Action replay: Flip the Script Event

Rebekah: [00:00:00] In the spirit of reconciliation, Unashamedly Six and the Freelance Jungle who we both represent would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land of the places we are gathering on today. I am from Windang, which is the land of the mighty Wodi Wodi people who are part of the Dharawal Nation.

Rebekah: Windang is famous for having two Dreamtime legends here, the story of how the starfish and the koala tricked the whale and also the formation of the five islands. I suggest if you’ve got any kidlets or if you have an interest in learning more about Indigenous history, you should look them up because they are great lessons for us all.

Rebekah: Jess, where are you joining us from today?

Jessica: I am in Warriewood and on the Northern Beaches in Sydney and we have the dubious distinction of not being able to trace who our land belongs to. We did say for a long time it was Gadigal land, but the elders are still in discussions [00:01:00] about who we should honour on our land because we so decimated the peoples around here that they are having trouble tracing it still.

Jessica: Which is. Terrible.

Jessica: It’s absolutely awful. And I think it’s it’s a great shame, but it’s definitely worth noting because I think in the story of especially now with everybody being able to identify who that they want to honor with their lands, it proves why we need to.

Rebekah: Yeah, exactly.

Rebekah: And we want to pay special respects for anyone of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander descent that is joining us today. The official position of Unashamedly Six and the Freelance Jungle is that sovereignty was never ceded and it always was and it always will be Aboriginal land. Now, today’s presentation is called flip the script.

Rebekah: And what Jess and I did was we were part of the Lifting the Lid International Festival of Death and Dying last year. We actually [00:02:00] opened the festival, which was a great honor for us. And that festival brings together many people with many different ways of approaching the end of life conversation.

Rebekah: Now, I’m just going to encourage my screen to share the beautiful art that Jess has done for this particular presentation. Flipping the script on death and dying was originally built so that we could talk about What happens when things don’t go to plan? And also to bust through a lot of the mythology that we have here in Australia, end of life in Australia is traditionally been built on a very white, straight, able bodied, heteronormative, rely on your nuclear family style way of being enacted.

Rebekah: And that’s Across whether it was old age or whether it was traumatic or premature death. So we got together to design something that gave you the opportunity to maybe die with the family that you’ve chosen, away [00:03:00] from them in different countries and all the rest. And this is what this presentation focuses on today.

Rebekah: You are welcome to put questions in the chat so that we can catch them up at the end of the presentation.

Jessica: I’m going to say also that I think that it’s been funerals and death and dying have been very based on Christian Church of England and Catholic religion, and it’s really, disconcerting when somebody dies and you haven’t ever gone to church and all of a sudden you’re expected to follow this, This is how you do it.

Jessica: This is how it goes. And you have to have these readings and you have to have these songs. And so this is very much about how do we make this something that is relatable for us, relatable for people who are not particularly at all religious.

Rebekah: Yeah, exactly. So basically let’s get into it. We’re doing it your own way.

Rebekah: So we’re born alone. We die alone. We [00:04:00] live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion of the moment we are not alone. It’s a really important thing to think about. One of the first campaigns that Jess and I did was called The Great Last Impression, which was the 2022 campaign that we did, because we talk a lot about the first impression we make with people, but not the last.

Rebekah: And this is a reminder that we are a history, but we are also committed to people’s memories. And this is something we should remember with the life that we craft. Now, not all who die are old. We want to point this out quite strongly and right at the front. One of the focuses in Australia is the elderly dying experience, but we know that 55, 000 people, which is the size of a large town in Australia, die every year.

Rebekah: die before the age of 70 each year. And this is from accidents, sudden cardiac events, strokes, overdoses, suicide, violent deaths, SIDS, acts of terrorism, mass catastrophe, mass disaster, medical complications, infectious disease, [00:05:00] undiagnosed and rare medical conditions. And we need to acknowledge this fact so that we can prepare for death properly.

Rebekah: Not all deaths are also equal. Not all families are created equal and maybe we don’t want our family to lead the charge in how we die for a variety of different reasons. Not all families are together geography wise and especially vulnerable people such as people with the mentally ill, suicidal ideation, who have a history of drug addiction or abuse, or at risk persons such as homeless have a particular vulnerability to some of the topics that we’re going to be discussing today.

Rebekah: But what we do know Is that unexpected death does not discriminate.

Rebekah: Now, not all families are equal because of exclusion through sexuality, lifestyle, choice of partner, and many other things. Also, mental illness can and does play a role. Disorders such as narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality [00:06:00] disorder also have influences on structure and cohesive family systems.

Rebekah: Family abuse of the physical, sexual, emotional, financial, and psychological. kind, as well as coercive control can influence things. Also, when we are under stress and death and end of life and life limiting diagnoses are all stressful events, we can revert to old patterns and some of these patterns are out of step with the modern world, out of step with who we are, and can also be abusive.

Rebekah: There’s even the thing of You don’t have to have emotionally abusive parents to have emotionally immature parents. And this is especially important to remember when we’re caring for our aging parents or when we are facing these things for ourselves. Because obviously, emotional limitations and how people center things and what they bring into a conversation can have a massive [00:07:00] impact if it’s not dealt with appropriately.

Rebekah: And obviously we’ve got estrangement and then displacement with the forgotten generation, which was the institutionalized series of children that were taken out of homes due to poverty, due to disability, and all the rest of it that continued right up into the 80s, or the stolen generation who Historically have been recognised, but also through many policies, including the intervention, still are occurring to this day.

Rebekah: So what does contingency look like if you’re estranged from your family, if you face a traumatic death, if you die prematurely, if you’re excluded from safe networks, if you’re far from home, such as living overseas, or if your family dynamic is complex, Or, if you’re the last of your line and you don’t have children to support you.

Rebekah: That’s where this comes in, and it’s time to flip the script. We talk a lot about enabling villagers to raise [00:08:00] children, to fight fires, to advocate for services, to put on political pressure to get things that we need, to create rural and regional community looking after each other, to gentrify areas and to be reborn, to save the environment, to manage Indigenous lands, to feed the town, keep the teens on track like the karate clubs through to the police boys clubs and all sorts of things, to raise money when we need it and to provide mental health support.

Rebekah: So why aren’t we doing that for dying? Why not do it for trauma?

Jessica: Yeah, my my mother’s, coven of women talked a lot about birth and breastfeeding. And they had all of these meetings and it was all very involved. And then I’m watching them now being, I know it’s not all about older age, but they are getting to the stage where their friend group is dying off and they are not coming together.

Jessica: They’re not there and have nearly the same kind of focus that they did for birth [00:09:00] around death. And I think it’s, really I think now is the time they probably need it more than ever. Absolutely. Doing what I can to bring it to them. But they yeah, they’re having a hard time hearing it from the younger generation.

Jessica: They’re like, what do you know? I know I’m watching it.

Rebekah: Exactly. And look there was an interesting experiment that Dr. Kerry Noonan, who runs the Death Literacy Institute, you should check out any of her work if you haven’t, folks, did with a birth doula. And Kerry sat back to back with the birth doula on stage, and they crossed over into This is what we do at birth and this is what we do at death and found that the majority of things that we do to care for each other and to look after each other in both scenarios are exactly the same.

Rebekah: It’s about dignity, it’s about risk, it’s about looking after people and to making them safe. So how [00:10:00] do you die well when life has other plans or culture has other plans as Jess has highlighted. We believe that it’s start a village. You build a guest list, just like you would for a big ass party.

Rebekah: You create what’s called a care tree, which we’ll explain in a moment. You treat it like a project, so if you’ve been a project manager at work, or if you’ve ever built a website or planned a wedding you’re, in, baby. You know how to do these things. Talk about death. Instead of, as Jess highlighted, walk away from it, feel the fear, what do you know?

Rebekah: Nobody knows anything. That’s the end of the discussion. And we can create community change. Even by turning up today, you are opting to make creative change and make sure that community can lead the way.

Jessica: Yeah. Ever since my best friend had her kids nearly 19 years ago, she’s always, we’ll be on the phone and she’ll all of a sudden go if I die, they’re yours.

Jessica: You’re getting them. You get [00:11:00] them. And I don’t care what else is going on in your life, but you get my kids. And then she’s gone on to have four altogether. And every time she’d add a new one, she’d go, I hope you’ve got room because if something happens to me, you’re getting four kids.

Rebekah: Look, anyone that sells minivans out there is going to be really happy about this particular pro policy.

Rebekah: So coming from a community background, as I do, I’m all into the whole thing of court, what’s called village thinking, which is where you look at the values, the goals, the actions, and the purposes that you can share. And these are things again, you can use for a project you can use to build a community, or you can use to help someone Die well.

Rebekah: A question of community in a death lens would be, how do you view your immediate family or family of origin as it is often termed? How do you view your friends, your peers and your community? How much do you [00:12:00] want these two parties to intersect and be involved? And I think three is a very important question because even if you love your family dearly and they’re totally going to be there for you for the extra mile, they need breaks, they need a reprieve, they need help, they need support.

Rebekah: What does your connection to country look like? Every suburb we live in, every little town, every city we live in, every connection that we have to our cultural or racial identity is a connection to something and country and how that influences this process. What is your version of supportive and comforting care?

Rebekah: Let’s make no mistake, let’s not make any assumptions here. Some people. I love being fawned over when they’re sick. I love to put the blankie on them, to have the TV, the chicken soup delivered, the boo boos kissed, the [00:13:00] tissues given. Other people want to be left alone by themselves. They want the minimum amount of support, they don’t want to talk about it, they just want to get the job done.

Rebekah: How we look after ourselves when we’ve got the flu. It’s going to be the same way that we look after ourselves in end of life. So you can actually set limits with people not to be too overbearing or too standoffish by informing that kind of care. What do you value in these sorts of circumstances? Do you do you value autonomy?

Rebekah: Do you value, having company? Do you value having someone to delegate to? Do you value someone to take it completely off your plate so you don’t have to think about anything? These are all really important things to do, to think about as well.

Jessica: My dad at his end of life wanted to hold court. He wanted to just be the king on his throne and he didn’t want anyone to argue back because He had lung cancer.

Jessica: He was sick. He was going to die. So [00:14:00] he just wanted to, and I, we don’t have a lot of family. It was mostly me. So I just hired people. I hired a cleaner and I hired a couple of people. Cause I was like I need a team. I need a team to do this. And he vetted everyone. So he got to vet them.

Jessica: Like he was, The boss, and, and luckily we had a couple of people who just came on board because they were aware that he wanted this team and they knew that they could fulfill, especially for something that was going to be a temporary role.

Rebekah: Exactly. And that’s what. We need to recognize is that all of these kinds of questions and these values and these connections and the resources that you’ve got, whether they’re free, or you’ve paid for them, or you’ve leveraged your village and your friends and your family, all determine that end of life experience.

Rebekah: So starting your village, you can decide whether family is in, [00:15:00] family is out. Or family plays a minor role. This is your end of life experience. So you can choose to be there. Just remember though, there is a little bit of a balance because some people will want to be there for their own comfort and for their own grief.

Rebekah: So don’t think in terms of, Oh, I don’t want to be a burden because you’ll be surprised how much people want to actually participate. In fact, always remember that it’s much easier to, offer help than ask for it. So they’re going to be primed to want to do something. Build your care tree, which we’ll explain in a minute.

Rebekah: Nominate a proxy, which is a person like a captain that keeps all of the things together that sort of might even be the one that comes to you and says, okay, what are the finer details on these ideas as you’re writing an advanced care plan or an advanced care directive, or maybe they come to you while you’re receiving end of life care to consult on certain things.

Rebekah: Get your documentation sorted. [00:16:00] So The majority of people in Australia would like to die at home, 80 percent don’t make it to die at home, they end up in a medicalised environment, which is unsustainable. In fact, there’s too many about baby boomers to be able to do that anymore. So we need to die at home, but it happens because the documents aren’t in place, which means that you need an advanced care plan, an advanced care directive, that Actually outline your care things and your what if kind of choices.

Rebekah: What happens if I get kidney failure as a result of the chemo? Will I also get dialysis? Answers questions if you’ve lost capacity and all those sorts of things. This is together with things like your will and your legal documentation and your financial stuff and your estate stuff. You need these other things answered first of all.

Rebekah: And if you go to the agooddeath. com. au website that Jess and I have built, you’ll be able to see some checklists that you can follow to get all of that sorted. But have [00:17:00] simple end of life conversations. There are a few people that work in the death liturgy space that talk about maybe getting family together at Christmas time or for big celebrations the day before might be a good time to talk about, hey, this is what I’m looking at for end of life or my plans.

Rebekah: Just want to let you know where everything is, those sorts of things. And then also consider care and mental health and grief support. So as Jess highlighted before, the help doesn’t have to come from you. There are. government supports, but there are also other free and paid services that you can lean on and that you can activate to get things done on a carer level.

Rebekah: But you should also think about mental health because it is a very stressful time. There’s a lot of things that are happening that are beyond your control and people can’t have varying degrees of coping with certainty and also grief support so that you’re well and truly covered.

Jessica: I would suggest that with the proxy, it’s almost definitely better that it’s not [00:18:00] a family member.

Jessica: Because they, if it’s a friend it could be somebody that’s known you for a long time, but they’re much less likely to have old family patterns blow up or repeat or to want to control. They’re more likely to advocate for what you actually want rather than what they think you need to have.

Jessica: Thanks for watching!

Rebekah: Exactly. So when you’re looking at these villages, look at these kinds of qualities. Are they easygoing, easy to play with? Can they deal with pressure without turning it into a personal drama? Whose interests do they have at heart? Are they known for their empathy and their emotional intelligence?

Rebekah: Are they reliable, which is super important, and adaptable? Again, because of the level of change that you go through do they have empathy for your situation and empathy for your family dynamics without going in and trying to fix everybody, right? They’ve got to be able to be like water and fill in. Can they advocate for you without getting political, without [00:19:00] taking it personally and without dropping the band hammer on anyone?

Rebekah: Are they good at making decisions, even under pressure? Can they anticipate needs? And also I want to highlight this one is really important point. And I love including number 11 is the important point. You don’t have to even like this person and think that they’re amazing to have them help you, right?

Rebekah: You don’t have to like a person to help them. It’s just an important thing to remember when we’re looking after people in our own families as well. Think about how that becomes a process for you. Choosing someone for a role doesn’t necessarily mean they’re your BFF. So how to ask people for help.

Rebekah: Give them context, let them know what you want to achieve. Be transparent. Have an idea of what the role looks like so it’s not just left up to them of that whole question of how can I help and it just becomes amorphous and too hard to articulate. Give them a choice. Give [00:20:00] them time to think about that choice.

Rebekah: Explain the challenges that are going to be involved. Oh, mom’s a real dragon when it comes to medical stuff and blah, blah, blah. So you’ve got to navigate that, whatever the case may be. Have a fighting fund, have some funds set aside so that you can pay for things, unexpected things that are going to happen along the way.

Rebekah: Make a commitment to that documentation. Honestly, it is such an important thing. It is a freedom to have all of your end of life documentation ready. Ensure that you create a village instead of a champion. You cannot rely on one person to pull it through, and you cannot be the one person for somebody else.

Rebekah: You will need time off. Create the village instead. And commit to the relationship anew, because the majority of us find much more out about a person when they’re at their most vulnerable, than we do in any other time of life. How do you identify a [00:21:00] village? Who’s got courage? Who’s, who wants to put their hand up and sounds like they’re going to follow through?

Rebekah: Who is really good at organizing and gets a sense of accomplishment by helping others or completing tasks? Who’s calm when there’s an ocean of trouble going on? Because I’ve got to tell you, the last person that you want inside your tent when you’re all stressed out with end of life, whether it’s yours or someone else’s, is someone who is a total drama llama.

Rebekah: It’s just not worth it. Who likes to help without trying to fix people and without trying to better people and all the rest of it can just let people be, but be there to support them. Who has got a good head for facts, figures, forms, and the admin of all of this, right? Who’s good at taking your mind off things and easy to be around?

Rebekah: Who’s good at chores? Cleaning meals, cleaning toilets, folding fresh laundry, who loves your pets as much as you do? I actually have a couple of friends [00:22:00] who are in all my documentation to have my doggies because I know that they’ll give them the standard of care that they’re used to.

Rebekah: And who’s got a knack for a crisis situation? Now these don’t have to be one person. This can be many people sharing the same qualities. This can be pigeon pairing two people that will bring these sort of qualities out in each other. But just think about who can be there for larger and smaller moments because the minutes and the people add up to create that village for you.

Jessica: Now, I would add as well try and pick some people with senses of humor because everybody is already going to be tragically sad and like all over the place. And so you need sensitive people, but with a sense of humor, because it’s okay to laugh. It is really, it’s like really important to laugh through some of this stuff.

Rebekah: Ah, end of life is better with humour. And also better without trauma dumpers. So yeah, keep the humour. [00:23:00] If you don’t have a village though, which is probably part of the reason that you’re here. Share your plans openly, advocate in the neighborhood, look to the elderly people that you see by themselves, make friends with them and learn about the process of looking after someone at end of life by being there for people in your community, the way that you might need in 10 or 20 years time, be the movement that you want to see, get active in death circles.

Rebekah: There are some great movements that are going on. There’s the death doula circuits. There’s the. death cafes that you can go to have informal chats. There’s Dying to Know Day in August, on August 8th, but has now turned into entire month where you can go to all sorts of different local events and meet people.

Rebekah: The Tender Funerals is a not for profit organization that is for the people, by the people, that are setting up everywhere from Victoria to Wollongong to Newcastle and beyond. Check them out in Tasmania. And also [00:24:00] bring community together for other village raising purposes. Celebrate your queerness, celebrate your person of color, multicultural festivals, celebrate the birth of children, celebrate looking after all sorts of different things, celebrate looking after your pets, but then also remember that these people that share the same values and identities with you are going to be the people that will probably be the best part of your village.

Rebekah: even if you haven’t met them yet. And think about how you can intersect with people through shared and common interests, community gardening, caring about the wildlife, caring about the ocean. All of these things also brings you closer to people that share your values. And those values can be surprisingly applicable to other areas of life, such as end of life.

Rebekah: So when you’re thinking about the kind of support you might need, think about what spiritual support you might need, what you’ll need to do to ask for help, whether that is a difficult thing for you to do and how, what forms [00:25:00] it will take, what sorts of tasks you’d want to delegate, what sorts of tasks you’d want to do for yourself.

Rebekah: This is especially pertinent with things like hygiene. What does support look like from close friends, family and village? An interesting thing is a lot of people don’t want their partner to do a lot of the nitty gritty care because it changes the relationship and that’s okay too. And also what does self care look like for you and for your village?

Rebekah: Like we said before, all care is a project. It is about who, how, what, when, where, and why. If you can answer those questions in bullet points on a page, you’ve got the start of a damn good care plan. So a care tree is also about project management, and this is about getting tasks and people and priorities, knowing the obstacles and the dependencies that rely on each other, such as.

Rebekah: I don’t know, getting an appointment from a GP to go [00:26:00] to the specialist to go to something else to apply to get a support or access to free things from the government, those sorts of things, the status and the information that you need. So literally, when you’re building a care tree, you’re mobilizing your army, putting in your tasks, looking at the time that you’ve got, and then building something that is sustainable.

Rebekah: It’s a visual representation of your support network, and it includes your friends, your acquaintances, the services that are out there, the people at church, anyone, that you’ve hired to help you, a doula, a physio, whatever the case may be, mental health professionals it is all there as well as the other supports that you may have.

Rebekah: Through disability or through age, pension or ACAT or anything else like that, it’s putting it all together. Like it’s a big care bull, your base and working out exactly what you’ve got and what you might need.

Jessica: Now, this is coming from an art [00:27:00] point of view, but I would say maybe you’re somebody who likes to do things online and that’s fine, but I would recommend doing it as a hands on, like a big poster board and write the things down and put them on little notes and stick it, because being able to physically do it, make a tangible hair tree where you can physically stick down all the little things and write little notes.

Jessica: It just makes it more real. It makes it and you could actually feel this whole care tree love by investing your time in doing it.

Rebekah: Yeah, totally. And, or even just getting a big piece of butcher’s paper and mapping it out with a couple of key people that you want involved. So you’re drawing and picturing and visualizing so people feel included in the process.

Rebekah: And the idea of a care tree is to reduce. the risk of self harm, to reduce the emotional labor, [00:28:00] to build up the support, but to also allocate the resources. And like I said before a couple of minutes here and there adds up. You don’t have to have all of the people, all of the time, minimum commitments and all that sort of thing.

Rebekah: You can figure it out and what actually works for people might be picking up the groceries on the way home. And that’s all that they do. They drop them in and then someone else even packs them away. These are the sorts of things that you look at, but what is the primary goal of that care tree?

Rebekah: Is it to support someone through a cancer journey and treatment? Is it to support someone as they are dying? Is it to make sure that someone’s suicide risk is reduced? And these are the sorts of things that you think about. You map it out. Then you look at the goals that are underneath. You look at the caregiving on a daily, a weekly and treatment based basis, right?

Rebekah: You look at everything that is out there. Are the nights harder so you need more people [00:29:00] involved in it? What do the caregiving needs look like for future? As the illness progresses, as the disease or the disability reduces physical, mental, or cognitive ability, having a contingency plan and knowing what those extra stages might look like, or if we see this, then we activate that.

Rebekah: Can you do that? can also be helpful. Another thing to look at is anniversaries and important dates around traumatic loss, around triggering events, around the day that someone got their diagnosis. All of these things that can actually reduce mental health capacity. What are the constraints that you face?

Rebekah: Sorry, Jess. What are you going to say, Sally?

Jessica: I was going to say, it’s too hard to think of this stuff as it happens because you think, Oh, I’ll just, we’ll just sort it out when it happens and we’ll we’ll deal with it then. And you can’t, we do so overwhelmed by the fact of it happening that it’s too late to plan.

Jessica: And then you just do whatever you think is fine or whatever somebody [00:30:00] suggests, and it might not be what you actually want or what’s the best thing for you because exactly too overcome by the trauma to actually focus on it. Exactly.

Rebekah: Exactly. Exactly. And this is why the planning is such an important thing, even the constraints that you face, the budget that you might have, the size of the friendship circle when some key people might be overseas, whatever the case may be and also cultural aspects to consider.

Rebekah: I must highlight this with so many different people, how we believe in things spiritually is different. But it comes to the fore in these sorts of things. What someone wants from the LGBTQIA community may be different from your experience. What someone who has lived with lifelong disability wants from their care is different to someone who has acquired a disability at end of life and should be treated with distinction and difference.

Rebekah: And also, Culturally and [00:31:00] linguistically different people require their own sorts of cultural understanding and acceptance of all kinds of different things to do with cultural literacy. It is not good enough to just go this is what I would want. So this is what I’m going to do. And also think about the things that on the outside that will influence the end of life experience is their mental health.

Rebekah: Is there a lack of service provision, such as in rural or regional Australia, is there addiction to painkillers that you have to navigate and all sorts of different things that might influence things or just addiction in general, as a thing that might come up while someone is not coping well. Now. This is a very simple thing that you can, why is a little yellow swatch on the screen?

Jessica: [00:32:00] This

Rebekah: is a very simple way that you can do it. This is Excel, right? You don’t have to Do it, you can have a card wall if you want, if you’re a web developer and a card wall looks good to you, if you want to have an excel, if you want to have a care tree with post it notes drawn all over it and all the rest of it, whatever gets you through the day, or a journal and some notes, or a whiteboard, But this is the sort of thing that you can look at so you can have a task such as coordinate the medical appointments for a fictional person who we’ve called George, who is in the rainbow family and has a few things going on with their family and so is pulling on their community for their village.

Rebekah: So maybe the priority, which is. Set up as Moscow, which is a standard usage thing, which is must, should, could, but probably won’t scale that you can use, has medical appointments that need to be coordinated Monday to [00:33:00] Friday at the daytime because that’s when the specialists are open as a dependency.

Rebekah: Alex the friend is a lead on that one. The dates are ongoing, the status is ongoing, and the notes is we have enough people to do this until January 13th and then maybe Alex has to find a few more people to help out with things. And you can see that there’s social stuff like find a regular dog walker for Jack.

Rebekah: George’s Jackrouse from Bongo. This is a should kind of thing. The dependencies are whoever can do it. The lead might be Avery, not started. Bongo is currently in boarding, but George is missing them. So let’s bring Bongo back because Bongo is a source of self care and happiness, those sorts of things.

Rebekah: You can break this down any way that you want, but it’s just a very simple way to actually plan things out so that you’ve got a list that you can use. I use Excel when I’m doing this kind of stuff, whereas Jess uses far more visual things, only because [00:34:00] I can set the priorities and look at the lists and, cross things off and all the rest of it.

Rebekah: But whoever’s running this, whoever’s the captain really needs to protect it and make sure that the information is up to date. When you’re looking at this, make sure that your your care tree’s getting a prune and a propagation. Update it. Maintain it. As new people come on board, as people leave the process, don’t get angry at anyone that leaves and don’t shut the doors on anyone else that’s new.

Rebekah: Just make sure you find somewhere for them and you can allow people to be part of the village in their own time and all contributions. are useful, right? That’s one of the things I want to stress as well. Consider your tools. Excel might be really good because you can everybody knows it, everyone can open it, you can see the priorities, you can set down what’s going on very easily.

Rebekah: You can put it on Google Docs and share it with everyone. [00:35:00] Or if you’re working together and everybody centralizes around George’s house, maybe having a big poster with some post it notes that you can physically move around. The first thing you see when you walk in the door really sets the tone. Oh, I see that the dishes need doing and the gardening needs done.

Rebekah: And George has got an appointment this afternoon. Very easy for whoever’s got Wednesdays, if you’re doing it day by day, rather than task orientation to see what they’ve got to do that day. Share and communicate. Any plan that you ever build for anything, any project in life and end of life is no different is only as good as the sharing and communication that goes on, but also consider privacy and consent.

Rebekah: There will be different levels of disclosure in certain things, and it’s not your story to tell. So if you are helping someone with end of life, you shouldn’t be telling the stories that they don’t want to tell. Just give the details to get the job done and focus on that. Ask for permission and all the rest of it.

Rebekah: If you are someone who is [00:36:00] dying, you are allowed to set limits and say, I don’t want everybody to know that I’m feeling constipated or whatever the situation may be. You’re allowed to be as modest or as open as you need. Seek professional guidance. So look for your counselors, look for your GPs, look for the people that are professionals in the industry that you can help.

Rebekah: You with things, your specialists, your at home care nurses and all the rest of it. And make it bloody fun because it’s hard when someone’s facing end of life. But if you can bring that humor in that Jess was talking about before, and you can treat it like a team and be there for each other, it makes it so much easier to cope with.

Jessica: And I think that’s really important as well to what you were saying about privacy because the death and the dying is the project. You’re not the project. It’s not everybody just gets a piece of you. It’s you setting your terms and limits for this is the kind of care that I want. This is the help that I want.

Jessica: Not [00:37:00] it’s a free for all and everybody just do whatever they like to Exactly.

Rebekah: And I won’t go through all of these, but think about your care tree questions with that light happening as well. Who’s providing the care for you, what support, what’s functional, what’s mental health, what’s budget what’s available, what’s there for you.

Rebekah: When there’s loss in the mix do they need help with death administration? Is there other things, what practical health can you offer? What activities and events are planned? What’s part of the grieving process? What’s good for emotional support, financial support, physical support? And then end of life questions.

Rebekah: Do they need help with cooking and bathing? Is it about treatment cycles? How long can they live at home with or without support? When are their medical appointments? And do they need company? And what times of the day are there going to be physical and emotionally and mentally [00:38:00] draining things happening?

Rebekah: For example, some people will go to chemo and be okay that day. The next day they’ll collapse and they’ll need extra support. Planning around those sorts of events really helps. Some people will be triggered by anniversaries. Some people will face different milestones and news from the doctor. With courage, other people will need a hand and, to find their own different kind of bravery.

Rebekah: Now a SWOT, I know, right? You think, wow, this is coming straight out of the office now. A SWOT can actually help you refine your care plan after you’ve done your questions in it. So think about what are the strengths of your plan? What are the weaknesses that you’ve got, the opportunities and the threats?

Rebekah: Going back to George, looking after and having care with George. with their situation. The strengths might be that George is beloved by their vast network and family, but [00:39:00] they also have so many friends, in the threat section. They’ve got so many friends that their care needs to have boundaries and also some kind of formula to it so that people don’t feel left out, but people don’t take over because they love her so much, right?

Rebekah: The strengths might be that, they’re upbeat and they’re pragmatic, but then there are other opportunities to increase that sense of wellness. Weaknesses may be on a systemic level. For example, the lack of specialized care that might be in your area, whether that’s to do with cultural observance, whether that’s to do with the illness.

Rebekah: That you’re facing, whether that’s to do with just the sheer number of people. One of the things that people don’t realize is that regional resources are shorter. less culturally appropriate and have stronger and longer waiting lists, for example. [00:40:00] So there are things that you’re going to have to navigate that are weaknesses and have things that sort of make up the difference in between times.

Rebekah: Because driving from Dubbo to Sydney to get treatment isn’t always a viable option for someone who hasn’t got the funds to stump up for accommodation or can’t make the trip to get there. Then look at the opportunities. There’s things that you can do to support people. So for example, we’ve got a couple of examples of this down here.

Rebekah: George has a spare room. Someone could move in with her. The uni near George has nursing students, so maybe they’re a great source of care. They could be the flatmate that also helps out with things. Or the ex girlfriend has a kitchen and a freezer, so maybe they can do some meal prep and then bring it over to the house to, to help out.

Rebekah: To stop it being a problem. These are all sorts of things that you can think about. And then there’s threats to this situation wanting the parents involved, but the parents being uncomfortable with a queer identity or having a different religion or a viewpoint can be [00:41:00] difficult for two groups of people that ultimately want to spend time together, but will have a hard time doing so.

Rebekah: And all those sorts of things that come into it. There’s also negative coping strategies and positive coping strategies to think about, so avoidance, substance abuse, emotional support, but then you counter those with therapy, art therapy, creative expression. Jess and I are very much into people actually using a hybrid model where we’re looking at therapy, we’re looking at support, but we’re also looking at artistic expression and play and all of these things that we know and have known since we were a kid to relieve our stress, to make sense of the things that we’re going through, and to explore the world’s And things that we’re facing.

Rebekah: We also believe in encouraging conversation leading up to death, after death, and during the care process [00:42:00] through memorializing. And you can do this in a variety of different ways, such as everything from creative projects, to taking up a hobby, to toasting people on special occasions. One of my favorite things to do with my partner is when we’re remembering his Omar, we have a German night and we cook German food.

Rebekah: And then when we were remembering my father who had a pizza oven out the back and was a mad cane brewer, we get some really nice beers and have a really lovely pizza. And we talk about them all of these things that you can do.

Jessica: One of the most amazing things is my friends, my mother’s friend, it was a family friend, her daughter.

Jessica: She had breast cancer for. Like 20 years. So we got used to the idea that she was just going to fight. But the time drew close and we knew she didn’t have that long. And so her daughter asked us all for our tributes. Could be video, it could be an art piece. It could like anything.

Jessica: And [00:43:00] then she put them all into a big document, a big presentation. played them for her mother. And and it was a good few months before she died, but we knew after she’d gone, she knew all of the stuff that we wanted to say. Then we were given the opportunity for her to hear. This is what you meant to me.

Jessica: This is how I felt. This is what you’ve done for my life. And it just was the most amazing gift because after Kay died, none of us felt like, Oh, I didn’t get the chance to tell her because we all had the chance to tell her. We all got to say, we, she got to hear everything. And we said it all again at the funeral anyway, but it was, there was a lot less grief attached to it because she knew, we knew she knew.

Rebekah: Exactly. And those conversations help with the care, they help with the recovery, and they help with managing the grief that you feel before the person has gone away too. [00:44:00] Remembering well, like looking at, Australia doesn’t exactly do this very well, so we’re going to look at a couple of examples from other places.

Rebekah: We all know about Mexico with the day of the dead and people coming together. We’ve seen it on TV. We’ve seen all of these things, but even the whole idea of, I love the grave diggers dinners in some parts of Scotland, they have the grave diggers dinner after a burial of with the gravedigger, the mourners gather for a meal and have it with Scottish tradition and have food and talk and all of those sorts of things.

Rebekah: And I love the fact that we’re integrating normal life activities such as gathering together, having some food, breaking some bread into these sorts of things, or the whole idea of New Orleans jazz stuff appeals to me as well. As a creative and as a musician’s partner and a former musician, I just love the whole idea of actually getting [00:45:00] together and having a big ass party and having a jam on stage, having a second line stomping through the streets where everyone’s playing their instruments and doing it that way.

Rebekah: Because I believe that while we have sorrow at the time of passing and we may have sorrow again with our grief, celebrating someone is as a bloody good gift to give to each other.

Jessica: Another thing that I like is this idea of having your funeral before you die. So to go to your own funeral and like having just a big old party knowing like it’s coming, I’m prepping for it, but come celebrate me now.

Jessica: I can still be a part of it and, yeah. And I it’s the same kind of thing is that Memorial project that my friend did for her mother. You get to hear all of the things and and then feel like you could say more. Come on.

Rebekah: And look, I, we believe in breaking convention. So a couple of ideas that came from a crowdsourcing of the [00:46:00] audience that we did have a five drink minimum. and see what happens. Tell my worst stories. Only wear orange because you can’t apparently be sad when you’re wearing orange. Someone else suggested.

Rebekah: Playing burn baby burn disco infirmo because they wanted to be cremated and they thought that was funny. Having the jam. Give a day at the cat home to honour the person that was absolutely a lover of all things feline. I want to get planted as a tree, as my ashes, this is mine, so that dogs will visit me and talk to me and I don’t care if they wee on me, at least they’ll be surrounded by doggies.

Rebekah: Have a giant footy match, turn me into firecrackers and shoot me at the sky. All these sorts of things are available to you. Do you

Jessica: know you can also get somebody turned into a diamond?

Rebekah: Oh yeah, the jewellery thing. I really

Jessica: wanted to say that with my dad. I still have some of his ashes and I still think about it [00:47:00] sometimes.

Jessica: And maybe I could just get a little diamond.

Rebekah: And don’t forget that our end of life and death is influenced by our culture and spiritual beliefs. What we believe happens after we die, the pain threshold and the tolerance for sickness and discomfort that we have as a person, our attitudes towards disability, chronic illness, and death, our approach to stress, grief, mental illness, and pressure, how we view medic medication, medical intervention, and the prolonging of life.

Rebekah: Very important. Quantity does not always equate to quality and vice versa. Need to understand that and you need to explain it to people. Our version of quality of life in relation to what looks like autonomy and choice and our experience, the functional, familial and financial constraints and what our version of a great, a growth death looks like in terms of who we are as people.

Rebekah: And that includes things like dignity, risk and the things that we’re willing to [00:48:00] do and the things that we’re not willing to forgo. That means that we can rewrite the story and support each other more, grieve well, be there for total strangers, be less afraid, and find belonging in what is right. Arguably, our last great adventure.

Jessica: While we’re on the topic of rewriting the story, I would add in that it’s a good idea to write your own tribute before you die. So that this is like you and we keep coming back to doing things like work we put our best selves into our work. So I think we should do the same with our life and death.

Jessica: Write your own tribute. Like it was your career elevator pitch. This is what I want to be remembered for. This is what I want people to know of me. Otherwise, you, somebody else is going to write it for you and it might not highlight the things that you would like to live on.

Rebekah: Exactly, and it doesn’t have to be about yourself.

Rebekah: It can be about Every [00:49:00] way that the other people touched you. Yes. So that you are letting them know that even though you’re not there, they were thinking about you even if they never said it. So where to next? If you go to the A Good Death website, so a good death.com au. We have a booklet there called The Great Last Impression that takes you through the functional.

Rebekah: and the advanced care and care stuff so that you can set yourself up. Check out our blog and have a bit of a read there as well so that you can get some ideas. There’s a few checklists that you can run through and get yourself sorted out. We’re also doing a presentation called After You’re Gone for the next Lifting the Lid festival in November, which talks about how to ease that grief and make it easier for people to cope after you’re gone, so that you can seed in little beautiful things to be there for those milestones that you miss and also be there when you, [00:50:00] when they need you.

Rebekah: Create your guest list, write down absolutely everyone, and then think, what role could this person play? And don’t forget those people that might not necessarily be a BFF.

Jessica: And I would say be more Eastern and less Western. Talk about death, like really just go we’re so afraid of death in the West, and we’re so afraid to bring it up.

Jessica: And I think read and look to Eastern ways of dealing with death, because they really have, Got a huge head start on the West.

Rebekah: Absolutely. And nominate your village. We know from the work of Dr Hugh McKay and other people that we are like a socially disjointed country. So bringing people together and, finding those values, mining out the people that are interested in this sort of thing, thinking about how you can help now.

Rebekah: Here you can help now in the present so that perhaps [00:51:00] you can get future support, what you can build, all of this sort of thing is, a really important thing. Define the care that you want and then apply, it to a care tree, turn it into a project, embrace your art therapy, the recording of voices, the recording of histories, the bringing of people together, the mishmash of skills.

Rebekah: The five minute support versus the five day support, all of those sorts of things, paid versus informal versus, within family, within out. community, all of that sort of stuff. Talk about death. Come to things like the Lifting the Lid Festival, which is a virtual festival in November, and you’ll see perspectives from all over the world.

Rebekah: Participate in things like Dying to Know It Day, which is August 8th, and the month that is surrounding that. Think about times where you can actually be bringing up the conversation before somebody dies so that you are [00:52:00] normalizing the process. And then you can flip the script on death today by going you know what?

Rebekah: I love my parents, but my goodness, the idea of them looking after me at end of life would scare the absolute trousers off me. I think I might ask the gardener instead or whatever it needs to be.

Rebekah: And this is Jess and I together. So I’m just going to end the screen sharing so we can have a little bit of a conversation. So hopefully you got a lot out of that presentation folks. Did anyone have any questions at this point in time? You’re free to type them if you don’t feel like grabbing the mic or you can pop on the video.

Rebekah: And ask them that way as well.

Jessica: I’m going to say just on that last screen, you should definitely record your voice. So I think that’s one of the things that gets lost. And I hear people, they say, I can’t remember their voice anymore. I can hear their laugh, but I can’t remember what they sounded like.

Jessica: And we have so many photos. [00:53:00] I think recording your voice is really powerful. Totally. Definitely.

Tiff: Yeah, thanks, Beck. And thanks, Jessica. That was great. This is Tiff. I, the problem that I tend to come across is that this is all great in theory, but just because I like and I’m very comfortable talking about death, people just people just still aren’t.

Tiff: So I suppose I just wonder if you’ve got any examples or any case studies that you can share of where you’ve been able to actually implement these villages that that I can take some. So some inspiration from, or can use as an example, case in point, my parents both, elderly but refuse to talk about death.

Tiff: My sister in law’s father has just had a heart attack and yet she’s I don’t want to talk about it. It’s all just seriously, [00:54:00] like, it was a real fright because he was the healthiest of all of the. The elderly, it’s just 10 out of 10 people are going to die.

Tiff: What do you think it’s going to happen to you? So just wondering if you’ve got any examples of how you can introduce it for people that are really adamant that they don’t want to talk about it.

Rebekah: Okay. So there’s two things to that, Tiff, and it’s a very good question. Yes, there are examples.

Rebekah: So for example, during the HIV and AIDS crisis, gay men weren’t getting treated. At hospital level, all the doctors walked away. So the lesbians took up the role and became the informal nurses and built communities to actually help fellas that were facing, their death and doing it that way. So there are things like that.

Rebekah: There are also a rising tide of end of life doulas that are walking the walk and doing a lot of work that you can read about. There’s several studies that have been done by the Deaf Literacy [00:55:00] Institute and also Dr. Annette Mellon has actually looked at from a evidence based perspective as well as a practical perspective, applying care across people and villages and that sort of thing.

Rebekah: So there’s information that’s available to you. The second part of it. Though, is there are going to be reluctant horses. They’ve been taught not to talk about death because it’s superstitious. And it’ll bring it on or it’s morbid or it’s this, or it’s, whatever. You can’t force the conversation, but you can warm them up to it.

Rebekah: And the best way to actually overcome. The end of life objections that I’ve found because I had faced the same thing with both parents is introduce it on the level that is most comfortable for them, talk about it to them in terms of almost like a business case for it. To get them over the line. So for my dad [00:56:00] to get to him to talking about things before he died, the best case was like you don’t want to sitting with, cause he was estranged from his father when he died.

Rebekah: You don’t want them sitting with unanswered questions and the pain that you had. Did you got to share a little bit more about your mental health old Johnny. And so he did with my mom, who’s very orientated by wealth and status and all the rest of it. appealing to her side that is all about where her money goes and who will be saying it and what the, how big the funeral will be.

Rebekah: Then allowed conversations like, and what do you want dignity to look like? Do you want someone else to help you sit on the toilet? Would you want it to be me? Or do you want it to be a nurse that you hire? And of course she’s I want it to be a nurse that I hire. So it’s about having those sorts of conversations and letting people know what happens if they don’t make the decisions because the decisions will be made.

Rebekah: For them. And 22 percent die with extra cost, [00:57:00] more humiliation, less dignity, and more medical treatment. Than they ever would’ve wanted by the simple fact that they haven’t got an advance care plan and an advance care directive. You say that to someone, you lose capacity, you lose choice. All of a sudden they start listening.

Jessica: I think what worked for me as well with both my dad and my mom is to put it in terms of not I wanna help you, but I need you to help me. This is what I’m struggling with. This is how I’m I’m starting to think about these things and I’m going to have to do this. And I want you to help me work through it.

Jessica: Now while I’ve got you here, because I don’t know what I’m doing. So if you can help me and then they feel much more empowered and they feel like everything’s back to normal Oh, okay. You’re the kid. You need help. Of course, I’m the parent. I can help you. And so you’re like, I’m feeding them what I want them to give me the answers to, but they’re still sitting there thinking that they’re telling me how it’s going to go.[00:58:00]

Tiff: I look, I appreciate that. That’s awesome. I, yeah, I’m familiar with Dr. Mellon’s work. I actually work as an end of life doula. And that’s what frustrates me more than anything. So I say, yeah, the only other thing that I can add to that is that one, the possibly the only thing that I have found helpful is whenever they attend a funeral and my dad goes, Oh, it wasn’t a good reflection of Woody or I go what would you want then?

Tiff: Exactly. But otherwise I’ve just had very little success talking to them about that. So I appreciate just quickly on that. So when you mentioned the 22%, is there some research that I can look up somewhere? Yeah.

Rebekah: Yeah, it’s the UK statistics for over medicalization and treatment, again, featured in our blog on the website.

Tiff: Oh, okay, cool. I’ll take a look. That’s awesome. Thank you.

Rebekah: No worries at all. The

Jessica: other thing is, you can forward them our booklets and then, and say, I want you to [00:59:00] read this. I’ve just downloaded it. We’re very like upfront about, this is what you need, this is what and so even just maybe reading it helps.

Jessica: Yeah,

Rebekah: exactly. So that we’ve got. I think two booklets, we’ll have a third one by the end of the next campaign that are available as well as the presentations. Francoise asked, how did we both get into this and why? From my perspective, I was working as a lifeline crisis supporter, taking mental health phone calls, and a woman rang up and she screamed all the way down the phone at me, and it was an unearthly scream of, some magnitude I’d never experienced before in my life.

Rebekah: And normally we end the call for our own safety as crisis supporters. You can’t take all the calls all the time, cause of the [01:00:00] damage, but there was something about it. And I waited for her to stop screaming. And then I sat in the silence with her and she said, I’m really sorry. I’ve only, I’ve just found out that I’ve only got a few months to live and I just don’t know what to do about it.

Rebekah: She’d run up to scream. And from there I was like, okay, I can use my lifeline training here. But that call stuck with me and like most of those moments in life, it saw me see something on Facebook that was about the Compassionate Communities Conference. And so I went along to the Compassionate Communities Conference and was just surrounded by a bunch of people from palliative care nurses, to academics, to people just trying to find their way that just filled me.

Rebekah: And then of course the curiosity came from there.

Jessica: And I think for me my, my family is all from the States. It’s only a little nuclear family that’s out here in Australia. So we were divorced from debt. People would die, but they were overseas and we’d have a little remembrance, but they already weren’t part of my day to [01:01:00] day.

Jessica: So it wasn’t so hard to get used to them not being there. And then my dad died and I realized I had. no idea about the death process or what you have to do or how you have to deal with it. And I had the, now when he got diagnosed to ask him questions, I just knew I needed, and I think it might’ve actually been from listening to some of Beck’s, now this is before, so I don’t even know, but I knew I had to ask him, do you want to be revived?

Jessica: Do you want to There were some questions I just knew I had to ask him and it was a huge help, but yeah, I just was so taken aback by just everything. Even the fact that I knew he wanted to be buried in a cardboard coffin and then we’re in the at the funeral home and they said, Oh no, that’s the second tier pricing.

Jessica: That’s not actually the cheapest one. And I also wanted to go and say, dad, did you know cardboard coffins are not the cheapest option? And then I did work with [01:02:00] Annetta Dr. Mellon on some of her things and I already knew that Beck was in the death sphere and I’ve already been supporting Beck’s words with my art in the freelance jungle and in other places.

Jessica: And so it was a no brainer. Let’s do this and let’s try and bring some Gen X sort of flavor to it,

Rebekah: less flowers in baskets.

Jessica: Thanks for that.

Jeevan: Hey Jeevan here. Look, I just just a quick question. I’ve watched this wonderful Disney movie. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. It’s called Coco. And if you haven’t, it’s it looks like Jessica’s I love

Jessica: that. Yeah.

Jeevan: I’ve got a DVD. It’s, quite the whole movies about what happens this whole journey after death.

Jeevan: And this really [01:03:00] wonderful Mexican concept the day of the dead. And it’s actually a celebration, which is quite different from what we’re used to. And I’m just, wondering, I guess in your what your thoughts are about celebrating a person for the family, of course so it’s not, yeah, so celebrating the death of a person every year in that kind of remembrance, which also happens in other cultures and countries.

Jessica: I, we take, we both take the day off when out on the days that our dads died, we both just take the day off and do for ourselves and we have our own little like remembrances and I tend to spend. A good hour or two just meditating on my dad and just thinking about him. And my brother and I we don’t, I’m not like really close, but we always speak on the day that dad died.

Jessica: And we always make, remember, we have a little conversation together about him and make a few jokes and [01:04:00] bring up the nicknames that good and bad that we used to give dad and have a bit of a laugh.

Rebekah: Yeah, we my partner and I actually, because my dad apprenticed at the Port Kembler Steelworks and we can see it from the beach that we’re near here at Windang and I’m a bum, a gorilla artist, graffiti artist, please don’t tell the cops where I live.

Rebekah: So what we did was we actually put in a bench. at the beach. And so we go up to the bench. It’s at the dog park. It’s really quite very much my dad, because it’s near the dog beach on one side, and then there’s a nudist beach on the other. And we know that dad was quite fond of both dogs and boobs. So there’s a chair in the middle of these two beaches overlooking the steelworks in the distance.

Rebekah: And whenever it’s the anniversary’s death or his birthday, go and sit on the chair and have a beer and have a chat. Play with the dogs and just chill [01:05:00] out for a bit. My sisters, one lives in Mornington Peninsula, the other one lives in Wagga. We have also got, because Dad’s nickname was Wombat, so we all have a pair of Wombat socks.

Rebekah: So when we’re having a bad grief day, we put on the Wombat socks and then we send each other a photo going, oh, it’s the same. One of those days. So we know that conversation is required and that’s for anniversaries or for the moments where we’re feeling it the most, because it’s just like a little signal.

Rebekah: And it can just be that moment where we don’t even actually talk about dad. We just talk about their day so that we feel connected at a time that his death makes us feel isolated. And then also the other thing is the remembrance through food. So food is a big part of. both my family’s culture and my partner’s culture.

Rebekah: He’s German. They feed each other to death. There’s lots of beer, there’s lots of pretzels, there’s lots [01:06:00] of huge meals and stuff, but it’s that whole thing of remembering as well through having those meals because Smell and taste are sensations that really take you back to almost cooking or dad’s pizza oven or whatever, and really put you in a time and place where you were with that person at their best.

Jessica: Yeah, I can’t remember. I can’t believe I forgot about that. My dad was from Philadelphia and he was as well. Like a big lover of Philadelphia cheesesteak. So like anytime, and they’re becoming a thing in this country now, but like anytime I go anywhere where there’s a Philly cheesesteak, I will eat it and rate it as if I was dad, Oh no, that’s not the right cheese.

Jessica: Oh, they’re doing right with the bun. And that really brings me. Close to him. I know he’s sitting there. And when my uncle was dying, was about to die, his older brother earlier on this year, it was one of the last conversations we had was like, I’m going to eat cheesesteaks for both of you now.

Jessica: So

Rebekah: yeah, it’s [01:07:00] wonderful how we did. Oh, we also go around to whenever we go to a new brewery, cause microbreweries are popular, we rate them because dad would have rated them. Based on what they’re like and are they close enough to pills to be claiming to be appeals and, all this sort of stuff, which to the chagrin of every microbrewer, we’ve got quite a lovely diary now.

Rebekah: We all look a bit anxious when we’ve got the pen out, but we do it for Dad, so it’s okay. Did anyone else have any questions? Rhiannon, did you have any question that you wanted to ask at this point or?

Rhiannon: Any questions? I think this has been really wonderful and it’s, I think having a framework for it is really important.

Rhiannon: So I appreciate the work that you’ve both put together in doing this and the advocacy around it as well. I love it. I think it’s important. A lot of my arts practice actually touches on a lot of this stuff, [01:08:00] which is where my interest in it comes from, because my attempt in that is to actually open up the conversation through art by making it comfortable, making it familiar.

Rhiannon: making it an okay space to bring up challenging and difficult conversation like this. So it’s wonderful to hear it from your perspective and the work that you’re doing around that in a more forward way as

Jessica: well.

Rhiannon: And I love the idea of remembrance. I think that’s hugely important. It doesn’t have to be sad.

Jessica: Probably shouldn’t be because like, you think about the people who you loved and you didn’t for the most part, you don’t sit around feeling sad and miserable with them. Like, my dad was like cranky, but he was never sad. Exactly.

Rhiannon: Yeah, exactly. Even if it’s a hard end it should, be a [01:09:00] celebration of good and there’s. I think there’s a term for it too. It’s it’s, when you’re grieving something, there’s a process of, you eliminate so much of your memory at that time and you focus on small parts. And I think if the attention can be brought to the good in that, it will be a healthier process for everyone to breathe and deal with that and work through it together.

Rhiannon: as well as then being able to have the conversations around it comfortably and healthily. Definitely. And look,

Rebekah: we have to do it at community level. Like I mentioned before, it is physically impossible for all the boomers to die at home. There are in a medicalized environment, they have to learn how to die at home.

Rebekah: They have to have the documentation in place so that they can actually walk out the door and not have the legal or the medical. Liability take over the [01:10:00] decision making process, but also from a social perspective, when you think about end of life, what would you prefer? Would you prefer to die in a medicalized environment under white lights, hearing machines, surrounded by professionals, or would you rather be at home with your record collection, surrounded by your loved ones and the things that make you familiar?

Rebekah: Feel familiar to you and make you feel comfort and remind you of the positive aspects of a life well lived.

Jessica: When my dad died, there was Law and Order on the TV. He had his cigarettes and he had his beer and he had his port and they were like all partway through and he had put the Law and Order, episode on pause.

Jessica: So I could see exactly what he was up to. And that was his happy space. That was exactly how he wanted to go. So

Rebekah: that’s amazing. Alrighty. We’ll end it there, folks, but thank you so much for joining us today. There will be a recording available and [01:11:00] we will be making the presentation available. Like I said, if you need other resources, head to the agooddeath.

Rebekah: com. au website. There are campaigns and booklets there. And if you need anything, just reach out to us. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Jessica: Thank you very much. It was great. Thank you.

Rhiannon: Bye.