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You're about to hear a preview of partially examined

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life supporter exclusive content to learn

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how to the whole thing, check out partially examined life

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dot com slash support. This

0:48

is your partially examine life. Nightcap, we're

0:50

recording this on February twenty

0:52

fourth two thousand twenty three. I have

0:54

a couple

0:55

things, but what's on? Are there your minds?

0:57

Who wants to start? I'm going to a

0:59

memorial service this weekend, and I'm helping

1:01

the person whose mother died,

1:04

write her U0G. Are you taking some

1:06

inspiration from other eulogies, or

1:08

are you writing what you

1:10

think, Audible Eulogy, or what

1:12

are you doing? I'm just trying to help her

1:14

find her voice in a way that

1:17

I think will be most beneficial

1:19

for everybody who attends. So you're

1:21

trying to help her say what

1:23

she's already saying in a way

1:25

that will work for the audience

1:27

as you understand it.

1:29

Yeah. She had a complicated relationship

1:32

with her mother and she's relatively

1:34

young. Mhmm. So

1:37

I'm helping her find a way to say

1:39

things that she wants to say that she thinks are

1:41

important without making

1:44

it about her and her

1:46

feet, you know. And because I think

1:48

a lot of the people there will have how complicated

1:50

feelings and ultimately this

1:52

person has passed and the point

1:55

of a memorial service is for people to come

1:57

together as a community and grieve

1:59

and you wanna allow for that process to

2:01

happen. So

2:02

well, and maybe part of it is that,

2:04

I mean, if people have a lot of complicated feelings,

2:06

maybe some of that acknowledgement will help.

2:08

I think so. Yeah. And I'm sure

2:11

people will talk amongst themselves

2:13

and all that sort of thing. It's just it's a tough

2:15

time. It's very tough for you. Lose your

2:18

mother at such a young age after

2:20

lengthy illnesses and ultimately

2:23

we don't know what other people experience

2:25

and pain and illness can make

2:27

you difficult to deal

2:28

with. So

2:29

-- Mhmm.

2:30

-- we wanna be tolerant of that. I think

2:32

this idea of thinking about in

2:34

Comiums, you know, or things

2:36

to it has a philosophical pedigree

2:38

of how do you talk about the dead

2:41

And how do you want yourself to be talked

2:43

about after your dead and what kind of

2:45

to do? I don't know. One of my

2:47

dad's friends the oldest

2:49

of his group has has passed away, and

2:52

they had for her husband,

2:55

like, a memorial service, when he died

2:57

a few years ago. And for her,

2:59

the kids just don't wanna do anything because

3:01

I guess it's like all the people

3:03

that would have gone Most of them are dead.

3:06

Like, she outlasted most of them. I don't know

3:08

exactly what the I don't know. I know it. I just

3:10

know some people even one of

3:12

my peers. Brian's friend,

3:14

California, just died after a

3:16

long battle with brain cancer, and it's

3:18

just like, I he didn't want to service. They just his

3:20

wife made something on the Internet for him. Online

3:24

thing to read that was a really nice

3:26

thing about his life and his interests,

3:28

but I don't

3:29

know, disagree.

3:31

Well, it's interesting. Yeah, I guess

3:33

I do too. Howard Bauchner: You know, sure,

3:35

we can respect that. But the memorial

3:37

service is not about them, it's about everybody

3:39

else. And it's about community and

3:42

it's about grieving which requires

3:44

community when at least

3:46

historically the way we, you know,

3:48

evolve traditions and so forth. People

3:50

who are grieving are not supposed to be left alone.

3:52

You're not supposed to be alone with your grief. For

3:55

any number of reasons. You know, so you

3:57

come together. It's an affirmation. The

3:59

people who are still around and their relationships

4:01

and their connections. There's the process

4:04

of letting go of

4:06

the one who died, but also recognizing

4:09

that you still have obligations and

4:11

things like that. To other people and

4:14

loved ones. So I've, you know,

4:16

I'm actually really brought into the

4:18

concept of ritual around this

4:20

particular human practice, you know, I think

4:23

we've kind of lost sight of it, and we've lost sight of

4:25

the meaning and the importance of it, very much

4:27

like what we do in the Jewish tradition They

4:29

have a period when somebody dies. You don't

4:31

bury them immediately. There's a waiting period.

4:34

And during that waiting period, the family

4:36

or the close relatives do something

4:38

called sitting shiva, which means they're

4:40

supposed to stay at home for seven days,

4:43

and they're not supposed to go to work, they're not

4:45

supposed to they're supposed to be with each other

4:47

and they're supposed to be visited by

4:50

friends, family, neighbors,

4:52

whatever. And those people bring them food and

4:54

they sit with them and everybody sort of

4:56

processes, then you do the actual burial

4:59

after that period or at some point

5:02

afterwards. And there's a process

5:04

and a ritual around that. Everybody throws,

5:06

you know, there's a stupid dirt on the grave and

5:08

there's, you know, a whole formal

5:10

procession on that. And then if you're

5:13

a spouse, you have a year

5:15

where you're not supposed to get remarried or anything

5:17

like that. But then after that year period,

5:19

it's supposed to be like, okay, it's over. Get

5:22

on with your life. So, you know, you don't

5:24

have a prolonged, a woe is me

5:26

after that person died. I I couldn't move

5:28

on with my life. And I'm not saying that

5:30

this is just one ritual. I think

5:33

the ritual of burial, the ritual of

5:35

memorial services is really critical, and I

5:37

feel like we've lost it. And I've

5:39

been to a few in my life and I've seen

5:41

ones where the love poured out

5:44

and, you know, it was a really cathartic

5:46

and wonderful experience for everybody who attended,

5:48

and I've seen ones where the

5:50

anger and denial and the grief

5:53

blocked the possibility of that sort

5:55

of action. So if anybody's

5:57

interested, there's a

5:59

really I don't know what he's up to today that

6:01

there's a theologian and he

6:04

might have to have a psychology degree Paskin

6:06

Stephen Jenkins. He's

6:09

Canadian, and I think he's partially

6:12

First Nations and he

6:14

did a documentary many

6:16

years ago, a brief

6:17

walker. This was kind of his theme

6:19

and it follows him as he basically

6:22

goes through kind of a hospice process with

6:24

few people and Paskin

6:27

about this very thing and our disconnection

6:30

from that process and why it's so important.

6:33

Very wise, wise, wise,

6:36

you make me think not just about eulogies

6:39

and the rituals and

6:41

habits regarding when someone

6:43

dies. But also the

6:46

process of dying itself

6:48

when I think about hospice. And you

6:50

mentioned going to, you know, sitting

6:53

shiver and going to visit the family or

6:55

the loved ones, people grieving

6:57

the death of their loved

6:59

one in the Jewish tradition. It

7:02

also makes me think of of just

7:05

the process of going to visit people

7:07

who are dying -- Mhmm. -- or

7:09

who are in the, you know, into their lives.

7:11

One of my uncles died died of

7:14

pancreatic cancer over quite a significant

7:16

amount of time. And I

7:18

went to visit him several

7:20

times he in the

7:23

waning months of his life, my

7:25

mom with her sister tended

7:27

him for you know, the last six or

7:30

eight weeks of his life. You know, there was something

7:32

really it's just a good thing --

7:34

Mhmm. -- to acknowledge just to

7:37

show up. And what I found

7:39

was what he wanted to do, what

7:41

he was happy to do was just talk

7:43

about what everybody's doing.

7:45

And he was always grateful for that.

7:48

Also, trusting that I think it's

7:50

inevitable you wonder Am I disrupting

7:53

them in some way or whatever? And

7:56

you would call up and find out how is you know,

7:58

does he wanna see anybody? And

8:00

it was either yes or no. Mhmm. And

8:02

it wasn't personal. It was like, I'm up

8:04

for it or I'm not. Same thing was true

8:06

of another one of my uncles

8:09

in this

8:09

respect. And it was

8:11

really worth it to make the trip

8:13

to go see them. Totally. You make a

8:15

really good point. Dealing around

8:18

just being present. My wife

8:20

and I are known

8:23

for being great in a crisis. And

8:26

when we have somebody who's there's a medical

8:28

emergency or whatever the case

8:30

may be, what I see when

8:33

people are going through these kinds of circumstances,

8:36

the common reaction of well intentioned

8:38

people is to

8:39

say, praying for you, let me know

8:41

if I can do anything.

8:43

No. No. You don't make people make decisions.

8:45

Exactly. You don't people in these

8:47

situations aren't thinking about you and aren't thinking

8:50

you can help or whatever. You just show

8:52

up. So you bring food.

8:54

You bring

8:54

flowers. You take their dog for a walk. You

8:57

make sure the kids are okay. You do you just

8:59

show up. And you're also attentive to

9:02

their signals about not what, basically

9:04

relieving them of decisions. Exactly.

9:07

Yeah. And that's how you deal with

9:08

crisis. If that sounds like the kind

9:10

of thing that you wanna hear more about,

9:12

then please go to part actually examine

9:14

life dot com slash support. Thanks

9:17

for listening.

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