Shownotes
Episode Overview:
In today’s deeply thoughtful episode of Boomer Banter, host Wendy Green sits down with Catherine Marienau, a retired professor and an advocate for Compassion & Choices. Together, they delve into one of the most sensitive yet crucial conversations we can have with our loved ones: planning for the end of life. Exploring everything from hospice and palliative care to death doulas and advanced directives, Wendy and Catherine share personal stories and professional insights that underline the importance of open communication and careful planning. Whether you're navigating these waters yourself or preparing to help a loved one, this episode offers invaluable guidance and heartfelt perspectives.
Episode Highlights:
Hospice and Palliative Care: Catherine explains the emotional and practical support that hospice offers both patients and their families at no cost. Wendy and Catherine discuss the importance of choosing the right hospice, noting the differences between religious and for-profit organizations.
Role of Death Doulas: Moving beyond hospice and assisted living, Catherine introduces the concept of death doulas who provide additional spiritual and physical comfort, and often sit vigil with patients.
Historical Perspectives: They reminisce about past practices in communities where individuals naturally supported one another through the end of life, contrasting it with today's often isolating and complicated perceptions of death.
Personal Stories: Wendy and Catherine share their personal experiences with end-of-life planning, including the positive impact of having these discussions and the challenges when they are avoided.
Key Takeaways:
- Start the Conversation: Planning end-of-life care and having these conversations early with family and medical teams can prevent conflicts and create meaningful interactions.
- Advance Directives and Living Wills: Clearly outline and communicate your end-of-life wishes. Make these documents accessible to your loved ones.
- Choose the Right Support: Understand the differences between hospice services and consider additional support from death doulas for spiritual and physical comfort.
- Use Available Resources: Leverage resources like the "Compassion & Choices, End of Life Decisions Booklet" to guide your planning and conversations.
Links:
Explore Resources: Download the "Compassion & choices, End of Life Decisions Booklet" from the Compassion & Choices website. Order the "Finish Strong" book from their website as well.
Order "Fu*k, I'm Dead, Now What" from Amazon .
Connect with Catherine Marienau: Email or Website
Connect with Us: Subscribe to the Boomer Banter community and newsletter to stay connected and informed about aging well.
Check out Episode #289 on Women Over 70, where I was a guest.
Mentioned in this episode:
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This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcripts
Hello and happy Labor Day and welcome to Boomer Banter, the podcast where we have real talk about aging well. My name is Wendy Green and I am your host. And with many years of aging well experience already and plenty more to come, I am here to tackle all the uncomfortable, unexpected, and hopefully life affirming questions you've been pondering to help make the journey a little less rocky and a lot more fun. If you want to age well, you are in the right place. So end of life conversations death is one of those great unknowns. None of us know for sure what happens after we die. Things that are unknown tend to be scary, but we all know we are going to die and we all hope to avoid suffering. I have been very fortunate that my parents spoke often about their wishes for end of life.
Wendy Green [:I say fortunate because death is typically something that people are uncomfortable talking about. But because my parents started talking to us about it so many years ago, they have normalized the idea of talking about death and dying. Does that make it more comfortable to think about losing someone? I don't think comfort is the word I would use, but there will always be this sense of loss, a void in the space that your loved one filled. What I think these conversations have done for my parents is make them more comfortable about how they will be cared for in the end of their lives. I know this was true for my father. It also alleviates the confusion and disagreements my siblings and I might have had because we very clearly understand what their end of life wishes are. Katherine Marino, PhD, is a professor emerita at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, where she mentored and taught adult learners in BA and MA degree programs. In 2019, Kathryn became active in the End of Life options movement and was trained as an advocate by the national organization Compassion and choices at the local level in Oak Park, Illinois.
Wendy Green [:Catherine is a member and former co chair of the End of Life Options Coalition. She facilitates the book club and speaks at various organizations on behalf of the movement. Catherine is also the co host of the podcast Women over 70 aging reimagined with Gail Zelitsky. I had the pleasure of being a guest on their podcast in July. That was episode number 289 and I will put the link to that show in the show notes. But our goal with this discussion today is to give you some tools and ideas to think about what will be important for you and your care as you are nearing the end of life, and to share some ideas about how to begin to have these conversations with your loved ones who will be there to carry out your wishes. So please join me in welcoming Katherine Marino to Boomer Banter. Hello, Catherine.
Catherine Marienau [:Hello, Wendy. Thank you so much for having me today.
Wendy Green [:Well, I so appreciate you joining us on this Labor Day holiday for this very important discussion. I'm curious, you said in 2019 is when you kind of joined the end of life options movement. What was it that interested you and compelled you to get involved?
Catherine Marienau [:Well, in 2019 is when I retired from my full time work at pool university and I was looking for a way to be involved in my oak park community, which I had not been very much before then. And I wanted to do something meaningful. And I had witnessed many too many family and friends die in their dying process. And I had heard about Compassion & Choices and I decided that's something I really wanted to be an advocate for. I went to a planning meeting in September of 2019. Two weeks later, I was co chair of our action team.
Wendy Green [:Wow.
Catherine Marienau [:Evolved ever since. I wasn't quite enthusiastic.
Wendy Green [:Yes. Well, you know, these volunteer organizations are always glad to have somebody to help. So I said at the beginning, you know, part of the discussion has to focus on ourselves first and what we imagine we want as care. How do we know what our choices are? Our options are or end of life care? That we can start to make plans.
Catherine Marienau [:Yeah, that's a wonderful way to start because I think if we were to rely on our medical teams, we probably wouldn't get that information unless it's an unusual set of an unusual team. So what Compassion & Choices as a really wonderful advanced planning guide.
Wendy Green [:My end of life decisions.
Catherine Marienau [:My end of life decisions, it's really quite comprehensive and it walks you through. One of the most important parts of that, I think, is a values checklist. Given these scenarios, given these situations, what are your wishes? What would you choose? And I've done this any number of times now, and I just went through it again last evening and I find that I change my very important not important slightly. So I think it's important that this is something that we look at for ourselves and we visit and revisit, because our life situation changes. Something that happens to people around us, we start to think about something, things a bit differently. So they have a list of items about how important are these things to you, such as let nature take its course. So whatever interventions, any heroic measures, do you want those? Do you not want those? What's more important to you, the quality of your life or the quantity, the longevity?
Wendy Green [:That's a tough one.
Catherine Marienau [:They're all tough, actually. They're all tough. What are my spiritual, my religious beliefs. And how does that enter in? How independent do I want to be? Someone who recently said, well, if she was paraplegic, that's it, she's no more. Somebody else might have a different take on that. Some people think that it's part of the plan to suffer pain. That's part of the dying process. Others say, keep me as pain free as possible.
Catherine Marienau [:Do you want to make a contribution to medical research, teaching? Do you want to be mentally alert and competent? It's about how important are these things as we think about ending the end of life phase? Do we want to die more quickly or linger? Do you want to avoid expensive care.
Wendy Green [:Or, you know, so these are many choices.
Catherine Marienau [:There are many choices and they're not easy. And then they, you know, who do you want to be with you when you're dying? If you have medical procedures, would you want to be on a respirator or hospital, intensive care or chemo or surgery?
Wendy Green [:Yeah, I mean, these are tough choices. And I think I know for myself the first time I went through something like that, I was probably in my sixties the first time I did it, you know, and it's, it doesn't seem as close, it doesn't seem as real then, right? So you're just like, well, I don't want any pain and I don't want any heroic measures and I don't want this and I don't want that. And then I think as you get older, you take a little more time thinking about those things, you know. Now what does it mean if I don't want heroic measures but my granddaughter is getting married? Do I want to live long enough to see that? You know, there's a lot that goes into the thought process.
Catherine Marienau [:There's a great deal. And as I mentioned, I think it's an evolving process because one of the strong words of advice is do this planning now while you're okay, while you're in good health, and then be open that you may change your mind about things. Had a dear friend who, who had a rare illness when she was in her forties. And she, as her disease progressed, she said, well, it's a new plateau. And now I'm adjusting to this so I can live this way. I can live like this. Whereas earlier she would have said, I'm not, I'm not. This is going to stand for all of what she went through.
Catherine Marienau [:But I think, and I know you've mentioned your parents. My mother died when she was just last year, when she was 90, almost 98. And my father 20 years before that they were really good about planning for after they died. Life insurance. They had the mausoleum set up. They had all of their funeral. My mom had her funeral planned 20 years ago. We didn't talk so much about.
Catherine Marienau [:Well, what about those last phases when you are actually facing death at some point?
Wendy Green [:So even with the work you're doing, you couldn't get her to talk to you about it.
Catherine Marienau [:She. More. Well, my father was 20 years ago, so he was relatively young when he died. But my mother was. Well, God will let me know when it's my time.
Wendy Green [:And a lot of people feel that way.
Catherine Marienau [:And at the very end, after her last hospital stay, when she came back, she said, that's it. No more hospital. Don't do anything. So she was very clear about that. But it wasn't till pretty late. But thankfully, I have two sisters, and we were all very open about talking with each other and with her as much as we could. And so there wasn't conflict or confusion at the end, which is.
Wendy Green [:Well, you are very lucky for that. Yes, I know a friend of mine who, they kept trying one thing after another with her mother, and her mother didn't want it, but the doctor kept telling my friend and her brother, this might be the thing that's going to help her get out of the hospital and go home. And mom kept saying, no, I don't want it. I'm done. And the guilt that the kids felt because there hadn't been these discussions ahead of time. It was just her now under duress, as they saw it, saying, I don't want it.
Catherine Marienau [:Right, right. And so that just brings up how important it is to have the conversations with your medical team, as well as family and friends. Your doctors need to know what your wishes are.
Wendy Green [:So let's talk about that advanced directive or the living will. Are they the same thing?
Catherine Marienau [:No, they're different. And the advanced directive will goes into more detail about what you want or don't want to happen. The living will base, it will say, you know, I was just looking at mine the other day, I don't want prolonged care. Well, what does that mean? Yeah, it's very general. So the advance directive goes into much more detail.
Wendy Green [:And that's the thing.
Catherine Marienau [:That's right. That's what you give your doctor, and it's what you. If you have available. So somebody. So someone. And access it right away. It's not in your safe deposit box at the bank. I keep it right behind me in my little box here behind my desk.
Wendy Green [:Okay. Yeah. So I think we've given a copy to the doctor and maybe the hospital, and then I have it in a.
Catherine Marienau [:Notebook and you've given it to your family, who are going to be making these choices with you or on your behalf.
Wendy Green [:Right. So that's the next part of the conversation. So once you've gone through, how do I want to be cared for? You know, let nature, you know, follow the course. Who'd want with me? Do I want music? Do I want my lips wet? All of that. Now you've got to sit down and have that conversation, you know, with your adult children or your partner or I, whomever is going to be your person. And we hit a lot of resistance.
Catherine Marienau [:On that one, for sure.
Wendy Green [:I mean, I was telling you that my boyfriend doesn't want to talk about this because he enjoys his life and that's all he wants to think about is the enjoyment of his life.
Catherine Marienau [:Don't we all want to think about that at the same time? One of the best resources I've found is finished strong by Margaret Groomsley. She was the president of compassion and choices for many years, and she has her chapter two, I think, basically sums it up. It's titled talking about death won't kill you, but it could improve your life. And this, it's really about how to have the conversation in. She and others always advocate, have those conversations now. Do it now while you're in good health, while you can, while it is not under the duress of, oh, my God, I have three months to live or something like that. And many people will say, I don't want to talk about it because it might make it happen or it's too depressing, or as your boyfriend says, I'm living a good life and that's what I focus on. And obviously you continue to do that, but you want to have that conversation first, is to have the conversation with yourself until I get comfortable enough about what I think my wishes are, and then am I comfortable enough bringing it up with people? So if it's about yourself, then my daughter, I'll give you an example.
Catherine Marienau [:My daughter, her father died eight years ago, and she was not ready to be involved in the end of life conversations. She was, yes. You have to be on the feeding tube. You have to do everything you possibly can now for me, she says, I want to have this sit down with you. I want to talk everything through. I feel like I'm ready now to be your power, you know, along with my sister, power of attorney for medical. And so it's a matter of partly when people are ready but you have to have a primate for many people. You just have to sort of plant the seeds and tell stories about others, you know, who did plan or didn't plan.
Wendy Green [:Well, yeah.
Catherine Marienau [:What they were facing. You know, you never want to hear someone say, an adult child say, we never talked about, which is what happened to a friend of mine just last month. Her died, and her adult daughter and adult son had no information whatsoever about her affairs. They didn't even know which one of them was power of attorney.
Wendy Green [:Is that right?
Catherine Marienau [:They did not know. They came to Chicago from. They both lived in the south. They didn't. They didn't know anything about her bank, about her accounts, how to get into her computer.
Wendy Green [:Oh, my goodness, nothing. So that leaves those poor children with so much extra anguish. I mean, they're grieving their mother, and now they have to figure out where everything is and who does what. Oh, my goodness.
Catherine Marienau [:So I visited with them when they were in town, and that's what they were doing. They were sort of still in shock, sitting. It was on a weekend, so they couldn't do anything with banks or, you know, how to find out something. So they had started going through some of her personal effects. They didn't even know about those, about what to do with those, or they had no information. So they were. They didn't even get to have the time or the chance at that point to just grieve and be in the moment. Their mom has died.
Wendy Green [:Yeah. Well, that's so unfortunate.
Catherine Marienau [:Yeah. So that's an extreme, but it happens more often than not.
Wendy Green [:Oh, I think it does. Yeah. I remember when, you know, with my dad, and he died about 15 years ago, but like I said, we'd been having these conversations. He had kidney failure, and he had COPD, so he made the decision to go off of dialysis, but that gave him the opportunity to pull the whole family together and really have his celebration of life while he was still alive. You know, he got to speak to all of us, share his love with us. We got to share our love with him. And it was really. Oh, I'm getting chills just thinking about it.
Wendy Green [:It was a beautiful. As beautiful as a dying experience could be. And we had hospice at home. It was, you know, it was what he wanted, which made it so gentle.
Catherine Marienau [:Yes, yes. Talk about having a good death. You know, that's an example of a good death. Most people, the research shows that most people say they prefer to die at home with loved ones around them. 75% don't get that. That's a huge number of people who are intubated in the hospital or in some place other than where they are surrounded by love.
Wendy Green [:Right. And their home and their comfort.
Catherine Marienau [:Yeah, I know.
Wendy Green [:Now, I've read plenty of advice where it says, you know, if you want to start these conversations, do it like at a family gathering, you know, like after Thanksgiving dinner. And I can just see me saying to my children, after Thanksgiving dinner, okay, let's sit down and talk about my. They would walk out. Let's not end a happy, happy celebration with that. How do you feel about that?
Catherine Marienau [:Yeah, I've read that many times also. That's not when I would I have done it or would do it. It's just more when you're with. Just not that where you're celebrating Thanksgiving or another holiday. It's to say, I've been thinking about, or I'm wondering. I realized that if something happened to you, I wouldn't know that because I wouldn't know what to do. And I want to. What I said to my mother was, I want to know more about you.
Catherine Marienau [:She wasn't one to talk much about herself.
Wendy Green [:Oh, okay.
Catherine Marienau [:I want to know more about what's important to you, how you think about death. Because I grew up on a farm, so we had death around us all the time, animals and relatives. We had open casket in the home and things like that. So I wasn't, we weren't strangers to it. I said, given how you were raised, mom, how do you want it to be for you? And what should I know? What could I know so that I make it easier for you and for my sisters and me? Well, that was easier for her to respond to. She got to tell the story of how she was raised and what she believed. And then she was able to, you know, she would say, it's God's will. But again, at the end, toward the end, it was, okay.
Catherine Marienau [:I think God's making it quite clear what his plans are for me. So no more.
Wendy Green [:All right. So do you find that. I mean, you did that as the child trying to understand, do you find that the children will initiate these conversations, or does it typically have to come from the parent?
Catherine Marienau [:It's both sides. It depends. Sometimes the. The parent wants to initiate and the children don't want to hear it, just like we're not going to talk about that now. That's too depressing. Enjoy you while you're here. Other times, the children, the adult children want to discuss it, and the parent says, I'm fine. I'm fine.
Catherine Marienau [:We'll just, you know, I've got it. I've got my living will. I've got this and that. Don't worry about. So again, it's more of that after I'm gone. So, I don't know, I just wanted to. I have all these resources, as I know you have many of them, too, but I'll just show this one.
Wendy Green [:So what Catherine is showing says, since you're on the podcast, says, fuck, I'm dead. Now what?
Catherine Marienau [:So it's similar. It's. A lot of these questions are in the compassion and choices, but this is more who to contact. What are your passwords? Where's your bank? Who takes care of your pets? Who's going to take care of your pet after you're gone? Who's your electric company in all these really logistical things that might not think about but need to be taken care of. So that's the more practical toward the end. It also has a place where you can write about regrets, accomplishments, what you wish for, your relatives, life lessons. So you can be as reflective as you want in that. But it's also one place for I would.
Wendy Green [:Which actually is an interesting thought. That might be an interesting way or an easier way to approach the conversation first by sitting down and saying, you know, here's. Here's all my doctors, in case anything should happen to me, I want you to know that. Here's where my passwords are kept. Here's. And so it's just. It's not okay when I'm dying. This is what I want.
Wendy Green [:You know, it's a little less threatening, but maybe it's a first pass at a conversation.
Catherine Marienau [:I think so, yeah. I think this is my daughter and I have started the conversation. Conversations. Laurel, I think this is what I'm going to turn to next, is just to say, this is where you're going to need this information, or I want you to know where this information is.
Wendy Green [:Yeah.
Catherine Marienau [:I'm accountable for keeping it up to date. Passwords to change all the time.
Wendy Green [:Keeping it up to date is I have my notebook and my mother's notebook on my table here next to me that I have to update a little bit. Talk to me about hospice care and palliative care and what that means as you're reflecting on your end of life.
Catherine Marienau [:So palliative care provides comfort, support for someone who is facing a terminal illness. And you don't have to be dying yet, but you need. You might need some medication support. So someone who's in palliative care could be getting medications, they could be getting assistance, of different sorts. That's what my mother had when she was in assisted living at the end. And then eventually she did go into hospice, which is, hospice usually is if you have diagnosed with six months or less to live. And they provide both different kinds of support, not medicine. So they're there to, you mentioned music, so they might provide hospice.
Catherine Marienau [:My mother had, they provided someone who came and played her violin and sang her guitar and sang every, at least every week, songs that she learned that my mother liked, and so she would sing. My mom had visits from the team. They cooperated with the staff at the assisted living place because they had certain rules hospice has. Hospice says, we're going to keep this person comfortable.
Wendy Green [:Right.
Catherine Marienau [:And if she, you know, my mother had some bladder issues toward the end, and so she was constantly calling for assistance. And the assisted living place said, we don't have staff to do all of this. And hospice said, well, then we will provide more care for her because she needs to be comfortable.
Wendy Green [:Right. It is about the comfort. So they will provide medicines for anxiety and for pain healing. Yeah.
Catherine Marienau [:And some people think of hospice as, oh, my gosh, gone to hospice. You know, he or she is going to die next week or something, which sometimes happens. But people can enter hospice earlier in the phase of dying, you know, six months or so. And some people flunk out of hospice because they get better.
Wendy Green [:And some people are in it longer than they anticipate, like to make sure.
Catherine Marienau [:Right, right.
Wendy Green [:But I remember hospice also being a wonderful support for the family.
Catherine Marienau [:Yes.
Wendy Green [:You know, I remember when they explained to us how difficult it was for my dad to be told he couldn't drive anymore and what that meant to him as a male, you know, and they helped us in so many ways, kind of understand some of the emotional journeys that he was taking. But also afterwards they provided counseling if you wanted it, for the loved ones who were left, which to me was amazing. And none of it cost any money.
Catherine Marienau [:Right, right. Yeah. We experienced that as well. So I live in Chicago. My mother lived in rural Minnesota. So I was driving there once a month for most of the last year. And hospice was, they, you know, they would, I would be there when hospice came to visit, and they would ask me as much about how I was doing as not just my mother, but. So there was the emotional support.
Catherine Marienau [:They took time to explain things, you know, sometimes the assisted living staff, which were great, but they didn't have time to do all of that.
Wendy Green [:Yeah. Yeah. I think hospice is really a gift if you are willing to partake of it.
Catherine Marienau [:Right. And I think you need to be careful in your choice of hospice because they're not all the same. And more. Some have religious affiliations, and so they might have more restrictions. Some are for profit, which is not in itself a bad thing. It's just that they have, they might have different rules or regulations than the private care hospice. So those are.
Wendy Green [:So how do you find out?
Catherine Marienau [:You have to check around to see where are the hospice facilities and what's their philosophy? That's their philosophy of care.
Wendy Green [:Yeah. And they provide what you need at home as well, not just in the hospital.
Catherine Marienau [:Right. Right. At home, too. Yes. The other part I wanted to mention was death doulas, because I've learned a lot, fair amount about death doulas now in the last few years. And so they are individuals who've been trained to be death doulas. And they're there to kind of fill in the gaps that hospice or hospice doesn't do. And so they are a tremendous support for the person as well as the family members.
Catherine Marienau [:So I know too, really well now, and one of them has a background in theater and in massage therapy. And so she often. And healing. So she will come and be with the patient and sing or do gentle massage or whatever is going to help that person feel better within their spirit as well as their body. Another one. And she also has, she's developing a business where she is, she creates caskets out of natural materials, bamboo. So she's very much can help people in terms of alternatives to being involved and in some of those chances. And the other death Doula I know is a geriatric care provider of geriatric care services.
Catherine Marienau [:So she knows a great deal about services that families might not know about or even hospice might not know about.
Wendy Green [:I'm glad you brought that up because I've seen that term and I really have no concept of what a death doula would do. So you're saying they fill in some of the care and comfort pieces that hospice is not available for or assisted living is not available for?
Catherine Marienau [:Right. So I was just through my bark action team, we now, during the summer, we are at the farmer's market around the boulevard along with all the other causes and have information about end of life options. And this past Saturday, I was there with Tiffany, who's a death doula, and she was talking about, she does a lot of sitting vigil with the patient, especially if the family can't be there all the time or the family needs a break. And that's, hospice does that to some extent but not to what somebody would need for the later life stage. So she does a lot of vigil. She. She's just. She and Julie, the other person I know, they're just so gentle, loving souls that you would.
Catherine Marienau [:You would want them to be around. You know, they're just. And they're so giving.
Wendy Green [:It's interesting. It's a. Certainly is a new field that. Although, I guess, Katherine is it really, I mean, when we turn to the century and that family, I mean, you didn't call him a death doula, but you had that. You had the midwife when they were being, you know, giving birth. You had somebody that came and sat with you and helped you with the person who was dying. Somehow in the 20th century, in 21st century, we kind of got away from that because of all the technology. I think we thought, oh, there's all these extraordinary means to keep somebody alive.
Catherine Marienau [:I think you're right. My grandmother was a midwife, birthing midwife, and she also sat vigil with many people in the community during their last days, weeks and days. And it's just something that the community did for each other, was to be there for each other. And it was. You're right. At that time, of course, there were very few interventions, technological interventions. And so, yeah, it became more of a. It was a family affair, but it became a community fair as well.
Wendy Green [:Yeah. And now it's like, in the. Behind closed doors and no one wants to talk about it, and we've made it scary. Instead of recognizing, like you said, growing up on a farm, animals die, people die, everything dies. And it doesn't mean it has to be so terrible. I mean, it is a cycle of.
Catherine Marienau [:Life, and it's a cycle of life. And what you said at the beginning about this is not to undermine or dismiss the grieving process at all.
Wendy Green [:No.
Catherine Marienau [:There's still grief. There's still a grieving process. People handle that in many different ways. But I think to do the planned full end of life, have those conversations, it gives people room to grieve and not have it be so complicated. Where are these forms? Where is this information? How do we, you know, that is just so exhausting.
Wendy Green [:Yeah. When kids start to argue about the care for their parents, you know, like, if we hadn't had these conversations, I'm pretty sure that one of my siblings would have said, oh, no, no, no, no, we're doing everything we possibly can. And, you know, now that we know what they want, then, you know, then.
Catherine Marienau [:You know, then, you know, I also.
Wendy Green [:Think when I think back about my dad's passing, you know, knowing that he was coming. And we were able to talk about it. We were also able to talk about what we thought happened. You know, like, is there a spirit world? Could we be in touch somehow? You know, will you send me messages, those kinds of things, that if you were. If you were pretending it was never going to happen, you can't even have those conversations. And I know, at least from my experience, both people are thinking about it, so why not talk about it?
Catherine Marienau [:Yes. My mother truly believed that she would meet my father again in heaven. And so even though I might not believe that, it was, it is comforting to know that that made death more palatable for her, that she was going to go and be with Arlo again. And.
Wendy Green [:So if you were. I know you do these talks and things and you're advising somebody about how to get started. What are two or three things that you would advise them to start with?
Catherine Marienau [:Well, as I mentioned, I think starting with the compassion choices, my end of life decisions booklet is a. It's a good. It's really a helpful place to start because you can do as much as you want. You don't have to sit down and do the whole thing all at once. And you can get that booklet for free by just going on the compassion enjoys this website, and they'll send it to you, to anybody. Okay.
Wendy Green [:I'll put that in the show notes.
Catherine Marienau [:Yeah. The other thing is, I think I read. I'm a reader. I found finnish strong to be very helpful. I liked being mortal.
Wendy Green [:Atul Goande.
Catherine Marienau [:And so because I facilitate our book club, we read about. I called it living and dying well, book club. We're reading about from a medical profession perspective, from people who have memoirs or people who have loved ones who have made the choice to how to when and how to end their lives to, you know, the whole gamut. So the other thing I think is. Can be helpful is if it's. If it's available and the community has attended death's cafe.
Wendy Green [:Oh, what is that?
Catherine Marienau [:That is, it's a gathering of people. It's usually. It's facilitated by, often by a death doula or someone who's really well trained in end of life options. And it's. If people come and talk about their experiences, it's. There's no. There's no lesson plan. It's just people talk.
Catherine Marienau [:And the ones I've been to, sometimes it's people who are. Have a terminal illness and they're talking about what that experience is like and how they're trying to involve their loved ones in conversations. Others, a loved one has already died, and they talk about what they wish they might have done or wish they had known or what it's like just to be in the grieving process. I find them incredibly uplifting. People say, how can you possibly spend a Sunday afternoon doing that? But I think it's so healthy.
Wendy Green [:Tell me more about that. Uplifting in what way?
Catherine Marienau [:To hear people share their experience. It's there at their most authentic selves. It's their story. It's in there. There's a trust. There's a trust. It's not therapy per se, but is when we are able to tell our story about something that is really life important to us, and there's listen with respect and caring, I think that's really powerful.
Wendy Green [:I think what you said there is so important when we're able to tell our stories and others listen with respect and caring. And that's what an end of life conversation is about. Yeah, that was beautifully said. Thank you.
Catherine Marienau [:Well, thank you. Yeah. People would just say, how can you be involved in this? So how could I not? I mean, this is.
Wendy Green [:This is life. This is life really important. Yeah. Well, let me tell people how they can find you. If you have additional questions for Catherine or for Compassion & Choices, you can email her at Catherine@Womenover70.com and I will put that in the show notes. And as I mentioned earlier, Catherine does have a podcast for women over 70. So you can check out her website, womenoverseventy.com. she and Gail are way ahead of me with their episodes.
Wendy Green [:I'm about to get to my 200th, but you are on, like 200. Almost close to 300 now, I think.
Catherine Marienau [:300. Great.
Wendy Green [:Yeah. That's amazing. Thank you so much, Catherine. This has really been informative and helpful, and I appreciate your compassion as you spoke about it.
Catherine Marienau [:Thank you. It's a pleasure. We need to. We need to be talking.
Wendy Green [:We do need to be talking. I also want to invite people to join the boomer banter conversations and get our newsletter. And you can do that by going to the website heyboomer.Biz, and click on Connect with us. And as I said, next week is my 200th episode.
Catherine Marienau [:Congratulations.
Wendy Green [:Thank you. And I will be. One of the things I hope to be doing there is answering some of the questions that I received from readers. So, readers and listeners. So if you have some questions that you would like to have me answer, you can email me at wendy@heyboomer.Biz, which is what the show used to be called. So each episode of Boomer Banter is an invitation to listen, learn, and apply the wisdom gained to your own life. We are a supportive community, so join us as we age well together. The Boomer Banter podcast is produced by me, Wendy Green, and the music comes from Purple Planet Music.
Wendy Green [:Thank you, Catherine. Hopefully we'll see you again soon.
Catherine Marienau [:Thank you so much.
