Best Life Best Death

In Part II of our conversation, Barbara Karnes, RN and I move into talking about some harder questions that come up in the end-of-life arena, including: When someone is reluctant to have a conversation about the end of life, how might we approach the topic? Is calling in hospice a “defeat” in some way? How has hospice changed and evolved in the years since it first began in the U.S.? How do “doula...

Barbara Karnes, RN – hospice pioneer in the US and end-of-life educator extraordinaire – joins me to discuss her background, share her experience, and offer a few pearls of wisdom that we can put into practice today. How can we better understand the process of gradual death, and how can we benefit from “the gift of time” that is a gradual death? How can “gentle education” help our fear go down, so...

After the sudden death of his brother, Preston Zeller decided to dive into his grief and his creativity by painting every day for a year. He made a gorgeous, moving, colorful film about the project, called “The Art of Grieving.” Preston and I talk about grief, loss, dignity, joy, family, art history, and the struggles of mourning.

Join me and Maria Fraietta to hear more about how the Nokbox - or Next of Kin box - could save you a lot of time and effort. These 14 folders and corresponding instructions are designed to make critical papers and items easy to find, file, and know what to do with when the time comes to manage the paperwork that surrounds a death. Get organized early in your life and/or use it as a map to find eve...

Jamie Sarche, Director of Pre-Planning at Feldman Mortuary, a family-owned funeral business in Denver, CO discusses the advantages of planning a funeral in advance. Get ready to hear why grief rituals matter and to ask yourself, "Do I really want to google funeral homes on the day that I need to find one??" 

Learn about green burial and how licensed funeral director Emily Miller has turned 80 acres of high, pristine prairie lands into a fully natural burial site. What is the Colorado Burial Preserve, and how does it work?

cianna stewart is the creator of the Dying Kindness podcast, "a podcast for people who are going to die someday." Her wry sense of humor and practical advice go right to the heart of the work of Best Life Best Death! How did we meet? What does it mean to 'make your death kinder'? And what wisdom does her life experience have to offer?

As his wife slowly succumbed to a drawn-out illness, businessman, spouse and father Gene Zimmerman found himself writing poetry as a way to make sense of each difficult day during her decline and after her death. We discuss the challenges of this impossible situation, how he found inspiration through writing, and what his experience has to teach others about grief, loss and love. Attached is a rev...

Clutter! Help! What is so-called "Swedish Death Cleaning” and how can these principles help us take charge of the clutter in our homes? Join me for some de-cluttering inspiration based on books, articles and personal experience.

Johanna J Lunn When You Die , director/producer, and I discuss the film "In the Realm of Death and Dreaming" + her next three documentary films about the end of life. What’s to be learned from these four movies and the extraordinary experiences discussed here by scientists, medical practitioners and lay people? As caregivers, how do we "gently be" with the altered experiences of those who are dyin...

Author, speaker and grief specialist Gary Roe and I discuss the topic “Grief: It's Everywhere!" From humanity living with the COVID pandemic to personal losses of all magnitudes, grief is everywhere. It matters what you go through -- and it matters what you do with it. Gary talks about the "ABCs" of loss and how to make connections despite this toughest of human experiences.

Co-creator of The Death Deck, Lori LoCicerco describes how she and Lisa Pahl decided to bring conversations about death to the fore by making a game that helps anyone talk about “the most universal yet rarely talked about topic of all.” 

David Wilcox and I talk about "cardio spelunking" and how creating songs is way to move emotions. Includes an unrecorded song about his father's death.

Monotasking expert and founder of Juniper Books, Thatcher Wine and I discuss the concepts in his book "The Twelve Monotasks: Do One Thing at a Time to Do Everything Better." Drive when you drive!

Hospice nurse and growing public figure (450K TikTok followers, 30K+ on Instagram) Julie McFadden and I discuss the topic, “What Makes a Peaceful Death?” This impassioned nurse uses social media as a way to reach people with simple tips to better understand the end of life, make sense of what is happening to a loved one, and be better prepared for the inevitable.

What are some of the ways that we can capture family history and stories? Ann Whitehill and I discuss her experience using ancestry.com , and talk about other services that guide individuals and families on how to create something new from memories and photos.

Jennifer Caroll - author, journalist, biographer, and artist - chats with me about tributes, memoirs and even obituaries. How do people get started? Why bother to tell about my "ordinary" life? What does it mean to write your own story?

Singer songwriter David Wilcox joins me with two unique songs and some ruminations on gratitude, death and love.

Johanna Lunn - director, producer, exquisite human! - talks about the When You Die Project and how the documentary film "In the Realm of Death and Dreaming" came to be. How hard could it be?!

Minoti Rajput - wealth advisor, author, & financial advocate for women of all ages and means - discusses how parents of special needs children can think about planning for long term care. Her book is Beyond a Parent's Love: Lessons Learned in Life-Planning for Special Needs Children.

Guest Lynn Golden, an end-of-life doula and educator, discusses hospice and doula support at the end of life. Through powerful stories, she shares the benefits of having this kind of guidance for both the dying and the living.

Family communication in crisis can resemble an aviary, with squawking visitors and pecking orders. Learn about seagull syndrome and the ring theory of kvetching, in which we complain/vent in a specific direction, so as not to overwhelm those most in need.

Barbara Karnes, hospice pioneer and author of "Gone from My Sight," inspires me to explore palliative care, hospice and end-of-life doulas. And thanks to Russ for the new guitar segments!

Zak Foster - visual artist, teacher, and creative community builder - shares his thoughts on memorial, burial and funeral quilts + sewing as a metaphor.

I read an excerpt from Being Mortal , in which a town improves the lives and deaths of residents by having conversations. Author Atul Gawande says, if the FDA could approve conversations they would be -- that's how big of a difference they can make!