April 22, 2025 • 29 mins
Matters of life and death
Australia’s death care and funeral industry is big business. We meet death doula Dr Annetta Mallon and funeral industry adviser Martin Tobin, two caring and passionate business owners supporting you and your loved ones through the last step on life’s journey.
About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors.
Join James Valentine for the sixth season of Life’s Booming: Dying to Know, our most unflinching yet. We’ll have the conversations that are hardest to have, ask the questions that are easy to ignore, and hear stories that will make you think differently about the one thing we’re all guaranteed to experience: Death.
Featuring interviews with famous faces as well as experts in the space, we uncover what they know about what we can expect. There are hard truths, surprising discoveries, tears and even laughs. Nothing about death is off the table.
Dr Annetta Mallon is an end-of-life consultant, doula and educator and grief psychotherapist based in Tasmania. With decades of experience in trauma recovery and personal growth, Annetta helps people understand their rights and options at the end of life – especially those without a strong support network.
Martin Tobin is a recognised family name in the funeral business. He is founder of Funeral Direction, a consultancy supporting funeral homes and cemeteries across Australia and New Zealand. A former solicitor, Martin brings legal, strategic and business insight, and is focused on helping the industry evolve through innovation, education and long-term planning.
If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note – lifesbooming@seniors.com.au
Watch Life’s Booming on YouTube
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For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast
Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel at Myrtle & Pine Studios
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Disclaimer: Please be advised that this episode contains discussions about death, which may be triggering or upsetting for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.
If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, please know that you are not alone and there are resources available. For additional support please contact Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636.
TRANSCRIPT:
S06EP03_Matters of Life and Death
James: Hello, and welcome to Life's Booming. I'm James Valentine, and this season, we're talking about death.
In this episode, we're talking about matters of life and death, well, the final matter, how we say goodbye. Death is big business, and Australia's death care and funeral industry is worth more than $2 billion.
And with us are two entrepreneurs, two people who work in this area, supporting you and your loved ones through the last step on life’s journey. We're joined by Dr. Annett
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Life Spooming. I'm James Valentine and
this season we're talking about death and in this episode
we're talking about matters of life and death, well the
final matter how we say goodbye. Death is big business
and Australia's death care and funeral industry is worth more
than two billion dollars. And with us two entrepreneurs, two
(00:28):
people who work in this area, supporting you and your
loved ones through the last step on life's journey. We're
joined by doctor Annetta Mallon, an end of life consultant
and educator and also known as a death dueler. And
Martin Tobin is a recognized family name and the funeral
business and is now an expert advisor on the global
funeral industry. And Edna Martin. Welcome to Life Spooming. So
(00:50):
many places to start. I'm excited, might not start with you.
What's it like when the family business is death? Yeah,
it's all I've ever known. I when I was and
grew up, we actually lived in a funeral parlor.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
So when I was for the first two or three
years of my life, the funeral parer was downstairs.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
We lived upstairs.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So when it's all you've known, you don't think anything
different of it. And I suppose all of my friends
and social groups when I was young and a teenager
so thought it was pretty quirky and funny.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
But for me, it was what I knew.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
My grandfather and his brother started our family business in
the thirties, and by the time I came along, it
was well and truly established. And I didn't really work
directly in it straight away after leaving school, but it
was always in the background, and so I've always been
comfortable with it.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, but such an interesting thing, like what's the dinner
time conversation?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Do you have a good day?
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Now?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Deaths some good deaths?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well, you know, I think that's the stereotype, isn't it.
The funeral dresses are a bit sort of weird and
severe and a bit more, but but it's far from
the truth, you know. I think most of them would
work in funeral service and the work that ann Eda
does are really.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Warm and loving and gregarious people.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Because you have to have those qualities to really survive
and thrive in what we do in that space.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
You're kind of gotta love life in it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Absolutely, we are fiercely alive until we are dead, and
I think that whether it's from the professional funeral side
of things or more from consumer advocate and personal support
side of things, coming in with a joke, why do
we screw the coffin lids down so hard to keep
the on collages out? Great icebreaker? Show up with cake,
(02:25):
make joke because most of us have a lot of
laughter and love in our lives, and it's important to
leaven sorrow and grief.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, don't drown out the what's the Undertaker's joke?
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Have so many?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I mean everyone I used to get called stiffy Tobin,
that sort of stuff, stiffy. So a lot of funeraldesses
get called stiffy.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
That's a nineteen thirties cartoon character.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Isn't it. It's like it's the Millers, the Mills and
Bakers are dusty that it's that area.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
You're a Tintin character.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeh.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Luckily I wasn't you know. I don't fit the stereotype
of tall and gray. I'm sort of fairly shorten and
not gray. So and so when I joined our family business,
I was quite young, so I was lucky to sort
of didn't fit that stereotype.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
And back in the early nineties.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
There was very few women, very few people, young people,
very few people from diverse background. So it's changed a lot,
really for the better in that sense, there's no stereotypical
funeral director. Now it's a really, really diverse.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
What's a dueler, well, adula is someone who supports life's transitions.
So I've been a birth dueler and it's a very
powerful energy when someone comes into the world, but it's
really not my jam. I like the other transition and
I'm better at it. I provide an awful lot of
information for people who have questioned that what is this
(03:51):
going to feel like? Should I be at home or
should I be in the hospital. And the point of
a lot of my conversations is not to provide answers,
but to support people into recognizing what's best for them,
which I suspect is actually quite a lot of what
Martin does with the way that you work with businesses.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
When do you turn up a piece.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Of string question, I can turn up pre need so
there's no terminal or life limiting diagnosis. There's a bit
of a myth that we turn up magically like a
fairy in the last twenty four hours of life. That's
not really great or optimal.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So do some people get you even if I don't
have a diagnosis. But I want to start working with
a duel if.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
You're a doler like me, who does planning and can
answer questions and help people prepare their documentation and their wishes,
because that's not anything you want to be doing at
the last minute. And in cases where there's dementia and
cognitive decline, it's too late then to get your planning
in place. So I also help to support and foster
(05:00):
family wide and network wide conversations so that everyone understands.
If someone's interested in assisted dying, let's talk about that.
Does anyone have questions? For example? Or have you considered
your pets in your planning? Are you including your grandchildren
or just your children? Would you prefer to die in
a medicalized environment ideally or in a home like environment.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So you can? Yeah, so you're there at any point.
And really every circumstance is entirely different.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
It is, it's unique every single time.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Same for funerals, Yeah, I mean a funeral it really
should be a reflection of the person's life and interests
and values and philosophies, and sometimes Historically, traditionally in sad
the last couple of hundred years, that often revolved around
their faith. So these days funerals are quite sort of
open ended, quite unstructured, quite celebratory, and people trying to
(05:53):
find some ritual in that and some meaning in that.
And that's the real changes having in funeral service. Funerals
have been going on for thousands of years. They're one
of the early rituals of human existence, and they emanate
from the human need to stop when someone from among
us leaves us and reflect on that person's life, to
(06:16):
typically grieve that person if they meant something to us.
So that is to you know, invariably people feel sad,
not always, but typically, and people have to then say
how do we move forward without this person? And then
for a lot of people that's incredibly difficult. Grief is
just our response to loss. You can't control it, you
can't make it go away. So if you suppress it
in the early days, it comes back to bite you later.
(06:38):
So the funeral is a chance to gather, reflect, embrace
the reality of the death, and embrace the early stages
of the grief, the pain that you'll often often experience,
and to receive.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Support from your community and.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
To let go of that person because they go from
being with you to being a memory.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It's interesting that the way you phrase it, or the
point of view you expressed there was to me it
was the the person closest to whoever's died, it's for them,
and then it's for the community. It's not for us. Funerals,
not for the guy that died. The funerals for us.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
That's right, And we're finding a lot of people are
now trying to sort of orgustrate their own celebration and
so this is what I want. I want this to happen.
That to happen, and that's that's got a place. But
it's really for the living, for those that are left
behind it. And you know, the dead, the dead can't
tell the living how to feel, but they can give
guidance and direction. But I think it's really important that
(07:37):
the funerals, the funerals have done the way that the
survivors feel they need to do it so that they
that helps them get back into life afterwards.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, great, what's the funeral for?
Speaker 4 (07:48):
I think a funeral is an opportunity to remember why
your person was so important to you. One of the
big chess that I think we're going to see more
and more of in Australia now with assisted dying nationally available,
(08:08):
is a fabulous going away party, as I call them,
so people who attend their own funerals, because basically, especially
if you're in a hospital, you know when your time is.
So there's almost like a bookending effect where we have
a celebration with the person and they get to say
goodbyes and explain to people why they were important and
(08:29):
hear all the good stuff, and then there's probably going
to be a gathering of some kind afterwards. Possibly ham
rolls and whiskey will play a part, because, as Martin
has said, we need to commemorate the fact that this
(08:50):
aspect of our lives is now irrevocably changed. I think
for a lot of us, the relationship goes on, but
it's very different. I still talk to my mother and
my grandmother, both of whom are dead. I don't expect
them to respond, but there's still kind.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Of I think that's the same way to do it.
If you expect the respond, that's a different conversation. We're
doing another from beyond the grade. So again, what the
funerals not really for the dead person.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
I have never thought of funerals for the dead person.
It is to really bring us out of the immense
shock of the raw grief that and this is a generalization,
is about seventy two hours, so and that's not a
sustainable emotional state. We get to come together, we get
(09:44):
to shift from intense grief, the personal experience of loss
and that response because grief is love with no place
left to be put into mourning, which is a more shared, communal,
public sense of loss, which is a really important transitional
period in accepting a death, coming to terms with a death,
(10:06):
acknowledging a death. And the funeral makes a space that
I think is important not just for the closest people,
but for friends, work, colleagues, community members. So there is
a space that can be welcoming for a variety of
community members, which is also really important. Community can be
(10:27):
quite intimate and small, it can be broader and more encompassing.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, yeah, look, I think it does need to. I
think a good funeral will reflect the person's life. If
it's not authentic, if you go to that fearing and say, gee,
that wasn't about thread, then clearly the family have got
it wrong, So they have to be the central character,
has to really reflect who they were ideally. But if
Fred starts micromanaging his service, his celebration, then I think
(10:55):
we're missing the point because it really is for those
left behind to say, what's going to be meaningful for me?
Speaker 3 (11:00):
To help me?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
You know, takes dock of my life now that Fread's gone.
A good example is, you know, sometimes people these days,
it will often say, let's not go to the fuss
of a funeral, let's let's have a private cremational burial
and we'll have a memorial service, which is fine, and
a lot of people choose that, but if Fred's not there,
you know, the emotions around how people feel about Fred
(11:22):
and the stories about him aren't really aren't heightened enough
for people to really fear what if they should feel
at a funeral. It's hard to sort of get started
with your grief.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
It is sort of the but I suppose it's often
that that's that's often thought of, We're going to do
this in a few days, but the memorials in two weeks.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
I think it's individual, and I also think it is
broader culture. So for example, in some cultures from Eastern Europe,
there are micro days, so you will have the funeral
on a particular day, and then you might do something
ten days later, and then the fortieth day might be
for example, in the Macedonian Commune. I still pay attention
(12:04):
to deathiversaries, and I pay attention to it because it's
going to affect my mood and the way I go
throughout the day, because I will be thinking about that person.
And ideally you have had the opportunity to spend time
with your person, whether that's in a hospital room for example,
I did that when my mother died. We were allowed
to have the room for as long as we wanted.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
With her.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Or at home, and you might keep your person at
home for a day or two and sing to them,
wash them, sit in silence, cry with them, laugh with them.
That can be part of the saying goodbye, which the funeral. Then,
when it's done properly and appropriately, I think, sort of
(12:48):
wraps everything up and ties it as neatly together as
you can so that you can move into all of
the afters of grief.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Well, let's talk about the business of fear. And it's
a big business, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Well, it became an industry one hundred plus years ago,
something that people started outsourcing to, you know, And initially
it was outsourced to cabinet makers who made the coffin,
and then the cabinet maker said well I can not
only can I make the coffin, I can transfer the
body from the place of death, and over a period
of time it became an industry. So it is there,
you know, it is an organized industry in most countries
(13:23):
around the world, and so the organized funeral director will
provide a range of services to support people who've lost
lost someone. In Australia, it's primarily historically made up of
family owned private businesses that are multi generational family businesses,
but about twenty five years or so ago that a
lot of a lot of the well known family businesses
(13:45):
were purchased by larger groups. But certainly they're in my view,
they're at a competitive disadvantage to a genuinely family owned,
local community based, family owned business because they just don't
have that essence.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Is it a strange thing, you know? I mean, you've
talked very compassionately about grief and about the humanity of
what's involved, about the moment of death and what people
are dealing with. Yeah, this is something that you'll make
profit from that the company is going to make profit from.
Is that a strange common Is there a conflict there?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
There isn't really.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I mean, you know, sometimes I think a lot of
the people who are attracted to the industry, Yeah, they're
talking to a family and they've gone through a loss,
and there's a lot of grief and pain, and there
might be there might be some challenging financial circumstances too
that they glean from the conversation, and yeah, the people feel, oh,
how can we add pain to the you know, you know,
send them an invoice for ten thousand dollars whatever it
(14:38):
might be, and on top of what they were experiencing. So, yeah,
it is a little bit uncomfortable. But I think if
the business has integrity around us pricing and there's genuine
options and you know, they're not sort of forced into
any sort of uncomfortable decisions, then you know, most people
recognize that a funeral, if it's you, needs to be
(14:59):
done certain way.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
There's going to be cost to that, and.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
You've only another that, you know, the the rise of duelers,
the presence of duelers, the change the right the way
in which there seems to be a lot a lot
of alternatives to those bigger companies or that standard sort
of the mahogany casket approach, is that in a reaction
to this sort of somewhat you know, industrialization of the process.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Partially, yes, and from my perspective, I think we can Okay, Boomer,
let's give you a big further thanks, because at every
stage of life, the Boomer generation it's a cliche for
a reason, they've demanded information and choice and they want
things on their terms, far more than we'd seen in
(15:44):
the silent generations certainly and previous generations. So what are
my rights, options and choices at the end of life?
What can we do better? Indifferently, it's made space for
things like Daisy Box Caskets Australia. I'm not affiliated with them,
but they offer a lower and a high quality product,
(16:04):
but it's less expensive than mahogany, which you mentioned. Not
about option for families on a budget, not about option
for cremations. I think as we are in such an
almost overwhelm of information age, people do want to know
what's possible, and we can readily see that, for example,
(16:26):
in the USA, we've got Katrina Spade who started with
the Urban Death Project.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
I think about the.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Urban Death Project was an architectural hypothetical exercise, how can
we offer a space for respectful memorialization and body disposition
that is not taking up valuable land. And from this
then we have recompose, which is natural organic reduction nor
(16:55):
human composting. In Tasmania, we've got the very first water
besed cremation service.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
What is that when you go cremation implies fire to
mean not water.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Yes, so it's olkaline hydrolysis. It's a high temperature, high
alkaline process of dissolving everything, which at the end you
get a product that instead of gray ash is white.
You get a completely sterile liquid that I personally don't
see why we can't use on green spaces urban green spaces.
(17:27):
But it can go down the.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Drain, just water me in the park, lash the ocean.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
There we go and it's it's about a seventh of
the environmental footprint of the flame. Cremation costs about the same,
maybe a little bit more. But we also have a
team that will transport straight statewide. We don't do natural
burial right, we don't have dedicated natural burial spaces in
(17:55):
Australia the UK does it really well. Okay, so instead
of going down into colder ground which is anaerobic, there's
frequently a lot of concrete involved. You're in essentially like
hotter ground. You've got more microbes and oxygen. You're going
to break down faster. And in the UK the multi
purpose spaces where you might be running sheep for example,
(18:20):
or growing wildflowers or food. In the USA, when you
have the composted remains of people, which turns out to
be quite a lot large in volume, they work with
a national park and it actually goes to beautify hiking
trails and to recondition public spaces.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
I like it and everybody.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
So it's opening up spaces for non medical, community based
people like myself. It also means that there's new and
exciting ways for funeral directors to then work with people
to make them meaningful personalized ritual and ceremony and funeral experience.
So thank you boomers, we've got a lot of change.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah. Yeah, And as other traditional companies are they embracing this,
are they seeing the need to embrace.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
This that the traditional funeral being in a church and
sort of straight to the cemetery with them being sort
of reasonably structured, and that pattern has definitely broken. We're
seeing two things in the Australian industry. That is people
trending consumers saying that doesn't do it for me anymore.
I'm either going to go in for something very simple
that's low cost and where there's not much of a fuss,
(19:37):
or people saying I want something highly customized, highly celebratory,
highly innovative. And the companies that have stayed quite traditional
and conservative are actually losing relevance. And so the funeral
directors who are seeing those baby boomer lead changes and
a responding constructor who are responding or actually leading the
way to themselves and coming up with some of those
(19:58):
ideas themselves. They're the ones that are becoming, staying relevant
and are thriving. You know, there's a funeral company called
Tender Funerals who who focus and philosophy is that the
family are much more involved in the actual funeral, which
is which is a great thing, which is how it
should have how it used to be. You know, the
family themselves would.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
So what might take place, what do they what do
they do?
Speaker 3 (20:17):
What they might wash and dress the body.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
As Ansa said, you know, they might they might carry
the coffin in some of the steps that normally the
funeral director would only do. There's subtle differences, and I
don't I don't profess to know a lot about what
they do, but philosophically their messages let's do funerals the
way they used to be done and not outsource everything
(20:39):
to the funeral director. So that's a challenge for the
organized industry because that people are responding to that and
because people saying, yeah, actually, that's how we did used
to do it. And I think the work the doers
are doing is getting people comfortable with the conversation, you know,
the fact that we will.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Die and that.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
We've checked everyone does.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So, you know, the organized industry has to realize that
with education and burn the re led sort of innovation,
there's a lot more you know, sort of change and
sort of innovation they have to embrace.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Otherwise that will become irrelevant.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Whether you're coming from a more business like perspective or
something that's more community led. We all offer skills and
services that have value. People train to be funeral directors
and celebrants. People train to be morticians people trained to
be dullers, and there's an awful lot of ongoing research
(21:43):
and continuing education because the legislation is changing very quickly
in terms of documentation, where it's stored, how it's processed
a sister dying is constantly changing as we review the laws,
and there is a value to that. I'm not a charity.
I like to meals and sleep under a roof. So
(22:03):
I think one of the unexpected benefits of having more
open conversations generally is people can recognize, oh, well, maybe
this much for a funeral seems too much, but this
is a reasonable sum, and I'm happy to pay that
sum because we're getting something of value in the in
(22:26):
the end that may be more personalized, maybe more ritualized
and traditional, but then we have an exchange of something
for something.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
But also the kind of those newer processes you're describing,
even of how we dispose of the body, a more
sustainable approach is going to reflect a lot of people's values.
You know, in a way that a traditional cask of
being buried at a six ft it.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Don't operate in a vacuum. You know, they're part of
the broader society. Why do you like working in the
area of death, it's a real privilege to work with.
I mean, you know, the work that Vanetta does is amazing,
Like to have an open conversation with someone who is
facing their own mortality must every day, must be an
(23:13):
amazing privilege. And the work that I've done Historyphy is
after that. So it's not as it's not as confronting,
not as because it's happened, but it's just really satisfying
work to help people, you know, when they are at
a low point, to do something for them that's valuable,
that's meaningful, and to help them with the long term
(23:36):
journey they're about to embark on. A funeral is just
one of the first steps in their overall journey without
that person, And if you can get them off to
a good start with a good you know this notion
of a good funeral, then you know, then it's incredibly
satisfying work. The vast majority of the people that work
in funeral service, and I'm sure the work that you
do are there for the right reasons. They're there because
(23:58):
they peep driven people, they love helping, They want to
make a difference for people. So it's a very satisfying industry.
That most people we had the stereotype, but we're all
a bit weird, and that it's far so it's almost
the opposite.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
And then then why do.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
You like it?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Oh, you said you were better than this, you'd been
a birth door and he said, no doubt. But I'm
better at deck. I am better at death.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
I like puppies not children, which probably explains a lot.
I'm a good story keeper, and someone who is an
end of life or is coming to terms with a
life limiting or terminal diagnosis, maybe a slower decline or
more rapid decline, there is still an essence of themselves
(24:43):
that they would like to have preserved, which I think
feeds into this idea of the meaningful, purposeful funeral, the meaningful,
purposeful end of life with quality of life until we die.
And then trying to offer a quality of life to
people as they come to terms with the death of
(25:04):
their person is values driven, I think in terms of planning,
and also for me, it's about honoring that person and
trying to empower them with as much information as appropriate
so that they can make informed decisions. I think there's
nothing more empowering when I've done my job really right.
(25:28):
I'm not even involved when someone dies. Sometimes I'm in
the room and that's okay. But often I will hear
from families afterwards, and there's wonderful stories about the time
that was spent while their person was dying, caring for
their person's body after death, how the family and the
(25:50):
friends came together to facilitate all of that, and then
how that relationship of community changes or stairs the same
following that. So people then find meaning in their own life,
get more excited about planning. The death literacy. Snowball is
(26:13):
a wonderful thing to watch, an action that's my jam.
I really love it.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
What do they do?
Speaker 3 (26:19):
What have people told you about death?
Speaker 4 (26:22):
Interestingly enough, for a lot of people, it's not about
death itself. It's about being frightened of dying. My pain
threshold is in the basement. I don't want to be
in pain. That bothers me far more than my moment
of death. That the people they loved know that they're loved,
(26:48):
that they want that, they want to know that love
has been expressed, which I think is possibly why we're
seeing that uptick two in. People say I'd like this
playlist at I always start with a playlist with planning control,
it be the DJ. Could we talk about this. I'd
like these elements because it's a way of caretaking in
(27:12):
a sense, the people that they're going to leave behind.
The messages that people leave are messages of love. I
think that's something the film Love actually got really right
in the beginning. How do I convey that? How can
I try and make that my legacy? So we're seeing
it arise in life writing, the narrative of someone's life,
(27:36):
so that there might be a digital book or voice recordings.
We're seeing that with social media platforms, where social accounts
can be turned into memorial accounts. But I think also
we need to prepare ourselves for the fact that sometimes
that is all yanked away with no warning, sometimes by
(27:57):
family members who think that that's the right thing to do,
and that can leave people devastated. So I think we're
all kind of jogging along together trying to come to
terms with all the changes and make them a good
fit for individuals.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
M what do you hear? What do your people say
about this?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Most people dread the day, you know, they're dreading the
day they have to get it, get up there in
front of all those people, walk through the gathering and
everyone's looking at them, and so there's a lot of dread.
People will say, can we just get over and done with?
Can we do it tomorrow, you know, whether desks mean
today or whatever. So there is that sense that it's
going to be an ordeal. So if if after it's
happened and you the feedback is all the conversations you
(28:37):
hear are, oh, that was really special and it went well,
and what a tribute we paid to data mum. You know,
you know he would have loved it. Or you know
that you've lifted all that dread away, and then they
move ahead, so they're off to a good start. Otherwise,
if we just die and we pause for a few minutes,
not and we get back on the bike and start
leaving again, well you know, that person's all there, what
(29:00):
they meant to us, and all their stories and history
and what they wanted to be said about them just
gets shuffled aside and we get on with life again.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
So I think we I think most of us deserve it.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
A bit better than that. And a funeral is a
really a good opportunity to just stop the clock for
a while, and we have to wallow in it. For weeks,
and some cultures do they actually they put a real
ritual around, but as a minimum, just have some some
chance where we can say this life mattered. I think
that's I think that's really good here.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
This has been such a great conversation. Thank you so much, Dana, thank.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
You, thank you for having me. James, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Martin, thank your.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Thanks to our guests, doctor Annata Mellen and Martin Tobin.
You've been listening to season six of Life's Booming Dying
to Know, brought to you by Australian Seniors. Please leave
a review or tell someone about it. Head to seniors
dot com dot au slash podcast for more episodes. May
your Life Be Booming.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I'm James Valentine.
Hello, and welcome to Life Spooming. I'm James Valentine and
this season we're talking about death and in this episode
we're talking about matters of life and death, well the
final matter how we say goodbye. Death is big business
and Australia's death care and funeral industry is worth more
than two billion dollars. And with us two entrepreneurs, two
(00:28):
people who work in this area, supporting you and your
loved ones through the last step on life's journey. We're
joined by doctor Annetta Mallon, an end of life consultant
and educator and also known as a death dueler. And
Martin Tobin is a recognized family name and the funeral
business and is now an expert advisor on the global
funeral industry. And Edna Martin. Welcome to Life Spooming. So
(00:50):
many places to start. I'm excited, might not start with you.
What's it like when the family business is death? Yeah,
it's all I've ever known. I when I was and
grew up, we actually lived in a funeral parlor.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
So when I was for the first two or three
years of my life, the funeral parer was downstairs.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
We lived upstairs.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So when it's all you've known, you don't think anything
different of it. And I suppose all of my friends
and social groups when I was young and a teenager
so thought it was pretty quirky and funny.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
But for me, it was what I knew.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
My grandfather and his brother started our family business in
the thirties, and by the time I came along, it
was well and truly established. And I didn't really work
directly in it straight away after leaving school, but it
was always in the background, and so I've always been
comfortable with it.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, but such an interesting thing, like what's the dinner
time conversation?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Do you have a good day?
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Now?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Deaths some good deaths?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well, you know, I think that's the stereotype, isn't it.
The funeral dresses are a bit sort of weird and
severe and a bit more, but but it's far from
the truth, you know. I think most of them would
work in funeral service and the work that ann Eda
does are really.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Warm and loving and gregarious people.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Because you have to have those qualities to really survive
and thrive in what we do in that space.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
You're kind of gotta love life in it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Absolutely, we are fiercely alive until we are dead, and
I think that whether it's from the professional funeral side
of things or more from consumer advocate and personal support
side of things, coming in with a joke, why do
we screw the coffin lids down so hard to keep
the on collages out? Great icebreaker? Show up with cake,
(02:25):
make joke because most of us have a lot of
laughter and love in our lives, and it's important to
leaven sorrow and grief.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, don't drown out the what's the Undertaker's joke?
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Have so many?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I mean everyone I used to get called stiffy Tobin,
that sort of stuff, stiffy. So a lot of funeraldesses
get called stiffy.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
That's a nineteen thirties cartoon character.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Isn't it. It's like it's the Millers, the Mills and
Bakers are dusty that it's that area.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
You're a Tintin character.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeh.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Luckily I wasn't you know. I don't fit the stereotype
of tall and gray. I'm sort of fairly shorten and
not gray. So and so when I joined our family business,
I was quite young, so I was lucky to sort
of didn't fit that stereotype.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
And back in the early nineties.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
There was very few women, very few people, young people,
very few people from diverse background. So it's changed a lot,
really for the better in that sense, there's no stereotypical
funeral director. Now it's a really, really diverse.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
What's a dueler, well, adula is someone who supports life's transitions.
So I've been a birth dueler and it's a very
powerful energy when someone comes into the world, but it's
really not my jam. I like the other transition and
I'm better at it. I provide an awful lot of
information for people who have questioned that what is this
(03:51):
going to feel like? Should I be at home or
should I be in the hospital. And the point of
a lot of my conversations is not to provide answers,
but to support people into recognizing what's best for them,
which I suspect is actually quite a lot of what
Martin does with the way that you work with businesses.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
When do you turn up a piece.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Of string question, I can turn up pre need so
there's no terminal or life limiting diagnosis. There's a bit
of a myth that we turn up magically like a
fairy in the last twenty four hours of life. That's
not really great or optimal.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So do some people get you even if I don't
have a diagnosis. But I want to start working with
a duel if.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
You're a doler like me, who does planning and can
answer questions and help people prepare their documentation and their wishes,
because that's not anything you want to be doing at
the last minute. And in cases where there's dementia and
cognitive decline, it's too late then to get your planning
in place. So I also help to support and foster
(05:00):
family wide and network wide conversations so that everyone understands.
If someone's interested in assisted dying, let's talk about that.
Does anyone have questions? For example? Or have you considered
your pets in your planning? Are you including your grandchildren
or just your children? Would you prefer to die in
a medicalized environment ideally or in a home like environment.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So you can? Yeah, so you're there at any point.
And really every circumstance is entirely different.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
It is, it's unique every single time.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Same for funerals, Yeah, I mean a funeral it really
should be a reflection of the person's life and interests
and values and philosophies, and sometimes Historically, traditionally in sad
the last couple of hundred years, that often revolved around
their faith. So these days funerals are quite sort of
open ended, quite unstructured, quite celebratory, and people trying to
(05:53):
find some ritual in that and some meaning in that.
And that's the real changes having in funeral service. Funerals
have been going on for thousands of years. They're one
of the early rituals of human existence, and they emanate
from the human need to stop when someone from among
us leaves us and reflect on that person's life, to
(06:16):
typically grieve that person if they meant something to us.
So that is to you know, invariably people feel sad,
not always, but typically, and people have to then say
how do we move forward without this person? And then
for a lot of people that's incredibly difficult. Grief is
just our response to loss. You can't control it, you
can't make it go away. So if you suppress it
in the early days, it comes back to bite you later.
(06:38):
So the funeral is a chance to gather, reflect, embrace
the reality of the death, and embrace the early stages
of the grief, the pain that you'll often often experience,
and to receive.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Support from your community and.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
To let go of that person because they go from
being with you to being a memory.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It's interesting that the way you phrase it, or the
point of view you expressed there was to me it
was the the person closest to whoever's died, it's for them,
and then it's for the community. It's not for us. Funerals,
not for the guy that died. The funerals for us.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
That's right, And we're finding a lot of people are
now trying to sort of orgustrate their own celebration and
so this is what I want. I want this to happen.
That to happen, and that's that's got a place. But
it's really for the living, for those that are left
behind it. And you know, the dead, the dead can't
tell the living how to feel, but they can give
guidance and direction. But I think it's really important that
(07:37):
the funerals, the funerals have done the way that the
survivors feel they need to do it so that they
that helps them get back into life afterwards.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, great, what's the funeral for?
Speaker 4 (07:48):
I think a funeral is an opportunity to remember why
your person was so important to you. One of the
big chess that I think we're going to see more
and more of in Australia now with assisted dying nationally available,
(08:08):
is a fabulous going away party, as I call them,
so people who attend their own funerals, because basically, especially
if you're in a hospital, you know when your time is.
So there's almost like a bookending effect where we have
a celebration with the person and they get to say
goodbyes and explain to people why they were important and
(08:29):
hear all the good stuff, and then there's probably going
to be a gathering of some kind afterwards. Possibly ham
rolls and whiskey will play a part, because, as Martin
has said, we need to commemorate the fact that this
(08:50):
aspect of our lives is now irrevocably changed. I think
for a lot of us, the relationship goes on, but
it's very different. I still talk to my mother and
my grandmother, both of whom are dead. I don't expect
them to respond, but there's still kind.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Of I think that's the same way to do it.
If you expect the respond, that's a different conversation. We're
doing another from beyond the grade. So again, what the
funerals not really for the dead person.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
I have never thought of funerals for the dead person.
It is to really bring us out of the immense
shock of the raw grief that and this is a generalization,
is about seventy two hours, so and that's not a
sustainable emotional state. We get to come together, we get
(09:44):
to shift from intense grief, the personal experience of loss
and that response because grief is love with no place
left to be put into mourning, which is a more shared, communal,
public sense of loss, which is a really important transitional
period in accepting a death, coming to terms with a death,
(10:06):
acknowledging a death. And the funeral makes a space that
I think is important not just for the closest people,
but for friends, work, colleagues, community members. So there is
a space that can be welcoming for a variety of
community members, which is also really important. Community can be
(10:27):
quite intimate and small, it can be broader and more encompassing.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, yeah, look, I think it does need to. I
think a good funeral will reflect the person's life. If
it's not authentic, if you go to that fearing and say, gee,
that wasn't about thread, then clearly the family have got
it wrong, So they have to be the central character,
has to really reflect who they were ideally. But if
Fred starts micromanaging his service, his celebration, then I think
(10:55):
we're missing the point because it really is for those
left behind to say, what's going to be meaningful for me?
Speaker 3 (11:00):
To help me?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
You know, takes dock of my life now that Fread's gone.
A good example is, you know, sometimes people these days,
it will often say, let's not go to the fuss
of a funeral, let's let's have a private cremational burial
and we'll have a memorial service, which is fine, and
a lot of people choose that, but if Fred's not there,
you know, the emotions around how people feel about Fred
(11:22):
and the stories about him aren't really aren't heightened enough
for people to really fear what if they should feel
at a funeral. It's hard to sort of get started
with your grief.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
It is sort of the but I suppose it's often
that that's that's often thought of, We're going to do
this in a few days, but the memorials in two weeks.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
I think it's individual, and I also think it is
broader culture. So for example, in some cultures from Eastern Europe,
there are micro days, so you will have the funeral
on a particular day, and then you might do something
ten days later, and then the fortieth day might be
for example, in the Macedonian Commune. I still pay attention
(12:04):
to deathiversaries, and I pay attention to it because it's
going to affect my mood and the way I go
throughout the day, because I will be thinking about that person.
And ideally you have had the opportunity to spend time
with your person, whether that's in a hospital room for example,
I did that when my mother died. We were allowed
to have the room for as long as we wanted.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
With her.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Or at home, and you might keep your person at
home for a day or two and sing to them,
wash them, sit in silence, cry with them, laugh with them.
That can be part of the saying goodbye, which the funeral. Then,
when it's done properly and appropriately, I think, sort of
(12:48):
wraps everything up and ties it as neatly together as
you can so that you can move into all of
the afters of grief.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Well, let's talk about the business of fear. And it's
a big business, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Well, it became an industry one hundred plus years ago,
something that people started outsourcing to, you know, And initially
it was outsourced to cabinet makers who made the coffin,
and then the cabinet maker said well I can not
only can I make the coffin, I can transfer the
body from the place of death, and over a period
of time it became an industry. So it is there,
you know, it is an organized industry in most countries
(13:23):
around the world, and so the organized funeral director will
provide a range of services to support people who've lost
lost someone. In Australia, it's primarily historically made up of
family owned private businesses that are multi generational family businesses,
but about twenty five years or so ago that a
lot of a lot of the well known family businesses
(13:45):
were purchased by larger groups. But certainly they're in my view,
they're at a competitive disadvantage to a genuinely family owned,
local community based, family owned business because they just don't
have that essence.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Is it a strange thing, you know? I mean, you've
talked very compassionately about grief and about the humanity of
what's involved, about the moment of death and what people
are dealing with. Yeah, this is something that you'll make
profit from that the company is going to make profit from.
Is that a strange common Is there a conflict there?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
There isn't really.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I mean, you know, sometimes I think a lot of
the people who are attracted to the industry, Yeah, they're
talking to a family and they've gone through a loss,
and there's a lot of grief and pain, and there
might be there might be some challenging financial circumstances too
that they glean from the conversation, and yeah, the people feel, oh,
how can we add pain to the you know, you know,
send them an invoice for ten thousand dollars whatever it
(14:38):
might be, and on top of what they were experiencing. So, yeah,
it is a little bit uncomfortable. But I think if
the business has integrity around us pricing and there's genuine
options and you know, they're not sort of forced into
any sort of uncomfortable decisions, then you know, most people
recognize that a funeral, if it's you, needs to be
(14:59):
done certain way.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
There's going to be cost to that, and.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
You've only another that, you know, the the rise of duelers,
the presence of duelers, the change the right the way
in which there seems to be a lot a lot
of alternatives to those bigger companies or that standard sort
of the mahogany casket approach, is that in a reaction
to this sort of somewhat you know, industrialization of the process.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Partially, yes, and from my perspective, I think we can Okay, Boomer,
let's give you a big further thanks, because at every
stage of life, the Boomer generation it's a cliche for
a reason, they've demanded information and choice and they want
things on their terms, far more than we'd seen in
(15:44):
the silent generations certainly and previous generations. So what are
my rights, options and choices at the end of life?
What can we do better? Indifferently, it's made space for
things like Daisy Box Caskets Australia. I'm not affiliated with them,
but they offer a lower and a high quality product,
(16:04):
but it's less expensive than mahogany, which you mentioned. Not
about option for families on a budget, not about option
for cremations. I think as we are in such an
almost overwhelm of information age, people do want to know
what's possible, and we can readily see that, for example,
(16:26):
in the USA, we've got Katrina Spade who started with
the Urban Death Project.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
I think about the.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Urban Death Project was an architectural hypothetical exercise, how can
we offer a space for respectful memorialization and body disposition
that is not taking up valuable land. And from this
then we have recompose, which is natural organic reduction nor
(16:55):
human composting. In Tasmania, we've got the very first water
besed cremation service.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
What is that when you go cremation implies fire to
mean not water.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Yes, so it's olkaline hydrolysis. It's a high temperature, high
alkaline process of dissolving everything, which at the end you
get a product that instead of gray ash is white.
You get a completely sterile liquid that I personally don't
see why we can't use on green spaces urban green spaces.
(17:27):
But it can go down the.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Drain, just water me in the park, lash the ocean.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
There we go and it's it's about a seventh of
the environmental footprint of the flame. Cremation costs about the same,
maybe a little bit more. But we also have a
team that will transport straight statewide. We don't do natural
burial right, we don't have dedicated natural burial spaces in
(17:55):
Australia the UK does it really well. Okay, so instead
of going down into colder ground which is anaerobic, there's
frequently a lot of concrete involved. You're in essentially like
hotter ground. You've got more microbes and oxygen. You're going
to break down faster. And in the UK the multi
purpose spaces where you might be running sheep for example,
(18:20):
or growing wildflowers or food. In the USA, when you
have the composted remains of people, which turns out to
be quite a lot large in volume, they work with
a national park and it actually goes to beautify hiking
trails and to recondition public spaces.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
I like it and everybody.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
So it's opening up spaces for non medical, community based
people like myself. It also means that there's new and
exciting ways for funeral directors to then work with people
to make them meaningful personalized ritual and ceremony and funeral experience.
So thank you boomers, we've got a lot of change.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah. Yeah, And as other traditional companies are they embracing this,
are they seeing the need to embrace.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
This that the traditional funeral being in a church and
sort of straight to the cemetery with them being sort
of reasonably structured, and that pattern has definitely broken. We're
seeing two things in the Australian industry. That is people
trending consumers saying that doesn't do it for me anymore.
I'm either going to go in for something very simple
that's low cost and where there's not much of a fuss,
(19:37):
or people saying I want something highly customized, highly celebratory,
highly innovative. And the companies that have stayed quite traditional
and conservative are actually losing relevance. And so the funeral
directors who are seeing those baby boomer lead changes and
a responding constructor who are responding or actually leading the
way to themselves and coming up with some of those
(19:58):
ideas themselves. They're the ones that are becoming, staying relevant
and are thriving. You know, there's a funeral company called
Tender Funerals who who focus and philosophy is that the
family are much more involved in the actual funeral, which
is which is a great thing, which is how it
should have how it used to be. You know, the
family themselves would.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
So what might take place, what do they what do
they do?
Speaker 3 (20:17):
What they might wash and dress the body.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
As Ansa said, you know, they might they might carry
the coffin in some of the steps that normally the
funeral director would only do. There's subtle differences, and I
don't I don't profess to know a lot about what
they do, but philosophically their messages let's do funerals the
way they used to be done and not outsource everything
(20:39):
to the funeral director. So that's a challenge for the
organized industry because that people are responding to that and
because people saying, yeah, actually, that's how we did used
to do it. And I think the work the doers
are doing is getting people comfortable with the conversation, you know,
the fact that we will.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Die and that.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
We've checked everyone does.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So, you know, the organized industry has to realize that
with education and burn the re led sort of innovation,
there's a lot more you know, sort of change and
sort of innovation they have to embrace.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Otherwise that will become irrelevant.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Whether you're coming from a more business like perspective or
something that's more community led. We all offer skills and
services that have value. People train to be funeral directors
and celebrants. People train to be morticians people trained to
be dullers, and there's an awful lot of ongoing research
(21:43):
and continuing education because the legislation is changing very quickly
in terms of documentation, where it's stored, how it's processed
a sister dying is constantly changing as we review the laws,
and there is a value to that. I'm not a charity.
I like to meals and sleep under a roof. So
(22:03):
I think one of the unexpected benefits of having more
open conversations generally is people can recognize, oh, well, maybe
this much for a funeral seems too much, but this
is a reasonable sum, and I'm happy to pay that
sum because we're getting something of value in the in
(22:26):
the end that may be more personalized, maybe more ritualized
and traditional, but then we have an exchange of something
for something.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
But also the kind of those newer processes you're describing,
even of how we dispose of the body, a more
sustainable approach is going to reflect a lot of people's values.
You know, in a way that a traditional cask of
being buried at a six ft it.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Don't operate in a vacuum. You know, they're part of
the broader society. Why do you like working in the
area of death, it's a real privilege to work with.
I mean, you know, the work that Vanetta does is amazing,
Like to have an open conversation with someone who is
facing their own mortality must every day, must be an
(23:13):
amazing privilege. And the work that I've done Historyphy is
after that. So it's not as it's not as confronting,
not as because it's happened, but it's just really satisfying
work to help people, you know, when they are at
a low point, to do something for them that's valuable,
that's meaningful, and to help them with the long term
(23:36):
journey they're about to embark on. A funeral is just
one of the first steps in their overall journey without
that person, And if you can get them off to
a good start with a good you know this notion
of a good funeral, then you know, then it's incredibly
satisfying work. The vast majority of the people that work
in funeral service, and I'm sure the work that you
do are there for the right reasons. They're there because
(23:58):
they peep driven people, they love helping, They want to
make a difference for people. So it's a very satisfying industry.
That most people we had the stereotype, but we're all
a bit weird, and that it's far so it's almost
the opposite.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
And then then why do.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
You like it?
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Oh, you said you were better than this, you'd been
a birth door and he said, no doubt. But I'm
better at deck. I am better at death.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
I like puppies not children, which probably explains a lot.
I'm a good story keeper, and someone who is an
end of life or is coming to terms with a
life limiting or terminal diagnosis, maybe a slower decline or
more rapid decline, there is still an essence of themselves
(24:43):
that they would like to have preserved, which I think
feeds into this idea of the meaningful, purposeful funeral, the meaningful,
purposeful end of life with quality of life until we die.
And then trying to offer a quality of life to
people as they come to terms with the death of
(25:04):
their person is values driven, I think in terms of planning,
and also for me, it's about honoring that person and
trying to empower them with as much information as appropriate
so that they can make informed decisions. I think there's
nothing more empowering when I've done my job really right.
(25:28):
I'm not even involved when someone dies. Sometimes I'm in
the room and that's okay. But often I will hear
from families afterwards, and there's wonderful stories about the time
that was spent while their person was dying, caring for
their person's body after death, how the family and the
(25:50):
friends came together to facilitate all of that, and then
how that relationship of community changes or stairs the same
following that. So people then find meaning in their own life,
get more excited about planning. The death literacy. Snowball is
(26:13):
a wonderful thing to watch, an action that's my jam.
I really love it.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
What do they do?
Speaker 3 (26:19):
What have people told you about death?
Speaker 4 (26:22):
Interestingly enough, for a lot of people, it's not about
death itself. It's about being frightened of dying. My pain
threshold is in the basement. I don't want to be
in pain. That bothers me far more than my moment
of death. That the people they loved know that they're loved,
(26:48):
that they want that, they want to know that love
has been expressed, which I think is possibly why we're
seeing that uptick two in. People say I'd like this
playlist at I always start with a playlist with planning control,
it be the DJ. Could we talk about this. I'd
like these elements because it's a way of caretaking in
(27:12):
a sense, the people that they're going to leave behind.
The messages that people leave are messages of love. I
think that's something the film Love actually got really right
in the beginning. How do I convey that? How can
I try and make that my legacy? So we're seeing
it arise in life writing, the narrative of someone's life,
(27:36):
so that there might be a digital book or voice recordings.
We're seeing that with social media platforms, where social accounts
can be turned into memorial accounts. But I think also
we need to prepare ourselves for the fact that sometimes
that is all yanked away with no warning, sometimes by
(27:57):
family members who think that that's the right thing to do,
and that can leave people devastated. So I think we're
all kind of jogging along together trying to come to
terms with all the changes and make them a good
fit for individuals.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
M what do you hear? What do your people say
about this?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Most people dread the day, you know, they're dreading the
day they have to get it, get up there in
front of all those people, walk through the gathering and
everyone's looking at them, and so there's a lot of dread.
People will say, can we just get over and done with?
Can we do it tomorrow, you know, whether desks mean
today or whatever. So there is that sense that it's
going to be an ordeal. So if if after it's
happened and you the feedback is all the conversations you
(28:37):
hear are, oh, that was really special and it went well,
and what a tribute we paid to data mum. You know,
you know he would have loved it. Or you know
that you've lifted all that dread away, and then they
move ahead, so they're off to a good start. Otherwise,
if we just die and we pause for a few minutes,
not and we get back on the bike and start
leaving again, well you know, that person's all there, what
(29:00):
they meant to us, and all their stories and history
and what they wanted to be said about them just
gets shuffled aside and we get on with life again.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
So I think we I think most of us deserve it.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
A bit better than that. And a funeral is a
really a good opportunity to just stop the clock for
a while, and we have to wallow in it. For weeks,
and some cultures do they actually they put a real
ritual around, but as a minimum, just have some some
chance where we can say this life mattered. I think
that's I think that's really good here.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
This has been such a great conversation. Thank you so much, Dana, thank.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
You, thank you for having me. James, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Martin, thank your.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Thanks to our guests, doctor Annata Mellen and Martin Tobin.
You've been listening to season six of Life's Booming Dying
to Know, brought to you by Australian Seniors. Please leave
a review or tell someone about it. Head to seniors
dot com dot au slash podcast for more episodes. May
your Life Be Booming.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I'm James Valentine.
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