Podcast Episode Transcript: Let's Talk About Life, Death, and How We Want To Be Remembered

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Welcome to the Remembering Life podcast. I'm Gail Marquardt, your host, and every month I talk to people in the death care space about death, life, how we want to be remembered today. I am thrilled that Jamie Kramer from Earthly After has joined us. Welcome, Jamie.

JAMIE KRAMER:
Thank you, Gail. It's so good to be here. I'm so excited.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Yeah, this is wonderful. We're going to have a really interesting discussion today about death. It's time that we normalize these conversations and start talking about this so that when we do experience the death of a loved one, maybe we're more willing to talk about it, talk to people about it, talk about what we need following that death. So let's start the conversation, but Jamie first, can you tell us a little bit about Earthly After?

JAMIE KRAMER:
Yeah, sure. Earthly After was born out of a series of losses that I faced all at one time, and I found that really the only place that I could get my head on straight really was in the woods. And I had kind of always had an affinity for, this sounds weird, but for death and the space. And I just found it so fascinating and I really wondered to myself, I mean, at the time I didn't know that this is where it would go, but what if we put those memorials and that space in nature in a place where I already had found that connection? And I have been trying to bridge those things ever since. And so we do memorials within the National Park system, and we have urns that allow funeral homes to both sell urns and then take that next step into memorial process after they have their remains and do the memorial at the funeral home.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
So what does that look like for the family? Is the memorial done either at a funeral home or within the park itself? And what does that ritual look like? I suppose it's different for everyone.

JAMIE KRAMER:
Yeah, everyone. Right now I'm working on a local pet celebrity. His name is Riley. He just passed away and his dad owned a candle company that saved dogs, and so they've done a hundred dog surgeries. And so we're inviting the whole community and all of the people that he's touched to sleeping there. We do the private memorial there with the friends and family, and then we're doing a public ceremony at their candle store. So we take aspects of Riley's life even, I don't want to say even though he was a pet, because pets are so important to people and affect us in so many ways. So he had this pet flamingo, so we're doing pink themed and flamingos everywhere. And he also loved peanut butter. So we're doing a peanut butter bar in honor of Riley. And yeah, it's based off of the individual person.

So we sit down with a loved one, and we really try to help navigate what was those essential things that made them them. And then we extrapolate little pieces that we can incorporate into the ceremony, and that's kind of how it functions. And I do have one of our, this is actually Riley's scattering tube, so it's sleeping bear dunes, and then it's just your typical scattering tube where it opens and it and shake it. And yeah, so we're trying to grow our urn design. So right now we have Sleeping Bear Dunes, Acadia Park, and we have an all parks national park design that's going to be coming out within the month. So we're really excited about all of that.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Oh, that's awesome. So do you facilitate scatterings at other national parks, or do they all happen?

JAMIE KRAMER:
Yep, we can do any national park. It's just basically the urn line that we're trying to grow right now, not all parks, because there are some parks like the Grand Canyon, there are already native remains on the land, and so they ask that you not spread there. But other than that, as long as we can get the permitting done on the back end, on our end, we are absolutely there to take a loved run through the entire process.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Have you done any in Olympic National Park? That is such a beautiful part of the country.

JAMIE KRAMER:
No. No. I haven't even been there yet. I would love to.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
You have to go. You definitely have to go. If I hadn't already decided to do a natural burial at a cemetery here in Milwaukee, I totally want to be somehow in Olympic National Park.

JAMIE KRAMER:
And then, I don't know, I want to be in a place like that too, surrounded by nature, knowing that we're just a part of the bigger whole. And I think that's a part of what I've been trying to convey for a really long time is that we are not separate. We are one with nature, and a big part of our efforts on our backend are going to conservation efforts. So when a family makes that choice, when an individual makes that choice to have a memorial with us, we're saving land on the back end. And so one day our goal is a million acres, which seems so far away right now, but hopefully one day.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
That's awesome. So how do you work with a funeral director when a family wants this? What does that look like?

JAMIE KRAMER:
Yeah, so right now and things in startup world shift dramatically. So we sell our urns to the funeral directors. And some people just want the design. Some people just want the scattering tube and that's fine. But how we work with the funeral directors is if they're talking to the family, they know we're considering ourselves a green cremation alternative because we know that in our state of Michigan, 80% of people are cremated. And a lot of people, well actually 60% of funeral homes don't have access to green burial sites. So we're positioning ourselves where these two things are kind of converging. And so if a funeral home takes us on, we give them an affiliate link and a code, and if a family decides to go with us, they get 20% of the memorial fees. So we're trying to incentivize them as much as everyone to work with us because we, we've recognized that a lot of people fall off, especially with direct cremation, and we really think that it's super important that those cremated remains don't just stay on a shelf, that they are memorialized in a way that those people would want to be memorialized.
So that's how we flow.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
So still incorporating some kind of ritual or ceremony to help people gather and say goodbye.

JAMIE KRAMER:
Yeah. That's wonderful. Yeah, because such a big part of the healing process, I think in such a needed part as an American society, I think we try to bypass that a lot of the time. So we're there trying to recreate a new normal maybe.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Yeah, it seems increasingly so, which is really unfortunate. And I always wonder how much of our previous experiences with death and funerals inform those decisions that we make now. I know definitely my experiences with funerals as a child have informed what I want for myself.

I remember back, I was probably five or six when my grandparents died, and I remember walking into the church and it was dark, and I remember seeing, I can see it like it's right now, I can see my grandfather in the casket at the front of the church. It seemed like a mile away, but I could see his profile out of the casket, and it was this very dark, foreboding organ music that was playing. And I was meant to sit in the pew very quietly and not say anything. And I'm not sure if I went up to look at his body or not, but I think back on that now, and that is not for me. So I know that I want something very different, but that experience has stuck with me for, well, 50 years now. I'm curious, did you have any experiences prior that kind of informed what you want or don’t want?

JAMIE KRAMER:
Completely. I had these adopted grandparents growing up. Dick and Lucy, they took me dress shopping at Easter, and they were very hands-on and just really wanted to be a part of my life, which was this beautiful thing. And in the midst of that, Lucy got breast cancer, and I remember the first time, I mean, we were at JC Penney, and she showed me where they removed her breasts and going through that process with her. And then after she passed, she had been sick for probably most of my life, and it was at a gym. It was a huge turnout. And her husband, as I was looking at her body, told me that she was just sleeping. And I remember being five, six around the same age as you, and being the kid being like, does this guy know what's happening? I think someone needs to let him know she's not just sleeping, she's not waking up. Grandma Lucy's not getting up anytime soon. I sit down, we'll talk about it. And I feel like that has absolutely stuck with me because knowing about the finality of life, I think just really if you let it in, can help you to live so much deeper and fully. And it's so sad that we bypass that.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Kids know a lot more than we give them credit for too. And to confuse them in that way does not help. I remember my son was, he was probably about five when a relative died, and it was my dad, so his grandpa, and I remember talking about what would happen to his grandpa's body, and my dad had chosen cremation, and I was like, wow, how do I describe this without traumatizing him by talking about fire? And I still don't know if I did the right thing, but I told him that his body wasn't going to be buried whole, that it was going to go through a process that helped it return to the earth faster and decompose faster. I thought, okay, I'm going to leave out the fire part and try to talk about in really basic terms. Again, I don't know if I did the right thing. He seemed to be accepting of that because how was I going to explain that his grandpa was in this box about this big as we're going to the grave? So that was before I worked here. I may have done it differently if I was in this profession at the time, but I don't know.

JAMIE KRAMER:
We only know what we know. When we know it.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
We do our best. But no, I never told him that grandpa was sleeping or that he went on vacation. That's another one that I hear.

JAMIE KRAMER:
Really?

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Yeah.

JAMIE KRAMER:
Is there ever a follow up to that? I know. And then do you think when anyone goes on vacation, they're never coming back, right. If you fall asleep that you're not going to wake up again? I like to think of that's why they're going to get therapy, because we can't tell whatcha going to do.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
But yeah, we do our best at the time, and obviously we don't want our children to hurt or be sad, but the reality of it is this is a time to be hurt and be sad.

JAMIE KRAMER:
And process, I feel like, well, there's a couple things. When we had two dogs who passed away, and we did a whole memorial for them, and my son, who was three at the time, now four. But when we talk about I bring home an urn or something that we've been working on, I'm like, oh yeah, this is for cremated remains like Max and Cinder were in, and he makes the connection. And when we talk about death, he has the opportunity. We have a little where we put the table and the pets and there…

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Like an altar.

JAMIE KRAMER:
Altar, there we go. I couldn't think of it. And when we open up that dialogue, he then goes to the altar and kisses the pictures, and it becomes a moment for him to remember and then feel sad kind of in this safer space, I think as he grows. I hope that helps, because it's like, okay, I can still love, love my pets. I can still love people after they've passed. It's just leaning into that and the whole temporary nature of life. I'm brutally honest sometimes with my kids, and I don't know if it's good or bad, but I mean, not oh, grim way, but right.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Right. But the facts and yeah.

JAMIE KRAMER:
Yeah. I think not knowing is worse.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Because then that person is somewhere in limbo.

JAMIE KRAMER:
And we had a little podcast called Death Club, and we talked to a lady who she researched and wrote this book about end of life, and one of the things that she mentioned that I thought was so fascinating was how often she deals with families unwilling to tell their family member at their death bed that they're going to die. I just feel like in all the ways, whether you're a survivor, whether you're the one who's going to pass, knowing the inevitability of what we're going through, knowing our path is so important. It just makes me really, really sad that we can't talk about this more.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
I think there are a lot of medical professionals also who are hesitant to tell a patient.

JAMIE KRAMER:
Oh, well, I've learned a lot about that too. I spend so much time researching this stuff. But palliative care people, well, palliative care are amazing, but regular hospital professionals, doctors, their job is to support life. So in all circumstances, that's what they know to do. And I think it goes against, and maybe we need to shift that as far as education goes and what they're learning to, how to start discussing that end of life, how to start inserting those conversations for people. Because a huge believer of a hospice, and it's beautiful and wonderful, and I've experienced it personally, and I've just seen people who've come out of it and they have a better experience. So I think the dialogue culturally has to shift majorly.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
And including just because people in the family might be younger, and I'm talking like Gen Z folks who are 13 to 30 right now, including them in that conversation, because some of the research that we've done here at Remembering a Life is telling us that younger people value some things more such as viewing the body, having some kind of tribute than maybe their baby boomer parents or grandparents would want.

JAMIE KRAMER:
Yeah. I think it's interesting culturally what's happening, just from my own observations, I think we've been bombarded by technology and I mean, you can get whatever you want. And so I think for those of us, and I kind of consider myself kind of in the space in between, but I think there's that younger generation is just looking for authenticity. What does it mean to be alive? And I think that is a key. Death is a essential component of that. And so why they want to see the body, why they want to spend time with it is just speaks to that where they're at because they're looking for meaning. They're looking for depth, they're looking at what it means to be human. And I think death is such a big, big, big player in that. Yeah, totally agree.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
And I'm someone who in the past definitely did not want to see the body. I was the person who sat as far back in the funeral home as I possibly could and did not want to go up to see the body. A friend of mine, his father died, and he came up to me at the funeral and he said, come see my dad. I was like, oh my God, really? Dude, you want me to go up and do this? But I'm like, okay, I love you. I'm going to do this. And he stood next to the casket and he was proud, seems like the wrong word, but he really was. He said, “Look at what my dad is wearing. He's wearing a Norwegian sweater. I picked that out for him. It didn't seem right to bury him in a suit because he valued his heritage so much,” and he was just incredibly proud that he was asked to make that decision and that wish was granted, and he wanted everyone in the room to see his dad. So it was at that point that I started to realize, okay, maybe this is important to some people. Then in 2016, that same friend died. He died by suicide in another part of the country, and his body was cremated there and then shipped back, and there was a service for him. So there was an urn with his remains in it. But my grief journey has been incredibly difficult. I mean now it's almost 10 years later, there's still a little part of me that wonders if he's really dead, because I didn't have the opportunity to even just hold his hand. So I think, too, once you have that kind of experience and you can't have that, you don't realize how important that is to you. So then my closest friend died just this past November, and I knew her body was going to be cremated, so I was grateful that I could see her a couple days before she died. But we got to the funeral and I walked in and I was startled because her body was there in a casket, and I exclaimed, I hope not too loud, “Oh my goodness, she's here!”

JAMIE KRAMER: I hope it was too loud! (laughter)

GAIL MARQUARDT: And my husband was like, “Oh my goodness, is this okay?” And I'm like, “This is amazing,” because I could just see her one more time and touch her hand just as I had before she died. I learned that she made that decision specifically because she thought there might be people who would need that or want that, and other people did not go up. But it was so meaningful to me. But it also hit hard with my own mortality. It's not easy to look at someone in a casket.

JAMIE KRAMER:
Especially a best friend.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
But I'm glad I had that opportunity.

JAMIE KRAMER:
I'm in this kick, like I said, in the dead space, I am been fascinated probably my whole life. And one of the things, and I know we're talking to the Nashville Funeral Directors Association right now, and it's very fringe, and there's not a lot of people who do it, but I really have found some beauty in at home funerals or even waiting to call the funeral home. I advocate for that all the time, spend an extra hour. It's incredible. My grandfather passed away if I get a little choked up that’s fine. And my aunt Megan, we had all, he had just passed, and there was a bunch of us in the room, and he had a blackhead on his skin. He had terrible skin. (laughter) My aunt was like, “Ahh!” So he's going to be with that forever now. But then she also, he had this thing, he had this black combover. He was like, from the time where you just slicked it back, can you do so thing when they were kids growing up, he would pay them a nickel to comb his hair. So I don't even know, say this out loud. So she combed his hair one more time, and she said, That'll be a nickel.” It's so special.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Oh, that's just lovely.

JAMIE KRAMER:
And so I think we think that they're just dead and gone, and some of the most poignant moments can happen after people pass.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Right. Even requesting to wash the body of your loved one, if that's something that you'd want to do. Yeah, definitely.

JAMIE KRAMER:
It's not for everyone. No. And I understand that everyone grieves in their own way and everyone moves in the world differently. But definitely if you're one of those people who are open to it, I think it's just delay calling them a little bit.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
And to really reflect on whether that's important to even just to view the body of your loved one, not to immediately dismiss it because you want to like it's so traumatic and you want to move on. But really just to pause and think about, okay, could this be important to me? Because once the person's buried or cremated, that opportunity is gone.

JAMIE KRAMER:
Yeah. I mean, I always believe that there are ways of connection, but yeah, that physical aspect, you can't get that.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Right. My niece died a couple of years ago, and we had a natural burial for her, so she was just simply shrouded and her face was exposed. It was a very small group. It was about 10 of us, and it was so intimate and wonderful, and it removed the barrier of the casket. She was laid on a table and you felt more compelled to touch her body. And for my sister, it was very important that we leaned down and hugged her daughter. And you've just felt okay doing it. Yeah, it was really beautiful. And we put flowers, we tucked wild flowers into her shroud, and then of course, just a simple burial at that point. But it made me more comfortable being with someone, being with a dead body. Yeah. It's what it is. And it was really meaningful.

JAMIE KRAMER:
I think, especially for those of us who spend a lot of time or get the gift of spending a lot of time with death for those outsiders, for the death club. We've talked about doing a “petting zoo” so people can get more accustomed to even urns and caskets, because I think there's this level of, because we don't surround ourselves with those things, or even the idea of a body and all of these things we've kind of built up in our heads is this negative space, and I just think it needs an entire reframe. This is an urn, this is a casket. We don't go to dead body stage two, but we're moving in so we can feel comfortable with what these things are, what they look like. So when we do face those losses that we can lean in a way that's going to support our own grief, I just think that's so important, and that's why podcasts like this and talking about this, it's just so important for culture, in my opinion.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Yeah, I totally agree. Being able to touch and experience things even way before you even have a loss. There's a place in Tennessee where they have a funeral service camp for kids.

JAMIE KRAMER:
No! (happily surprised)

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Yeah, it's awesome. And they bring in kids, I think aged 12 to 18, and for an entire week of, I think it's just half days. It's not like full days, but they do everything. They learn about the prep room and embalming. They learn about reconstruction, they learn about folding the American flag if it's a veteran with special honors. They go to a cemetery. They learn about cremation. The photos of these kids, they're having so much fun. And I love that because they go home and they talk to the adults and siblings in their lives and start that conversation in a very natural way without having to be in that environment where they're planning a funeral. At least one of the campers has gone on to mortuary science school to be a funeral director. Yeah. Isn't that awesome? It's amazing. But yeah, these kids, they have a blast and they've been doing this for several years now.

JAMIE KRAMER:
I think some of us, as young people are called to do things and being able to actually just had this conversation. It's not just within the funeral industry, anything. It's that exposure. It's like, I love this, I love this. And I think kids already kind of know. I mean, I started photographing cemeteries when I was a kid, and I just always found them peaceful and fascinating, and I just wanted to know more about the people who were there. And I feel like if I had, I would've loved that. I would've been like, sign me up. I'm going to death camp, whatever it's called. Why?

GAIL MARQUARDT:
I know. And we hear again and again that people who are second career or third career funeral directors, it was discouraged when they were younger, either a family member or a teacher or a counselor discouraged them from going into funeral service. I've had numerous people say to me, and they're like their fifties and even sixties, “I am finally pursuing my dream and I'm going to be a funeral director.”

JAMIE KRAMER:
That's amazing.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
So now I remember back in high school, one of my classmates, Lee, said he was going to be a funeral director. We did not help because we were the kids who were like, “Ooh, that's gross.” And now I'm like, oh my God, that was so mean of us. But he persisted, and he is co-owner of a funeral, actually, not from where I am right now.

JAMIE KRAMER: That's amazing.

GAIL MARQUARDT: He did his thing, and he's very good at it, and he pursued his dream right away.

JAMIE KRAMER: Now, you are also there in ooh, funerals icky, huh? (laughter)

GAIL MARQUARDT: Right. And here I am. Yeah. Yeah. (laughter)
So the age old question of who is the funeral for, or the service or the memorial or whatever it might be … I'm a firm believer that it's to honor the dead, but that it's for the living.

JAMIE KRAMER:
A hundred percent. I know so many people who have just like, I don't want a funeral, don't do anything. Just cremate me. And then that's it. They're missing the whole point. It is partly for you, I think. So you can know when you're making those pre-plans and you get to reflect on your own life, and you can have those moments of, I really want to incorporate this, or I don't know. I've never been at the end of life yet, but I can imagine. For me, that would be helpful. Even just having people ask me questions about my life and then I can move into that space of what does this look like? We get so consumed with weddings and births and all these other huge aspects of life, and we spend ungodly amounts of money on them. And then the end, if it were a book, then you just stop. That's it. You don't, that's the final chapter. That should be the coolest part. And I have a history in theater, and so that's kind of always really boggled my mind too. It's this crescendo of life. It's like, okay, this is the goodbye. It should reflect that sort of bravado of life. People live amazing, incredible lives, and they do amazing things, and I think we should celebrate that. I think we have to celebrate that animals celebrate that. There's so many animals that grieve. They're dead.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Why wouldn't we?

JAMIE KRAMER:
Right?

GAIL MARQUARDT:
And we each have amazing stories to tell. We don't need to be a famous person or a public figure to have an amazing story to tell.

JAMIE KRAMER:
Oh God, no. Some of the most incredible stories are people that you would never know.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
I was reading the obituaries one day, and I ran one that was very thorough, very detailed, very grammatically, and I'm like, okay, well, I got to know that person. The next one was not, it was kind of all over the place, but oh my goodness, I learned so much about this person. And I'm like, I wish I had known this person. You can communicate so much, and it doesn't have to be perfect. But that one obituary was like, yep, I wish I had known this person because he sounds like he was absolutely amazing.

JAMIE KRAMER:
That's kind of one of the things that we're really playing with is the idea, we're calling it a lifescape, but it's the idea that we're more than the sum of our habits. A lot of people, myself included, I have this view of what I want to bring to the world, and I think we all do. We have this drive, this essence of being, and that's part of the thing that we try to get at with this life. The idea, it's an obituary, but kind of redefined in really just what was it that inspired this person, motivated them through life, and what did they really try to bring into the world? I think there's a lot of great people who do incredible things that maybe aren't even documented in this space, and I feel like legacy is so important, and for the living too. I want to know who I came from. I want to know my ancestors. I want to know their unfinished business, and maybe I can help 'em out. Right. You got a checklist somewhere? I don't know,

GAIL MARQUARDT:
The whole idea of maybe even completing things from your local ones bucket list,

JAMIE KRAMER:
And that's actually coming up with a park that allows people to go to different parks and then put remembrance items, stickers, all of that stuff as you go along with the idea that the journey still continues and we get to kind of execute maybe what they couldn't or follow in their footsteps, or there's a trip that you wanted to take together that you didn't get to. All the unfinished business, I think can be included in a memorial.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Right? Yeah. When my girlfriend died last fall, one of the things that everyone stressed in their remarks was that she made everyone feel valued. She talked to people, strangers, she had never met in shops or on walks, and she immediately made them feel important to her and valued. And so as I moved through my life after her death, I'm trying to bring that to the world as well. I am not one historically who has engaged with perfect strangers at that level, and I'm really trying to do that for her on her behalf. And one of the ways I do that is by wearing things that she owned. I have a purse that she owned that's very colorful, and it's a conversation starter because people comment on it, and it gives me an opportunity to say her name, her name is Julie, and to share very briefly the story of why I have this bag. So for me, continuing to talk about people who have died is such an important part of my grief journey. And you know how after a few months, people stop asking you about it because they think, well, you're probably over it by now. Yeah. Well, I'm not over it. I never will be.

JAMIE KRAMER:
No.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
And so I take every opportunity I can to talk about her.

JAMIE KRAMER:
And I think that's why it's important to educate the greater community about that too, because we do want to talk. I mean, maybe not always, right? Maybe it's I'm barely holding it together today, and I have X, Y, and Z to do. Please, I can't go there. I will break into a million pieces, but most of the time we do, we want to talk about them. We want to say their name out loud. We want to say Julie, we want to talk about her purse and her purse collection and what a quirky woman this was and that she had all of these purses. This is just one of all of these things that made her her. And we want to relive those things because when we do, I don't know about you. I mean, I just did a grief guide session with the gentleman whose dog passed. It gets them thinking about things that they forgot. And after we've lost someone, those stories, whether they're in our own heads and we can get them out or from some other people that knew and loved them, those are golden. It's like learning a little bit more. It's like they're still here, and I have more information now, and I feel them because of it. I just think it's so important. And we have this thing, it's based off of Death Cafe. If anyone has done a death cafe, we do Death Club once a month, and we rebranded it. We made it cute. It's got a little grim reaper on it and everything, and we meet at a pub. And it's just strangers talking about death. Because it's not with the murkiness of family and their attachments and likes and dislikes and all of this. People are just, they feel free when they lead. They feel more connected and more at peace, even though sometimes we can talk about some of the hardest stuff. But I just feel like we all want that. We all want to continue that connection. I think historically, when we didn't live in a society that looked like this, we would've, because we would've been sitting in tribes and the smaller communities where we could, we would all know that person and we would all be feeling the same grief. And so in today's society, I think it's really important to try to figure out a way to recreate that and allow those stories to come through, because they're just, I don't know.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
And I try to do that by engaging with people I know who've had a loss, too, and encouraging them to tell stories. And they're always a little surprised when I ask for that, but in a good way. I always feel like it's in a good way. Yes, they're incredibly grateful. And to your point, I learned a little bit more about their loved one. Maybe I didn't even know that person, but maybe I know them a little better after that conversation. It's really lovely. I had seen an idea when you go into a coffee shop and they ask for your name, don't give your name, give your loved one's name.

JAMIE KRAMER:
Ohhhh! Oh!Oh God, I can't. (expressing love for the idea)

GAIL MARQUARDT:
And that you can hear your person's name called. So I've started to do that, and it's, it's such a little thing, but it's so big, so big. It just reverberates the sound. I don't know, just, and the barista has no idea how meaningful it is. Yeah.

JAMIE KRAMER:
You're like, do you know what you just said? Right. She's here too. That's one thing that I do like to do too, is everyone in a while, not all the time, one of the things that I read is that for your loved ones who have passed, setting out a cup of coffee the way that they would've liked it, or tea or a little treat, if I'm really feeling in it, I'll do that occasionally. And it's the same. I mean, and then I get a conversation, is this too much milk? Is it not enough? It's that dialogue. And I try to promote that to people who've gone through losses just to continue the conversation, because I don't claim to know what happens. I don't know how it works, whether it's just for us or if it's for them and us, but there's something. And just keep talking. Keep having the barista say, “Julie,” put out a cup of coffee. Sit down, get angry.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
I have my moments where I'm pretty upset with her for not being here when I really, really need her. When it's not enough, I talk to her a lot. But sometimes, man, I really need her to answer back.

JAMIE KRAMER:
I ask for signs then, alright. And sometimes I have to get clear. I am not fluffy. Need your help! Right. Come on. I don't know. I just think it's so healthy in a very, and to express that anger to express and not to push down, not to deny yourself those feelings, especially if you're angry. I think people feel guilty because they feel angry, which adds guilt to their anger, and underneath their anger is pain. So then you got a whole bunch of yucky feelings and you don't know what to do with them.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
When my friend died by suicide, guilt, anger, man, lots of emotions going on there. And still, again, 10 years later, there are times when I'm still angry that he is gone.

JAMIE KRAMER:
And that is a normal reaction. That is very normal. This is going to sound like I'm in therapy now. So I'm going to ask Chat GPT about questions of mortality and grief and all this other stuff. But I actually had a great comment because when you're suffering grief, and it's complicated because a lot of us have complicated relationships with people, and especially like a suicide or something where it was preventable. And we have anger and we have that resentment and all of those feelings. So what the lovely AI told me was that if you imagine all of these things as strings, all of our feelings is different strings. In order to really get at what it is, we have to remove each one and be able to name it because it ends up being a tangled mess, like a ball of jewelry.

I'm a mess. As a human, you need to pull 'em apart, untangle each one to find out what they are. But it, it's very similar. I think with grief, we hold so many different emotions and it feels like this big ball of ick. But if we really examine it, and if we could pull out each one and look at it, it helps us, I think, really be more clear about what we're feeling in those spaces. Anger, emotion, and not at any point saying that that's not okay. It is okay. It's okay. Your feelings, you're allowed to feel however you feel in that space. And suicide is, it's just that think it hits our brains so differently. At least when I've experienced it. It's weird. They're there and then they're not. And then that's the explanation. And it is just hard.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
And it's one of those types of deaths that you don't understand how it feels until you've experienced it, because it is truly awful.

JAMIE KRAMER:
And for me, I had a really good friend and I didn't know anything was wrong. So it's like they're just living their lives and you don't see what's happening under the surface of things. And so then it only aids in that, when someone's dying of cancer or any of these outward things where it's coming or they're old. But that suicide's just way different because I think we have to slowly put the pieces together ourselves.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
So many unanswered questions.
Well, together we will try to normalize having these kinds of conversations.

JAMIE KRAMER: Heck yeah, let's do it. Let's do it.

GAIL MARQUARDT: So if people want to know more about Earthly after, where can they go?

JAMIE KRAMER:
Yeah, so we have a website, earthlyafter.com, all the social medias. We try to be a part of LinkedIn, but yeah, that's really what we're doing. We're trying to educate people slowly. I mean, I only have so much capacity for content, but not just on green burial, but this is what is available. Most people don't even know that aquamation exists or some things that industry people are very well aware of. So I feel like for everyone who works in this space, I think it's really important that we do exactly what you're doing right now, Gail, which is having the conversation, letting people feel more comfortable in the space, and then hopefully when it happens to them or when they're pre-planning, they feel more comfortable carrying that torch.

GAIL MARQUARDT:
Right? That's our goal. So one conversation at a time. We're doing it. You're doing it. Thank you so much for joining me today. I do want to, since we touched on suicide today, I do want to very quickly mention the suicide lifeline, which can be accessed by calling 9 8 8 if you're feeling the need to speak with someone about that. Thank you so much, Jamie.

JAMIE KRAMER: Thank you. It's been my pleasure.

GAIL MARQUARDT: Please check out Earthy After. And to learn more about remembering loved ones in meaningful ways, visit RememberingALife.com.