The Dirt on Funerals with Todd Harra

This week, we’re re-releasing one of our earliest episodes, and still one of my favorite conversations. Author and activist Valarie Kaur shares personal stories from her work as an activist, which led her to write her book, “See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love.” Valarie’s message really resonated with me because she approaches strangers as if a part of them is a part of you that you don’t know yet. Her openness to conversations with strangers is deeply needed right now. We all need to promote love and understanding. She also shares the beautiful, tangible actions she uses for herself and her family to embrace mortality.

You can find Valarie’s book and more about her work at https://valariekaur.com/

Michael Wiegers is the Editor-in-Chief at Copper Canyon Press, an independent nonprofit press that publishes award-winning poetry. Under his leadership over the past 30 plus years, CCP has published over 400 titles, including winners of the Pulizer and Nobel Prizes and the National Book Award. In this episode, Michael gives us a masterclass in poetry. If you’ve ever felt that poetry is unattainable, Michael will convince you otherwise. You’ll walk away with a reading list and his answer for why poets are always writing about death.

You can learn more about Michael’s work and Copper Canyon Press at: https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/authors/michael-wiegers/

In her memoir, Poor Your Soul, Mira Ptacin explores the grief associated with losing a baby which is often hidden behind closed doors. Instead, she cracks it open and shares all the heartbreaking details of her grief. Just like our conversation, her book moves fluidly through time and shares another profound loss that shaped her family’s life. The particularly tender way her family grieved openly and continued living is profound. If you’re grieving, her honesty about how consuming grief can be is really validating. We also look at how grief and the stories we tell evolve over time, how Mira uses ritual in her own life, and even discuss her next book about the long-standing Spiritualist community in Maine and their take on the afterlife. 

You can find more of Mira’s recent writing and her two books at https://www.miramptacin.com/

Don Rosenstein and Justin Yopp are both psychiatrists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They started a support group for widowed fathers of young kids, whose partners died from cancer. The group was supposed to meet for six sessions, but ended up meeting regularly for nearly four years. Their book, “The Group: Seven Widowed Fathers Reimagine Life,” details the participants’ experiences and the role the support group played in grieving and healing. In this interview, Don and Justin reflect on the men’s unimaginable loss, recount key conversations they had together, and share what helped the men each find a path forward. The group found solace in their very specific shared experience as widowed fathers, but the insights about grief in this interview are relevant to a much wider audience.

https://widowedparent.org/

Katy Butler is a journalist and author of two books, who spent years listening to hundreds of people’s stories of good and difficult deaths. She’s talked to countless experts in palliative care, geriatrics, hospice and oncology. Her conversations and research, paired with her own family’s story of being unable to turn off her father’s pacemaker at the end of his life, come together in her deeply practical and existential book, The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life. In this episode, Katy shares what she learned from each of her parents’ deaths, what she wants at the end of her life, what the research says most people want in their final chapters, and some specific and tangible advice for how to get there.

Lynne Twist is a globally recognized philanthropist and author of two books, including “The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life.” Death and money are two of the most difficult subjects to talk about with our loved ones. With Lynne's years of experience working with people of many different cultures, she shares a deep understanding of the role money plays in our lives. Lynne talks about money as a tool for peace in alignment with our values, and what to do with it when we die. There’s no right, one-size-fits-all answer, but we provide a roadmap of some of the questions we should ask ourselves, the decisions that must be made, and how to get started.

Dr. Edward Creagan spent four decades at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, working as a cancer specialist and then helping to develop the Mayo Clinic’s palliative care program. In his book and our conversation, Dr. Creagan shares his deep knowledge about how to navigate the medical system with refreshing honesty. He embodies a human-centered approach to medical care that focuses on quality of life and recognizes each person’s priorities and desires.

In our holiday episode, we’re highlighting some of my favorite conversations from this year, in hopes that you hear what you need. The holiday season can be a hard one for many of us, for so many different reasons. We revisit conversations about ritual, everyday awe, talking about end of life wishes with family, love and saying goodbye, and even the most recent science that explains how our brain works. If you need soothing words or something to talk about at the dinner table, we’ve got you covered.

If you’ve ever felt like you needed permission to grieve, or your grief just wasn’t understood by others, this book and this episode is for you. In her first book, The Dead Are Gods, Eirinie Carson opens the door on the shock and grief she felt after learning that her best friend died unexpectedly at age 32. In the midst of her confusion, sadness, and anger, there is also love. Eirinie and I get into the particular sting of losing someone young and the complicated job of remembering our loved one as a whole, flawed, messy, wonderful person.

You can find Eirinie’s book and other writing here: https://www.eiriniecarson.com/

Larisa Garski and Justine Mastin are practicing therapists who have authored two books together. Their narrative approach to therapy centers on rewriting the stories about our lives that aren’t working and how play and fan fiction are some of the best tools for reimagining a better future. We talk about collective grief and public spaces, therapists taking on roles traditionally reserved for clergy members, and how they have dealt with their own grief alongside their clients. Justine and Larisa are great examples of how grace and humor help us navigate the hard parts of life.

You can find their books here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/724011/the-grieving-therapist-by-larisa-a-garski-lmft/