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Hello! Everyone and welcome to

0:44

talk nerdy. Today is

0:46

Monday, March Eighteen, Twenty

0:48

Twenty Four. And. I'm the

0:51

host of the show Care Santa Maria

0:53

and as always before, we dive into

0:55

this week's episode. I wanna thank those

0:57

of you who make Talk Nerdy possible.

0:59

Remember, Talk Nerdy isn't will always be

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because I rely on the support of

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make sure that you never have jail

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and I want to thank the incredible

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people who make that possible each week.

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So. The top patrons this week

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include Daniel Lang, David J E.

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Smith marry me of a Brian

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Hold and David Compton. Gabrielle F.

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had a meal, Joe Wilkinson Pasquale

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to Lottie Riva, Keith and or

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Rica Hag a man and maybe

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I should say to sort of

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the the top patrons of all

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time really. So I'm going to

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change some of my search. Parameters.

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Here. And. I'm gonna look

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at lifetime contributions to the show

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and they really include. I'll probably

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be repeating some people here, but

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Daniel Land Gabrielle Gabrielle How To

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Me Oh geez, The

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wall robs rak. Charles.

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Gutierrez. Again, Pasquale to

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Lottie, the honorable husbands and ten

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Pfeiffer costs. Think you guys so

2:17

much You keep talk nerdy going,

2:19

You keeps the editor and my

2:22

incredible assistant know well and just.

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You. Know me? Able

2:27

to afford to keep doing this

2:29

week after week coming up on

2:31

ten years and five hundred episodes

2:33

I can't believe it or as

2:35

the we have a really incredible

2:37

episode for you this week. This

2:39

is a topic that is just

2:41

fascinating and in many ways near

2:43

and dear to my heart. So

2:45

I have the opportunity to interview

2:47

to sociologists who cove wrote a

2:49

book called The Unclaimed Abandonment and

2:52

Hope in the City of Angels.

2:54

So. Here comes an

2:56

interview with the Doctors

2:58

Pamela Cricket and Doctors

3:00

Doesn't Hammer Men's How.

3:03

Doctor. Prick It is a sociologist

3:05

who isn't an associate professor

3:07

of sociology at the University of

3:10

Amsterdam. She has two books out

3:12

and see previously. Before she

3:14

got into Sociology, it's worked as

3:17

a writer, a broadcaster, a

3:19

producer and sort of continue some

3:21

of that work along with

3:23

her academic investigations a Doctor Says

3:25

and Temur Men's he's a

3:27

professor of sociology at U C

3:30

L Legs and he's written. Several.

3:33

Books often times

3:35

around. Dass

3:38

das Investigations, forensic

3:40

death investigations, and

3:43

also I'm. A.

3:45

Qualitative research which kind of goes hand in

3:47

hand with the with the book that saves.

3:50

Code. Written Together. This is a

3:52

trade publication, not an academic publications,

3:54

so it is written for a

3:56

more general audience. It's narrative. non

3:58

it's real really compelling.

4:01

And again, yeah, the book

4:03

is The Unclaimed Abandonment and

4:05

Hope in the City of

4:07

Angels by Dr. Pamela Prickett

4:10

and Dr. Stefan Pimmerman. So

4:12

without any further ado,

4:14

good luck. Well,

4:16

Stefan and Pamela, thank you so much

4:19

for taking some time with us today.

4:21

Thank you for having us. Pleasure

4:23

to be with you. I

4:25

am really excited because when your

4:27

book came across my desk, there

4:30

are certain topics that I'm quite

4:33

interested in, quite passionate about. So

4:35

I'm going to give you a

4:37

little bit of where I'm coming

4:39

from right at the top of the show,

4:41

I think because that will help both

4:44

for the listeners who kind of know me and

4:47

know the show. And for you guys, like sort

4:50

of what that frame is or that

4:52

perspective. I am

4:55

a newly minted clinical psychologist, but

4:57

my interest in areas of kind

5:00

of expertise are in existential

5:03

psychotherapy, end of life, death

5:05

and dying, and cancer and

5:08

heart failure. And I just

5:10

finished my dissertation on medical

5:12

aid in dying. And so

5:14

I actually approach a lot

5:16

of these questions or

5:18

these topics that are grappled with, a

5:22

from a psych perspective, more than a sociological perspective,

5:24

but there's so much crossover there. And

5:26

B, I often am working with people

5:28

as they are getting

5:30

ready to kind of leave this earth,

5:33

as opposed to some of these

5:35

really interesting questions about what happens

5:37

after the fact. And so that

5:40

may be I just want to prime you because that

5:43

may be where some of my questions are coming from.

5:45

But I'm super, super excited to talk about

5:47

this, because I can tell you

5:49

right now, I watch documentaries at

5:51

a fever pitch, I read a lot of

5:53

nonfiction, and I have never

5:55

come across this topic. And so okay,

5:58

here it is. Let's dive given the unclaimed

6:00

abandonment and hope in the city of angels.

6:03

I'm also here in Los Angeles, so this

6:05

is very near and dear to my heart

6:07

as well. You two are

6:09

both sociologists, yes? But

6:12

at different universities, you've just worked together for a

6:14

long time. So before we get into the topic,

6:16

why don't you tell me each about your

6:19

background? How did you get into sociology

6:21

and what do you tend to focus

6:23

your research on? Yeah.

6:25

Well, I love that question. It

6:28

helps ground everything that each one of us is

6:30

about to say from here on out. Yeah,

6:34

so I sort of, I'll be

6:36

honest, I fell into sociology. I

6:38

didn't really know what I was

6:40

getting into entirely

6:42

when I started my PhD. I had a

6:44

journalism background. I had worked in television and

6:46

broadcasting for a while. I

6:49

knew that I wanted to do deep

6:52

stories, do ethnography. I

6:54

wanted the length of time

6:57

that academic research allows that

7:00

journalists on daily deadlines or multiple

7:03

shows a day don't have time for. So that's

7:06

kind of why I got into doing

7:08

academic research and leading journalism. And

7:12

sociology just became this great place

7:15

to address all my varied interests.

7:17

So I have a lot of

7:19

questions I'm interested in. I've

7:22

looked at religion, I've looked at health, I've

7:24

looked obviously at death and dying. But

7:27

one thing that I think is consistent among

7:29

all my research and why I love sociology

7:31

is kind of getting at notions of how

7:34

do we balance individualism

7:36

and community? So

7:38

we have this really kind

7:41

of biological human need to be

7:43

with others, to be social creatures,

7:45

but at the same time, especially in

7:47

America, right? We have this dedication

7:50

to our individual freedom and self.

7:53

And so I'm kind of really interested in moments

7:56

when this conflict becomes very consequential

7:58

for any number of people. reasons. And

8:00

so that's obviously why I think

8:02

the unclaimed and thinking about,

8:04

you know, what does it mean if you

8:07

don't have community at the end

8:09

of life? What that looks like was just

8:11

a really powerful topic for me to dive

8:13

into. That's fascinating. And

8:15

I must say very existential. And

8:18

exactly, exactly. And Stefan,

8:20

before you dive in, I also have to

8:23

say, Pamela, I feel like there's so many

8:25

interesting parallels between us. I

8:28

too worked as a journalist and

8:30

a television host for many, many years

8:32

after my neuroscience kind of entree

8:34

into academics. And that's why I only

8:36

just finished my PhD just before

8:38

I turned 40, because I went

8:41

back to school to kind of

8:44

do a career shift in many

8:46

ways for very similar reasons. So that's

8:49

just, wow, fascinating. I love it. I

8:51

love it. I knew it was random. I love it. Yeah.

8:54

And Stefan, tell me where, A, where are

8:56

you right now in the world? And, you

8:58

know, how did you get to kind of

9:01

study what you study and what are

9:03

your areas of focus? Well,

9:06

first of all, I want to congratulate you on finishing

9:08

the PhD. Oh, thanks. That's,

9:12

I hope you celebrated that. We have

9:14

to celebrate all the wins in academia.

9:17

True. Yeah, it's a long haul. Yes,

9:20

exactly. I know that. So

9:22

I'm actually in Los

9:24

Angeles right now. I'm a professor at

9:26

UCLA and I've

9:29

been always been fascinated with bad

9:31

deaths. So in

9:33

contemporary society, we have an understanding

9:36

of what good dying is all

9:38

about. And it's influenced by Elizabeth

9:41

Kugler Rose and the idea of

9:43

sitting next to the bedside and

9:45

being comfortable respecting the

9:48

wishes of the individual patient and the

9:50

family members and

9:52

saying goodbye and sort of wrapping up

9:54

life. So I'm interested in the deaths

9:57

that fall outside that script, the

9:59

violent deaths. the sudden deaths, unexpected

10:01

deaths. And so the

10:04

unclaimed fits into this broader kind

10:07

of narrative because these

10:09

are people who die and at

10:13

this critical moment when

10:15

they're deceased their relatives

10:17

are either unable or

10:19

unwilling to bury

10:22

them. And so that's that poses

10:24

a lot of questions about how did you get

10:26

to that point because nobody grows up thinking

10:29

I want to go unclaimed when I when

10:32

I grow up. So there's

10:34

something happened in their life that they get at

10:36

this particular point and so

10:39

that's how I came

10:41

to this particular topic. I've done

10:44

research in medical examiner's offices, I've

10:46

done research on resuscitation technologies and

10:48

so this is our next installment

10:50

in that fascination of why

10:53

how do we make sense as

10:55

a community, as a society of

10:57

deaths that are bad. It's

11:00

you know it's interesting I when

11:03

I read the sort of description

11:06

that the top matter like the way

11:08

that your book is pitched by the

11:10

publishers one of the things that I

11:12

really liked was the

11:14

careful choice in wording around

11:17

describing deaths because I do

11:19

think that often we have

11:21

this binary or we you know I'm

11:23

looking at my bookshelves behind me and I

11:25

have you know just like shelves and shelves

11:27

about how we die and a lot of

11:30

them are you know the good death or having a good

11:32

how to have a good death. And

11:34

I have started moving into using

11:36

the words like authentic death as

11:39

opposed to good death because I

11:41

don't want to place a

11:43

value judgment and say this is how

11:45

you're supposed to die. I want to

11:48

know from my patients what

11:50

is it that they want and how can we

11:53

empower them to die the way that feels

11:55

the most true to them. But what's

11:58

interesting is this

12:00

idea of the after the fact, right?

12:03

Because I work with people

12:05

who are often dying somewhat slowly and

12:07

they know it's coming. And

12:10

so planning and engaging

12:12

is a huge part of our work. But

12:15

some of the individuals that you

12:17

are discussing, and definitely the people

12:19

who you've researched in the past,

12:21

violent deaths, for example, or accidental

12:23

deaths, they don't have that privilege.

12:28

And so I'm curious about sort of your

12:30

take or your interest in both. Have

12:36

you done a lot of research in

12:38

people who know that they're going to

12:40

die versus people who you're only coming to

12:42

the scene after the fact? I

12:45

mean, most of the research is

12:47

on people who die slowly, who

12:49

have the cancer that HIV deaths

12:52

time, people have time to prepare, which

12:54

what's interesting about it, it also

12:57

lends itself to doing research on

12:59

death and dying. How do you

13:01

tell somebody who dies suddenly, it's

13:03

very difficult to get at

13:05

that. And so once you think

13:07

about it that way, you can see how

13:09

hospice, palliative care, preparing for

13:12

dying, it's to some

13:14

extent a bit of a luxury situation. There's

13:17

an opportunity to get to this, but

13:19

many people don't get this luxury and

13:21

their relatives still have

13:23

to grapple with what does this death

13:25

mean? And

13:28

they there still need to be arrangement.

13:30

And if you're if there's nobody there

13:32

to make arrangements, like who takes

13:34

care of these bodies? Like you cannot

13:36

just leave them in the street. So I

13:40

know a lot about that literature of

13:42

hospice dying and palliative care

13:44

and end of life preparations.

13:48

But there's a little bit of a bias into

13:50

this selection. These are

13:52

the deaths that are institutionally in

13:56

advance defined as,

13:59

you know, terminally likely to end up

14:01

dead. The

14:03

question is, what happens to the other deaths? Yeah,

14:07

it's interesting. I

14:09

can't help but ask. I know I'm getting

14:11

ahead of myself and getting a little bit

14:14

specific, but the laws,

14:16

we see these

14:18

historical examples of places where

14:20

social justice is breached

14:25

in examples of, let's

14:28

say, states or countries

14:30

where LGBTQI

14:32

rights are not affirmed. Somebody

14:35

will die, but their partner is not

14:38

seen as family or is not seen

14:40

as kin and they don't have many

14:42

rights. I can imagine that there are

14:44

a lot of people in this world

14:47

who maybe don't have family

14:50

but have small community. Let's

14:52

say somebody who's living unhoused in Skid

14:54

Row and they don't know their family

14:56

or they have lost their

14:58

family but they have neighbors and

15:01

friends who live nearby who don't

15:03

really have many legal rights. How

15:06

does that work when

15:08

it comes to the unclaimed? Can

15:10

somebody who's not legally related to

15:12

you claim you? Yeah,

15:14

that is such a good question. I'll

15:17

be honest, this is one of the areas

15:19

of surprise for me when we came into

15:21

this research. What I thought in

15:23

my head was probably normal

15:25

at this point in time and what

15:28

we discovered. I'll just

15:31

back up very quickly and say my

15:33

very concrete way of coming into the

15:35

unclaimed was that I was doing my

15:37

dissertation research at a mosque in South

15:39

Central Los Angeles for many, many years.

15:43

I knew a woman through that community. She's been

15:45

a member of the community for decades. They

15:48

call women sisters and men brothers. Dr.

15:50

Sherry had been a member for a very long time and she

15:53

had a lot of health struggles, a lot

15:55

of housing struggles, addictions, mental

15:57

health issues. She

16:00

really she was estranged from her family

16:02

of origin and she really counted on

16:05

this Muslim community for her social

16:07

support She passed

16:09

and I was sitting in the prayer hall one

16:12

one year during Ramadan when the head of man

16:14

got up and said You know sister Sherry has

16:16

passed and you know, we she is on the

16:18

verge of going unclaimed She'll be cremated by the

16:20

County of Los Angeles. We need to rally together

16:24

To raise funds to go to court to

16:26

fight for the right to claim her body And then

16:28

they did and they were able to give her a

16:30

funeral Within line, you know

16:32

in line with the religious traditions and I just sort

16:34

of I came into this thinking Oh,

16:37

okay. This is what happens, right? If maybe

16:39

you don't have family you might be able

16:41

to have a local community or friends claim

16:43

you turns out that's exceptionally

16:45

rare In Los Angeles

16:47

County what we discovered, you know, we looked at

16:49

about 600 cases in depth While

16:53

we talk about for really focused on for individuals

16:55

in the book. We did look at over 600

16:57

cases and You

17:00

know, this just only happened maybe two

17:02

or three times in those

17:04

600 Wow Really? And so

17:06

yeah, is that because I mean you mentioned that

17:08

the Imam was like we have to rally together

17:10

We have to go to court we have to

17:13

fight for this. So clearly there's no easy

17:15

path Is that because of those barriers

17:17

or is it because it's just

17:20

people aren't even often trying? Yeah,

17:22

well, so the law is is

17:25

quite strict in in California The

17:28

there's a sort of I mean

17:30

it's strict and it's also open for interpretation,

17:33

right as the law has many laws are

17:35

yeah Yeah So so

17:37

there's this idea of who is next

17:39

to kin and what we found in

17:41

the Los Angeles Medical Examiner's Office is

17:43

that this is interpreted into a very

17:45

complicated kind of tree

17:48

next to Kim tree with 26 levels and So

17:52

they are when they're calling in there They're

17:54

notifying of a death and they're trying to

17:56

find out who is going to claim this

17:58

decedent. They're using these 26 boxes

18:01

based on proximity to the deceased as

18:03

to who they're going to ask. Friends,

18:07

chosen family, alternative family forms are not in

18:10

any of those 26 boxes. So

18:14

what has to happen is that basically

18:17

in order to be a friend, a

18:19

non-family member, you have to go to

18:21

court, you have to sign an affidavit

18:23

that says, you know, I

18:26

testify at risk of perjury that

18:28

there's no family willing to take

18:30

on this burden and, you

18:33

know, go through the legal system. And you

18:35

can know in Los Angeles how that's going

18:37

to mean right away that we're cutting out

18:39

a significant, you know, proportion of the population

18:42

who maybe don't have the time or the

18:44

kind of social capital to know how to

18:46

navigate the legal system, right? We're

18:49

afraid to engage with the legal system.

18:51

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

18:54

In court cases, in probate court, seeing

18:56

people who started the process of filing

18:59

but then didn't show up at the

19:01

hearing for very understandable reasons, right? Well,

19:04

and it's also a ludicrous proposition that

19:06

a chosen family member would even know

19:08

if there's a next of kin. Like

19:10

it's, you know, it's sort of putting

19:12

the onus on them to have done

19:15

the work that the state should be

19:17

doing. Let's

19:19

say that I'm living unhoused and

19:22

I have a dear friend who dies and

19:24

then I realize, oh gosh, nothing

19:26

is happening with this person. Like, you

19:29

know, they died here on the street.

19:31

I saw that the, you know, officials

19:33

came and took them, but I haven't

19:35

heard anything from anybody and I sort

19:37

of inquire and say, what's

19:39

going to happen with this person's body? And they're like, I don't know,

19:41

they're unclaimed. The state's going to just do what they're going to do.

19:44

Why couldn't I then say, well, listen, I'm

19:46

willing to pay. Let me take

19:49

on that burden, right? Because how would

19:51

I even know whether or not

19:53

a family member was going to come forward? That's

19:56

not my diligence to do. Right,

19:59

right. I mean, so it's

20:01

a complicated picture in the sense that

20:04

there's more cases than the county can, you

20:06

know, I mean, they're just constantly dealing with

20:09

a turnover of cases. They have a finite

20:11

amount of space in the

20:13

crypt, whether that's the morgue in the

20:15

basement of a general hospital or the

20:19

crypt in the medical examiners. And so they have

20:21

a limited amount of space. So they're on a

20:23

daily pressure. They've got more bodies coming in. They've

20:26

got to sign out a fairly equal number,

20:28

right? So it's a system that has to

20:30

depend on a certain kind of efficiency. And,

20:33

you know, in America, we love our lawsuits.

20:37

So this is a system that

20:39

also is factoring in the risk of

20:41

being sued, right? If a family member,

20:43

so the county is really concerned with

20:45

if we were to let somebody who's

20:47

not family claim a body and then

20:49

later family steps up and maybe

20:52

has a legal rights or a legal,

20:54

you know, justification to go to court

20:56

to sue the county. So that's

20:59

part of the logic there, right?

21:02

So this is the kind of bureaucratic

21:04

side. And then what I

21:06

think, you know, you're getting at with the

21:08

question, and I think it's a really good one.

21:10

And it's one that I hope we'll have a

21:12

wider conversation about, you

21:14

know, for a number of reasons in the

21:17

country. But, you know, oftentimes,

21:19

you know, a body is taken

21:21

away. The chosen family, the friends know,

21:23

but then they're cut out of the

21:25

process. So they don't even

21:27

know what's going on, right? If

21:29

you think about you have experience in a hospital, friends

21:32

can't just call up and ask, hey,

21:34

what's happening with my friend because of,

21:36

you know, HIPAA. So

21:38

it's not the same, HIPAA is not applying here

21:40

in the same way, but it's, you know,

21:43

oftentimes we would talk to friends and family who

21:45

were like, we called in

21:47

the death and then we never

21:49

heard anything. We never

21:51

heard what was gonna happen. So

21:53

what the way that the next of kin is

21:56

being defined is based on the proximity

21:58

within a... genealogical

22:00

tree, but it doesn't really take

22:02

into consideration the quality of the

22:04

relationship with the decedent. So, what

22:07

happens is then that some

22:09

people who would be willing

22:12

to organize a funeral are never asked,

22:14

and others who have had bad

22:17

relationships with the decedent are saddled

22:20

with the responsibility of organizing a

22:22

funeral, and they're not going to

22:24

step up. And actually,

22:26

the situation that you describe is one

22:28

of the cases in our book, one of the

22:30

four characters we follow, it's a

22:33

woman who, Ines

22:35

Gonzalez, who called herself Mitch and was

22:38

known by her entire community

22:40

as Mitch, and she was a woman who,

22:42

if you would have met her, you would

22:44

have seen, oh, this looks like a homeless

22:46

woman living in her car with cats, which

22:49

was exactly what she was doing,

22:51

but she was really deeply ingrained

22:53

in the church community in

22:55

Westchester next to the airport here at

22:57

LAX. And

23:00

she organized summer camps

23:02

for them, they counted on

23:05

her, they gave her access

23:07

to showers,

23:10

and they eventually, at the end of her

23:13

life, they even converted a garage

23:15

of one of the church members for

23:17

her to live in, and they brought

23:19

her to dialysis consultations.

23:23

So she was really ingrained

23:25

in this community. And

23:27

the church community, when she died,

23:30

the church community was willing to

23:32

organize a funeral, but the county

23:34

found a remote

23:36

relative that Mitch hadn't

23:38

been in contact with in

23:41

decades, and that person then

23:43

had the responsibility of organizing

23:45

a funeral. And

23:47

so Mitch sort of fell between the gaps. The

23:51

person in her home state of New

23:53

Mexico didn't really want to organize the funeral, and

23:55

the community that wanted to do it, they

23:58

were not allowed to do it. We

24:01

see this indeed happening that

24:04

the quality of the relationship is not

24:06

valued, it's just how close are you

24:08

in a tree? And the tree goes

24:10

from box to box, from child to

24:12

parent to siblings, etc. It's

24:17

so funny because it's

24:19

almost like a reliance

24:21

on a more communal

24:24

ethic. Like the laws

24:26

are based upon living in a society

24:29

with a, or I guess I could

24:31

say more of a family ethic, when

24:34

that's not the norm anymore. Or

24:37

maybe it's the norm, but it's definitely

24:39

not the typical

24:41

case. Yeah, it might

24:43

be normative, but it's not reality. And

24:46

so Stefan, just stick with you for a

24:48

minute. I was hoping that there were a

24:50

few things that Pamela mentioned that maybe you

24:52

can help us paint a

24:54

picture for us, especially given that

24:56

you've spent so much of your

24:58

career spending time in these places

25:00

and doing research in these places.

25:02

Can you maybe paint a picture

25:04

for us of what the LA

25:06

morgue is like, just in terms

25:08

of volume? How many bodies

25:11

are processed? How many people are dying here

25:13

in the city or the county? Maybe

25:15

a little bit on the logistics there, because I'm not

25:17

sure we all have a good idea of

25:19

the scale here. Yeah,

25:22

and so this will bring up

25:24

another issue for anyone trying to

25:26

claim, which is that the bureaucracy

25:29

in LA County is quite convoluted

25:31

and there's overlapping agencies.

25:34

So there's two

25:36

main agencies that take care of

25:38

dead bodies. One is the Office

25:40

of the Medical Examiner, and

25:42

they are called in when people

25:45

die under suspicious circumstances. When

25:47

they die suddenly, and there is no

25:49

doctor available to sign a death certificate,

25:51

and the doctor needs to have seen

25:53

the decedent within a certain time period

25:56

before even being allowed to sign a death

25:58

certificate. They go around

26:01

the county every day and they

26:03

pick up bodies. They

26:05

do a scene investigation and

26:08

they bring these bodies

26:10

to their central facility.

26:13

By the way, from an existential point of view,

26:16

these people have the worst job you

26:18

can imagine. It's super hard. They never

26:21

come into something really good. They're

26:23

called for suicides, homicides, car

26:26

accidents, sudden deaths

26:28

of all kinds of age groups. We

26:31

have a tremendous respect for

26:33

those people. Once they

26:35

get into the medical examiner's office, the

26:37

task is to identify

26:40

the body, notify the next of

26:42

kin, and determine

26:44

the cause of death so that the death certificate

26:47

can be filled up. Once

26:49

they do this, then the body needs to

26:51

be moving on because, like As Pamela said,

26:53

they have a limited storage facility. Then

26:56

there's another agency, which is the

26:58

county morgue. This is kind of

27:01

unique in Los Angeles that those

27:03

are separate. The

27:05

county morgue takes care of

27:07

more routine deaths, whether

27:09

it could be a doctor or

27:11

where the person died in a

27:14

hospital or a nursing home. They're

27:16

well known and it's from natural

27:18

causes. All right. Or a

27:20

home on hospice, something like that, where there's

27:23

at least an indication. Okay. All

27:25

of the more the non-suspicious

27:28

deaths, the deaths that might have

27:30

been expected. But again, there's not immediately

27:32

a relative who's going to call a

27:35

funeral home. In

27:37

those cases, a third agency comes

27:40

in and the third

27:42

agency also takes care of some

27:44

of the medical examiner's cases. There's

27:46

a third agency involved and

27:48

that is the public administrator's office.

27:51

These people mainly look at the

27:53

assets and if

27:55

the assets that the person leaves behind

27:58

are under a certain threshold. then they're

28:00

considered to be indigent. And if

28:02

they're indigent and there's no relatives

28:04

available, then the county will cremate

28:07

the bodies. If there's

28:09

no family available, but they

28:12

meet a threshold, then

28:14

the county will organize a

28:17

private funeral. So they

28:19

will take money out of the assets

28:21

and organize a private funeral. And we

28:23

attended some of these funerals. They're the

28:25

saddest events. I mean, that's truly

28:27

heartbreaking because there's nobody

28:29

there. So we're basically,

28:32

it's like this ornate caskets with

28:34

flowers and the only people

28:36

there are the people who work in the

28:38

cemetery. And there's this pro

28:40

forma little ceremony that takes like

28:43

seven minutes. And

28:45

then the person is put

28:49

in the ground. And

28:51

then to really round out the

28:54

whole picture, veterans have the right

28:56

to a burial in a national

28:58

cemetery. So unclaimed veterans are not

29:00

cremated, but they end up in

29:04

Los Angeles County in a Riverside

29:06

National Cemetery. It took us years

29:09

to figure this all out because if

29:11

you have asked the county how

29:15

many unclaimed are there, they only look

29:17

at the cremation records. But

29:20

in fact, there's all these other offshoots

29:22

of private funerals and then

29:24

the veterans. And so

29:26

we had to put this all together.

29:29

Do you know, like on average, how

29:32

many bodies a day each

29:34

of these different, like let's say total, if

29:37

you were to add everything up across all

29:39

these different approaches,

29:42

like how many people are dying in LA

29:44

every day? Well, so the

29:46

Office of Justine Defares or the County Morgue,

29:48

we know get about 11 bodies per

29:50

day. Every day they've got

29:52

11 coming in. Some of them

29:55

are from the hospitals

29:57

and the nursing homes. So all of that together is a lot.

30:00

11 bodies a day. And the medical

30:04

county you said not the city? Correct.

30:06

That's across the county of Los Angeles, which

30:08

is for people not familiar. Yeah, yeah.

30:11

10 million people, 4,000 square miles.

30:14

It's huge, right? It's huge. And so

30:17

they rely on outsourcing quite a bit to

30:19

just have vans to go and transport and

30:21

pick up bodies. I don't think actually most

30:23

Angelenos, I certainly didn't know until I started

30:25

doing this, I don't think most people know

30:28

that there's this whole kind of bureaucracy of

30:30

vans around the city, around the county all

30:32

the time doing

30:35

this. And then the county medical

30:37

examiner, you know, they have a

30:39

crypt that holds about 540 bodies. So whatever's

30:41

coming in, right?

30:44

That's what I was saying. It has to come out and we have

30:47

the exact figures in the book. Stefan, do you remember

30:49

it's, you know, they're dealing with about, I mean,

30:53

there's about, let's just roughly say around

30:55

60,000 people a year in LA county

30:57

who passed. Okay. And the medical examiner,

30:59

yeah, the medical examiner handles about 10,000

31:02

cases of those. That doesn't

31:04

mean they do autopsies or seen investigations of

31:06

all of them. Like, right. Stefan, it's about

31:09

4,000 a year. Am I

31:11

right? No, it's a little more, 5-6,000. But

31:14

to just answer your question very snappily,

31:17

it's about five to six people who

31:19

go unclaimed every day in LA. Just

31:22

unclaimed? Okay, so that's, you know,

31:25

a subpopulation just of the actual

31:27

death. How many, you know, I

31:29

think about, you know, you

31:31

mentioned the crypt, but then we also

31:33

talked about the morgue. I've heard from

31:35

people who have visited the morgue before

31:37

that you just can't really

31:40

fathom the scale until you

31:42

go. That it feels like a

31:44

warehouse full of bodies. Is that

31:47

true? It is true.

31:49

It's, there's like layers and layers

31:51

and stacks and stacks of dead

31:53

bodies wrapped in plastic. And

31:56

that they're almost like wooden eyes by you've got,

31:58

you know, the more decomp in one

32:00

area or the newest ones in or

32:02

there's like a children's area that is

32:05

actually quite difficult sometimes the first time you

32:07

go and it takes a while to get

32:09

comfortable with that type of exposure. Yes.

32:12

And then actually there's another storage

32:14

place. So the crematorium keeps the

32:17

cremains of the unclaimed bodies for

32:19

up to three years. And so there are going to

32:21

be every year Los Angeles County

32:23

varies between 1,500 to 2,000 unclaimed

32:29

people in a mass grave, the cremains of these

32:31

people in a mass grave. So they

32:34

keep about 6,000 little

32:37

brown boxes with cremains

32:39

on eight

32:42

layers or high. It's

32:44

extraordinary impressive. I mean, if you walk

32:47

in there and you realize that every

32:49

one of these boxes, they stack next

32:51

to each other above each other is

32:53

a person. It's

32:55

overwhelming. It's

32:58

quite something. Yeah.

33:00

And I think that it probably really confronts

33:02

you with the scale of, I mean,

33:05

just population and density and what it

33:07

means to be a human on the

33:09

planet today. You know, I

33:11

think that those questions, which obviously are not

33:13

the questions that we're grappling with today,

33:17

but these questions of just like the

33:19

sheer number and is the system adequate?

33:21

Is there enough burial space? Is it,

33:23

you know, good for the environment to

33:26

be burning this many bodies? Just

33:28

the sheer number, I think, is very kind

33:31

of hard to wrap your head around. Yes.

33:34

And then also the reduction of a

33:36

person into a couple of pounds of

33:38

ashes in a box. That's

33:41

also quite impressive.

33:43

And then there are smaller boxes

33:45

like the little envelopes almost that

33:47

have the cremains of children and

33:50

so or babies or newborns. So

33:53

it is quite, you

33:55

know, just the kind of things that only a

33:57

few people see, but it's very

33:59

impressive. if you go behind the scenes and you

34:02

see what is needed to manage this

34:05

debt, it's like an entire organization

34:08

of vans, of crematoriums,

34:10

of storing these

34:13

remains, of investigations, of

34:15

compacting relatives, that

34:17

almost nobody sees. And

34:20

it needs to be perfect. You do not want to

34:23

send the wrong cremates with the wrong person. Right.

34:26

You mentioned something, I think, that is

34:28

a really important point here.

34:31

As you said, not many people see

34:33

this. And I know that

34:35

as somebody who works in end of life, and

34:37

many of the people I've interviewed on the show

34:39

or that I've become friends with over the years

34:42

in, let's say, fanatology

34:44

or psychology or

34:46

sociology or even like

34:48

I saw that you have a blurb from Caitlin Dodi on

34:50

the back of your book. She's

34:53

kind of an amazing

34:55

funeral worker, mortician. I

34:58

know that my ethic, at least, and many

35:00

of my peers' ethic, is that maybe death

35:02

shouldn't be so much in the shadows and

35:05

we should be bringing this out and confronting

35:07

it because it's such a

35:09

normal part of the lived experience.

35:11

And the more exposure we

35:13

have to it, the less existential

35:16

dread or fear we might cripple us,

35:21

the less deep anxiety we might be

35:23

carrying with us about death. It's sort

35:25

of the chicken and egg situation. Are we

35:27

afraid of it because we don't ever talk about it?

35:30

Or are we just programmed to be afraid of it? And

35:33

so I'm

35:35

curious, this concept of the

35:37

fact that we do almost intentionally as

35:40

a society and as a governmental bureaucracy

35:42

keep this hidden from view

35:44

to not upset the comfort of

35:49

the citizens, how do you feel

35:51

about that as a researcher who

35:53

is constantly exposed to these

35:56

confrontations? You

36:00

know, I I'm probably like a lot of Americans

36:02

I grew up, you know Not

36:05

talking about death with my parents with

36:08

my family. It's a subject that it's

36:10

very uncomfortable you sort of you

36:12

know hide it away you sort of you attend

36:14

a funeral if someone's passed and then you

36:17

sort of are privately holding your grief as

36:20

you continue on and I So

36:24

it's gonna sound strange and I

36:26

hope listeners get me the opportunity to explain

36:28

this I also appreciate having had the opportunity

36:30

to do this book in that sense of

36:33

waking me up To

36:35

how important it is to talk

36:37

about death to think about death

36:40

Not to as Caitlin says, you know

36:42

be afraid but but to really sort

36:44

of not embrace that Sounds

36:46

that sounds strange and grim but like

36:49

to embrace the notion that there is

36:51

value in talking about death as an

36:53

awareness of Our

36:55

lives right living life It

36:58

literally happens to everybody. Yeah. Yeah. I

37:00

mean there's some billionaires who would like

37:02

to change that But

37:05

they haven't succeeded yet, you know And I

37:07

was thinking as you were mentioning Caitlin like,

37:10

you know the order of the good death

37:12

I they sell they sell clothing and I

37:14

have this one of their sweatshirts that says

37:16

future corpse, right? When

37:19

I wear that people people stare

37:22

It's just it's a reminder to

37:24

me how uncomfortable these topics are

37:28

And so I think about you

37:30

know again like this sort of appreciation for coming

37:32

to be aware of this now I think it's

37:35

it isn't settling, you know, especially when we

37:37

think about The

37:40

the number of baby boomers who are

37:42

going to be you know Are aging

37:44

who are approaching death the numbers in

37:46

this country are going to be rising?

37:49

And so it's an uncomfortable topic for many

37:51

it's an uncomfortable, you know set of conversations

37:53

to have it What do you want to

37:55

have happen to your body when you're gone?

37:58

But it's increasingly important

38:00

if we really want to, you know, kind

38:02

of bring death out of the shadows, if

38:04

you will, and to

38:07

have a conversation. I

38:09

think there's a, I mean, especially

38:11

specifically with the unclaimed by not

38:13

talking about them by rendering

38:16

them invisible while they're alive and

38:18

then further rendering them

38:20

invisible in debt. We're

38:22

also losing an opportunity to think

38:25

about what's driving this rise in

38:27

the number of unclaimed. And

38:30

what we find is that there's

38:32

a very strong element of

38:34

family estrangement that

38:36

doesn't necessarily registering official statistics

38:38

like divorce would, but

38:41

there's so many Americans are estranged

38:43

from their close relatives. And

38:46

the unclaimed show that because there's this

38:48

moment of the truth where a government

38:50

official calls you up and says, I've

38:52

bad news. This person died. And

38:54

then through the conversation asks, are

38:56

you willing to organize a funeral

38:58

or are which funeral home

39:01

are you going to use? And

39:03

if the person says, no, I'm not going to do

39:05

this. There's, there's something behind

39:07

that. That's like a big step

39:09

from a cultural perspective, from a

39:11

historical perspective to decline to very

39:14

irrelevant. And what's what

39:16

we find that's behind it is there's a

39:18

lot of estrangement that just doesn't people,

39:20

people have, you know, they're no

39:22

longer supporting each other that from

39:25

a, from a formal perspective,

39:27

they're still a relatives, but in reality,

39:29

they have given up a long time

39:31

ago, supporting each other and owing,

39:35

you know, stepping up at that,

39:37

at that critical moment. So, you

39:40

know, the, the, the,

39:43

the paying attention to these kinds of

39:45

debts and debts in general reflects back

39:47

on life. It highlights something. And in

39:49

that sense, the, the, the number of

39:51

unclaimed is almost like a barometer of

39:54

family relationships. It's like this extreme

39:56

element. It captures something really extreme

39:59

and underneath. is a

40:01

whole set of social evolutions

40:03

involved about the change

40:06

in demographics of families

40:09

and the kind of relationships we

40:11

have, and maybe also some changes about

40:13

what people feel they owe each other

40:15

at the end of life. Right.

40:19

I'm curious. You mentioned that

40:21

very often there is family.

40:24

A next-of-kin is

40:27

found in these unclaimed

40:29

scenarios, but they say,

40:32

no, I'm not willing, or they refuse. Would you

40:34

say it's more common that

40:36

an unclaimed person has family

40:38

who has refused, or is

40:41

it also common that there

40:43

is no family? So

40:47

this is one area where Los Angeles is

40:49

kind of a best-case scenario

40:52

across the United States

40:54

because they have, the

40:56

bureaucracy is convoluted, but

40:59

the benefit of the overlapping bureaucracy

41:01

is that there are many government

41:04

officials who are dedicated, right, in

41:06

this instance to finding next-of-kin, and

41:09

their utmost professionals are excellent at

41:11

it. We tell

41:13

a kind of institutional

41:16

joke, if you will, that's in the

41:18

book about how they're even able to

41:20

find secret agents. I

41:23

see. So like in

41:25

other parts of the country, there may be

41:27

next-of-kin, but there's just not the bandwidth to

41:29

even be able to find the adoption. But

41:32

I think in that sense, by knowing that

41:35

they, I would say three-quarters

41:37

of the time, they

41:40

are able to locate a legal next-of-kin.

41:44

And that, in those moments, it

41:46

is often family saying they're not

41:49

willing to take on, that

41:51

the ties withered decades earlier, years

41:53

earlier. Money of course

41:55

comes into all of this as well, right, especially

41:57

if you put it in conversation with the idea

42:00

that people haven't been talking for many

42:02

years. If you're suddenly called up by

42:04

a county official saying you need

42:06

to hire a private funeral home, you

42:08

make some calls, that could be, $8,000 is the

42:10

average in America. Then that's

42:13

a significant expense to bear, especially

42:16

if you haven't been close to that relative

42:18

for some time. And so in that sense,

42:21

other places in the country, death

42:24

is, in America is a very

42:26

local event. There are no federal

42:29

agencies tracking the unclaimed, for example,

42:31

and giving us

42:33

figures. So every place is a

42:35

little bit different, but in this sense, I think

42:38

Los Angeles helps us to really understand the

42:41

root causes of why somebody

42:43

says, no, I'm not gonna

42:45

claim a relative. And that's, as Stefan said,

42:47

is often an estrangement. And

42:50

it's interesting too, because this concept

42:52

of unable to versus unwilling to

42:55

is a wiggly line, right?

42:58

There's not really a deeply clear distinction, and

43:00

a lot of that is quite subjective, isn't

43:02

it? Yeah, no,

43:04

from the medical examiners of office

43:07

perspective, it's all abundant. Whether you

43:09

have great reasons or you have

43:11

bad reasons, so you're just taking

43:13

the easy way out, for

43:15

them, that doesn't really matter. These

43:17

bodies have been abundant by the

43:19

next of kin. But from our

43:21

perspective, talking to these relatives, we

43:23

can see where there's a lot

43:25

of gray there. I mean,

43:28

there's a sense of where people, indeed

43:30

these family ties have withered.

43:32

Sometimes the decedent was abusive, and

43:35

it feels like almost appropriate. It's

43:37

like a punishment by

43:40

letting them go unclaimed. In

43:42

other cases, people are struggling.

43:45

In other cases, people are overwhelmed with

43:47

grief. But so the unable and unwilling

43:50

is still a

43:52

broad spectrum of kinds of

43:54

motivations behind that. But

43:58

whatever the reason is, you're

44:00

basically creating a problem for government

44:03

officials who have to deal with that

44:05

body and they cannot keep it indefinitely.

44:07

So somebody has

44:10

to take to take care of it

44:12

at some point and remember this every day

44:14

new bodies come in, new bodies come

44:16

in. So they

44:18

need to whatever you come bring in you need to

44:20

bring out a smell or otherwise you get overrun with

44:22

bodies. So you the county is

44:25

actually very generous in terms of being

44:27

flexible with the amount of time they

44:29

allow relatives but at some point

44:32

it doesn't really matter what the reason

44:34

behind this from their perspective is we

44:36

need to do something with this body. Yeah

44:39

I just want to jump in for a second and just give

44:41

folks a little bit of perspective.

44:43

So Los Angeles as we said will give

44:45

time you know that the law in California

44:47

is 30 days after notifications. Very often we

44:50

find they give much longer. 30 days

44:52

till what? Till they will cremate? 30 days

44:57

after notification of a death to claim

44:59

a body before it's classified by the

45:02

county as an abandoned or

45:04

unclaimed. And then what

45:06

and sorry sorry to interject but like and then

45:08

what happens then do they cremate it? Yeah so

45:10

that goes back to whether or not they have

45:13

assets. Right oh right right yeah

45:15

you explained there's a decision tree then but

45:17

at that point that's when they sort of start to yeah

45:20

but often yeah but often they're waiting

45:22

you know if a family member immediately

45:24

says no we're not gonna claim

45:26

okay that makes makes it simpler for them but

45:29

often what we found is that people sort of

45:31

stalled they didn't respond to messages or they they

45:33

kept joined by time and and you know for

45:35

a number of reasons and and the county would

45:37

often give it to them. In other

45:40

places so so again like that's sort of

45:42

and then you know they hold the ashes

45:44

for three years giving on opportunity if it

45:47

was in it classified an indigent death for

45:49

people to come by and we find in

45:51

about 15% of the time people do have

45:55

their ashes reclaimed after they've been cremated

45:57

by the county so so that's

45:59

sort of where LA I think does things

46:02

in a really respectful manner. In

46:05

other counties, it may

46:07

be days. It may be

46:09

at 30 days, you know, some even

46:11

30 days, the body isn't cremated

46:13

and the ashes are scattered at sea. That's,

46:18

that's, there's a kind of

46:21

finality to that, right? That you can't

46:23

sort of undo. Now in Hart Island,

46:25

the largest potter's field in America off

46:27

of Manhattan, they are

46:30

burying bodies, full bodies in

46:32

mass, graves. There

46:35

are opportunities to exhume the bodies there. So

46:37

again, that's just to sort of show you

46:39

there's this wide variation of what can happen

46:41

where LA kind of fits into the spectrum.

46:44

Is there any sort of like logistical

46:47

biomedical reason for

46:51

these arbitrary time distinctions? Like, is there a certain

46:53

amount of time that a body keeps? Or

46:56

if you keep it on ice, can it be like

46:58

indefinite? No,

47:00

I think that's much more driven by cost. You

47:02

know, basically, if you go to a

47:05

funeral home and you store a body,

47:07

actually, we looked into that. I don't

47:09

remember exact numbers, but it was several

47:11

hundreds of dollars a day storage fees.

47:14

And basically, the government is keeping these

47:16

bodies in this huge crypts. And, you

47:19

know, that it comes with an opportunity

47:21

cost. And it's like, we talked

47:24

to government officials in different counties, and

47:26

they say our primary responsibility is not

47:28

to the decedent or to the relatives,

47:30

but to our taxpayers. And we're going

47:32

to dispose of these bodies as cheaply

47:34

as possible. And again,

47:37

that changes the event, the entire experience

47:39

very differently. If you are from a

47:41

culture where you need to have seen

47:43

the body, pictures, or even

47:45

ideally the actual body, and

47:48

the ashes are spread at sea, and there's no trace

47:50

left behind, that's going to really affect the

47:52

grieving you're going to go through. Yeah.

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48:59

know there's something that kind of

49:01

comes comes up for me as

49:03

we have these conversations and I'm

49:05

constantly fighting against this internal part

49:07

of me, the sort of ex-neuroscientist

49:09

who is always trying

49:11

to quantify things that are qualitative

49:13

in nature. You know it's like

49:15

there's two halves of me that are always at

49:17

war. But I

49:20

at risk of deeply oversimplifying

49:24

a lot of the systemic

49:27

issues with this country that

49:29

I think can in some ways

49:31

be exemplified by the stories that

49:34

you tell in your book. How

49:36

much does poverty,

49:39

just the

49:41

actual struggle of

49:43

affording to live in a

49:45

kind of capitalist society and

49:48

not having the support or

49:50

the resources that you need play

49:52

into this concept of the

49:54

unclaimed. Clearly there are always

49:57

going to be examples where there

49:59

are unclaimed bodies. If that were

50:01

just like wealthy, eccentric, hermit

50:03

type people. Are just individuals were really

50:05

cut off from people in their lives. But his

50:08

poverty. Not. A massive very a

50:10

ball that sort of contributes to

50:12

the com morbidities of these people's

50:14

lives. And deaths. Yeah, Simon

50:16

and Son and I'm in is half

50:18

the stuff. And because I know he'll

50:20

he'll add is an angel return or

50:22

so that. I really appreciate this question

50:24

because it's one that I and then

50:26

hoping would come out more as we

50:28

talk to folks about the book. Poverty

50:31

is absolutely a major part of the

50:33

story. Maybe not exactly in the way

50:35

I expected when I came into it,

50:37

right? Austin family is a you piss.

50:39

I was really surprised they don't go

50:41

to the cost as often as I

50:43

would have thought as the justification for

50:45

why they're. They're not gonna claim.

50:47

But where poverty really matters is

50:49

the strain it is putting on

50:51

people in daily life. The strain

50:54

on social relationships. re. We do

50:56

not have a healthy functioning social

50:58

safety net in this country, and

51:00

as a result, we expect families

51:02

to do it all. We. Expect

51:05

families to. Solve our have

51:07

housing crisis on our drug

51:09

addiction and overdose crises. We.

51:11

Expect them to solve the mental health

51:13

crisis way and also in a one.

51:15

One of the stories we we tone

51:18

the focus of outliving your relatives or

51:20

aging and living a really long life

51:22

and then your body is just at

51:24

some points or to break down and

51:27

you need long term care, right? You

51:29

need full time long term care. There

51:31

is an intentional gap in Medicare. That

51:34

doesn't allow people to have nursing home

51:36

coverage paid for subsidized by the government.

51:39

You faster than qualify for medicaid, which

51:41

means you spent on all your assets,

51:43

right? So we tell the story of

51:45

mean a brown who. You

51:48

know it's kind of in the American

51:50

ways and everything, right? And.

51:53

Was within a middle class life for

51:55

much of her adulthood. She had a

51:57

pita. Yeah,

52:00

it paid off how social security flush

52:02

savings accounts. But once

52:04

she, she needed full-time care in a nursing

52:06

home within a couple of years, everything

52:09

was spent down by healthcare costs and

52:11

long-term facility costs. And she died penniless.

52:14

So she died poor, but she hadn't

52:16

lived poor. If you know, and

52:18

so that's one of the ways

52:20

that I just, I would love this, love

52:22

us as a society to have a deeper

52:25

conversation about what are we going to do

52:27

as we face rising number of elders

52:29

in our population? How are we going

52:31

to care for them in light

52:34

of the fact that we don't have the social

52:36

safety net? So that's, that's one of the ways

52:38

that I see poverty is really central part of

52:40

the story. And, and I know you

52:42

have more to add, I'm sure. And

52:45

before you do, Stefan, before you dive in, I'm

52:47

so sorry. I just, it just, you know, it

52:51

reminds me at risk of getting

52:53

political. It just reminds me of this

52:55

sort of axiom that I think so

52:57

many of us here in America are

52:59

just unwilling to face. And maybe it's

53:01

because we've been sort

53:03

of fed a lot

53:06

of rhetoric to the contrary, but like we

53:08

are all a

53:11

year away from being homeless. We are not

53:13

a year away from having a billionaire status.

53:16

And I think that that's something that

53:18

very few people are willing to recognize

53:20

in their own lives, that even if

53:22

you're playing the game correctly, you know,

53:24

and doing all the things, and even

53:26

if you had privilege, you

53:28

there, it's

53:30

very easy to become destitute through

53:34

no fault of your own, simply because you

53:36

became ill or because you lost some sort

53:38

of capability. But it's impossible

53:41

to become, you know, deeply wealthy in this

53:43

country. Like we are much closer to that

53:45

end of the spectrum. All of us are.

53:48

So anyway, sorry to continue. Yeah,

53:50

no, Amen. Exactly. I

53:53

just had to say, I would add

53:55

that we're also all at risk of

53:57

going unclaimed. It's not out of the

53:59

question. You know this is what is what. It

54:01

what we learned from this research and

54:04

to come back to this issue of

54:06

poverty. So if poverty drew a so

54:08

I completely agree of everything Palmer said

54:10

that poverty intersex of every level and

54:13

that is like a sammich property issue.

54:15

However, If poverty was the

54:17

main reason why people would go

54:19

unclaimed, we would expect rates of

54:21

unclear to be like. Fifteen.

54:23

To forty percent. And. So on

54:26

four percent instead. So. Er.

54:29

Das. So many people who are

54:31

struggling financially who do step up.

54:33

So. Why are people claiming

54:36

fuckers bodies of relatives? If

54:38

it's. Is that brings them.

54:41

Gives them an enormous financial setbacks.

54:43

All right if there's something or

54:45

a bird ironing yes, a deeper

54:47

cultural reasons that be filed you

54:49

burying our own. It's

54:52

cycle last way of doing family is

54:54

dixie this sending a signal. This is

54:56

the kind of people we are. We

54:58

are the people who in spite of

55:00

poverty, Were might be doing car washes

55:02

who might be selling car, but we're going

55:04

to bury our oh so. It's not that I

55:06

mean does it does an intersex. An interaction

55:08

between poverty and culture that goes

55:10

in multiple ways. It's It's not

55:13

just a question of money, it's

55:15

also Christian of: what do you

55:17

believe? Your own, your own, what

55:20

you believe your oh that. That's.

55:24

Near. It's so interesting

55:26

this yeah, this deeper ethic that.

55:29

You. Know I struggle with this

55:31

because I can very easily fall

55:34

into a cynical mentality. But then

55:36

I you know can find these

55:38

glimmering moments of hope and of

55:41

Kenneth common humanity. I I'm reminded

55:43

of I had a guest on

55:46

the show his name's Brad. Mick

55:48

Hi Doctor Brad Mci. A he's

55:50

A says this and in the U

55:52

S are in Australia is becoming good

55:55

friend of mine who writes about sort

55:57

of medical. Pseudoscience. And

55:59

he is a specializes in working with

56:01

Hiv Aids patients and Lgbtq patience and

56:04

Australia and we were kind of shooting

56:06

the shit one day and he sent

56:08

me a message and he was like

56:10

okay explain this to me about. America

56:12

because this very bus confuses me. I think she

56:14

was watching a speech by Trump or something. And

56:17

he was like there's always gonna be

56:19

a percentage. Of. The

56:22

population of the society who

56:24

like cannot contribute. Like.

56:27

They're too ill or there to

56:29

mentally ill, or they had some

56:31

sort of injury. Or they are.

56:33

They have an intellectual disability and

56:35

they just they can't. Contribute quote

56:37

Unquote in the way that we think from

56:39

a capitalist perspective like the get pull their

56:41

own weight or however you want to word

56:43

s. And he was like what happens.

56:45

To those people and I was like oh, they're

56:47

homeless. Like.

56:49

This is our society, right? We don't

56:51

have the safety nets that we think

56:53

we should haves And so it's interesting

56:56

that you mention. That. The.

56:58

Unclaimed in some ways as the

57:00

epitome of that that. Almost.

57:03

It. Forces. A

57:05

beautiful humanistic Sx that's a weirdly

57:08

not always there in life. But.

57:11

It somehow comes out in death. Yes,

57:15

and that's even. In. Odessa

57:18

also than a parent in

57:20

strangers who step up when

57:23

family abandon their relative so.

57:26

This. Is one of the mind

57:28

blowing things up. writing this book

57:30

is that there are these communities

57:32

across the country of volunteers who

57:34

take on this role of grieving

57:37

people. There for never met. Strangers.

57:39

Morning say just comic

57:41

who I'm organizing ceremonies

57:44

to. Bring a last. Element

57:47

of dignity. To. People they don't

57:49

really know anything about him in oh

57:51

this is it Does Axes also one

57:53

of the reasons why a such a

57:55

fantastic place to look at the unsafe

57:57

because every year in December. Boyle

58:00

Heights. There's this. Big. Ceremony

58:02

where. The

58:05

community. Members are invited and

58:07

it's an interfaith ceremony.

58:09

It's a. Multi

58:13

lingual ceremony and people stand around

58:15

the on the mass grave of

58:17

between thousand five hundred to two

58:19

thousand crewmates. A

58:22

burrito. This little corner

58:24

of Evergreen Cemetery and

58:26

there. Is and

58:28

it's really touching. It's it's extraordinary,

58:31

meaningful because you do bring dignity

58:33

you brew to bring this last

58:35

element of humanity you couldn't be

58:37

there for. These people live because

58:39

maybe you didn't know them. But

58:41

here you. Are. And you still

58:43

giving them that lasts? Sendoff:

58:47

Do. You think says on the air

58:50

doesn't that like kind of cultural

58:52

or social or religious or ethnic

58:54

Or you know all the different

58:57

kind of demographic variables you want

58:59

to use to describe this but

59:01

cultural heterogeneity is actually a driving

59:03

force for that. affects like the

59:06

fact that there's so many just

59:08

different types of people in our

59:10

legs. with that bring so many

59:12

varied backgrounds Do think that that

59:15

helps or hurts in some ways.

59:17

The ethic. Of I'm taking care

59:19

of of the dad even if you

59:21

don't know them. And

59:25

a simple question: avid city thought from

59:27

too much about a comedy. I have

59:29

a source now. I

59:31

mean. I

59:34

would say based on our experiences

59:36

attending that ceremony every year since

59:38

Two Thousand and Fifteen with the

59:40

exception of Covert when they they

59:42

had live. Streams. All ages to

59:45

sort of be around. a diversity

59:47

of. Of. People and me point

59:49

this out with working in. These are people

59:51

who may never have interacted with one another

59:53

in in the County of Los Angeles. right?

59:56

coming together on this Wednesday morning. A Thursday

59:58

morning of it was or with. The way.

1:00:01

I'm just talking with them. I think

1:00:03

the heterogeneity is actually a driving force

1:00:05

for many of them to show up

1:00:07

right The you know there's different reasons,

1:00:10

maybe religious and. Mean the. Political

1:00:13

it may be kind of the demographic

1:00:15

attachments, A sort of thinking about who

1:00:17

could be buried thera right and think

1:00:19

it is stories of migration and and

1:00:21

you know migrants were up and coming

1:00:23

together to sort of on are people

1:00:26

who have also had a and journey

1:00:28

and and had to restart Eliason just

1:00:30

isn't sort of deep recognition and humanity

1:00:32

about what that experience mean, sort of

1:00:34

thinking that reflecting on that as a

1:00:36

possible a for one of the reasons

1:00:38

somebody goes unclaimed as all these people

1:00:40

from coming together. And

1:00:42

I think there's this moment. you know,

1:00:45

At the same time there's this heterogeneity. There's

1:00:47

also this, this kind of commitment, this unified

1:00:49

eat those that we heard from people who

1:00:52

has had and. That. I

1:00:54

wanna be here and a wanna be around

1:00:56

other people who feel the same way that

1:00:58

I do. So. We talk

1:01:01

to a woman nicole who have

1:01:03

lost her brother years earlier very

1:01:05

tragically had the case handled by

1:01:07

the medical examiner's and. I

1:01:10

know every year since then she would

1:01:12

come to the Boyle Heights ceremony to

1:01:14

honor people that she thought could have

1:01:16

been like her brother could have been

1:01:18

lonely. Arm. And while her

1:01:20

brothers and go and claimed she still felt

1:01:22

that there was this connection. And. This

1:01:24

this concern like I wish I could have done

1:01:26

more for my brother. I. Wish I

1:01:28

could do more for humanity. I'm com mean

1:01:31

and I'm around other people who feel that

1:01:33

same way. You

1:01:36

know, yeah, there's sorry to interject that

1:01:38

there's sort of there's a beauty and

1:01:40

again I struggle with my cynicism here

1:01:42

and I'm always like grappling with the

1:01:44

to you see the so often when

1:01:47

it comes to activism or it comes

1:01:49

to causes or just comes to like

1:01:51

community engagement is that something often isn't

1:01:53

real until it happens to you. So

1:01:55

you've got your marching in the streets

1:01:57

against gun violence or your you know.

1:02:00

Working in a Pride Parade event and

1:02:02

the Eat Me you often have a

1:02:04

personal connection to it, and there's something

1:02:06

almost like. You. Know obviously it's.

1:02:09

Heartbreaking to think about the fact that

1:02:11

an individual. Had to go through tragedy and

1:02:13

now they're You know, the sort of coming out on

1:02:15

the other side, or they're. Healing process is

1:02:17

to say. I I I now

1:02:20

recognize that have deep empathy for. Other people who

1:02:22

are going through tragedy and I want to be

1:02:24

there to support them. but there's. Also. That

1:02:26

kind of. Cynicism. Of

1:02:28

the people who like, this applies to

1:02:30

all of us. And.

1:02:33

Sadly, until it happens to us, we

1:02:35

often don't think about these things at

1:02:37

all. But what

1:02:39

celery? That's really? Interesting. Also,

1:02:42

by the ceremony it's that many

1:02:44

people carry on russell of Greece

1:02:46

and where's you know if this

1:02:48

as a non sports exists On

1:02:50

and on a ceremony of unclaimed?

1:02:52

It's probably one of the ferries

1:02:54

few avenues rape and feel or.

1:02:57

In. All take a bite size of this

1:02:59

grief off and work through it so I

1:03:01

beat. There's a personal connection. But that's also what

1:03:03

makes us. Personally, Meaningful for

1:03:05

lots of these attendees is that

1:03:08

they they are. They're not just.

1:03:10

As a community but also trying to work

1:03:12

to so of these elements themselves are day

1:03:15

on their way of going and claims and

1:03:17

what should they see something in their life?

1:03:19

Our day to day have somebody who will

1:03:21

will claim them or. Were. Days

1:03:23

there for people that went unclaimed. So

1:03:26

this the something's This does not that

1:03:28

many avenues that we have every we

1:03:30

talked about earlier about his denial of

1:03:32

deaths does not that many ways that

1:03:35

you can just share this. and this

1:03:37

is one of these ritualized ways of.

1:03:40

At. Least addressing some of that.

1:03:42

Yeah, it. Can. A

1:03:45

I just want to jump in for

1:03:47

a second and say I have a

1:03:49

pre save the cynicism I definitely as

1:03:51

an academic sale at Riot and certainly

1:03:53

when I get on acts are in

1:03:55

a formerly known as Twitter I'd definitely

1:03:57

steadily had that part of me said.

1:04:00

Every. For the algorithm. I do

1:04:02

think that after having worked in this book

1:04:04

what I should say to that and what

1:04:06

I say to myself really is. You.

1:04:08

Know what? In the end? I. Guess

1:04:10

I don't really care anymore. What is

1:04:12

somebody his journey to get to the

1:04:15

point of emphasizing. And. To com

1:04:17

and show up Just the fact that they do.

1:04:19

I'm gonna hold on to that end. Yeah,

1:04:22

I just I feel that you know

1:04:24

where you are. Just is it so

1:04:27

hard to write about these things without

1:04:29

sounding too sentimental? Are coming off a

1:04:31

straight and we had to work Mississippi

1:04:33

and you know the book. Quite many

1:04:35

many times we rode it, but. It

1:04:37

is it. It is true that were

1:04:40

stronger. When we're together, were badder

1:04:42

when we're doing this in a

1:04:44

sociologist, say, a classic sociological notion

1:04:46

of his idea of collective effervescent

1:04:48

straight so. Every day we're

1:04:51

experiencing so. Much difference with each other.

1:04:53

We. Need these moments. These. moments

1:04:55

of ritual where. We come together

1:04:57

and we have shared emotions

1:05:00

across those differences and however

1:05:02

ephemeral that may be. It

1:05:04

is really important for repairing. Were.

1:05:06

Parents hairs. To our social fabric

1:05:09

and I think. One

1:05:11

thing I've heard consistently over the years

1:05:13

as I'd given talk so I spoken

1:05:15

with people that we don't have a

1:05:17

lot of ritual last in America. At.

1:05:19

Least ritual that hasn't been incredibly

1:05:21

politicized. Sooner. Or

1:05:23

rituals that are not deeply just

1:05:26

like individualistic or pursue this idea

1:05:28

of being able to slick and

1:05:30

an atheist straight and so is

1:05:32

a secular individual. I don't have

1:05:35

a religious community and because of

1:05:37

that I yeah it would be

1:05:39

hard for me to find these

1:05:42

examples and I think one thing

1:05:44

that so beautiful about this as

1:05:46

a now. Clinical. Psychologist:

1:05:48

I work with people who are

1:05:50

often dealing with Greece and We

1:05:53

you know, If I

1:05:55

don't I don't take the kind of one size

1:05:57

fits all approach says psychotherapy like and it's very

1:05:59

into. Ritualized Each individual is can approach

1:06:02

their grief and a different way,

1:06:04

but I often talk about the

1:06:06

power and the value. Of ritual and

1:06:08

we might. Describe. Visiting

1:06:10

grave sites or setting a

1:06:12

place at the table for

1:06:14

somebody on certain anniversaries but

1:06:17

I have never sort of

1:06:19

quote unquote prescribed are recommended

1:06:21

Attending. One. Of these.

1:06:24

Ah, I'm. One. Of these.

1:06:27

Ceremonies. And I think I

1:06:29

might add that to the repertoire

1:06:31

because how incredibly meaningful, Especially for

1:06:33

somebody who didn't who's struggling with

1:06:35

that concept of closure which doesn't

1:06:37

ever really exist. Somebody who's gone

1:06:39

through something similar. Or maybe they

1:06:42

haven't gone through something similar. but

1:06:44

they can heal. Through. Supporting

1:06:46

others in in that way,

1:06:48

I love that! Ah, I feel

1:06:51

like there's a million other things. We can talk

1:06:53

about have kept you guys over the our. Add

1:06:56

another something that felt very like. Closing

1:06:58

Their. But I'm serious. Before we do start

1:07:01

to sort of wrap it up, I want

1:07:03

to ask each of you separately or individually.

1:07:05

we have son a lot of things that

1:07:07

this is my way. I'm. A little bit

1:07:09

frenetic and how I approach books cause of. Also

1:07:12

like read the book People like the

1:07:14

stories are there and it's very it's

1:07:16

narrative nonfiction. Which I love. It really

1:07:18

takes you on this journey. You connect

1:07:20

with these characters because they're real people.

1:07:22

they're not. You know, character? Tell

1:07:26

me each of you. Is there

1:07:28

anything? That we didn't get

1:07:30

into some magically or or

1:07:33

specifically that you'd sort of

1:07:35

be remiss. That we

1:07:37

and the interview without mentioning. I

1:07:41

love that question. I just have to said it's a

1:07:43

lot of quality Mathis courses on a tell all my

1:07:45

students. That's to be the last question. Was

1:07:49

if that's what. I

1:07:51

can be. My research is so weird moving

1:07:53

into psychology from journalism as you know you

1:07:55

as you know so well going. Into

1:07:57

academia? How much like journal?

1:08:00

The made me a better not just. Therapists,

1:08:03

To but a better qualitative research

1:08:05

or but then learning. Qualitative

1:08:07

research, I think. Would have made

1:08:09

me of efforts for flavor. Yeah,

1:08:11

exactly exactly. Yeah

1:08:14

so I think one thing that the

1:08:16

just kind of. Comes. To mind

1:08:18

is just the sort of. Encourage

1:08:22

people to come to the block with an

1:08:24

open mindedness that in the you think you

1:08:26

know what an unclaimed death as if you

1:08:28

thought about it right? I mean awesome people

1:08:30

with hell you're reading up in place. You're

1:08:33

right about the homeless and and just can

1:08:35

come with an open mind and and see

1:08:37

that this is. Both a

1:08:39

problem is bigger than. Many

1:08:42

of us have ever thought about. I'm

1:08:44

closer to home I think than

1:08:46

the most of us have thought

1:08:48

about, but there really is this

1:08:50

opportunity I hope to have a

1:08:53

conversation if you're unsettled by something

1:08:55

in this book. What? Would you

1:08:57

like to see different? What kind

1:08:59

of care do you think we should be

1:09:01

given? Not just and death, but to the

1:09:03

living as well. Love

1:09:06

that! Stuff. And does anything come

1:09:08

up for you that we didn't? Really, You know,

1:09:10

cover? I would say exactly

1:09:12

the same thing that somehow just send

1:09:14

a bit it's it's get the and

1:09:16

saves reflect back on the living and

1:09:18

it's stuck at the Living that we

1:09:20

need to pay more attention. So I

1:09:22

mean she says a better than that

1:09:24

So if it's a stupid there is.

1:09:26

Such. A Oh gosh, it's been

1:09:28

such a pleasure learning from the two

1:09:30

of you digging into this book. I've

1:09:32

really highly recommend it and hope that

1:09:35

everybody you know here on the show

1:09:37

us a little something has been sparked

1:09:39

in them. I think for many people.

1:09:42

This is the topic they've never even thought about

1:09:44

as you mention, and so this is. Opening. Up

1:09:46

a whole kind of world. Of inquiry and

1:09:48

of kind of introspection and and

1:09:50

self exploration. And for others who

1:09:53

may be have thought about it,

1:09:55

there definitely are a lot of

1:09:57

surprises. It's. You know the research

1:09:59

shows. It's not. It's not how you think.

1:10:01

It is and so I a bet.

1:10:04

always. I think important for our own

1:10:06

personal growth. And. Development So I just want to

1:10:08

thank you guys so much for being here. And

1:10:10

for sort of opening our eyes to this. Muslims

1:10:13

or three and lesser. I'm.

1:10:15

So glad! So The Book Every

1:10:17

is the unclaimed Abandonment and Hope

1:10:19

in the City of Angels by

1:10:22

Doctors Pamela Prickett and. Stuff

1:10:24

and Temur men's and everybody listening. Thank

1:10:26

you for coming back a week after

1:10:28

week. I'm really looking forward to the

1:10:30

next sides. We all get together.