What’s your favorite section of the newspaper? As someone who would receive a printed copy of The New York Times on Sundays, I would spend 10 minutes pulling out my priority sections: front page news of course (it’s kind of the whole point of subscribing), Real Estate, Food to know where I should eat next and what to cook next, Style to stay current, and always the obituaries.

My guest today is Clay Risen, a reporter for The New York Times on the obituaries desk. Clay gives us an insider perspective on the process of writing obituaries. He says, “our job isn’t to write about death. The death is an occasion for which we are writing about a life.” That’s a reframe that stopped me in my tracks.

What’s clear after speaking with Clay is that we are all connected. There’s more that connects us than divides us, and that reading the obituaries is a practice that can remind you that you’re still alive!