Embracing Mortality: Transforming Conversation on Death and Dying

This podcast episode deals with the often-avoided topic of death and dying, emphasizing the necessity of open conversations surrounding end-of-life wishes. Facing our mortality is one of the most profound experiences we encounter, yet it's often shrouded in silence. We challenge this silence by sharing the moving stories of my friends Jack and Elizabeth illustrating how transparency and discussions about death can lead to peace and closure for individuals and their families.

This episode delves into the cultural and emotional landscapes surrounding death, emphasizing the crucial need for open dialogue. Ignoring these conversations can lead to unnecessary stress and confusion for families left behind. By exploring different cultural perspectives and the practical aspects of preparing for death, we aim to honor our loved ones' wishes and ease the emotional burden. I also tackle the inevitable physical and emotional changes that accompany the end of life, highlighting the importance of understanding and communication during these challenging times. Having awareness of what to expect can truly remove some of the worry and anxiety that arises when we "face the unknow".

Join me as I embrace death as a natural part of life, breaking the taboo and transforming how we approach our own mortality and that of those we love.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Conversations on Death and Dying
• 3:03 Conversations on Fear and Transition
• 15:51 Conversations on Preparing for Death

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Rise and shine everybody. It's time to wake up with Susan. Spiritual awakening can be a beautiful, messy and sometimes lonely journey, so let's do it together. I'm your host, susan Sutherland. I'm an intuitive healer and spiritual mentor. We are all called to rise up above our conditioning and limiting beliefs and shine our light on ourselves and others. So let's get to it.

Speaker 1: 0:28

Did you know that while 92% of people believe that it is important to talk about end-of-life plans, only 30% actually do? And even less than that are having the conversations about the fears and the emotions associated when end of life is near? Hi, family, thanks for tuning in. Today. I want to strike while the iron's hot and talk about the uncomfortable subject of death and dying and how I really, really believe we need to make it more normal to have these conversations. So in Western culture, we have made it this taboo subject where we tiptoe around the conversations of death, and it is universal, in fact, it is guaranteed experience, and there are not many experiences that we are all guaranteed to have, but we don't have conversations about it. This topic is really important to me because my dear friend Jack just passed away, and so I want to share what I experienced with him and also with my friend Elizabeth, who passed away in 2021. Jack was 93 years old and had stage four cancer and I tell you he had cancer because age was not going to take him out. He was here to live life to its fullest and he did.

Speaker 1: 1:48

I was assigned to Jack as a hospice volunteer in March and we just clicked. He absolutely loved to talk and I had a listening ear and he lived close by and I loved popping in on him and hearing his stories and his mind was so sharp. It was just such a great experience to listen and to learn from him and to see the world through his eyes. So I visited regularly and, because I'm not a nurse, I wasn't poking and prodding or asking him questions about his food consumption or his bowel movements. We just got to talk and so he really welcomed to my presence because I wasn't there nagging him or asking all of these medical questions.

Speaker 1: 2:31

And a couple of months ago, jack and I started having deeper conversations. I had built a level of trust with him. I'd even shared with him what I do and that I work as an energy healer, which I never thought I would be having that conversation with somebody who is 93. But interestingly enough, I told him what I do and what the experience of energy healing is like for the person I'm working with, and he was like, oh, that's actually like what you do for me when you come, isn't that interesting and so sweet.

Speaker 1: 3:03

Anyway, he told me that he's not sure what he's hanging on for. You know, he had lost his vision. He could hardly see, he could hardly hear, and both of us sat there with our hearing aids screaming at each other. But you know, it made the days lonely. He lived independently, except for the people coming and checking on him. He would see during the day, but it made a long time of sitting there when you can't see a book, and he could only hear when the TV is at full blast. And he was just like I don't know why I'm still here. So that opened up a gateway for me to say all right, what are you still hanging on for? Let's talk about it. Let's start going through what may be keeping you here if you think your body no longer wishes to be here. And so we talked about if he had any regrets that were weighing on his heart. We talked about if there were any words he needed to speak to somebody or letters that he needed to write or forgiveness he needed to grant or ask for. And so we had these conversations and I offered to bring over stationery and write letters for him and I would just place ideas on his heart and then say when I come next time I'll have it in the car and if it's something you're interested in, let me know. And I always left that in his court. But a lot of times when we're hanging on to something, there is something energetically, there is business unfinished, and so I just wanted him to know that I could help him if he needed a hand to write or eyes to see or whatever, whatever extension he needed me to be so that he could wrap up his business. But these conversations allowed him to start thinking about things and he did share with me.

Speaker 1: 4:48

One day he said he told me the story, his awakening story at 93. He had grown up Catholic but said that he really wasn't a believer. But he was laying in his hospital bed in his room and he was crippled in pain and had had just just such pain and agony and his legs were curled up in the fetal position and he said I just earnestly, with all my heart said god, please help me. And he told me that in 10 minutes the pain was just gone. He didn't have a bowel movement, but the pain just went away and he's's like oh my gosh, he's like. Now I'm? I just, I just know, I just know. So if you're waiting on a friend or a loved one to awaken, you never know when it'll happen. It might be when they're 93 and in the fetal position in a hospital bed, backed up. You never know. So let them in their own time. Remember, everybody has their own timeline.

Speaker 1: 5:45

But he told me this and then, not long after that, he told me that he was laying in the bed and he was just thinking like, have I done enough? And he was thinking about it from the perspective of I need to earn my way into heaven, which I don't necessarily agree with, but this wasn't my story. So he's telling me that he's laying there and he's thinking to himself have I done enough? And he said in that moment he was cocooned in this. He called it love, that he just felt swallowed up by love in that moment and he knew that was his reassurance that he had done enough. I did say Jack, I think we've all done enough, but that's just my opinion. But he knew in that moment that he had done enough and so I kind of scratched off the fear of eternal damnation from the list, which I think a lot of people are grown up fearing, that if you do this, this or this and we all do most of those things, that you're going to burn in hell. Anyway, scratch that off his list.

Speaker 1: 6:49

That wasn't what was going on for Jack, but we kept, you know, having this open dialogue about things that typically go unspoken. So I visited on January 1st and he told me that he had been thinking about it and he feels like he's hanging on because he's scared, he's afraid, he doesn't know what death is like, what would it feel like, what would he experience. And we ended up having a long conversation about death and the way I speak about it. You would think I had died three times, but I have been in the room, I have seen death, I have read so many books on near-death encounters or hypnosis and the life between lives or transitions and what happens on the other side, and I work with loved ones in spirit, and so I do feel like I speak with experience, having Susan still be a living, breathing body and apparently I speak with enough experience that it provided him reassurance. And I let him know that hospice's whole goal is comfort care. Whole goal is comfort care. They are there to make sure that you are comfortable in that last stage of life. And so we had a really good talk and before I left he said thank you, I feel much better. And I knew then that it wouldn't be long. I knew then that whatever was holding him here he was ready to let go of. He was just afraid. He was just afraid. So I visited him again in two days and I could see the sharp decline and days later he was bedridden and one week later he had passed away.

Speaker 1: 8:41

Now I told you I am working with Derek Grant right now in a group, and the thing about working with a coach or a mentor is you have somebody to be accountable to. You have somebody making you do the hard shit that you would avoid because it is uncomfortable if you are on your own. That's how coaching is effective. And what I realized lately as we work through my fears is I've had the same experience. When I write down my fears, when I express my fears, when I look at them in the face, they lose their power. And that's all Jack needed was some way to express hey, I'm really struggling with this, and it was that simple. It was that simple of of just allowing him to express it and then sharing comfort and compassion and understanding that, yeah, that's, it's a crazy thing to think about. But I also got him excited. I got him excited that he's not going to be burdened by his body the body is temporary, but his spirit is not and I don't go around. I'm not a converter and I was not looking to change his beliefs. But we had also gained a comfort and an understanding that I felt really comfortable, that I could provide him comfort by sharing my beliefs with him.

Speaker 1: 10:06

That being said, when I was growing up, my brother had a coat rack in his bedroom and the shadow of it freaking, terrified me. It looked if you could draw a monster on the wall, that is what you would draw. This coat rack no, this coat rack was scarier than whatever monster you could draw. This coat rack no, this coat rack was scarier than whatever monster you could draw, and I know that when I was laying in his bed, the way to make it go away, the way to make the fear subside was to stare at the coat hanger. It's a piece of wood and some metal hooks, that's all it is. But what it projects, what's out there, is so big and so scary and you have to look at straight on to be like, oh yeah, that's not that scary, it's okay. But as a society we've created this culture where we won't look at head on, we're, we're dancing around it.

Speaker 1: 10:55

Jack had shared with me that he had started to hear the orchestra. Another man couldn't hear, but he had started to hear the orchestra play. And this was a couple of weeks before he passed away. And he was not sharing any of these things with his family because they didn't talk about the dying process. They weren't having conversations about what was coming up or what was happening for him. He had even seen his first wife, who had passed away 50 years ago. He had seen her standing in his den and when he told his son, his son was like you're crazy, but seeing apparitions is a very normal part of the transitioning process. Anyway, I told his daughter-in-law that he had heard the orchestra and when I came back the next day they had Chopin playing in his bedroom beside his bed. And it made me so happy, because this is what you want. This is what you want for somebody when they're going is to feel surrounded by things they love, by by music and and touch and voices, and so it's really important that we just take the cover off of death and we start talking about it so that we can all embrace having this really beautiful transition, this really beautiful journey to the other side.

Speaker 1: 12:18

I had a very different experience with my friend Elizabeth, and I do wonder now, with some maturity and a lot more experience working with spirit and in this space, how I would handle her situation differently. But she was diagnosed with stage four melanoma and first of all she gave her power away and decided that she didn't want to be in the conversations about her prognosis. She didn't want to be in the conversations about her prognosis, she didn't want to be in the conversations about her treatment, and she gave all of that power away to her husband. But it also allowed her to be in the dark and so when she got sick we also went into COVID and so she kept everybody out. She kept everybody out of her house because she was afraid of COVID.

Speaker 1: 13:08

Meanwhile she is dying from melanoma and she has isolated herself from the entire world and there was a time towards the end of her journey that she was in the hospital and no one was there with her overnight, and so a friend and I were rotating turns staying with her. And I went there and she was very sick at this time and we were getting her comfortable and she looked at me and she said, susan, am I going to make it? And I couldn't believe that she's this far down the road and nobody's had a conversation with her, that she's completely in the dark. And I wondered, if she knew, would she have let her friends in, would she have let these people in? Would she have been less afraid of COVID and more inclined to experience people, to live? Would she have been more inclined to live than lay in a bed for a year and a half hoping that she didn't get COVID, all the while dying from cancer?

Speaker 1: 14:11

Now I will tell you, one huge mistake I made was I didn't answer her truthfully. I didn't feel like it was my place and I felt caught off guard and I just said of course you are, I mean, and she's made it, she's on the other side, she's made it, she's on the other side, she's made it. She's good to go, but I would like to handle that differently now. I would like to handle it differently nine months before she got in the hospital and had a conversation with her then, but I didn't. I remember being in her house and we were like hiding pamphlets that said hospice, because I knew she would know that that meant it was over and nobody had had a talk with her. And it was just so weird it's so weird to go through someone's death without acknowledging they're dying.

Speaker 1: 14:58

Now I will tell you one of the stages of death, which I'm going to talk about in a minute, is that they have this energetic surge, and I had stayed overnight at her house right before she went into coma. She had this energetic surge and she sat up in her bed and she looked at me and she said I'm going to miss you. And I said I'm going to miss you too. But you know, that's the only real conversation we had, the only real conversation we had, and so that lack of information for her allowed her not to have people expressing to her what they would like to say, without her expressing to them what she would like to say. We acted like it was. It was something that was just going to float away, like if we don't talk about it, then it doesn't exist. If we don't pretend that she's dead, I mean, and I'm telling you, her body wasn't cold and they had whooped her out of the house. It was.

Speaker 1: 15:51

It was so different and everybody processes things in a different way, but why do we make it where death is something that we're not honoring and respecting and and I mean Not celebrating but not avoiding we are going to die. I hate to tell you, if I'm the first person who's told you this, I really, really hate that I'm breaking the news to you, but you are going to die. Your body is going to die. Your essence is not. It is completely immortal and we will celebrate that transition. Okay, but we have got to start having these conversations. It is not healthy for children who are pretending like somebody's not going to die. It is not healthy for spouses or parents of children who are dying. It's not healthy for anybody there is nobody it is healthy for to pretend that this is not what is going on All right Throughout history.

Speaker 1: 16:44

Cultures of the world have very different relationships with death. In many Eastern traditions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, death is seen as a natural transition, a continuation of life in another form. These beliefs bring a sense of acceptance and even a preparation for the inevitable. Rituals like ancestor worship in the Chinese culture or the Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico actively honor those who have passed, keeping the memory of them alive. In contrast, though, western cultures have largely leaned into avoidance. Death has historically been shrouded in fear and secrecy, and even denial. All right, so what happens if we keep on avoiding talking about death? The emotional consequences are significant.

Speaker 1: 17:35

Families are often surprised by the grief or the uncertainty that comes with losing a loved one. Many people don't even know their loved one's end-of-life wishes, whether or not they would like to be on hospice, or what kind of medical intervention they would like, or even how they would like to be remembered. This lack of communication can lead to unnecessary stress, confusion and even fights and conflict during an already challenging time. Logistically, avoidance can leave families scrambling to make decisions without clear guidance. If you are not having these conversations, you cannot honor your loved one, and so it's really important that, even if something is hard, you see it worthwhile to do. Being able to speak with somebody about it means you don't need to feel guilty, feeling like you are not making the right decisions. You can have these conversations beforehand. Studies show that families who do have open conversations about death report feeling more peace and more closure compared to those who avoid it. That's a powerful reminder about why these conversations matter. So, while death may be an uncomfortable topic, avoiding it doesn't make it any less real and it doesn't make it any avoidable. You can avoid the conversation, but you cannot avoid death, so we might as well make it a better experience for everybody involved.

Speaker 1: 19:04

All right, in case you're not going to have these conversations with somebody else, I am going to tell you some physical and emotional changes that happen as death is approaching. It is important that we know these things. When somebody is nearing the end of their life, their body starts to naturally shut down. You might notice things like decreased appetite. They'll eat and drink less, and that's okay. It's the body's way of shutting down. There are changes in breathing. Breathing may slow down or become rapid.

Speaker 1: 19:36

When end of life is very near, you may hear the death rattle. This is because a person can no longer remove secretions such as saliva or phlegm that they normally are able to remove without any trouble. But this builds up and their quiet breathing can become very loud and rattle-like. They'll have increased fatigue and sleepiness. They'll spend way more of their time asleep and less in conversation or activity or any kind of engagement. Emotionally, people might experience withdrawal, becoming less engaged with the world around them. This isn't a sign that they don't like the care or that they don't need care. It is just turning inwards and, like I mentioned, often hours or days before the end they may also have a terminal rally or terminal lucidity. This is the rally days or hours before the end of life where they suddenly have clarity and energy and are able to have a really lucid or meaningful conversation that they haven't been able to have in the hours before or the hours after. All right, so a couple terms that you should know.

Speaker 1: 20:44

Palliative care this focuses on providing comfort and improving quality of life. This can be done in conjunction with treatment. Hospice care is something that you can receive typically if you have a prognosis of six months or less, but no more treatment options are requested at that time. If you choose hospice, you are no longer on treatment and you are choosing to be kept comfortable as you near the end of life, and so there is not additional treatment. That means that hospice has the benefit of using medications that do not have interactions with other medications. They can just use pain relievers or anxiety medications or other things that are just to keep someone comfortable in these last days.

Speaker 1: 21:37

All right, let's talk about family emotions, because everybody experiences grief and stress differently, and some family members might want to be hands-on, helping with care and being present as much as possible. Others might struggle to show up and that's often due to their own fear and their own grief or just not knowing what to do. But it's really important to have that open communication so you can understand where somebody is coming from and not project what you think their experience is or why they are not showing up as you think they should. If you're part of a family navigating this, try to give each other grace and try to give each other understanding. People cope in their own ways and it's okay to set boundaries and it's okay to ask for help, and that help may not come from within your family. There are other systems and support that is available to you, and so, if it's not your sibling, look outside in the community and in hospice has even grief and some support for the families, but find other avenues to get that support. Know that you should be supported, but that support may not come from within your familial structure. You can also have a neutral third party like a social worker, help you work through navigating stressful situations with your family or assigning who is going to take care of which aspects of the end of life planning.

Speaker 1: 23:07

All right, I feel like I'm having a hard conversation with kids right now, but we are going to keep going. So a couple other things we have to remember is to have your legal and financial house in order. If you have a benefit of a diagnosis, then you can make sure it is taken care of for yourself, but since not all of us will and we don't know what tomorrow holds, we all need to have that in place. You have to have a will. You need to know who is going to take care of your children, or you know like, get your house in order. Susan reminder, I need to do this as well. We have an update due this year. We've got to update our things and, like I said, if I'm telling y'all this, it's for me. So I'm going to go get my house in order too, and make sure if you are in charge of someone's end of life care, create a comfortable environment. Think about what makes them feel at ease.

Speaker 1: 24:02

If it is music, their favorite blanket pictures I used to go over and would watch a game show with Elizabeth. It's what she wanted to do and that's how we spent our time together was watching a game show, but it was really just to have that time together laughing. But try to connect with them. Let's not let's not avoid these situations anymore. Dying is a natural process and it is also deeply personal and, by the way, pretty freaking beautiful.

Speaker 1: 24:31

When my mother died, we had been at the hospital and one of her requests was not to be in a coma long like that's. She wanted to see me graduate, she wanted to go to the beach and she wanted to not be in a coma long now. I don't know why she didn't say she wanted to, like meet her grandkids or something like that, because she saw me graduate. We went to the beach and two days later she went to the hospital and had a coma that just lasted hours and then died. So she should have set the bar higher for real. But we had been at the hospital all day and my brother left the hospital and he was going to go get some dinner and go home for a little bit, because you know, you don't know, with a coma it could be hours or it could be three weeks, we have no idea and her breathing slowed down and this is the day before cell phones. It was very hard to track him down and say you need to come back. And he did and she was going minutes between breaths, I think even three minutes, but I was young and I need to have that confirmed by somebody. But now I'm rolling with it. I think it was three minutes between breaths and he made it back there and then she passed away.

Speaker 1: 25:40

She was just waiting on his return and then she went and she went and she had this little tear come down her face and it just. She went and she had this little tear come down her face and it just. It was like a happy tear, a peace tear, and it was beautiful. It was a beautiful situation. My heart was broken, I was devastated. I crawled onto her bed and the doctor said anything we can do and I remember screaming you can give me my mom back. It was. It's not like it was a good time. I'm not saying death is fun, but it was still beautiful and I was with my Aunt Ruby when she passed away and when she was laying in the hospital bed I was standing at her side and I said, mom, look, she's smiling. And she smiled and then she passed away. I say passed away, she died, her body died and it was like you could tell she saw something. And man, I mean I'm sure it was her dude Jesus, because she loves some Jesus, and I just know that she saw whatever she needed to see to make her smile that big. And she had been in a coma herself for a couple of days, I believe, and she smiled and then passed away.

Speaker 1: 26:43

I think, because I have been present for these experiences that were very peaceful and very beautiful, I don't have this fear of transitioning and because, you know, I got my people on the other side. They're like nope, it's cool over here, like sorry for y'all suckers. So I don't even. I don't have a fear of what's on the other side and I don't have a fear of the process, because I have witnessed it and it been very beautiful and so I'm very comfortable about it and so I'm sorry for making it a Debbie Downer episode.

Speaker 1: 27:14

However, I really want us to start being more comfortable, having these conversations so we can start embracing this, this really beautiful transition I can't say part of life, because I guess that's the end of it, but we can start talking about, like, like, what would make it really special for you?

Speaker 1: 27:32

Who do you know that you want to see before you go? Or or you know what are the regrets? What can we work through? I don't know. I just I think this is really important, guys. So, while it's heavy on my heart, with my friend Jack just passing over and going through this experience again, I wanted to talk about it and I want you all to start talking about it and I want you to start having conversations where death is not some little hush topic, like, let's start embracing that. It's really, it's really very much a guarantee and so for all of us to do it as beautifully and as well and comfortably as possible. It allows the family to be comfortable with the process too. I promise you. All right, I love you. That was, that was wild bud. All right, thanks for joining. Love you Bye. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Be sure to not miss any upcoming episodes by subscribing to the podcast. That way, it's available automatically in your RSS feed. This is a crazy journey. Let's do it together.