The Conversation with Parents You Keep Putting Off | Oliver Christen
Oliver spent years solving problems on other continents, until his mother asked him to sit beside her for twenty-four days and solve nothing at all.
If you have ever dreaded the call that says a parent's time is running out, and dreaded not knowing what you would do, this one is about you.
Oliver's mother chose a death fast, a conscious stop to eating and drinking, over the assisted dying she'd considered for fifteen years, and asked her son to walk it with her. He wrote the account afterwards, As She Chose, with no training for it, just a lifetime of being useful to her.
He is honest there were days he felt entirely helpless. What he learned instead was how to be present without an agenda. That doesn't make it easier. It might be the closest thing to strength this show has covered.
If you have never had the conversation with your own parents about how they want to go, this is where to start.
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Meet the Guests
Oliver Christen
Oliver Christen is a Swiss-Australian business consultant and founder of PEAQ Partners, based near Zurich. He spent twenty-four days beside his mother as she chose a death fast, a conscious and unassisted end to her life, and has written about the experience in his memoir As She Chose, published by UNSW Press. He is known to Pod personally, and returned to Sydney for the book's launch.
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someone says, I have decided that I want to die my way,
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and it's legally possible here,
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therefore I got choices to make.
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Yes.
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Why did your mom make that choice?
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I could help her come to a place of acceptance
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or gratitude or find the love or the joy
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or the laughter in it,
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or come to a place of completion and of peace
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in regard to an issue or a relationship
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or whatever that was.
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Me sharing this story is creating something
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I didn't know, I didn't expect,
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but it's just, it's come and I've now realized
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that there's a huge percentage of people
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that would love to die at home.
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They would love to have an end of life
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in the comfort of their own home,
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surrounded by family,
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where they can die in dignity.
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Oliver, welcome to Don't Let the Old Man In.
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Great to see you.
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Great to see you.
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It's been a while.
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It has been a while.
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I had the privilege of going
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to your amazing book launch last night in Sydney
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for this lovely book called As She Chose,
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and you've written a book,
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an extraordinary account of your mother
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choosing how she wanted to die
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and you being involved in that whole experience.
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That's both a beautiful topic
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and in some cases a controversial topic,
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which I'm sure we'll do both.
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But for folks listening to us today,
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why should they continue listening to this conversation?
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What are they gonna get from us?
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Well, my hope is that people that are scared
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of the whole conversation of the end of life, of death,
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that listening to this conversation
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will remove some of that fear
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and give them a picture of a possibility,
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what an option is and what an alternative is
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and how that was, which will open conversations.
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Brilliant.
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We have a lot to talk about today.
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We're gonna talk about exit, Switzerland,
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the notion of how you can choose,
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the options that are open to you,
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what the options that your mom chose,
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the way you supported her, that whole experience,
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the book, who you are after the book,
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there's a whole story there.
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But before I go into all that,
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it feels to me that there's someone missing
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in this room and that's your mother.
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And I'd love to know,
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what are your early memories of her?
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Who was she as a person?
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Who was she as an adult?
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And then we'll come into this conversation.
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Well, she was shaped by her childhood
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that was in Eastern Germany, close to the Czech border
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during the Second World War,
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where she heard the war from a distance,
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but then they had to flee from the Russians
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at the end of the war.
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They escaped from Eastern Germany to the West.
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She became a doctor.
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That's how she met my dad in Switzerland.
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And my earliest memories are always like going outside.
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She was quite protective.
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She was always supportive of anything we were doing.
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She believed in us.
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She supported us.
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She bought us good food.
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She tried to grow a lot of food in the garden
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so we could eat really healthy stuff.
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She wanted that we were active.
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We explored so many different kinds of sports
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when swimming, played table tennis,
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or badminton in the garden,
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had a little, some other things in the garden
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to work out.
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So yeah, she was always active, always in nature.
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And you know, the main thing for her
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was she wanted us to be happy.
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So whatever we do was that we were happy.
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And he said she was a doctor?
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And her parents were doctors too?
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Her parents were both doctors
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and she wanted to be a teacher.
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But her parents said, no, that's not an option
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because that's not a real profession.
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So your choice is...
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Who said the snobbery in medicine?
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Your choice is to become a doctor or get married.
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What do you choose?
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Big choice.
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And so she chose to be a doctor.
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But she didn't...
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She was really good at it because she had to continue
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and finish her studies just after they had escaped
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from Eastern Germany.
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So she had to support herself.
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She worked nights and worked hard during the day
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to finish that study as quickly as she possibly could.
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Had top marks and everything.
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Got offered gigs in different places.
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But she realized soon that she wasn't made
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for the operating room
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because she fainted at the site of blood.
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And she also realized when she was working
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in Switzerland that she took the issues
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of the patients too much.
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She internalized them too much
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and then she couldn't sleep
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because she was taking their issues on home
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and trying to process them
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and going, I can't do this.
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She's too empathetic.
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I can't do this job.
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I'm too empathetic, exactly.
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And so she ended up going into medical research
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and she was the first woman in a team
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of 40 men in Switzerland.
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But she had a lot of trouble having kids.
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So she lost a number of pregnancies before I came.
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And so when she was pregnant with me,
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she gave up her career
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because she really wanted to have a big family
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and that was an important priority.
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But she also had a husband who said,
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I don't need a woman that is gonna make
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or have her own career.
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I want somebody that is going to support me
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in my business.
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So it was a mix of those kind of things
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where she then gave up her career
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and focused on family and supporting him
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in any way she could.
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Okay.
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That's a lovely picture of her.
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And I know we will come back to her time and time again.
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I know she was a cross-country skier
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and a whole lot of other stuff about her
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that will emerge.
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Very active until the end.
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So that's context with conversation.
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I did some research this morning.
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Voluntary assisted dying or voluntary euthanasia
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or medically assisted dying is all these phrases.
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Switzerland was the first country in the world
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to legalize that in 1946.
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And nothing happened anywhere else up until 2006.
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And since 2006, there's been 10 other countries
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who have legalized,
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mostly around Europe, also South America.
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And Australia and America have legalized
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in some states, so not the whole country.
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So Australia, I think it's five states.
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The U.S. I think it's 10 states.
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So it's like 13 countries in total.
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So for folks who are not aware of this whole process,
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what's the proposal or what's the offering
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or what's the reason for this to exist?
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The reason for that to exist
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is that to give people a choice
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to have a self-determined end of life,
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especially when they have a terminal illness
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or are too much in pain or something like that,
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that they can have an assisted way out.
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So that's, I guess, my understanding of why it exists.
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And I understand it works slightly differently
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in Australia than it did in Switzerland.
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And I'm just in conversation with somebody in Canada
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and I'm learning about how that works in Canada.
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I know in the U.K. it's not legal.
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That's right.
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And it seems to be nuances in each country.
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I was involved just in the peripheries.
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A good friend of the show, Dan Fleming,
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was part of a major hospital group in Australia.
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He was part of the conversations
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around how do hospitals adapt
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to the state government's legal changes.
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They were basically legalizing Fondue assisted dying
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and the Catholic hospitals had to figure out
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how do we work with this.
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And Dan was very involved in leading that process.
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I'm a little bit aware of the peripheries.
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As I understand it, each country's got nuances
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that are distinct, but the ultimate boils down to
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someone says I have decided that I want to die my way
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and it's legally possible here,
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therefore I got choices to make.
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Why did your mom make that choice?
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Because she was part of EXIT for 15 years.
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And that's something I learned last night.
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I didn't realize there was an organization
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you could be a member of.
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Yes, you pay a contribution to that organization,
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I guess to pay for the time when you actually need them.
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And she joined that very early on
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and it was always clear.
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She lost her twin brother when she was
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just before her 50th birthday
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because he had cancer
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and he didn't want to have any more treatments.
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It was refusal of treatment,
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whether he had some assistance,
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nobody, I actually don't know.
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But he did pass before he was 50.
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And so, and again, for him it was
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I don't want to be part of any experiments
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that give me maybe one or two years
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with a questionable quality of life.
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I don't want that.
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He had a lot of vitality in his life
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and he didn't care for
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quality of life that was substandard
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in regards to that.
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So my mom was always clear that at some point
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when she felt like the quality of life
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was no longer one that she wished for
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or when she felt she couldn't live independently anymore,
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that she didn't want to continue being.
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So we knew that for a long time.
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And then there are interviews
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where they interview you in regards to your motivation
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and make an assessment whether you are ready.
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You also have to be of sound mind.
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So there are doctors that need to attest to that,
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that you're of sound mind,
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that you can make that choice.
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You said last night, which I thought was beautiful,
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is one of the criteria in Switzerland.
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I don't know if that's the case elsewhere.
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And I think it might be the fifth criteria
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you gave five last night,
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is have you lived full life?
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All right, well that's actually quite a different story.
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Because what we're talking,
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because your question so far was about the assisted dying.
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That's how mom approached me initially.
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I think I'm ready to call exit.
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Would you support me?
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And I said, I'll support whatever your choice is
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and I would never make that choice.
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And so she ended up not choosing that.
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She chose the voluntary stop eating and drinking,
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which is a death fast.
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And the five criteria I mentioned yesterday,
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they were in relation to a death fast.
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And when from a Hindu perspective,
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people are permitted to go and do a death fast.
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So before we jump into that,
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can I ask you, I think your response to her
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is fantastic because there'll be a lot of folks
261
00:11:33.970 --> 00:11:36.050
listening here going, I don't know what I would say
262
00:11:36.050 --> 00:11:38.310
to my loved one if they said I'm gonna do this.
263
00:11:38.690 --> 00:11:40.950
So you said, I'll support whatever you want,
264
00:11:41.210 --> 00:11:42.150
I wouldn't do it.
265
00:11:42.690 --> 00:11:44.410
Is I wouldn't do it for yourself
266
00:11:44.410 --> 00:11:47.030
or you wouldn't do it for her if you had full choice?
267
00:11:47.050 --> 00:11:47.650
For myself.
268
00:11:48.230 --> 00:11:50.470
I also have to be honest with you
269
00:11:50.470 --> 00:11:54.490
that my truth for me is that I would not do that
270
00:11:54.490 --> 00:11:57.410
because I'm not comfortable with a couple of aspects
271
00:11:57.410 --> 00:11:57.990
of it.
272
00:11:58.290 --> 00:11:59.350
Of the voluntary system.
273
00:11:59.370 --> 00:12:00.030
For me.
274
00:12:00.650 --> 00:12:03.730
So firstly, I don't believe from a spiritual perspective
275
00:12:03.730 --> 00:12:07.950
that I would wanna leave this world with assistance.
276
00:12:08.910 --> 00:12:10.610
And the second thing is in Switzerland,
277
00:12:10.770 --> 00:12:15.310
we have to have police present at the event.
278
00:12:16.310 --> 00:12:18.570
And they are trained and they are super respectful
279
00:12:18.570 --> 00:12:22.230
and I've had friends whose parents went that way
280
00:12:22.230 --> 00:12:24.870
and they said they're very kind and respectful
281
00:12:24.870 --> 00:12:27.790
and I get all that.
282
00:12:28.150 --> 00:12:31.250
And still, for me, it's not somebody
283
00:12:31.250 --> 00:12:34.270
that is close to me or to my family.
284
00:12:34.630 --> 00:12:39.550
Like I think dying would be a very private moment for me.
285
00:12:39.790 --> 00:12:42.690
And so I didn't, just the imagination
286
00:12:42.690 --> 00:12:45.350
of having a stranger there that is just there
287
00:12:45.350 --> 00:12:47.590
for that moment to make sure that I'm the one
288
00:12:47.590 --> 00:12:48.450
that takes the tablet.
289
00:12:49.550 --> 00:12:51.310
Those two things didn't gel with me.
290
00:12:51.590 --> 00:12:53.470
And I've watched a documentary about the Swiss police
291
00:12:53.470 --> 00:12:56.290
and they are very informal and they're very respectful
292
00:12:56.290 --> 00:12:57.630
but your point is still the same.
293
00:12:57.850 --> 00:12:58.570
They're not family.
294
00:12:58.750 --> 00:12:59.870
They're not family, exactly.
295
00:12:59.870 --> 00:13:01.630
And so for me, that was something
296
00:13:01.630 --> 00:13:03.770
that I didn't feel good about.
297
00:13:04.710 --> 00:13:07.150
And it's like, well, but if that works for you,
298
00:13:07.190 --> 00:13:09.630
I'm happy to work with whatever you want to choose.
299
00:13:09.810 --> 00:13:11.710
It's your choice, it's your journey.
300
00:13:13.290 --> 00:13:15.130
It's none of my business what you choose.
301
00:13:15.350 --> 00:13:17.590
I'm just, I'm here to support you.
302
00:13:17.690 --> 00:13:19.350
Is that a philosophy you've always held
303
00:13:19.350 --> 00:13:22.530
in terms of, and the reason why I ask this question,
304
00:13:22.910 --> 00:13:23.690
I, you may not know this,
305
00:13:23.690 --> 00:13:25.170
I used to work in intensive care
306
00:13:25.170 --> 00:13:26.970
and I've seen a lot of people die.
307
00:13:26.970 --> 00:13:29.750
And I've seen a lot of people where the family
308
00:13:30.370 --> 00:13:32.950
are sitting in that family room outside of intensive care
309
00:13:32.950 --> 00:13:36.390
and they're debating, oh, I want to keep dad alive.
310
00:13:36.630 --> 00:13:37.870
No, dad's really, really ill
311
00:13:37.870 --> 00:13:39.610
and you talked about this last night.
312
00:13:40.650 --> 00:13:41.770
And a couple of months ago,
313
00:13:41.770 --> 00:13:43.490
we had Dr. Maren Cooper on the show
314
00:13:43.490 --> 00:13:44.770
and she's a palliative care.
315
00:13:45.070 --> 00:13:46.190
She works in palliative care
316
00:13:46.190 --> 00:13:48.350
and she's a big believer in people
317
00:13:48.350 --> 00:13:50.370
writing their living will a long time
318
00:13:50.370 --> 00:13:54.310
before they ever need it to minimize family anxiety
319
00:13:54.310 --> 00:13:57.170
and need arguments in a lot of cases
320
00:13:57.710 --> 00:14:00.910
and to minimize protracted artificial ways
321
00:14:00.910 --> 00:14:01.770
of keeping people alive
322
00:14:01.770 --> 00:14:03.450
purely because no one knows what they want.
323
00:14:03.770 --> 00:14:07.230
Having the living will documented way before
324
00:14:07.230 --> 00:14:09.970
you actually are getting to that point,
325
00:14:09.990 --> 00:14:12.710
I think is a fantastic thing to do
326
00:14:12.710 --> 00:14:15.650
because once you have had the conversation,
327
00:14:16.390 --> 00:14:19.490
everyone around you knows what your will would be
328
00:14:19.490 --> 00:14:20.510
in any case.
329
00:14:20.510 --> 00:14:24.310
And it allows me,
330
00:14:24.330 --> 00:14:26.110
because I've done all of that already
331
00:14:26.110 --> 00:14:27.950
and every time I go on a plane ride,
332
00:14:28.290 --> 00:14:31.390
I remind the kids where all the folders are,
333
00:14:31.450 --> 00:14:32.690
where all the documents are.
334
00:14:32.850 --> 00:14:36.710
I have an updated list of all the decisions
335
00:14:36.710 --> 00:14:39.250
that I need to make in the next three to six months
336
00:14:39.250 --> 00:14:42.790
so that if I get hit by a bus
337
00:14:42.790 --> 00:14:46.270
or if the plane crashes or whatever happens,
338
00:14:46.810 --> 00:14:47.490
it's all there.
339
00:14:47.510 --> 00:14:48.950
There's no chaos left behind.
340
00:14:49.030 --> 00:14:50.330
They know exactly where it is.
341
00:14:50.330 --> 00:14:51.650
They know who to speak to.
342
00:14:51.670 --> 00:14:54.150
There's a list of all the people with all the numbers,
343
00:14:54.530 --> 00:14:55.890
who they need to call for what.
344
00:14:56.250 --> 00:14:57.230
It's all documented.
345
00:14:57.930 --> 00:14:59.970
And they all go, oh, dad, stop.
346
00:15:03.170 --> 00:15:06.590
But it's like, you're not planning to go.
347
00:15:06.770 --> 00:15:08.170
No, I'm not planning to go.
348
00:15:08.570 --> 00:15:14.090
And I think it gives everyone more peace of mind
349
00:15:14.090 --> 00:15:18.290
that they won't have to figure out how things are.
350
00:15:18.290 --> 00:15:19.230
They won't be frantic.
351
00:15:20.630 --> 00:15:23.510
It'll be a clear document where everything's there
352
00:15:23.510 --> 00:15:26.230
with passwords and whatever you need.
353
00:15:27.410 --> 00:15:29.150
And I think that's such a relief.
354
00:15:29.470 --> 00:15:33.690
And it allows me also to live much more freely
355
00:15:33.690 --> 00:15:35.410
in the present moment.
356
00:15:35.430 --> 00:15:36.910
Because you're not worried about what's going to happen.
357
00:15:37.050 --> 00:15:37.630
Because I'm not worried about that.
358
00:15:38.090 --> 00:15:40.570
I can just really, I can be here
359
00:15:40.570 --> 00:15:42.410
and I can live much more fully now,
360
00:15:42.410 --> 00:15:44.410
which I think is just a beautiful thing.
361
00:15:44.730 --> 00:15:47.090
It's a huge liberty for anyone
362
00:15:47.090 --> 00:15:48.590
who's concerned about that.
363
00:15:49.730 --> 00:15:52.110
I want to jump to where the choice you made.
364
00:15:52.530 --> 00:15:56.810
Now, when I grew up in Ireland in the 1970s, 1980s,
365
00:15:58.050 --> 00:16:01.230
the phrase death fast had a very, very different meaning
366
00:16:01.230 --> 00:16:03.130
to the phrase that you talked about last night.
367
00:16:03.590 --> 00:16:04.630
And it had nothing to do with spirituality.
368
00:16:05.370 --> 00:16:09.070
It had completely to do with IRA prisoners
369
00:16:09.070 --> 00:16:10.610
in prison in Northern Ireland,
370
00:16:10.790 --> 00:16:12.570
protesting against the British government.
371
00:16:12.910 --> 00:16:14.630
And so they would starve themselves to death
372
00:16:14.630 --> 00:16:15.370
in protest.
373
00:16:15.370 --> 00:16:17.790
And it became known as the H block protest.
374
00:16:19.150 --> 00:16:20.730
And in fact, one of those prisoners
375
00:16:20.730 --> 00:16:22.190
became a member of English parliament
376
00:16:22.190 --> 00:16:24.350
while they were in that fasting process.
377
00:16:24.690 --> 00:16:26.830
So when I heard you talking about death fast last night,
378
00:16:26.890 --> 00:16:28.910
I had to go, I know what he's talking about.
379
00:16:28.930 --> 00:16:30.430
Because from my medical experience,
380
00:16:30.490 --> 00:16:33.190
I've seen a lot of people quietly do that
381
00:16:33.190 --> 00:16:35.010
without ever voicing that's what they were doing.
382
00:16:35.870 --> 00:16:37.930
You mom chose very overtly,
383
00:16:37.930 --> 00:16:39.150
this is what she wanted to do.
384
00:16:39.530 --> 00:16:40.450
Can you tell us about that?
385
00:16:41.370 --> 00:16:45.430
Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that
386
00:16:45.430 --> 00:16:48.430
and what straight away pops up is those five criteria
387
00:16:48.430 --> 00:16:53.950
that I really liked from the Hindu perspective,
388
00:16:53.990 --> 00:16:55.330
I really connected with them.
389
00:16:55.870 --> 00:16:59.610
And if somebody is protesting against something,
390
00:17:00.050 --> 00:17:02.510
they still have a purpose.
391
00:17:03.930 --> 00:17:04.329
For a strong purpose.
392
00:17:04.470 --> 00:17:06.750
They have a strong purpose and they have a strong desire.
393
00:17:06.829 --> 00:17:09.690
And one of the criteria that they mentioned is,
394
00:17:09.690 --> 00:17:12.490
do you have no desire and no purpose left?
395
00:17:13.050 --> 00:17:16.650
Like a death fast from the Hindu perspective is permitted
396
00:17:17.310 --> 00:17:20.230
when you have no more desire and purpose left.
397
00:17:21.050 --> 00:17:23.430
When you've lived a full life, that's the first one,
398
00:17:23.470 --> 00:17:26.450
you've lived a full life, you've been all out
399
00:17:26.450 --> 00:17:28.130
and you feel like you're done.
400
00:17:28.490 --> 00:17:31.830
You've got a full, your heart is full of the life
401
00:17:31.830 --> 00:17:35.490
and you can go, if I would go tomorrow,
402
00:17:35.510 --> 00:17:36.570
I'd be totally fine.
403
00:17:37.130 --> 00:17:39.870
The second thing is the purpose.
404
00:17:40.790 --> 00:17:43.730
The third one is, are all my affairs in order
405
00:17:43.730 --> 00:17:46.730
and have I got no more responsibilities left
406
00:17:46.730 --> 00:17:47.430
in this world?
407
00:17:49.130 --> 00:17:50.910
And so again, I don't know if somebody
408
00:17:50.910 --> 00:17:53.830
that is protesting, whether they have previously
409
00:17:53.830 --> 00:17:56.090
before they've done that, put all their affairs
410
00:17:56.090 --> 00:17:56.970
in order and.
411
00:17:57.050 --> 00:17:57.970
I doubted they were present.
412
00:17:59.250 --> 00:18:03.130
Exactly, so instantly when I hear that,
413
00:18:03.130 --> 00:18:09.130
I go, yeah, so they were fasting themselves to death.
414
00:18:10.010 --> 00:18:14.790
And for me, the death fast, I really like the connotation
415
00:18:14.790 --> 00:18:16.610
with the spiritual aspect.
416
00:18:17.310 --> 00:18:20.070
And also to say, is the body,
417
00:18:20.810 --> 00:18:24.430
does the body still allow you to experience
418
00:18:24.430 --> 00:18:27.010
the joys of life or not?
419
00:18:27.670 --> 00:18:31.410
And when the body is old or has an illness
420
00:18:31.410 --> 00:18:38.970
or is just in a state where you cannot experience
421
00:18:38.970 --> 00:18:41.550
whatever the joy of life is for you,
422
00:18:42.630 --> 00:18:44.610
then that was one of the criteria that goes,
423
00:18:45.110 --> 00:18:48.090
okay, you're allowed to do well in a death fast.
424
00:18:48.590 --> 00:18:50.990
And I think the last one is also very important.
425
00:18:51.270 --> 00:18:54.170
That is, have you communicated that intention
426
00:18:54.170 --> 00:18:57.910
to your next of kin and have you got their blessing?
427
00:18:58.210 --> 00:18:59.410
Because as you said before,
428
00:18:59.410 --> 00:19:02.210
if somebody's in intensive care
429
00:19:03.230 --> 00:19:06.790
and the family is outside discussing this or that,
430
00:19:06.910 --> 00:19:08.990
and then we have half of the siblings that go,
431
00:19:09.630 --> 00:19:12.030
well, if he wants to go or she wants to go,
432
00:19:12.830 --> 00:19:14.370
then they absolutely have our blessing.
433
00:19:14.410 --> 00:19:15.810
The other one going like, no, no, no, no,
434
00:19:15.810 --> 00:19:17.570
we still need them or we still want them.
435
00:19:18.310 --> 00:19:21.850
And they would fight tooth and nail to keep them alive.
436
00:19:22.150 --> 00:19:27.630
And it creates the conflict inside the family
437
00:19:27.630 --> 00:19:29.650
that lack of clarity.
438
00:19:30.010 --> 00:19:30.730
And not just the family,
439
00:19:30.910 --> 00:19:34.050
it creates conflict inside the medical and nursing group
440
00:19:34.050 --> 00:19:36.850
who are trying to maintain order,
441
00:19:36.990 --> 00:19:39.810
they're trying to adhere to medical standards
442
00:19:39.810 --> 00:19:42.130
and do no harm, all that kind of stuff.
443
00:19:43.450 --> 00:19:45.490
And the more experienced medical practitioners going,
444
00:19:46.430 --> 00:19:49.770
it's clear this person, if they stay alive,
445
00:19:49.850 --> 00:19:51.310
they're gonna have a very tough life.
446
00:19:52.150 --> 00:19:53.850
And we think they want to die anyway
447
00:19:53.850 --> 00:19:55.670
because they've signaled this one way or another.
448
00:19:56.050 --> 00:19:57.210
But over here outside the door,
449
00:19:57.210 --> 00:19:58.370
the family are arguing about it
450
00:19:58.370 --> 00:19:59.450
for all the reasons we understand.
451
00:19:59.530 --> 00:20:00.510
Like it's an emotional time,
452
00:20:00.590 --> 00:20:02.010
I'm not suggesting it shouldn't happen.
453
00:20:03.290 --> 00:20:05.610
But those five criteria I think are really beautiful.
454
00:20:06.030 --> 00:20:09.010
It allows the notion of how do I choose
455
00:20:09.010 --> 00:20:11.610
to stop nourishing my body
456
00:20:11.610 --> 00:20:15.210
in order for intentionally to complete.
457
00:20:15.550 --> 00:20:17.930
And what I like about them on the flip side
458
00:20:18.490 --> 00:20:23.450
is they're great things to think about in terms of life.
459
00:20:24.090 --> 00:20:27.810
So what does living fully actually mean to me?
460
00:20:29.770 --> 00:20:32.110
So I do an exercise every year where I go,
461
00:20:32.270 --> 00:20:33.810
what are the key values in my life
462
00:20:33.810 --> 00:20:36.450
and what do they mean in terms of all aspects of my life?
463
00:20:36.850 --> 00:20:38.990
And to live fully, what would that mean
464
00:20:38.990 --> 00:20:40.510
in terms of every aspect of my life
465
00:20:40.510 --> 00:20:42.870
and what can I do this year that it didn't do?
466
00:20:43.070 --> 00:20:45.810
Like where do I need to improve so I can do that?
467
00:20:46.390 --> 00:20:50.310
But I think that context of have I lived fully
468
00:20:50.310 --> 00:20:51.350
is an important one.
469
00:20:51.350 --> 00:20:53.450
Also it has a conversation about purpose.
470
00:20:54.050 --> 00:20:55.830
So where do I have meaning in my life?
471
00:20:55.870 --> 00:20:57.410
Where can I add value?
472
00:20:58.370 --> 00:21:01.270
So for me sharing this story is creating something
473
00:21:01.270 --> 00:21:03.390
I didn't know, I didn't expect,
474
00:21:03.530 --> 00:21:06.550
but it's come and I've now realized
475
00:21:06.550 --> 00:21:10.310
that there's a huge percentage of people
476
00:21:10.310 --> 00:21:12.210
that would love to die at home.
477
00:21:12.370 --> 00:21:14.190
They would love to have an end of life
478
00:21:14.190 --> 00:21:16.070
in the comfort of their own home,
479
00:21:16.670 --> 00:21:20.030
surrounded by family, where they can die in dignity.
480
00:21:20.890 --> 00:21:22.530
But the reality is different.
481
00:21:22.910 --> 00:21:26.350
Reality in Australia is 14% of people die at home.
482
00:21:26.870 --> 00:21:27.990
In the rest of the world,
483
00:21:28.050 --> 00:21:31.250
it's somewhere between 20 to 25% or something like that,
484
00:21:31.470 --> 00:21:33.470
which still means there's a huge gap
485
00:21:33.470 --> 00:21:36.310
between the wish and what the reality is.
486
00:21:36.830 --> 00:21:41.450
And if through these conversations,
487
00:21:42.110 --> 00:21:44.950
people can lose the fear of it
488
00:21:44.950 --> 00:21:46.830
and be more open to the conversation
489
00:21:46.830 --> 00:21:50.110
by initially having the conversation
490
00:21:50.110 --> 00:21:52.090
about the end of life in the third person,
491
00:21:52.750 --> 00:21:56.030
through the book, not in their own story,
492
00:21:56.090 --> 00:21:57.310
but through the book.
493
00:21:57.830 --> 00:22:00.870
And if that helps them have another perspective,
494
00:22:01.110 --> 00:22:02.530
have the conversation sooner,
495
00:22:03.050 --> 00:22:05.150
it will allow them to live life more fully
496
00:22:05.150 --> 00:22:07.230
and to have an end of life that they choose.
497
00:22:08.110 --> 00:22:09.710
One thing that strikes me about the book,
498
00:22:10.190 --> 00:22:12.810
I mean it's a memoir to your mother
499
00:22:12.810 --> 00:22:15.950
and our choice and experience you all went through,
500
00:22:16.590 --> 00:22:17.930
but you also talked about,
501
00:22:18.350 --> 00:22:20.130
there's a nurse who helped you towards the end
502
00:22:20.130 --> 00:22:22.010
and she cried at the very, very end
503
00:22:22.010 --> 00:22:25.050
and she talked about what a lovely way your mother died
504
00:22:25.050 --> 00:22:27.330
and she wished more people would die like that
505
00:22:27.330 --> 00:22:28.010
to your point.
506
00:22:29.830 --> 00:22:31.530
And I don't know whether she said it
507
00:22:31.530 --> 00:22:32.430
or whether it was inferred,
508
00:22:32.810 --> 00:22:34.090
but certainly my own experience
509
00:22:34.090 --> 00:22:35.830
having worked in hospitals is
510
00:22:35.830 --> 00:22:38.310
people can die very
511
00:22:39.830 --> 00:22:43.030
attached to machinery and monitors
512
00:22:43.030 --> 00:22:45.410
and 25 different types of medications
513
00:22:45.410 --> 00:22:47.270
because that's the medical system
514
00:22:47.270 --> 00:22:48.830
and the system is the system.
515
00:22:49.530 --> 00:22:52.570
And that's one way and you mother
516
00:22:52.570 --> 00:22:54.270
and then supported by you and others
517
00:22:54.270 --> 00:22:55.530
chose a very, very different way
518
00:22:55.530 --> 00:22:57.730
which she seemed very happy with
519
00:22:57.730 --> 00:22:59.870
and other people around her seemed very happy with.
520
00:23:01.490 --> 00:23:02.510
What's the difference,
521
00:23:02.690 --> 00:23:04.230
what's the experience difference
522
00:23:04.230 --> 00:23:07.350
as her supporter in that process?
523
00:23:09.710 --> 00:23:11.810
Well, I don't have the comparison.
524
00:23:12.070 --> 00:23:13.830
I only have my experience.
525
00:23:14.270 --> 00:23:15.650
Did your dad die in hospital?
526
00:23:15.930 --> 00:23:18.230
He died in hospital, but he also,
527
00:23:18.790 --> 00:23:22.710
he only went to hospital three days before he passed.
528
00:23:23.350 --> 00:23:27.110
And he went to hospital under the condition
529
00:23:27.110 --> 00:23:29.210
so my mom had to promise him
530
00:23:29.970 --> 00:23:33.250
that she would convince everyone in hospital
531
00:23:33.250 --> 00:23:34.870
that they wouldn't do anything anymore.
532
00:23:35.390 --> 00:23:38.270
So he didn't have any,
533
00:23:39.370 --> 00:23:40.970
and he had morphine.
534
00:23:41.930 --> 00:23:44.470
That's all he's had at the end.
535
00:23:45.050 --> 00:23:46.130
But there was no machinery.
536
00:23:46.250 --> 00:23:47.010
There was no nothing.
537
00:23:48.270 --> 00:23:50.310
And for him it was not that,
538
00:23:50.690 --> 00:23:55.010
like he had a whole sequence of things
539
00:23:55.930 --> 00:24:00.370
that compiled and got to a point
540
00:24:00.370 --> 00:24:03.090
where the doctor said we can't actually
541
00:24:03.090 --> 00:24:07.050
have an intervention that has any promise of success.
542
00:24:07.090 --> 00:24:08.230
Because of all these other things.
543
00:24:08.270 --> 00:24:10.230
Because of all these other factors, right?
544
00:24:10.230 --> 00:24:13.710
So he couldn't have blood thinners
545
00:24:13.710 --> 00:24:15.730
and he would have needed blood thinners
546
00:24:15.730 --> 00:24:16.990
to have the operation.
547
00:24:18.590 --> 00:24:19.850
And so it was all,
548
00:24:20.370 --> 00:24:22.470
and from that moment where he got that diagnosis
549
00:24:22.470 --> 00:24:24.730
I was pretty clear that it wasn't gonna be long
550
00:24:24.730 --> 00:24:26.570
before he would go.
551
00:24:26.590 --> 00:24:27.210
Just a matter of how long.
552
00:24:27.570 --> 00:24:31.770
And then there was just a moment
553
00:24:31.770 --> 00:24:33.270
where he fell off his chair
554
00:24:33.270 --> 00:24:35.030
and couldn't get up anymore.
555
00:24:35.270 --> 00:24:36.890
Because his legs were so full of water
556
00:24:36.890 --> 00:24:39.550
that they were so heavy he couldn't get up.
557
00:24:39.550 --> 00:24:40.570
He wasn't strong enough.
558
00:24:40.970 --> 00:24:43.530
And my mom wasn't strong enough to help him.
559
00:24:43.610 --> 00:24:46.710
And she said, I can't help you anymore.
560
00:24:47.310 --> 00:24:51.910
Like we have to get you to a hospital.
561
00:24:52.670 --> 00:24:56.430
But he was in a anthroposophical hospital as well
562
00:24:56.430 --> 00:24:59.490
where they did music therapy and things like that
563
00:24:59.490 --> 00:25:02.790
that he, I don't know how well prepared
564
00:25:02.790 --> 00:25:03.870
he would have been for that.
565
00:25:04.970 --> 00:25:09.530
But that didn't do anything medical in that sense.
566
00:25:10.270 --> 00:25:10.750
Okay.
567
00:25:11.850 --> 00:25:13.890
Can I go back to fasting?
568
00:25:16.130 --> 00:25:18.070
You said last night at the book launch,
569
00:25:18.570 --> 00:25:19.810
and again my own experience
570
00:25:19.810 --> 00:25:21.670
when I used to work in the medical system
571
00:25:21.670 --> 00:25:23.430
is if you start fasting,
572
00:25:23.750 --> 00:25:26.590
particularly if you draw both food and all liquids,
573
00:25:26.770 --> 00:25:27.450
including water,
574
00:25:28.330 --> 00:25:30.990
seven to 21 days seems to be a relatively normal.
575
00:25:31.750 --> 00:25:33.390
And the faster you would draw water
576
00:25:33.390 --> 00:25:35.970
there tends to be less than 21 more towards the seven.
577
00:25:36.570 --> 00:25:38.610
Is that the understanding your mom had
578
00:25:38.610 --> 00:25:39.850
when she started this process?
579
00:25:40.010 --> 00:25:41.450
Absolutely, yeah.
580
00:25:42.030 --> 00:25:44.930
She expected it to be seven to 21 days
581
00:25:44.930 --> 00:25:49.590
and because she was always a very ambitious person,
582
00:25:49.930 --> 00:25:51.430
she thought for her it surely
583
00:25:51.430 --> 00:25:53.090
was going to take only seven days.
584
00:25:53.590 --> 00:25:57.230
So pretty much every other day,
585
00:25:57.350 --> 00:25:59.390
every other day after the seventh day,
586
00:25:59.390 --> 00:26:01.510
she was like, God, I'm still here.
587
00:26:02.590 --> 00:26:05.010
You know, so that was kind of funny.
588
00:26:05.010 --> 00:26:09.810
And you know, just it's a sign,
589
00:26:09.890 --> 00:26:13.870
you're not in control of the actual date of it,
590
00:26:13.870 --> 00:26:15.670
which is the difference to VAD
591
00:26:15.670 --> 00:26:19.510
where you have a certain date that you can choose.
592
00:26:19.710 --> 00:26:21.410
At least in Switzerland there is a date
593
00:26:21.410 --> 00:26:24.350
and then at that time the nurses come.
594
00:26:24.730 --> 00:26:27.450
I have actually also heard of people
595
00:26:27.450 --> 00:26:30.230
that have booked it in for a certain time
596
00:26:30.230 --> 00:26:32.390
and then the nurse called up and said,
597
00:26:32.390 --> 00:26:34.810
I'm stuck in traffic, I'll be two hours late.
598
00:26:35.370 --> 00:26:39.470
And they passed exactly on the time that they were
599
00:26:39.470 --> 00:26:40.630
without intervention.
600
00:26:41.450 --> 00:26:43.970
So it was interesting how it works.
601
00:26:44.330 --> 00:26:47.790
So I think, I'm curious about that
602
00:26:47.790 --> 00:26:51.870
because some people would still go through a process
603
00:26:51.870 --> 00:26:56.990
towards that one final day to complete their life.
604
00:26:58.050 --> 00:27:00.170
You know, I have heard it's not the same thing
605
00:27:00.170 --> 00:27:02.810
with Simmer, and I know we're off topic here a little bit.
606
00:27:03.570 --> 00:27:06.230
I have seen, I think it's three occasions now
607
00:27:06.230 --> 00:27:08.150
where someone has booked themselves
608
00:27:08.150 --> 00:27:10.430
in for a caesarian section for a delivery
609
00:27:11.070 --> 00:27:15.090
and the obstetrician is unavailable on that date
610
00:27:15.090 --> 00:27:16.970
and is pushed back by a week or whatever
611
00:27:16.970 --> 00:27:18.690
and they still deliver on that date.
612
00:27:19.750 --> 00:27:22.010
So there's something about a manifestation
613
00:27:22.010 --> 00:27:24.710
in some way or other, that's what we don't understand.
614
00:27:24.870 --> 00:27:27.350
But that's a similar thing, right?
615
00:27:27.350 --> 00:27:31.630
Having birth assisted with a caesarian
616
00:27:31.630 --> 00:27:34.150
or have a natural birth.
617
00:27:35.170 --> 00:27:39.170
And I think in coming into life and going out of life,
618
00:27:40.710 --> 00:27:41.970
they're both options.
619
00:27:42.590 --> 00:27:44.470
So what was it like for you in those,
620
00:27:44.470 --> 00:27:46.030
it was 24 days for your mom.
621
00:27:46.110 --> 00:27:47.930
So she didn't take the 21 that she wanted.
622
00:27:48.910 --> 00:27:48.930
No.
623
00:27:49.070 --> 00:27:50.810
Tell me about those 24 days.
624
00:27:52.510 --> 00:27:53.790
Where do you want me to start?
625
00:27:56.190 --> 00:27:58.350
Yeah, they were fascinating.
626
00:27:58.730 --> 00:28:03.890
I mean, there were waves of emotions
627
00:28:03.890 --> 00:28:07.010
that she went through in the very beginning.
628
00:28:07.050 --> 00:28:09.410
She says, oh, I'm so ready to let go,
629
00:28:09.610 --> 00:28:12.350
but why do I need to let go off, actually?
630
00:28:12.770 --> 00:28:15.210
You know, I don't, and I didn't have an answer to that.
631
00:28:15.510 --> 00:28:16.130
Neither did she.
632
00:28:16.810 --> 00:28:19.470
But in hindsight now, having written the book,
633
00:28:19.470 --> 00:28:23.770
I can see all the layers that she was peeling off
634
00:28:23.770 --> 00:28:25.670
and all the layers that she was letting go.
635
00:28:26.090 --> 00:28:28.810
Whether that's parts of her identity,
636
00:28:29.150 --> 00:28:32.010
whether that's a TV program she didn't watch anymore.
637
00:28:32.190 --> 00:28:34.390
There was a time where she let go of her soap opera
638
00:28:34.390 --> 00:28:34.990
that she watched.
639
00:28:35.090 --> 00:28:36.730
There was a time where she let go of the news.
640
00:28:36.850 --> 00:28:39.770
And the final thing she let go of was the ski racing.
641
00:28:39.890 --> 00:28:41.430
That was the last thing she let go of
642
00:28:41.430 --> 00:28:42.990
in terms of watching something.
643
00:28:43.690 --> 00:28:47.330
But all reading or certain tastes or just,
644
00:28:47.550 --> 00:28:48.750
there were loads of little.
645
00:28:48.910 --> 00:28:50.910
Was that a conscious letting go?
646
00:28:51.070 --> 00:28:53.130
Or was it I no longer have the energy
647
00:28:53.130 --> 00:28:55.170
for everything, so I'm just letting that go?
648
00:28:55.190 --> 00:28:56.350
I'm just no longer interested.
649
00:28:56.410 --> 00:28:56.690
Okay.
650
00:28:56.950 --> 00:28:59.590
You know, so it's, I've done that,
651
00:29:00.050 --> 00:29:02.710
and I'm good with, I don't need that anymore.
652
00:29:03.930 --> 00:29:04.410
Yeah.
653
00:29:04.810 --> 00:29:06.790
What were you letting go of in that process?
654
00:29:11.500 --> 00:29:19.480
I mean, I was trying my best to be an empty vessel
655
00:29:19.480 --> 00:29:23.600
in that period so I could not be a hindrance for her.
656
00:29:23.600 --> 00:29:28.560
So we meditated every day to be in a peaceful state,
657
00:29:28.680 --> 00:29:29.720
not just for ourselves,
658
00:29:29.740 --> 00:29:31.460
but also create a peaceful vibration
659
00:29:31.460 --> 00:29:33.440
for the whole room and for her.
660
00:29:35.620 --> 00:29:41.320
And there was a moment where I realized
661
00:29:41.320 --> 00:29:46.580
I needed to also let go of the idea
662
00:29:46.580 --> 00:29:48.520
that I needed to do something,
663
00:29:48.520 --> 00:29:55.340
or the expectation that it needed to be a certain way.
664
00:29:56.540 --> 00:29:58.100
There was a moment where I thought
665
00:29:58.100 --> 00:30:01.440
if ever there was the perfect moment, this would be it.
666
00:30:02.240 --> 00:30:04.500
Because she was so at peace at the end of that day,
667
00:30:04.520 --> 00:30:07.800
I thought now, like with somebody
668
00:30:07.800 --> 00:30:09.600
that is in sports, an athlete,
669
00:30:09.800 --> 00:30:10.900
you think they should stop
670
00:30:10.900 --> 00:30:12.900
when they've just won the trophy
671
00:30:12.900 --> 00:30:16.700
or had the biggest achievement of their life
672
00:30:16.700 --> 00:30:17.700
and they're at their peak,
673
00:30:17.700 --> 00:30:19.900
then you think now would be a good time to stop.
674
00:30:20.880 --> 00:30:22.840
And similar to that, I thought today,
675
00:30:23.160 --> 00:30:26.000
if she could go to sleep today, that would be perfect.
676
00:30:27.460 --> 00:30:29.200
And then she was breathing the next day
677
00:30:29.200 --> 00:30:33.080
and I thought, what else do I have to do?
678
00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:35.160
But that's why I realized
679
00:30:35.160 --> 00:30:36.700
I actually don't need to do anything.
680
00:30:37.020 --> 00:30:38.980
It's her journey and it's her process
681
00:30:38.980 --> 00:30:42.280
and it's gonna go however it's gonna go
682
00:30:42.820 --> 00:30:44.500
and however long it's gonna go,
683
00:30:44.520 --> 00:30:46.000
I need to let go of the expectation.
684
00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:49.760
When it happens, an expectation of what perfect means
685
00:30:49.760 --> 00:30:52.080
and just be present
686
00:30:52.080 --> 00:30:54.740
because that is the ultimate and biggest gift
687
00:30:54.740 --> 00:30:56.280
that I can give her in that moment.
688
00:30:56.620 --> 00:30:57.600
Can you say more to that?
689
00:30:57.940 --> 00:31:00.860
Because a lot of our listeners are men our age
690
00:31:00.860 --> 00:31:02.140
and maybe even younger.
691
00:31:03.640 --> 00:31:04.660
And as you know,
692
00:31:05.440 --> 00:31:07.220
men have a tendency, I need to do something.
693
00:31:07.720 --> 00:31:09.260
Our instinct is to do something,
694
00:31:09.960 --> 00:31:13.940
to create, to build, to destroy, to support,
695
00:31:13.940 --> 00:31:16.800
but it's in the doing of that.
696
00:31:17.900 --> 00:31:19.900
And a lot of our professional identity
697
00:31:19.900 --> 00:31:21.260
is in the doing of that.
698
00:31:21.900 --> 00:31:23.360
And what you're saying is the thing
699
00:31:23.360 --> 00:31:26.240
that you had to learn the most was to just stop doing
700
00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:29.160
and to be, which sounds really,
701
00:31:29.940 --> 00:31:31.220
and I mean, you could look at that in many,
702
00:31:31.420 --> 00:31:33.400
many ways, that sounds woo-woo,
703
00:31:33.480 --> 00:31:35.420
it sounds easy, it sounds profound,
704
00:31:35.580 --> 00:31:37.100
it sounds like nobody we're talking about
705
00:31:37.100 --> 00:31:38.220
and all the above.
706
00:31:39.060 --> 00:31:41.380
I mean, it wasn't that I wasn't doing anything,
707
00:31:41.380 --> 00:31:42.920
I was doing things,
708
00:31:43.740 --> 00:31:46.900
but I wasn't planning the doing things.
709
00:31:46.940 --> 00:31:50.640
I was responding to whatever was needed at the time.
710
00:31:51.560 --> 00:31:55.460
And I tried to be in the flow of things
711
00:31:55.460 --> 00:31:57.980
and respond in creative ways.
712
00:31:58.840 --> 00:32:03.460
So when she said, I shared that yesterday,
713
00:32:04.820 --> 00:32:07.340
when she saw something on the program
714
00:32:07.340 --> 00:32:11.040
where people toasted or celebrated something,
715
00:32:11.040 --> 00:32:15.040
she just said, oh, I just wish I could have another toast.
716
00:32:15.320 --> 00:32:19.320
And so she's like, how do you apply that
717
00:32:19.320 --> 00:32:22.920
in the context of where you're trying to limit
718
00:32:23.700 --> 00:32:25.420
the fluids, the liquid intake?
719
00:32:25.780 --> 00:32:31.880
And she had one of those sprayers that gives us
720
00:32:31.880 --> 00:32:34.700
some mist in the gum so that it doesn't feel so dry.
721
00:32:35.280 --> 00:32:36.700
So I just got some champagne
722
00:32:36.700 --> 00:32:38.660
and I filled champagne into that mister
723
00:32:38.660 --> 00:32:40.700
and she had some champagne via the mister.
724
00:32:40.700 --> 00:32:43.460
And while I had a glass and we cheered.
725
00:32:45.420 --> 00:32:47.820
And that was just a highlight for us.
726
00:32:47.980 --> 00:32:50.040
Oh, that's so good, you know.
727
00:32:50.160 --> 00:32:53.680
I heard you tell the story and it struck me as,
728
00:32:53.680 --> 00:32:55.320
and I say it as a novel honesty,
729
00:32:55.380 --> 00:32:56.260
I'm not trying to flatter you,
730
00:32:56.560 --> 00:32:59.920
it struck me as that is a complete demonstration
731
00:32:59.920 --> 00:33:01.400
of love for somebody else.
732
00:33:01.960 --> 00:33:04.500
It turns out they don't want fluids,
733
00:33:04.560 --> 00:33:05.660
but they want the experience.
734
00:33:05.940 --> 00:33:07.040
How do I create it for them?
735
00:33:07.160 --> 00:33:08.580
You figured it out.
736
00:33:09.020 --> 00:33:09.940
I thought it was extraordinary that
737
00:33:09.940 --> 00:33:11.600
it's a tiny thing, but it's everything.
738
00:33:12.400 --> 00:33:15.760
And I think that's what worked so well.
739
00:33:15.960 --> 00:33:18.200
I just tried to respond to whatever was needed.
740
00:33:18.740 --> 00:33:20.080
When the emotions came up,
741
00:33:20.080 --> 00:33:22.760
I tried to get to the bottom of what that was about
742
00:33:22.760 --> 00:33:26.060
and if there was anything I could help her do
743
00:33:26.880 --> 00:33:30.320
to help her come to a place of acceptance or gratitude
744
00:33:32.640 --> 00:33:36.420
or find the love or the joy or the laughter in it
745
00:33:36.420 --> 00:33:39.020
or come to a place of completion and of peace
746
00:33:39.020 --> 00:33:41.140
in regard to an issue or a relationship
747
00:33:41.140 --> 00:33:42.100
or whatever that was.
748
00:33:43.640 --> 00:33:48.140
And sometimes it was getting her a drink or a taste
749
00:33:49.680 --> 00:33:52.920
or one time it was going to see a sunset
750
00:33:52.920 --> 00:33:54.000
for one more time.
751
00:33:54.980 --> 00:33:57.700
So it just happened to be a beautiful sunset
752
00:33:57.700 --> 00:34:02.580
and so I got on the office chair with wheels
753
00:34:02.580 --> 00:34:04.620
and wheeled her into the other room
754
00:34:04.620 --> 00:34:05.840
where we could see the sunset
755
00:34:05.840 --> 00:34:09.739
and she was just in bliss seeing all the colors
756
00:34:09.739 --> 00:34:11.980
and until she nearly fell off the chair.
757
00:34:12.400 --> 00:34:14.360
Better bring her back in the horizontal.
758
00:34:16.760 --> 00:34:19.139
But I tried to just make anything
759
00:34:19.139 --> 00:34:22.300
that she needed and wanted possible.
760
00:34:22.920 --> 00:34:25.080
And there was a day where it wasn't
761
00:34:25.080 --> 00:34:27.060
and that was the toughest day for me
762
00:34:27.060 --> 00:34:29.840
because I so wanted to help
763
00:34:29.840 --> 00:34:32.120
but I felt so helpless in that day.
764
00:34:32.260 --> 00:34:33.739
It was unbelievable.
765
00:34:33.739 --> 00:34:36.159
And you were unable to do something
766
00:34:36.159 --> 00:34:37.460
or she wasn't able to receive anything?
767
00:34:37.460 --> 00:34:38.960
I was unable to help.
768
00:34:39.440 --> 00:34:41.260
There was nothing I could do.
769
00:34:41.780 --> 00:34:43.179
Absolutely nothing I could do.
770
00:34:43.540 --> 00:34:47.620
Like she was on an endless loop
771
00:34:48.739 --> 00:34:51.340
where she would stretch out her arms
772
00:34:51.340 --> 00:34:55.580
like a little kid that wants to be picked up
773
00:34:55.580 --> 00:34:57.740
and has the arms stretched out and go,
774
00:34:58.880 --> 00:35:00.140
can you help me go to the bathroom?
775
00:35:00.260 --> 00:35:01.860
I really need to go to the bathroom.
776
00:35:04.250 --> 00:35:07.910
And you go, yesterday when we did that,
777
00:35:10.150 --> 00:35:14.730
your circulation went into collapse
778
00:35:14.730 --> 00:35:16.230
and I had to lie down again.
779
00:35:18.990 --> 00:35:20.570
And every time you sit up,
780
00:35:20.730 --> 00:35:22.410
it takes five to 10 seconds
781
00:35:22.410 --> 00:35:25.790
and then you collapse again
782
00:35:26.330 --> 00:35:29.290
because the body at that stage is so weak
783
00:35:30.310 --> 00:35:33.150
that the circulation gets concentrated
784
00:35:33.150 --> 00:35:34.970
on the vital organs
785
00:35:34.970 --> 00:35:37.870
and somehow the brain is not on that list.
786
00:35:39.510 --> 00:35:41.470
So she sits up and goes,
787
00:35:42.390 --> 00:35:44.490
and so I said, I can help you sit up
788
00:35:44.490 --> 00:35:46.450
but in five seconds you'll fall down again.
789
00:35:47.450 --> 00:35:48.170
Yeah, I know.
790
00:35:49.430 --> 00:35:50.790
But can you help me?
791
00:35:50.850 --> 00:35:51.730
And can you help me?
792
00:35:51.810 --> 00:35:52.890
And every five minutes,
793
00:35:53.210 --> 00:35:56.290
like on non-stop all day, all day.
794
00:35:56.290 --> 00:35:59.170
Where on the fasting stage was she?
795
00:35:59.210 --> 00:36:00.770
This was the second last day.
796
00:36:01.070 --> 00:36:02.670
Okay, so day 22 or 23.
797
00:36:03.170 --> 00:36:04.230
22, yeah.
798
00:36:05.310 --> 00:36:08.870
And so I called the nurse and said,
799
00:36:09.990 --> 00:36:11.490
what do we do in this situation?
800
00:36:11.590 --> 00:36:12.310
What do you do?
801
00:36:12.430 --> 00:36:13.370
What do you recommend?
802
00:36:13.990 --> 00:36:16.690
And she said, just tell her to let it go.
803
00:36:17.370 --> 00:36:19.870
She has to let go of the control of the body
804
00:36:20.490 --> 00:36:25.110
and she has diapers she needs to go and let it go.
805
00:36:25.730 --> 00:36:27.290
And then I would say that to mom
806
00:36:27.290 --> 00:36:29.150
and she would go, I know.
807
00:36:31.030 --> 00:36:31.990
But can you help me?
808
00:36:32.590 --> 00:36:36.050
Like until, and then I rang the hospice
809
00:36:36.050 --> 00:36:37.910
and they go, what do you do in that situation?
810
00:36:37.910 --> 00:36:40.730
Because I was starting to be getting
811
00:36:40.730 --> 00:36:44.030
to the end of my, to my limits.
812
00:36:44.310 --> 00:36:45.910
And so, and they said,
813
00:36:46.010 --> 00:36:48.470
well, we can give her a catheter.
814
00:36:50.030 --> 00:36:51.730
I said, she wouldn't want that.
815
00:36:51.770 --> 00:36:52.430
That's intervention.
816
00:36:52.710 --> 00:36:53.470
That's intervention.
817
00:36:53.710 --> 00:36:54.710
Like she wouldn't want that.
818
00:36:54.710 --> 00:36:59.170
I said, well, we can bring you like a wheelchair
819
00:36:59.170 --> 00:37:00.590
that has a toilet on it.
820
00:37:01.970 --> 00:37:05.410
And I thought, and I just looked at the bed.
821
00:37:05.870 --> 00:37:06.830
I looked at the bathroom.
822
00:37:07.010 --> 00:37:10.430
I thought, it's like four steps further
823
00:37:10.430 --> 00:37:11.830
than a wheelchair.
824
00:37:13.870 --> 00:37:17.950
And then I just put my heart in my hand
825
00:37:17.950 --> 00:37:20.810
and I picked her up and I just carried her
826
00:37:20.810 --> 00:37:22.470
to the bathroom and she was,
827
00:37:22.950 --> 00:37:24.630
she could relieve herself.
828
00:37:24.730 --> 00:37:26.210
But then she was so exhausted,
829
00:37:26.210 --> 00:37:27.570
she went completely limp.
830
00:37:27.910 --> 00:37:28.850
Yeah, that's the danger.
831
00:37:28.930 --> 00:37:33.450
And then I tried to pick that limp mother up
832
00:37:33.450 --> 00:37:36.050
and carry her back to bed somehow.
833
00:37:36.510 --> 00:37:38.510
And then she was so exhausted, she fell asleep.
834
00:37:39.450 --> 00:37:42.030
And I had to go outside because I was,
835
00:37:42.270 --> 00:37:43.950
that was full on.
836
00:37:45.270 --> 00:37:48.750
But I had a really beautiful, beautiful moment
837
00:37:48.750 --> 00:37:51.490
because I went to the park where she always walked
838
00:37:52.230 --> 00:37:58.830
and I said hi to all the trees that she used to sit next to
839
00:37:58.830 --> 00:38:03.490
and talk to them about losing her husband.
840
00:38:04.290 --> 00:38:08.250
And so I connected with nature in there.
841
00:38:08.330 --> 00:38:13.150
And she also had a cat and that cat was a ginger cat
842
00:38:13.150 --> 00:38:18.730
that was living kind of wild seeming in that area.
843
00:38:19.510 --> 00:38:23.170
And that cat would come for a walk with her,
844
00:38:23.430 --> 00:38:26.030
mainly because she always had something to pride.
845
00:38:26.330 --> 00:38:27.770
She's always had food with her,
846
00:38:27.770 --> 00:38:30.990
but she was a cat whisperer wherever she went.
847
00:38:31.790 --> 00:38:35.590
And so that cat came and went for a whole long walk
848
00:38:35.590 --> 00:38:37.630
for an hour, the cat would walk with her.
849
00:38:38.130 --> 00:38:40.770
And the whole time during those 24 days,
850
00:38:40.770 --> 00:38:42.290
I went for walks in that park.
851
00:38:42.530 --> 00:38:43.990
I've never seen the cat.
852
00:38:44.710 --> 00:38:48.070
But on that day, where I was at the edge of my tether,
853
00:38:48.070 --> 00:38:52.150
that cat showed up and was my saving grace
854
00:38:52.150 --> 00:38:54.990
because it came and it threw itself at my legs
855
00:38:54.990 --> 00:38:57.930
and wanted a pat and walked with me.
856
00:38:58.510 --> 00:39:02.010
And so I took a film of it and brought it home
857
00:39:02.670 --> 00:39:05.010
to show her and I said, look who I've seen today.
858
00:39:06.010 --> 00:39:09.510
Yeah, but that was, I was so grateful for that cat
859
00:39:09.510 --> 00:39:12.590
to come because it was like some sign of,
860
00:39:12.810 --> 00:39:14.270
okay, it's gonna be okay.
861
00:39:15.290 --> 00:39:18.630
There is a whole idea, if you stay open,
862
00:39:19.450 --> 00:39:22.270
you will notice stuff that's like a cat,
863
00:39:22.390 --> 00:39:25.270
as simple as it is, it's quite profound in that regard.
864
00:39:25.570 --> 00:39:28.250
Oh yeah, it was really a special moment.
865
00:39:28.810 --> 00:39:31.650
Am I right in remembering when your mom
866
00:39:31.650 --> 00:39:35.750
was trying to figure out what methodology
867
00:39:35.750 --> 00:39:38.310
she might use to help her pass,
868
00:39:38.310 --> 00:39:39.850
you said to her, what would a cat do?
869
00:39:40.990 --> 00:39:41.170
Yes, exactly.
870
00:39:41.170 --> 00:39:41.890
Because she is a cat lover,
871
00:39:42.050 --> 00:39:43.910
she would work so her cat would just stop eating it.
872
00:39:43.910 --> 00:39:45.790
The cat when she was growing up would come
873
00:39:45.790 --> 00:39:48.350
and pick her up at school and walk home with her.
874
00:39:49.230 --> 00:39:52.610
And wherever we would travel, cats would always find her.
875
00:39:53.410 --> 00:39:56.250
And so yeah, that was exactly the question.
876
00:39:56.370 --> 00:39:58.030
For the listener who was sitting here going,
877
00:39:58.270 --> 00:40:01.550
that all sounds lovely, did she have any regrets?
878
00:40:01.730 --> 00:40:03.630
Did she have any concerns along the way?
879
00:40:03.650 --> 00:40:05.250
Did you have any concerns along the way?
880
00:40:06.410 --> 00:40:08.650
None, none, and she had none.
881
00:40:09.130 --> 00:40:11.690
In fact, the closer we got to the end,
882
00:40:11.690 --> 00:40:16.270
the more grateful, or maybe she's always been grateful,
883
00:40:16.330 --> 00:40:21.910
but she expressed it a lot more the last few days,
884
00:40:21.950 --> 00:40:25.270
increasingly, so she just used every moment
885
00:40:25.270 --> 00:40:29.330
to say thank you for supporting me on the path.
886
00:40:29.610 --> 00:40:31.950
I'm so grateful that I've chosen this path
887
00:40:31.950 --> 00:40:35.130
because I've had more time to naturally get
888
00:40:35.130 --> 00:40:37.570
to the point where I'm ready.
889
00:40:38.810 --> 00:40:40.730
Because initially when she had the conversation,
890
00:40:40.730 --> 00:40:42.390
she said, I think it's time to call exit.
891
00:40:42.390 --> 00:40:43.790
She was very emotional.
892
00:40:44.870 --> 00:40:47.870
And I thought, that's just my gut feeling was,
893
00:40:48.370 --> 00:40:49.530
as long as you're that emotional,
894
00:40:49.610 --> 00:40:51.270
I don't think you're not ready.
895
00:40:51.710 --> 00:40:53.550
I think there are conversations to be had.
896
00:40:53.810 --> 00:40:56.550
There are things that need to happen.
897
00:40:57.470 --> 00:40:59.610
And the first response then was
898
00:40:59.610 --> 00:41:01.250
to write a whole bunch of letters
899
00:41:01.250 --> 00:41:04.210
to all the people in her address book
900
00:41:04.970 --> 00:41:07.670
where she not only wished them a happy Christmas
901
00:41:07.670 --> 00:41:09.110
because it was that time of the year,
902
00:41:09.110 --> 00:41:12.610
but she also shared with them
903
00:41:12.610 --> 00:41:15.070
what they had meant to her in her life
904
00:41:15.070 --> 00:41:17.990
and what she was grateful for in that connection.
905
00:41:18.010 --> 00:41:19.210
She was in her 80s, is that right?
906
00:41:19.270 --> 00:41:21.370
She was mid-80s, yeah.
907
00:41:21.930 --> 00:41:26.750
And so that caused a lot of phone calls.
908
00:41:26.990 --> 00:41:30.030
And she also sent a poem about luck with it.
909
00:41:30.350 --> 00:41:32.250
And some people were so moved by that poem
910
00:41:32.250 --> 00:41:34.930
that one person rang three times
911
00:41:34.930 --> 00:41:39.530
just to thank her for that.
912
00:41:39.690 --> 00:41:41.570
And it created such beautiful connection
913
00:41:41.570 --> 00:41:44.470
and they felt quite complete.
914
00:41:45.390 --> 00:41:47.270
And then there was also the phone call
915
00:41:47.270 --> 00:41:50.190
completely out of the blue of a friend
916
00:41:51.370 --> 00:41:53.270
that used to be a very good friend,
917
00:41:53.530 --> 00:41:55.250
and they traveled the world together.
918
00:41:55.270 --> 00:41:58.170
And then they got estranged for some reason.
919
00:41:58.770 --> 00:42:00.590
And out of the blue, that person called.
920
00:42:03.090 --> 00:42:04.110
She didn't know.
921
00:42:04.110 --> 00:42:07.850
But they got to say what they meant to each other.
922
00:42:08.170 --> 00:42:09.690
They got to share those things.
923
00:42:09.730 --> 00:42:11.830
They got to acknowledge that they had gone
924
00:42:11.830 --> 00:42:16.810
separate ways, there were tears, there was forgiveness.
925
00:42:17.210 --> 00:42:19.670
They shared how it was to lose a husband
926
00:42:19.670 --> 00:42:22.010
because both of them had lost a husband by that stage.
927
00:42:24.110 --> 00:42:26.030
And it was a really healing conversation
928
00:42:26.030 --> 00:42:27.810
that just happened out of the blue.
929
00:42:28.910 --> 00:42:31.250
So there were magical things like that
930
00:42:31.250 --> 00:42:33.170
that happened all throughout the time.
931
00:42:33.730 --> 00:42:35.690
So she didn't have any regrets.
932
00:42:36.530 --> 00:42:38.770
On the contrary, she was just very grateful
933
00:42:38.770 --> 00:42:40.070
to have gone down that path
934
00:42:40.070 --> 00:42:41.390
and have had the opportunity
935
00:42:42.230 --> 00:42:45.070
to have all these experiences along the way.
936
00:42:45.630 --> 00:42:47.530
There's something about the taking agency
937
00:42:47.530 --> 00:42:49.350
and taking your own decisions.
938
00:42:49.990 --> 00:42:51.210
I haven't shared this with you,
939
00:42:51.230 --> 00:42:54.230
but I have shared this story on the podcast before.
940
00:42:55.330 --> 00:42:59.970
But my dad had three heart related surgery
941
00:42:59.970 --> 00:43:01.030
over three years.
942
00:43:01.030 --> 00:43:03.730
And I used to go from Australia back to Ireland,
943
00:43:03.910 --> 00:43:04.650
usually on summertime.
944
00:43:04.930 --> 00:43:05.830
And then he'd say,
945
00:43:06.110 --> 00:43:07.450
if you promise to come back at Christmas time,
946
00:43:07.470 --> 00:43:08.550
I promise to be alive.
947
00:43:08.910 --> 00:43:10.510
And I'd go back around December or January.
948
00:43:10.550 --> 00:43:12.490
And then if you promise to come back in summertime,
949
00:43:12.770 --> 00:43:14.170
I promise, it's been on for three years.
950
00:43:14.410 --> 00:43:15.390
I'd always go back.
951
00:43:17.290 --> 00:43:19.430
And around September, 2016,
952
00:43:19.970 --> 00:43:23.810
I was flying to Brazil to do some work down in Brazil.
953
00:43:23.930 --> 00:43:25.610
And I was in Mexico heading to Brazil.
954
00:43:26.010 --> 00:43:28.790
So I rang home from Mexico, from the airport.
955
00:43:28.790 --> 00:43:31.230
And I could hear my dad saying to my mom,
956
00:43:31.310 --> 00:43:32.470
how could you leave the room for a second?
957
00:43:32.570 --> 00:43:33.550
I'm like, I wanna chat the pot.
958
00:43:34.190 --> 00:43:34.790
So I was chatting to him.
959
00:43:35.030 --> 00:43:35.950
And out of the blue, he goes,
960
00:43:36.590 --> 00:43:38.210
I know you're planning to come home in December,
961
00:43:38.830 --> 00:43:41.250
but don't worry, I won't be here.
962
00:43:41.490 --> 00:43:42.410
My time has come.
963
00:43:43.030 --> 00:43:43.790
I was going, oh, okay.
964
00:43:44.030 --> 00:43:46.170
And we had a big conversation about what he meant
965
00:43:46.170 --> 00:43:46.610
by that.
966
00:43:47.010 --> 00:43:48.510
And then he shared some stuff with me
967
00:43:48.510 --> 00:43:50.690
that I once, you're not gonna just take too long,
968
00:43:51.630 --> 00:43:52.790
but a conversation that he and I had had
969
00:43:53.410 --> 00:43:54.850
about 20 years earlier,
970
00:43:55.750 --> 00:43:57.650
that he took it as a major change in his life,
971
00:43:57.710 --> 00:43:58.530
how it impacted him.
972
00:43:58.530 --> 00:44:00.870
And he just shared, you did this, you said this,
973
00:44:01.150 --> 00:44:01.910
here's what happened.
974
00:44:02.370 --> 00:44:03.470
I just wanna thank you for all of that.
975
00:44:04.210 --> 00:44:05.290
Tears just got in my eyes.
976
00:44:05.310 --> 00:44:06.470
I'm standing at the airport.
977
00:44:07.490 --> 00:44:09.470
So we actually said goodbye to each other, literally.
978
00:44:10.110 --> 00:44:10.830
I flew to Brazil,
979
00:44:10.870 --> 00:44:12.690
and when I arrived in Sao Paulo, he was dead.
980
00:44:13.410 --> 00:44:14.870
And I look back at that moment going,
981
00:44:16.250 --> 00:44:17.050
it's one of the moments in my life
982
00:44:17.050 --> 00:44:18.410
I'm most grateful for,
983
00:44:18.750 --> 00:44:20.330
to be able to have had that conversation,
984
00:44:20.470 --> 00:44:21.550
not knowing what was coming,
985
00:44:22.270 --> 00:44:23.750
but we had a conversation of,
986
00:44:23.950 --> 00:44:25.050
here's what you mean to me,
987
00:44:25.050 --> 00:44:26.930
and I wanna thank you for X, Y, and Z,
988
00:44:26.930 --> 00:44:28.630
knowing that there's a whole lot of stuff
989
00:44:28.630 --> 00:44:30.210
that we didn't like, right?
990
00:44:30.550 --> 00:44:32.370
But we had those conversations.
991
00:44:32.530 --> 00:44:33.670
And so I look back now and going,
992
00:44:34.630 --> 00:44:36.330
I wanna think about my children and go,
993
00:44:36.330 --> 00:44:38.310
okay, I wanna make sure I have those conversations
994
00:44:38.310 --> 00:44:41.130
with them because of the impact he had on me.
995
00:44:41.590 --> 00:44:44.350
And so as a result of her doing that,
996
00:44:45.170 --> 00:44:49.290
I thought, how bad we write those letters
997
00:44:49.290 --> 00:44:50.870
of gratitude to her,
998
00:44:51.010 --> 00:44:52.430
what she meant to us in her life,
999
00:44:52.530 --> 00:44:55.230
rather than waiting until we package that
1000
00:44:55.230 --> 00:44:58.710
into a eulogy, how bad we write that all now.
1001
00:44:58.910 --> 00:45:03.550
And so my children, we all wrote a letter to her,
1002
00:45:03.810 --> 00:45:05.170
what she meant and all the memories
1003
00:45:05.170 --> 00:45:08.850
that we've had of her and the funny things
1004
00:45:08.850 --> 00:45:10.450
and the things we appreciated
1005
00:45:10.450 --> 00:45:12.130
and all the things we're grateful for.
1006
00:45:12.550 --> 00:45:15.030
And we put that into a little booklet that we gave her
1007
00:45:15.030 --> 00:45:17.550
and she had that on her bedside table
1008
00:45:17.550 --> 00:45:19.070
and read it every day
1009
00:45:19.790 --> 00:45:23.090
and felt like the luckiest grandmother alive, right?
1010
00:45:23.090 --> 00:45:26.370
And there were things in there,
1011
00:45:26.490 --> 00:45:28.430
I can't even remember that I said that,
1012
00:45:28.590 --> 00:45:30.490
because I remembered that,
1013
00:45:31.050 --> 00:45:34.810
because I used to be bullied in school and she says,
1014
00:45:35.270 --> 00:45:40.050
I don't care if I have to pay a front-up dental bill
1015
00:45:40.050 --> 00:45:42.310
if you punch somebody's, you know.
1016
00:45:43.210 --> 00:45:47.150
It's like, and she's like, really, did I say that?
1017
00:45:47.230 --> 00:45:50.630
I was like, yeah, it never came to that point,
1018
00:45:50.630 --> 00:45:55.970
but it gave me permission to stand up for myself
1019
00:45:55.970 --> 00:45:59.130
and to fight back without any concern
1020
00:45:59.130 --> 00:46:01.070
of what might happen and just go wild.
1021
00:46:02.310 --> 00:46:05.490
And so, you know, she was like,
1022
00:46:05.750 --> 00:46:08.230
oh, wow, I didn't remember that.
1023
00:46:08.290 --> 00:46:10.190
And similarly, the kids had memories
1024
00:46:10.190 --> 00:46:12.610
of things that she had forgotten
1025
00:46:12.610 --> 00:46:14.330
and so it was just a beautiful,
1026
00:46:14.510 --> 00:46:15.690
it was a beautiful thing to do.
1027
00:46:16.290 --> 00:46:17.030
I really like that.
1028
00:46:17.190 --> 00:46:18.350
Can I interrupt you for a second?
1029
00:46:18.890 --> 00:46:19.950
I hope you enjoyed that episode.
1030
00:46:19.950 --> 00:46:21.030
I really am.
1031
00:46:21.270 --> 00:46:22.670
I wanna give you a heads up
1032
00:46:22.670 --> 00:46:24.490
on some upcoming conversations
1033
00:46:24.490 --> 00:46:26.790
just to make sure you do not miss them
1034
00:46:26.790 --> 00:46:28.230
because they are really, really good.
1035
00:46:29.010 --> 00:46:31.330
One conversation is with an international sports
1036
00:46:31.330 --> 00:46:33.730
broadcaster who is now an ambassador
1037
00:46:33.730 --> 00:46:35.250
for the Butterfly Foundation
1038
00:46:35.250 --> 00:46:37.190
and he shares with us some insights
1039
00:46:37.190 --> 00:46:41.050
on body image for young men and older men
1040
00:46:41.050 --> 00:46:44.310
and a really under-discussed important topic.
1041
00:46:45.170 --> 00:46:46.710
Another guest is a sobriety coach
1042
00:46:46.710 --> 00:46:49.210
and she has helped thousands of people
1043
00:46:49.210 --> 00:46:52.130
who have gone from using alcohol as magic to medicinal
1044
00:46:52.130 --> 00:46:54.090
and helped them to manage that process
1045
00:46:54.090 --> 00:46:55.970
and shares with us some great insights.
1046
00:46:56.650 --> 00:46:58.350
And the third guest is a psychologist
1047
00:46:58.350 --> 00:46:59.970
who specializes in the workplace
1048
00:46:59.970 --> 00:47:03.230
and she shares with us an idea called The Third Space
1049
00:47:03.230 --> 00:47:06.450
which just might be the best idea
1050
00:47:06.450 --> 00:47:09.010
you did not even know existed.
1051
00:47:09.590 --> 00:47:11.310
I love my conversation with these guests
1052
00:47:11.310 --> 00:47:12.870
and I'm sure you will too.
1053
00:47:13.310 --> 00:47:16.030
So make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out on them.
1054
00:47:16.610 --> 00:47:18.510
All right, back to the episode.
1055
00:47:18.510 --> 00:47:20.010
I want to turn to your kids in a second
1056
00:47:20.010 --> 00:47:22.090
because you've set a high bar for them
1057
00:47:22.090 --> 00:47:23.450
in terms of what they expect.
1058
00:47:23.450 --> 00:47:24.870
So I want to come in and get their view.
1059
00:47:25.470 --> 00:47:26.650
You shared a story last night
1060
00:47:26.650 --> 00:47:27.930
that I think is really worth sharing.
1061
00:47:29.310 --> 00:47:32.830
And I heard this as this is the starting process
1062
00:47:32.830 --> 00:47:34.290
of her letting go.
1063
00:47:34.530 --> 00:47:37.650
And it was a story you told about cross-country skiing
1064
00:47:38.670 --> 00:47:41.210
and I think she was 82, is that right?
1065
00:47:42.290 --> 00:47:42.910
Yeah, yeah.
1066
00:47:43.670 --> 00:47:49.890
And it was, because she was the oldest inhabitant
1067
00:47:49.890 --> 00:47:51.690
of her village to participate
1068
00:47:51.690 --> 00:47:53.170
in the cross-country ski marathon.
1069
00:47:53.390 --> 00:47:56.870
So that's on cross-country skis for 42 kilometers
1070
00:47:57.540 --> 00:48:01.390
in the Swiss mountains at about 1,800 meters of altitude.
1071
00:48:01.510 --> 00:48:04.290
You have mountains of 3,000 meters next to you.
1072
00:48:05.030 --> 00:48:06.510
It's a stunning place.
1073
00:48:07.050 --> 00:48:08.810
And she used to love the energy
1074
00:48:08.810 --> 00:48:09.990
at the beginning of the race
1075
00:48:09.990 --> 00:48:12.910
where everyone's, there's an animator
1076
00:48:12.910 --> 00:48:16.390
that makes you warm up and there's loud music.
1077
00:48:16.410 --> 00:48:18.390
And then they play conquest of paradise
1078
00:48:18.390 --> 00:48:20.610
as a countdown music to the race.
1079
00:48:21.690 --> 00:48:22.330
And you know.
1080
00:48:22.470 --> 00:48:23.110
We get excited.
1081
00:48:24.090 --> 00:48:24.590
Exactly.
1082
00:48:25.170 --> 00:48:27.830
And so we always had a dinner the night before
1083
00:48:27.830 --> 00:48:31.370
where all the mates that would participate
1084
00:48:31.370 --> 00:48:34.130
will all join a meal and we'll do some carb loading
1085
00:48:34.130 --> 00:48:36.690
and eat lots of carbs so we can have plenty of energy
1086
00:48:36.690 --> 00:48:38.150
to go and do that race the next day.
1087
00:48:38.150 --> 00:48:40.430
And we exchanged stories and everything.
1088
00:48:40.610 --> 00:48:43.510
And I said, and that race was canceled due to COVID.
1089
00:48:43.710 --> 00:48:45.470
And I was in the form of my life.
1090
00:48:45.610 --> 00:48:46.890
And I said, we are still going
1091
00:48:46.890 --> 00:48:48.250
and you're coming with me
1092
00:48:48.250 --> 00:48:51.770
because dad had just passed a month earlier.
1093
00:48:51.810 --> 00:48:54.010
So I said, you're coming with me to the mountains.
1094
00:48:54.770 --> 00:48:55.970
We're going regardless.
1095
00:48:56.630 --> 00:48:59.750
And we had that dinner and she soaked up that energy
1096
00:48:59.750 --> 00:49:01.190
of everyone telling stories.
1097
00:49:01.190 --> 00:49:03.410
And the next morning we were at the starting line
1098
00:49:03.910 --> 00:49:06.430
all dressed up in our cross-country ski gear.
1099
00:49:06.870 --> 00:49:08.190
My mates, my mom.
1100
00:49:08.750 --> 00:49:12.150
And then we listened to conquest of paradise on my phone.
1101
00:49:12.770 --> 00:49:13.970
And then everyone went off
1102
00:49:13.970 --> 00:49:17.310
and we did as much as we felt like on that day.
1103
00:49:17.710 --> 00:49:21.750
She did 10 kilometers and was absolutely stoked
1104
00:49:21.750 --> 00:49:24.230
that she could still do 10 kilometers.
1105
00:49:24.590 --> 00:49:26.650
And she had that on a beautiful day
1106
00:49:26.650 --> 00:49:27.970
that she had that experience.
1107
00:49:28.030 --> 00:49:29.750
And then she just said, okay,
1108
00:49:30.230 --> 00:49:34.470
this is a fitting end to my cross-country skiing career.
1109
00:49:34.690 --> 00:49:35.830
I now retire.
1110
00:49:35.830 --> 00:49:36.910
And 82.
1111
00:49:38.670 --> 00:49:40.490
I'm a cross-country skiing athlete.
1112
00:49:41.010 --> 00:49:44.970
And so she very consciously let go of that,
1113
00:49:45.630 --> 00:49:48.090
of that part of her identity,
1114
00:49:48.450 --> 00:49:49.710
which was a big part.
1115
00:49:50.590 --> 00:49:52.890
We talk a lot in this show about our identity
1116
00:49:52.890 --> 00:49:53.910
in the second half of a life
1117
00:49:53.910 --> 00:49:56.990
and how you can rewrite it and reimagine it,
1118
00:49:57.650 --> 00:49:59.350
but do so very consciously.
1119
00:49:59.510 --> 00:50:00.610
And what I loved about that story
1120
00:50:00.610 --> 00:50:02.550
and I loved about her last night is
1121
00:50:03.150 --> 00:50:05.650
she didn't finish her career because she was 82.
1122
00:50:05.650 --> 00:50:07.390
She finished her career because she chose to.
1123
00:50:07.770 --> 00:50:10.210
And she goes, and she didn't just drift away.
1124
00:50:10.710 --> 00:50:13.570
I'm doing it 10 kilometers at 82 cross-country skiing.
1125
00:50:13.790 --> 00:50:15.310
It's phenomenal in its own right
1126
00:50:15.310 --> 00:50:16.450
as someone who's never done that.
1127
00:50:16.530 --> 00:50:20.110
And I tried to get her back into doing it,
1128
00:50:20.110 --> 00:50:21.610
but she was like, no, I'm done.
1129
00:50:22.730 --> 00:50:23.750
And I'm good.
1130
00:50:23.990 --> 00:50:25.070
Yeah, but that's the point.
1131
00:50:25.370 --> 00:50:25.910
I'm happy with it.
1132
00:50:25.910 --> 00:50:26.910
I'm happy.
1133
00:50:27.310 --> 00:50:30.730
I've had a fantastic time doing it
1134
00:50:30.730 --> 00:50:32.450
and now it's good.
1135
00:50:33.690 --> 00:50:36.070
I've completed that part of my life.
1136
00:50:36.210 --> 00:50:38.150
And that word completion, that's the part.
1137
00:50:38.570 --> 00:50:39.690
It's intentional completion.
1138
00:50:40.150 --> 00:50:42.590
And that's how I think the end of life
1139
00:50:42.590 --> 00:50:45.570
starts way earlier than the end of life
1140
00:50:45.570 --> 00:50:47.670
as in death or dying.
1141
00:50:49.850 --> 00:50:52.510
When you retire from a job,
1142
00:50:53.190 --> 00:50:58.910
you're letting go of an identity of me in a career.
1143
00:50:58.910 --> 00:51:06.050
Or she had multiple things like that
1144
00:51:06.050 --> 00:51:06.950
where she was teaching
1145
00:51:06.950 --> 00:51:08.730
and then she was letting go of being a teacher.
1146
00:51:09.090 --> 00:51:10.470
She ended up teaching nurses.
1147
00:51:10.690 --> 00:51:14.170
So she did use her medical knowledge to teach.
1148
00:51:15.290 --> 00:51:17.010
And that was a very fulfilling time,
1149
00:51:17.010 --> 00:51:19.090
but then she was ready to let that go.
1150
00:51:19.190 --> 00:51:21.330
And then she felt like she wanted to give something back
1151
00:51:21.330 --> 00:51:24.350
to the community as a thank you
1152
00:51:24.890 --> 00:51:28.530
for allowing her having experienced war
1153
00:51:28.530 --> 00:51:30.910
to come into such a peaceful country like Switzerland.
1154
00:51:31.450 --> 00:51:36.590
And so she worked for a line,
1155
00:51:36.610 --> 00:51:39.610
like helpline or lifeline or something like that
1156
00:51:39.610 --> 00:51:42.610
where you could ring in and it was voluntary work.
1157
00:51:42.610 --> 00:51:44.430
And she did years of doing that.
1158
00:51:45.750 --> 00:51:47.950
And so, again, then there was,
1159
00:51:48.190 --> 00:51:50.050
okay, I've completed that.
1160
00:51:50.190 --> 00:51:52.250
And then there was the completion around the big house
1161
00:51:52.250 --> 00:51:53.470
moving into an apartment.
1162
00:51:54.070 --> 00:51:55.250
So there was all these,
1163
00:51:55.870 --> 00:51:57.510
when my dad was in intensive care,
1164
00:51:57.510 --> 00:51:58.970
she was like, okay, that's it.
1165
00:51:59.490 --> 00:52:00.370
I'm starting.
1166
00:52:00.810 --> 00:52:03.110
My dad didn't like it one single bit
1167
00:52:03.110 --> 00:52:05.230
because he was really wanting to stay there.
1168
00:52:05.230 --> 00:52:06.530
That was his paradise.
1169
00:52:08.130 --> 00:52:09.590
But a few years later,
1170
00:52:09.650 --> 00:52:12.110
he was so grateful that she had done all that
1171
00:52:12.110 --> 00:52:15.490
because he realized that he didn't have the strength
1172
00:52:15.490 --> 00:52:17.190
anymore if he had to do it at that point.
1173
00:52:18.170 --> 00:52:22.110
So she very consciously chose these moments where she,
1174
00:52:22.230 --> 00:52:26.750
and we all thought it's a bit exaggerated
1175
00:52:26.750 --> 00:52:30.290
to now go and be so radical in terms of your,
1176
00:52:30.410 --> 00:52:32.430
no, but very conscious.
1177
00:52:32.750 --> 00:52:34.630
She was a great example like that
1178
00:52:35.970 --> 00:52:39.730
in making these decisions towards the end.
1179
00:52:40.490 --> 00:52:41.830
What was your kid's experience?
1180
00:52:41.850 --> 00:52:43.310
Because they were quite involved in this.
1181
00:52:43.510 --> 00:52:44.270
They went to see her.
1182
00:52:44.270 --> 00:52:45.390
I think you said three times
1183
00:52:45.390 --> 00:52:47.310
in terms of goodbye three times.
1184
00:52:48.090 --> 00:52:49.970
And there's a whole experience of,
1185
00:52:50.650 --> 00:52:52.290
she had all the photographs that you had
1186
00:52:52.290 --> 00:52:53.770
sending back from Australia for the years
1187
00:52:53.770 --> 00:52:54.690
you were living here.
1188
00:52:54.690 --> 00:52:58.390
How do they experience this whole process?
1189
00:53:01.220 --> 00:53:01.940
I guess it's,
1190
00:53:03.700 --> 00:53:10.280
they had the really involved experience with her.
1191
00:53:10.380 --> 00:53:12.360
They've only had in later years
1192
00:53:12.360 --> 00:53:15.120
because the early years we were in Australia
1193
00:53:15.120 --> 00:53:20.680
and we saw them once a year for about a month.
1194
00:53:22.300 --> 00:53:26.520
And the rest of the time it was via video conference
1195
00:53:26.520 --> 00:53:30.100
or phone calls or things like that and exchanging photos.
1196
00:53:30.460 --> 00:53:33.220
So there wasn't such a deep connection
1197
00:53:34.080 --> 00:53:37.260
up until we moved to Switzerland
1198
00:53:37.260 --> 00:53:43.200
and they were already nine and 12 at that stage.
1199
00:53:45.400 --> 00:53:47.820
So for them it was a letting go,
1200
00:53:48.020 --> 00:53:50.800
but they had heard the state,
1201
00:53:51.140 --> 00:53:53.700
they'd seen the progress.
1202
00:53:54.300 --> 00:53:55.420
They had quite a shocking,
1203
00:53:55.880 --> 00:53:57.700
I mean shocking, for them,
1204
00:53:58.660 --> 00:54:03.560
not shocking, but a startling experience with my dad
1205
00:54:03.560 --> 00:54:06.620
where he was very present in the morning
1206
00:54:06.620 --> 00:54:08.120
and in the afternoon he was drifting
1207
00:54:08.120 --> 00:54:10.640
in and out of consciousness and that was
1208
00:54:10.640 --> 00:54:11.440
so fast.
1209
00:54:11.960 --> 00:54:13.500
So fast and so,
1210
00:54:17.180 --> 00:54:19.640
well, surprising that they didn't expect that.
1211
00:54:19.840 --> 00:54:22.260
And whereas with Hirsch they could see the progress
1212
00:54:22.260 --> 00:54:25.420
in a more steady way over time
1213
00:54:25.420 --> 00:54:27.620
and they could see that she was weaker at walking,
1214
00:54:27.840 --> 00:54:29.160
that she needed more support
1215
00:54:29.160 --> 00:54:33.100
and that they heard me talk about
1216
00:54:33.100 --> 00:54:36.300
that's because I spent two or three days a week
1217
00:54:36.300 --> 00:54:38.320
visiting her after dad passed.
1218
00:54:41.990 --> 00:54:44.590
Yeah, and they were very supportive
1219
00:54:44.590 --> 00:54:48.050
of her choosing that,
1220
00:54:48.390 --> 00:54:51.070
very grateful for what she had done
1221
00:54:51.070 --> 00:54:52.870
for them in their life.
1222
00:54:53.510 --> 00:54:58.230
And it was mum that was struggling with the goodbye
1223
00:54:58.230 --> 00:55:04.220
and it was, that was why we,
1224
00:55:04.720 --> 00:55:08.000
she needed three attempts to say goodbye,
1225
00:55:08.260 --> 00:55:11.300
but she needed those three visits
1226
00:55:11.300 --> 00:55:14.680
to be complete because after the first one
1227
00:55:14.680 --> 00:55:17.900
she had a lot of tears after the kids left
1228
00:55:17.900 --> 00:55:23.260
and after the second one it was better,
1229
00:55:23.260 --> 00:55:24.380
but she still had tears.
1230
00:55:24.380 --> 00:55:26.840
She was still emotional and after the third one
1231
00:55:26.840 --> 00:55:29.740
it was such a beautiful day that she felt like,
1232
00:55:29.920 --> 00:55:33.680
okay, I'm good to not see them anymore now.
1233
00:55:34.040 --> 00:55:38.560
Yeah, so, and on another level,
1234
00:55:39.080 --> 00:55:42.480
I know she's still seeing them now, of course.
1235
00:55:43.280 --> 00:55:45.300
And they now know what good looks like
1236
00:55:45.300 --> 00:55:47.440
in terms of what you expect from them.
1237
00:55:47.600 --> 00:55:49.800
Yeah, yeah, upset them all, that's for sure.
1238
00:55:51.460 --> 00:55:55.660
And so she passed, you bade her a great farewell,
1239
00:55:55.900 --> 00:55:58.120
you took time, you weren't planning to write a book,
1240
00:55:58.160 --> 00:56:00.080
but the book emerged from various conversations
1241
00:56:00.080 --> 00:56:02.360
and you took time to write it.
1242
00:56:02.760 --> 00:56:04.340
Couple years later we have this beautiful book
1243
00:56:04.340 --> 00:56:05.580
called As She Chose.
1244
00:56:07.100 --> 00:56:08.540
When you look back now,
1245
00:56:10.220 --> 00:56:11.560
like you said something that struck me,
1246
00:56:11.720 --> 00:56:13.940
you said because you lived overseas for so long
1247
00:56:13.940 --> 00:56:15.980
and then you spent a long time with your mum
1248
00:56:15.980 --> 00:56:18.240
in her final time, she said to you,
1249
00:56:18.240 --> 00:56:19.600
I feel like I'm getting to know you.
1250
00:56:21.160 --> 00:56:23.660
What did you learn about her in this process
1251
00:56:23.660 --> 00:56:25.280
and what do you think she learned about you
1252
00:56:25.280 --> 00:56:26.200
in this whole process?
1253
00:56:27.540 --> 00:56:31.800
I mean, I left probably not because of her,
1254
00:56:32.840 --> 00:56:38.640
more because I felt, the way I used to describe it is,
1255
00:56:38.640 --> 00:56:43.080
and that was me sitting on a rock at Bondi Beach
1256
00:56:43.080 --> 00:56:44.480
overlooking the ocean.
1257
00:56:44.960 --> 00:56:47.080
So if you could get that picture.
1258
00:56:47.080 --> 00:56:50.720
So the image was in Switzerland I have these mountains
1259
00:56:50.720 --> 00:56:52.280
and if I have a thought,
1260
00:56:53.140 --> 00:56:55.460
it hits the mountain and hits me back in the face.
1261
00:56:55.920 --> 00:56:59.460
So in that sense, a sense of limitation.
1262
00:57:00.080 --> 00:57:01.980
Whereas if I sit on the rock at Bondi Beach
1263
00:57:01.980 --> 00:57:02.900
and I see the ocean,
1264
00:57:03.220 --> 00:57:04.940
the thought has to travel around the world
1265
00:57:04.940 --> 00:57:07.500
and then it can maybe one day hit me in the back,
1266
00:57:07.500 --> 00:57:09.140
but it has to go a far away.
1267
00:57:09.620 --> 00:57:13.120
And so that's the sense I've had of being here.
1268
00:57:13.120 --> 00:57:17.880
And in that sense, I wasn't limited by any,
1269
00:57:18.520 --> 00:57:20.340
you should do it this way.
1270
00:57:20.760 --> 00:57:24.560
There was a big conversation I've had with that
1271
00:57:24.560 --> 00:57:26.840
during the studies where I was given an opportunity
1272
00:57:26.840 --> 00:57:28.360
to work on a project
1273
00:57:28.360 --> 00:57:32.180
because we had to do internships for university
1274
00:57:32.180 --> 00:57:34.700
and then in one of the companies,
1275
00:57:34.860 --> 00:57:37.480
they liked me so much that they said,
1276
00:57:37.480 --> 00:57:39.300
we have this interesting project here
1277
00:57:39.300 --> 00:57:43.180
and it's for six months, would you like to do it?
1278
00:57:43.180 --> 00:57:45.200
And I thought, what a great opportunity.
1279
00:57:45.260 --> 00:57:46.640
I'd love to take that opportunity
1280
00:57:46.640 --> 00:57:48.580
and what do I do with the rest of the year?
1281
00:57:50.100 --> 00:57:51.420
I could go to the US.
1282
00:57:51.520 --> 00:57:52.720
I could improve my English.
1283
00:57:52.840 --> 00:57:55.140
I could go to, not to a language school,
1284
00:57:55.240 --> 00:57:57.980
but I'll just go and study what I want to study.
1285
00:57:58.540 --> 00:58:00.840
So marketing and strategic market management
1286
00:58:00.840 --> 00:58:04.000
at UC Berkeley, why not?
1287
00:58:04.360 --> 00:58:06.740
And I'll travel to US because I haven't seen that.
1288
00:58:06.740 --> 00:58:09.440
So that was the first time I wanted to do that.
1289
00:58:09.780 --> 00:58:11.960
And my dad was like, you're not doing that.
1290
00:58:12.420 --> 00:58:14.000
You'll go straight back to study
1291
00:58:14.540 --> 00:58:17.640
and you'll finish as soon as you possibly can.
1292
00:58:17.760 --> 00:58:19.520
I'm like, no, I'm not.
1293
00:58:20.300 --> 00:58:20.920
Guess where you're at.
1294
00:58:22.020 --> 00:58:24.380
And that was the first conflict.
1295
00:58:24.580 --> 00:58:26.000
Then was the classic situation
1296
00:58:26.000 --> 00:58:27.820
where he was sitting on his office chair
1297
00:58:27.820 --> 00:58:33.000
that was a high chair behind a wooden desk
1298
00:58:33.000 --> 00:58:35.880
and I was sitting on the low couch
1299
00:58:36.320 --> 00:58:37.360
behind the chair.
1300
00:58:37.560 --> 00:58:39.160
So the low status, high status.
1301
00:58:40.480 --> 00:58:44.000
And I'm like, no, I want to do that.
1302
00:58:44.100 --> 00:58:46.640
He says, well, as long as I'm paying for your studies,
1303
00:58:46.840 --> 00:58:47.760
you're doing it my way.
1304
00:58:47.800 --> 00:58:49.540
And I'm like, well, then you don't have to pay
1305
00:58:49.540 --> 00:58:50.540
for my studies anymore.
1306
00:58:50.540 --> 00:58:51.940
I will pay for them myself.
1307
00:58:53.600 --> 00:58:54.440
End of discussion.
1308
00:58:54.640 --> 00:58:55.160
How old were you then?
1309
00:58:55.260 --> 00:58:57.640
And my mom said, I'm so glad
1310
00:58:57.640 --> 00:58:58.640
you had that conversation.
1311
00:58:58.720 --> 00:58:59.680
Good for you.
1312
00:59:00.100 --> 00:59:00.840
Good for you.
1313
00:59:00.900 --> 00:59:02.740
You go and do and follow your path.
1314
00:59:02.740 --> 00:59:07.340
And so that kind of set us along that path.
1315
00:59:07.520 --> 00:59:11.980
And so I got to be free of any limitations of any,
1316
00:59:12.140 --> 00:59:14.640
because my dad, I think grew up a lot with
1317
00:59:14.640 --> 00:59:16.840
one does this and one does this.
1318
00:59:16.940 --> 00:59:18.920
And this is how, you know.
1319
00:59:19.020 --> 00:59:19.600
It's a different generation.
1320
00:59:20.540 --> 00:59:24.060
And my mom was the regulator in terms of that
1321
00:59:24.060 --> 00:59:26.000
because she had grown up in the countryside
1322
00:59:26.640 --> 00:59:29.120
where she didn't have many of those limitations.
1323
00:59:29.220 --> 00:59:30.780
She also had two parents
1324
00:59:30.780 --> 00:59:34.100
that had to work hard in the medical practice.
1325
00:59:34.820 --> 00:59:37.100
And so they had a lot of freedoms as kids
1326
00:59:37.100 --> 00:59:39.780
where they weren't given any boundaries.
1327
00:59:39.860 --> 00:59:40.980
And they were in a countryside
1328
00:59:40.980 --> 00:59:44.040
with a couple of hundred of people in the town.
1329
00:59:45.860 --> 00:59:47.840
So there was a lot of freedom
1330
00:59:48.620 --> 00:59:50.580
and a lot of connectedness with nature.
1331
00:59:50.900 --> 00:59:55.240
And so she loosened him up a lot, right?
1332
00:59:55.240 --> 00:59:57.200
But I also,
1333
00:59:58.340 --> 01:00:01.280
I still had those expectations from my father.
1334
01:00:01.420 --> 01:00:03.160
I need to kind of go my own way
1335
01:00:03.880 --> 01:00:05.580
and prove my own point
1336
01:00:05.580 --> 01:00:08.980
that I could stand on my own two feet in that sense.
1337
01:00:09.700 --> 01:00:13.700
And so I learned about the meditation
1338
01:00:14.460 --> 01:00:19.200
and all exploring all these spiritual topics
1339
01:00:19.200 --> 01:00:20.840
and those kind of things.
1340
01:00:21.000 --> 01:00:24.040
Things that she would have wanted to explore.
1341
01:00:24.260 --> 01:00:27.040
So she would have liked to explore more time
1342
01:00:27.560 --> 01:00:32.980
in places like Nepal or in Bhutan.
1343
01:00:33.080 --> 01:00:35.200
She especially liked Bhutan.
1344
01:00:36.580 --> 01:00:40.280
And she wanted to do the Camino to Santiago.
1345
01:00:42.200 --> 01:00:45.840
And in the end, Dad wanted to come along,
1346
01:00:46.040 --> 01:00:47.720
but he basically wanted to come along
1347
01:00:47.720 --> 01:00:48.720
to see the countryside.
1348
01:00:48.900 --> 01:00:50.940
She wanted to go on it for the journey.
1349
01:00:51.960 --> 01:00:54.740
And then when he took over the planning,
1350
01:00:55.380 --> 01:00:56.540
they had a car organized
1351
01:00:56.540 --> 01:00:57.860
that took them from place to place.
1352
01:00:58.320 --> 01:01:01.700
He had all the comfort stops planned in
1353
01:01:01.700 --> 01:01:05.100
where she would have just wanted to do the spiritual path.
1354
01:01:05.880 --> 01:01:08.060
So she didn't fully get to live that
1355
01:01:08.060 --> 01:01:12.420
and she could see how I explored more of that in my life.
1356
01:01:12.540 --> 01:01:16.940
And so she kind of vicariously lived that through me
1357
01:01:16.940 --> 01:01:18.440
and was asked,
1358
01:01:18.560 --> 01:01:21.120
so how did you come to that conclusion or to that?
1359
01:01:21.660 --> 01:01:23.680
So that was the exchange that we often had
1360
01:01:23.680 --> 01:01:24.640
where she felt like,
1361
01:01:24.640 --> 01:01:27.500
oh, I'm only just really getting to know.
1362
01:01:28.160 --> 01:01:29.760
Because also there were some,
1363
01:01:29.960 --> 01:01:31.660
because my dad collected letters
1364
01:01:31.660 --> 01:01:34.840
and in the book I've also got some of the letters that,
1365
01:01:35.180 --> 01:01:36.660
some exchanges that we've had
1366
01:01:38.140 --> 01:01:42.060
where there was some philosophical conversations
1367
01:01:42.060 --> 01:01:44.700
about what love was and what conditional love was
1368
01:01:44.700 --> 01:01:48.320
and in relation to parents and stuff like that.
1369
01:01:48.520 --> 01:01:49.760
So it was interesting to,
1370
01:01:49.980 --> 01:01:51.640
because he had saved not just my letters,
1371
01:01:51.660 --> 01:01:52.960
but also their responses.
1372
01:01:53.680 --> 01:02:00.780
And so I could see the dynamic that was going on there.
1373
01:02:02.480 --> 01:02:05.940
And to be fair, I was out in the world
1374
01:02:05.940 --> 01:02:10.200
and unlike today where we've got WhatsApp,
1375
01:02:10.360 --> 01:02:11.100
we've got Zoom,
1376
01:02:11.180 --> 01:02:13.400
we've got all these possibilities to connect,
1377
01:02:13.540 --> 01:02:14.680
back then we didn't.
1378
01:02:14.680 --> 01:02:17.120
No, you wrote in the blue airplane letter
1379
01:02:17.120 --> 01:02:18.440
every couple of months.
1380
01:02:19.480 --> 01:02:19.820
Exactly, exactly.
1381
01:02:19.840 --> 01:02:20.980
Because it was the lightest paper you got.
1382
01:02:20.980 --> 01:02:21.600
Exactly.
1383
01:02:21.860 --> 01:02:24.340
Or maybe I'll get some of these
1384
01:02:24.340 --> 01:02:26.920
little plastic telephone cards in Japan
1385
01:02:26.920 --> 01:02:29.080
that I could use to make a couple of phone calls.
1386
01:02:29.480 --> 01:02:31.360
It was very far and in between
1387
01:02:31.360 --> 01:02:34.920
and I was out there living my life and exploring.
1388
01:02:36.120 --> 01:02:37.680
And in that sense,
1389
01:02:37.740 --> 01:02:40.940
I was very selfish looking after me.
1390
01:02:41.020 --> 01:02:43.840
I wasn't looking after them at that point,
1391
01:02:44.340 --> 01:02:49.220
but I came back at the time when they needed me most.
1392
01:02:49.220 --> 01:02:49.640
Yeah.
1393
01:02:52.360 --> 01:02:54.280
What's your advice for our listener
1394
01:02:54.280 --> 01:02:57.200
who is on the back of our conversation
1395
01:02:57.200 --> 01:02:59.600
thinking about their elderly parent
1396
01:02:59.600 --> 01:03:01.260
or it may not be an elderly parent,
1397
01:03:01.440 --> 01:03:02.520
just their loved one.
1398
01:03:03.780 --> 01:03:06.840
How do they have a conversation with that person
1399
01:03:07.640 --> 01:03:10.140
to at least start the conversation on
1400
01:03:10.140 --> 01:03:15.060
how do you want us to take care of you
1401
01:03:15.060 --> 01:03:16.240
when it's your time to go?
1402
01:03:16.840 --> 01:03:18.580
How do you start the conversation?
1403
01:03:19.220 --> 01:03:24.020
I think there are so many avenues to try to open that.
1404
01:03:24.560 --> 01:03:26.960
And I don't think there's a right or wrong way.
1405
01:03:28.040 --> 01:03:30.560
I've thought a lot about these conversation starters
1406
01:03:30.560 --> 01:03:32.940
and at the back of the book,
1407
01:03:32.940 --> 01:03:36.400
I have a link where there's a website
1408
01:03:36.400 --> 01:03:38.160
with a whole bunch of resources
1409
01:03:38.160 --> 01:03:42.080
and conversation starters and things to think about
1410
01:03:42.080 --> 01:03:44.040
in terms of preparing for it
1411
01:03:44.040 --> 01:03:47.060
and books and articles and all these kinds of things.
1412
01:03:47.700 --> 01:03:49.500
But there's a number of,
1413
01:03:49.960 --> 01:03:51.300
so what do you want the end of,
1414
01:03:51.380 --> 01:03:54.820
what does quality of life mean to you at the end of life?
1415
01:03:54.880 --> 01:03:56.480
And maybe that changes over time.
1416
01:03:57.580 --> 01:03:59.260
If we have this conversation today,
1417
01:03:59.360 --> 01:04:01.440
quality of life will mean something different
1418
01:04:01.440 --> 01:04:04.460
than in 10 or 20 years.
1419
01:04:05.540 --> 01:04:08.080
So it's worth revisiting that question
1420
01:04:08.080 --> 01:04:09.940
and then looking at,
1421
01:04:10.220 --> 01:04:12.300
well, what does that mean in terms of this house?
1422
01:04:12.380 --> 01:04:14.800
Is this house still something that you can manage?
1423
01:04:15.840 --> 01:04:18.540
Or does it become overwhelming?
1424
01:04:20.080 --> 01:04:21.300
Where is that up to?
1425
01:04:21.440 --> 01:04:22.040
Yeah, yeah.
1426
01:04:22.760 --> 01:04:24.580
I'll post some links from your book
1427
01:04:24.580 --> 01:04:26.860
into our website page so people can follow through
1428
01:04:26.860 --> 01:04:29.280
because it's definitely an emerging conversation
1429
01:04:29.280 --> 01:04:30.400
that we need to have, isn't it?
1430
01:04:30.620 --> 01:04:33.360
I think, and as we said in the beginning,
1431
01:04:33.560 --> 01:04:36.120
it's absolutely worthwhile having these conversations
1432
01:04:36.120 --> 01:04:38.120
because the earlier you have those conversations,
1433
01:04:38.160 --> 01:04:40.960
the more you can live in the moment and be present.
1434
01:04:41.100 --> 01:04:44.520
And I can only recommend,
1435
01:04:44.520 --> 01:04:45.520
because sometimes people go,
1436
01:04:45.680 --> 01:04:47.100
I see my parents twice a year
1437
01:04:47.100 --> 01:04:52.480
and they have maybe this many years left
1438
01:04:52.480 --> 01:04:56.240
and so you count on how many times that is still is.
1439
01:04:57.460 --> 01:05:04.440
And it's just such a gift to have present time.
1440
01:05:04.500 --> 01:05:06.200
It's a present to be-
1441
01:05:06.200 --> 01:05:06.840
In the present.
1442
01:05:07.460 --> 01:05:09.820
In the present and being present with someone
1443
01:05:09.820 --> 01:05:13.540
and really listening to whatever their story is.
1444
01:05:13.540 --> 01:05:18.440
And we went through photo albums of her childhood
1445
01:05:18.440 --> 01:05:21.140
that I hadn't seen before.
1446
01:05:21.780 --> 01:05:23.200
And so I could see,
1447
01:05:23.300 --> 01:05:26.220
I could have a whole different lens on that.
1448
01:05:27.060 --> 01:05:28.180
Because she was always great
1449
01:05:28.180 --> 01:05:29.860
at writing these travel reports,
1450
01:05:30.040 --> 01:05:32.300
she wanted to show us where she had grown up
1451
01:05:32.300 --> 01:05:34.580
because I had never seen where she'd grown up.
1452
01:05:35.380 --> 01:05:39.040
But she had organized a trip for us all to go on
1453
01:05:39.040 --> 01:05:42.520
with the whole family back when dad was still alive.
1454
01:05:42.520 --> 01:05:45.240
But then we had to cancel it in the last minute
1455
01:05:45.240 --> 01:05:46.540
because dad wasn't well.
1456
01:05:47.780 --> 01:05:49.420
But we had the travel report.
1457
01:05:50.200 --> 01:05:52.920
So when mom passed, I said to my family,
1458
01:05:53.700 --> 01:05:55.620
so we'll go and do that trip.
1459
01:05:56.420 --> 01:05:57.880
Using her travel report from her.
1460
01:05:57.880 --> 01:06:00.800
We used her travel report to go and do the trip
1461
01:06:00.800 --> 01:06:03.040
that she would have wanted to do with us.
1462
01:06:03.560 --> 01:06:06.380
And I've called her brother who lived in the area
1463
01:06:06.380 --> 01:06:09.180
and said, would you be able to take us
1464
01:06:09.180 --> 01:06:11.520
to the family home where you grew up?
1465
01:06:11.520 --> 01:06:14.620
Because that still exists in that little town.
1466
01:06:14.680 --> 01:06:17.620
It's called the doctor house still today.
1467
01:06:18.500 --> 01:06:20.200
From her parents who were two doctors.
1468
01:06:20.680 --> 01:06:22.500
So she was your guide there no matter what.
1469
01:06:22.680 --> 01:06:25.280
And so she was the guide and we went to see that
1470
01:06:25.280 --> 01:06:28.560
and he shared some stories out of his experience
1471
01:06:28.560 --> 01:06:32.300
how winters were and how there was so much snow
1472
01:06:32.300 --> 01:06:35.600
that it could jump out of the second story
1473
01:06:36.300 --> 01:06:38.640
straight into the snow and how they were,
1474
01:06:39.020 --> 01:06:42.040
the father had like a horse and a cart
1475
01:06:42.040 --> 01:06:44.140
that he would go and visit his patients
1476
01:06:44.140 --> 01:06:47.360
with a horse and a cart and treacherous roads
1477
01:06:48.500 --> 01:06:51.760
and yeah, really, really fascinating stuff.
1478
01:06:52.020 --> 01:06:53.040
I love what you've done, Oliver.
1479
01:06:53.180 --> 01:06:56.100
I know there'll be listeners sitting with tension
1480
01:06:56.900 --> 01:07:01.020
between their religious beliefs and secular beliefs.
1481
01:07:01.240 --> 01:07:03.740
There'll be people sitting with medical,
1482
01:07:04.480 --> 01:07:06.420
Hippocratic old beliefs, et cetera, et cetera.
1483
01:07:06.420 --> 01:07:10.760
But it boils down to, in my mind it boils down to
1484
01:07:10.760 --> 01:07:14.700
how do we love the people who are closest to us the most
1485
01:07:14.700 --> 01:07:18.560
and honoring their intentions in a way that's conscious
1486
01:07:18.560 --> 01:07:20.680
is I think is one of the most beautiful things you can do.
1487
01:07:20.720 --> 01:07:22.280
So I love that you've written this book.
1488
01:07:22.660 --> 01:07:24.000
It's a lovely book to read.
1489
01:07:24.640 --> 01:07:26.260
I've got two questions for you before we finish up.
1490
01:07:27.120 --> 01:07:29.520
Your mom was in her mid 80s I think when she passed.
1491
01:07:29.780 --> 01:07:32.440
What would the 85 year old version of Oliver
1492
01:07:33.360 --> 01:07:36.620
be asking of you now if they could talk to you?
1493
01:07:38.800 --> 01:07:39.980
Whoa, what a question.
1494
01:07:41.020 --> 01:07:42.920
That's a coaching question.
1495
01:07:51.770 --> 01:07:55.160
The 85 year old version of myself.
1496
01:07:55.900 --> 01:08:00.360
Well, I don't really think in numbers to be honest.
1497
01:08:02.180 --> 01:08:07.640
I have a picture for my mom
1498
01:08:07.660 --> 01:08:10.900
for the future where I still want to be able to do
1499
01:08:11.960 --> 01:08:17.020
all kinds of nonsense with grandchildren
1500
01:08:17.020 --> 01:08:18.640
should there be grandchildren.
1501
01:08:19.600 --> 01:08:22.359
And so I want to be strong and flexible
1502
01:08:22.359 --> 01:08:26.420
and fit enough to be able to run around with them
1503
01:08:26.420 --> 01:08:28.420
at whatever age that is.
1504
01:08:28.859 --> 01:08:32.279
I have, and if I still have a purpose
1505
01:08:32.740 --> 01:08:35.200
that I want to pursue at that point,
1506
01:08:35.240 --> 01:08:37.220
I will definitely do that.
1507
01:08:39.160 --> 01:08:42.600
I personally have a philosophy that I believe
1508
01:08:42.600 --> 01:08:43.979
that when I'm complete,
1509
01:08:44.240 --> 01:08:47.939
I'll be ready to leave this body without assistance.
1510
01:08:48.300 --> 01:08:52.140
I've left this body in this life in meditation.
1511
01:08:52.260 --> 01:08:56.960
So I believe I'll be able to do that when I'm ready.
1512
01:08:57.380 --> 01:09:00.100
And if not, I've seen a beautiful path
1513
01:09:00.100 --> 01:09:02.020
that is very peaceful.
1514
01:09:03.060 --> 01:09:05.740
And I can't really see a better way
1515
01:09:05.740 --> 01:09:10.960
of having a way out,
1516
01:09:11.680 --> 01:09:14.859
an end of life, of this human experience
1517
01:09:14.859 --> 01:09:16.220
than doing that.
1518
01:09:16.660 --> 01:09:22.720
It just, yeah, it's a really beautiful path
1519
01:09:22.720 --> 01:09:27.439
that leads to a death of natural causes.
1520
01:09:28.000 --> 01:09:29.460
That's a great answer to the question.
1521
01:09:30.500 --> 01:09:34.000
My final one, what are your final words of wisdom
1522
01:09:34.000 --> 01:09:34.620
for us today?
1523
01:09:38.290 --> 01:09:40.250
Conversation, have the conversations
1524
01:09:42.229 --> 01:09:48.830
and get clear what is valuable to you
1525
01:09:48.830 --> 01:09:51.050
and spend time on what is valuable to you.
1526
01:09:51.090 --> 01:09:54.690
So you can have a life where you feel you've spent it
1527
01:09:55.430 --> 01:10:00.350
in a way that allowed you to live fully, I think.
1528
01:10:01.270 --> 01:10:08.340
And that's one of the most pleasing feedbacks
1529
01:10:08.360 --> 01:10:10.640
that I've received on the book was that,
1530
01:10:10.640 --> 01:10:13.780
given the topic, that it's an incredibly life-affirming read.
1531
01:10:14.940 --> 01:10:17.780
So I like that because it was really important to me
1532
01:10:17.780 --> 01:10:21.360
that I could also communicate what quality of life meant
1533
01:10:21.360 --> 01:10:25.820
to her, to my mom, and what we learned
1534
01:10:25.820 --> 01:10:27.420
from her in that regard.
1535
01:10:28.900 --> 01:10:33.020
So I definitely want to have a life
1536
01:10:33.020 --> 01:10:34.760
that is very connected with nature,
1537
01:10:34.760 --> 01:10:40.300
very active and alive, and as long as this body
1538
01:10:40.300 --> 01:10:41.440
allows me to.
1539
01:10:42.960 --> 01:10:45.060
So, and I think that's a...
1540
01:10:45.060 --> 01:10:46.400
It's a beautiful words of wisdom.
1541
01:10:48.000 --> 01:10:50.060
The book says it's the conscious end to a life
1542
01:10:50.060 --> 01:10:52.520
well lived, and she certainly lived a well life,
1543
01:10:52.560 --> 01:10:53.960
and you're continuing that story.
1544
01:10:54.460 --> 01:10:56.380
So, Oliver, great to have you here, appreciate it.
1545
01:10:56.680 --> 01:10:57.440
Thank you for writing the book.
1546
01:10:58.180 --> 01:10:59.760
Thank you, Pot, thanks for having me
1547
01:10:59.760 --> 01:11:01.560
and your interest in sharing it.
1548
01:11:01.580 --> 01:11:02.120
Thank you.
1549
01:11:02.400 --> 01:11:04.060
Hey, I hope you enjoyed that episode.
1550
01:11:04.060 --> 01:11:06.280
I hope you got some value from it.
1551
01:11:06.500 --> 01:11:09.200
New listeners keep telling me that they found our show
1552
01:11:09.200 --> 01:11:12.380
because someone like you shared an episode with them.
1553
01:11:12.860 --> 01:11:14.740
So if you think this was helpful for you,
1554
01:11:14.780 --> 01:11:16.660
can I ask you just to think about one or two
1555
01:11:16.660 --> 01:11:18.700
of your friends or someone in your family
1556
01:11:18.700 --> 01:11:21.200
that might enjoy it and share it with them.
1557
01:11:21.860 --> 01:11:23.420
If you haven't been onto our website,
1558
01:11:24.400 --> 01:11:26.240
DonateTheOldManIn.com, please go there
1559
01:11:26.240 --> 01:11:28.040
because there's some free resources
1560
01:11:28.040 --> 01:11:29.320
that might be useful for you,
1561
01:11:29.460 --> 01:11:31.320
and you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter
1562
01:11:31.320 --> 01:11:33.700
so you never miss out on what's coming next.
1563
01:11:34.400 --> 01:11:37.260
And lastly, if you haven't subscribed one more time,
1564
01:11:37.460 --> 01:11:39.680
can I ask you, press the button to subscribe
1565
01:11:39.680 --> 01:11:43.680
on whatever video or audio platform you're on.
1566
01:11:44.720 --> 01:11:48.260
Until next time, don't let the old man in.
