June 17, 2020 • 26 mins
The obituary editor for The Boston Globe fields requests from grieving families dealing with a unique kind of pain right now: the understanding that they can’t say a proper goodbye to their loved ones.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is the way we live now.
Today is day. Since many of us have slept through
the night and day of this podcast, I've been haunted
by stories during COVID of people dying alone in hospitals
with no one holding their hand, Families who have been
(00:29):
unable to properly grieve or undergo the age old rituals
of mourning, all of which involve gathering. My guest today
is Brian mark Word, the obituary editor at The Boston Globe. Brian,
thank you so much for joining me to talk about
(00:52):
the way we live now. Well, thank you for inviting me.
Can you describe for us in sensory detail where you
are right now as we're having this conversation. Sure, I
live two hours north of Boston. I live in West Lebanon,
New Hampshire, about a mile at a quarter south from
(01:12):
the Dartmouth College campus. Uh. And I am in my
house now. I actually was ahead of the curve and
working from home and have been uh uh and made
an arrangement to work out of the office most of
the time about ten years ago. Uh And so this
is I'm actually near my home base. I have a
(01:33):
sofa that I sit on that has a picture window
next to it that I look out at my cul
de sac in the neighborhood. And I have bears who
walked through the backyard and when I'm lucky, I get
to see them. So, UM, that's interesting that you were
ahead of the curve by ten years, um, and that
you know working from home is not something that's that's
(01:55):
new for you. It isn't. But with with everything, um,
everything else in our world, with the pandemic, so much
changed in what I do when the pandemic hit. And
while I may have already been home uh and able
(02:17):
to work in hoodies and genes rather than dressing up
for an office, UM, I have seen dramatic changes and
what I've done, as as I'm sure has everyone who
writes obituaries for a living and other papers like the
Washington Post in the New York Times. Right, so you
you are as the obituary editor at the Boston Globe,
(02:39):
and you've written well over two thousand obituaries of those
who have died in the past fourteen years or so
in the state of Massachusetts. That's correct, And occasionally I
write about people elsewhere in New England, and even more occasionally,
once in a while, someone who had done some done
(03:00):
something significant in her or his time in Boston, uh
and the significance was such that we decided that the
club should still feature them in the staff and use
obituary after they died. But mostly it's mostly it's people
in Massachusetts. Mostly it's people in greater Boston, and the requests,
of course come in from everywhere. Anyone who spent a
(03:25):
few years in Boston. Sometimes their family will will reach
out to me and ask her an obituary when when
there when their time arrives? Right? What is that like?
Being on the receiving end of people who are in
the really really early stages of shock and grief reaching
out with that sort of ultimate feeling. I mean, I've
(03:47):
been there myself, of wanting a loved one's life to
be honored. It's the biggest and most important part of
my job. And I don't say that lightly. Um. I mean,
I think the easier thing to look at and to
consider when an obituary writer is what you write and
(04:09):
what is published, and that is an enormous part of
my job. But the most time consuming part of my
job is going through all of the requests h and
largely being the person who has to make a lot
of the choices about who gets a news a matuary
in the globe and who doesn't. UM. I write roughly
(04:33):
a hundred fifty obituaries a year, UH, and I say
no to roughly six hundred eight year UM. Sometimes that
can be as easy as just a note saying no
to the to the funeral home. Many funeral homes will
(04:54):
send just about every one year away even they know that,
even when they know there's not that much chance. But
in some cases, UH, it involves phone calls with families,
you know, exchanges with families, multiple phone calls with families
if if they if they really really want this to happen. UH.
And I'm always mindful that even when I have to
(05:19):
say no, I'm saying no to someone who is in
a moment of intense grief, who has just lost somebody
that they love. UH. And I too have been through
that UH and in fact really decided that I wanted
to try to write Abitorius for Living after I had
gone through a period in my family as so it
(05:40):
was losing multiple people in one and a half month period.
So I know the kind of grief that they're experiencing. UH.
And so that means those conversations are all as gentle
as I can make them, even when I'm saying no, uh,
and as informed as I can make them. I want
(06:02):
them to all. I want all of the families to
know that I have considered their requests fairly and thoroughly
before deciding one way or the other. What are some
of what goes into making that kind of decision? I mean,
certainly there's the deaths of people who are public figures,
where there's a sense of of course, you know, the
(06:26):
paper of record is going to cover U their their death.
But what what are some of the other criteria that
go into weighing? Yeah, it's um as I As I
tell people, there's no there's no easy set formula. Some
of what goes into this is frankly, what time of
the other requests can in People who work in the
(06:48):
funeral homes and who write inbituaries for a living, you
know something that a lot of people don't know, which
is that there are actually busy times here for our
lines of work. People people will hold on to to
get past certain key points in their lives. Anniversaries, birthdays,
(07:08):
the graduation of a child, the marriage of a child. UH.
And the biggest clerk of holidays that people who hald
on it for are from Thanksgiving through the beginning of
the year for all faiths UH. And a lot of people,
even when they're help is failing, will try to hold
on to get through that. So there's always an uptick
(07:29):
and the number of requests. It begins right after Thanksgiving,
and then you know there's an upward, upward slope of
more and more requests, and then there's just a whole
ton of requests right after the beginning of the year. UM.
So at that time of year, UM, the ratio of
(07:49):
o bits that I can say yes to and no
ones that I have to say no to is it's
is much more significant and severe UM in all times
of the year. I'm on with looking at the lives
of the people who whose families have reached out for
no bit. I'm trying to be mindful of what our
(08:09):
obituary pages are going to look like. I have really tried,
in the fourteen years in this job to make the
globes obituary pages look more like Greater of Buston in Massachusetts,
which is become even more diverse in the fourteen years
that I've been in the job, and UH obituary pages
(08:29):
always have been predominantly older white men because they're the
ones historically and the top of the power structure, and
they're the ones who have held the jobs that are
most likely to make them must obituarize. UM. You know,
if you if you were a prominent politician, if you
(08:51):
were the president of the bank, if you were head
of the school committee. The list goes on and on
for all of the professions. UM, if you had that
job thirty years ago and then are now in your
seventies or eighties and at the age where you need
an obituary, you're probably a white guy. So that section
is almost always and it's still mostly you know, the
(09:14):
most obituaries are still mostly older white guys. So for
all of the other obituaries that I can write any year,
I try very hard to make sure that I'm looking
at UM demographics that have not been featured as prominently
in the past. Women, people of color, people in the
(09:35):
l g PTQ community, people who aren't as well off financially, UM,
people who have no connection with Harvard and m I
T you know, and people who have a connection with
one of those two two major institutions have historically constituted
a lot of a lot of the news obituaries in
the Globe, And so I try to make sure that
(09:56):
I reach out beyond them too. And that's not easy
because you know, when I say this, every every obituary
that I say yes too, I have to say no
to a lot of people. Uh. And saying that you
want to make the obituary pages look more like Boston
and making it happen means that you have to say
(10:16):
no to a lot of families. And a family who's
loved one is an older white guy who led an
admirable and accomplished life doesn't necessarily want to hear that
it would help the globe, it would help the community
(10:37):
to make sure that all people are recognized. You know,
when your loved one dies, you know, not to put
too fine a point on it, but your politics go
out the window. You want your loved one featured in
the paper. So it almost seems like this has a
quality of a calling for you. I mean, I I
(11:00):
understand that from a young age that you you knew
you wanted to do this exactly. This not just be
a writer, not just be a journalist, but to write
the stories of people and honor their lives after they've
passed away. Well, some of it, I think earliest on,
(11:20):
I was drawn to the biography form I found. You know,
I actually had a had a race with my best
friend in third grade, and so he could read the
most most of the biographies that we had set up
in the back shelf and the in our third grade classroom. Uh.
And then as I got into newspapers, I realized that
I had a reasonably good touch with writing profiles at people. UH.
(11:46):
And then when I had the opportunity to write obituaries,
I was struck by on which good could be done
with a well written, well researched obituary. And then the
final component of it was that I realized that I
had the empathy to speak with grieving people, and not
(12:09):
everyone does. I mean, I think many of us who
are empathetic, I think that we're really empathetic, But there's
a slight difference between being empathetic with someone you know
and being empathetic with hundreds and over the course of
fourteen years, thousands of people you will never meet, and
(12:32):
in many cases empathetic with them once in your entire
life and once in your entire life. And I found
that I had that in me. Uh, and it seemed
to be a good fit for obituaries, and so back
in I thought, And at that point I had some
(12:53):
experience right in the the inbituaries for a couple of newspapers.
I thought, well, I should see if I can find
a way of doing this full time. And took took
roughly seven years to be able to do that. You know,
it strikes me that when someone dies, the shape of
their life is complete. Memoirists and other kinds of writers
(13:13):
always end up talking about sort of lives and acts,
you know, like three act structure. The middle is just
one damn thing after another, and the third act doesn't
end until that shape is complete. And so it's so
interesting to think about that as a form, to be
able to really tell the story of someone's life now
(13:36):
that it has ended. And I imagine that these last
months have had to be so intense. How is your
experience changed or been different since the start of the pandemic.
The word intense is very key here. Everything has become
(13:56):
more intense. And I have to say that I I
anticipated that that might be the case. I wasn't quite um,
even with my anticipation, I wasn't quite prepared for just
how intense it's all became. Um. I mean, if you
speak with grieving people for years and years and years,
(14:16):
you get a sense of how world events might affect
them when they're on the phone with you. And I
had the senses the pandemic was beginning to unfold, but
this was going to put us all on edge, and
it has. The obituaries that I've written about people who
(14:38):
have died of COVID nineteen are their own special kind
of experience because because it's just a terrible way to die,
and the people I interview, the relatives and the friends
of those who have died of this, uh, I mean,
(15:00):
we all can use you know, we can all google
symptoms and how things play out with an illness like this,
so they know what their loved ones are going through
and they can't be with them. So it's a particular
kind of pain that they're in when they get on
the phone with me. That said, death is not sheltered
in place. Death has not taken time off. Death by
(15:22):
every other means has continued to pace. Uh. And in
many cases, the families of the people who have died
of other an illnesses, particularly if they're in the hospital
at the end, have faced many of the same restrictions
as people who have lost my wins the COVID nineteen.
They can't go into the hospital, you know, they can't
hold somebody's hand at the end. They can't. They can't
(15:44):
they can't hug them, and in some cases can't even
talk to them. I've mentioned this to people as I've
had this discussion that one my father died of cancer
only twenty three years ago. I held him as he
took his last breath. Now, that was an emotion only
wrenching moment, but one that I would I would not
trade for anything. I was glad that I could be there.
(16:06):
I was glad that because I was the person in
the room who could do that, who could stand by
the side of his bed, who could gather him up
in my arms. You know, even though I knew he
couldn't feel or know what was going on, it was
important to me, and it became important to the rest
of the family. That experience is being denied to basically
(16:28):
everybody I'm speaking with now, uh, And it's just an
awful thing. And it doesn't matter whether your loved one
died of COVID nineteen or something else. From most people,
they're not able to have that experience, and it makes
it makes every conversation that much more intense, that much
more wrenching, right, I know. I've thought about that so
(16:49):
often since the start of of the pandemic, not just
in terms of the numbers of people who have died
of COVID nineteen, but the numbers of people who have
died and have died alone, and and also the the
lack of ritual and gathering. I mean, gathering is what
we do when someone dies. It's what every culture does,
(17:13):
is we derive comfort from the rituals if we are,
you know, of a particular faith, regardless the people coming
with their casseroles and they're sitting together, whether it's at
a wake or it's a shiva, or it's you know, whatever,
the culture of the rituals of death are. And what
(17:33):
replaces that, I mean, what does it due to our grieving.
There's so many people who are grieving right now, who
are grieving in isolation. I'm concerned and I would not
be surprised if there is a ripple effect over certainly
the months ahead and perhaps even the years ahead of
(17:56):
you know, people having to deal with us, with therapist,
where their where their clergy, with their friends who are listened.
Because when when there's a such a wide swath of
grief denied, that grief will still need addressing at some point.
Just being able to cry in front of somebody that
you care about and trust is an enormous thing at
(18:21):
a time like this. Uh, and it is. It has
occurred to me that you know, and and I want
to be very careful here to not say that I'm
replacing anything, but it has occurred to me that in
some cases and some instances and some conversations, that the
conversation with me is giving people a chance to at
(18:43):
least get a tiny bit of that back. They get
to at least talk about it and talk about how
difficult it was for them to not be by their
left one side and to cry. Um, you know, because
people have permission to say things and and do things
(19:05):
on the other end of the phone with me that
maybe they don't feel comfortable doing in front of others.
So I'm glad when I have been able to do
that that I am there for those people. You know,
it's not an insignificant number, it's not everyone, but there
are certainly people who you know, have have really had
(19:28):
to be able to talk some of those things out,
and that has happened in conversations with me, you know,
and and and conversations and things that they would say
that when you are not meant for obituaries and would
not would not be an obituarous but they just need
to have that conversation. So let me ask you, I
think this is my final question to you, is I'm
(19:50):
imagining the capacity for that kind of embassy right, And
you just really movingly spoke about the you know, this
kind of like one time own these conversations, these intersections
with people that you had never spoken with before and
may never speak with again, and showing up for them
(20:11):
with the capacity to feel and to listen. But you know,
empathy is in part, you know, defined as you know,
shared feeling. How do you hold that, especially during a
time when there is this sheer volume of these grieving
(20:34):
and isolated people you're meeting, you know, in you know,
over the phone, you're you're absorbing some of their story.
How do you hold that and what brings you a
sense of strength and hope as you continue. That's a
difficult question, and to some extent my answer will echo.
(20:58):
You know what I had said early are about choosing
people for vituarious is that there's no particular easy formula
for being able to to to fill that role. I've
always said that some of the most interesting and engaging
and involving quotes that appear in the Globe are in
(21:20):
the victuaries that I write because I listen, uh, and
because I opened myself up to the grief of others
when they need to be able to say things. Uh.
And I listened for a long time, and I have
long conversations with people. Uh. And that means putting myself
on the line, because you know, I have to open
(21:43):
yourself up to them and let their grief wash over
me for them to feel comfortable and of saying the
things that they need to say that will really truly
honor the person that they care about. And then the
phone all ends and I've got all of their emotions
swimming through my head. Uh. And you know, in the pandemic,
(22:09):
it's it's it's been a difficult time. UM. I used
to go to the gym seven night days a week,
because you know, really vigorous aerobic exercise on the treadmill
or elliptical is a good way of burning off some
of the some of the emotions that stay with me.
And I can't do that now. I've been hiking in
(22:30):
the woods as much as I can, it's not quite
the same. Uh. And frankly, I think I can say
that I haven't found a particularly good way of taking
in all of those emotions and still being able to
jump up the next day and jump back into things.
(22:53):
I don't know what and how I'm going to direct
all of that after this has done, assuming that there
is such a thing as after this is done, which
is not entirely clear at this point. Um, but a
lot of it is still there. It's a more intense
kind of interviewing than I've done before in this job,
(23:13):
in for two years, and it's uh, it's it's it's
all there and taken on a lot more emotion and
pain than I have in the past, and it's still
with me. Yeah, I'm listening to you, and thanks thank
you for for for saying that you know, and I'm
(23:36):
and I'm thinking the word connecting keeps on kind of
occurring to me as I'm listening to you, is that
maybe ultimately that sense of profound human connection that happens
every single time you have one of those conversations is
what the hope is Like maybe it's just that's what
(23:57):
it is. Is this podcast I started because during COVID
just thinking what connects us? You know, we can't gather
what allows us to feel that uplifted feeling of you know,
one heart vibrating with another. And anyway, I'm so I'm
(24:21):
I'm grateful to you for for for talking with with me,
and I think everyone is going to really connect to
to what you're saying and to the work that you're doing.
And in Judaism, which is the religion that I was
brought up in, there's this phrase that people always say
when someone passes away, which is, may his memory be
(24:42):
a blessing, you know, may her memory be a blessing.
And and really that's it occurs to me, that's what
you're doing. So yes, it is, I'm touchback on what
you're saying. If I have a calling, it's it's too
that's to make sure the blessings of these memories are
not forgotten and they have a place to live. What
(25:05):
I do with the betrayers, I try to make sure
that I am as invisible as possible, and instead what
I am as a as an avenue for those memories
to find a permanent place out there in the world.
That's beautiful, Brian, thank you so much. Thank you, Daddy.
It's a pleasure speaking with him. Thank you you too.
(25:33):
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(25:54):
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(26:16):
Special thanks to Tristan McNeil and Tyler Klang. For more
podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts
I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is the way we live now.
Today is day. Since many of us have slept through
the night and day of this podcast, I've been haunted
by stories during COVID of people dying alone in hospitals
with no one holding their hand, Families who have been
(00:29):
unable to properly grieve or undergo the age old rituals
of mourning, all of which involve gathering. My guest today
is Brian mark Word, the obituary editor at The Boston Globe. Brian,
thank you so much for joining me to talk about
(00:52):
the way we live now. Well, thank you for inviting me.
Can you describe for us in sensory detail where you
are right now as we're having this conversation. Sure, I
live two hours north of Boston. I live in West Lebanon,
New Hampshire, about a mile at a quarter south from
(01:12):
the Dartmouth College campus. Uh. And I am in my
house now. I actually was ahead of the curve and
working from home and have been uh uh and made
an arrangement to work out of the office most of
the time about ten years ago. Uh And so this
is I'm actually near my home base. I have a
(01:33):
sofa that I sit on that has a picture window
next to it that I look out at my cul
de sac in the neighborhood. And I have bears who
walked through the backyard and when I'm lucky, I get
to see them. So, UM, that's interesting that you were
ahead of the curve by ten years, um, and that
you know working from home is not something that's that's
(01:55):
new for you. It isn't. But with with everything, um,
everything else in our world, with the pandemic, so much
changed in what I do when the pandemic hit. And
while I may have already been home uh and able
(02:17):
to work in hoodies and genes rather than dressing up
for an office, UM, I have seen dramatic changes and
what I've done, as as I'm sure has everyone who
writes obituaries for a living and other papers like the
Washington Post in the New York Times. Right, so you
you are as the obituary editor at the Boston Globe,
(02:39):
and you've written well over two thousand obituaries of those
who have died in the past fourteen years or so
in the state of Massachusetts. That's correct, And occasionally I
write about people elsewhere in New England, and even more occasionally,
once in a while, someone who had done some done
(03:00):
something significant in her or his time in Boston, uh
and the significance was such that we decided that the
club should still feature them in the staff and use
obituary after they died. But mostly it's mostly it's people
in Massachusetts. Mostly it's people in greater Boston, and the requests,
of course come in from everywhere. Anyone who spent a
(03:25):
few years in Boston. Sometimes their family will will reach
out to me and ask her an obituary when when
there when their time arrives? Right? What is that like?
Being on the receiving end of people who are in
the really really early stages of shock and grief reaching
out with that sort of ultimate feeling. I mean, I've
(03:47):
been there myself, of wanting a loved one's life to
be honored. It's the biggest and most important part of
my job. And I don't say that lightly. Um. I mean,
I think the easier thing to look at and to
consider when an obituary writer is what you write and
(04:09):
what is published, and that is an enormous part of
my job. But the most time consuming part of my
job is going through all of the requests h and
largely being the person who has to make a lot
of the choices about who gets a news a matuary
in the globe and who doesn't. UM. I write roughly
(04:33):
a hundred fifty obituaries a year, UH, and I say
no to roughly six hundred eight year UM. Sometimes that
can be as easy as just a note saying no
to the to the funeral home. Many funeral homes will
(04:54):
send just about every one year away even they know that,
even when they know there's not that much chance. But
in some cases, UH, it involves phone calls with families,
you know, exchanges with families, multiple phone calls with families
if if they if they really really want this to happen. UH.
And I'm always mindful that even when I have to
(05:19):
say no, I'm saying no to someone who is in
a moment of intense grief, who has just lost somebody
that they love. UH. And I too have been through
that UH and in fact really decided that I wanted
to try to write Abitorius for Living after I had
gone through a period in my family as so it
(05:40):
was losing multiple people in one and a half month period.
So I know the kind of grief that they're experiencing. UH.
And so that means those conversations are all as gentle
as I can make them, even when I'm saying no, uh,
and as informed as I can make them. I want
(06:02):
them to all. I want all of the families to
know that I have considered their requests fairly and thoroughly
before deciding one way or the other. What are some
of what goes into making that kind of decision? I mean,
certainly there's the deaths of people who are public figures,
where there's a sense of of course, you know, the
(06:26):
paper of record is going to cover U their their death.
But what what are some of the other criteria that
go into weighing? Yeah, it's um as I As I
tell people, there's no there's no easy set formula. Some
of what goes into this is frankly, what time of
the other requests can in People who work in the
(06:48):
funeral homes and who write inbituaries for a living, you
know something that a lot of people don't know, which
is that there are actually busy times here for our
lines of work. People people will hold on to to
get past certain key points in their lives. Anniversaries, birthdays,
(07:08):
the graduation of a child, the marriage of a child. UH.
And the biggest clerk of holidays that people who hald
on it for are from Thanksgiving through the beginning of
the year for all faiths UH. And a lot of people,
even when they're help is failing, will try to hold
on to get through that. So there's always an uptick
(07:29):
and the number of requests. It begins right after Thanksgiving,
and then you know there's an upward, upward slope of
more and more requests, and then there's just a whole
ton of requests right after the beginning of the year. UM.
So at that time of year, UM, the ratio of
(07:49):
o bits that I can say yes to and no
ones that I have to say no to is it's
is much more significant and severe UM in all times
of the year. I'm on with looking at the lives
of the people who whose families have reached out for
no bit. I'm trying to be mindful of what our
(08:09):
obituary pages are going to look like. I have really tried,
in the fourteen years in this job to make the
globes obituary pages look more like Greater of Buston in Massachusetts,
which is become even more diverse in the fourteen years
that I've been in the job, and UH obituary pages
(08:29):
always have been predominantly older white men because they're the
ones historically and the top of the power structure, and
they're the ones who have held the jobs that are
most likely to make them must obituarize. UM. You know,
if you if you were a prominent politician, if you
(08:51):
were the president of the bank, if you were head
of the school committee. The list goes on and on
for all of the professions. UM, if you had that
job thirty years ago and then are now in your
seventies or eighties and at the age where you need
an obituary, you're probably a white guy. So that section
is almost always and it's still mostly you know, the
(09:14):
most obituaries are still mostly older white guys. So for
all of the other obituaries that I can write any year,
I try very hard to make sure that I'm looking
at UM demographics that have not been featured as prominently
in the past. Women, people of color, people in the
(09:35):
l g PTQ community, people who aren't as well off financially, UM,
people who have no connection with Harvard and m I
T you know, and people who have a connection with
one of those two two major institutions have historically constituted
a lot of a lot of the news obituaries in
the Globe, And so I try to make sure that
(09:56):
I reach out beyond them too. And that's not easy
because you know, when I say this, every every obituary
that I say yes too, I have to say no
to a lot of people. Uh. And saying that you
want to make the obituary pages look more like Boston
and making it happen means that you have to say
(10:16):
no to a lot of families. And a family who's
loved one is an older white guy who led an
admirable and accomplished life doesn't necessarily want to hear that
it would help the globe, it would help the community
(10:37):
to make sure that all people are recognized. You know,
when your loved one dies, you know, not to put
too fine a point on it, but your politics go
out the window. You want your loved one featured in
the paper. So it almost seems like this has a
quality of a calling for you. I mean, I I
(11:00):
understand that from a young age that you you knew
you wanted to do this exactly. This not just be
a writer, not just be a journalist, but to write
the stories of people and honor their lives after they've
passed away. Well, some of it, I think earliest on,
(11:20):
I was drawn to the biography form I found. You know,
I actually had a had a race with my best
friend in third grade, and so he could read the
most most of the biographies that we had set up
in the back shelf and the in our third grade classroom. Uh.
And then as I got into newspapers, I realized that
I had a reasonably good touch with writing profiles at people. UH.
(11:46):
And then when I had the opportunity to write obituaries,
I was struck by on which good could be done
with a well written, well researched obituary. And then the
final component of it was that I realized that I
had the empathy to speak with grieving people, and not
(12:09):
everyone does. I mean, I think many of us who
are empathetic, I think that we're really empathetic, But there's
a slight difference between being empathetic with someone you know
and being empathetic with hundreds and over the course of
fourteen years, thousands of people you will never meet, and
(12:32):
in many cases empathetic with them once in your entire
life and once in your entire life. And I found
that I had that in me. Uh, and it seemed
to be a good fit for obituaries, and so back
in I thought, And at that point I had some
(12:53):
experience right in the the inbituaries for a couple of newspapers.
I thought, well, I should see if I can find
a way of doing this full time. And took took
roughly seven years to be able to do that. You know,
it strikes me that when someone dies, the shape of
their life is complete. Memoirists and other kinds of writers
(13:13):
always end up talking about sort of lives and acts,
you know, like three act structure. The middle is just
one damn thing after another, and the third act doesn't
end until that shape is complete. And so it's so
interesting to think about that as a form, to be
able to really tell the story of someone's life now
(13:36):
that it has ended. And I imagine that these last
months have had to be so intense. How is your
experience changed or been different since the start of the pandemic.
The word intense is very key here. Everything has become
(13:56):
more intense. And I have to say that I I
anticipated that that might be the case. I wasn't quite um,
even with my anticipation, I wasn't quite prepared for just
how intense it's all became. Um. I mean, if you
speak with grieving people for years and years and years,
(14:16):
you get a sense of how world events might affect
them when they're on the phone with you. And I
had the senses the pandemic was beginning to unfold, but
this was going to put us all on edge, and
it has. The obituaries that I've written about people who
(14:38):
have died of COVID nineteen are their own special kind
of experience because because it's just a terrible way to die,
and the people I interview, the relatives and the friends
of those who have died of this, uh, I mean,
(15:00):
we all can use you know, we can all google
symptoms and how things play out with an illness like this,
so they know what their loved ones are going through
and they can't be with them. So it's a particular
kind of pain that they're in when they get on
the phone with me. That said, death is not sheltered
in place. Death has not taken time off. Death by
(15:22):
every other means has continued to pace. Uh. And in
many cases, the families of the people who have died
of other an illnesses, particularly if they're in the hospital
at the end, have faced many of the same restrictions
as people who have lost my wins the COVID nineteen.
They can't go into the hospital, you know, they can't
hold somebody's hand at the end. They can't. They can't
(15:44):
they can't hug them, and in some cases can't even
talk to them. I've mentioned this to people as I've
had this discussion that one my father died of cancer
only twenty three years ago. I held him as he
took his last breath. Now, that was an emotion only
wrenching moment, but one that I would I would not
trade for anything. I was glad that I could be there.
(16:06):
I was glad that because I was the person in
the room who could do that, who could stand by
the side of his bed, who could gather him up
in my arms. You know, even though I knew he
couldn't feel or know what was going on, it was
important to me, and it became important to the rest
of the family. That experience is being denied to basically
(16:28):
everybody I'm speaking with now, uh, And it's just an
awful thing. And it doesn't matter whether your loved one
died of COVID nineteen or something else. From most people,
they're not able to have that experience, and it makes
it makes every conversation that much more intense, that much
more wrenching, right, I know. I've thought about that so
(16:49):
often since the start of of the pandemic, not just
in terms of the numbers of people who have died
of COVID nineteen, but the numbers of people who have
died and have died alone, and and also the the
lack of ritual and gathering. I mean, gathering is what
we do when someone dies. It's what every culture does,
(17:13):
is we derive comfort from the rituals if we are,
you know, of a particular faith, regardless the people coming
with their casseroles and they're sitting together, whether it's at
a wake or it's a shiva, or it's you know, whatever,
the culture of the rituals of death are. And what
(17:33):
replaces that, I mean, what does it due to our grieving.
There's so many people who are grieving right now, who
are grieving in isolation. I'm concerned and I would not
be surprised if there is a ripple effect over certainly
the months ahead and perhaps even the years ahead of
(17:56):
you know, people having to deal with us, with therapist,
where their where their clergy, with their friends who are listened.
Because when when there's a such a wide swath of
grief denied, that grief will still need addressing at some point.
Just being able to cry in front of somebody that
you care about and trust is an enormous thing at
(18:21):
a time like this. Uh, and it is. It has
occurred to me that you know, and and I want
to be very careful here to not say that I'm
replacing anything, but it has occurred to me that in
some cases and some instances and some conversations, that the
conversation with me is giving people a chance to at
(18:43):
least get a tiny bit of that back. They get
to at least talk about it and talk about how
difficult it was for them to not be by their
left one side and to cry. Um, you know, because
people have permission to say things and and do things
(19:05):
on the other end of the phone with me that
maybe they don't feel comfortable doing in front of others.
So I'm glad when I have been able to do
that that I am there for those people. You know,
it's not an insignificant number, it's not everyone, but there
are certainly people who you know, have have really had
(19:28):
to be able to talk some of those things out,
and that has happened in conversations with me, you know,
and and and conversations and things that they would say
that when you are not meant for obituaries and would
not would not be an obituarous but they just need
to have that conversation. So let me ask you, I
think this is my final question to you, is I'm
(19:50):
imagining the capacity for that kind of embassy right, And
you just really movingly spoke about the you know, this
kind of like one time own these conversations, these intersections
with people that you had never spoken with before and
may never speak with again, and showing up for them
(20:11):
with the capacity to feel and to listen. But you know,
empathy is in part, you know, defined as you know,
shared feeling. How do you hold that, especially during a
time when there is this sheer volume of these grieving
(20:34):
and isolated people you're meeting, you know, in you know,
over the phone, you're you're absorbing some of their story.
How do you hold that and what brings you a
sense of strength and hope as you continue. That's a
difficult question, and to some extent my answer will echo.
(20:58):
You know what I had said early are about choosing
people for vituarious is that there's no particular easy formula
for being able to to to fill that role. I've
always said that some of the most interesting and engaging
and involving quotes that appear in the Globe are in
(21:20):
the victuaries that I write because I listen, uh, and
because I opened myself up to the grief of others
when they need to be able to say things. Uh.
And I listened for a long time, and I have
long conversations with people. Uh. And that means putting myself
on the line, because you know, I have to open
(21:43):
yourself up to them and let their grief wash over
me for them to feel comfortable and of saying the
things that they need to say that will really truly
honor the person that they care about. And then the
phone all ends and I've got all of their emotions
swimming through my head. Uh. And you know, in the pandemic,
(22:09):
it's it's it's been a difficult time. UM. I used
to go to the gym seven night days a week,
because you know, really vigorous aerobic exercise on the treadmill
or elliptical is a good way of burning off some
of the some of the emotions that stay with me.
And I can't do that now. I've been hiking in
(22:30):
the woods as much as I can, it's not quite
the same. Uh. And frankly, I think I can say
that I haven't found a particularly good way of taking
in all of those emotions and still being able to
jump up the next day and jump back into things.
(22:53):
I don't know what and how I'm going to direct
all of that after this has done, assuming that there
is such a thing as after this is done, which
is not entirely clear at this point. Um, but a
lot of it is still there. It's a more intense
kind of interviewing than I've done before in this job,
(23:13):
in for two years, and it's uh, it's it's it's
all there and taken on a lot more emotion and
pain than I have in the past, and it's still
with me. Yeah, I'm listening to you, and thanks thank
you for for for saying that you know, and I'm
(23:36):
and I'm thinking the word connecting keeps on kind of
occurring to me as I'm listening to you, is that
maybe ultimately that sense of profound human connection that happens
every single time you have one of those conversations is
what the hope is Like maybe it's just that's what
(23:57):
it is. Is this podcast I started because during COVID
just thinking what connects us? You know, we can't gather
what allows us to feel that uplifted feeling of you know,
one heart vibrating with another. And anyway, I'm so I'm
(24:21):
I'm grateful to you for for for talking with with me,
and I think everyone is going to really connect to
to what you're saying and to the work that you're doing.
And in Judaism, which is the religion that I was
brought up in, there's this phrase that people always say
when someone passes away, which is, may his memory be
(24:42):
a blessing, you know, may her memory be a blessing.
And and really that's it occurs to me, that's what
you're doing. So yes, it is, I'm touchback on what
you're saying. If I have a calling, it's it's too
that's to make sure the blessings of these memories are
not forgotten and they have a place to live. What
(25:05):
I do with the betrayers, I try to make sure
that I am as invisible as possible, and instead what
I am as a as an avenue for those memories
to find a permanent place out there in the world.
That's beautiful, Brian, thank you so much. Thank you, Daddy.
It's a pleasure speaking with him. Thank you you too.
(25:33):
Thanks for listening to the Way We Live Now. Tell
us the way you're living now. We want to hear
call us on. You might want to get a pen
for this nine O nine three, that's nine O nine
eight nine nine five and record your story and we
might just use it on the pod. Also, you can
(25:54):
join our Facebook group at facebook dot com slash groups
slash the Way We Live Now Pod. We are creating
a community here and we would love for you to
join us. You can find me on Instagram at Danny Rider.
The Way We Live Now is a production of iHeart Radio.
It's produced by a Low Brolante. Bethan Macaluso is executive producer.
(26:16):
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