In this episode of Death Virgin, Kristen gets a new hip — and loses a bone.

What begins as a routine surgery (everyone says it’s routine) becomes something stranger: a meditation on ownership, body parts, family legacy, and what it means when a piece of you that grew with you is suddenly removed.

Before going under anesthesia, Kristen asks the question most surgeons are not prepared for:

Can I keep the bone?

From there, she wanders — lovingly and irreverently — through medical authority, arrogant surgeons, grandmother pranks, Harvard Medical School cadavers, the mysterious Jewish “Luz bone” of resurrection, and the strange grief of losing a tooth in your twenties.

This episode explores:

1. Why “common” surgery doesn’t mean minor
2. What belongs to us once it’s cut out of us
3. The power dynamics between doctors and patients
4. Why second opinions should be normalized
5. The family story of Grandma Mary, told she would never walk again — and walking anyway
6. Donating bodies to science (and what happens after)
7. The religious argument against cremation and the almond-shaped “Luz bone”
8. Why birth and death are both messier than we like to admit
9. Mourning body parts — teeth, breasts, bones — as small rehearsals for larger loss
10. Whether cremation tidies death… or just disguises it

Kristen also confronts the hypocrisy of creating end-of-life workbooks for others while having no will herself — realizing, the night before surgery, that she has not practiced what she preaches.

Because maybe death practice doesn’t only happen at funerals.

Maybe it happens in operating rooms.

Maybe it happens when your body changes.

Maybe it happens when you realize you are not, in fact, twenty anymore.

There is pumpkin pie.

There is Beyoncé.

There is The Big Lebowski.

There are bones — some kept, some donated, some pulverized.

And there is humor. Always humor.

Because sometimes the only way to talk about taboo things

is to talk about them sideways.

Referenced & Recommended:

Harvard Medical School Body Donation Program

Rabbinic literature on the “Luz” bone

Ecclesiastes (interpretations of resurrection texts)

The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris

The Big Lebowski (the Folgers canister scene)

Pretty Woman (big mistake. Big. Huge.)

The Little Engine That Could

Beyoncé — “Sorry” (Becky with the good hair)