Dr. Annetta: [00:00:00] Often the people who really struggle the most are the ones who are so caught up in caring that they haven't allowed themselves any kind of life that revolves around them, and then they feel completely lost. And I don't think that's an ideal place to start the work of grief and mourning after a death.

Catherine: Welcome to Don't Be Caught Dead, a podcast encouraging open conversations about dying and the death of a loved one. I'm your hos ... Read More

Dr. Annetta: [00:00:00] Often the people who really struggle the most are the ones who are so caught up in caring that they haven't allowed themselves any kind of life that revolves around them, and then they feel completely lost. And I don't think that's an ideal place to start the work of grief and mourning after a death.

Catherine: Welcome to Don't Be Caught Dead, a podcast encouraging open conversations about dying and the death of a loved one. I'm your host, Catherine Ashton, founder of Critical Info, and I'm helping to bring your stories of death back to life. Because while you may not be ready to die, at least you can be prepared.

Don't be caught dead. Acknowledges the lands of the Kulin Nations and recognizes their connection to land, sea, and community. We pay our respects to their elders past, present, and emerging. And extend that respect to all Aboriginal and [00:01:00] Torres Strait Islander and First Nation peoples around the globe.

Today I'm speaking with Dr. Annetta Mallon She is an expert in grief. Loss education, sociology, advocacy, and the power of personal storytelling. With over three decades of experience as a psychotherapist, she specializes in grief and loss, injury and trauma recovery and personal growth and development. She's holds a PhD in social sciences, a master of art therapy, and a BA in fine art, and is a lifelong writer and poet.

In addition to more than a decade of university teaching and curriculum development, Annetta brings deep expertise both online and in-person education. As one of Australia's leading end of life consultants and educators, she offers a comprehensive range of services, including grief counseling, advanced care planning, [00:02:00] end of life, doula work, creative approaches to death and dying.

Client advocacy and community focused death literacy. Annetta is fully trained across the seven non-medical end of life roles, and she provides personalized, inclusive, and holistic support tailored to the unique needs of each client and their community. Thank you so much for being with us today, Annetta.

Dr. Annetta: It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so very much for having me, and gosh, I sound good on paper. 

Catherine: You certainly do. And can I say you also make quite the impression in person. I recall when I first met you at the redesigning death care conference in mm-hmm. Uh, university of Melbourne in October of 2022, and you walked in the room and you were knitting.

And you were also wearing a hot pink, fluffy jacket and a t-shirt that said, [00:03:00] let's talk about death baby. A play obviously onwards of Let's talk about sex Baby with salt and pepper. Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Annetta: The salt and pepper. That is my death literacy Barbie outfit. 

Catherine: And I went, oh my goodness. Who is this woman? I have to be friends with her.

And now you are. And I also should admit that whenever I see peacocks, I take photos and send them to you, don't I? 

Dr. Annetta: You do. And for those not in the know who haven't met me, I have as my, my inner beast is an emotional support peacock. And I, I have many peacock pins. I should have put a peacock pin on today.

Sorry. But I've got paisley, which always reminds me of peacock feathers. So I, I think we've covered the peacocks. 

Catherine: We certainly have. Now, for someone who is not aware of what the role of an end of life doula [00:04:00] is, can you explain what are the seven non-medical roles? 

Dr. Annetta: Okay, so the way that I break down, and this is me by the way, not everyone would agree, and that's okay.

There's many ways to approach end of life work, but I break down the roles as follows, and they're roughly in a chronological order, starting with pre-need. So you don't necessarily have a terminal or life limiting diagnosis. You simply want to. Give one of the greatest acts of love that you can get your advanced planning out of the way.

So advanced planning would be the first. Then there is end of life doula and an end of life Doula is a non-medical role and it is a support person. For the dying, and for some of us it's also the people who support and network around the dying. This can look and feel very different depending on the practitioner.

It also looks and feels very different from circumstance to circumstance because death, [00:05:00] like birth is highly personal. So an end of life doula, can advocate, can educate, mediate discussions. I do a lot of that simply providing witness and presence, simply being there, whether that's in person in the room, or over the phone or via zoom.

Via email and text presence can look and feel very different. So that is basically from the time someone receives a terminal or life limiting diagnosis or someone close to them, does. I actually frequently am an end of life doula for primary carers. 

Catherine: It's just it 

Dr. Annetta: and I, it's sort of evolved organically.

I'm often supporting the supporters as well as the person at end of life, and that works very well for me. I'm not a, I'm not very precious about that. I think support where it's needed is always [00:06:00] welcome. 

Catherine: What do you find are the differences between supporting someone who is the one with a life limiting illness and then supporting someone who is caring for that person?

Dr. Annetta: Well, the healthy self-care looks and feels very different. Because I'm generally not exhorting, someone whose person may be in a hospital bed, in a nursing home, or lying in the living room. I'm not generally saying, Hey, let's get up and go for a walk. But the carer, of course, okay, have you arranged dress bite?

When was the last time you got a haircut? When was the last time you took a nap? Mm. Can I cook you something? How about I sit here with your person and you just go and cry? Go and watch a movie, go and hug your dog, whatever it, you know, finish the work project, that I absolutely cannot wait because you are one of the leads on the project, whatever it is to [00:07:00] support the person.

Whereas when it's someone an end of life, it's more about talking if you want conversations, sitting in silence and witnessing if that's what you need. I am not nearly as. Proactively suggesting, and dare I say it, directing, when someone is in the process of doing the work of dying because they have enough work and they're figuring out as they go along.

When I'm supporting a carer, it's very much more directive and more about, I see what you're doing. I support what you're doing. How can we keep you in as. Singular a piece is possible through this process so that at the end you are not a husk. You have enough to get through the funeral and memorial service, the deep, raw, early stages of grieving, but then also fairly intact into the afters of grief and [00:08:00] intact into what their life looks like after their person dies.

So the horizon of consideration is much longer. And it's more complex for supporting someone who is supporting their person because we know when someone's at end of life, that's there is a definite finite cutoff, and it's quite possibly coming very soon. 

Catherine: It's interesting that you, you mentioned that because I think a lot of people forget that it doesn't end with the death.

There is so much more that comes after that, and generally that process can be quite complex, can't it? When it's dealing with the funeral and the administration and everything that flows on after that. 

Dr. Annetta: Yes, so I try insofar as it's possible to ensure that there is a rhythm or some kind of schedule for a carer because they will actually manage their schedule better moving forward.

I [00:09:00] think it's essential to have a schedule while you are an active carer, and this is where palliative care. Organizing respite for you can be absolutely invaluable because when you have a rhythm and a schedule and some kind of framework to your day or your week, it becomes much easier after your person dies to begin to pick up the threads of your life.

It is easier to leave the house. It is easier to. Decide actually, I'm going to take a day and jump on a ferry, or I'm gonna take half a day and go for a walk down by the river. I'm gonna go and weed the garden for half an hour. Often the people who really struggle the most are the ones who are so caught up in caring that they haven't allowed themselves any kind of life that revolves around them.

And then they feel completely lost, and I don't think that's an [00:10:00] ideal place to start the work of grief and mourning after a death. 

Catherine: It's so true when you think about what that provides in relation to when I, I think about my mom and when my dad died, she had been going to gym for three days a week without, you know, a break in that routine.

And, and I think that that was the, one of the things that we instrumental for her was that she still had that community and that connection and that rhythm to go to and. I think, yeah, it was something that really meant that she could get out of bed every day because it was something that she was comfortable with doing.

Dr. Annetta: Yes. And she already had a built-in squad of people, basically. Yeah. Who already had her, who had been catching her and offering her a soft place to land. And I think going into public spaces where there may be faces that you are not familiar [00:11:00] with, that's a really important thing to have when you are dealing with the immediate time following a death when everything is really raw and everything feels really exposed and overwhelming.

I'm really pleased that your mother had that. 

Catherine: In hindsight, you don't realize how important these things are until you are faced in that situation. And it has been, you know, there was a community that came to my father's funeral to support my mom. So when all of the family left, because none of us live around my mom any longer where we're all away.

She lives in a regional area in Victoria and, and it's just nice to know she like, she's 85 now and dad died over 10 years ago. But the thing that I always take comfort in is the fact that she has that support network. So she has someone, you know, three days a week that always keeps an eye out for her that she connects with and, and it is become really part of who she [00:12:00] is and it is her tribe, you know?

Dr. Annetta: That's fAnnettastic. So, of course the next role, we've got Vance planning, we've got end of life doula, and then we have funerals. We have alongside after Death, body care and ritual. And those two may be spaced further apart, they may be close together. So I sort of speak of them as a paired unit really 

Catherine: for those who are unfamiliar, like most people can have some sort of understanding of funeral.

But when you say body care and ritual, what does that sort of role involve? 

Dr. Annetta: That means. As soon as your person dies or as soon after your person dies is practicable, you get to spend some time with your person's body. For many religious adherence, washing a body is part of. Farewelling [00:13:00] washing is something we're very familiar with because we have been washed since we were born, and then we wash ourselves, most of us on a daily basis, certainly our hands many times during a day.

So it's something that muscle memory can take over and it is a way to honor our person by touching them. For some people that is not. Something they're interested in doing. For example, when my mother died, I wasn't there in the room and I was okay with that because both of my sisters, two granddaughters and a great grandson, there was a lot of love in the room when my mother died and I arrived within a few hours of her death and I just sat and held her hand and told bad jokes.

And then the hospital nurse was really adamant that we should help wash her and. My sisters and I were very firm, like, no, her body's actually actually not dirty, but we'll roll and hold her body. We will help you while [00:14:00] you do any cleaning that you'd like to, and that's generally. Around the groin between the legs, because if there's gonna be an odor when someone dies, that's where it's going to arise from in the main.

So there are some basic hygiene and religious rituals around caring for someone. Something else that you can do is if. Because being with a person and touching their body after death actually helps with grief. It helps it to be less complex. It helps people to process the reality. It's also a way of bringing together the immediate community of people who were doing the intensive caring hand massage, foot and leg massage, even just like effleurage strokes.

Uh, very similar movement to washing, and that is a wonderful way to, to farewell for people who are not necessarily [00:15:00] wanting to be up close and near, say the face of their person. That might be a little bit too confronting, but the feet might feel quite safe. So there's also ways that you can accommodate body care for people who may not be very comfortable in their own body or may not have had the kind of relationship where they touched the body of that person very much for whatever reason, maybe cultural might have been personal.

Dr. Pier Inandi of garments for the grave creates high-end couture fashion. For someone to be buried or cremated in. And the idea is that the dressing in an elaborate couture outfit that includes items for the hands and for the face is a way to encourage people to engage with their person. That doesn't involve lotion or washing or that kind of movement, but the more.

Mundane, also very [00:16:00] familiar act of dressing and undressing. So some people like candles as they're doing this. Some people sing, some people observe silence. Some people might do body grooming. So hair, nails, makeup, if makeup for the person was very important. This is something to consider too, for someone who had a very public facing face.

So someone who was very high profile in society. It's also something to consider for drag queens and trans persons. How did they present to the world? So it's sometimes very important to get the makeup right or to ensure that the facial stubble is right, that it, is this a wig? Is it natural hair? I.

Conducted a funeral for someone who local to me, whose instruction was, I want my head shaved because he never [00:17:00] went out in public without his head being shaved. So some of it is definitely about ritual for those who survived the person. Some of it is also about honoring the wishes of the person. Then we move on to legacy and memorial projects.

So a legacy project is something that you have started and possibly or possibly not completed. Might be an art project, might be ephemera. So postcards or letters or photographs. A memorial project is something that one person or a group can do to memorialize their person and we have grief. And we have other forms of ritual.

So those are. Kind of, I hope I'm not forgetting anything. I do live with a little bit of brain fog post COVID, so I hope I'm getting this right and I'm being clear for you. 

Catherine: Um, [00:18:00] you, you're being very clear, but I certainly haven't been keeping count Annetta, but it sounds like that it is very much a, a chronological process That makes sense to me from what I've heard.

Dr. Annetta: Oh, I just remembered the other role. Body disposition. So you can have burial and you can have cremation. And here in Tasmania we have flame and. Alkaline hydrolysis. So alkaline, high temperature water cremation. 

Catherine: Um, perhaps can you explain, when you talk about memorialization and, and those projects, could you perhaps give an example of some project that you've seen where someone's been memorialized from a community or a family?

Dr. Annetta: Yep. Gardens, something that that comes to mind, and that might be a garden in someone's home when you know family members are still living there. But sometimes what you end up with is someone who did a lot of work [00:19:00] in the community, so they will name a garden area or a green space, or create a garden area or green space.

In the name of the person and that can be absolutely wonderful. It can sometimes be larger scale than you might think. Murals, mosaics, there can be photo installations and we can do so much now with, with creative programs and putting images together and overlaying them. And then large and small scale printing.

Sometimes it's t-shirts. Sometimes it's, it can be objects and items that people take away from funerals. So it might be, it might sound weird, but this can actually be a really lovely thing, like on fridge magnet. With the person's name on it. So rather than the order of service, which is the ephemera that people frequently take away from funerals in a [00:20:00] traditional funeral process, that's what you will have.

So projects can be. At different scales. Another one that I've seen a fair bit here since I moved to Northern Tasmania is musical memorials. There's a lot of really talented musicians around where a lot of makers, but also a lot of really talented musicians. And so there will be a, an event where musicians that the person has played and sung with will get together and they will have a day of making music in honor.

Of the musician who's died and that's wonderful. Wow. Yeah. That's really beautiful. It's, it's ephemeral in a different way, but also that the music and the, those memories really form an impression and stay quite bright and present in memory, and people talk about those events long after they're over, which is lovely.

You know, we're not really dead until people [00:21:00] stop saying our names. Well, music's a great way to keep. Our name, going around 

Catherine: and talking about events. You've been known to have your fabulous going away parties, so tell me a little bit about those. 

Dr. Annetta: So a fabulous going away party is the funeral you attend while you're still alive.

And when I started talking about these and offering these to people, it was. Newer and more radical. Now, of course, with assisted dying, I think in the next five to 10 years we're gonna see this really become mainstream and very ordinary, very commonplace, and I don't mean ordinary as in mundane, just simply we accept that this is another way that we can funeral.

So I like the idea of a fabulous going away party because you get to be in charge of your own playlist. And who doesn't love that? That's very true. [00:22:00] It's very true. And if you're stuck, start your funeral planning with your playlist. Yeah, there's net as top tip for the day, and it's that lovely thing where you get to not only hear all the really good things that people would say at your funeral.

And you're dead and it's too late and you don't care 'cause you're dead. But you also get to tell the people who are important to you, why they're important, how they changed your life for the better. How your worlds and your journey through life was improved, made funnier, made richer, made more thoughtful.

It's a very strange metric where we wait until someone dies and then we're going to spend a lot of money on them and talk about the all the good stuff that we may never have said to them in person while they were alive. And that's the best way to show them that we loved them. No, let's flip that. Let's spend less money and do it while they're still alive.

So it's, it's becoming [00:23:00] common in some hospitals, for example, where assisted dying is offered. It will be a medical practitioner who will actually administer the final dose, but there'll be, there may be cake, and there'll be a little bit of a party and people come and say goodbye, and then the person in their hospital bed is wheeled away, waving, usually smiling, often laughing, maybe crying at the same time, but it's a chance for people to.

To farewell. There was a lovely, a lovely example down in the human valley. So down in the south of the state and a very good friend of mine's, oldest friend, I did a crash course at anatomy to be an end of life doula for her. So she could just go down and, and did all of that. And her friend wanted to die in her living room looking out over her garden and hearing the birds with her family around her.

And that's exactly what happened. The grandkids were. Were playing [00:24:00] around. She had gotten to offer a video, make that and say, I'd love to stay around, but there were brain tumors involved and it wasn't possible. And she was deteriorating quite rapidly and, but she was able to leave a message of love and so her.

Fabulous going away party was in the midst of life going on around her. So sometimes it can be a huge event, but sometimes it can just be, I'd like to be experiencing my life as my life generally is right up until the very last moment, and this is someone by the way, who complained that it, it took a very long time 'cause sometimes the drugs can take up to an hour and she was like, it's not working.

It's, it's been 10 minutes. What's going on? So don't forget that your fabulous going away party can have an awful, awful lot of humor, 

Catherine: I suppose. Well, the going away party would reflect how you, you are in life, wouldn't it? And something [00:25:00] that, that, I know that you are, it certainly was one of those things that I, I certainly know, and I can see in your background here, the flags, the lgbtqi plus flags behind you.

And I know you are a big ally for sex positive LGBTQI plus people. Tell me, how do you support people in, in that community and, and what challenges have you found when it comes to death care? 

Dr. Annetta: Gosh, two very, very interesting questions. So for those of you who don't know, this is the here. This is the inclusive pride flag with black and brown and trans.

And then this is my flag, and thank you Bronte Price celebrant, because he introduced me to my flag. I'm a straight ally. So that's the straight ally flag. FAnnettastic. 

Catherine: And we'll actually include both of those flags in your show notes so people can become familiar with what they are too. 

Dr. Annetta: Thank you. I really appreciate that.

Yeah, thank [00:26:00] you very much. So for me, I. I have an awful lot of privilege. I have a huge weight of privilege. I am white, I am well educated, I am articulate. I have hair that commands attention and wants its own social media presence. I don't have time for that, but that's what it wants. And I have letters after my name and I'm also an older person.

And there, there is some gravitas that comes with having life experience. So, and I'm a straight able-bodied. Person. So I use as much of that privilege as I can to remind all of us that we need to be respectful. We need to respect that people may not necessarily be heterosexual, may not necessarily have lived a life that was monogamous with their partner or spouse, and that is [00:27:00] okay.

When it's consensual and. Everyone agrees to what's going on and they're all of age and no one's being hurt. That in fact a spectrum of sexuality and indeed gender orientation is perfectly natural and normal. As long as we've had people, we have had a variety of people and we are in fact all just people.

So I make space. I also do mention the fact that really. The idea that we have men and we have women only, that is an artificial binary that works very well to promulgate a lot of religious propaganda and does a lot of damage, A lot of, because let's not forget, we also have asexual people who really don't experience, not interested necessarily in anybody intellectual companionship, but you know, mine's on other things.

That's perfectly normal and perfectly fine, and intersex people who may have a spectrum of [00:28:00] bodily presentation and a spectrum of physical experiences and or emotional experiences. So if I do nothing else with all of this privilege except to make space for others to be heard, to be comfortable and to feel safer.

I think I've used my privilege very, very well because minority communities, uh, look at what we're seeing in the United States at the moment, uh, with, uh, rapid and overwhelming sweeping away of bodily rights, not only for women, but for trans and queer people generally. It not safe times at all. I feel it is actually an ethical duty.

I, I feel compelled to do this more and more and to do it more and more loudly. Safety matters. 

Catherine: And when you're thinking of this community, what are the challenges in death care that you've seen that are [00:29:00] difficult for them? And when I say community, I'm, I'm speaking to the diversity that you've just explained.

Dr. Annetta: Yeah. And, and it's often about found, found families. So it can still happen that your found family may not be invited to your fu maybe banned from your funeral. Can you explain Found family for those people? Family. Okay. So for generally, when we say family, what we're talking about is, or what we would understand is, oh, well these are the people we're related to by DNA.

These are parents, siblings, children, aunts, uncles, cousins. And that might be so for someone like myself, and we really, it was very much a nuclear family. Didn't, I don't have a lot of extended family. Some people, family is like half a street filled with people who own and live in houses and it's cousins and aunties just littering the place everywhere.

And you're surrounded by family, by DNA, but often it's not just for [00:30:00] queer people. So I don't have great connections with my own. Family by DNA, my family, the way that I think about it is found family. So the friends and the people that come into my life that support me, that understand me, that have a, a kindred mindset.

Compassion is really important to me. Honesty is really important to me. Acceptance and a willingness to communicate in a considered. Critical thinking reason kind of way is important to me. Kindness is important to me. I cannot emphasize that enough. So often for members of the queer community, unfortunately, you come out and you get kicked out.

So we see this a lot in deeply religious families. We often see this in deeply conservative right wing families, that someone's sexual identity or gender [00:31:00] identity is not accepted. And so we have huge issues, particularly with younger people in terms of homelessness and living a life that's at risk or living to be heavily closeted and maybe self-harming and maybe self-harming to the point of ending or trying to end their own lives, which is horrible.

None of us should feel that that's the only way that we can navigate things that's that's appalling. Translate that into after death. It's 2025, and just last month, a good friend of mine attended a memorial service for one of her girlfriends who was a trans woman and her family by DNA, buried her as a man.

The order of service has the dead name, and there's no mention of who this particular woman was and the richness of her life, and so. Essentially two thirds to three quarters of herself and [00:32:00] her people were cut off. So my friend went up onto the mainland and actually helped conduct a memorial service to honor the woman that she was.

So that unfortunately still happens. We may get a denial of someone's sexual orientation. We may get absolutely no mention of the fact that they were, you know, a very successful and brilliant drag queen. They, we only hear that, oh well, they were an accountant. Or you know, they were really good at video games, like we get partial stuff.

I conducted a eulogy for one of my dearest people who died unexpectedly. I was the last person really close to him to see him alive. I saw him on my way down to Tasmania and he died of a heart attack three days later, and his mother in her eulogy mentioned that, you know, she'd done four Catholic masses for him.

My friend was an atheist. I made sure that when I stood up, I mentioned that because I was not going to have his position be erased because his mother [00:33:00] wanted to be comfortable in her own idea of who her son was. I did not do it in a way that was directed at her or harmful. I was very factual and low key with it, but I presented my version of him.

Because that's important. Representing people and going against what maybe a family of DNA wants to hear can be very hard. And I would always recommend that if you are not welcome at a funeral, because a family by DNA has insisted that it's okay, you can make your own memorial service. You can make your meaning, you can honor your person.

And it doesn't have to be in the traditional way, just done once. There are many ways to do that. Does that answer your question? 

Catherine: It does, it does. And I love the fact that your sort of bit of advice that you gave was the fact that [00:34:00] even if you are, you are not invited and you don't feel comfortable, that you can still honor that person in your own way.

And I think that that's, that's a beautiful thing for people to actually hear that and reinforce that. So thank you for sharing that. Uh, 'cause I don't think that this is a, a topic that's discussed nearly enough with those challenges because, you know, we hear so often, just even within a, you know, a straight community, how when we attend funerals that might be of a very traditional nature, how we don't feel that that reflects a person and how we actually knew them.

So. I could only imagine the additional layers that may have when someone's, you know, sexuality or gender may be in conflict to those who are actually hosting and arranging someone's funeral. So 

Dr. Annetta: I think it is important to let everyone know that anyone can conduct a funeral, a memorial service. So don't feel that just because one has happened.

With a funeral [00:35:00] director, for example, that you can't have another. So of course you can and it can look and feel the way you want it to look and feel. It can reflect the person that you knew in the respectful and celebratory or reverent, whatever the look and feel is way that works for you and your person and the family and community.

Catherine: And Annetta what I find, 'cause you were very supportive to me when I first started out in this space, both you and Bronte Price that you, you had a look at my little Excel spreadsheet that I had with my friend's children when he died and, and what I found was just how you were talking about. The position and the role that you have in sort of educating people about being more inclusive in their language and their practices, and you are really instrumental in forming my understanding of being in this space.

And one thing that. I [00:36:00] always remember is also your, your language around family and binary roles and how we have to be really careful also because people with adoption and, and also IVF and all of those things, there is a whole conversation around that and sensitivity that is sometimes very much missed when we look at census papers.

And when we look at forms that we've have to fill out, um, yes. So do you mind talking a little bit about that as well? 'cause I think that when we are talking about the challenges of how we honor someone when they die, that is actually an integral part of that as well. 

Dr. Annetta: Absolutely. And I have, as a grief therapist, I have in the past worked with people who've been adopted.

And it can be without doubting any love. That was there. It can be very, very complex because when an adoptive parent dies, all of the, but why [00:37:00] wasn't I kept by my original parents comes up? And particularly because there, there can be a lot of unknowns. So it's also, in some ways not better, not worse, not indifferent.

It's, it's just. Slightly different when an adopted child dies can be a slightly different grief process for the parents. IVF can be absolutely wondrous and uplifting. I mean, you're very, very sure this is a wanted child. So there are extra layers of consideration that I think benefit from having. Extra time taken during any discussions at end of life or discussions around funerals or discussions around any of the afters of a death and grief and mourning because [00:38:00] there are deeper layers to the spiral of contact and association sometimes for me.

And thank you by the way, for letting me know that my language has. Helped you and my language is conveying what I hope it does, and I also wanna acknowledge it. I'm a straight person and I make mistakes. I do get, I, I mean, I try, but I'm not perfect. What I do try and do, whether it's as a doula or a funeral celebrant, or a grief therapist, or creative project advisor, whatever it is.

I find that allowing extra time for silence is really, really important. I always give clients time, and in fact, one of the things I talk about is budget, about this much time for initial conversa. I try and give people a heads up [00:39:00] on time every time we're going to get together. One, because I'm not a charity and they need to know.

And two, because emotionally they need to make sure they've got enough spoons to manage. And people can always say that's enough and, and we can stop early. We stop at any time. The people I work with are always the ones in charge. It's not my show. It's their show. However, when there are additional considerations where there may have been cultural and societal shaming, there's something wrong with you.

You were adopted. You must be broken. IVF. Oh. Well, why weren't your parents normal? What was wrong with your parents? That they couldn't just do it the regular way? And if you have, when you have a same sex or perhaps a poly situation, people can be unwittingly or deliberately incredibly cruel, unnecessarily cruel, and callous, even when they don't mean to be.

Things can come out that [00:40:00] like. You said what? You'd be amazed at the audacity of people who speak of a disabled person's death as being a blessing.

Hear that a lot from very well-meaning. Although honestly, I don't have very much time for people say, well, you know, but, but they're better off there with God or they're in a better place and wow, you've gotta have so much time now and it the complete erasing. Of everything that that person brought to life and brought to their family and the people around them.

They erasing the fact that people who live with disabilities, like people who were adopted, like people who were born through IVF are whole people. And have very rich, complex relationships 'cause humans tend to be rich and complex people. So one of the things that I'm constantly on alert for is, do I need to [00:41:00] jump in and actually correct someone's language?

Try and protect the people that I'm working with, try and care, take the memory of a person so that they're not diminished, and that can be really challenging. That can be really heartbreaking. 

Catherine: And when you are talking, I'm thinking that, have you seen where outcomes have been improved when people have made sure that they have spent a bit of time doing that advance planning that you're talking about?

You know, that, that making sure that they have the right documents so the right people are making decisions if they're no longer in a capacity to do so. Can you talk a little bit about. Because it seems to be that you are very much working in a space where those documents could play a very important role.

Dr. Annetta: Absolutely, yes. So it sounds so simple. Just do your planning, and these are really, really, really important conversations. I refuse to say that they're tough or hard or you know, difficult because we don't do the [00:42:00] tough, hard, difficult stuff, but we reward the important stuff. So these are really important conversations, what you are offering.

Is a chance for the people you leave behind or the people who have to speak for you because you're in a medically induced coma or you've had a really bad accident and you're unconscious, you cannot, these people don't have to second guess. And in, in the case of death and not knowing this really pretzels grief into impossible.

Really complex, horrible shapes that some people never recover from. Did we do the right thing? Did I honor that person? Sh did I say everything I needed to say? What would they have wanted? So having, having the conversations in advance means that everybody knows what you want. People can stay present in the moment.

They can stay focused on you as a person. They can be the [00:43:00] daughter, the husband. The best friend, the lifelong business partner, and be there for themselves and for you in that capacity rather than thinking, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that contract. I don't know what I'm supposed to do in terms of resuscitation.

I, I don't know. Uh, burial, cremation, I don't know. Don't leave people guessing. I'm constantly saying it is the greatest act of love. And I mean that genuinely. This is how we can express love by allowing people to be in the moment, not get pretzeled up in their grief. So I get a lot of people who come to me for planning saying, my mother just died and I don't know how the funeral ended up costing $40,000.

Can you help me understand that? And I [00:44:00] don't wanna go through that again, or, you know, my spouse died and the funeral cost blew out three or four times what the quote was. I never wanna do that again because let's face it, as empathetic and sympathetic and supportive as funeral homes and funeral directors are, and for the most part they are.

They are a business. And when you get integrated, vertically integrated businesses, so the funeral home actually owns the florist and the caterer and the catering spot, and you think you're getting independent information, you're not. It's all going to one company. And there are, there's pressure often to upsell on things like caskets and floral tributes.

There are many, many, many ways that we can end up spending far more money. That then may become a source of pressure and angst and, and something else that gets in the way of grief expressing itself [00:45:00] naturally, let's say, because we've, we've gotta put it to one side and get a second job for a while to pay for a funeral.

So advanced planning helps foster communication. People can end up with much better understandings of each other and who their person is. And also it gets people thinking about their own planning. So, you know, the ripple effect of death literacy is a wonderful thing, but then if everything is in place, it helps the people you leave behind more than you'll ever know.

Catherine: Annetta, you are no stranger to death in the last few years of your life, and you've shared that quite publicly through your Instagram account and have been very honest and very raw in your vulnerability. You are an expert within this space and. What were some of the challenges or some of the surprises or some of the things that you'd learnt, you know, over the last few years [00:46:00] because your mum died and your beautiful dog Cly died as well, or within a very short period of time?

Dr. Annetta: Yep. My brother actually died in the middle of that too, but I had a very different relationship with him. So like there were three significant deaths, but Mom and Cly were just absolutely devastating. So in terms of grief, I think it's really important to remind everyone that the death of a pet and the grief for a pet's death is as valid, as deep, and sometimes more deep and challenging.

To process than the death of a person. And we are more accepting of pets in rental spaces and as we. Kind of isolate more and more and more into social media and life looks and feels different, especially, you know, post pandemic. One of the language issues that I face is [00:47:00] people saying I was only a cat, or, oh, just get another dog.

Or, you know, it was only a bird and that. Minimizing of grief in the way that we talked about happening with people with disabilities or queer people, or you know, maybe a distant family member in another country and you say, oh, you didn't see them for 15 years. What's your problem? That person may have been incredibly pivotal and significant to someone's life, so we have to be really, really careful and that extends to the death of pets.

So my grief for Cly is unique because that was my, you know, I only had one cly in my life. Like I only had one mom in my life. But my grief is just as profound and valid and, and rich and ongoing as it is for the deaths of people. So if anyone is worried that, [00:48:00] am I not normal or, or is what I'm, what I'm feeling okay?

Yes, it's absolutely okay. Our pets are incredibly significant parts of our lives and parts of ourselves, and when that unconditional love, that companionship, that presence and understanding is taken away, it can be absolutely devastating. Honestly, it's gonna sound really trite, but getting outta bed some days was really hard.

I'm fortunate I have a very supportive spouse and sometimes that support is, oh, you get up.

I was able on many occasions to look at myself honestly and say, yep. If I was my own client, this is what I would've told myself to expect. And, and look, I'm just like everybody else. It happens to me too. The second anniversary of my mother's death was harder than the first. [00:49:00] Being the executor was everything that I have told people to expect and more, the deaths were different than any other deaths, so the griefs were different.

And I have experienced personal loss prior to this, but it was very interesting. It is very interesting for me 'cause I'm, I'm still in it, of course, is recognizing and navigating the complexity of having low resilience because multiple deaths in a relatively short space of time, so Mom and CLI died within six months of each other.

And my brother was in the middle, so it was quite a year. And then I spent the following year being quite unwell, which in retrospect is not very surprising and I quite possibly could have seen that one coming and did not. It gave me more, more examples to discuss with clients. I'm not a. A blank screen kind of therapist.

I try and meet people in their [00:50:00] vulnerability. I, I find it impossible to be any other kind of therapist. I couldn't just sit there and say, Hmm, you tell me everything and I'll give you nothing. It goes against my basic feminist principles. Something, something for something. And I guess it was a chance to also look around my own life and see what I really valued and see what I prioritized.

And I. I'm still sifting through some of that information, but it has definitely affected the way that I work and what I'm prepared to give my time and energy to. And I think that that's very valuable, not just for myself, but then in terms in terms of what I can offer to clients or suggest to clients.

So as a, a university lecturer I used to know, would say, well, it's all grist for the mill, and it's a very trite thing to say, but then there's also a profound, a profound truth, I think at the core of that. 

Catherine: And given what you've experienced these last few years, what do you make [00:51:00] sure that you do for yourself?

That self care, because I'm assuming that that is far more important now, given the last few years than what it probably was prior to that. 

Dr. Annetta: To be honest with you, I always sucked at self-care. I've had, I've had complete and total like detrimental burnout twice in my life, so I take self-care very seriously now because I've been clobbered over the head with it.

Yeah. So something that I didn't do before that I do, do now is if I, if I'm tired, I'll take a nap in the afternoon. Mm-hmm. I'm much more comfortable with the idea of a four day work week. So what that also means is if I'm only writing and doing university marking or prepping a guest lecture four days of the week, that means that I have extra energy when a client, either a new client or an existing client calls me and says.

[00:52:00] Can we arrange a talk or can I talk after hours or at the weekend? Yes. Because I have the energy and resources and resilience to do that. So self-care weirdly has kind of made me a better practitioner, I think, who'd have thunk. I've been telling everyone around me that all these years and then I tried for myself and who knew I was right.

Um. I drink more water. I've spent decades telling people to drink more water and I, I actually stop and sit down and eat. And I was one of those people that would kind of shove something in really quickly while I was standing up and then go out to work or then go back to work or, and now I actually sit and take time and, and I will take a lunch break and I make sure that I'm not an early breakfast person, but I make sure that I eat.

Something and then I eat sitting down and [00:53:00] spending as much time having a meal with my husband as possible. I force myself 'cause I'm quite sedentary by nature. I'm, I'm not someone that actually enjoys exercise. So having a young dog, Curly's, uh, been followed by Remy Remington, jelly Bean for long. And he's a young pup who requires more movement.

So going for walks when we are finished today, even though it's drizzly and very, very, very foggy outside, I'm gonna put Remy in the car and go for a walk. And if my husband wants to come along too, that's great. Movement's really important. And I also. I value the small moments, whereas I used to just push through and push through and do hours and hours and hours of work, and I was not taking time to stop and look at sunsets or taking time to stop and laugh at ducks on our dam or go down and see the platypus that shows up, [00:54:00] you know, because we have a nursery dam, so platypus shows up there for part of the year.

I will now stop and I will go and look at the sunset. I spend more time reaching out to friends via phone call and text. And I also, I pebble a lot. I send little funny memes. I love that expression. It's what, when penguins like each other, they give each other little pebbles, so that's such a beautiful thing, isn't it?

Lovely. I, I pebble with memes, although I have actually pebbled some people successfully out of my life, so I had to learn to cut back on that. Apparently 25 times a day can be too much. Learn from my mistakes. I, I'm more present. I'm more present and I thought I was ferocious about death literacy before, but damn, it's done.

It's done nothing but strengthened that within me. 

Catherine: Oh, Annetta. I can't thank you enough for just being you, [00:55:00] your, you, you know, you, uh, have shared so much and given so much of yourself and publicly and privately, you know, in these last few years, and I, I really, really have loved our chat today. So thank you so much.

Dr. Annetta: Katherine, it's always a pleasure speaking with you, and you've made me laugh and you've made me think and, and these I think, are two of the most valuable things in life. So thank you for having me as a guest. 

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