Life is for the Living

Marco and I wrap up the season, tell stories about people we have lost, and share some news about the podcast. 

In the very last episode of the season, and just in time for Christmas, our guests tell us stories of grief: the deaths that hit them the hardest, how they remember their dead, and what a good death looks like. 

Marco and I talk about death and dying. Again. :D 

I ask our guests the big questions: Are you afraid of dying, what would be a good death, and what do you think happens after death. 

Marco and I dive into what we have learned about the death care system, and what we would want to change about it. 

Although our guests have different perspectives on the way death is talked about and regulated, one thing they all agree on is that it things aren't great they way they are. In this episode, we talk about what needs to change to make people's lives easier when they are facing the death of a loved one. 

In this episode, we chat about our biggest take-aways from our interview with Dr. Jennifer Blanks, what we look for in our favorite cemeteries and what we want written on our epitaphs.  

In this episode, we talk to Dr. Jennifer Blanks, also known on Instagram as The Cemetery Sista, about her work locating and documenting African American cemeteries in Texas and Louisiana, how race affects the experience of death, and how New Orleans does death right.

Dr Blank's Website: The Cemetery Sista LLC

Producer Marco and I discuss funerals we have attended, how we memorialize our dead, and what we want for our own funerals. 

In this episode, Rebecca Lynn-Scott, death positive activist and practicing Hellenic pagan, talks with me about ritual and it's place in our processing of death. Rebecca suggests rituals that non-believers can use, describes her perfect burial rite, and explains what wailing is.