When We Die Talks

This caller was born into death. Their mother survived a rare, near-fatal condition as an infant only because a doctor happened to be at the house that day, checking on a dying sister. That's the reason this caller exists at all and it sets the tone for everything that follows. From there, the conversation opens into a full cosmology the caller has been building for years: reflections in a bu...

This caller doesn't come from a place of loss. They come from a place of curiosity, and a theory they've spent years quietly assembling. It starts with reincarnation. But not the straightforward kind. Not a linear return to another body in the next moment. The caller imagines all points in time as equally available. Past, present, future. When you die, you pick a new life from any of the...

This episode includes an open and personal conversation about suicide, suicidal ideation, and suicidality, including experiences from childhood. If you're in a tender place with any of these themes, please take care of yourself first. If you need support, Thrive Lifeline is a great resource.  This caller has spent most of their life in relationship with death, and they'll tell you that r...

This week's caller grew up in a Roman Catholic household where death was treated as simply another part of life. Something to be at peace with rather than afraid of. But the conversation quickly turns to something that's shaped most of their adult life: being the one who shows up. From early childhood spent in chemo waiting rooms to becoming, at 16, the family member who could see what o...

This week's caller is a retired physician who spent decades at the bedside of dying patients and now works at a funeral home. They have been present for death on both sides: as the person trying to slow it down, and as the person who shows up after. Somewhere in all of that, faith became the thing that held it all together. This is a conversation about what it looks like to build an entire li...

This week's caller is 79 years old and has spent the last three years going down every rabbit hole death has to offer. All in service of a book that's about to come out. They have lost a husband and a mother. They have survived breast cancer. And somewhere in all of that, they stopped being afraid of dying and started being afraid of being dead. This is a conversation between two people...

This week's caller was diagnosed with a terminal illness at eight years old. They have never not known that death was part of their life. They are an actor, a writer, a reader, a person who rescues snails and keeps a pet millipede and loves sharks because they understand what it feels like to be misunderstood. They are also someone who has spent their entire life figuring out how to live full...

This week's caller is a pediatric nurse who has been around death long enough to stop fearing it and start getting curious about it. They lost their father to suicide as a teenager. A few months later, they were the one doing CPR on their childhood best friend after an accidental fentanyl overdose. They were sixteen. They didn't become a nurse because of those losses exactly, but those l...

This one is different. When We Die Talks is built around anonymous conversations — people calling in to talk about death, dying, and what they think comes next. No names, no faces, just honest conversation. This episode breaks that format entirely, and I think once you hear it you'll understand why it had to. Don Sires was one of the very first guests on this podcast. Over a year ago he sat d...

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...

Note: This episode includes an open discussion of suicide and suicide loss. Please listen when you're in a good place to do so. This week's caller has lived through a concentrated stretch of loss that would bring most people to their knees. A beloved grandmother who raised them. Another grandmother, expected but still hard. And then, in March of 2021, their husband — suddenly, traumatica...

This week's caller has been sitting with death since childhood. They grew up deep inside Pentecostal religion, the shouting, the standards, the constant weight of what comes next, and instead of finding comfort there, they left with more questions than answers. They've been chasing those questions ever since.  This is a conversation about ego, identity, and why the thing afraid of dying...

This weeks caller lost their baby brother on Thanksgiving Day when they were five, and has spent their whole life with what they call "a little bird called death" on their shoulder. They're a death doula, a trauma-informed yoga instructor, a Reiki master, and an adventure motorcyclist, and they're still  terrified of death. But somehow, that's exactly what makes this conve...

This caller grew up without religion, lost their mom to suicide at 13, and spent years in a fear of death so overwhelming they couldn't be around skeletons or eat meat. Then they were diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. But somehow, this is not a sad episode. This week's caller is funny, sharp, and genuinely at peace — not because life got easier, but because they stopped waiting fo...

What would change if we treated death as a human event, not just a medical one? This week’s anonymous caller is a death doula. And instead of going abstract, they get surprisingly specific about what the end can look like and what people wish they’d put in place sooner. A lot of this episode lives in the gap between what we assume will happen and what actually happens when things move quickly: who...

What if death isn’t peaceful, or blank, or anything you can make sense of, but something you’re trapped inside? This week’s anonymous caller doesn’t come in with a comforting belief or a story about loss. They come in with death anxiety. The kind that’s hard to explain even when you’re trying to explain it. We talk through what the fear actually feels like when you get specific. Not just “I’m afra...

What does death look like when it’s part of your job? This week’s anonymous caller is an EMT who’s around emergencies and dying on a regular basis. And because of that, this conversation doesn’t stay in the abstract for long. We talk about what CPR actually does to the body, the gap between what people think happens in a medical crisis versus what it really looks like, and why end-of-life wishes c...

What happens when you’re 19 and you’re loving someone with a terminal illness? This week’s anonymous caller is an anthropology student who’s been studying death, grief, and ritual. But that interest isn’t abstract. Their partner has a terminal illness, and it’s been sitting in the background of their life and relationship for a long time now. A big part of this conversation is what it does to time...

What happens when your mind stops feeling like a safe place to live? This week’s anonymous caller shares about experiencing a psychotic break in 2020, and what it changed about how they relate to death, reality, and their own sense of self. They do an unusually good job describing what psychosis can feel like from the inside, including a “movie logic” kind of certainty that’s hard to understand un...

What if something big happens… and your life still mostly goes back to normal? This week’s caller has had two heart attacks, starting when they were sixteen. On paper that sounds intense. But this conversation isn’t heavy. The caller brings a calm, laid-back energy that makes the whole episode feel surprisingly easy to sit with. We talk about how they think about death, including a loose, pop-cult...

What do you say to a child who asks, “Am I going to die?” This week's caller is a physician who works with children who have cancer and has training in pediatric palliative and hospice care. In this conversation, she shares what it’s like to talk honestly with families about death. Including a story about having to tell a seven-year-old patient that she is going to die. This is a heavier epis...

Suicide touches more lives than we often realize. And yet, it’s still something many of us don’t know how to talk about. In this episode, an anonymous caller reflects on losing their brother to suicide and what it’s been like to live with the impact since. Rather than trying to explain what happened or search for answers, the conversation stays with the ripple effect. How loss lingers, how it resh...

Many people are curious about conversations around death but hesitate to listen because they worry it will feel emotionally overwhelming. This episode challenges that assumption. In this anonymous call, the conversation begins with an expectation of tears. What unfolds instead is something more layered. Grief is present. Loss is real. And still, laughter, warmth, and unexpected lightness find thei...

This week’s Saturday Contemplation, A Year You’ll Never Get Back , sits with a simple truth: this year is over, regardless of how it went. Instead of turning toward regret or self-judgment, this reflection invites you to look back gently at how you spent the time you were given. What filled your days, what quietly shaped you, and what this past year reveals about the life you were actually living....

What if your afterlife looks exactly like what you expect to find? That question sits at the center of this conversation with our caller who has died more than once and come back with stories that challenge the script many of us inherit about death. She begins with a fire-breathing accident that leads to severe burns, an awake surgery, and a coma where there is no tunnel of light—only darkness wit...