29: A Masterclass on Death: Embracing Loss and Celebrating Life

“The better trained you are to deal with death, the more you can celebrate life.”

Join Keith and Doug as they discuss the importance of being prepared for death. In this episode, you will learn:

• Why no one grieves the same
• What the five stages of grief are
• How to care for someone who lost a loved one

Connect with Keith and Doug:

Keith's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-tyner-a941a58/

Doug’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/doug-shrieve-0271989/

Gimbal Financial website - https://www.gimbalfinancial.com

Episode Transcript

Keith (00:00):
No one grieves the same. You should not say to somebody,

(00:03):
I know what you're feeling.

Doug (00:04):
That's good.

Keith (00:05):
Because you don't. Because we don't grieve the
same. And so I can say, Iunderstand how you might be
feeling or I understand howyou're feeling, but I don't know
how you're feeling because Ididn't have the relationship
you'd had. I didn't have thebond that you had. I didn't have
the ups and downs that you had,but I may have you know, if you
lose a grandparent, I lose agrandparent, we're not gonna

(00:25):
grieve the same way.

Narrator (00:27):
Welcome to the Up Your Average podcast, where Keith and
Doug give no nonsense advice tolevel up your life. So buckle up
and listen closely to Up YourAverage.

Keith (00:47):
Good morning, Doug.

Doug (00:48):
Hi there. Hi friends.

Keith (00:50):
It is a great day in Central Indiana, and I'm glad
that we got back together today.

Doug (00:55):
Yeah. Me too.

Keith (00:56):
It's a while since we've been sitting right here. And I
just, I thought we would justtalk about something that nobody
likes to talk about. Okay. Yeah.So 1988, I was in bed asleep.
My phone rings at 10:00 and it'sConnie. She's crying

(01:19):
hysterically and her sister hadjust got killed by a drunk
driver. And we weren't married.We didn't have any long term
commitment. And all of a sudden,I'm supposed to be a responsible
adult at that moment.
And I had no opinion on that.Like, didn't know anything about

(01:41):
death. And what had happened isshe had her sister, Donna had
four young children, 12, 10,six, and four. I'm going from
memory. And as a 27 year oldman, I'm maybe only 26.
Yeah. I was 27 at that time and26. And I was thinking, I don't

(02:02):
understand any of this. This istoo much. This is emotionally in
over my head and I have noexplanation of that.
And so death was thrust upon me.And that's kind of what kind of
sparked this dialogue. I I thinkyou have if I if I was gonna

(02:22):
say, I think you can have deaththrust upon you like a headlock.
Like when you're a boy, youmight tussle with another guy.
It might be a headlock.
You might have death thrown uponyou like somebody shoving you in
the chest, or you might have itlike they just punch you in the
face. And I think like theheadlock where you kind of see

(02:44):
it as maybe grandma or grandpapassed away, right? Like it
starts creating it. It has someemotional tie to it, but then
the slap in the face might beyour mom and dad. And then the
punch in the face, I think iswhen there's a death that's out
of sequence.
Have you ever had one of thosethings pop up in your life? Out

(03:07):
of sequence, meaning grandmashould die first and mom and
then me. And it doesn't happenin that order.

Doug (03:14):
One of the benefits of being raised by Jeff and Shelly
in the 80s was my parents tookme to funerals. And so you know,
my memories, I remember being ayoung boy, and my parents took
me to, you know, if a lady or aguy died at church, I'd go to

(03:35):
the funeral. And one of thereasons they brought me along,
my dad had told me was that thatkids bring life to the place.
And so he'd bring me and mysisters to bring life. We didn't
do anything.
We weren't juggling or singingor anything, but just just by
our presence of being there. Andso I have some early memories of

(03:56):
being around death. And I thinkI think that exposure really
helped me be okay with it asokay as you can be.

Keith (04:05):
I think I've read a bit about this. And I think that the
farther we get away from thefarm, the harder death is to
people.

Doug (04:15):
I've processed this, that thought several times through
hunting. Yeah, because inhunting, I'm up near it and the
cause of it. And it's it's ait's something that you really
have to process when you'reclose.

Keith (04:32):
Yeah. So Donna's dead now, which is that sounds really
cold blooded, but at some pointin the process, you have to be
able to say it that way. Likeshe's not passed away. Have to
like, I think you almost have tosay dead or died to start kind
of being honest about thesituation. So this fella, John

(04:53):
Jeter was the CEO of the ForumCredit Union.
He's kind of mentoring him. Heinvited me, this is 1988 to this
retreat down near Asheville,North Carolina. And I didn't
know if I was going to a cultmeeting or what, but I get
there. And as Providence wouldhave it, they had these breakout

(05:15):
sessions and one of them was ondeath and grieving. And I didn't
even know that that was a thing.
At 27 years old, I didn't evenknow like that you could
actually learn and help yourselfabout it. Had interviewed a
former three star general in theAir Force at a Kimball meeting

(05:36):
years ago. And I think one ofthe things he said about like,
disruption is what can help youthrough disruption is training.

Doug (05:45):
That's right.

Keith (05:45):
And so if you don't have the farm to train you about
death and dying, you don't havethese other things, it becomes
this mystery that sits out at adistance. And so I sat in that
class, and I didn't know what todo with this stuff. I'm still
it's this foreign thing to me,and I'm sitting in this class,
but I'm learning and trying tounderstand. And and it may have

(06:06):
been one of the greatest gifts Iever had. Like, Donna's death
was such a harsh thing that itmade me who I am today.
I don't know. I might've got towhere I am without that punch in
the face kind of death, but Ithink everybody's gonna have
those. Like, I think you'regonna have a punch in the face
kind of death and it's gonnatake the wind out of your sails

(06:28):
and you can curl up and go intothe fetal position or you can
train yourself along the way.You can't prepare for all of
those, but you can have betterunderstanding of what this
really means.

Doug (06:40):
When you can mourn. Mourn? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That's okay.

Keith (06:45):
Yeah. And so what, what kind of stirred me to have this
conversation today is I wrote aobituary two years, roughly two
years ago today. And I think Ican read it to you guys.

Doug (07:00):
Are you talking about your own obituary?

Keith (07:02):
No, no. This is like, I do that. Like, I'll write a
eulogy or an obituary for afriend that dies or something.
So I think I can get this oneout without crying, but we'll
see. And I'll read it and thenI'll tell you the story and then
we can kind of jump into some ofthe ideas behind it.

Doug (07:18):
Okay.

Keith (07:20):
So, and this would have been written a week after her
death. I'm just going to read itas it was. It says, My young
friend's body gave up the ghostlast week. That expression
evolves from the crucifixionwhen Jesus cried out to the end
of his life. Interestingly,first Corinthians six seventeen
radically says, change theexpression as that verse says,

(07:44):
your spirit is united with histhe moment you believe Jesus is
the Messiah.
When her body yielded herspirit, something beautiful
happened for which I onlypondered and suppose we'll
understand sooner than I know.Our friendship extended nearly
twenty years from her lateteenage days. And I knew then

(08:05):
when we had a bond. She pushedhard against the leadership of
our fundamental private school.She was doing that long before I
advocated as a way to live inher Sunday school class.
How can a friendship have depthand richness when in total it
may have only evolved a hundredhours together? I think it's

(08:26):
because of that person,Corinthians. She blessed me two
years ago when she thanked mefor the encouragement I gave her
all those years ago in thatclass of rambunctious teenagers.
I count those private words asone of life's greatest
accomplishments and gifts. Iadded this line to my own

(08:46):
obituary just four days beforehers would need pinning that I
believe our hearts were closerin perspective than our
individual attorneys would speakoutwardly to observers.
Don't grieve because I died,celebrate because I lived. Will
you celebrate her life with me?That's my friend Elizabeth. That

(09:07):
was two years ago. She woke up,think she was mid thirties.
She woke up having someinflammation in her ankles and
five hours later she was gone.And when you think about that
kind of scenario, it's intensebecause it's an out of sequence

(09:28):
kind of scenario.

Doug (09:30):
She was young.

Keith (09:31):
She was young. I was minding my own business. I was
out in Crawfordsville doing somemorale hunting, and I got the
call that the family wants me inthe emergency room. And so it
took the offensiveness of deathto a level, that I really had

(09:54):
only been in a time or twobefore. And, I was there to love
on the family.

Doug (10:00):
Right.

Keith (10:01):
I wasn't I don't even think I was there to cry. I
think I was there to be strongfor the family to to help them
through that moment. And I don'tthink without the training I'd
had all those years excuse me.The training I'd had all those
years before I would have beenable to actually even go. I
probably would have said, no,I'm not going to go.
Yeah. And so I think even theapostle Paul, I think about some

(10:30):
of his writings has helped trainme. He said like absent from the
body is present with the Lord.He said, you know, to live as
Christ and to die as king. And Idon't know which way to be.
I'm torn. And so he talks aboutthat this thing is temporary and

(10:51):
what are you going do? And sothat's built into my training
personally. And the reality ofit is that death probably isn't
an emotional thing. Like whatmakes death emotional is the
sequence of death.
Like, if I tell you GeorgeWashington died, does that get
you really emotional?

Doug (11:13):
Fair enough.

Keith (11:14):
Yeah. Yeah. What makes it emotional is the closer you are
to it. So today, one hundred andfifty thousand people around the
planet are going to die. Andhonestly, it doesn't bother me.
Like it has no emotional thing.And so between this time and
next week, there's going to beclose to a million people are
going to be dead or alive today,which is just insane. True. So

(11:37):
that's what I'm saying is thatthe sequence and the relativity
to it is what really turns it upand makes it significant. And so
in that process, the emotionalresponse to it really, it can
cause some people to implode andto stop living and to do a lot
of things.

Doug (11:55):
How would you describe the relativity?

Keith (11:58):
Like the relative relationship of it. Yeah. So

Doug (12:01):
If it's your dog.

Keith (12:02):
Yeah. My dog. Like, my dog is a perfect example. Like
when our dog was diagnosed withcancer and it was time to do
what we needed to do, Everybodyin the house shed, like they ran
and I had to go along with ourdog to the vet and because it
was hard, but if your dog dies,we're probably gonna feel bad

(12:26):
for you, but I'm probably gonnago have pizza. And that's what
I'm saying is what makes deathreally emotional is the sequence
and relative relationship.
Yeah, it's a % sure. Becauseit's a % sure is why I thought
we'd do this conversationbecause I think the more you
train for the reality that's a %sure, then the more you can

(12:49):
actually celebrate that somebodylived.

Doug (12:54):
And enjoy them while we're living.

Keith (12:57):
Yeah. And part of this training to me, quite frankly,
was I realized that when I saidgoodbye to Donna the last time,
it was goodbye.

Doug (13:09):
Right.

Keith (13:09):
And I didn't know it was You didn't know. That's what
probably upset me. Like, whatwould I have done differently?

Doug (13:14):
Right.

Keith (13:14):
But what that taught me is when I say goodbye to
anybody, I know intellectuallyit could be literally goodbye.
And so do I wanna get anargument with somebody over
something that doesn't matter?Right? Like, affects how I live
because of that.

Doug (13:30):
Yeah. And and for some people, that was their last
goodbye was the argument.

Keith (13:35):
Right. Right.

Doug (13:36):
Which and, and if, if that's you, there's healing for
that too.

Keith (13:41):
There is, there is. And that's what you can learn from
that too, is that that's reallife processes. There's a lot of
energy tied up in that. And soin that class, I sat in all
those years ago that theyintroduced me to the cycle of
grieving. The five steps ofgrieving.
The first is denial, which isreally a pretty ordinary thing.

(14:05):
Like there's no way that thathappened. Right? And then the
next one is just angry about it,being angry and who are you
being angry at? Right?
Like that's like with Donna, shewas killed by a drunk driver. I
could have chosen to expressthat anger towards that person.
But if I would have added, say ahundred years to her life, she

(14:27):
would have died anyway. Right?And it would have been caused by
that.
So something's gonna cause allpeople to pass. And if it's a
tragic situation, that anger candisrupt you and cause you to go
to a bad place maybe the rest ofyour life. You'd angry at that
person forever.

Doug (14:45):
Or just angry at the world Yeah. For not caring, for not
knowing that your friend or yourloved one just died and you got
cut off in traffic or someonedidn't smile at you or someone
didn't talk with you atThanksgiving dinner, whatever it
is. Yeah. I think that anger,it's real. You got to deal with
it.

Keith (15:03):
And I think that happens less in a, say, 100 year old
dying. There's probably not asmuch anger because I think
grieving process doesn't happennecessarily at death. Can, like
when mom was dying of dementia,my grieving process started when
really her soul or her being wasdisconnected from her body. And

(15:26):
so I didn't grieve as much ofthe death. Was grieving every
time I go see her.

Doug (15:31):
Right. Yeah. You did.

Keith (15:32):
Process moves in and out time wise. It doesn't
necessarily happen at the end.

Doug (15:37):
Do you think you have to go through all these stages? Do
you think you have to gothrough?

Keith (15:41):
No. No. I don't I don't know that I ever get that. I
think because I have an attitudeabout death, I don't usually get
that angry about it. These arewhat some psychologists can.

Doug (15:49):
I think they're pretty good. Yeah. I mean, you may go
through ten minutes or you mightgo through five years of one of
those, but

Keith (15:56):
I think it probably happens more in the ones that
are out of sequence.

Doug (16:00):
Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot

Keith (16:01):
of brain. Great grandma.

Doug (16:04):
For sure.

Keith (16:04):
Yeah. Then I don't really know what the bargaining one is.
I've heard that one. I don'tknow, like, they put that in
there and I don't know that I dothat one. But the one that
follows that is depression.
Depression doesn't, I don't knowif that word really means
anything anymore. I thinksadness is probably

Doug (16:23):
Yeah, sadness. I like sadness. I don't like sadness. I
like the word sadness.

Keith (16:27):
Yeah. Yeah.

Doug (16:28):
Yeah. That's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Sadness.
It's real.

Keith (16:32):
I lost a friend last month, and I think I'm still sad
about her passing.

Doug (16:37):
You bet.

Keith (16:38):
And she wasn't particularly like a family
member or something, but therewas just special tie there that
had sadness about it. And thenthe final thing that, and this
all, this isn't like, this isn'ta concrete, this is just how
people define grieving process.And then there's finally that
acceptance is like, you knowwhat? Everybody dies. It's time

(17:00):
for me to kind of pick up and tocelebrate who they are, but I
can't really keep grieving.
And that is not the same foreverybody. Some people may never
get to acceptance. You

Doug (17:15):
get to acceptance you're going to be sad sometimes.

Keith (17:20):
Yeah, yeah. And so in that class, that was the first
time that was ever introduced tome. And in that introduction to
me, I think the thing thatreally helped me the most is it
seems like in my memory, theperson teaching it was kind of
a, she's probably my age, but Iperceived her as a little old
lady. Seems to me that way. Shesaid that no one grieves the

(17:42):
same.

Doug (17:44):
Yeah. That's good.

Keith (17:46):
Yeah. And she said, you should not say to somebody, I
know what you're feeling. That'sgood. Because you don't, because
we don't grieve the same. And soI can say, I understand how you
might be feeling or I understandhow you're feeling, but I don't
know how you're feeling becauseI didn't have the relationship
you'd had.
I didn't have the bond that youhad. I didn't have the ups and
downs that you had, but I mayhave, you know, if you lose a

(18:08):
grandparent and I lose agrandparent, we're not gonna
agree with the same way.

Doug (18:12):
Yeah. Because your relationship was different.
You're uniquely you. They wereuniquely them.

Keith (18:17):
Yeah. My my dad died when Caleb was maybe a year. So he
didn't really grieve over that.Connie's dad, I don't remember.
Maybe Caleb was 15 or so when hedied, but that, that would have
been different than what hemight have experienced when my
dad died.

Doug (18:33):
Sure.

Keith (18:34):
But the experience has a lot to do with where you're at.
So just realizing that peoplegrieve differently. But I think
what I what I really wanted tojump into is what do you do with
that?

Doug (18:48):
Yeah.

Keith (18:49):
Yeah. What do you do? Because I think you can be a
warrior of grace, a warrior ofhope, a warrior of recovery to
people who have lost somebody.And what I learned in that class
is most people don't do that.

Doug (19:06):
Most people, yeah, they might do it within the first
week.

Keith (19:09):
Right. Right. And that first week, from what I
understand is a blur to theperson that lost that loved one.
I haven't really lost somebodylike I mean, I lost my parents,
but the grieving of that, Ithink even starts when you leave
home and you're not with them asmuch as you've got separation
already. But there's all thosepeople around that first week.

(19:33):
And then what happens when youget space and supposedly from,
again, from this training isprobably a month later, it gets
dead quiet in that person'sworld. And that quietness is a
little intimidating, I think.

Doug (19:49):
Yeah. One of the benefits of being in this business is
we've walked through this signof life with a lot of people.
And just by having our earsopen, I feel like we've been
able to learn a lot and we'vebeen able to see a lot. I
learned something new all thetime about this. And I'm just so
encouraged by the courage andthe strength that especially our

(20:12):
widows and widowers experiencewhen they lose their spouse, the
things I hear from you that thatyou've expressed to your spouse
during those times, and you'veshared with us just, it's been
amazing.
It's been so encouraging. Andone of them one of them lately,
you know, a good friend of oursjust watching her go through,

(20:35):
you know, her spouse's life anddeath. And she was so
encouraging. She even spoke tohim as his mother. And that that
really, that just really blew meaway, because it was exactly
what he needed as he was dying.
And that she took the courageand she wasn't offended. And she
just she said, I'm going to givemy husband what he needs. I

(20:58):
couldn't believe it. And so Ithink you get these great ideas
is what I'm trying to say, asyou're going through it. The
training is good.
But I think these great thoughtsof compassion and strength and
courage, I think they just comeat you and then to grip it and
run with it. That's where stuffstarts happening.

Keith (21:18):
That's part of where courage happens because you're
gonna have those contrarythoughts that say don't grab it
because it's too awkward.

Doug (21:25):
Yeah.

Keith (21:25):
Yeah. And so like what I'd like to do in the future up
your average is to, I'd love toget my mother-in-law here to
talk a little bit about itbecause she's one of the most
courageous people walkingthrough that that I've I think
there's a lot to learn from her,but we'll see if that happens.
But I asked her, how did you dothat when you lost a child? How

(21:50):
did you do that? And shebasically said, I didn't think I
could.
I didn't think I could do it.And what happened is that people
took the courage when they hadthat thought to go see her, to
go talk to her. And in thattraining process, learned is
that the majority of peoplewon't do that because most

(22:12):
people don't like to get out oftheir comfort zone. It's too
awkward to go see somebodythat's grieving hard. Well, I
mean, death you grieve, but liketo lose a child, I don't I don't
know.
But I I assume that that's sohard and people don't have the
words. And so more often thannot, they just don't show up.

Doug (22:31):
Yeah.

Keith (22:31):
And and then that quiet just echoes more and more. But
she said there were people thatshowed up and they really made a
difference in the world.

Doug (22:39):
Carnegie says the sound of someone's name to their ears is
the sweetest sound in the world.And I think his idea behind that
was your your mom called yourname young. And so that
affection, that tie stays withyou. And so the importance of
someone's name bringing upsomeone's name I found to be
very important. And I think oneof the challenges that I hear

(23:02):
today is there's everybody's gota video of somebody.
It was one thing to have apicture of your loved one, but
now you have a video. And yousee them living. And that that's
really hard. But just tocelebrate that person and bring
them up by name or bring them upby story or bring them up by
event, especially if it's afunny one. That that's just a

(23:25):
great way to break the ice.

Keith (23:28):
Yeah. And in that training as well, that what they
said is that if somebody willcome visit somebody, they feel
awkward more often than not tobring up the name.

Doug (23:40):
Right.

Keith (23:42):
And so it gets awkward in the conversation. What I've
found is because I know mostpeople don't do it, will bring
up the person because what theysay is the grieving person wants
to talk about their loved one.

Doug (23:54):
Yeah, absolutely.

Keith (23:55):
Yeah. And so I asked a lot of times, I'll ask somebody,
tell me a funny story about thembecause everybody's got like,
you're sad already. So why notfigure out something funny they
did to kind of laugh about themto really relive their life.

Doug (24:08):
I had a game changer event a few years ago, I was talking
with a friend of mine about herhusband. Said, Yeah, he was a
great man. And she said, Hestill is. And so just even that
perspective of present tense hasreally changed the way I look at
life and afterlife.

Keith (24:29):
And that's part of the concept of death that I think is
true. We all look at the worlddifferently. We all have
different opinions about this.But for me, I think you're
essentially body and soul,right? Like your inner person
drives this body.
And I think that energy of yourinner person goes on

(24:50):
indefinitely. And so justbecause it's operating your
body, do you speak of thatperson in the past tense or not?
And I think I've taken that onmyself. I think I talk more in
the present tense that thatinner person still exists. And
to recognize that really givesyou a longer term perspective on

(25:11):
life and what's really importantin life.
If you think it's just if it'sall just about this body, it's
100% probability this thing's,it's not around long, so you
better eat, drink, be merry. Butif there's something different,
then there's a longer termperspective on.

Doug (25:31):
Yeah. There are signs, aren't there?

Keith (25:33):
Yeah. Yeah, no. It's

Doug (25:38):
like losing this part of my hair back here or my back
pain. There's there's signs thatthis is not going well for this
body.

Keith (25:46):
I joked, I was invited to speak a few months ago and I
joked that gravity is pullingyou to the grave. It's the same
word, right? Gravity And it iscalling your name, whether you
want to believe it or not, likegetting up and moving is a lot
slower than it was say twentyyears ago. And to live in denial

(26:10):
of that can maybe make you maybeanxious about something you
don't really need to be anxious.

Doug (26:15):
Hey, stop doing stuff.

Keith (26:16):
Yeah. Start living today is the day. And so when I, when
I think of all this stuff, Idon't hear a lot of people
talking about this topic. Andthat's why I wouldn't bring it
up today. Cause I think myfriend Elizabeth, she lived
fully all of her days.
She, I meant to get it before wegot on here. She listened to,

(26:40):
like when she got married at herwedding, just a few, it wasn't
very many years before shepassed. She had a John Prine
song played at her wedding. AndI'm just gonna throw out the
name of it because we can't playthings on here because they'll
vaporize us off the internet.

Doug (27:00):
Copyright stuff.

Keith (27:01):
Yeah. Yeah, it's called In Spite of Ourselves.

Doug (27:06):
I like that John Prime.

Keith (27:08):
Yeah. And so Elizabeth, she lived, man. She lived, she
lived her life the way that it'ssupposed to be lived. That John
prime in spite of ourselves, ifyou want to know my friend,
Elizabeth, just sit back andplay that song. And imagine she
played that at her wedding.
And that'll tell you a littlebit about my friend who lived.

(27:31):
And I just wanted to hang outwith you guys today and just
talk about the importance ofliving because not only in the
importance of living, there'sthe importance that we all are
going to die and to not beafraid of it, but to live today
to the max and to not be afraidto go hang out with somebody who
lost somebody because that maymake their day. And that's part
of your living. Cool. Anythingelse we need to talk about that,

(27:55):
Doug?

Doug (27:55):
I think we got it.

Keith (27:57):
All right. Well, you guys, it was very thank trying
to be to hang out with us.Hopefully hopefully it upped
your thoughts a little bit aboutdeath and dying and maybe give
you something to do to encouragesomebody today. See you.