What Death Teaches Us About Living with Micaelah Morrill

Dustin Grinnell (00:00:00 --> 00:00:02)
I'm Dustin Grinnell, and this is Curiously.

Michaela Morrell (00:00:04 --> 00:01:01)
What do you want to do? And do you have a desire to leave something behind? You know, some people record messages to friends. Let's start. Why wait?

Do you want to write some letters? You don't even have to send them. I don't have to be a part of any of these things. Like, I could help it execute, but I think I'm there to sort of sit with you, hold your hand, give you a hug if necessary, but say, this is it. You have this amount of time.

And I think there's a clarity that can come when you consider time and death, because There's a balance you can find, but if someone gives you a 6-month diagnosis, screw the balance.

Dustin Grinnell (00:01:04 --> 00:02:04)
That was Michaela Morrill. Michaela is a death doula, someone trained to guide people through the end of life with the same care and compassion that birth doulas provide at the beginning. In her work, she supports everything from planning memorials to managing paperwork, serving as a guide for those nearing death and for loved ones who need support as they prepare to say goodbye to a loved one. I met Michaela on a Thursday night in October at the Winthrop Book Depot and Cafe in Winthrop Center. We sat in a circle with 8 strangers at something called a death cafe, an informal gathering where people come together to openly discuss death and dying, to increase awareness of our mortality and make the most of our finite lives. These death cafes happen in homes, cafes and coffee shops, community centers, and online. They become a global movement held in dozens of countries around the world. When I heard there was going to be one at my local bookstore, I signed up right away.

Dustin Grinnell (00:02:05 --> 00:02:09)
I've always found thinking and talking about mortality strangely life-affirming.

Dustin Grinnell (00:02:10 --> 00:04:01)
Knowing I don't have forever makes me work a little harder and live more intentionally. But the main reason I was at the death cafe that night was because I was still trying to make sense of my mom's death a year earlier. 5 weeks after being diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, she suffered a medical crisis and lost consciousness. The doctors had given us a choice: prolong the inevitable with machines that would only extend her suffering, or let her go. We chose the latter.

The ventilator was removed, and we waited. What followed were some of the most surreal minutes of my life. Her chest rose and fell in irregular gasps. One breath, then another. The gaps between grew longer until finally they didn't come at all.

I was holding her hand when it happened. The moment when a person becomes a body. When I touched her arm minutes later, the coldness shocked me. How quickly warmth leaves us. A year later, I found myself at Michaela's Death Cafe.

For 2 hours, we did what most people generally tend to avoid.. We talked openly about our losses, our fears of death, the realities of dying, what we got right with people we've lost, and what we wish we'd done differently. Though each of our experiences was unique, we found common threads that made us feel less alone. Together, we helped one another find words for thoughts we'd carried but never quite been able to express. Today on the podcast, I'm talking with Michaela about what it means to sit with the dying, how embracing our mortality can help us live more fully, and why the go by so fast that we can't afford to waste them pretending we have forever.

Dustin Grinnell (00:04:01 --> 00:04:06)
I hope you enjoy. Michaela Moore, welcome to the show.

Michaela Morrell (00:04:06 --> 00:04:09)
Thank you, I'm so glad to be here.

Dustin Grinnell (00:04:09 --> 00:04:40)
So as kids, we are told we can become a lot of things. Our guidance counselor may tell us we can become doctors, engineers, lawyers. These are conventional paths. The path of a death doula is not necessarily something we're told about as a career path, as something to do. Many people don't even know what it is, but they are intrigued or maybe think it's strange. So give me, you know, a basic definition of what a death doula is and what do they do?

Michaela Morrell (00:04:40 --> 00:05:13)
So the concept of doula is really a different word for guide. I think a lot of people are familiar with the term of a birth doula, and the idea is Women have given birth for thousands of years. They've done it in hospitals for 100. And before that, there was this collective knowledge, like people in the community would come and help, like people were way more attuned to what happened during birth. And so the process went very differently. It's the same with death. We've been dying for thousands of years.

Dustin Grinnell (00:05:13 --> 00:05:14)
No one's gotten out of that deal.

Michaela Morrell (00:05:14 --> 00:05:51)
No, they have not. But we've only been doing it in hospitals for like 100. And before that, you were at home, the whole family would know what was happening, like the community would come by. And so our body has signs and it has tells, but we've lost a lot of that knowledge. Death doulas can come in and we are trained to have more of that knowledge. So we can tell this could be imminent, this is not imminent. And frankly, I think to bring it kind of back, it doesn't have to be in everyone's living room like it used to be, but How do we talk about it? How do we get comfortable with it? That's what a death doula does.

Dustin Grinnell (00:05:52 --> 00:05:54)
Okay. And how did you get into it?

Michaela Morrell (00:05:54 --> 00:05:56)
What is your journey?

Dustin Grinnell (00:05:56 --> 00:05:56)
Yeah.

Michaela Morrell (00:05:56 --> 00:07:13)
So I have no idea how long the term death doula has been around. I don't think it's very long because it's, dare I say, trendy now. Like, it's— I think people are just sort of starting to understand this. Yeah, exactly. I think we'll talk more about death cafes, but that movement really started in 2011.

So we're not looking at a very old industry, although the concept predates all of us, right? I got into it— I've unfortunately experienced a number of deaths of people close to me, and it was right after my mom died 5 years ago, someone mentioned, oh, did you have a death doula? And I had just had a birth doula because my youngest son was 5 months old at the time, and so I was familiar with the concept, but I was like, what? Death doula? No, like, I, I birth doula.

You're confused. And like, no, no, there's this whole idea. And having gone through what my mother's passing, I saw how that role could have been so helpful, but I didn't do anything about it until really 2 and a half years later when my dad got sick and I was like, okay, I know this. I know what we need. I'm gonna do this.

So that's really when I. Was researching, like, how do you become a death doula? What is the training like? What does it require? And then I did it.

Dustin Grinnell (00:07:13 --> 00:07:30)
So what— when your mom was dying and passed, what was missing that you wished was there that you then applied to your dad, that then you now would give advice for what needs to be there or should be there?

Michaela Morrell (00:07:30 --> 00:09:15)
And what I witnessed— so my mother was dying of cancer, but it happened pretty quickly. So she had this medical care team which sort of gave the directives of like, she needs more morphine, or she needs more something else. Then there was hospice, and hospice are not necessarily trained nurses, but often are. If they are trained nurses, they can do medical things. Doulas do not do anything medical.

I would never pretend to give someone medicine or that I could. That is absolutely a no-no. So hospice came in, they did some bathing for her, they gave her her morphine when the nurses weren't coming. But hospice kind of comes when they can, which is maybe once a day. If you have someone who's actively dying or close to their deathbed and you are not capable of doing a full 24/7 care routine, which I would offer most people who are watching their loved one die are not.

You have to hire nurses or like other nurse caregivers, which is what I did. But then there's this whole other level of like, who calls the funeral home? Do we need to call the priest? How are we handling friends and family? Did anyone eat today?

Like, why is there a pile of dishes? Like, there's this whole other piece And then during active death, it's like, well, can I leave? What is happening? Like, what's going on? And doulas can come in and fill that role.

Dustin Grinnell (00:09:15 --> 00:09:18)
It could be more than two different people, but it's like the family and the individual dying.

Michaela Morrell (00:09:19 --> 00:10:10)
In my experience, you end up serving sort of everyone. Yeah. Even if the dying person didn't hire me directly. I want to respect their wishes. This is their moment.

But I want to make sure someone feels like they have someone there to be like, what the hell is going on? Yeah. And maybe not even to do all the things for them, but to be like, now is the time you need to call your faith person. Like, do you have a plan in place for what will happen? Let me help you with that.

This is when you call the funeral home if you want to. If you don't, you can do that. I don't think people also recognize that there are a number of choices and steps And if you're in the act of immediate grief, like someone has just left your life, knowing you have choices is maybe not the most helpful thing. So I think the doula can come in in advance and be like, have you thought of these things? Do you know these are options?

Dustin Grinnell (00:10:10 --> 00:10:29)
Yeah, you're kind of like an experienced, trained, knowledgeable Sherpa, a guide that says, you know, your brain is overwhelmed with emotion and pain and grief, and I'm a logical helper here who can just keep you on a journey to doing the things you should think about doing.

Michaela Morrell (00:10:29 --> 00:10:55)
It's like a really nice binder person, right? I help you build the binder, and then once it's done, you can go and sit and be with what is very often a heartbreaking moment. But it's a moment you have to be in, I think. Like, you— to just be able to sit there and acknowledge what you've lost and what is like this new reality. I mean, to have that space to just do that is the gift I want to give people.

Dustin Grinnell (00:10:55 --> 00:11:02)
And did, um, it seems like a weird way to put it, but did you do your father's death better?

Michaela Morrell (00:11:02 --> 00:11:12)
He has actually not died yet. He just got, um, very sick, so we thought about it. So we just tried to do more prep work, but he's still with us.

Dustin Grinnell (00:11:12 --> 00:11:15)
Prep work like if we need to?

Michaela Morrell (00:11:15 --> 00:12:07)
Correct. There's a lot of paperwork in dying, right? There's so much paperwork in dying. Yeah. And so I got him to do more of that in advance. We did some additional directives that mother never had. You know, I talk about them. I unfortunately also experienced a few deaths, I think 7 or 8 years before all of this, for my husband's family. And I think I knew some of the paperwork, I knew some of the medical, but how do you create the space for people and how do you alleviate that real-world stuff that impedes and intrudes so they can just say goodbye, right? So I was trying to marry those two things. There's sort of like this very practical, like, here's a checklist, you need to do this, and then also create space for like, I'm gonna give you a hug if you need it, but I'm also going to make sure you have a warm blanket and a hot cup of tea and that no one intrudes upon your space for the next hour. Like a little bit of a dragon at the gate.

Dustin Grinnell (00:12:08 --> 00:12:08)
Okay.

Michaela Morrell (00:12:09 --> 00:12:09)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:12:09 --> 00:12:18)
Um, I remember when my mom passed at night, like I didn't even know what to do with the body. Yep. And I literally Googled—

Dustin Grinnell (00:12:18 --> 00:12:18)
yep—

Dustin Grinnell (00:12:18 --> 00:12:50)
funeral home where she's from and called them. And they said, yeah, we can come pick her up. I'm like, how? And they're like, well, so I was learning in real time while my mom was— her body was getting colder. And he said, yeah, they'll go to the morgue and pick her up. And like, wait, so you'll drive from Maine to New Hampshire? It's like, yeah, we'll take that whole drive. And I had no idea. Well, yeah.

Michaela Morrell (00:12:50 --> 00:12:51)
And why would you?

Dustin Grinnell (00:12:51 --> 00:12:55)
It's the Practicalities of death.

Michaela Morrell (00:12:55 --> 00:13:35)
Yeah. Well, and that's the stuff if you have— I've heard of a few patients and people who maybe haven't loved their hospice experience. Hospice will often provide some information about this, but that's entirely dependent on where you are in the hospice that you're working with. Social workers in hospital settings should be more helpful, and I don't say that to demean them, but they're too busy. And so if you aren't like I benefited from a very good one when my mother was dying. When my father got very sick and we thought he was dying, very different situation. If I hadn't known that, like, that person assigned to my dad was not going to help me figure any of this stuff out.

Dustin Grinnell (00:13:35 --> 00:13:43)
Yeah. And I had a good one who helped me submit paperwork physically to get access to my mom's records. Yep. And without her, I would have been lost because I— yeah.

Michaela Morrell (00:13:43 --> 00:14:46)
So, well, and so I— listen, I think we should have guides in so many places in life. Like, it's really complicated to take someone who speaks podcast or speaks You're a writer. Why should you be able to navigate oncology out of the gate? We don't make it easy, and it's not— there's all these different languages anyway. So I have now had these experiences where I'm nowhere near fluent in medical jargon, but I'm exactly the person you want next to you if you have to fight with your doctors or you need information. Like, I'm very good at that now, unfortunately. You know, just marrying those skills together, because as you said, it's there's the practicality, and then there's like— I don't want to speak for you, but you're sitting there with your mother, and what would have helped you in that moment if someone else had called and someone else had been able to take some of those things off your plate? Yeah, I believe it's also helpful. Like, there's a knowledge to be shared, because not everyone's ever going to have a death doula. So I like to tell people what's happening, and like, this is why you should think about it, but I'm going to do it for you if you want to hire me.

Dustin Grinnell (00:14:47 --> 00:14:47)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:14:47 --> 00:15:22)
That's great. So you set up a distinction early in the conversation of a death doula can support the individual dying and the family supporting the individual dying. And those are kind of two things, but kind of similar at the same time. I kind of wanted to start with the individual first. So say someone's dying, say I'm dying, I just got a terminal cancer diagnosis and I reached out to you for support. I'm scared. I'm sad. I'm angry. Where do you start with me?

Michaela Morrell (00:15:22 --> 00:15:23)
What do we do?

Dustin Grinnell (00:15:23 --> 00:15:23)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:15:23 --> 00:15:25)
Say I have 6 months or whatever.

Michaela Morrell (00:15:25 --> 00:15:29)
Yeah, I think we would do an intake, right?

Dustin Grinnell (00:15:29 --> 00:15:30)
Yeah. Get the details.

Michaela Morrell (00:15:30 --> 00:15:32)
Yeah. There are some checklists.

Dustin Grinnell (00:15:32 --> 00:15:33)
Do you have a will?

Michaela Morrell (00:15:33 --> 00:15:49)
And do you have a will? But then I think I don't want to say fun stuff, because it's not fun, right? Nobody wants to acknowledge like, okay, the clock is ticking and now I have a timer. Like, that's a very uncomfortable place to be.

Dustin Grinnell (00:15:49 --> 00:15:54)
The finiteness has become concrete. Completely. It's no longer abstract. Of course I'm going to die.

Michaela Morrell (00:15:54 --> 00:17:56)
So we would ask, we would talk, and I would say, great, you've been given 6. Let's pretend it's 4, because no one's specific. No one knows. There's not a clock, really. Yeah.

Excuse me, there's not a crystal ball is what I should say. Right. And then I think it's the, you know, there's songs and there's movies about bucket lists. What's on it? What do you want to do?

What can you do? And I think depending on what your diagnosis is, those 4 months can look very different. You know, it could be 4 months and let's have a conversation of, What does comfortable mean to you? What does celebration look like to you? Do you have a desire to leave something behind?

You know, some people record messages to friends. Let's start. Why wait? Do you want to write some letters? You don't even have to send them.

We could burn them. You could burn them. I don't have to be a part of any of these things. Like, I could help it execute, but I think I'm there to sort of sit with you hold your hand, give you a hug if necessary, but say, this is it. You have this amount of time.

Who do you want in the room? Do you want Led Zeppelin playing? Do you want it quiet? Do you want to be inside? Do you want to be buried in the ground?

What do you want? And I wouldn't dive in that way necessarily. Yeah, it's like, sweet, let's talk about your casket. But there's a whole progression. I would follow your lead a little bit.

Dustin Grinnell (00:17:56 --> 00:18:14)
Is there a story of an individual who shared something with you? Did they want to hit golf balls? Did they write a voice memo of forgiveness to their parent? This is anonymized, you know, you don't have to share their name, but anybody who's stuck with you, anybody's story?

Michaela Morrell (00:18:14 --> 00:19:29)
I mean, she had closer to 4 or 5 months to go. And she was in her bed, you know, but she was wheeled in and there was flowers and it was like good food. And she instructed everyone to like bring a story. And it was this beautiful sort of like fancy lady slumber party. Like, I can't describe it better than that.

And that's what she wanted. And then she did not speak to any of them again. And that was like— it was like her final act, and she controlled it. Like, she was very much in control. And I think the concept of control is a really, really interesting topic when you know you are very soon not going to have any.

But I think it is one of the pieces. It doesn't apply to everyone, but if you have it, use it. You want to rent out Six Flags and bring everyone on roller coasters for a day and you can afford it, do it. You want to have a living wake? People do that now where they basically throw a wake, but they— you get to go.

Dustin Grinnell (00:19:29 --> 00:19:30)
Great.

Michaela Morrell (00:19:30 --> 00:19:39)
I think what people forget is that I don't want to say that if you get a 6-month diagnosis, it's a gift. It's not. It sucks.

Dustin Grinnell (00:19:39 --> 00:19:39)
Sucks.

Michaela Morrell (00:19:39 --> 00:19:57)
But there are still opportunities to exercise the control that you have. And I think sometimes people don't know that they can do that. So if your body lets you, and if your mind lets you, and if your bank account lets you, have some fun.

Dustin Grinnell (00:19:57 --> 00:20:00)
Was this woman afraid when you talked to her?

Michaela Morrell (00:20:00 --> 00:20:24)
In the beginning, yeah. I mean, she was pissed as hell, but I think there's a— I mean, I have not had these experiences, but I think there's a clarity that can come when you're like, this is it. It's a very weird thing, I think, when you consider time and death, because you and I could get hit by a bus in the next 2 hours. I mean, not physically sitting here, but we could walk out and get hit by a bus.

Dustin Grinnell (00:20:24 --> 00:20:26)
The MBT buses are pretty big.

Michaela Morrell (00:20:26 --> 00:20:55)
Really? I mean, you never know. But most of us can't walk around with that. It's too much. Like, it's It's too big of a thing to be like, ah, I have to live my life like I'm gonna get hit by a bus. No thank you. But there's a lot of people walking around that might have potentially terminal diagnoses or like conditions that they know shorten their lives. There's a balance you can find, but if someone gives you a 6-month diagnosis, screw the balance. Like that's it. Dye your hair purple. Just eat Cheetos. Who cares?

Dustin Grinnell (00:20:55 --> 00:20:56)
It doesn't matter.

Michaela Morrell (00:20:56 --> 00:21:33)
It doesn't. I think there can be a freeing sensation of I get to control this. And I think for some people it is the option to live without pain. You know, we talk a lot about why would you die? Like, why would you choose this? Some people make the decision to stop seeking care because it is not a life that they want to live. So in that shortened amount of time, they get to determine it differently. And I think that's a gift they give themselves. And sometimes I think it's why it's really helpful to have a death doula too, because those are very difficult conversations to have with people who don't see your choice that way, if that makes sense.

Dustin Grinnell (00:21:33 --> 00:22:43)
I think that's an interesting word because it does seem like we are so terrified of deaths, so scared of non-existence, I guess, that we just push it down to the bottom of our consciousness. And I was thinking kind of about humans versus other organisms, you know, chimpanzees and dolphins and elephants. I think maybe those higher-order animals may have a concept that their existence is finite, but other than that, I feel like everything else is not aware of it. And so in some ways, it kind of feels like a gift to not dwell on it. And in another way too, it's a curse to know, a curse to remember in a way.

I guess my question is like, what does the knowledge of mortality do to the thing that's conscious of death? How does it animate us? How does it mess with us? How does it inspire us? What does it do to us?

Michaela Morrell (00:22:43 --> 00:22:49)
I don't know. I cannot speak to the infinite knowledge of raccoons, but—

Dustin Grinnell (00:22:49 --> 00:22:54)
Yeah, we shouldn't be, you know, arrogant about consciousness yet.

Michaela Morrell (00:22:54 --> 00:25:14)
But I think it's really interesting. In death doula training, they sort of break down kinds of deaths. There's sudden. You don't know what's coming. It's the bus scenario.

Yeah. There's suicide. There's sort of prolonged suffering with death, and then there's like peaceful inner sleep, which, P.S., is one of the rarer forms. Oh, interesting. And I, I mention that because I don't think people think in those terms when they think of the death.

They just think, well, it's the end, but it's a little bit more complicated than that. And I think you can almost tell how people think about death by how they live their life. Because I think when you become familiar with death, it is hard to not have it change you in your life. So I don't mean like, like my death, but the deaths that have happened around me softened my edges. How so?

Because I think I recognized that there was a whole lot more to lose So little things became insignificant. Or, you know, one of the things that I think is a beauty of this work is it connects all of us. Not everyone will talk about it, and it's not— everyone handles it a little bit differently, but everyone could— you could walk down the street and maybe someone else's mom died and they had to make a call like you did. And you might not know that, but that's the humanity in all of us. But back to your question, I think it is really, really hard to be in anticipatory grief for a long time.

You know, like if you have someone who has a terminal illness, but it's like 3 or 4 years, that is very difficult. And I think those people who are the caretakers, that's a really weird relationship with death. So like, as an example, my brother-in-law died 13 years ago. He was 26, from a heart condition. Killed his father.

It has impacted my family directly. But there is this knowledge that because of this heart disease, half of my husband's family, including him, could just drop dead. I don't think he will. He's doing lots of things to take care of himself, but I've known that almost since I met him. And that's a weird thing to walk around with, right?

Dustin Grinnell (00:25:14 --> 00:25:26)
Yeah. Yeah. There are people with Huntington's disease or— Exactly. Uh, yeah. Yeah. That's not immediately terminal, but there is a clock that's way more concrete than most people.

Michaela Morrell (00:25:27 --> 00:26:31)
Exactly. And so I think it gives you a weird sense of time. But I've watched some people who have situations like, like that, you know, maybe a genetic disorder that is literally a ticking time bomb. And some of them handle it by not treating their bodies well and treating, you know, making decisions like, I'm going to focus on the fact that this could happen to me. And then I see other people who maybe take it to the extreme of like, I'm going to climb Mount Everest and I'm going to like do all the extreme things, like live my bucket list every day. I think somewhere in the middle is probably a healthier, more balanced place to be. But I think watching how people react tells you how they think about death. Like, I'm either going to overcome it, it's a challenge, or this is this thing that is just— it's like the Grim Reaper is on my shoulder all the time. But I don't know. That there's better or worse. I just think it— when you can acknowledge that you might be having a weird, like, reaction to time, it makes it a little bit easier on everyone.

Dustin Grinnell (00:26:31 --> 00:26:45)
Yeah. This is like a, like a big philosophical question that just floated into my head, and feel free to just pass if you— if it's just too big. And I don't know, but would it be better not to know? Like, what, what would humanity be like if we just didn't know?

Michaela Morrell (00:26:45 --> 00:26:53)
You mean like if we didn't know we would die ever? You know, I think that's really interesting. I think we'd have to not age, right?

Dustin Grinnell (00:26:53 --> 00:27:05)
And we also see that trees age and other creatures age and they disintegrate and get sick and die, and everything has a cycle of birth and death. And we'd be like, well, that's going to be us too.

Michaela Morrell (00:27:05 --> 00:27:46)
Well, and from the death, other things happen. And I don't— you know, that's a, that's a whole different conversation. But I think there's What I think is going to be really interesting, I get really hung up, and I think it's partly because we live in the Boston area, but we can speak about our health in an entirely different way than our grandparents could, right? My grandmother's brother died of dropsy and enlarged heart. What does that mean? And now we have significantly better words and understandings for what is happening to us. And I think of my kids or like my future grandchildren, what are they going to know? And I don't think it would ever benefit us if someone was like, "Hey, Dustin, here's your clock. You got 40 years left.

Dustin Grinnell (00:27:46 --> 00:27:53)
Time's ticking." And plenty of movies and literature have tried that, you know? And it always seems to really make people crazy.

Michaela Morrell (00:27:53 --> 00:28:08)
Well, and so I don't think it's the knowing, but wouldn't it be an interesting place to live if we recognized that it's a perfectly reasonable thing to die? And How do we use that to our advantage?

Dustin Grinnell (00:28:08 --> 00:29:12)
Right. So I wanted to kind of share that this anecdote that we kind of talked about a little bit before of the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky. And it's an interesting story of a brush with death made him want to live more fully and woke him up. He got clarity. And it was— it's kind of a famous story of where he He was arrested because he was in this like progressive liberal activist circle, and he was in, uh, in jail, and he was called for to be, uh, killed by firing squad, basically him and his bunch of people. And he was standing there, he was going to get shot, and, uh, someone came in, a messenger came in and said, we're calling this whole thing off, and sort of pardoned him. And he was told in that moment that it was basically just a, like, a mock execution in order to just terrorize you know, a real psychological terror of the inmates. And then he was like thrown in a labor camp for 4 years in Siberia. And yeah, he came out kind of changed, kind of different.

Michaela Morrell (00:29:12 --> 00:29:13)
You would hope. I mean, oh my God.

Dustin Grinnell (00:29:13 --> 00:29:28)
And so Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamazov, you know, just a different guy. Like, came, you know, we talk about like reminders of our mortality, right? We see it every day in the news. We— some, you know, Robert Redford just died.

Dustin Grinnell (00:29:28 --> 00:29:28)
We—

Dustin Grinnell (00:29:28 --> 00:29:53)
celebrities, these are like a like this metronome, this like, "Oh, yeah, right. That person that I grew up with, the person who's a public figure." So we get these reminders. But being seconds from being shot, that's a big one. But it changed him. It made him live more fully. And I think the central idea for this conversation is that paradox. Why is it that we come close to death, we want to live more fully?

Michaela Morrell (00:29:53 --> 00:31:21)
That's nature-nurture stuff in there, right? Like, that's a survival— we are here, we want to stay alive. Where that gets manipulated, I think, is when we no longer create spaces or opportunities to acknowledge that's really great in some settings, but eventually we also need another conversation. Right? My neighbor who lives next door to me was 102, and he just died.

And there is no death hierarchy. All deaths are very sad to the people around them. But my neighbor was absolutely not accepting that her father was about to die. And I talked with her a couple times, and because she didn't know what a death doula was, and I'm like, listen, I'm just your neighbor and your friend, like, let's just chat. But also It is okay to say we can have a conversation about making sure his last moments are good and that he will be going soon.

Dustin Grinnell (00:31:22 --> 00:31:22)
Genetics.

Michaela Morrell (00:31:22 --> 00:32:01)
It changes how you look at things. And I think for me, it's been, I didn't have space before for what does letting go look like? Now I do. And for me, it's how do I thread that through? How do I create that balance between I wanna do a whole bunch of stuff.

When do I do it? Oh, I need to do it sooner than I thought. Mm-hmm. Maybe. So it just, it's that reordering of priorities that I think without the, we will eventually have to let go conversation.

Dustin Grinnell (00:32:01 --> 00:32:24)
Yeah. So I think your neighbor was in, you could say, denial. Oh, very much so. So to what degree did that make for not a good experience of her father? Because I'm assuming he passed. He did. So when did— how long did she stay in that state of mind? And to what degree did that make the experience a negative one, or did she let go? And when she did, how did she?

Michaela Morrell (00:32:24 --> 00:34:07)
And yeah, so I don't know the second answer to that, but I would say— so it can be kind of tricky, right? When I was talking about control before, there's a lot of different steps when you have diagnoses or when your body simply begins to fail that you can make decisions about. I think a lot of people are familiar with the DNR, or do not resuscitate. Actually doesn't apply very often. That's only like if your heart stops.

And just so people know, at least in Massachusetts, if an EMT is called to the house or 911 is called, they will restart your heart whether or not you have a DNR for the most part, unless someone stands in front of them and says, let them be. There's also something called a POLST, which is Physician Order of Life-Sustaining Treatment is what it stands for. And there's different letters in different states, but that's like, you have the right to stop eating and drinking if you don't want to do it anymore. You have the right to say, I want pain meds or I do not. And I think there's 2 or 3 other things and I can't remember them, but life sustaining is a lot of different things.

There are some states where you can choose to take medicine that will end your life that is not considered suicide, how we would maybe see it on the news or in other situations. All of these things. Can be applied. A POLST you can do whenever you want to. The medically assisted suicide stuff, like, it is a whole process for very good reasons.

But I bring this up because I think my neighbor's dad for a long time didn't really wanna be here. You hear it from older people all the time. Their friends are gone, their spouse is gone. Maybe they don't wanna be here. They don't, I'm not advocating that people choose In the instant, absolutely not.

Dustin Grinnell (00:34:07 --> 00:34:10)
They're like, we did the thing, you know, it was a great 102 years, you know.

Michaela Morrell (00:34:10 --> 00:34:16)
But when you are surrounded by family members who are like, you have to keep fighting, why are you doing this? It's like, maybe you don't.

Dustin Grinnell (00:34:16 --> 00:34:19)
And even doctors who won't necessarily accept it.

Michaela Morrell (00:34:19 --> 00:34:37)
There are cancers that are so painful, so painful. And if you don't want to live with that pain, that is a conversation that can be had in a couple of different ways. I think it is a lot harder when you have people around you who are like, why are you choosing to leave me? Yeah. And that's not the question.

Dustin Grinnell (00:34:37 --> 00:34:40)
That's like, now I have to advocate for my own wishes.

Michaela Morrell (00:34:40 --> 00:35:32)
And exactly. And, and so I think it's that space of having to make the decision on your own. Do I keep doing this and why? Is incredibly personal and— but affects a lot of people potentially. And then I think it's the person watching.

And so often, I mean, families are tricky no matter what, but if someone is in pain or people are dying or people have gotten terrifying diagnoses, a lot of disruption can happen, a lot of anxiety. It comes out as anger sometimes. Most of that is fear and love that is manifesting as other places. And those are really tricky emotions to navigate. It's another reason having whomever your faith person is, a death doula, someone to kind of come in and be the mediator.

Dustin Grinnell (00:35:32 --> 00:35:41)
Yeah. And dispassionate, sober, knowledgeable. Exactly. And so you can grieve and you can do these really hard emotional things.

Michaela Morrell (00:35:41 --> 00:35:49)
Well, and to just say, like, you are feeling abandoned, but this person is choosing to be comfortable, right?

Dustin Grinnell (00:35:49 --> 00:36:02)
Almost being their voice in a way, if they can't— exactly, if they physically actually can't articulate what they're feeling or what they want, or if they're just having trouble because it's incomprehensible to them.

Michaela Morrell (00:36:02 --> 00:36:46)
Well, and, and what you just said, I think one of the first questions you asked me was like, okay, what if you were dying in 6 months? The thing is, people can put some of these directives together now, and often like well before— like, I hope you're fit and chipper for a long time, but like You can think about these things and you can change them. I think it's a lot easier to not start from scratch when the world has crashed and it's upside down and you don't know what's going on, whether for you or the person, like another person. So you can start by saying, you know what, if I can't swallow on my own or do these things, like pull the plug, or I don't want Aunt Sally in the room when I go. She's crazy and I hate her apple pie, so don't let her be there. I mean, you can be as specific as you want.

Dustin Grinnell (00:36:46 --> 00:38:16)
Um, okay, another philosophical question. Okay, so we talk about mortality, we can also talk about immortality. Uh, this is not a real thing, it's not scientifically possible yet, even though like tech billionaires are gonna try as hard as they possibly can. But I, I think the, the thing to explore in a conversation about death and mortality is how immortality is a curse. And it is in like every piece of literature or film that I can think of.

And so one of them is like Interview with the Vampire, the movie Death Becomes Her, which is an awesome movie. It is. But it's basically like in Interview with the Vampire, you have these— you have Tom Cruise's character who's a vampire and he bites Brad Pitt's character who is a human, and then all of a sudden Brad Pitt is immortal. And he's like, this is the worst. What have you done?

What have you done to me? You know, because it's like, okay, so immortality, how it might be cool for like 50 years, 100 years. How many master's degrees can you get? Okay, you can see the whole world. That's great.

You can see eras and movements and you can be around for centuries, but like, you get bored. Well, what are we going to do? So like, he's really grappling with that in that movie. And I think it's interesting because if you could give me immortality, I'd probably say no. That means I'm condemning myself to an inevitable death.

Michaela Morrell (00:38:16 --> 00:39:04)
So I love this premise, but I want to counter with— yeah, I think there has been maybe equally, if not super close, if not slightly more, moments in history, motivations, cinema about people wanting immortality. Think of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and they go after the Grail, and that's a really— you know, there's a crazy lady being the Nazis, but then there's the knight who's like, "Man, I am ready to go." The Fountain of Youth. Think of how many stories, like, across all cultures, I feel like there are stories and fables about how would you get it? What does it look like? Where is this eternal spring? Hopefully, in a lot of those stories, it's immediately coupled with, "Why would you want to drink that, or take that, or do that?" 'Cause, you know, there's all the vampire stories.

Dustin Grinnell (00:39:04 --> 00:39:04)
[Speaker:KRISTIN] Game it out.

Michaela Morrell (00:39:04 --> 00:39:47)
But I mean, I agree with you. I think when you think about time, there's never enough. And I think when you're faced with time, it's like, what? But I had so much to do. Or like, no, I have to take care of these people.

Or I can't possibly be my time. No, it's not time yet. So it's maybe not even immortality. It's just I'm fit and I'm delightful and I'm going to live forever. Even if forever, forever definitely means 120 years.

But it doesn't. It meant 50 or 60. I think it's more of that, like, well, I don't know. I've never had an interest in immortality. Do I wish I could have been 24 for longer?

Dustin Grinnell (00:39:48 --> 00:40:59)
And this idea of, you know, a kind of surgeon who puts together body parts and animates it with electricity to create life from death. But the filmmaker, he was more interested in the creature, which is called in Mary Shelley's original version. He's interested in the creature. And the concept of being the other. And in his new movie, he says the creature is alone and tormented and actually wants to die.

Life is suffering for the creature. You gave me life. I didn't want it. I didn't ask for it, but I have it now and I don't want it. There's too much pain.

Michaela Morrell (00:40:59 --> 00:41:26)
Well, I mean, I think it's really interesting to think about what death means to different people. Yeah. If your body has— and I'm going to say this, and I don't mean this to be judgmental— but if your body has failed you, if your body is not doing what you want it to do and it is causing you pain, death is a release. I think of some of the movies you've talked about where people have been granted immortality and all they want is to not think about it. Have you ever watched the show The Good Place?

Dustin Grinnell (00:41:26 --> 00:41:27)
I haven't, no.

Michaela Morrell (00:41:27 --> 00:41:28)
Okay. It's sort of—

Dustin Grinnell (00:41:28 --> 00:41:30)
It's very philosophical.

Michaela Morrell (00:41:30 --> 00:42:23)
It's very philosophical. And they deal with this in the last season about just like they get, you know, 700 master's degrees and they meet all the people and they're like, "Whoa, I'm tired. Let me go." I think of the storyline you're talking, like the Frankenstein and that pain. I think the relationship between death and grief is so intertwined. And there are moments right after death, not your own, but watching someone else's, where it can feel like there's so much pain that there's nothing else you want to do except, like, curl up and die. And I always thought that's kind of what they were talking about more. It's like, "I knew this peace, and you took it from me. And now there's nowhere else to go." What peace? Well, I guess with Frankenstein, he didn't like— he was dead, or like the parts of him were dead, and then he came back to life and he was like, "Ah, but I don't want this." And he also came back as literally a creature.

Dustin Grinnell (00:42:23 --> 00:42:27)
Totally. So like, "What have you done to me?" Exactly. "I'm not going to fit in. I can't go to a coffee shop." This is awful.

Michaela Morrell (00:42:27 --> 00:43:04)
Like, this is the worst. Yeah. But I think after monumental things that can happen to you where you feel like you don't fit in, like, I don't know if you ever had these experiences after your mother's loss, but there's this like, I wanted everyone to know what had happened to me, but I didn't want to talk about it. Like, I didn't want to have to say it. I just wanted people to know so they would give me space and be kind, but allow me to operate in the world. Because how dare the world not have stopped when my world stopped? Yeah. And I think there's that space for care and understanding that we don't really give people who are grieving. We don't know how. And some cultures are better at it than others. But I know that's what resonated with me.

Dustin Grinnell (00:43:04 --> 00:43:05)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:43:05 --> 00:43:20)
I sort of started wrapping my brain around this Shakespearean, all the world's a play. The play is always going on, and we're born into it, and we get on and do our little part, and then we step off, and all the world's a play. Like, that, that's kind of the only thing that makes sense to me at this point.

Michaela Morrell (00:43:20 --> 00:43:23)
That— nope, I like that one.

Dustin Grinnell (00:43:23 --> 00:43:54)
What is the other one? Sound and Fury told by an idiot. I don't know, is this famous poem Tomorrow Tomorrow or something? It's like Life is but sound and fury told by an idiot, signifying nothing, which is like very nihilistic. And yeah, but does it have meaning? Does it— does life have any intrinsic meaning? Or is it without religion, just let's just be honest, like, does it— does it have anything? Like, and should we spend our time pursuing it and get off the stage?

Michaela Morrell (00:43:54 --> 00:44:00)
And I think so, but I think, aren't we lucky to get to think about that and decide?

Dustin Grinnell (00:44:00 --> 00:44:06)
Yeah, but it's also quite a burden, you know? Am I doing enough? Am I doing the right thing? Am I loving right, working right?

Michaela Morrell (00:44:06 --> 00:44:11)
You know, I think there's this great quote that I'm going to butcher, I suspect.

Dustin Grinnell (00:44:11 --> 00:44:13)
I just butchered Shakespeare.

Michaela Morrell (00:44:13 --> 00:44:47)
Okay, so I'm in good company. But it's something along the lines of, we're not put here to fix all the problems, but we should do our part. Find your part, do it. If you can learn how to do it slightly better, do that too. And then that's it. We're not responsible for healing all the things and doing all the things because it's just not possible. We don't have to carry that burden, but we also can't relinquish the burden to do nothing. I don't think— I'm not particularly religious, but that's what I have taken from it.

Dustin Grinnell (00:44:47 --> 00:44:57)
Isn't that kind of what makes dying tolerable in the sense that you can look back and you can say, I kind of did my thing, you know, I, I did what I could do, and I feel good about that.

Michaela Morrell (00:44:57 --> 00:45:46)
Well, I certainly think that that's— you come to me, you've got 6 months to live. I think looking back, if there's holes that you want to fill in, you know, that's one thing, but also celebrating the things that you did do, that's a gift you can give yourself by doing something now. And again, it doesn't mean for most of us that you can't do your job even if you don't like it and can't skip out on meetings to go frolic in the flower beds. Like, we probably can't do that every day. But can it help us to think about, well, this is it. I have 3 to 6 months. What did I do? We could work that in in a different way a little bit more. And I think— I hope whenever my time comes, I don't have regrets. And I think that's one of the ways to think about it now.

Dustin Grinnell (00:45:46 --> 00:47:01)
Yeah, so the first one is, I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself not the life others expected of me. Apparently that's the most common one. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. And apparently this was especially true. They heard a lot from men who missed their children's youth and in their partner's companionship, apparently in the study.

The third is I wish I had the courage to express my feelings. A lot of people apparently suppressed feelings to keep the peace with others. The fourth is I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. Letting golden friendships slip away. And the fifth is, I wish I had let myself be happier, in that there's some element of choice in one's happiness, I think.

Michaela Morrell (00:47:01 --> 00:47:31)
That, yeah, reorganized some of those things for them is what it sounds like. Yeah. You read that list to me and I hear time. How did they spend their time? Okay.

Time is our greatest asset. Yeah, it's our most precious commodity. So what are we exchanging it for on that list? Not surprised by any of those, but who do you spend your time with? How do you appreciate your own time?

Dustin Grinnell (00:47:33 --> 00:47:52)
Right. Why are we missing these things? We know them. It's so obvious. Call my dad because we haven't talked in 6 months or whatever. Stop working so goddamn hard because you have to mix in some enjoyment. You know, it can't be all grinding. You know, we all know this, but we just don't do it always.

Michaela Morrell (00:47:52 --> 00:49:06)
But what I think is funny is— well, maybe not funny, haha, but like I'm a slow learner sometimes, and I'm stubborn. So I think it took a couple extra deaths to kind of make me be like, actually, this choice I'm making that I've made thousands of times in my life actually has the outcome that leads to me saying something like that. I don't know if you ever do this, but sometimes in my head I'm like, man, I wish this was a movie and there was the background music that let me know this was a really big decision, because I don't know that it is. Something as simple as, I'm actually gonna scroll on my phone instead of calling my dad or calling my friend, like actually picking up the phone and calling, not texting. That's a choice. Or we think we want things, but actually maybe instead of a boat, we actually should have been playing catch with our kids and not putting in those extra hours. But at the time it's like, oh no, but I really wanna get to this job and I wanna do this thing. And it feels really good in the moment. And that's not a bad decision. But I think until you look at death, see it in your face, or have someone like even being around it a little bit more or talking about it more, you don't recognize that the choice you're making leads you to say something like that.

Dustin Grinnell (00:49:06 --> 00:49:08)
Yeah. You have to learn.

Michaela Morrell (00:49:08 --> 00:49:37)
I think you do. I think this is one of those where experience is the cruelest but most effective teacher. And we all will learn at some point. Yeah, timing is important, right? Timing can matter. I do think the more you make it okay to talk about it, the more maybe you don't have to be like completely sideswiped by death, and you can just start to understand like, hey, if you're not happy, let's talk about that because you have 3,500 Mondays, right?

Dustin Grinnell (00:49:37 --> 00:49:54)
Part of the reason to talk about these, to have the death cafes, to do your work, is to normalize it and humanize it and make it more common and make easier. Because what I wrote down while you were talking, like, I was thinking to myself, why are these things hard for me? Well, because it's too hard.

Michaela Morrell (00:49:54 --> 00:49:55)
It's really hard.

Dustin Grinnell (00:49:55 --> 00:50:37)
When my mom spent a night in ICU, they thought she was gonna die. And so when she woke up in the morning, she was like miraculously back to herself. And I remember, you know, stage 4 cancer, we did everything we could, but I felt like it didn't matter what we did. You know, I got the best people from Dana-Farber. It's like, it just, it's too far advanced. And I knew right there, I had a moment, my brother and my sister walked out, they had to go back. And I was alone with her for the first time because everyone, everyone else has always been. And I knew it right there. I had a moment that I could say, yeah, I know you fucked up when I was, you know, between the ages of 2 and 4.

Dustin Grinnell (00:50:37 --> 00:50:37)
Everybody's—

Dustin Grinnell (00:50:37 --> 00:50:51)
you were 23. Come on, give me a break. I forgive you. Like, and I was hard on you for like 5 to 7 years. And I knew I could have done it. I even had the self-awareness in the moment and I still didn't do it because it was just too hard.

Michaela Morrell (00:50:51 --> 00:50:53)
That's really hard to do.

Dustin Grinnell (00:50:53 --> 00:51:11)
What am I going to do, have this big, huge conversation with her about forgiveness and stuff like that? Well, yes, I mean, yeah, yeah. But it's just not her style. It's kind of not my style, but like For some reason, it would have been useful, I think, for me, for the living.

Michaela Morrell (00:51:11 --> 00:51:31)
It probably would have. Well, and I think in those moments, the roles will never be completely reversed, right? Your mom's not coming back, I don't think. But are there other people— has it made you look at how you maybe want to forgive people who are alive or have a hard conversation with someone now? Has it changed how you approach that?

Dustin Grinnell (00:51:31 --> 00:51:36)
Yeah, but I'm still apt to put it off. Yeah.

Michaela Morrell (00:51:38 --> 00:51:40)
Yeah. Well, you don't have to.

Dustin Grinnell (00:51:40 --> 00:51:41)
Another touchpoint.

Michaela Morrell (00:51:41 --> 00:52:46)
We're not going to do it perfect. There's no perfect death. I don't think there's a perfect life. Actually, I take that back. If I were to just go in my sleep and not have to think about things, it'd be pretty great.

I don't think that will happen. It doesn't happen to that many people. Perfect life. I believe in learning from things. I think you could do 17 podcasts on forgiveness and you would barely scratch the surface.

But I think knowing those moments and trying to create more moments before people are sick, even if it's just a, like, a routine of like, you know what, on Saturdays I'm gonna call a different person that I haven't talked to in months. That's kind of— take whatever learnings you want, but that, that to me is the like, how do you slow down? How do you acknowledge what's happening? I believe after my brother-in-law died, which rocked everything, right? He was 26, I was 29.

Dustin Grinnell (00:52:46 --> 00:52:47)
This was the wrong order.

Michaela Morrell (00:52:48 --> 00:53:06)
Young, completely tragic. So tragic. Yeah. But I was blunt before, and I'm much more blunt now to the extent that I'm like, you are important and mean something to me, and I need you to know that. And I'll just say that to people who are— or like, we're done now.

Dustin Grinnell (00:53:06 --> 00:53:07)
Oh, okay. So you—

Michaela Morrell (00:53:07 --> 00:53:11)
no, no, no, I mean like, like I just say that, like I'm like, okay, thank you, next.

Dustin Grinnell (00:53:11 --> 00:53:18)
Yeah. And so, but that just incomprehensible death really caused you to get more direct?

Michaela Morrell (00:53:18 --> 00:53:24)
Direct and Truthfully. We didn't get to say goodbye. Right.

Dustin Grinnell (00:53:24 --> 00:53:24)
So—

Dustin Grinnell (00:53:24 --> 00:53:25)
It was sudden.

Michaela Morrell (00:53:25 --> 00:54:11)
It was so sudden. He was dancing at his law prom. He had just finished law school, and he was dancing, and his heart stopped. It was awful. It was absolutely awful. But he died, I think, quite happy. It was a very pretty girl he was dancing with, and he had a tuxedo on, which really fits. But I think— with that knowledge of like, oh, I don't know that there was sort of a weighty thing that went unsaid, but there was lots of things that I never got to say, and I make it a point to say them now. And I think that— I know it's off-putting for some people. I don't think I'm too awkward about it, but I'm also just like, but I'd rather you know, you know? And I think that's true for nice things and for things where I'm like, okay, bye, right?

Dustin Grinnell (00:54:11 --> 00:54:25)
You know what to sort of leave. Leave at the door or stop. Is this morbid? Is this conversation— is talking about death and dying— and why do people think this is morbid or strange? Why is that?

Michaela Morrell (00:54:25 --> 00:54:50)
I think because they are— I think most people are scared. Yeah, they're scared to death. Yeah. And, um, listen, nobody knows. Nobody knows what happens afterwards. So that's what they're really scared of. But I also think it puts an additional pressure on living. Yeah, and true, that's a lot. I mean, we've— you've highlighted a whole bunch of things that are just like, well, this is a lot to do. Like, living is not for the faint of heart, right?

Dustin Grinnell (00:54:50 --> 00:55:07)
Be true to yourself. Don't work so hard even though you kind of have to to survive, right? Have the courage to express your feelings, which is super hard. Stand up for yourself. Like, come on, let myself be happier. So I think we get why these are big regrets, because happiness is a burden.

Michaela Morrell (00:55:07 --> 00:55:29)
Like, just be content, man. Like, right, we, we Listen, we could get into a whole big thing about FOMO and seeing what other people have and all the things that we're constantly bombarded with. What is a good life? What is a good death? What does good mean? Who gives a shit? But carving out that space to stop and think, who has that? Who does that?

Dustin Grinnell (00:55:29 --> 00:55:32)
That's true. Nobody. It's not morbid sometimes, it's just we don't have time for it.

Michaela Morrell (00:55:32 --> 00:55:48)
It's hard enough living. But then I think people are like, oh, but this is kind of taboo. It's pretty scary. And I mean, when you really think about it, the people who talk about death, in Western American society are scary doctors.

Dustin Grinnell (00:55:48 --> 00:55:49)
Hmm. Oh, I see.

Michaela Morrell (00:55:50 --> 00:55:52)
Yeah. Goth people like Marilyn Manson.

Dustin Grinnell (00:55:52 --> 00:55:56)
Yeah, yeah. Like, just like oddly fascinated with death.

Michaela Morrell (00:55:56 --> 00:56:28)
Yeah, it's like the macabre, like super macabre, right? And then, and then there's like little sprinklings of like a me and maybe like a cool undertaker. Yeah, sort of. But even that is a creepy like word to say, and it's like, oh my God, but you all do this. Like, we just We speak in hushed tones. No, there's room. There's a lot more room for conversation. I think— oh, and then there's the people who are like, "I'm gonna live forever and I'm fit and I'm never gonna die, so I will not write my will and I will not do these things because I am incredible and invincible." Right.

Dustin Grinnell (00:56:28 --> 00:56:33)
And that's just some sort of unreality. That's hogwash. Like, complete denial of inevitability.

Michaela Morrell (00:56:33 --> 00:56:51)
Yeah. So somewhere there's so much more room. So I don't think we're being morbid. I do not make a big distinction. There are distinctions to be made and I'm capable of it, but it's like, I think you can't talk about death without talking about life. Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:56:51 --> 00:57:18)
And so it's those balanced conversations that we're really missing in our public conversation in society. You use the word taboo. That's an interesting word. I think it's becoming less taboo. We're doing the work here and go us like, right. And your death cafes, you know, it's just kind of normalizing the conversation. What's missing from our public discourse about death and dying still?

Michaela Morrell (00:57:18 --> 00:57:24)
Oh gosh, I mean, I have some very practical answers to that, and I have some a little bit more like, yay.

Dustin Grinnell (00:57:24 --> 00:57:26)
Yeah, end-of-life planning.

Michaela Morrell (00:57:26 --> 00:58:04)
Yeah, sorry. I think, so I think from a practicality standpoint, you have an estate plan. Well, not everyone does, but like there's, there's ways to manage your life. You have a financial planner, you have an estate planner, like you have a doctor, you have a primary care physician. Like we should be more comfortable. And I'm not just advocating 'cause this is a job I hope to like make my full-time job someday, but like death planning should be just part, like you go to an estate planner, go to a death planner or end of life planning, whatever you wanna call it. That should just be part of it. We do not actively recognize, I mean, we don't even do it if you have a baby, but like bereavement leave, we expect—

Dustin Grinnell (00:58:04 --> 00:58:06)
I didn't even know it was a thing, to be honest.

Michaela Morrell (00:58:06 --> 00:58:06)
It is.

Dustin Grinnell (00:58:06 --> 00:58:07)
And I took advantage, yeah.

Michaela Morrell (00:58:07 --> 00:58:09)
Yeah, but it's like 3 days.

Dustin Grinnell (00:58:10 --> 00:58:12)
Right, it was 5 at my place, but yeah.

Michaela Morrell (00:58:12 --> 01:00:13)
And you can qualify— actually, I'm going to take that back. Depending on where you work, like, you can potentially use FMLA, the Family Medical Leave Act, to care for someone who's dying. But once they've actually died, I think you can still use some of that to like handle affairs, but you don't get to grieve as part of FMLA. So the idea that I think that's a policy and it's backroom HR, whatever, but it's like, you are expected to bounce back. You are expected to get over it.

And why haven't you gotten over it yet? And you're like, I am an entirely different person wrapped in the same skin you saw. So this is going to take some time. It's going to take some time immediately afterwards and it's going to take some time to adjust. And we do not make space for that at all.

That's really for grief and But grief and death are so often connected that I think even if it's not like— I know so many people who have beautiful stories of like, I watched this person go, it was like a lightning, like they're energized by it. And that is a beautiful thing. That is a gift that I don't even know if the dying person's giving it to them. I don't know who's giving it to them, but that's like a beautiful thing. But you still need to sit with that too.

Elation is a lot to handle. And I think it still changes your worldview as well. So it's like, I just feel like from a policy standpoint, the world could work with people differently as well. But then I think it kind of came up at our death cafe. There's some people who are like, "Why are you having a party?

This person's dead." It's like, well, they wanted a party. Like, celebrations of life are fine. Like, there's a lot of different ways I think we could get out of the mold of wake, funeral, Lunch. Those are the experiences I know. I know every culture is a little bit different, but there's a lot of set rituals, and I think rituals are really important for people, and it's really helpful to have something to know to do.

Dustin Grinnell (01:00:14 --> 01:00:21)
Yeah, it's almost— weddings have become exactly more innovative it's different things that happen. So why not? Why not?

Michaela Morrell (01:00:21 --> 01:00:33)
If we can have a gender reveal party, let's have a death reveal party. I mean, I'm not actually advocating for that. That both would annoy me, I think. But like, hey, I'm dying. Yeah, let's eat cake. I don't know.

Dustin Grinnell (01:00:41 --> 01:00:43)
Yeah, let's talk about the death cafe.

Dustin Grinnell (01:00:44 --> 01:00:44)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (01:00:44 --> 01:00:57)
What are those and why did you do one? And that's where we met. Yes. In Winthrop at a bookstore and the Winthrop Book Depot and Cafe. The place is awesome. What are these all about?

Michaela Morrell (01:00:57 --> 01:01:53)
So there's deathcafe.com. You can go on there, you can learn about all of these, you can see where people are hosting them. It is a worldwide phenomenon now. And they follow this premise. I do not remember exactly the mission at the moment, but it's to create space for people to talk about and wonder about death together as finite beings.

Is more or less what they say. There are some sort of codes of conduct. It's not a religious space. You are not there to change anyone's mind, and it is not a grief counseling session, right? Like, grief is true and there, and it does not mean you won't discuss topics.

Dustin Grinnell (01:01:53 --> 01:01:57)
I think we kind of covered some of those that are shared, their personal stories.

Michaela Morrell (01:01:57 --> 01:02:02)
And yeah, but it is different than maybe like, I am actively not okay, right?

Dustin Grinnell (01:02:03 --> 01:02:05)
Professional psychotherapeutic settings.

Michaela Morrell (01:02:05 --> 01:03:24)
And you serve tea and cake. Because it is a heavy topic and what is not improved? That's true. By tea and cake. So that's actually a requirement.

That's awesome. And I've been to a couple and I just, I really wanted to host one because I like to talk about things, what I'm feeling or like what I've experienced, or I think hearing it from other people is so different than reading it in a book. And I have lots of books I've read and, and I enjoy it. But when people ask me this question, I liken it to if you've ever bought a house for our first time or had a kid, there's like home buying classes and there's like Lamaze and child rearing classes. You can read about all those things on your own, but if you go with someone who's facilitating a conversation, maybe other people who've done it or who are in the same spot as you who have similar questions, it's an entirely different experience.

Yeah. And so I run death cafes, I ran ours like that. Like, we're here because we have potentially a shared experience in that we've experienced death, but we've all taken different things from it. We've all learned different things from it. Would you like to share?

Dustin Grinnell (01:03:24 --> 01:03:32)
Yeah, I can imagine. It's just this total randomness of— yeah, some may be darker than others or—

Michaela Morrell (01:03:32 --> 01:06:25)
It can be a uniting force. And I think having death cafes is a way to share that. Can I tell you a quick story? Oh yeah. Okay, cool.

So I, I don't listen to a lot of audiobooks, but I was driving from Iowa to Massachusetts after, like, we had to move my dad and we were cleaning out stuff, which is a lot. But I listened to The Book of Joy on tape, and it's Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama spent a week together, and this guy sort of facilitated the conversation. And there's two big takeaways from this listening. It's like a 10-hour book, and I'd never done a book on tape before. But one, they have a whole chapter on grief.

Like, how can you find joy in grief? Like, what? You guys are crazy. Tell me the story. So the Dalai Lama tells a story, and it's a Buddhist fable about a woman whose son dies and she's inconsolable.

And she's like, I have to find the Buddha. He has to fix this. I have to feel better. I'm never going to feel better again. My son is gone.

What do I do? And so she goes through the mountains and she tries to find him. She comes upon the Buddha, and he said, "I need you to find me a village that death has not visited, and I will give you the answer." And of course, she can't. But as she's talking to people's houses, they all begin to share their stories of who they've lost and who they've loved. Because so often when you tell that story of the person— I mean, grief is love with nowhere else to go.

There are these sort of nicer feelings that can come from this horrible, horrible loss. And she ends and she goes back to the Buddha and she's like, "I understand what you were teaching me, that I am not alone in my grief." And I just love— I mean, they tell it so much better, but I loved that story. I think that's kind of what death cafes are trying to get at. The second piece from that book has nothing to do with what we're talking about, but it's like one of my favorites. So the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu were getting together at the Dalai Lama's place for his 80th birthday, I think, because the Dalai Lama cannot travel to South Africa.

So Desmond Tutu comes, they're hanging out, and he's having a party. It's like the actual birthday party. And the narrator is talking about how the Dalai Lama is like hanging out there. And suddenly this music comes on and Desmond Tutu comes like strolling in. And he's like, "I believe we are witnessing what might be the Dalai Lama's first shimmy shake because it is impossible to stand still around Desmond Tutu's irrepressible boogie." I was just like— All right, awesome.

Dustin Grinnell (01:06:26 --> 01:06:41)
Wow. Not alone, too. That's so interesting. It's not— and so often when we're suffering, we think we're the first person to ever experience this and go through this, but we're really not. And the lesson there— he didn't tell her, he showed her.

Michaela Morrell (01:06:41 --> 01:06:41)
Exactly.

Dustin Grinnell (01:06:41 --> 01:06:57)
And helped her come to that realization. It's awesome. There are a few things from our conversation in the Death Cafe that kind of like ring in my ears after you know, it's great. Awesome. What? Um, well, you know, your sister was there, your younger sister, and she shared an experience. I think she was abroad in Panama.

Michaela Morrell (01:06:57 --> 01:06:58)
Yep, in the Peace Corps.

Dustin Grinnell (01:06:58 --> 01:08:09)
Yeah. Okay. She was with a host family and the family suffered a tragic death. Yes. And she told the story about how the way they dealt with the after-dying process and the rituals that they had in place gave these like sort of containers for effective expression of emotion and grief and sadness, and it helped disperse it in a way that was like, um, very useful.

And that got us into a conversation about like, what happens if you don't have— you know, a Jewish faith has a similar set of rituals and so on and so forth. And then you said in response to my question, where I don't really— don't have anything, it's just you just— you like, if you don't have a ritual that's part of your culture or your religious tradition, just make it up. Just invent. Just if it's personally meaningful to you and the one who's passed and the family and yourself, just do it. There are no rules.

Like, you can be creative. I thought that was really interesting. Like, it was nice permission to— yes, you know. Yeah. So I guess I don't know if I have a question.

Michaela Morrell (01:08:09 --> 01:08:10)
but like, why rituals?

Dustin Grinnell (01:08:10 --> 01:08:12)
Yeah, sure. Why containers?

Michaela Morrell (01:08:12 --> 01:09:32)
I mean, I think they serve a couple purposes. When my mom died, it was COVID, so you could not gather, you could not do things. So the things that I think— I think we have rituals so you don't have to think quite so much, right? There's a like, oh, we're gonna go to the church, or we're gonna have a gathering, and then there's gonna be a viewing, and then, you know, it's just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And you still have lots of decisions to make, but you aren't starting from scratch in the moment, which we had to do.

So I think there— that's one reason. You have a ritual in advance so when you just aren't thinking, when your brain is not at its best. I think the second thing is, for as much as we've talked about grief, I think people don't know the roles to play when someone has passed, and rituals give them a guide of what to do. So, like, my family is quite Irish, so, like, there's always a wake, and then there's a funeral, and it's like you stand in the receiving line, and people come up, and they say a thing, and they look at the body, and they kneel down, and then they keep walking, and they know what to do. Because most of the time, I think you even brought this up, it's like, what do you do?

My heart is breaking for the person who's lost a person, or my heart is breaking because I'm slightly removed from the inner circle of care for the person dying. Is it a cheese plate? Do I send flowers? Do I call? What do I do?

Dustin Grinnell (01:09:32 --> 01:09:36)
Should I say this or not say that? What should I avoid saying?

Michaela Morrell (01:09:36 --> 01:10:09)
And so rituals provide some context that people hundreds of years ago decided was acceptable. Yeah, yeah. And I think I've outlined the helpful things. I also think that's just peer pressure from dead people. If you want to do something else, do something else. When my brother-in-law died, he never got to go a bunch of places, so I, I haven't done it in a while, but for the first 4 or 5 years, I would put a picture of his and I'd write a story about him in a bottle, and I'd throw it in the Charles. And I'm like, someone's going to read about "Hey, this is about Nate Downing now, if they find it." Which I think he'd get a kick out of.

Dustin Grinnell (01:10:09 --> 01:10:10)
[Speaker:MICHAEL] That's interesting.

Michaela Morrell (01:10:10 --> 01:10:38)
[Speaker:KRISTIN] I think I shared the story. We did a thing for my mom where people gathered outside and sort of had, like, an outdoor receiving line in the hearse for her casket. And that was a way for them to show up for us. So it gave people something to do. And I think it let us feel less alone when we were very isolated. So they play a number of roles. I don't think— I mean, There's not a lot of wrong. There is wrong. Yeah, but there's not a lot of wrong.

Dustin Grinnell (01:10:38 --> 01:12:08)
Yes. And I— and you really like that concept. I really like it. And then I told you I actually did it once in the Arnold Arboretum. I left a— I left a phone.

I bought one on like eBay. It was like old rotary phone. I love that. And then I printed out kind of like Okay, like it just said, I printed it out and laminated it and said, if you have some things to say, just say them. And it was all inspired from this story from This American Life where someone had made a wind phone.

And this idea was like, I think a tsunami had hit Japan or something. And basically it was a horrible tragedy where many people died and they were all trying to like figure out what to do with that catastrophe. And some guy just bought like a toll booth and put it on his property. And he said anybody could just come in and pick up this phone and talk to the dead, talk to the past. And people did.

Hundreds of people did. They came. And it was really interesting because in this story it was like playing audio of people who were talking. And it was so— I don't want to say banal, but it was like the things they wanted to talk about were just like, Dad's good. You know, the kids just went to school.

Michaela Morrell (01:12:09 --> 01:12:22)
Oh, we think of these big life moments like, oh, you know, my, my mom's never gonna see my wedding or whatever this— she did— but like these big events, it's like, no, it's actually, it's like we Do I use 1 cup of sugar or 1.5 in your recipe?

Dustin Grinnell (01:12:22 --> 01:12:23)
Like that. Because Mom would know that. Yeah.

Michaela Morrell (01:12:23 --> 01:12:53)
And like, oh, how do I get that stain out? Shoot. Or like, how do I— like, and Nate was so smart. And there's all these things that I would be like, I just— oh crap. Because you forget. Like the muscle memory to call the person you associate with the thing, it hasn't completely gone away from me yet. And it's been a few years for some of these people. It's like even my grandmother sometimes, and she She died a while ago, but I was like, God, if only she— I just— can I get 2 minutes? Just 2 minutes, because I really need— I know she knows this.

Dustin Grinnell (01:12:53 --> 01:12:54)
But you can't.

Michaela Morrell (01:12:54 --> 01:12:59)
But sometimes even being able to just say it, just being able to, you know, I think it helps.

Dustin Grinnell (01:12:59 --> 01:13:13)
Yeah, it's almost like a ritual. It's like a container. It's a space to discharge the question, the update, the thing that can't go anywhere else without the ritual or the manufactured thing.

Michaela Morrell (01:13:13 --> 01:13:20)
It does feel a little different to just like scream it into your car with the windows up, right? Like, that doesn't feel useful. Talking into a phone, you would never have seen them anyway.

Dustin Grinnell (01:13:20 --> 01:13:28)
It's a communication device, so it's almost like this interesting thing that it's like connects you to potential after— completely.

Michaela Morrell (01:13:28 --> 01:13:29)
Yeah, why not?

Dustin Grinnell (01:13:30 --> 01:13:35)
If— why do you like wind phones? Like, what, what would you say?

Michaela Morrell (01:13:35 --> 01:14:16)
Oh, to me, I think it's, it's that mundane. It's the, the clouds are beautiful, I wanted you to know. Like, I think, I can't imagine calling to berate someone. That's what therapy's for. But I think it's that more like, I thought of you, and this is a thing. Cardinals, butterflies, there's all these sort of symbols that people keep around them. And I think that's beautiful if it helps. I don't ever have a problem remembering that I needed I wish someone was around to say something, but I think people have their little pushes and pulls, and I think a wind phone is a nice pull when you need it to be like, oh, I do want to say a thing. I'm going to go do this.

Dustin Grinnell (01:14:16 --> 01:14:19)
We're going to put a wind phone in Winthrop Center. I love it.

Michaela Morrell (01:14:19 --> 01:14:22)
Let's do it. Okay. Constitution Beach and Winthrop Center.

Dustin Grinnell (01:14:22 --> 01:14:29)
Yeah, that's a good— that's— yeah, we'll just put them everywhere. I mean, let a thousand flowers bloom. I think it should be like mini libraries.

Michaela Morrell (01:14:30 --> 01:14:34)
Exactly. No, totally. Phones everywhere. Let's just stick them on the mini libraries. You get a library with a phone on it.

Dustin Grinnell (01:14:34 --> 01:15:22)
Yeah, exactly. So the other big question I had was, you know, this concept of the afterlife. I don't believe in an afterlife. I don't know there's any scientific evidence that supports it either way. Yes or no.

So I just kind of live in that space of being an agnostic and maybe, maybe not. There's plenty of personal stories that seem to corroborate it. Many near-death experiences. People have very common experiences, and it's like, yeah, maybe. Um, how do you kind of navigate that with people?

Michaela Morrell (01:15:22 --> 01:16:20)
So if part of their comfort is, I'm going to heaven, Saint Paul is going to meet me at the pearly white gates, dress me appropriately, that's what we do. Okay. If that's what they want people to say. I mean, here's the thing, here's the rub. After you die, we do our best to do what you wanted, but we're just going to do our best.

And it's not for you anymore. It's for everyone who's left. So if, let's say, someone is very religious, but their family is not, I will do my best to make sure that those wishes are included in everything else. But if there's also like a Black Sabbath flag, I'm probably not going to tell someone to take it down. It is a comfort mechanism for a lot of people.

Dustin Grinnell (01:16:20 --> 01:16:32)
Yeah, it's like death doula, birth doula, you know, you're helping people birth their true desires and wishes. Do you have a sense that you go in there to, like, pull it out, to, like, do some archaeology?

Michaela Morrell (01:16:32 --> 01:17:01)
Sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. I like to ask questions, and I think how and what questions I'm asking is really dependent on the person. Even in dying, some people don't want to talk about things. That, that person that was like, I wish I was more authentic, or I wish I had been truer to myself— like, some people do not actually want to learn how to do that with days and months and weeks left. So I'm not going to push it. I'm just going to tell them it's an option and then follow their lead. I make it sound simple. It's not all the time, but yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (01:17:01 --> 01:17:19)
There's a theme in this conversation too that like it's not perfect. Like imperfection is the way. It's like stumble, experiment, try, fail. It's pretty messy. Like, oh gosh, death and dying and getting it right. Oh, definitely. You're going to do the wrong things, not do the right things, you know, whatever, and just go for it. Do it anyways.

Michaela Morrell (01:17:20 --> 01:17:27)
Or something like that? Yes. I mean, it's life concentrated into a whole little tiny moment if you're lucky.

Dustin Grinnell (01:17:27 --> 01:17:27)
Yeah.

Michaela Morrell (01:17:27 --> 01:18:07)
And I think it's— I just try to remind people, I never want to be mistaken for the happiness police or like, "Oh, you should feel so lucky you have this." No, it sucks. It is heartbreaking and painful and terrible sometimes. But there are still moments and there are still little windows where you get to be in charge. Let's not miss them, and let's know what you might do in those moments. And it might be an entirely different thing than you thought you would do, but you found the moment and you saw the glimmer. Take it and do with it what you will, because there just might not be that many more. That sounded like a cat poster. I didn't mean it to, but that's how it goes.

Dustin Grinnell (01:18:07 --> 01:18:12)
I don't know why this popped in my head, but the movie Saving Private Ryan popped in my head.

Michaela Morrell (01:18:12 --> 01:18:14)
Have you seen that? I— oh, it's been a while, but yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (01:18:14 --> 01:18:31)
So it's the whole idea of like, you know, it's— I think it's World War II and a bunch of soldiers were sent, led by Tom Hanks, they're sent to go get this one guy, Private Ryan, because his 3 other brothers had died. And like the president wrote the mom a letter.

Michaela Morrell (01:18:31 --> 01:18:34)
4 or 5, wasn't it? Like the whole family is decimated except for this one guy.

Dustin Grinnell (01:18:34 --> 01:18:35)
Yeah, exactly.

Dustin Grinnell (01:18:35 --> 01:19:21)
And we're gonna bring him out. He's coming home. And to ruin the movie, you know, to spoil it, Tom Hanks gets shot and dies, you know. But in his final breaths, he tells Private Ryan, who they saved, you know, earn it. Yep.

Earn this. My whole, like, brigade or whatever it is died. My platoon, all these people died to save you. Yeah. Earn it.

Michaela Morrell (01:19:21 --> 01:19:27)
What do you do with that? Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Survivor's guilt, it's a real thing.

Dustin Grinnell (01:19:27 --> 01:19:28)
That's part of it.

Michaela Morrell (01:19:28 --> 01:19:28)
Super is.

Dustin Grinnell (01:19:28 --> 01:19:35)
It's also inspiring. It's like, well, how do I live a full rich, meaningful life.

Michaela Morrell (01:19:35 --> 01:20:03)
So that's what it would mean to me, is were you able to not have any of those questions at the end. Oh, that's what it would mean to me. Because that's earning it. I think so. I think earning it is, is showing up every day you can, even in uncomfortable moments, especially if you're scared or not feeling prepared, or like, I am uncomfortable here, and doing the thing anyway so that you don't have those questions, those 5 questions at the end. That to me is earning it.

Dustin Grinnell (01:20:03 --> 01:20:10)
That would be a tall task. Like, imagine you get these right. Like, imagine you preempted all these regrets.

Michaela Morrell (01:20:10 --> 01:20:10)
I don't think you can.

Dustin Grinnell (01:20:10 --> 01:20:15)
I mean, you'd be a rock star. Well, in the life living process, right?

Michaela Morrell (01:20:15 --> 01:20:17)
I don't know what that gets you.

Dustin Grinnell (01:20:17 --> 01:20:19)
I mean, but gets you no regrets.

Michaela Morrell (01:20:19 --> 01:20:36)
Well, it gets you fewer questions, or fewer like, ah, shucks at the end. But I— because how do you know all the things for all the people? It's not— I It's an easy answer to give, I suppose, because who knows? But that's how I would answer it. How would you answer it?

Dustin Grinnell (01:20:36 --> 01:20:39)
I was hoping you weren't going to ask me that.

Michaela Morrell (01:20:39 --> 01:20:40)
Earn it.

Dustin Grinnell (01:20:40 --> 01:21:43)
Do it to the best of your ability and leave it all out on the field. There you go. I don't know.

Yeah, last question. How do you die well? What does dying well mean to you? I have some examples in my mind of people who— Oliver Sacks is a neurologist and writer and one of my heroes, and he had advanced cancer and had 6 months to live. And he, um, you know, took part in a documentary and talked about his life.

He finished his memoir. He wrote an essay about literally being terminal. And I found it really moving because I was like, well, I don't read— I don't get a lot of accounts of people who are actively dying. And I thought like, nice, like that guy died well, you know. Uh, and a friend of his in the documentary said he stuck the landing.

Michaela Morrell (01:21:43 --> 01:21:44)
Yeah, death landing.

Dustin Grinnell (01:21:44 --> 01:21:44)
Interesting.

Dustin Grinnell (01:21:44 --> 01:21:49)
How do you die well? What is a good death?

Michaela Morrell (01:21:49 --> 01:22:20)
I mean, again, I think it comes back to— for me, it would be like, very personally, I think it would be minimal questions, minimal 5-question statements of like, oh, I wish I had done this. I think it would be knowing I did all the things that had been put in front of me that I knew to do to take care of people, like not leaving a lot of loose ends, paperwork, financially, otherwise. And I think as much on my terms as I could. I think that's, you know—

Dustin Grinnell (01:22:20 --> 01:22:25)
Have you thought about your death? Oh yeah. And you know how you— No.

Michaela Morrell (01:22:25 --> 01:22:27)
Okay. But I've got parameters.

Dustin Grinnell (01:22:27 --> 01:22:29)
Work in progress? Yeah.

Michaela Morrell (01:22:29 --> 01:22:29)
Okay.

Dustin Grinnell (01:22:29 --> 01:22:30)
I've got ideas.

Michaela Morrell (01:22:30 --> 01:22:31)
Because it'll change too. That's my thought.

Dustin Grinnell (01:22:31 --> 01:22:32)
You're young.

Michaela Morrell (01:22:32 --> 01:22:39)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I hope it's like, you know, maybe a middle finger and some purple hair and a glass of champagne and out I go.

Dustin Grinnell (01:22:39 --> 01:22:41)
Why a sense of little defiance in there?

Michaela Morrell (01:22:41 --> 01:22:51)
Oh, because I think there's, I'm also not particularly religious. I think there's probably something in charge, and I have feedback, and I hope to be able to give it.

Dustin Grinnell (01:22:52 --> 01:22:58)
Well, I don't have any more questions. Is there anything that we didn't cover that you want to say? Yes.

Michaela Morrell (01:22:58 --> 01:24:22)
Yeah, just one or two quick things, because whoever's listening to this, if you found it of interest, there's a few resources I've always liked. Some of it's on death, some of it's on grief. But there's a podcast called All There Is with Anderson Cooper where he talks to famous people and other people. But I believe what he is doing to help raise the national conversation about death and grief is really helpful. And listening to some people's stories is very humanizing and he does a great job.

So All There Is with Anderson Cooper. There's a broader podcast called On Being with Krista Tippett, and she just like she could read the phone book and I would like it, but she explores a lot of these kind of topics. And I think— I don't know if you would like it— Brené Brown has a lot of good work out there in a variety of formats. And then there's this Irish author named John O'Donohue, and he is a bit religious, but a lot of his writings, it's not in your face. But there's a book called The Anam Cara, which is a Gaelic concept of a soul walker, and it's where, like, some people think the doula concept is rooted in being an anamkara.

It's this idea that someone walks with you in hard times. And then there's another book called To Bless the Space Between Us. It is blessings, but they are not particularly religious. I just feel like he captures the space when you don't know what to do and what to say in ways that are very comforting. So I just wanted to leave those with people.

Dustin Grinnell (01:24:22 --> 01:24:28)
Great. And if people want to find a death cafe around them, Where do they go, and where might they go if they want to learn about your work?

Michaela Morrell (01:24:28 --> 01:24:44)
Oh, deathcafe.com, and that's the easiest one. Although Eventbrite— there's a lot more on Eventbrite now, so you can find some there. That's where you'll find my next one, which I believe will be December 11th in East Boston at Eastie Farm. And that's the best way to find me right now.

Dustin Grinnell (01:24:44 --> 01:24:52)
I think we should leave it there. This has been a really great conversation. I'm glad to have met you, and thank you so much for coming on to talk about this.

Michaela Morrell (01:24:52 --> 01:25:00)
Thank you so much. This has been a pleasure.

Dustin Grinnell (01:25:00 --> 01:25:24)
Thanks for listening to this episode of Curiously. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Michaela Morrell. If this episode challenged you or helped expand your perspective or satisfy your curiosity about the world, please consider sharing it with your friends and family and use it to have a conversation of your own. If you want to support curiously, please consider leaving a review. Thanks again for listening and stay tuned for more conversations with people I meet along the way.