How to Live So We Can Die Peacefully with Death Doula Alua Arthur
May 24, 2022
Glennon Doyle:
Hi, everybody. Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. I am happy today because we are finally talking about death.
Abby Wambach:
Oh boy.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. So since we started this podcast, my sister, her big topic that she was most excited to talk about was menopause. And my topic that I was most excited to talk about was death. So I feel like it’s a mystery why sister and I don’t get invited to more parties.
Glennon Doyle:
And I know that this is a scary topic for a lot of people, but we’re going to do it unscaredly and beautifully. We are so excited to introduce our guests today. The joyful, hilarious, effervescent, brilliant, and deeply wise, Alua. As Alua Arthur says, “Talking about sex won’t make us pregnant and talking about death won’t make us dead.” Alua Arthur is a death doula, recovering attorney, and the founder of Going with Grace, a death doula training and end of life planning organization that exists to support people as they answer this question that I love so much. What must I do to be at peace with myself so that I may live presently and die gracefully? Going with Grace works to improve and redefine the end of life experience for people rooted in every community using the individual lived experience as the foundation. Alua is inspired by the gift of life itself and is always on the quest for the best donuts and fried plantains. Alua, welcome.
Alua Arthur:
Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here with you all today.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, same with us.
Glennon Doyle:
We’ve been counting down to this day. And I wanted to tell you, when we found out that you had agreed to be on, We Can Do Hard Things, my quest to understand everything about you began.
Alua Arthur:
Uh oh.
Glennon Doyle:
I may not know everything, but I know a lot. I feel like I could write your biography, if you need one.
Alua Arthur:
I need help.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, great. And I just wanted to tell you that because of your work, I just a couple weeks ago, started talking to my kids about what I would like for end of life plans. And actually we’re on vacation and I sat down at dinner and said, “This is going to be so fun. Let’s talk about this.” Do you remember that?
Abby Wambach:
Oh yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Can you tell us, Alua, what do you envision for your death plan?
Alua Arthur:
As I’m dying, I’d love to be on a deck someplace, looking out on the mountains, I’d love to see trees everywhere. I would love if it was like dusk or sunset, the sky is starting to change, oranges, pinks, blues, some yellow still, but day is certainly dying into night as I’m dying as well. I’d love to smell Nag Champa incense, because it’s one of my favorites, the Amber scent.
Alua Arthur:
I want my loved ones around, but I don’t want anybody like fussing over me necessarily, I want them minding their business. I mean, I want them to keep an eye on me, for sure. I want everybody to care that I am dying, but I want them to also mind their business, just to be clear about that. I don’t want any hospital, I don’t want any machines, I don’t want any beeping. I just want to be like soft, I want my feet to be warm. I want to be in total surrender about this ride I’m about to take that none of us have any idea what actually entails. And then as soon as I die or once they notice that I’ve died, I want them to clap. I want them to be like joyous that I’ve done this hard thing, hopefully with a lot of grace and surrender and joy. And I want them to be proud of the life that I lived, too, at my death. Yeah, I’d love it if they’d clap. I mean, it might be hard, but I’d like if they would like slow clap.
Glennon Doyle:
Slow clap.
Abby Wambach:
Slow clap.
Alua Arthur:
Good job. Good job.
Abby Wambach:
I mean, Glennon, can you tell Alua what you told us that night?
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I mean a lot of things, I had all kinds, you can imagine all the details I had in my truest, most beautiful death plan. But the one thing we talked about a lot is that I want my family to do something that is similar to sitting shiva because-
Abby Wambach:
Pre or post?
Glennon Doyle:
Post, when I die after I die. Like I want my family to be forced to all sit together in a house for many days, because I feel like in our culture, we just rush through. I know I’m always trying to get everybody to hang out with me. But I feel like we rush through grief or losing someone, and then we just go back to our lives. And then all of that unprocessed grief comes out in a million different ways. We try to help our kids plan for hard things their whole life, that’s all we’re doing. And then we don’t help them plan for the hardest thing, which is losing us. So I just wanted them to have some sort of processing time.
Abby Wambach:
You should have seen our daughters, they were dumbfounded that we were having this conversation. One of them was like, “Can we please stop talking about this?” Because it’s intense. It’s an intense conversation.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, but I love it. I love the idea.
Alua Arthur:
It was hard for them?
Glennon Doyle:
Well, one of them was into it. One of them was interested and curious and asking a lot of questions. And then the other one was getting an upset stomach and didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Yeah.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah. That sounds about right.
Abby Wambach:
I was also getting an upset stomach.
Alua Arthur:
Oh.
Amanda Doyle:
Alua, when I think about what y’all are saying about your death plans, it makes me think of birth plans. At least for me, there was a lot of grief and trauma based on my birth of my first born that did not go according to plan. And so I had had this kind of very concrete vision and it wasn’t just a plan, I did this six months of breathing classes and all the written out stuff. And I feel like when it didn’t go that way, it felt like I’d lost something.
Amanda Doyle:
So I’m wondering about that in connection with death plans, because sometimes ironically the trauma is heightened in the case of birth plans, precisely because we had such a clear vision. So I realize the dead person is dead, but it seems like a lot of folks who do everything right are able to give their loved ones a beautiful death. And then a lot of folks who do everything right, are maybe holding a double grief because they’re holding both the loss of their loved one and the loss of this kind of passing the way they wanted to give it to them. So do you see that? And how do people process that?
Alua Arthur:
I do see it and I’m so glad that you brought that up. Because what happens often is that we get so fixated on this idea of a good death. What I just described to you is my perfect death, like that would be the way to go. And who knows, I might be like screaming, like, “No, I’m not ready.” And it’s like afternoon and I’m really young, who knows.
Alua Arthur:
It’s a way that when we are healthy and even those that are not, can look forward to find out what their values are so we can do as best as we can to align closely with those values. Clearly my values revolve around being outside, being around people I love, not being fussed over. It’s all pretty evident. And so let’s say I’m in the hospital and I’m 55 and I don’t get to have the type of death that I thought that I would. Perhaps they can inject elements of those, that death plan that I told you about, into the current to make it as good as it can. We often strive for the most ideal death under the circumstances. So these are the circumstances we’ve been given, what is the most ideal for you right now? And how can I, how can we, I’ll see if we can bring that forward.
Alua Arthur:
There’s so much judgment that goes into this idea of like a good death. And you’re right, it ends up like re-traumatizing folks when they don’t have it. I often try to remember like, “Who is the good death for?” If it’s for the dying person, then they’re gone, they’re gone. They’re gone. If it’s for the people that live after them, which I hope that the way that we die can be instructional to our children, to our loved ones. Then maybe the best that we can do is be in some type of surrender around the fact that it’s happening. And that would be a great teaching tool to begin with. Does that make sense?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Yes. It does.
Glennon Doyle:
And the taking the themes make so much sense. So then in my case, if they weren’t doing the particular stay in the house for six days, they would be thinking, “Well, it was important to mom that we process together. So we might do it in a different way.”
Alua Arthur:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
But they take the theme.
Alua Arthur:
Bingo.
Glennon Doyle:
I love that.
Alua Arthur:
Take the values.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Alua Arthur:
Understand the values around it. That’s the value of talking about it, to me, is that everybody’s kind of on … they understand what you want, they kind of see what you care about, they see what you like. And we try to do that as close as possible. And we release. Death is a lot about surrender. So you got to release. And I think birth, similarly, I’ve never given birth. I think you also reach a point where you just have to surrender.
Amanda Doyle:
What you just said, it reminds me of Ocean Vuong. He was just on the podcast and he walked his mother through death. And he said, “Death is the closest thing I’ve seen to truth. You don’t get to say when or how you experience it.” So that surrender is surrendering to the truth of what is happening for everyone.
Alua Arthur:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Abby Wambach:
That’s beautiful.
Alua Arthur:
It is.
Glennon Doyle:
Alua, your story of how you came to this work is as beautiful and fascinating as your approach to this work. You were a lawyer and you experienced a major depression around that time. And you describe yourself during that time as an empty dark house with nothing but a flicker left inside.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
And then, am I right? That you met a woman in Cuba, I think. That you ended up talking to on a bus for six hours.
Alua Arthur:
14 hours.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my. Okay. Tell us about that conversation, first of all. Was that when you were in the depression and still in the law firm?
Alua Arthur:
Yeah. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Alua Arthur:
So a little bit of background context. I went on a medical leave of absence from work and I found myself in Cuba through some serendipity. I started meditating to try to see if I could cure myself or at least bring myself back to self. And I started thinking about this kid, El Gonzalez from the nineties who was coming over on a raft with it … do you remember?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
Absolutely.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah. For some reason that kid popped in my head, so I did all this research about him and learned he was Cuban and learned about the Cuban missile crisis and everything. Later on that day, I went to go return a book at the library and somebody who was holding a bag that said Cuba is waiting. And I thought, “Hold on a minute.” At that point, I was also deeply searching for any meaning I could find anywhere because I was so depressed.
Alua Arthur:
So I went to Cuba, went out one night, met this woman, we danced all night, woke up in the morning, wanted to return something to her and a car almost hit me along the way. And I got myself together real quick, got on the bus eventually and met this woman, Jessica. We started chatting about her life, we talked about death, we talked about illness, we talked about men, we talked about orgasms and uteruses and scars and the Backstreet Boys. We just went everywhere, we had so much fun.
Alua Arthur:
And during that conversation, it got really clear to me that there was no place for this woman who was ill to have conversations about her death. Nobody was willing to talk to her about it. It was so unfair to her. At least it felt unfair to me that she was grappling with this major thing that every single last one of us are going to go through. And there was nobody to talk about it with. It broke my heart. My broken heart has been really my North star in life because I’m like, “There’s something to lean into there.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yep.
Alua Arthur:
So yeah, I think you all probably understand this phenomenon quite well. I leaned into the broken heart and I was like, “Let’s do something about this.” It’s short version of the long story, so we got off the bus after 14 hours together. She was supposed to get off after seven, but she stayed with me. And yeah, turns out she’s in that car that had almost hit me in the town before we left. And so it was just really just a crash, crash course with what would eventually become my life’s work, it turned out really beautifully.
Glennon Doyle:
And then, I want to move on to what happened next. But before that, I just want every pod squatter to listen to the fact that Alua followed the flicker, there was still a flicker. And then she followed the flicker and listened to the signs even when that was all there was. And that’s how she ended up in Cuba. Unfreaking amazing. Okay.
Abby Wambach:
Un-amazing.
Amanda Doyle:
Un-amazing.
Glennon Doyle:
Right.
Amanda Doyle:
I love it.
Glennon Doyle:
So then, Alua, you have this idea in your mind about writing this wrong that this woman had nowhere to discuss, this unbelievably important thing for her. And then your brother-in-law gets sick.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah. It was so cruel. So cruel. My older sister, Bozoma Saint John’s husband, Peter got sick. And Peter was my homie, I don’t have an older brother and this tall white guy comes into my life and starts trying to tell me what to do. And we became very, very fast friends. I mean, we clashed all the time, but it was I think what brothers, sister relationships are like, I only have sisters.
Alua Arthur:
So when Peter got sick, it rocked me. I wasn’t ready. He was 43. He was for all intents and purposes, healthy, at least I assumed he was. And he got Burkitt lymphoma. And four months later, they weren’t going to be able to treat him anymore. And I was on a trip with my boyfriend at the time, packed up a small bag, thinking I’d just go for the weekend to see how everybody was doing. And I stayed for two months and Peter died. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So, what made you feel like you could be one to help walk him all the way home? Because that’s what blows my mind, so many things about your story. Most people make a casserole or just decide they can’t handle it or whatever it is. What was it that made you say, “I am here and I am staying and I’m going to walk my brother home.”
Alua Arthur:
My heart was broken. My heart was broken. I didn’t know what else to do. I feel emotional talking about it again. Peter died almost nine years ago, and I still have tears when I think about him in that time. This person I love so dearly was dying and they needed help, there were things that needed to be done. And if I left, that meant that my sister would’ve had to leave the hospital to go pick my niece up. I mean, she had people and I’m sure somebody would’ve stepped in. But it was like, “Well, I can be with Leo, I can be with my niece.” So I’ll do that. I’ll spend time with her. I’ll run the errands. I’ll pick people up from the airport. I’ll research medications. I’ll see if there’s like a generic option that’s cheaper. I’ll find out what about his will, I’ll help him pick out an urn, I’ll go to Home Depot and buy the boxes. Like I can do it. If I do it, then she can just spend time with him. His parents can just spend time with him.
Alua Arthur:
And so that’s what I did. I stayed and I did all the things that they needed so that they could be present with their beloved who was dying. I mean, he was mine too, but the help was necessary. And so I did it and I learned how to doula through Peter gratefully, gratefully. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
And you told Boz the truth too. I read that there was a moment where she was leaving Peter’s room and no one was saying what was happening. Everyone was talking around it, even the doctors, nobody was saying it. And she said, “Well, what do you think’s going on with Peter?” And you told her that he was dying. How did you know that? First of all, what was that moment to look at your sister and say the hardest thing? That’s the hardest thing.
Alua Arthur:
It was the hardest thing, up until recently when we talked through it, because she didn’t have any memory of that. And up until very, very recently when we talked about it again, she said it was the right thing to do. Because I’ve carried a lot of guilt about whether or not I should have done that because I said it and she collapsed. We were in the elevator bank, she collapsed, she’s on the dirty ground. And so I got down with her and I was like, “Shit, I made the wrong call. I should have lied or not spoken my truth at the time.” Because maybe it’s not the truth.
Alua Arthur:
But Peter is sick, he has a terminal illness that they cannot cure. They say they can’t cure him anymore. He looks the way that he does, he was so thin, he was frail, he was dying. It was obvious, the light was starting to fade in his eyes. It was obvious to me and why nobody was saying it outright and saying it consistently, like maybe they said it once or twice and somebody missed it. But it wasn’t like a regular thing, we weren’t behaving like he was dying. And it shocked me and it made me really sad for all of us, it made me sad for her. Peter knew. Peter knew. Yeah, Peter knew. In his quiet moments, in our quiet moments, we talked very frankly about it. But I think that also gave me that knowing that he was dying because he knew he was dying. Yeah. Yeah, it was our thing.
Amanda Doyle:
What do you think that robs from people, when they don’t have that information? When no one is willing to say the thing that is happening.
Alua Arthur:
It robs them of presence. It robs them of presence because they don’t have an opportunity just to be with what’s happening. And be with the person that they love who’s dying. Because once you know somebody’s dying, then every time they touch you gets more sweet. Every time you’re around them gets more interesting. You look in their eyes because you don’t ever want to forget, you know it’s going to be gone. Everything feels so fleeting and that much more precious as a result. It robs them, I think, also of the joy, it robs them of a goodbye. It robs them of the opportunity to be with this tremendous gift that it is to love somebody and to sit deeply in the loving, even though they are leaving.
Glennon Doyle:
We talk about this hope a lot on this pod. And how sometimes I guess it’s a good thing, but lots of times it’s a spiritual bypass of what’s actually happening.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Or I love your quote, “Hope is a fucked up thing.”
Glennon Doyle:
Oh yes. Yes. Perfect. Can you tell more?
Abby Wambach:
It really is, isn’t it?
Glennon Doyle:
Alua, talk about hope being a fucked up thing, please.
Alua Arthur:
It’s a fucked up thing. It’s a fucked up thing.
Alua Arthur:
So in end of life context, in particular, can be dangerous. Now I’m not saying that people should not hold out hope for a miracle. But you cannot hope that you’re not going to die. You can hope that maybe you live to see your granddaughter graduate from high school. You can hope to make it to next Thursday. You can hope that this particular medicine doesn’t make you feel really ill. But to hope that you won’t die, not a reality for most of us. And I think that what happens oftentimes is that we put so much weight on hope that we’re going to get out of this illness somehow, that it ends up blind siding us, bypassing from the reality. We don’t prepare for what could happen. We can hold both. We can hold hope of smiling again and feeling joyful and being with people we love and preparing for death. They are not at odds with one another. And that’s what we do, we pit them against each other. It’s like, you hope for a cure so you don’t think about death. You’re trying to worm your way around it. That’s not fair. It’s painful.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
I don’t know if you think this is related to the hope thing. But as an observer again, if the battle language of fighting death is galvanizing for people who are experiencing illness and death, that’s wonderful. But just as an observer of it, the battle language specifically around cancer has always been disquieting to me. Like Sarah’s battling cancer, she’s going to beat it. Or Laura lost her battle with cancer. It suggests that’s person’s responsibility to wage that battle and if they tried hard enough, then they could do it. And if they didn’t, then they lost. Is that kind of language useful to people? Or is that related to this hope situation, where we’re just kind of like putting the promise of hope on them, that they’re going to fight it and relieve us of the burden.
Alua Arthur:
It might. I feel like we all try to carry hope with the dying person, but when it comes to their battle, it’s a private one. But I would agree with you, I tend to agree with you, that this battle language isn’t helpful. It makes our bodies battle grounds rather than these vessels that we use to engage with life. Rather than bodies that are simply responding to treatment or not responding to treatment. No responsibility on the part of the person who’s dying whatsoever.
Alua Arthur:
Some people I’ve learned do find it helpful. It makes them feel like they want to get up and fight. Yet, I also see plenty people who fight, plenty people that really wanted to live that die. Peter wanted to live. I wanted Peter to live. There was nothing that we could do. Nothing that we could do. The cells replicated faster than the treatment could keep up with and he died. And it’s what happens. We make winners and losers out of people we love when we say they lost their battle with cancer. No, no, so many people face cancer so valiantly. They smile, they still get up, they try to do their hair, they try to pick up their kids, they are still living with a disease that they know might kill them. And they wake up and do it every single day, those are not losers to me. Even when they die, they’re not losers. But some people like it.
Glennon Doyle:
Right.
Alua Arthur:
Some people like it. So for those people, I’m down. We can hold both.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. I would definitely, if ever I would get ill, I’m going to be battling. I’m in war.
Alua Arthur:
You fight.
Abby Wambach:
I’m going to fight.
Alua Arthur:
You fight. We’ll be here with you. You fight.
Abby Wambach:
And I will win the fight even if I die.
Alua Arthur:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Alua Arthur:
I can get behind that. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s good. That’s good. What did you witness, Alua, during that time with Peter that you felt like needed to be changed?
Alua Arthur:
Where would I begin? For starters, I think that we should have had, would’ve been really helpful to have somebody who was knowledgeable and kind and compassionate to explain to us all the things that were happening. But to also just be there when I was like, “Yo, that’s fucked up, right?” They’d be like, “Yeah, that’s real fucked up.” That would’ve been helpful.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Alua Arthur:
So maybe like, “This is hard.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Alua Arthur:
This is really hard or somebody to have some information. Like how do I talk to my four year old niece? She’s asking me these questions and I don’t know how to respond. I talked to my sister about it plenty, but neither of us knew how to have the discussion. It would’ve been great just to have some basic information. How do we access the DMV after he dies? What kinds of things do we need to be prepared for? What do we do with his computer? What do we do with his car? Just somebody to answer questions would’ve been really useful. And that’s on the preparedness side.
Alua Arthur:
On the medical care side, open, honest frank conversations about death would’ve been great. Would’ve been great. Like here’s where we’re at, this is what’s going on with his body. Here’s what you can expect in the next few days. We got a referral for hospice, but it was too late. It was on like Friday afternoon and he died on a Wednesday, I believe. Like it was too late, there was not enough time anymore. So a little bit more time would’ve been helpful. A lot more compassion would’ve been great. Some knowledge, some frank, open, regular conversations about the reality of what we’re dealing with would’ve been queen. And that’s what death doulas do, that’s what death doulas can do if we choose to use them.
Amanda Doyle:
I think most of us have a fear of death. And it seems like it’s like in two separate buckets though. There’s this fear of the actual dying process. The actual, we don’t understand it, we don’t want to be in pain, we don’t know what to expect of that process. And then there’s this whole other bucket that’s kind of this tragic reality that death means that we will no longer have the chance to live. There’s like two-
Alua Arthur:
We’re going to be dead.
Amanda Doyle:
We’re going to be dead. And that’s like all the things that we told ourselves we do one day and the conversations we thought we’d have and done. But on the first bucket where we just don’t actually understand the process of death, like what you were just saying in a couple of days, this is what it’s going to look like. Having been a part of so many deaths, is there anything you can share with us about that first bucket that kind of demystifies the death process so we are less afraid. Because there’s some things that you just know will happen. Or is every death different?
Alua Arthur:
Well, a lot of deaths are very different. The body kind of does the same thing when it’s shutting down from disease. The order that the system shut down in might be different based on the disease. But generally people that are dying from disease die similarly, unless it’s sudden like a heart attack or a stroke or something of that sort. And I want to just be clear that often when I’m talking about our work, I’m talking about people that are dying at the end of a disease process.
Alua Arthur:
So systems shut down at different rates, but generally people begin to withdraw a lot more. They don’t engage so much with the outside world, they spend a lot more time sleeping. They stop eating, they don’t want to drink so much, they might be a little thirsty, but they don’t really want to take in any fluids. The extremities get cold, the breathing slows down and eventually death occurs. There is some level of pain that occurs, but often it’s the disease process that’s painful. And there is medicine to treat it.
Alua Arthur:
One of the biggest fears around dying is that it’s going to be painful. We don’t want pain, we try to run away from pain at all costs when we’re living. So while we’re dying, nobody wants to be in pain. And what we do then is we treat it with medicine. There’s ways around it, you don’t have to be in pain when you’re dying. And I think this goes back to the surrender bit. If you don’t have to be in pain, then you just have to surrender to what’s happening. And that is also terrifying. That’s also really, really terrifying. You’re right, we don’t know where we’re going afterward, we don’t know what death is going to be. And so that’s another big fear. They sit in tandem when talking about death.
Alua Arthur:
The fear of the unknown, the fear of the death itself is something that I find real fascinating because none of us know what it is. Nobody who has lived has gone and come all the way back, has gone all the way there and come all the way back. I mean, they say that there’s that one, I’m talking about Jesus Christ. But I weren’t there, so I don’t know. I wasn’t there, I wasn’t there. I’ll leave that one alone. I’ll leave that one for other people to talk about.
Amanda Doyle:
There’s always one. There’s always one.
Alua Arthur:
There’s always that one, that was like 2,000 years ago. Not since then, so that’s some pretty good indication that it doesn’t happen so often.
Alua Arthur:
But in any case, we don’t know what it is that it’s going to be, none of us know. People ask me all the time, “What happens when you die?” As though I know, like I’m not still sitting here talking out of this mouth and like talking to y’all. And I think what happens is that we feel the unknown with so much fear, like the worst case scenario. Fire and brimstone and hell, it’s just going to be terrible, terrible, terrible. And it’s like, well, what if? What if it was like the best thing you experienced while you’re living for all of eternity? What if that was the thing? It doesn’t have to be awful. We can fill it with anything we want, yet we choose the things that don’t serve us. We choose the pain, we choose the horror of it all. What if it’s actually really joyful to watch your kids grow up from the other side? I don’t know. What if there is no other side? I don’t know. What if you get to be more intimately connected with the people that you love when you’re dead? I don’t know. I don’t know.
Alua Arthur:
We know this, we know life. And so we want to hang onto it because it’s known. The unknown is a thing that rocks us.
Glennon Doyle:
What is the most comforting … we don’t know what’s true. But have you seen a framework about dealing with what’s going to happen next or what might happen next? That seems to be most comforting for people in their last stages of life. Do you ever hear something that someone says that makes you feel comforted?
Alua Arthur:
It’s so individualized that what I’ve noticed consistently is that the people that have come up with something that feels good for them and can rest in it are the most comforted. The people that are still unsure, unclear, being like, “Oh, well I think, I don’t know.” It’s the people that have some clarity for themselves, that clarity looks different.
Alua Arthur:
One woman I remember was really excited about the idea of joining a giant eye in the sky. That was not comforting to me at all. I was like, “So you mean it’s just looking at us the entire time?” Like where? What? God no, please no. No. But that comforted her, I was down. Not for me, not for me.
Alua Arthur:
So whatever feels best for the individual is the thing that once they settle upon it. Part of our work is sometimes to help people talk through their beliefs so that they can get some clarity for themselves. But it’s kind of scary. We all have these beliefs. But beliefs are untested.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Alua Arthur:
They’re untested. And then you’re about to find out real quick, get some evidence for that thing that you believe, real quick.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Alua Arthur:
And it’s terrifying.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you have a belief that helps you?
Alua Arthur:
I have something I’m playing with just because it’s kind of fun. At the idea of this glitter wave. So at the moment of my death, I’m there, they’ve clapped and I can feel every feeling I’ve ever felt in my life before. Like all of them, the grief and the sorrow and the pain, but also like the joy and that one orange I ate that one time and the sun on my skin when I was in Venezuela. And that like one really incredible orgasm, all the things at the same time. And I just poop, explode because I cannot take it anymore. The human in me is just like, we’re done. I explode into all this glitter everywhere. And the glitter goes up, this is biodegradable, it’s good for the earth glitter. Okay, good for the earth. The glitter goes everywhere and then it slowly settles down.
Alua Arthur:
And I think the eye that watches, the observer, the Alua Arthur that is not tied to my experiences in my human body is watching it all come down. And also feeling really joyful that every little bit of human expression, every little bit of human I let myself lean into is now settled onto this big, huge glitter wave that just coasts for all of eternity. Could that not be pretty rad?
Glennon Doyle:
Just something she’s working with, y’all. Just something-
Alua Arthur:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Just a wow theory.
Alua Arthur:
A theory.
Amanda Doyle:
Wow. Every little bit.
Alua Arthur:
It could be cool.
Abby Wambach:
That’s so beautiful.
Glennon Doyle:
I love it.
Alua Arthur:
It could be cool. And it joins like all the other human expressions all of her time. That could be rad. But we’ll see.
Abby Wambach:
I’m curious to know how you personally deal. Because we talk about the lack of compassion maybe in the medical industry. And I do think that a lot of nurses and doctors have to kind of steal themselves to insulate them from that dying or death reality. How do you deal with it? Because I feel like you seem compassionate to those that are dying. What is your process dealing-
Glennon Doyle:
And joyful.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
You’re so consistently joyful. So what is it that keeps that for you?
Alua Arthur:
I love life. I love life. I love all the bits and pieces of it. I don’t steal myself. I want to feel all the things, but I feel the things. I also let them move through me, I don’t hold onto them. It’s hard because I fall in love with my clients all the time. I love humans, like we’re so weird, like this whole thing is so weird. And I love it. I love it.
Alua Arthur:
And it allows me, I think, to be able to get into all of my edges of the sorrow and the pain and the grief. But recognize that it’s just another part of the experience, it does not define me, I won’t always be sad, I won’t always be grieving. And so you let it come in, I think you let it move through and then you move on to what’s next, create space for what’s new.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah. I don’t think I’d be effective at my job if I sealed myself. Nobody wants that. They want somebody who feels things. I also want to feel things, I’m human. I’m human. That’s I think what I’m doing here is I’m feeling it.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Alua Arthur:
I’m doing the ride.
Amanda Doyle:
Alua, I was reading everything I could about you and listening to everything I could about you and your work last week when I was on vacation with my family. And I was in the hotel working and they were at the beach and I came across a talk you gave about your deathbed test.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
And I listened to it. And then I listened to it again. And then I closed my computer and I walked to the beach and I spent the rest of the day splashing around with my family. And I want to thank you for that. And I am wondering if you would be willing to share that deathbed test with our listeners because it meant a lot to me that day, for sure.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah. Sure. So often when making decisions, I try to put myself on my deathbed and consider whether or not I’d be happy I did it, sad I didn’t or will it even matter? Is this thing that I’m doing? How important is it to me on my death bed? Future cast way to the end. It helps for a lot of things like a breakup, for example. On my death bed, will I be happy we broke up? Will I be sad I didn’t do it? Or will it even matter? If it doesn’t matter, go ahead and break up, girl. Go ahead and break up. Break up. If it will matter, probably do it sooner. And if it won’t, you know what I mean? It’s just a stark way.
Alua Arthur:
There’s various versions of it that people use in psychology, they future cast maybe five days, five months, five years or something. I, as always, like to push it all the way to the extreme and go straight to death.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
Why not?
Alua Arthur:
Will this matter on my … why not?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah.
Alua Arthur:
Why not? Will this matter on my deathbed? Will this day matter? Will I remember these little things? If it won’t matter, then why not enjoy it for what it is right now? Or shut it up and move on, do something else.
Glennon Doyle:
Love it.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s go back to one of the main reasons that people are afraid to die, your work had the three of us talking about this ceaselessly. Which is just something that sounds obvious, but is at the crux of everything, which is, oh, once I die, my chance to live is over.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
The regret of all of the things you didn’t do. You said, “Being around death has made me more honest. I see that what we don’t say chokes us as we die.” So fear of death is kind of like about fear of future regret. It’s like the moment time’s up and the chance is over to ever have done things differently. Which is why the core question of your work is so amazing. It’s why all of your death work is really about life. It’s what must I do to be at peace with myself so I may live presently and die gracefully. So can you just tell us real quick, what must we do?
Abby Wambach:
Real quick. Real quick.
Glennon Doyle:
Just what’s the thing that we must do?
Alua Arthur:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
What’s the theme, at least, for you that you find?
Alua Arthur:
Well, I want to start off by saying that the question is mandatory. It’s what must I do? Not what are the things I’d be really nice to do? Yeah, I’d really like to go to Machu Picchu. But like what must I do so that I may live presently?
Alua Arthur:
One of the fears to death, as you were saying, is a fear of a life not fully lived. All the things that we didn’t get to do, all the things that we wanted to and maybe were too afraid or too shy or not worthy enough, or we thought we were too fat or too tall or whatever, all the lies that we tell ourselves. So stepping outside of those things. If I knew, similar to the deathbed test, that tomorrow would be my last day, what choice would I make? Who would I be? And it would certainly make me more honest.
Alua Arthur:
I would tell somebody how I felt about them. I would make choices out of my purest authenticity. I’d eat a lot more cake, probably. You know, who cares? Like one of the things about doing death work is I’m heavier as a result, I’m in a heavier body. Like I was so concerned with my weight before now, now I’m like, who cares? Like let all this extra thigh to love and all also the worms are going to have a field day when I die, they’re going to be so happy I ate that cake. They’ll be so happy to have that cake.
Glennon Doyle:
More glitter.
Alua Arthur:
More glitter.
Amanda Doyle:
Tsunami wave of glitter.
Alua Arthur:
Cause of these thighs cause of that cake. It makes me more honest consistently. So when we think about what must I do, what must I do? What is your must? Like what must you do so that you may live presently and also die gracefully? Right now I’m working on a book. I must get this book finished. I must, I must, it’s my biggest must right now. And it’s something that I’m so close to and reaching for, and it’s still tickles at me because I’m like, “If this way the book isn’t done, let’s work on that book. Let’s work on the book.”
Glennon Doyle:
It tickles on me. That’s so good. What is tickling on you even when you’re doing other things?
Alua Arthur:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
You’re putting all of this wisdom that has been in every interview and that you learn through your work into a book right now. I did not know that. That’s amazing.
Alua Arthur:
I’m doing my best, that’s for sure. But it’s hard. It’s hard. You’ve written a few of them, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And every time I write one, I keep a little note on my desk. It’s a quote from Cheryl Strayed that says, “What writing a book feels like is that you definitely can’t write a book.” That’s what it feels like-
Alua Arthur:
Oh, thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
The whole way through.
Alua Arthur:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
Like it’s-
Alua Arthur:
Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
Never going to happen ever. And it’s a hundred percent for sure not going to work.
Alua Arthur:
Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s how it feels the whole way.
Alua Arthur:
Yes, that’s where I am today.
Glennon Doyle:
So you’re doing it exactly right. Yeah.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah. Thank you. That’s where I am today.
Glennon Doyle:
So what do you feel like people would be surprised to know about death?
Alua Arthur:
That it could be beautiful. That you could watch the life leave somebody that you love and feel not joy that they’re dead, but feel joyful that they have completed this element. That you could feel joy that they are at peace. That you could feel joyful at the way that they did it, about the time that you got with them, about the intimacy that you shared.
Glennon Doyle:
And what are some practical things that people should do? Because part of your job as a death doula is to help people envision and also plan, do the actual things that people need to do to be ready. And not make things extremely confusing for their families. What do people need to do that are simple things that are details that wouldn’t help people be prepared?
Alua Arthur:
So many of them. One of the most important things is to remember that at some point you might not be capable of making your decisions for yourself anymore. And so designate somebody who can and communicate with them about what it is that you want. Tell them you’re ideal, if you can. If you can humble yourself enough to death to say, this is how I want to die. Tell them what you envision. Pick somebody who is trustworthy, who’s going to make decisions the way that you would. Who is going to be centered and grounded enough to be able to carry it out when the time comes. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be somebody that you’re related to, so important to at least have that conversation with somebody.
Alua Arthur:
Then beyond that, what do you want done with your body? What do you want done with your body? What do you want done with your body? It’s yours after all. Think about your burial options, cremation options, aquamation, natural organic reduction, also known as recomposed. There’s so many options now, so look into them. Think about what you want done with your service, if you want one at all. And in there, there’s a whole bunch of options. Do you want an autopsy? Do you want a viewing? Do you want a visitation? What do you want to wear? Do you want people to look at you? Like all that stuff. Also consider what you want done with your possessions. People know that you should get a will of some sort, but what about your sentimental things that don’t have much monetary value? The things that … I wear these bracelets every day. Like they’re not worth $5, but like, what are we going to do with them?
Glennon Doyle:
You said you’re going to lay them all out, right? And people get to pick-
Abby Wambach:
Hang them.
Glennon Doyle:
Their jewelry.
Alua Arthur:
All my jewelry. All my jewelry is decorating my funeral and people need to wear it and take it away because I don’t know what … there are pounds and mountains of jewelry, y’all. So people can wear it and walk away with it. So what do you want done with your possessions? How is somebody going to interact with them when you’re gone? And also what’s the story behind some of these possessions? I found a crystal in Peter’s backpack and I kept it. And when I die, it’s just going to look like a rock to somebody. But to me, it’s Peter’s crystal. I don’t know Peter’s story behind it, where he picked it up from. But it’d be great if that continuity was present.
Alua Arthur:
And people also need to think about their dependence and their pets, like who’s going to care for your children. Are there future hopes and wishes that you have for them? Is there nicknames that you should know about? Things like that. How do you want the people that you care for to be cared for after your death? And also gather all of your important biographical information, know your details, put your documents in a place, let somebody know, communicate while you’re in this. But most importantly, most importantly, get really real with yourself about what you are doing with yourself here. I don’t mean a big life purpose or meaning, but I’m talking about the little things that bring you joy. Like popping the little seeds and the lemon poppy muffin. You know that feeling when you just crunch it-
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Alua Arthur:
And you’re like, “Yeah, I got it.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. When you get it exactly right.
Alua Arthur:
That’s enough for me.
Glennon Doyle:
When it bursts.
Alua Arthur:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Alua Arthur:
And it pops. And you’re like … yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah. It doesn’t have to be a big meaning, it doesn’t have to be a purpose. It could just be that.
Amanda Doyle:
Alua, that just made me think of my grandmother who loved herself a tomato sandwich.
Alua Arthur:
Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
She would like a big thick slice of home grown tomato on white bread with a lot of mayo and salt and pepper. And that was her jam. And then in the weeks leading up to her death, all seven of her children surrounding her, they’re there to give her anything comfort, does she want to share confidences? Anything. And she wasn’t talking much or eating much at all. And then one day she sat up and she said, “I want a tomato sandwich.” I think that’s the first time that I was like, “Oh, I get what death is.” Like, it’s going to be a time where you can no longer have and taste a tomato sandwich. Like there are a finite number of tomato sandwiches in this round.
Alua Arthur:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
And that maybe it’s those things that we can taste and touch and see and feel that are going to be the things that we’re coveting most at the end.
Alua Arthur:
Bingo.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Alua Arthur:
Yep. Yep. The experiences of being human, being in these bodies, using the senses, being able to use the senses. All that goes away when we die. Smell, touch, taste, sight, even the feeling of our bodies in space. All those things go away when we die. And so while we’re here, why not? As much of it as possible, the things that feed us that feel good. That’s what we’re doing. Like I can touch things, I can hear my knees laugh. I can make out, I can dance, I can squat, I can drop it low. Well, not so much anymore, my knees do not support, aging is-
Glennon Doyle:
Lowish.
Alua Arthur:
Not making it possible.
Glennon Doyle:
Drop it, lowish.
Alua Arthur:
Lowish. And some help back up. But if we can use these bodies, enjoy the experience of being human as best as possible. I think that’s what makes us feel like we’ve lived a life that we can die from.
Amanda Doyle:
Lived a life we can die from.
Glennon Doyle:
We can die from.
Abby Wambach:
I have a question. Because I have, I think, probably an unrealistic level of anxiety around death. I grew up in the Catholic church. What would you say to somebody in my shoes that is just really scared about what could come next? You see a lot of people in their final moments. Should I be scared? I just need you to tell me.
Alua Arthur:
Well, if you just needed to tell you something, I’m going to tell you, no. And, but more than anything, I’m going to try to figure out what it is that you’re afraid of.
Abby Wambach:
I think because there’s so much of that fear of hell. I don’t even know what I believe in and probably that’s the bigger situation. I don’t have an idea of what is next.
Glennon Doyle:
And to be fair to you, were told that you were going to hell.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Right. As a gay person in the Catholic church.
Glennon Doyle:
Like literally told.
Abby Wambach:
Right. I’m trying to reframe that and so maybe that’s the work I need to do, is to try to reframe what the next is in my mind first. And maybe engineer it that way. I’m just scared of nothingness. I’ve done a lot of things, I don’t think that I’m going to feel regret at the end. I just don’t know what’s next.
Glennon Doyle:
And she’s the most FOMO person on earth.
Abby Wambach:
Big time.
Glennon Doyle:
So she gets annoyed if someone’s talking about something in the-
Abby Wambach:
What?
Glennon Doyle:
Kitchen and she’s not there.
Abby Wambach:
What?
Glennon Doyle:
So death is kind of like to her, the ultimate FOMO.
Abby Wambach:
It just always gives me, like … I think of it once or twice a day. And every single time I think of it, I get a pit in my stomach. And I’m like, “Nope, can’t touch it. Nope.”
Glennon Doyle:
So what do you say to folks like this one?
Alua Arthur:
Well, I was smiling as you were talking because you worked yourself into it. It’s so important for us to think about A, what we do believe. But B, what we were given. So many of these fears of death aren’t our own, they’re things that somebody told us about what we should fear. And so if we can get to the root of what we were told, who told it to us and why they told us? What was that they were trying to control or give when they told us that thing. And some, it’s totally honest. Parents give it to you because they think it’s going to help. But what they’re doing in fact is giving us this incredible fear. Or the church gives it for a whole bunch of other reasons. I told you, I’m not touching that one.
Alua Arthur:
But think about who gave it to you and why? Like what was underneath it. So that when we are able to uproot it, then we can implant something else that works better. Something that serves. So FOMO doesn’t serve necessarily, missing out on something doesn’t serve. Nothingness also doesn’t serve. What would serve? What would feel good? What would you like? What could be a fun way to spend all of eternity if there is one at all?
Glennon Doyle:
Right.
Alua Arthur:
What are the little elements of being alive that you’re like, “Yeah, I really rock with this.” That you can forward into what death might be like.
Abby Wambach:
I know this is going to sound pretty wild, but I love pranking and scaring people. And so I think that if I were a ghost-
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God.
Abby Wambach:
That would make me really happy. And like, I’d flicker the lights on you.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it’s hell for me. So you, once again, want to recreate heaven for you and hell for me on earth.
Amanda Doyle:
As it is in heaven.
Abby Wambach:
I just think those-
Glennon Doyle:
Have you ever heard this in all of your years? In all of your oh so many deaths?
Abby Wambach:
I just want to stick around and just kind of … because I believe in that. I believe that there’s different dimensions of space and time and people and ghosts and energies and spirits live amongst us all. I think nothingness is like probably the greater fear. But in the end, sticking around and just messing with our kids for the rest of their life and their kids, that sounds like-
Glennon Doyle:
Love, sounds like love.
Abby Wambach:
Fun.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah. You go for it.
Abby Wambach:
Let’s go.
Alua Arthur:
Go for it. I’m so down. I mean leave me alone, but I’m still down for everybody else. You leave me out of it, okay?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Alua Arthur:
But I’m down. Yeah. If that serves, if it feels like exciting or like, is that a possibility? Could that be what I do?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Alua Arthur:
I like ghosts. What if ghosts is what I did? Then stick with that one.
Abby Wambach:
Okay.
Alua Arthur:
It doesn’t have to be nothingness. It doesn’t have to be hell.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Alua Arthur:
None of us know.
Abby Wambach:
Right.
Amanda Doyle:
And since none-
Alua Arthur:
Nobody.
Amanda Doyle:
Of us know, then everything is equally possible.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Alua Arthur:
Everything.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Alua Arthur:
Nothing is off the table. Even things that are outside the confines of these bodies as we understand them, because we’re going to be outside the confines of this body. Anything is possible.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Alua Arthur:
Even the things that sound wild. Sure. Yeah. Be a unicorn flying through the sky for all of eternity, whatever feels good.
Glennon Doyle:
I think of it as back to ocean. If we were born, we were scooped up with cups. Like little cup, our bodies, like how was scooped up, we’re having this experience. And then when we die, we just get back out of the cup-
Alua Arthur:
Tossed back in.
Glennon Doyle:
Tossed back into the ocean-
Alua Arthur:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So we’re still us. But the us, like you said before, Alua, the you that is you inside … the observer that is observing this experience you’re having in your body and your emotions and your mind. Not that one. The one behind it.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Right?
Alua Arthur:
Yeah. The big guy.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Alua Arthur:
Not the big guy in the sky, but the one that is aware of all of these things that’s going on. The one that continues to exist, even when I go to sleep and I, Alua Arthur, don’t have a conscious recollection of. But it is still always present.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. So good.
Alua Arthur:
Maybe that thing does some cool things after we die. I have no idea. We’re about to find out.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Alua Arthur:
Not too soon, though.
Glennon Doyle:
For our next right thing today, a couple things. First of all, everyone should follow Alua on Instagram. I feel that your work helps me live more alive. Whatever that … this is a terrible sentence. It like wakes me up.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s about death, but it’s more about life to me. And I just think that you’re just really, really special teacher. So do that. And then I just wanted to read this one. You said, “Being around death has made me more honest. I see that what we don’t say chokes us as we die. People always think they have more time. And when they realize that they don’t, they have regrets about things they haven’t done. I try to do what I feel like doing right now. And if that means eating white cheddar Cheetos for breakfast, I will. Which is what I did this morning. I won’t always be able to taste delicious things. So let me do it now.”
Alua Arthur:
Oh yes.
Glennon Doyle:
So our next right thing today is to just eat your tomato sandwich.
Alua Arthur:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Or white cheddar Cheetos.
Alua Arthur:
Or cake.
Glennon Doyle:
Or burst your little poppy seeds.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Do it today. Let me do it now.
Amanda Doyle:
Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Touch what it touches. I love it. I love it.
Glennon Doyle:
Alua-
Amanda Doyle:
I also love your exercise of looking in the mirror, Alua, and just looking at your face, you said and saying, “I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.” Putting it right front and center makes it less fearful. It’s beautiful.
Abby Wambach:
That scares me.
Alua Arthur:
It can be confronting.
Abby Wambach:
That scares me.
Alua Arthur:
Yeah. It can be very confronting. And also, I think, sometimes it helps people get in touch with the observer. Because when you’re looking in your eye, deep into your eye, then you can see that thing that is outside of that thing that is outside of my experiences. And when I say, “I am going to die.” Which I am I referring to?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Shit. Okay. Alrighty, Alua.
Amanda Doyle:
Is the eye in the sky? Is that what we’re referring to?
Alua Arthur:
No. Please, God, no. I have private time in my bed, I do not want that thing watching me.
Glennon Doyle:
Private time in my bed. Also do that now and today. All right?
Alua Arthur:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
When life gets hard, don’t forget this week, we can do have things. We love you.
Alua Arthur:
My pleasure.
Glennon Doyle:
Bye.
Alua Arthur:
Thank you so much.
Abby Wambach:
We’ll see you next time everyone.