Death As A Rite of Passage with Nic Parker and Rose Sexton
A wonderful conversation with Rose Sexton and Nicole Parker from End Stage Matters. They are both End of Life Doulas, and we're talking about Death As a Rite of Passage.
Nic and Rose both speak about their own experiences with death, their professional background, what moves them to do this profound work, and the actions they are taking 'on the ground' in North East Victoria to improve death literacy.
Death Cafes, Dying to Know Days, a Play - they're doing a lot of change work, opening up spaces for people to get educated about their choices.
Rose is also a Palliative Care Nurse and Nick is both a Health Coach and a Counsellor.
I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with these women and feel a lot more informed about what is possible. They touched on how poorly our culture handles education around death as well as the importance of preparing for the transition from this life to the next.
I imagine we could go a lot deeper down some of the paths we touched on in this particular conversation.
If you'd like to know more, you can contact Rose and Nic via www.endstagematters.com.au
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Episode Transcript:
Stan (00:15)
Good morning to you both. Now I've got Rose Sexton and Nicole Parker here from End Stage Matters and they are both end of life doulas and we're going to talk about death as a rite of passage today. Rose is also a palliative care nurse with years of experience and Nick is a very good counsellor and she's also of course a death doula.
How on earth did you get into this role? I mean, it makes sense, guess. Counselling, palliative care nursing, but end of life doula. What does that actually mean? And, you know, what does the concept of death as a rite of passage mean to you? mean, there's huge questions here. So take it away.
You go first, Nick. I was going to say, good morning. Good morning. Well, I think my journey towards an end of life dole was the death of my brother. And it happened a long time ago, but when I was in looking for what to do next in 2018, I went to a
workshop on starting a small business and I had one idea and then there was a birth doula there and I went that's really interesting and I went home and researched and I found death doula and then I thought this is what I want this is it this is how I want to be so then the following the following weekend was the workshop on end of life doula the first foundational workshop so
I went from my training in Vanilla for opening my business to Melbourne to the workshop. So it was very synchronistic. And then the following weekend was the four day workshop. So I went again from Vanilla from the business to, the four day workshop in Melbourne. So from then on, I was sort of pretty hooked and wanting to do it, but it's taken a long time.
to get going and I've tried all sorts of things, but I think Rose and I met up in 2018 as well or 2019, think 2018 or 2019, connect, one of my strength is a networker. So I was connecting all the dualers to see if we could work together. So Rose and I hit it off and then we went on our adventure doing a lot of
death literacy via a play, via Rose and her partner had, what was it called Rose? The night, the Death Trivia Nights. we've dressed up as all sorts of different things. We've done Dying to No Day, Death Cafes, a whole lot of different things. we've kind of done that right across the Northeast.
So now I'm doing regular death cafes. But I'll let Rose describe a bit more about how she got into it and also about what our role is because it's quite diverse in our roles. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. So for me, I think I've had a interest or a career long interest in palliative care. When I look back in my 40 plus years of nursing, I've always been drawn to
this kind of space got into oncology nursing fairly early and did some study, did little courses and things around palliative care, even like way back in the 80s. And I did some study then in palliative care in 2008, nine, 10.
And then I met Bill in 2015 and he was a yoga teacher and he was helping people. He was helping this one particular man who was facing end of life and he was just sort of saying, I wish these people had somebody to navigate through the whole sort of mess of end of life. said that he and his wife are just sort of swimming in this, bobbing about in the ocean and not really.
knowing what to do and what kind of supports are out there. And so through that conversation, we just sort of, I don't know, I don't know exactly how we stumbled on it, but I stumbled on a, I did a web search and found this role of a death doula. And I thought, wow, that sounds exactly what I'd love to do. so we researched it. I did some study with a woman in the States and then I did
I went to Hawaii and did a week long course in Hawaii as well. So there's people around the world who are obviously teaching it and the UK and the US are much more further ahead than Australia in terms of having death duelists sort of embedded into the health landscape. And of course, from my experience, it was like, yeah, I want to be a death duelist and know all about death and then people started dying.
Thanks very much. It's like, I'm fine. So yeah, my best friend died in 2017. And this was like, we started looking at this in 2015. Started exploring things and then she was unwell and she died in 2017. And then fairly soon after that, or even as that was happening, Bill with my...
My mate was diagnosed with secondary melanoma. And so that was a two and a half year journey. And it was amazing to go through that with him who was, you know, sort of totally wide-eyed and happy to grapple with the whole thing. It wasn't sort of someone who's saying, I don't want to talk about it. So it was an incredible experience.
and certainly taught me a lot. So he died in June of 2019. So I think that really cemented my, it was a real internship for sure. It sounds like it. It sounds like it, yeah. And that's very close and very personal, like Nicole's experience, yeah. Yes. Wow. So with your
With Bill in particular, because he was wide-eyed, I imagine that would have given you quite a different experience and the opportunity to really use the tools that you've both learnt in your training to make it more of a...
I the rite of passage, the spiritual transition. Yes. Yeah. Do want to talk about that, how you see that as the rite of passage? In general, think death as a rite of passage is largely underestimated in our culture. Well, Western culture, there's plenty of cultures around the world who do it beautifully and have lots of
ritual and shared understanding, a community approach to death that supports everybody. it's sort of like you're immersed in this culture of this is how things are and this is what we do when someone's sick or dying. This is how we approach death. This is what we do. And so the whole culture supports somebody. That's not to say that everybody manages it well, but when you're immersed in a culture that does
does have a standard sort of healthy, relatively healthy approach to it, then the person gets swept along and they have an opportunity to go through those rituals and to experience that, whatever they're going through, in a communal way. And I think for Western culture, we've pushed that aside, put death into the shadows and pretend that it's not gonna happen.
that when it does happen it's an absolute tragedy and that it should never have happened and you know everybody's just so overwhelmed by the sadness of it all that we miss all the beautiful things that can happen along the way and I think that for me that was that was what was so rewarding for to walk that road with Bill was largely he was
He was very open about what was going on and we had a chance to really do it well. Like I think his death was as good as I could make it. And that was such an incredibly rewarding experience for me. I felt euphoric at the end of it because I know that he had told me what he wanted and I was able to give it to him. So that, know, cause there's a lot of people who say, is the kind of death I want. And then for whatever reason, it all falls down and they can't get that.
but I had the resources and the knowledge and the skills and the people around me to actually make it all happen. Thank you for sharing that. I'll just say one more, right of passage and just sort of following on from that. think when we deny death, we are closing ourselves off to the fullness of life and the things that life can offer us. Nick, do you want to add something to that?
Just putting you under the pump right there. Yeah, just think my role as a mental health coach or a counselor, it kind of goes hand in hand with the death as well and people's perception on death. Because if you're living in fear or if you're fearful of death, you're living in fear. So you're living, you can find in a box really. You're not living the fullest life that you can live.
living in fear of death. So by embracing death and realising that it's part of the circle of life, you really get out there and live to the fullest, to your life, your life to the fullest. Yeah. So does that make sense to you? Yeah, does. I guess, I guess there's no wasting time when you know that you're on a timeline. That's it. Yeah. We're here for a limited amount of time. Yeah. And some people have
their timeline, you know, told to you, you know, you've got a life limiting condition and it's a possibility of six to eight months or whatever it is. Or we just don't know what time, when we're going to be popped off the planet when it's time to go. So, so by living life to the fullest and embracing every day in the present is really living to the best of your abilities. So knowing that
you're going to die and that you want a really good life is living now. So I think, you know, I think having that philosophy is, is a good way to go, good way to live. And yeah, so that's my thoughts on that. Now you guys run some end of life, no, death cafes.
Now, what does that mean? And what do you find when you run those? Because actually, what I'm really curious about is what are the big fears? What are the big things that you come across in your work with the community and your clients, patients, depending on the scenario? Well, people who come to death cafes.
are just inquisitive. They just want to talk and they just and sometimes their family don't want to talk at all. And they really want to know what they can do to make things easier. They want to explore different possibilities. They want, you know, they might have a life limiting condition. I've had some people there that have just been two people one day.
that they were a partnership and they never opened up to each other about what they wanted when was dying. And so that just, I just was the facilitator. I just gave them space to be able to talk together on what he wanted and what, you know, at the end of his life and how he would like to live it. On the other hand, we've had...
other people that really want to get into the spiritual side of things and expected that Rose and I wouldn't, you know, be into that business. But that was really funny because we shocked the life out of him. And so he had a very different perception to other people in the room. So everyone comes with a different thought around it. And last death cafe, we had 12 people there and somebody really lovely lady came.
who does probate. And I know this is not the spiritual side of things, but once that discussion was opened, everyone started to talk about the death of their mother or their relative or whatever and how that journey went for them. So there's a lot of sharing and there's a lot of compassion and there's a lot of exploration. So we talk about many different topics and nothing is off the table and it's all done with respect.
and compassion and valuing each person. So it's really good. I really love holding them and I hold them monthly and it's lots of fun. I guess that conversation about probate, brings up all the things, the money stuff, how it can all go messy and it's such an indication, isn't it, that if you haven't got things sorted, you're leaving a mess for your family.
I'm massive, mess. And really, excuse my expression, but a big shit fight. Because some people are just all about the money. It's all about the money. It's not about the person that's dying. And how that you know, you can support them through their journey of death. It's about you know, when are they going to die? How much will we get? You know, what can we do about this? And that's really sad because
it's more about the heart than the material objects and you can't take it with you. Yeah. Yeah. So it's quite interesting. Yeah. Leaving that mess behind for your family is, it's very traumatic. So many times I speak to people, I do a bit of bereavement follow-up at work and the number of times I've
know, rung them sort of three months or six months down the track and they're still, still dealing with all the admin, still dealing with the will and trying to figure out who gets what and just the complex situations that people find themselves in because it wasn't sorted out before they died. it's, it interferes with their grief process and really it complicates it because then they
Deb, the angst and stress that all this is bringing gets tied into the loss of that person. And so then those two things are married up and they can't just grieve for the person that they lost, know, the love that they had for them or whatever it was. It's just this big ball of mess. it's, I just wish people would.
would think about that before they go, you know, like just have a thought about who, what you're leaving behind for the people that you love or that you care for. Yeah. It takes a lot of maturity, doesn't it, to actually address this whole thing about the transience of our lives. We've got to own ourselves to do that, I guess. It's a, you know,
How do you find that in your experience? It's a lot of the, we're still living in a death denying society on the whole. Even though there is a, there was a tool created by a wonderful Australian woman called Kerry Noonan called the Death Literacy Index. I mean it wasn't just her. And she, and
that using that DLI, she found that actually people do want to talk about death. It's not this thing that's that nobody wants to talk about, but it's our culture has sort of set it set it up as though nobody wants to talk about it. And so everyone is sitting there thinking, I wish I could talk about this stuff, but I know no one around me wants to.
And everyone's thinking that. So when we have a death cafe, it brings people out of the woodwork and they finally get a chance to talk and then you can't shut them up. That's right. You just can't. But there's also, you know, they say that, you know, cancer isn't discriminatory, but that's not actually true. There's, you know, the social determinants of health would indicate that.
It's disproportionately found more commonly in the lower socioeconomic and the less educated for want of a better word. of a higher education sort of level. And so generally then there's not a lot of literacy around health and death topics and things. So people don't have a lot of language to be able to talk about this sort of stuff. And that's
That's the sad thing I find a lot of the time. It's great when you find somebody who is willing to openly talk about this, but it's not very common amongst our cohort, our patient cohort, which can be frustrating. But then again, know, look, it's interesting. guess, you know, sometimes you want it. You want the academics or the people who have got PhDs and
that are willing to sort of dive in and they are fascinating to talk to about this sort of stuff. But you do get a wide variety of ways that people approach their own death, whether it's just denial and stick their heads in the sand, or it's just a very sort of almost mundane, well, this is happening, let's get on with it. Yeah, there's a million ways to die.
And people die as the way they live. And that's the one thing that I've certainly learned in the last few years working at the Cold Face at Palliative Care is that you can't, you're not going to all of a sudden become this person who's, you know, this sage that sits there in the corner uttering incredible words of wisdom to all the people they leave behind. It's just, you just, just be yourself no matter whether you're living or dying or approaching end of life. Wow.
It's also a time of I've done some spiritual care for the dying at the University of Notre Dame. And I've also done a Buddhist course on spiritual care for the dying as well. And it's also a time of reflection and being able to
what would the word be? Get out your fears, you know, and talk about them. You know, it depends on your religious values as well. I can remember there was a doctor who's an Australian doctor who was, he was speaking and he had a list of, he had a selection of slide, photos or slides of videos of people, how they approach their death.
And there was one lady who was in hospital who was in her seventies, who was really angry and the medication wasn't working and nothing was working for her. She was really and lashing out at all the nurses and the nurses didn't have time to talk to her. So the doctor came in and talked to her and he asked her what's wrong. And after a couple of sessions, he worked out that she'd had a
an abortion in her early twenties to a man who was already married with children and she'd never told anybody. So she had this fear of dying because God was going to punish her. once she got that and you could see the weeks how they were progressing and each week he would talk to her about it.
And finally she let it all out and she'd never had children. She was married. She never told her husband and never told anybody about this. And so she let it out and he said, you know, if your God is the God of love, why are you so scared? So once she came to that conclusion that God is the God of love and that you could see her medication started to work for her pain.
She was a lot happier. The day before she died, she was sitting down in the hospital lounge with a glass of wine with a big smile on her face. Like that, you know, that completely changed her journey of death because she got those things off her chest and had understanding that, you know, her religious or her spiritual views weren't really what, you know, it was happening all in her head.
that there was a God of love and that he would forgive her in her views. Yeah. So that made such a difference to her death by, you know, talking about it and getting those things off a chest. And I reckon that it probably be, I've supported a couple of people as a volunteer, the palliative care as well. And I had the similar experience with somebody sharing with me.
the things that have happened in their life that they didn't want to share with their family. But it slowed their process down. Yeah. So, you know, and Rose could probably come across, she's probably come across a whole lot of them as well. Yeah. We see a lot of existential distress. That's true. Because dying is a, you know, like it involves all of you. It's a whole, and palliative care and...
caring for someone at the end of life is a holistic, has to be holistic approach. And even though there's been, there's a lot of focus on getting the symptoms sorted out, getting your pain under control, your breathlessness, your nausea or whatever it is, none of those things are going to be terribly effective if the biggest thing, the biggest problem that you've got is that you're worried about something that happened.
30 years ago, or you've got something that's underneath the surface that's bubbling away and it's blocking all the therapeutic interventions that we're trying to put in place. And that's becoming more common, I have to say. And the importance of tending to the whole person, the spiritual and emotional side is really important. So palliative care nurses have to be
skilled in in all those things it's not just about the symptoms yeah yeah you're not just dealing with the physical body but the but the i mean really you are the gatekeeper in a way you get that beautiful honor of i guess being present at times when people do make that transition
Yeah, it's interesting when I mean a death duel or palliative care nurse, it's all the same when you say to people that you work with people at of their lives, you know, and the immediate reaction is, don't know how you could do that, or isn't it sad, or you're an angel. But for me, it's the only kind of nursing that's ever really made sense to me. It's the only one that's really, really drawn me to it because it's so...
It's so rewarding. It's just so amazing to work with people in this time of their lives. Especially in the culture that we're in. I think Death Duelers, for me at the moment, I think the Death Duelers are the way showers. We're the voices in the wilderness, the John the Baptist who have to prepare either way sort of thing. Come on, come with us. We'll show you.
We're sort of there telling the good news about, we can reclaim death and dying in our culture. We've got to get it back. know, it's only been 100, you know, since the turn of the 20th century, really, that everything started to change. There's a whole sort of, all this, few things all happened at once. You know, the funeral industry started to take over our funerals and medicine started to, you know, in the first 50 years of the 20th century, medicine
you know, just had this exponential blowout and it just developed so much that people started to hand over everything to medicine and now medicine owns health and funeral directors own death. And it's not the way it should be. And it can't continue because there's just not going to be enough funeral directors and enough palliative care nurses and doctors to manage.
the entirety of death and dying and end of life care. We need to be putting it into our communities, bringing it back to the way we used to do it, which was, it was a social event with a medical component. And when we needed the doctor, we'd call them. Now we can't go completely back there, obviously, because we've got the genie out of the bottle. We've got all these drugs at our disposal and we know so much more now. But we can certainly reclaim
death back into our communities. And so when someone gets a been given a life limiting diagnosis, then the whole community knows what to do instead of running for the hills and crossing the street and shifting their chairs and looking the other way. look at that. What's that over there? Squirrel. We will all be equipped to sort of say,
Okay, here's a casserole or I'll come and mow your lawns or, you know, I'll walk the dogs of the carer who's caring for the person. You know, it's not just about the person. We don't want people coming in, some random person coming into the house and holding their hand while they're dying. You know, that's not appropriate. We want to be able to support the people who really matter to that person. And then, you know, if those people are...
So it's like circles of support. If the people who are supporting the carers then need support, they've got people who can support them. But it's also just this, I want to live in a culture where someone says, I'm dying for some reason or another, I've just been told I've got cancer. And not have that response of, you've got to fight this or what treatment are you going to have?
So it's more than just doing everything you can and then finally at the end you say, well, you know, the doctors say there's nothing I can do. As soon as you get a diagnosis, it's stopping to decide, okay, which of all the gates do I really want to go through instead of just being herded into, well, we're going to start treatment next week and you'll be having this kind of chemo or surgery or radiotherapy or whatever it is. And the patient go, all right.
And then by the time you get through sort of six or seven checkpoints, the doctor says, I can't do anything more for you now. And by that time, your body is absolutely stretched to its limit. And so your end of life phase is going to be... Shit a lot. Yeah. Well, it's not this time where you're plagued with symptoms that you've collected along the way because you didn't stop and say,
if I have this treatment, what's going to happen? Like really what's going to happen? What are my chances of this or that? And then if the doctor is honest and gets permission to be honest, which is, know, so I'm not going to say the doctors, it's not the doctor's fault all the time. They're looking for cues from us. But if we don't know how to ask the right questions, then the doctors are just going to keep on treating.
Yeah, the body is stretched beyond its limit. Yeah. Thank you so much for speaking about that. I've seen that happen and it is so distressing and people don't know that they have choice. Yeah. And that's really what it sounds like. That's a lot of what your work is about is about providing support for people so they can make choices for themselves.
Beautiful, beautiful. And I mean, that's really living, isn't it? Using our free will and exercising our rights to choose. Now I wanted to ask you, because I've heard a few snippets from you guys in previous conversations, things like, you know,
burials, different ways of doing burials, funky ways of getting people into a good head space about dying. I think, Nick, you mentioned to me about a workshop where you get the pine box and you decorate it as a way of normalizing, you know, the process. And I must, can you speak to that? just...
It fascinated me and I started to imagine, you know, a box on my front veranda that's all painted up and ready for me to be plonked into it. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's the what is it called? What's the movie Rose? It's the it's kind of like a men's shed in New Zealand. They started. That's it. The Coffin Club. So in New Zealand.
these people, these oldies, well, they're probably seventies, sixties, seventies or eighties decided that they'd- Not that old. I know, I know. Mature people were talking about, you know, how expensive it was, how the funeral industry was, you know, taking over and they didn't have any choices about the coffins. So they made their own and it turned out to be the Coffin Club.
And since then, there's been a movie made. And across Australia, there's places that are doing the Coffin Club as well. whilst they make their own coffin and they paint it and they might use it like a, it could be a bookcase with that's coffin shaped, or it could be the box at the end of the bed that's got the blankets in it. It could be anything, but that's what they want used.
And the funeral industry really didn't like it because they didn't have any control over it. And they weren't evaluating in their, you know, in their funerals because they didn't. Yeah. So that's what happened. And it's quite hilarious. You can look on YouTube and you can find the coffin club and there's this, there's all these people singing and talking about their coffin club. Wow. Yeah. But Rose and I have also been to off the
off the grid festival we've been and we've been for two years and we're just organising for next year to attend and we've done shrouding workshops and taking photos of people in their shrouds. You know, once, you know, anybody who walks past we ask, you know, would you like to be shrouded? And so we've shrouded them. They have an idea.
It's really interesting, isn't it, Rose? You some interesting comments. with fascination. yeah, the ones who are willing to get in there. And it's great to have that opportunity to practice, know, to actually put yourself in that space like a shroud or doing a death meditation and really taking yourself through that. These are the sort of things that it's a great opportunity to practice and to walk around inside the possibility that you're going to die.
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's so interesting. And you can see like, when we do it, we have it at the front of our stall at the off the grid festival in Chilton. And we start to shroud the person and then there'll be people at the back that go, no, no, I'm not coming any closer. But by the time that we finished talking and everyone has questions and it opens up a really good discussion.
they're a bit closer and they're asking questions and they're more involved so it's really good. It's a great way to break the ice and start talking about things. Wonderful. Wonderful. can really support because know death and grief are connected and if you you know there's so many people who have terrible stories about someone dying and then they carry that with them as the mother of
Palliative care, Dame Cecily Saunders said, the way people die live on in the hearts and minds of the people who love them. And so getting death right is so important for the generations to come, the people who walk around with that memory. If a death can be seen as good or as good for that person, then that helps their healing and their grief process.
And so I think if we can get people used to the idea that they're going to die, then they're more likely to have a better death. And then that flows on to all the people around them. And it sort of sends ripples out to the community. Then those people will carry that good death experience with them. They'll talk about it with their friends. And so everything sort of opens up. But of course the converse is true. If someone has a really poor death experience, then that's what people remember. And then it fills them with fear.
their grief is blocked or you know, complex. Yeah, yeah. I know I've, at different times I've worked with people in the fertility space and holding grief is actually a big blocker even when you're wanting to create life. It's a really interesting connection that is not substantiated, just a subjective observation. But I just wanted to share with you
A friend of mine...
was telling me about her ex-partner, her son's father had passed and part of the process that they went through was they, her son actually did the painting on his father's coffin and people, friends of this man came and added their names and wrote messages on it. Just thinking about that makes me want to cry, you know what I mean? Like the...
process of saying goodbye in such a tangible way and her son was able to be present for that and experience that it was like a, I just, I was really moved by that, I thought it was such a beautiful experience for him. So he was really supported through his dad's passing and he was able to gift him this exit.
I just magic. Yeah. And we're open to amazing possibilities to say goodbye. It's not just, you know, the body's taken quickly. And then, you know, you might see it in the funeral home, then, you know, it's in the coffin at the front of the church, then it's taken or it's in the coffin at the crematorium and then it's gone. There's all these amazing possibilities that you can do.
you know, instead of or, alongside. So you can, you know, you can have the body at home for a while. You can be able to absorb that, that, you know, this person has gone. You're able to create your own funeral. You're looking very angelic. know. The sun's coming up. Keep talking before we lose you.
You know, you can have all these amazing choices in what you, you know, in that, that let's well, it is a rite of passage. It is, you know, you know, it's not dealing with, but it's coming to terms with that person, not being this or not being in their body and going through that transition stage of, know, being able to say goodbye, being able to accept that.
that soul is no longer in that shell, in that body. And valuing that body, maybe dressing the body, yourselves, washing the body, dressing the body, wrapping it in a shroud, know, having more control over it. You could do home funerals or you can have, you know, there's so many amazing possibilities in what you can do. And one of the funeral homes that we work, like that's at off the grid festival with us,
The stories that they've said, you know, somebody's died in a car accident has been quite...
you know, they've had a fairly quick death and it's a hard thing to take in. Well, I've seen some beautiful videos that the family has taken of the whole family being able to dress when this person's come back from the, what is it, coroner. They've been able to wash the body as a family and dress the body and
being able to anoint it with oils and then wrap it in a shroud and talk, you know, as they're going, they're talking and remembering stories and all sorts of things. And they've all got their hands on this body, this person that they've loved dearly. And so it's been such a beautiful thing. Yeah. For death as a rite of passage, I think the dying and the dead still have so much to teach us. And that's contrary to
the common sort of understanding is, and I think a lot of people who are living with a life-limiting condition feel like their life is over and they don't have anything more to do. They're not productive members of society anymore, so they're sort of pushed away. But yeah, the dying and the dead have so much to teach us if we can just access it and actually acknowledge that for them, like tell them that they...
that we are learning, we have to relearn. And yeah, the opportunities for being with somebody who's dying and what the impact that has on the people who are still alive. And then after death, the things that a person who's died can still teach the community like you've just been saying, know, those opportunities around the coffin and around the dead body and what we can learn from them. think it's, that's the thing that
We need to re-emphasise and to affirm for people who are dying that they still can be productive no matter what stage of life they're in. If being productive is important, and it seems to be in this society, if you're not productive, then you're not useful. Just look at our aged care population. I'm trying to break out of that story.
I know that you do a play, you guys have a play, is that right? Yeah. Can you just speak to that for little bit so that people have a bit of a handle on that? Yeah, we haven't done it for a little while. We got the rights to it in 2019 and put it on for the first time in 2019, about three weeks before Bill died. I I got all that at the same time.
And it's basically a one-woman play about advanced care planning. there's two characters in there. One of them is the woman herself who's ended up in ICU when she told her children expressly that that's not what she wanted. And she was approaching death quite sort of candidly. But her children sort of took over and decided to call the ambulance. And of course, it was written by an American. So she ends up in ICU for months on end.
being kept alive by machines. And so she steps outside of her body and talks to the audience and says, you know, what am I doing here? And then she talks about her family and a fractured sort of difficult relationship she has with her daughter-in-law. And then the next part is the daughter-in-law that comes along and tells her own story. And then she comes to a revelation and decides to advocate for her mother-in-law and take her home. so that's how it
you know, that finishes. Now that I've given away the plot, you probably won't need to come and see it. It's such a beautiful play and you're on a roller coaster. Yeah, I did it with on my own to begin with, but I've listed the help of a niece, the theatrical talent runs through my family very deep and wide. my niece has now come on board as the daughter-in-law. great. So we have, yeah, but we haven't presented it for a little while. It's just
Yeah, we've just both been too busy. Nicole and I sort of decided, yeah, we're going to be death duelers. And we set up our business. And then both of us, almost within a month or two of each other, got other jobs that took us away from really pursuing the death dueler. So now most of our time is spent with death cafes, death literacy, improving.
cultural attitudes towards death and dying. Yeah and we've just got a collective together called the Good to Go Collective. So these are death dwellers, we've got death dwellers, we've got a lawyer, we've got a Good to Go. Yeah, yeah we've got a lawyer, we've got, who else have we got? We've got The woman who does the probate. Probate, Tracy and we've got a funeral director in Wagga.
Yeah, and a celebration. Yeah, there's a lot of people who are just wanting to be sort of effective in this space somehow. So we'll be planning some things next year. Keep an eye out. They're all across the northeast region up to the border. Awesome. That sounds great. So we might actually speak at another time and... Yeah.
explore a few more bits and pieces around here because it's a great conversation. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your experiences and you being part of that change. You're very welcome.
I think both of us could just talk about this stuff all day, of course. We could. favourite subject, we're the deathy girls. And I must just say, I was out with my parents last weekend and another girlfriend of ours, Karen, and everybody that I saw, I run into from the death cafe and mum and that's all she talks about. And Simone just said, well, that's what she's into.
you know she's here for that role so but everybody everywhere you go that's what people talk about with you is death or you know i've gone to the death cafe or i'm doing this Nicole or that and it's all around death but it's it's it's not morbid no it's just part of it's part of cycle of life yeah yeah yeah actually before we buzz off rose just give us a little look at those fabulous earrings
yes, the skulls. Yes. Just really keeping yourself on point. I love it. All right ladies look thank you so much I really appreciate your time and we will definitely speak again. you Karen. for having us. Now you've got a website your website is what's endstagematters.com
Perfect. So if anyone wants to know more, you can go and check Nick and Rose out there. All right. Thanks a bunch. Thanks, Karen.
