We're All Terrible at Death | Book Huddle with Nikki Smith

0:00It's time now for the Biz Book broadcast with Liz Scully of Rethink Central. Do you like reading? Do you run a business? Wondering what to read next? Then this is the show for you. Liz is a business strategist and coaches businesses so that they grow while protecting their owner's time, resilience, so they don't burn out. Books can be a real key to changing things. Liz reads a couple of books a day to sift out the dust and is a self-proclaimed bookter. It show gives you one big idea for you plus your business to chew on until you read the book. Join us now and see what Liz is recommending this week. Hello and welcome to the Biz Book broadcast. If you've got a business and you love books, you're in exactly the right place. My name is Liz Scully. I'm a business strategist and a total book nerd. And today we have somebody new to the show.

1:02Ooh, it is the lovely Nikki Smith. Say hello Nikki. Hello, thank you so much for having me. It's an absolute delight because today we are talking about death. Don't run away, lovely listener. Come back. Because we're talking about it in an upbeat, happy way. And my recent experiences, as you may know, if you are a long-term listener, have shown me that the more we know about death before it creeps up on us and just jumps us in an emotional and horrible way, the more prepared we are, the better. So today is for you if you are interested in anthropology and other cultures and how they deal with death. But also for you, if you are interested in preparing for some of the nastiest parts of life in a healthy and positive way. And that's why Nikki is such a good person to talk to about this because Nikki Smith is a death dola.

2:03And if you're wondering what that is, I have questions too and we will be getting into that later in the show. She is also a grief coach and indeed a podcaster. So she is perfect to discuss today's book, which is very much a jumping off point, but it is an exceptionally good and very funny read in itself. So it is from here to eternity by Caitlin Dowty that came out in 2017 and it's about traveling the world to find the good death. Now, Caitlin Dowty is a mortician who believes Americans spend too much of funerals end up spending on things that add nothing that they probably don't want and in the event just cost them a fortune. So in the book she visits Indonesia, Mexico, Spain, Bolivia, Japan, a couple of places in the US and talks about many of our other trips and she sees how other cultures do it.

3:04And it is fascinating. It's informative. But also it's very, very funny. You wouldn't expect it to be. So this is why it's so good to discuss with Nikki, the expert in death, which sounds awful. I appreciate this. So Nikki, before we get into the book and while you suggested it, what is a death doula? What's all that about? Yeah, thank you for asking. I get asked this question a lot because... What do you do? And while people have been working with people at end of life for millennia, the term death doula is relatively new. So if most people I speak to have at least heard of a birth doula, so birth doula is kind of a non-medical coach to help women through... before, during and after a birthing process. And much like birth, we can labor out of life as well. If it comes to a long dying process, sometimes having a coach at your side to help you through that process is invaluable. So we do all the non-medical support. Do a lot of education. I help the families understand what the dying process will look like,

4:06what they can and should be getting done. I will work with a dying person on working through their life review, help them understand any regrets or unfinished business they might have, and how we can release that of them so that they can leave this world in the most peaceful manner possible to my best power. It's not always, you know, I can't solve every problem, but I will do everything I can. Basically, our goal is just to make the dying process as smooth and beautiful as possible. Not just for the dying person, but for the loved ones around them at the time. That sounds like a really needed thing. But is that very hard for you or like all coaches, have you learned to kind of keep work at work? Yeah, I kind of learned to keep work at work. There are definitely times where it's hard. I had a client I had to work with, not had to. I got to work with. And she was sitting with her mom. Her mom was actively dying. And all this was occurring about maybe three weeks after

5:06I had just watched my own mother die. And it was very hard at times to separate myself from putting myself back in the experience of watching my own mother die with her watching her mother die. Because she was alone, like, not of her siblings were there to help. I had my dad, my husband, with me and one of my mom passed away. But still, it brought up a lot in me. And it was a bit of a struggle. I had to take a little bit of time off after that for myself. Yeah, I can imagine it. So helpful, because I know that when I've been through these processes, it's horrible to be alone. It really is. It's just very, very hard. So thank you. Thank you for that. I think that fills in a little bit more. And probably explains why you selected this book. Tell us more, like, why you love it. Oh, I'm always fascinated by other cultures. And specifically around how not just we, but other places around the world interact with death. Because death is around us all the time, whether we like it or not. And Western cultures, specifically, we tend to try to push that as far away from us as humanly possible.

6:10And me being me and the curious person I am, I've always had this feeling of, why is this such a scary and taboo thing? Why are we pushing it so far away? And I love just learning about other cultures in general and how they do anything. And when I started learning about death practices in other countries, I was just blown away. I'm like, they are so more accepting and they embrace death. It's part of their daily life. They're not pushing it away. They're looking at it and saying, this is what's giving my life right now, meaning, because this is what will happen one day. And I love that. I just love learning about that. Yes, it is fascinating. And after these messages, we'll be back to digging with... Just a little bit. Meet Norm. He lives with anxiety. But with the help of this latest innovation from Be Normal, he can be normal. Just like everyone else. With the swipe of a finger, you can project happiness. Confidence. Muchismo. Why settle for being real when you can be normal?

7:10The Norma Maker. New from Be Normal. This item doesn't really work because there's no such thing as normal. We're all different. Our brains work. Jack, one in five of us live with mental illness. Don't feel to where you are. Start by talking to someone you trust. And remember, there is no normal. And you're back with the baseball broadcast on the Scully. I'm speaking to Nicky Smith. And we are discussing from here to eternity by Caitlin Dowty. Now, the book is sort of mostly about dealing with the body, post-mortem, technically. But it's really about how different communities deal with loss and with grief. Because I think the Western experience is... It's expensive and not particularly healing in my case. My heritage is Irish and in a surprise move, Jewish. And I think both those cultures do death really well. Obviously the Jews have shiver. And Ireland, we have wakes. And both of those are about a community holding you as that happens.

8:12But my Protestant friends... They don't seem to have much. They have buttered sandwiches. I'm not really sure what they get. What do you reckon? No, you're absolutely true. I grew up in the United States in a very Christian, Methodist Christian household. And with death comes food. Like, people show up with all of the casseroles, all of the time. But it's also one of the things that you whisper behind your hand. Like, somebody passed away. We never say the word death or dying. And we don't talk about it directly. We skirt all around it with all sorts of beautiful little euphemisms instead of just saying the words he died. Yes, in Ireland we have this concept of a good death. Like a blessed release. Someone who's been ill for a very, very long time. And it's actually better that they're not with us. They're out of pain. And it's not a concept that I hear very often in other cultures in the West. Yeah, we definitely don't use terms. We don't use any of the word death at all.

9:12If we can possibly not ever say that word in the United States, it's all about it. Which irritates me. And which is exactly why I prefer to be called a death doula. Because some people use the term end of life doula or end of life midwife or what. Nope, I'm straight out there and put it right in your face. Like, this is something that happens. And the further we push it away, the less meaningful it is. And it is a beautiful transition, much like birth is. We need to embrace our death to understand our lives. Yes, yes, I really do. So what are you seeing? Apart from the people just not talking about it. What's not working in our day to day as a sort of association with death? We don't talk about it. What else is not happening? So we're losing the impact of being with somebody at end of life. We have done a beautiful job of hiring out all things end of life. We put people in nursing homes. We have undertakers. We have funeral directors. And they do all of that.

10:12So you get to go visit mom every now and then in the nursing home. And when things get bad, you can boogie. And somebody else will come and change her diaper. And they'll sit with her as she dies. They'll take care of her. But we don't see any of that. So death just is this weird mystical thing that's over there. And we're just putting all this time and money into letting other people honor our ancestors, honor our loved ones. I would much rather be the one to bathe mom before we take her to a funeral home. Than some stranger. That's my honor and my respect for my mother who took care of me for her whole life. Interesting. I think I would want almost anything but then to wash the body of a loved one. No disrespect. But obviously we're all different. But I know that I was offered when my mother died, when my sister died, people were like, Would you like to see the body? No. Thank you. I'm a vegetarian. I'm quite squeebish at the best of times. I don't like even seeing a steak. Why on earth when I want to see the dead body of a loved one?

11:12But I take your point. We should have the opportunity to do this. Yeah, it's important for closure. And that's why I hear a lot of people say, I don't want a funeral. And that's fine and dandy. But we need that. We need some kind of ritual. Rituals are so important to us as humans. And we need that ritual to say good-mind, have that closure of this person is not physically here anymore. Whatever you believe with their spirit and where they might be after that is fine. But we need that closure to fully grasp and understand that this person is no longer here and to honor the life that they lived. Absolutely. Now, what about you? How does one become a death doula? How did that happen? Yeah. I've always had a heart space with working with people in vulnerable moments. I worked at a suicide hotline for a long time. I worked in a nursing home for a long time. And this was just kind of a natural, you know, path for me. Actually, the author of the book we're discussing had mentioned death doula is on a YouTube video.

12:12And I said, wow, that sounds really amazing. So like a lot of other people during COVID when I was shook and alone and stuck in my home with nothing to do, I said, I'm going to try this training and see how I feel. So I did a program. It was a six week course through the International End of Life doula association. And day one, I was, I found my people, I found my calling and I've been here ever since. That's lovely. And it is delightful when you, when you find your right place. I know I felt like that with coaching as well. I'm like, oh, hang on, this, I've been doing this for ages. Like, no concept. Okay. So in the book, there are a variety, a sort of buffet of different types. Either the way the Indonesians agree, there's obviously completely different way. The Mexicans agree. And was the one that particularly appealed to you? Absolutely. I think it was the second or third chapter when she went to Indonesia. And specifically, there are some tribes there that do, it's called the Manane Festival. And so first of all, when their loved ones die, they're at home.

13:15They're not putting them in nursing homes, they're not in hospitals. They're in the home when they die. And they will keep the body in the home. They have their own method of preservation. And they'll keep the body in the home sometimes for up to a year. And then when they bury the body, they put them in above grave caskets and, you know, like, cement fixtures things. They'll put them in there. But every year in the Manane Festival, they bring all of the bodies back out again. They wash them. They change their clothes. They have a huge feast and they bring the bodies out. And the deceased relatives join the festival. And when I say this to anybody, the first reaction I get is that is horrifying. They're horrified by this whole idea. They're disgusted by it, eating with a dead body. And that is not something we do here. I agree if somebody was like, hey, we're having Thanksgiving and we're bringing a grandma's corpse out. I would be like, really? But there's a beauty to that because they're not, it's not just having dinner with a corpse. It's having dinner with grandma, great grandma, Uncle Bob.

14:17Like, these are people that we honored and revered in life. So why not continue to honor them after life? It's just, it's a sign of respect and it's a sign of connection with our ancestors. And I, however, that is barred about in the world, I think is beautiful to me. And I think there's also an element of the fact that obviously it's quite unpleasant at various points during that period. You know, like the first year, it's a bit, like I would, with my sausage problem, I would have difficulty being around a lot of, well, let's face it, like festering stuff. But I think it helps remind you, as well as including them in your society, it reminds you that things are progressing, that they are moving away from us, to the point where they're down to just bones. And for me, one of the parts that really sort of was very evocative is the Japanese element, where they are, they create you. And then they sort of sort through the bones afterwards, in a very specific,

15:17let's pick out the big bits and put them in a box kind of level. And it's the same thing. And I think because I have quite a scrimmage, I could probably do that. I'm not sure I would love it, but I could do that in a way that washing the maggots off my beloved one might be a bit tricky. But I think it's the same thing. It's like getting in there and accepting death has happened, that changes are happening time is passing. Yeah, and I'm glad you brought up the Japanese culture. They cremate the body and a lot of times the family will watch the body being cremated and they will see it come out the other side, which is we don't know this because we do a lot of cremation here, but the funeral home will do that. They don't let you watch it and then they take what's left, which is bones. It's not ash. It's not ash, it's bones. And then they put it in a cremulator, which is kind of like those shaker paint shaker machines. It loads the mixes your paint. And they pulverize what's left and what you get is bone dust. It's not ashes. But there the bones come out and they take the time to pick up each piece with chopsticks and put them into the urn instead of pulverizing them.

16:22And that's just another moment you can spend caring for your loved one. I believe they were the woman they interviewed who had lost a daughter. And she said, I cared for this daughter my whole life. I carried her my womb. I fed her, I dressed her, and now I get to care for her one more time. And I think that is absolutely beautiful. Yeah, me too. Me too. It's very moving. And I think it's important to just remember that whatever you are being railroaded into by a... Well, this is what we do. This is how funerals work. Because you're often making those decisions at the worst moment of your life. And having just paid for a funeral, they are unbelievably expensive. And there's a lot of choices about, you know, coffin type and the interior of coffin. And there's... I did not know. There are fashions in such things. I wanted a dark wood casket. Oh no, no, they're not in this year. I had to pay quite a lot more to get the colour I wanted of the woods. No, no, would you not like a light wood?

17:23Not particularly. No. There's not much I'm certain of right now, but I would like it to be a dark wood coffin if you would. And they were like... They were like, hairdressers. Ooh. Yeah. That's not invoked this year. Like, yes, exactly. Are you kidding me? This is something that's going to be in the ground that nobody's going to see. Exactly. It's only going to be out in the world for a couple of hours, at most, exactly. Yes. And you end up having these very, very specific conversations about locks and hasps and handles and how long they take to rot. I don't want to be in this position. But you have to be really... Well, and I don't ever want to poo-poo that, you know, so to speak. If that is something that is important to you, then go all the way. If you are that person, like, I want to be buried in a solid gold casket, and that's your identity, go for it. Like, that's fine. I just don't want anybody to feel and use the right term railroad it into making a decision

18:25that might not be what they or their loved one actually wants. It's that sales pressure at your most vulnerable moment that really irks me. Yes. I mean, to be fair to the undertaker I was working with, he was so lovely. We started calling him the Wonder Taker. He was really, truly lovely. There was no kind of, would you like fries with that with everything? He did his absolute best to get me why I wanted. But I believe the American funeral system is much more pushy in those things, which, when it's criminal, really, because it's such a hard thing to do. So, after these messages, we'll be back to discuss more, really just more. Do you remember the joy of being read to as a child or sharing bedtime stories with your own children? Last year, military parents missed 40 million bedtime stories with their children due to deployments. With United Through Reading, service members or video recorded reading story books and those videos are sent home where they can be viewed again and again.

19:27Give the gift of story time to a military family by donating $50 today. Every child deserves a bedtime story. Visit unitedthroughreading.org. And you're back with the visible broadcast. I'm still this, Gully. I'm still speaking to Nicky Smith and we're still discussing from here to eternity by Caitlin Dowty. Now, I think that most of us know kind of intellectually. Yeah, we could probably do a better job at this, but people do not want to talk about this at all. My sister, as many listeners were there, my sister was a lawyer and she hadn't made a will. But, so, like nobody could make a will more easily than a lawyer. Now, if a lawyer isn't making a will, most of us may listen to this show and then go, oh, that's nice. Yeah, lovely. I'm not doing anything. So, what do you see, Nicky, in your day to day that you're thinking, I wish everybody would do this one thing. What is it?

20:27Bare minimum. Talk to your family about your wishes. Even, like, I love your example of your sister being a lawyer, not having a will. I have my entire death plan written out. So, if my family, my loved ones, know what to do with me if I'm dying and after I'm dead and all the things, there's no question. That right there is the most, even if I hadn't written it out, just telling the people that may have to care for me, like, this is what I want, this is what I don't want. Here's what to do just so they know. So, if I die tomorrow, God, hope I don't, but if I die tomorrow, none of my relatives and none of my loved ones are going, I don't even know, does she want to be buried or cremated? Does she want to wear this dress, that dress? I don't want them to have to make those decisions while they're upset and grieving. So, oh my God, just having a conversation. Step one, just talk to people about this. Acknowledge the fact that, I'm sorry, you will die one day. All of us will. Yes, yes, that's very true. And you're right. I knew of the little I knew about my sister's death plan,

21:28was that she wanted to be buried and she wanted to be in the family plot. Fine, and it was really helpful because those decisions had been made. And it would indeed have been terrible with that kind of, well, cremation? I don't know. How do we fit it all together? Because you want to get it right more than anything else, I think. And, I'm sure it's expensive, but you're also, so expensive, I certainly wouldn't have spent 10 grand on a set up if I thought my sister absolutely does not want this. She would like to be wrapped in newspaper and put out with the recycling. I would have been much happier, but no, I knew what she wanted. Right. Yeah, no, I totally agree. And again, if that is something you want, if you want the big send off with a huge party and spend $50,000, go for it. But if you're unsure or if you really are more modest person, like I don't need all that, I don't want all that. I've specific, like my number one instruction for all of my family members

22:28is I do not want to be involved. And I don't want to be in a casket. I don't want to be in a traditional cemetery. Like those are all things I do not want. So they know that. They know because I've said it multiple times. And what are savings right there not to pay for mowing or any of that? Yeah, probably I have to refrigerate my body for a couple days until we can get me to wherever I'm going. But like just you can make decisions on your own. And I don't, I won't say to know what the regulations are in the UK, but at least in the United States, we have options. We don't know that we have options, but we have plenty of other options outside of that traditional burial or cremation. Well, that's true because again, I've had to learn an enormous amount what the regulations are about. Absolutely everything. How deep a body must be buried and the effect you might have on ground water. These are not things that I really want to be thinking about. How cemeteries deal with rainwater and how that affects the bodies that are in that like no, no, no, no, no, no.

23:28This is my loved one. I don't want to be thinking of that. But you kind of have to really. And if I could share my little fun fact for the day, please do. I embalming started in the Civil War here in the United States. That's where embalming was invented because the soldiers were dying far, far away from home. And their loved ones wanted to bring their bodies back to their home cemeteries on their land, you know, their home. So there were some field surgeons that came up. They trial an error came up with the right mixture of chemicals to preserve a body so that they could put it on a train. Take it back home. Their loved ones could see them, which like again, I don't like in bombing, but what a beautiful gift that these families had. Their their sons, their cousins, their brothers went off to war and never came back, but they at least got to see them one more time. So they could have that sense of closure that they are in fact gone. Well, I'm obviously in Judaism. We don't embark. We you die and you are you are buried ideally the next day, if possible.

24:29And it's the same in most Muslim sects. And it does create a certain urgency about how quickly funerals happen, which is kind of beautiful in itself. Let you start the grieving process immediately if you are not obviously if you're an immediate family. You're already doing that, but as a community, you're already supporting people very quickly. Is embalming the norm in the US? It's getting less so. It really depends if you want to have a viewing, like if you want to have that traditional funeral where the body is there and people see it, they're going to encourage that. And I would even encourage that because within like a day or two, the body does start to decompose and that can be upsetting for people to see. So it is if you're doing the open casket viewing, a lot of people aren't doing that anymore of all the funerals I've been to in the last decade. I think there was one open casket. Most of everybody else was cremated already. I must admit in the UK, we don't often do an open viewing for such things.

25:33Interesting. All of this makes it ever more important that as Nikki says, you lovely listener must tell people what you want. And make a sodding will people just do it. And while I'm on my high horse, put your mobile phone number, the unlock code with your will. Because the police had to jack my sister's phone for me to find out who to invite to the funeral. It's this, the modern world, everything is on your phone. So be careful with that. Now there are so many places where maybe you would want a bit more information. So where do people start with this stuff, Nikki? So if you want to like start a will, for example, or a living will, any of those advanced directive documents, you can go a lot of your local attorneys. I would encourage you to look within your state because every state has different regulations in the United States. Find an elder care attorney or an estate attorney that specializes in that.

26:36Go talk to them. They'll all shop around too. That's, you know, that's the beauty of being over here. You can shop around. You don't have to go with this particular one. Find an attorney that can help you get that documentation put together. There are a million great resources. I've got a checklist on my website. You can download to like, here things you should start thinking about. Like you mentioned the phone. Oh my god. If somebody dies and they can't access your phone, you, that is a nightmare in and of itself. So make sure somebody can get on your phone. What about your Facebook page? Do you have a pet? Do you have a plan for your pet? Have a plan for your pets? Oh my gosh. Because there are so many pets that go abandoned every year because their owners die and they end up in a shelter. So I have a plan for that. But yes, you're right. What's happened to the cat? Yeah. Very important. I have a plan for my cat. So everybody have a plan for your pet, please. Absolutely. And also, obviously, write a list of all your accounts and all that stuff. But that is less important than being able to get into your phone. Because odds are you can get to all the other stuff from your phone. So make, take some action. Listen to us and do something about it.

27:41Now, Nikki, where can people find you and most importantly that list that you mentioned? Yes. Absolutely. So everything I have is on nikkithedeathdulla.com. If you go there, I've got a page. It's a shop. I've got a whole bunch of downloads there for free. I've got workbooks there as well. Those are not free. But I've got some great workbooks for sure. So with some of those, I have one called Dear Loved One, Dear Mom and Dad. They are geared towards starting those conversations through loved ones. Like, what do you want and where can I find this? It's got pages where you can write that stuff in. So it's from great stuff there. My podcast, everything is linked on nikkithedeathdulla.com. Excellent. And we will put that in the show notes. And for me, obviously, once you're getting things, lovely listener, go to lizgully.com slash reading list to get my reading list. But more importantly, if you like the things I discuss on this show and you like the way my mind works, you'll get onto my newsletter there and you will get regular, slightly chaotic newsletters about stuff.

28:41Mostly about books and the weird stuff I'm learning from them. So absolutely delightful to have you nikki and lovely to have you listening with us. We will speak to all of you very soon. Thanks for listening to lizgully of Reading Central. Follow Liz on Instagram at Reading Central for what she's reading right now. Books are the answer to most things. So if you've got a business problem, there's a book that'll help. Get your reading guide at lizgully.com slash reading.