:33] Face time is kind of empty. It's, you know, but, um, I don't know. I read a lot of books. I mean, at this point, I, I, I can't get up and do stuff. I can't go out and, you know, do some outdoor recreation or something like that. And I take on a little task. We have a lake home and, you know, it's fallen. It's got to be closed up. I dragged the hose from the house down to the shed where we store stuff. It was about a 20 minute task to drag it down there and get the water emptied out and hang it up.

[00:29:03] And then I go sit in a chair in the shed and pant for a while. I mean, it just, it's an illustration. There's just, there's a lot of, not a lot I can do. So I just kind of sit around a lot. Well, I like it. And I, I assumed it. Does your wife let you drag the hose? Is she like, you know, Dave, just, just do what you can. It's a sign of, I guess, vitality or, uh, hope for vitality or something like that. Yeah. I mean, she's, she's entirely encouraging and supportive.

[00:29:30] I want to throw in something about her that this is going to make me cry. Um, and I hope she doesn't mind that I'm talking about this here. Last Friday morning, she woke up in severe pain, took her to the emergency room. I'm going to go through this really fast. They found a mass on one of her ovaries, benign by Tuesday afternoon. It had been removed. Thank God. But you're,

[00:29:59] you're dying of cancer. And then somebody shows you a, a image of a, of a mass in your wife's abdomen that says she may have cancer. WTF. Come on. But it was, it wasn't, thank goodness. I mean, so, so I hugged her and I said, you get to keep being a grandma. So the, you know, it's just the, the, what you, what you get thrown through emotionally sucks. Cancer sucks in many ways, but that's one of it. One aspect of it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:29] I don't know. I don't know, Dave. I mean, it's, it's, it's hard. I think, you know, I, I talk about it all the time. I talk about mortality constantly. I work with families and dead bodies constantly. I've sat with many friends, like when they're on their deathbeds and I think that's okay. Um, but that is the hardest part. That is the hardest part when you have a friend who you, you know, is going to leave you. And, uh, I, I just, I want to thank you. I want to thank you for, for, uh, you know,

[00:30:59] for reaching out the first time. And, and I want to thank you for picking up the phone again, even though. You're doing something important and, and you have a lot of interesting guests. I don't fit with them. I mean, they are practitioners of death or something. They're related to death somehow or another. I mean, you are obviously, but I'm talking about a lot. Well, Dave, you're, you're, you're pretty related to death right now. Getting related more all the time. All right. I'm not a service provider. I'm actually, but my, my point is people need to think about it. They just do.

[00:31:29] Whether you're 40 years old and healthy as heck or 72 years old and, and full of disease, you need to think about it. Who am I? Kind of life did I live? And how am I going to die? There's a mission statement for your podcast. I like that. How am I going to live? How am I going to die? No. Oh, well, Dave, thank you. Thank you for coming on and chatting with us. I, I, I'm just so grateful and I'm grateful to have become friends with you. And I've, I've, we've, we've met, I've met some people in the meantime who know you.

[00:32:00] Um, they're mostly sugar beet farmers. It's a, it's economic backbone of this region. And if it's been around for a hundred years, it's, uh, it's like I said, it's, it's working for people on a lot of levels. And I was, I didn't want to come to work here. I didn't want to come back to Morehead, Minnesota to work. I'd lived in Minneapolis for a long time, but once I got in, I said, I love this place. I love what it does. And I love the people here. And I'm really happy. I had 29 years working there. You heard it here first folks. Legacy.

[00:32:32] Well, Hey, Dave, thank you. Thank you for coming on again. I, I don't care if I, I don't care if you lost your hair. I, I still think you're wonderful. And, um, and let's just keep, let's just keep texting and emailing each other on the side. Cause it's, it's been, it's been fun to become friends with you through the process. And I am going to cry when you die. And I will go down to Moorhead for your funeral. And, I'll be like the only, I'll be like the only guy there who doesn't know shit about sugar. You know, you know about a funeral. I know about a funeral.

[00:33:02] I'll have, I'll have that one figured out, but no Godspeed, Dave. Can I, can I just tell you, I, I hope you die. Well, I hope you get to, I, I, I deeply desire that you get to see your grandson, my friend. No, die, die. I love you. Thank you, Victor. Nice talking to you. Bye. That sound could mean a lot of things.

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[00:34:00] um, what do final hours actually look like? Um, so this is something to consider. You know, if, if you have a loved one, or maybe you are dealing with an illness right now, a terminal one, I mean, hell, we all have a terminal, terminal illness. It's called life. You know, where one dies will dictate a lot of this. So my friend Anita chose to die in hospice at home. That's a big deal. My friend Ray was in a nursing home. And so, you know, your mileage varies.

[00:34:30] If you're at home, hey, you've got your familiar things around. Your grand, grand kid can bring you a cup of tea, right? You can have people sitting on your bed as you take your last breath. Um, I can't tell you how many times this happens, where the family will be, I mean, on the bed next to the person in bed as they die. Um, there's something very beautiful about that. If you're in a nursing home, right? Uh, you might, you might still be in hospice at a nursing home. You might die in your sleep. Praise the Lord. If you die in your sleep,

[00:34:59] like that's something I would sign up for. No, no worries, no problems there. Um, in a hospital is tough. In a hospital is tough. Um, I was at the deathbed of, of a gentleman in the hospital, uh, maybe a month or two ago. And instead of going to the morgue, uh, actually went right up to the floor, which is rather rare, at least in that hospital. I've only done it twice, I think in 12 years. And went up to the floor and, uh,

[00:35:26] this guy's hooked up to a hundred machines and has an oxygen cannula. And his hair is just kind of out every which way. And he's wearing a, a hospital gown. And, um, there's something a little impersonal. Um, I think, um, or at least, uh, unfamiliar about dying in a hospital. Not that you can always choose it, right? That's just how it goes sometimes.

[00:35:52] But the family had a lot of relief when I took him and later dressed him in his own clothes. Um, if you're in hospice, a lot of times you will die in your own clothes. Like, I can't tell you how many times I've gone to the deathbeds of little old men and they're wearing like their favorite button down, but the families cut it down the back so they can put it on like a smock and change their clothes easier. Uh, so that's a good tip. If you have someone on hospice, cut their shirts down the back, let them wear their own clothes, you know, at least, at least have that, you know, modicum of dignity, if you will. Um, but those last hours are tough.

[00:36:23] You know, when my grandma died, she died gasping for air and went from gasping to shallow breathing to that last, what they call the death rattle. Uh, a kind of last gargling something that we count as a breath. And that's hard. I think it's hard for families to see. And then you, you take the next step,

[00:36:51] which is what do we do now? And even if you know, even if you're like, yeah, we're going to call so-and-so and she's going to come take care of our mom or we're going to call Victor, right? And he's going to show up. Uh, you've never experienced your loved one like that before. You've never experienced grandma where she's not breathing, right? Her, her normal state your whole life has been that she moves and breathes and thinks. And now it's changed.

[00:37:21] So that can be hard. I mean, any transition is hard, but that one is, it's startling. It's unusual. At least to most people. What are some things that a family might do that make the dying process harder? At some point, I would love to talk to him, but Dr. Atul Gawande wrote a book that was recommended to me, I think by Dave Burring called Being Mortal. Um, and I really loved it.

[00:37:51] I thought it was really good. Um, but the whole book wrestles with this idea of acceptance versus intervention, right? Because we want our loved ones to have medical care. We want them to be comfortable. We want, we want them to recover, right? Um, but at a certain point, we also need to accept the fact that like these bodies are very temporary. They're very temporary. Shoot. I'm 35 years old, right? I'm well over a third of the way done.

[00:38:20] I could be over half. I don't know, but life is temporary. It goes fast as it turns out. And, um, and I don't know if I feel old just because I work at the funeral home and I'm around death all day. I think probably has something to do with it, but I'm really feeling it lately, you know, and at least right now it's fall. Fall is starting and I'm watching the trees like show very tangible signs of death, right? Every,

[00:38:47] every rake of leaf in my yard is a gravestone. And, uh, I'm feeling it. And I think learning to accept that your loved one is going to die is very challenging, but at a certain point being okay that like we don't need intervention. You know, if, if mom is 90 years old and she has a terminal disease, I'm not saying pull the plug,

[00:39:16] but I am saying like step back and think about it. Think about it in terms of, of centuries. centuries. Your mom got to live almost a century. Like, you know how small of a sliver of humanity gets to do that and take that through all of time when people used to live to their forties or fifties at best? Like, this is a big deal. What a great gift. They live twice as long as your medieval serf. Okay? Twice as long as your sixth great grandfather probably. And, um,

[00:39:46] as we increase interventions, I think anxiety rises, both for the family, because they can get their hopes up for the doctors who are trying to, to introduce it, right? To keep grandma alive. Um, and I think the anxiety goes up for the one who's ill too. You know, like how hard would you work at detaching yourself from these things that have held you down? How,

[00:40:13] how hard would you work at detaching yourself from a grudge if you're like, actually, I'm going to get another three years out of this when I get my brand new kidney transplant, right? This is probably too broad a topic, but I just brought it to mind. Um, so, you know, originally one of the ideas of capital punishment was not necessarily, um, an eye for an eye, but there was this idea that, well, if, if we are going to set an execution and we were going to tell the prisoner, yes,

[00:40:43] we are going to execute you in two months. Um, it puts a hard timeline and it gives a person a chance to reflect, to repent, to make a right in whatever way they can. Um, and sometimes people have hard hearts. Sometimes people aren't ready to go, right? My, my grandma practically went out kicking and screaming, clawing to life despite being in her nineties, you know? And I don't want to be mean to her about it. I, I, I love her. I, I still do. I love my grandma very much,

[00:41:14] but to see the end is near and not take that opportunity to try to write at least a couple of the wrongs, uh, and substitute that instead for clinging to more of, of this, which I mean at the end is what is, is suffering, is lying in bed, right? My friend Anita's, uh, greatest gripe with all of it is that she, she couldn't walk anymore. She had to lie down all the time, right? And I don't know,

[00:41:41] to cling to that in the face of either something really wonderful or nothingness, I mean, either one, uh, just seems silly. So no, I'm not a big fan of, of massive interventions at the end, which brings up the point. Is it okay to let someone know and tell them verbally, it's okay to die? Um, I'm going to say,

[00:42:11] yeah, yeah, it is. And I can't tell you how many times, I don't know, a hundred times more, maybe a hundred times. I've heard family members say, yeah, I, mom was lying there with her eyes closed. And I bent down, I told her, mom, it's okay. It's okay. You can go now. And she died within five minutes. Or, um, or, or at least in my area, there's a certain type of farmer.

[00:42:41] It's always a farmer. It's always a man, as it turns out, who, his family will tell them it's okay to go. It's okay to go. It's okay to go. And he hangs on until the family finally leaves to like, go take a break or have lunch. And he dies in the 10 minutes. They're gone. Uh, that someone, someone lets go of life, but they don't want an audience. Um, for my part, I think I'd be okay with having an audience. I'm not, I'm not that bashful. As it turns out,

[00:43:11] I don't really care. I would hope that when I get to the end, I won't care if someone sees me wet myself. I've seen a lot of people wet themselves. Why, why should I be embarrassed? Right? I wet myself as a baby. What's the difference now if I'm an old man? There, there's a, there's a strange amount of, of commonality. Um, I'll tell you a poem actually. Uh, I mean, it's childish, but one of my favorite poets is Shel Silverstein. And,

[00:43:41] uh, I'm going to read to you a poem by him that I, I love very much. This one is called The Little Boy and the Old Man. It's the little boy. Sometimes I drop my spoon. Said the old man. I do that too. The little boy whispered, I wet my pants. I do that too. Laughed the little old man. Said the little boy. I often cry. The old man nodded. So do I.

[00:44:11] But worst of all, said the boy, it seems that grownups don't pay attention to me. And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand. I know what you mean. Said the little old man. Yeah. I love that one. I've always loved that. I mean, I've always loved Shel Silverstein, but I've always loved that poem because there's that commonality. So if we, if we did foolish things, if we were seemingly weak,

[00:44:41] vulnerable, if we wet our pants when we were kids, what's the difference if we do it at the end? Why do we have to be tough? We don't have to be tough. Let go of toughness. Detach yourself from toughness, Mr. Red River Valley Farmer. Die with your family hanging on you. You let them hang on you your whole life. And that closes our time today. What, what more could one ask for

[00:45:10] than to be both young and old at the same time? And I think, as it turns out, that dying well is the same general makeup as living well. Don't you think trying to be kind in what ways you can and trying to detach yourself from those things that are evil and do those things which are good and within your power to do. And it might be, you know, when you're young,

[00:45:39] you don't have much power to do much good. And when you are old or dying, you don't have power to do much. But that which is in your power to do, if you can do it, if you can love your friends and family, if you can be honest, be detached from those things that have held you back, I really do believe you can die well.

[00:46:10] I want to thank you, as always, for being here, especially on a monologue. I've had people tell me I have a nice voice. I have people tell me that these are nice episodes, little fireside chats with Victor about serious things. They're hard for me. I think it's more fun to talk with someone than to talk at someone, although I do like you, dear listener, and I value you for being here. But thank you for the support, you know?

[00:46:39] If you wanted to support the show, as I said at the top, you could subscribe on YouTube. That'd be nice. I've thought about monetizing it. I don't know. Mostly, I just want to do something good and try to do something that matters. Because living well matters. Dying well surely matters. And you matter, dear listener. So thank you again for being here. Until next time, I am your friendly neighborhood undertaker,

[00:47:08] and this has been another episode of Death And.