No. 92 - A Conversation with Death Doula, Alua Arthur about Grief, Death & The Fullness of Life. PART TWO. - Hand Me My Purse.

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hand Me my Purse is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
So I was perusing Lourne Hill's websites, is what I said,
but I meant to say interwebs and found an old
Instagram post of my own and it is actually from

(00:26):
jo Leone is the author of the post. The author
of the post, and at the top of the post,
I wrote, let me put my glasses on. At the
top of the post, I wrote a note to myself
from myself, and jo Leone wrote, I wish for you
a healing love. I wish for you a peaceful love,

(00:46):
a true love, a revolutionary love, a rejuvenating love, a
prosperous love, a holy love, an intentional love and effortless love,
an extraordinary love, a joyful love, a cosmic love, a
prophetic love for always. And I loved it, and I

(01:10):
love when Facebook remind you excuse my voices a little squeaky,
remind you of things that you have said before you
have posted, because it kind of takes you back to
a certain time and remind you of who you were,
what you wanted, what you thought about, and it kind

(01:31):
of levels your helps you to balance some things out
or get into alignment. So I'm glad for that, and
I wish that for you too. As a matter of fact,
I definitely do for always.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
I can't see the patter of it.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Okay, what's up, y'all? Welcome to hand me my purse
to podcast. I am Me Me Walker, and I will
be here forever hosts each and every single time you
tune into this podcast. So go ahead and get comfortable.
Get yourself a glass of your favorite beverage, whether that's
a Ka soda with a splash of grapefruit juice, a
nice cold bottle of doctor pepper that you put in

(02:24):
the freezer for about twenty minutes so it has some
ice chips in it, or just a hot cup of
black coffee. Go light yourself a candle, some incense, or
burn some sage, and just get ready to chill out
and have yourself a good time, because it's time to
have yourself a good time. What's our friends? And ken,

(02:54):
it's me me, Resident Auntie Supreme here and hand me
my purse. And today I am actually not sitping on anything.
Let me tell you why. Actually in this moment, I'm not.
About ten minutes ago, I drank some tea that I
had sitting on my nightstand.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Because it's really late.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
It's really really late, and I couldn't sleep, So I said,
let me get up and be productive other than laying
in the bed and scrolling on the internet. Let me
get up and do something productive. So I got up
and I said, let me just record how about that?

Speaker 2 (03:28):
And I did just drink some.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Tea in it was a lavender and camerameal probiotics tea.
And I also had a raspberry leaf tea bag in there,
because sometimes when you're a girl, you need to drink
raspberry leaf tea because it's helpful. Let me tell you
what it's good for ladies. So let me just say this.

(03:52):
It is very, very helpful for women.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
It is.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Antioxidants. It helps with your digestion and digestive support. It
says here we'll relieve mouth ulcers, sore throats, and gum disease,
alleviates inflammatory conditions, minstrel cramping, and water retention. That's why
I drink it. Also, I drink it because it's supposed

(04:20):
to help with balancing your hormones. It's great to drink
during your menstrual cycle. Of course we're hormonal balance, but
it is it has some properties that help with blood clotting,
so you may bruise a lot easier, which sucks because
I fail the other day and my leg is all

(04:41):
bruised up. But it's really good for helping the balancing helped,
excuse me, helping to balance your hormones, and it has
tons of antioxidants and it says here it also may
help to lower the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. So
all I think it's great to drink. So that's what

(05:03):
I was drinking on some hot tea a few minutes ago,
and doesn't sound that exciting, but you know when it's
your time. Also, I've read that it helps with paramient
apauzle menstrual flow. So ladies, do your research. Look up
red raspberry leaf tea. If you're pregnant, you probably shouldn't

(05:24):
drink it. It's supposed to help with childbirth. But talk
to your doctor. Don't be listening to me, because we'll
do I didn't I know, I don't know shit. I'm
just telling you what I drink, and we know I
ain't pregnant, but not be We know I ain't pregnant,
so just do your own research. But that's what I
was sipping on. Now, what were you sipping on? Is

(05:45):
really the question? So friends then came forward today's jam.
I chose this song because I have been in a
really weird, weird state, and I'm kind of in a
state where I feel a little stuck. You know, Sister

(06:08):
is in a very strange space lately. Mother's Day is
coming and that's always a humdinger for me. And it's
a period of time where I have to actively focus
on being strategic around taking care of my mental health,
like I have to really work hard. I got some
life things happening, some health things happening. Listen, sis, I

(06:29):
just got some shit happening. Okay, And when times like
this come, and especially with the conversation that I've been
having excuse me with my guests for this episode. In
the previous episode a lower author Arthur, excuse me, where
we are talking about death, grief, mortality, and also joyful
living and being intentional and living a full life. It

(06:53):
was just interesting because I'm usually the one who is
talking about joy and being intentional, but this time I
got to listen and to absorb, and it got me
to thinking. You know, I just was thinking a lot.
Jesus Jesus. Anyway, let me focus before I go off
on a tangent. Anyway, this was part two of our conversation,

(07:15):
and afterwards I was led to just think about, you know,
just talking about grief and death. I started thinking about
some of the people who are no longer here that
would help me when I was going through times like this.
And so the song that I chose a song that
my grandfather used to always play when I would come
to his house when he lived in this particular apartment,

(07:36):
and he would sit by the window and play songs
for me, and he was singing, and you know, we
would talk about music, and he would remind me of
when I sang on our family reunion cruise and I
won the karaoke competition because contrary to popular belief, I
can actually sing, and he would tell me that I sing.
He would always say this that I sing at Last

(07:57):
by Edda James, way better than Beyonce did for the Obamas,
which I thought was hilarious. But I chose this song
because he would play it over and over and over
and over and over, and every time I hear it,
I think of him, and it is I say a
little prayer for you by.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
I'm Gonna try another cry.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
I Say a Little Prayer for You by Aretha Franklin and.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
A lot of people have covered this song.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
But you know, nobody does it like uh Re Read
because she's the original Queen Bee. And so the words
of this song are really beautiful and it's about love.
But for me, it's about my connection to my biggest
cheerleader in the oh. I got a women, give me
a second, I'd be right back. Okay, I just had

(08:47):
to get myself together for a second before I fell
apart on this microphone. So anyway, I was saying that
this song is about for me, it connects me or
it takes me back to spending time with or brings
back memories of you know, my number one cheerleader is

(09:08):
the biggest cheerleader that I've ever had in the entire
world ever in the history of people who supported me
in any way and in everything that I did. And
that's my Grandpap Chops. And I always make the joke that,
you know, like I could poop in the middle of
the street and he would be like, you know, you
know whatever my nickname that he called me, which was

(09:28):
sometimes it was Red because he would confuse me with
my aunt, my grandmother. He I guess he figured he
called them red, he might as well call me red.
I don't know why, because we're not the same complexion.
But whatever, he'd be like, you know, red or you
know another name. He would call me by my middle name.
You shouldn't have did that, you know. But we're gonna
clean it up, and then we're gonna go and it's

(09:50):
gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. It doesn't matter
what I did. By the end of the conversation, it
was okay, or he would tell me it was fine
that I did it. And his birthday is coming up,
so I decided to choose this song to celebrate him
early and because I miss him a.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
Lot, So enjoy this song.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
My favorite part of the song is the way it starts,
and it says from Oh, this is a lot fucking
harder than I thought it would be. Give me a second, listen.
I told you whole I got a lot on me.
I ain't making this shit up now, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

(10:35):
So anyway, I think I was saying that My favorite
part about the song is that the way the song
starts and it started out starts out with her saying,
from the moment I wake up, before I put on
my makeup, I say a little prayer for you. And
to me, praying for somebody is the highest form of
showing love or to express love for someone, To pray

(10:58):
for someone, to ask God to help them or to
bless them, or to cover them, or to protect them
or to heal them. I love that. So anyway, enjoy
the song, and of course they'll link to the songs
in the show notes. You know the drill, it'll be there.
Go listen to it, and go listen to it, because
I'm sure you've listened to the song many times before.

(11:18):
But go listen to it and really listen to the
words and listen to how beautiful it is. And then,
you know what, let's just go ahead and get this
party starter because I'm over here falling apart at the scenes.
Let's go ahead and get this.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Party starter.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
Busting. Why there's a light I feel like you bring

(12:12):
to this kind of work, a sunshine if you will,
that you bring to it that people may not think
about or see when they think about people leaving this
realm or themselves leaving this room. But there's something beautiful
about the work that you do. And when I reflect,
because I'm telling you, in this process, I've done a

(12:34):
lot of reflecting. And when I think about my grandmother
leaving all of the little things like combing her hair
and you know, lotioning her feet or yeah, all of
those little things, or pulling the nurse outside because she
was being my grandma was being mean to her and
you know, saying please, you know she is having a

(12:55):
hard day.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Just all of those little things.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
When I think back to them now, like they were
such beautiful moments that of course I'm never going to
get to experience it again, but I'm so grateful that
I was able to experience them.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, I'm also really grateful for your presence while you
were experiencing them, you know, to be able to think
back on those times that you were brushing your hair or.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
You were present. Here we go, I told you what's coming.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
I'm glad they're here, you know what I mean, Let
them out, Let them out, let them out.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
But being able to be present for the little moments
when our people are dying, it's the last bit, the
tangible bit that we'll have of them. And so when
people are always asking for advice about what WOU do
I do when I'm caregiving somebody or somebody's getting close
to the end of life. My encouragement is always to
stay asked present in your body as possible, because presence
in the body means I can be present for this

(13:44):
thing that's happening, and the little things that are that
are happening are the things that will have to hold
onto after they die. So I try to encourage presence
as much as possible. And I'm glad to hear that
you did.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
I did, Thank you. I appreciate that. That's interesting that
you say that. I often wonder and you know, and
I think about the part of your book where I
can't think of his name.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
I want to say, his name.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
Is Mike, and he had the wife who went to
the girl's trip with her friends, and yeah, yeah, I
think about how as caregivers we think we know everything right,
we know what they need, we know what they want.
They don't know what they want because you know, they're dying,
so they don't really know we know what is important

(14:29):
to them. It was really lovely to hear like him
open up and talk to you about like how he
felt and what he wanted, not versus what she wanted
for him, but you know what I mean, in contrast
to what she wanted for him. What is there a
common thread that you find when people are in the

(14:51):
process of leaving when it comes to like things that
they want or things that they want to experience, or
what they want to feel, what they want to eat,
and not necessarily exact foods that they want to eat,
but what are some of the things that you find
that they that are important to them to experiences in

(15:13):
that time going through the process.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
I think many of us associate like bucket list stuff
or things that people might want when they're dying with
like the big things, right like the things that they
didn't get to do when they were dying. One of
the questions that I often ask is what is still
undone in your life?

Speaker 2 (15:30):
And that question.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Gives a lot of responses, and it's a question all
of us can ask ourselves right now because that's loaded.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
What is still undone? What do you what must you do?

Speaker 1 (15:41):
What must you do?

Speaker 3 (15:42):
And the answers are rarely about going to see the
Mona Lisa or not that kissing their motherland for the
first time.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
It's rarely about that. It's more about having.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
Spent more time with somebody that they loved, or apologizing
to somebody, or you know, speaking truth with somebody else,
or gaining their hands in the soil one last time.
It has a lot less to do with the big
things that we think that it does, which is why
the practice the presence that I was talking about before
is so important because it allows us to be like
present with this really wild experience of life that we

(16:16):
have that people who are leaving it seem to be
so much more keenly aware of.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
You see what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
No, I get it, I get it. I get it.
So it's just it's the little things. It's the little things.
It's little things.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Sometimes it's like foods from childhood, or the smell of something,
or they want to hear their song. It's often in
the sensory experience, but the minute things about living.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
I get that. That makes sense.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
So, and it's funny as you say that, I think
about like I said, I feel like I've been very
reflective in the process of like.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
Experience in this book.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Not just extremely reflective, but what you just said about
what in your life is Undone.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Man there's a big one.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Whoa that that that is? And I think that it's
a beautiful thing for people to, like you said, seeing
them on Lisa or going to an active volcano and
watching it from a like, all those things are great.
But will you be able to you know, I'm from Baltimore.
Will you be able to eat a crab eating a

(17:24):
crab cake one last time? Hearing somebody that you love laugh,
you know, singing your favorite gospel him, or somebody reading
your favorite Bible verse, or eating a piece of candy,
or smelling white diamonds. And I think that when I
think about my grandmother.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Wore white diamonds.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
It's over there on her little table. Her little white
is sitting on the front on the table. But I
think that makes me think about like right now, me
savoring like little moments because it's great to go on
big trips because I like to travel just like you do.
You are traveling somebody and a solo traveler. I love
a good solo trip. People don't understand that. And I

(18:08):
don't have kids either, says, And people don't understand when
you don't want kids, Just leave me the hell alone alone,
Because maybe I just want to be an auntie and good.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
It's fun, it's great. You can take it. Being back home.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Being an auntie is supreme living. I can take you
back home. I can have a lot of fun with you.
I can give you alcohol when you get a little older.
Don't tell your mom like you can talk to me
about your boyfriends. Oh, if you have a pregnancy scare
and you're twenty one, you can call me and we can.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
Work through it. Like it, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
It's like a safe space beyond the mom. I'm okay
with that, but please and thank you. It makes me
think about those small things in my life to savor,
you know. And big trips are fine, and going to
brunch with your girlfriends is good, and doing all these

(19:06):
grandiose things are good. But what about burning your favorite incense?
Oh it makes me happy, eating a cherry, a green apple, blowpop.
Not on a regular basis because your teeth will fall out,
but like, you know, you know, savoring those moments, hearing
if I could hear my grandmother laugh again? What like

(19:26):
those little things? And it reminds me. I'm telling y'all,
y'all need to read this book because it will I mean,
if you have any substance in your soul. It will
make you really stop and think, like, what the fuck
am I doing with my life? Like not even versus life,
not even up against Like what am I doing in

(19:48):
my life? Because I'm gonna die soon or I'm gonna
die even eventually, because you know we're all gonna die.
But in this moment. This is another thing Me and
my therapist have worked really hard, me trying to remain
present and not being focused on the future because I
want to control everything. But what am I doing right now?
It this the whole thought of dealing with mortality is

(20:12):
all about being in the present right right, And people
forget that, you know, they think it's something like big
out there or something big that we got to do,
and it's like, no, it's right here. Dying also happens
in an ordinary moment, still just living small moments. But
I think people forget, Like when you die, you did
like it's like it's it's done for you, ye like

(20:35):
and I know that is a little harsh, but like
it's done for you, Like at that point it's about
everybody else around you trying to put the pieces back together,
but like your part is done and maybe if you
believe in reincarnation, maybe you'll come back and get to
do it all over again. If that, if you and
I wouldn't want to come back as a human right
now though not the way this work.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
You would No, No, I said, I'm good.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
No, Yeah, this world sucks bringing back as a butterfly
or something, or a hippopotamus.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
They have a good time.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
But I love that this book has really helped me
to really focus on like what are you doing? Like
what are you doing to ensure that the life you
live is a life filled with joy, a life filled
with the things that you want to do, A life
filled with substance and not substance in the in the

(21:28):
terms of like productivity. You know, Black women love to
be busy, don't we. I'm booked them busy. VI you tired?

Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, laying down? I'm sitting down.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
Nap time. Yes, even if you don't go to sleep,
it's still nap time, lay down time. But I love
that this book brought me to that space because it's
not a space that I have ever been in, because
who I don't really think about my own mortality until now.
How do you? And I mean you kind of talked

(21:58):
about it when you talked about self care in the process,
But like, where do you think that you gathered or
developed the emotional resilience to do this kind of work.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
I think I've been building it for a long time,
and I also think that many.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
Of us have it.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
It's just I practice.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
Mine quite often for people to want to become death doulas.
I think we make effective death dollas when we are
comfortable and emotional depth, and most often that means that
I've become made mind my friends, you know, I'm familiar
with them.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
I try not to shun some.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
I try to get as comfortable with my shame as
I am with my joy. Is to allow, you know,
all things to exist. Part of the reason I named
the book briefly perfectly human is not only that as
a result of being human, that means that will die,
but it also to give ourselves like the free range
to like feel this human thing, to feel what it's

(22:59):
like to be in about and to have rage and
to have like silence and to have awe and to
have anger and vitriol and judgment and all those things.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
That's all makes us very human.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
And so the emotional resilience is getting comfortable with like
the full gamut of the human experience to me, like.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
You know, many things can be true at the same time.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yea, yes, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Do you feel like sometimes because I know I know
a lot of people who are overthinkers meeting one of them,
do you feel like sometimes people overthink or overprocess loss
in the sense that like in that moment, like when
that person leaves, do you think that they tend to

(23:47):
create how do I say this, like create more of
a narrative around the loss instead of just realizing like
the person died because it was their time to die.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Yes, I do think.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
People want to assign all types of different meaning to
it when it happens. Death is you know, people die
and a lot of fucked up ways.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
Slately, it's okay, I curse girl checked earlier. Oh, just checking.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Okay, great, Auntie's cussed.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
M Mommies don't curse.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
But Auntie, Auntie, Auntie, nephew, I'm just cursing, cursing curson.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
So I was saying that people are dying in all
types of fucked up ways, and and it's important that
we try not to assign too much meaning to the
wave of the death. Occurs, unless, of course it's happening
in ways that are flying in the face of justice
and like, you know, honoring the human But the stories
that people make up around it sometimes can be really

(24:47):
detrimental because they make so much meaning around it that
ends up creating a lot of suffering for them.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
Oh yeah, I'm going to make sure that my aunt
listens to this episode. There was something that happened when
and my grandmother passed away, and and not that you
don't want, you know, justice to be served if something
was wrong, or you know, if you feel like something
was undone. I just remember having a conversation with my

(25:13):
aunt saying that like God was ready, it was her time,
last time it is, yeah, and so you going through
and you know, if you want to write a letter
and if you want to sue somebody and do all
of these things, this is recreating the trauma for you
over and over and over of your mother's passing when realistically,

(25:36):
like she was tired.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
And God said, you know what, she tired.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
Let me go ahead and take my baby out of
here because this is too much for her. And it
could have been me being selfish. I remember my aunt
called me and was like what do you think about,
you know, like pressing the issue about you know, this happening.
And I was like, I think that if it's something
that you want to do, you know, I support you
in doing it, but I don't want any parts of

(26:01):
it because I think I knew that this is just
going to retrigger us over and over and over and
over and over. And we already have so much to
deal with and it's so much pain, and it's so heavy,
and we're trying to navigate this new normal, if you will,
this is just going to re traumatize us over and
over and over and over. And I don't think that

(26:22):
she ended up going through with it, And I don't
know if she notices realizes this, but I think that
her spirit is much more better off without doing it,
because it is just retraumatizing yourself over and over. Can
be for sure, there is an element called reprocessing where
in grief people do just run over the thing over

(26:43):
and over and over again in their heads. And I
think for some people it can be supportive as they
like try to hang onto the little bits of how
Sabiity died. I think sometimes people also hang on to
those things that they thought were less than what the
person deserved, because it allows them a way to still
stay connected in some capacity. You know, It's like, if
I'm not angry anymore, did I care or does it matter?

Speaker 3 (27:04):
It still matters. You can let it go, and also
you can stay angrief. This is what you need in
order to still feel like out with them, and I'm
down for them, and you.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
Know, yeah, but you don't think that it is. And
I guess I'm feeling where you're I don't want to
like judge and not to be judgmental, but wouldn't it
be best for our own like spirits to find other
ways to honor them in that way?

Speaker 3 (27:36):
I think that other people come to grief a lot
of different ways, and I've seen so much of it,
you know. I've seen the people that are just out
for blood after somebody dies, even though what I heard
sounds like a very normal process to me. They're not
at hospices and people for morphine and they think that
the morphine kill them, and they're just trying to get people.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
And it all looks to me like an expression of grief.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, and all great to me, is valid, even the
expressions I don't ratter understand because there's a lot of
them that I don't understand.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
But I'm like, you're grieving, ouch.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Can you direct it toward the thing that actually hurts
and not at me, not at this person or you know,
I would imagine you that you deal with that a
lot like Okay, so can you tell us about like
one time where that happened where the person that after
your client had because who is the client? The client
is the person who is actually leaving, not the family

(28:28):
member who.

Speaker 3 (28:29):
Right, It depends, Okay, it depends. Sometimes the client is
a family member. Sometimes a family member has calls for
support with their person who's dying.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Okay, yeah, and there's yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
Well, I was going to say that there's cerly been
times when people have been in their grief angry at
me or throwing some energy my way one way or another.
There was also a son who kept asking me out insistently,
and don't get me wrong, I know I am fly
And at the same time, I was like, you were
trying to find a way.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
To just stay close to this person who died through
thinking that this is going to be the thing.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
This ain't it, Like it's not for you anyway, But
this ain't it, But there's been anger. There was one
son of a client who also reacted in a lot
of anger toward me, thinking that I maybe hastened his
mother's death. But she was getting paid medication and they
gave her morphine nearing the end of her life, and
he sedated her, which allowed her to die.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
But he thought that the sedation is what eventually killed
her and that the morphine killed her. And I was
I was giving you know, some information for them to consider,
and they considered to give her more, and he thought
it was my fault.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
Yeah, okay, this is grief. He's grieving, and how do
you deal with that?

Speaker 1 (29:42):
You touch the door jam and you go home and
take your band and eat your chips.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yeah, and eat my chips and maybe have a little tequila.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Okay, heyn is wrong. Repisado or nail reposado.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Every day straight up to not even a lemon or
a line.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Just what's your favorite tequila? Okay, there's so. I had
a friend of mine on the show. She had actually
been to prison. She was a teacher and actually a
special administrator, and she had been to prison until we
talked about that, and she I had one at her house,

(30:20):
and I want to say it was. I was just
telling somebody about it the other day and I can't
think about it.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
But two, I don't know what the hell it's called.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
But if I think it, absolutely and if necessary, I'll
email it to you. Because it was so smooth. Like
it was so smooth. I don't see how people drink
things like casamigos Like that is not even right. It's
wrong to drink. It's bad for you. I'd rather drink
Patron than to drink cass. I have a question, as

(30:54):
a black woman in this field, are there any like
unique perspective, active, or just insights that you may bring
to end of life care and support As a black
woman as a system, what do you bring to this
whole process that maybe another person could not bring.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
Well for servers, I think because of the intersections of
my identity, it's much easier for me to honor the
intersections of other people's identities.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
I've heard way too many people say things like race
doesn't matter and how we die, and I think that
is utter and complete bullshit, because when I'm supporting somebody
at the end of life, I'm honoring the totality of
their lived experience for all. It was not just the
experiences I'm down with or understand or can identify with
who they actually were.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
That means how they showed up in life. That means
that I have to look at their.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
Whole thing, their entire thing, including their race, including their gender,
gender expression, sexual identity, like all those things go into ability, disability,
all everything, everything is going into it.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
And it's much easier, I think, for me to.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
Be aware of other people's because I sit in this
position and as opposed to all the white people who
over the years have told me that it doesn't matter,
or they try to lump everybody in together or provide
like the same care for everybody. One minor example and
my DULA training program, I had learned about dry shampoo.

(32:17):
They said that you see a dry shampoo to wash
the hair of the deceased.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
It was the very first.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
Time I'd heard about dry shampoo in my life. I
was shocked, in aunt, what is this? And they explained
it to me, and I thought, y'all better not put
any dry shampoo in my locks and my hair. It
will go in there and it will never come out.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
And it'll never come out, and then you'll be dead
in your afterlife whatever you believe.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
With powder in your hair.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
Looking like it, ash, she had a mess. Yes, that's
not what I'm trying to do.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
Because what if.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
There's no place for you to dye your locks when
you get there?

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Thank you? Then what as she had a mess?

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Now? And so I thought, well, this is clearly a
situation where we have not considered everybody's hair.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
We haven't considered everybody.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
They say, this is how you do it, and I
was like, I can't be it for everybody?

Speaker 2 (33:01):
What else is available?

Speaker 3 (33:02):
So that's a minor thing, but it shows up in
so many other different ways, you know, cultures and customs
and rituals, and you know, just even calling my elderly
clients miss or miss or don't start with their first name.
You know, like it's a tiny things that show respect,
but are also markers of culture that I am privy
to that a lot of other people don't even know
it's an issue or something.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
To consider, right. I get that that makes sense, And
I could see people trying to box it all in

(33:43):
and say it doesn't really matter, and yeah, no matter
how that works, it yeah absolutely matters. And I know
as a black woman, of course, I'm biased, but black
women are superheroes, not superheroes that are here to save everybody.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
That's not our job. No, I'll say we are.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
We're like at the X Men. You know we have
we have a lot of powers, great powers, not necessarily
the Magneto X Men, but the you know, we have
a lot of great powers. And also to be able
to just see people for who they are because of
how we are treated, how we are seen. And so

(34:25):
I get that. Are there any cultural or oh in
that tequila is called el tasorro al tisoro? Yeah, write
some as delicious And she is so funny. She uh
lived in Mexico City or in Mexico and she like
went to all these tequila tastings when she was in
her early twenties. And so I'm gonna go ahead and

(34:48):
say that she probably knows what she's talking about because
she's knee deep in the tequila game.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
It's so delicious, Like it's really good.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Write it down, it's good. Can you discuss or can
you think of any cultural or spiritual rituals or beliefs
that you have that you have found meaningful or helpful
when you are supporting people through this process that you
Alua bring to the table.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
I think one thing that I bring, which is perhaps
the most supportive, is the absence of it, at least externally,
because when I am as blank of a slate as possible,
and I don't mean that doesn't mean that I come
with my trauma and my pain and my history and
my blackness and everything else. Rather it means that I

(35:37):
can allow people to have their experience and share with
me what they believe to help them weed through it.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
That's what's most supportive. Okay.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
You know.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
Also, I think just naming it what I see it
as and not using euphemisms or not cauching it any
terms that highlight what my belief system is. Like I
don't say transition or past away and I say dead
or die on purpose.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Listen, just straight straight from the hip.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Just keep it what it is, keep it one hundred
all the time. Because it also just keeps things neutral
enough so that people can put what they believe into
the pot and I can help them start and keep
something out of themselves.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
I did that.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
I love that. I've never thought about that, and of course,
you know, me, being the reflective person I am, I'm
thinking about, like what do I say. I definitely said
a transition a lot during this conversation, I've said leaving
a lot, and that is probably based in my own
drama and my own grief process and the where I
am now in the grieving process. That is interesting. That

(36:40):
is I probably could never do that. I don't think
that I could do.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Your work is one. I'd be in there crying like
a fuck. That's okay, I do to people. I do too.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
And can I tell you a story, a quick one,
as I think we.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Ran out of time.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
A while back, I was with a client and her
sister and they were not elderly, they were close enough
in age. They were black, and I felt very identified
with them. And you know, you always hear that that's
not what you're supposed to do. And I certainly changed
the students that I work with that perhaps people that
you feel closely biographically associated to you probably shouldn't be

(37:16):
working with because he had to separate the space between
the two of you.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
Absolutely, client was dying, her sister was there. I'm boohooing
because the sister is crying because I'm thinking about my
own sister dying. All right, I'd excused myself for a while,
came back. I still couldn't get it together, so we
wrapped up the visit and I went home.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
Then I felt awful, like look at me.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
I meant to create and hold this container and I
collapsed directly into it. Oh awful, like maybe I'm not
cut out for this. I don't know if I can
do this anymore like this. A few days later, sister
calls to tell me how grateful she was that I
showed some emotion and some humanness because doctors and other
people had been coming into the home, they'd been coming
into the hospital, and they would come, they do their.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
Job, and they'd leave.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
And she said that it was a first time that
she felt that her sister's death matter to somebody.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
I get that, if that makes sense, Not that really,
because I would be falling out crying, not you know.
Do you want me to go get something for you? Like,
oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? Do you
want me to go get y'all some rolls or something?
Because do you want me to find somebody to make
some meatballs? Because like black people got to have meatballs.
I have to think you need some rice something. I

(38:26):
think the last question or the last few questions I
have is I want to know if there are any
experiences or lessons that you have learned in this process
that have helped you, like on your own journey to
self love or your own not necessarily self love, but
your own like mental health journey.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Like what has.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
Doing this work done for you and your own mental health?

Speaker 3 (38:55):
It was, like we were talking about earlier, just giving myself
the grace to how to like to be who I am,
you know, and to have the difficult experiences I've tried
to tidy myself for so long, and to not be.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Frustrated and lawyer outfits when you want to dress like
Betsy Betsy Johnson exactly got to dressed like Boston Legal exactly.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
That's not for me. That's not for me.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
I can get anxious, That's okay, it's a new thing
that I'm discovering about myself. But I'm allowing myself the
grace to like be human, to like have a full
range of emotions and have just like a full experience here.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
I think there any freedom in that. There's so much
freedom in it.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
There's so much full freedom in that. Absolutely, And what
the grace giving yourself the grace to be human, to
be human, And what did you say?

Speaker 3 (39:49):
You said for a long time, you for a long time,
I'm tidied or I tried to keep in little boxers
and wouldn't allow people to see all parts of me.
And now I'm like, well, it helps that I'm in
this really beautiful relationship that holds a lot of space
for me to be the full gamut of who I am.
But it also allows me to be the fullest of
who I am all the time. And that that is
a that's a there's a lot of freedom, and that

(40:09):
too in a relationship.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
You in a relationship like, yeah, I gotta because you
love the love I do, and I love that.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
I swear to God, I feel like I know you.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
I do, I do, I did. The last thing I
want to ask is what advice would you give to
any of my friends and kid that are trying to
understand or have a deeper understanding of self and acceptance,
one in the loss of grief and in their own
I'm sorry, one in the face of grief, grief and loss,

(40:45):
but also in understanding their own mortality.

Speaker 3 (40:49):
Oh, they're kind of they're the same, which is the concept.
And you'll hear me say this one hundred times, but Grace.
You know, there's a reason I call the business going
with grace. Grace, Grace. This thing is hard, and we're
all doing the best that we can most of the time.
And sitting on the precipice and knowing that you're about
to lose somebody that you care a lot about is difficult.
And you might experience yourself in a lot of ways

(41:11):
that you're not comfortable with or haven't met yet. You
might meet a new version of yourself and that's okay too.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
Grief does have the capacity to crack us open and
where a new sense of self can emerge. And so
to stay patient with you and your process. And grief
is a lifelong experience. It's a lifelong experience. It never
goes away, It doesn't go anywhere. Just learn how to
integrate it differently. You learn how to move with it.
But it doesn't go anywhere.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
It just evolves.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
It feels like yeah, afferent things, yeah, yeah, into different things.
I'm trying to think of it like a butterfly that
lives forever that maybe changes like it may be a
monarch at first, and then it turns into the little
white ones and then it turns into the pretty blue ones,
and it just evolves over time because it doesn't go away.

(41:58):
And I think that initially I thought that oh by
now I would be okay.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
No, that's not how it works. That's not how it works.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
It's been ten years since my brother in law died,
ten years and I was thinking about them recently.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
And I choked up. Pete Peter.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah, listen, I'm here with them with me, and I'm
either we are friends. We went to school together. You
lived in Bethesda, maybe I lived up the street. I
am a part of the Arthur family. I know what's
going on.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
Okay, we are here.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
I want to say thank you so much for being
on hand me my purse with me today. I want
you to tell people how they can find you, Doude.
This is your time to do your plug and sometimes
for black women, we have a really fucking hard time,
you know, doing that, but like it's your turn. I
want you to tell people to find you on social

(42:48):
media and they better follow you and subscribe and do
all the things or I'm going to beat them up.
I'm not because I don't really like to fight. I
haven't benefied since I was twelve, but I will find
somebody up if I have to. You know what I'm saying, easy,
no problem, it wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Be a problem.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
No problem.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
And I'm big too, No problem. I am big. I'm
a big girl. Yeah, I'm a big lady. Like I'm
going down without a fight. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
No. One of my coworkers is so funny. He has
a white van and I was like, I don't you
know this van is kind of making me uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
He said, you better be careful.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
I said, if you get me in that white van,
something as big as and I pointed to another co
worker's gonna come out of my nose. I said, Cause,
fat ladies, you.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Ain't get me in there. If I get in there,
it's fight choice. I'm gonna fuck you up on the
way in the van.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
You say I should have left this big bitch alone,
because I'm gonna try to kill.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
You on the way to you taking me to the
Dan sure kidnapp defense. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
How can the people find you and tell them one
more time?

Speaker 2 (43:46):
The name of the book. The name of the book
is briefly perfectly human.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Go to your independent bookstores and find it, please, because
those are folks that are working real hard to make
their dreams come true as well, So please go to
an independent bookstore.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Muscle to Amazon to get it. You can find it
on audio as well if you'd like to hear me
talk it out to you.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
I recommend you do both because she is a black
woman and we want to support her.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Because I'm definitely going to buy the.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
Written copy, but I definitely recommend if you want the
fullness of the experience of the book to listen to it.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Yeah, yeah, listen to it.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
Listen to it reading taking my sentences because I worked
really hard to craft them.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
You can find me also at Goingwithgrace dot com.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
It is our business website where you'll find a number
of courses and offerings and meditations and journaling experiences for
you to work with your mortality, to sink into grief,
to work with the experience of grief, and if you
like to learn how to support other people through death
and dying and grief and loss as well.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
Awesome.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Can they find you on social media or you're not
really social media.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
Definitely going with Grace with underscores between the words, because
otherwise you'll end up at some yellow lab in Kentucky.
If that is not not it and then also MEA
loves life.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Okay, yeah, I love that. It's true. I love that well.
I enjoyed this.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
And I told you I feel like I know you
and that you know I knew Peter, and I know
your niece and you and your niece have the same birthday.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
If I'm telling you, I feel like it.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Your parents about all of the things, everything, all of
the things. I appreciate you taking your time on your
West Coast time out with this East Coast girl with
a West Coast spirit.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
And I wish you all of the best.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
And I'm definitely gonna go to going with Grace dot
com and see what kind of resources you have. And
I'm going to share it with every fucking person in
my family because we are all dealing with a lot
of grief. We have had a lot of grief over
the past I would say decade. And I'm going to
suggest to them we have a family wellness call. I'm
going to suggest to them that they all go on

(46:04):
and see if there's something there that touches them or
that they feel like that they can connect you. So
thank you so much, a Lua, thank you, I appreciate you.
The tequila is called El Tasorro I wrote it down. Absolutely,
have some have a shot. Have a shot from my grandma.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
What's her name, Shirley, Charley, Miss Shirley. I absolutely will, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
And thank you so much again, and congratulations on your
new relationship.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
And if you get married, invite me because I will.
I'll show up.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
I trust you and obvious there too.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
Absolutely, thank you so much. All right, okay, all right,

(47:01):
so friends, and can today's question? I like this because
this person was real simple. A lot of the few
of the questions that I've been having coming in haven't
been as long and drawn out and dramatic. They've been
simple questions actually, which I like. And so but I
do love the drama. Don't get it fucked up. I

(47:22):
love the drama. So anyway, this question says, mem when
it comes to romantic relationships and love, do you believe
it is true that you can actually love two people
at the same time? And that is from Kenesha from Cleveland,
Ohio who This is tricky because most people are gonna

(47:46):
say no, But personally, I think that that is complete
and utter. I feel like love is love in its
purest form, when it's real, when it's true love cannot

(48:06):
be bound that way. And as I've gotten older and
spent a lot of time, you know, paying attention to
relationships and patterns and societal norms, and you know, just

(48:26):
maturing and talking to God about what love is and
getting the understanding of what love is and experiencing love
in all different forms. Love cannot have limits and walls
and ceilings. Love is free. Love is without form. It's amorphous,

(48:47):
and that is what the beauty of love is. True love.
It's without restriction. And we are constantly trying to put
or place restrictions on love and to give love a form,
but we can't because it's love is free. Love is
Love is like wind. Love is like the ocean is

(49:09):
deep and shallow. It's dark, and it's clear, as black,
as blue as greens. Brown is green, you know. In
other words, like you can't put a restriction on it.
Water is water. Even if it freezes, it's still water.
Heat or the sun is gonna melt it and it's
just gonna be water again. So I just think that

(49:32):
if your love is true and it's pure, that's the thing.
If it's pure love that doesn't have what's the word
I'm looking for? If it's love without an agenda, love

(49:53):
without an ulterior motive, then it's free. It doesn't take form.
And they're over strictions that you can put on it.
You can't restrict or contain the air or the wind.
So and if you can and there's some kind of
wind restrictor or wind container that some tech person made,

(50:15):
like okay, whatever, you know what I mean. But I
definitely believe that you can love two people at once.
As they say, two things can be true at the
same time. So and I know because I've loved two
people at the same time.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
I have.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
But the difference is that love is also actionable, so
you know, ultimately love is is it's not just a feeling.
There are actions that go along with the feelings. There
are the experiences that you create as a result of

(50:57):
your feelings. So I just think that you you you
can love two people because love is not a corset.
You know, you can put a corset around love. It's
not a muffin top. So I definitely believe that Kanisha,
you can love two people at the same time, you
can love three people at the same time. You know,

(51:20):
why not, Like, how do you stop it? How do
you stop love. How do you stop loving somebody, like
unless you are intentionally removing yourself from them, And even
if you do remove them from your life, and like,
if you really love them, do you ever stop loving them?

(51:41):
Because I'd be really honest. My high school boyfriend, may
he rest in peace. I still love him, and he's
not even alive anymore. I still love him.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
I do.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
If I've ever loved you, I still love you because
I really really loved you. Now, if I didn't love
you and I just liked you, or I lusted for you,
or you know, if it wasn't pure, raw true love,

(52:19):
then I don't care like whatever. But if I love you,
I love you forever, and that goes from my friends,
my family. I ain't got to talk to you no
more for me to still love you. There are several
people that I don't engage with anymore, and they are
friends and or family, and I still love them and

(52:40):
I will love them until the day that life is
no more. But I ain't got to have them around me.
I still love them though, So Yes, Kenisia from Cleveland, Ohio,
I do believe that you can love two people at once.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
Now, what you do with that love is a different story.
That's where it gets.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
Tricky, because if you're married and you love your wife
or your husband and you are in love with somebody else,
you know, that's where you got to figure that out.
What does that look like for you? What does that
look like for your relationships both of them? And if

(53:25):
you're married, you got a wife or husband and you
got somebody else, and then you start loving somebody else,
that gets tricky, and that's where the intentional action comes in.
But love is not bound. Love can't be bound, so
you can't stop it. That's just what I think.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
But what do I know?

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Friends? Again, for today's we Got to Do Better segment,
I'm just gonna keep it on trend and I'm gonna
keep it on trend for the rest of season four,
which is where we are. And I'm going to pull
from my new favorite book, Black Liturgies by Cole Arthur Riley,
who is a black woman in her thirties and she

(54:13):
is an amazing human being. But this excerpteer is the
benediction prayer from the chapter on Joy, and it says,
be at peace, May you access the fullness of a

(54:33):
joy that allows for both an interior solemnity and levity.
May you learn to be at rest with yourself, able
to access a piece that carries memory but isn't chained.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
To the past.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
And may you laugh, allowing the mystery of joy to
steady you always and keep you from despair. Amen, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,
I read that to you one more time, one time
for the one time, because this is all in my chest. Okay,

(55:10):
excuse me trying to get something in my eye. And
again this is a benediction prayer from the chapter on
Joy be at Peace. May you access the fullness of
a joy that allows for both an interior solemnity and
a levity. May you learn to be at rest with yourself,

(55:32):
able to access a piece that carries memory but isn't
chained to the past. And may you laugh, allowing the
mystery of joy to steady you always and keep you
from despair. A men ah shay.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
And so it is so.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Present in the first thing I want to do is
say thank you to God first, because God is supreme
and I recognize and appreciate the grace that God extends
to me every single day of my black ass life.
I want to say thank you to my people, to
my folks, to each and every one of you that's
been rocking with me since the first day, the first sound,
the first trailer, March the first of twenty twenty, first

(56:25):
first verse, verse, the first, the first, the first, one
one one one, one one one. Thank you, thank you,
and thank you again. I appreciate you for being here.
And even if you weren't here on March the first
of twenty twenty and you just started listening today, whatever
today is, I am grateful for you and I appreciate
you either way you cut it up. I'm thankful for

(56:47):
my family, my friends, my friends, and ken all of
my supporters however you support me, and of course, most importantly,
every single one of you guys that are out there listening.
I love y'all so much and it is nothing short
of an honor or privilege and a blessing.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
And you know what else, it is a lesson for me.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
To share my time and my energy with you, especially
if you keep coming back to share your time and
your energy with me. And I look forward to the
next time that we get to do this with one another,
which will be next Tuesday. Now before you exit out
of whatever streaming service, you're using to listen to this,
stop what you're doing, and if you haven't already done so,

(57:26):
look for the subscribe or follow button. Click on it
if it's an option on the streaming service where you're listening,
and then I want you to go on over to
Instagram and threads and then follow me at hand Me
My Purse Underscore Podcast. Also follow me on Twitter or
x at HMMP Underscore podcast and on Facebook just search
hand Me My Purse Podcast. If by chance, you listen

(57:50):
on the streaming service on medium that allows you to
do so, please rate and review the show or give
it a thumbs up if you can. Friends and can
be sure to share hand Me My Person your friends,
your loved ones, and even your enemies, because the best
way for people to find out about the show is
by you guys telling them all about it. So tell
a friend to tell a friend to do what tele
a friend. Submit your questions for the straight fact segment

(58:11):
by clicking on the link in my show notes that
says submit a question for straight Facts, or click the
link in the Instagram profile and look for the button
that directs you to submit a question. And who knows
your question may be featured on an upcoming show. Also,
I want you to remember that show notes are always
available on the episode description. Wherever you're listening to the show,

(58:32):
be sure to take a look at the show notes
because that's where I put all of the links that
I mentioned and any other information that I want to
share with you guys. Just so you know, the music
for Handing My Purse is provided by none other than
West Baltimore's own gloomy Tunes Last One not Least. I

(58:52):
want to give a big old shout out to my producers.
Together we make up Brando Banjo in the dirty throats
that look to you looking forward to listening to hand
Me My Purse the podcasts each and every Tuesday, and
I'm out this bitch peace. Hand Me My Purse is

(59:19):
a production of iHeart Podcasts. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Listen to your favorite shows.

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No. 92 - A Conversation with Death Doula, Alua Arthur about Grief, Death & The Fullness of Life. PART TWO.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}No. 92 - A Conversation with Death Doula, Alua Arthur about Grief, Death & The Fullness of Life. PART TWO.