This week's caller has been living with grief long enough to become a student of it. They lost their mom at twenty-two. Then their cat. Then their soul dog thirteen months ago. 

This is a conversation about grief that doesn't rank itself, animals as family, and what it means to believe your soul chose this life even when this life has been really hard.

We talk about losing a parent young and what it does when no one ever talked about death before it happened. We get into ecological grief, the mourning of a world as it used to be, and how a hottest summer on record in Greece sent this caller on a path toward becoming a grief recovery specialist. We talk about souls, reincarnation, the possibility that time doesn't exist where our animals go, and the very real question of whether you'll get to meet your dog again.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, we end up laughing about whether the old souls are just patiently waiting while the young souls keep coming back around to figure it out.

In this conversation:

• Ecological grief and why grieving a changing world is not a disorder, it's a response
• Anticipatory grief — the kind that starts before you've lost anyone
• Why they found it harder to lose their cat than their mother, and why that makes complete sense
• The case for anti-speciesism in grief work — why every animal deserves to be mourned without shame

A few lines from the call:

• "Death is the only thing that is sure that's gonna happen to our body after we're born, and yet no one speaks about it."
• "I didn't even want to live anymore." What losing their soul dog did, said plainly.
• "We don't overcome grief. We learn how to live with grief."

Book recommendation: The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller

More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list

Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube

Nemosené: Your Life Story
A guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.

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About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.

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