End-of-Life Planning with Dr. Susan Abernethy

So that's really interesting, that accepting death comes easier to children.

Mm-hmm.

That's what I witnessed at least, that children...

You know, parents often, I would see several parents that didn't wanna share with their children that they were dying.

But the children would say to me, like, "I know I'm dying, but Mom and Dad don't wanna talk about it." So you could see, you know, this, this world in which we used to have death and dying normalized when we had multi-generational families living on the farm or together, um, and you would see grandparents or great-grandparents die.

You would know what that aging or death process looked like.

You would see animals die, and it would be part of a normal conversation.

And then we've gotten to a point where we've sterilized and separated everything so much, uh, with the evolution of funeral homes and then really corporations taking over the burial and dying process, that we've just really removed any conversation around it.

Even to the point I'll often work with people in their 80s and they're like, "I don't wanna talk about dying." And I'm like, "[laughs] Can we at least accept you're closer on the death spectrum than you were to the being born spectrum, and begin to have these conversations?" And kids just didn't have the baggage to really talk about those things.

So when we did our pre-call, when we were talking about, you know, what we were gonna talk about, and catching up 'cause we haven't seen each other in a while.

Yeah.

Um, when you were explaining everything that you w- that you do, at first I was a little reluctant.

I'm like, "Okay, this is The Cancer Pod," and I try not to be too heavy.

But there is a lot that you offer your clients that we really need to think about-

Yeah

... before, you know...

I mean, death is, is inevitable, but there's a lot that needs to be covered.

Yes.

Before-

And there's a lot of peace of mind that can be had by covering those things.

Yeah.

Because I just r- and I'd shared this with you before, that when my father died, he thought he was very organized, but his organization [laughs] was really, it was a lot.

And so I think my mom kinda learned from that, and then she died three years later and really had things in order.

Yes.

And really had thought about this.