Unique Death Education with the Death Doyenne, Gail Rubin

In this conversation, Gail Rubin, a pioneering death educator, shares her journey into the field of death education, emphasizing the importance of planning for end-of-life issues. She discusses her creative approaches, including the use of humor and film clips, to engage people in conversations about death. Gail also reflects on her personal experiences with loss and the challenges she faces in her work, advocating for pre-need funeral planning and the need for open discussions about mortality. In this conversation, Gail Rubin shares her experiences with medical aid in dying, the role of death doulas, and the importance of planning for end-of-life decisions. She discusses her personal journey through grief and loss, the significance of mourning, and her fears surrounding her own end of life. She also introduces the Before I Die Festival, an initiative to encourage conversations about death and dying.

A Good Goodbye - Gail's website
Gail's Videos
Doyenne of Death Podcasts
Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant
Elizabeth Town movie
Before I Die Festivals
Information on Death Cafes and Jon Underwood

Transcript

Wakil (00:01.348)
Hello everyone, and welcome. In this episode, we are pleased to speak with Gail Rubin. Gail is a pioneering death educator who uses humor, film clips, and outside-the-box activities to teach about end-of-life topics. An award-winning speaker, she knocked them dead at Tex X ABQ in 2015 with her talk, A Good Goodbye. She's also the author of four books on end-of-life issues, and we will put links to all of those in the podcast notes.

Annalouiza (00:32.673)
Gail is also a certified Thanatologist, an advocate for planning ahead, and the host of the Doyenne of Death podcast and Mortality Movies TV series. She also coordinates the Before I Die New Mexico Festival. Welcome Gail.

Gail Rubin (00:51.682)
Great to be with you.

Wakil (00:53.27)
Yeah, we're looking forward to this. And I met Gail at the conference at a, what did they call it? They called it a death care conference. Yeah, death care super conference in Seattle. And we had a good conversation then too. So I'm really glad you could join us. Looking forward to this. And I did sign up for your Before I Die festival and have been able to see some of the recordings. I'm looking forward to more of those.

Gail Rubin (01:21.708)
Yes, they're coming online on YouTube. Yep.

Wakil (01:23.712)
Yeah, yeah, that's great. We'll have a link for that. And for the next one, I assume there'll be another one next year, right?

Gail Rubin (01:31.758)
People keep asking for it, so I guess I gotta do one.

Wakil (01:33.238)
All right. Well, we always start with the question, when did you first become aware of death?

Gail Rubin (01:43.992)
Would that be like in terms of having someone in your family die or?

Wakil (01:50.372)
Yeah, it could be just basically could be a good be your dog, you know, whenever you kind of had a realization that we don't last we don't stay here forever.

Annalouiza (01:52.107)
Could be.

Annalouiza (01:54.839)
I could be...

Gail Rubin (02:00.3)
Well, my grandfather, my mom's father was the first of my grandparents to die back in the 70s. And I was just out of high school then. So I'm Jewish and I had a good Jewish education. I went to Sunday school, I went to Hebrew school, I had a bat mitzvah, it was confirmed, and with all of this Jewish education, I don't remember much about Jewish funerals being taught. And I've since learned quite a bit about it. 

And in fact, many people don't know Jewish burial is naturally green burial because according to the traditions, you don't embalm. The blood is considered a part of the body to stay with the body. The body is dressed in cotton or linen clothing and put in usually a plain pine box, some kind of soft wood without trim, no metal. So it's all biodegradable and it's supposed to be put in contact with the earth. So a Jewish burial is the closest you can get to green burial in a conventional cemetery.

But of course, I didn't know any of this when I was a teenager and my grandfather died. But I think one of the things that really struck me as teaching about death is what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I majored in television and film in college at the University of Maryland College Park.

One of my classes was a film production class where we all had to make a movie and call it the bubblegum film. It had to be black and white, three minutes, super eight, I'm dating myself here. And a lot of my classmates did something with car chases and something about bubblegum at the end. I did a satire of the opening of Ingmar Bergman's classic film, The Seventh Seal where a medieval knight, you know, yes, wakes up on a beach at dawn and death has come for the knight. And the knight challenges death to a game of chess in the original 1957 movie. Well, in the bubblegum film, when the knight challenges death to a game of chess, death says he never learned. The idea was, you know, as long as the knight keeps winning the chess game, he gets to live.

So in the bubblegum film, death was played by my boyfriend, Bob, and my future ex-husband. And he was just so very funny as Death in this movie. And at the end, they agreed to abide by the fortunes and the wrappers in the bubblegum. And Death gets his man. The last shot is Death and the knight walking down the beach. And Death puts his arm around the knight's shoulder and starts skipping. 

Wakil (05:30.308)
I love it.

Gail Rubin (05:32.234)
And I look. I look back at this and I did get an A on the project. But I look back at that and I realize this was the universe telling me this is my future business opportunity to be making fun of death with films. And really, my goal is to get people to plan ahead well before anybody's sick or dead.

Wakil (05:35.032)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (05:43.379)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil (05:59.812)
Yeah, yeah, that's a great story. Thank you.

Annalouiza (06:01.707)
That's a really good one. Yeah. So honestly, you've started to answer the second question, which is how death impacted your life story, which you just said it was the opening to your your continuous acts around death and dying and planning. So tell me more about this.

Gail Rubin (06:25.612)
Well, I actually got into this field because I got married for the second time in 2000. Dave and I had a very creative Jewish Western wedding, and we had everybody dress up in Western wear and we had a Western swing band fronted by a rabbi. 

Wakil (06:44.76)
Ha ha ha.

Gail Rubin (06:55.778)
And our rabbi at the time, very musical. In fact, he's in Denver now, Joe Black, Rabbi Joe Black.
He played guitar with the band at the reception for a while. But we had such a good time. I wanted to write a book about creative life cycle events and call it Matchings, Hatchings and Dispatchings. And I got to write a monthly feature in our local newspaper, which looked at weddings and births and deaths.

Wakil (07:12.537)
Ha

Gail Rubin (07:22.518)
And it was the stories about death and funerals that got the most reader response. And 15 years ago, you know, there was plenty about creative wedding planning, but there wasn't much about creative funeral planning. So I figured, you know, I'm going to focus on funerals and a good goodbye funeral planning for those who don't plan to die was the result. And that's what really got me into the Thanatology field. And

Annalouiza (07:36.404)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil (07:36.654)
Yeah.

Gail Rubin (07:51.886)
I absolutely feel like I'm doing what I was put on this earth to do.

Annalouiza (07:58.335)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Wakil (07:58.564)
Yeah, that's so good. And because this will be audio, we wanted to say that a good goodbye book is right behind her. It looks great. We might do some advertising with that at some point on social media. So that's really good. Thanks for doing it. I love the little, you've also got some wonderful skulls back there. Anyway, so let's see. doing now.

Gail Rubin (08:06.702)
Yeah.

Wakil (08:28.205)
Yeah, tell us more about your work that you're donig now, kind of the the breath depth and breath around what it is and it works how it keeps you busy

Gail Rubin (08:32.866)
Well, so the book came out in 2010. I should probably do a second edition because there's been a lot of change since then. But I've written other books, Hail and Farewell is templates for cremation ceremonies and tips on putting memorial services together. I also did a book called Kicking the Bucket List, 100 Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die. 
Wakil (09:04.632)
Beautiful.

Annalouiza (09:04.873)
I love that!

Wakil (09:27.341)
Yeah.

Gail Rubin (09:27.566)
I do like to bring humor into my talks. I also love to use film clips because there are studies that show that people will remember a scene from a movie a lot longer than they'll remember anything a speaker tells them.

So I have a license to use film clips in my talks and I try to combine that showing a film or a TV scene and then talking about the lessons that we can learn from that. And in 2024, I started a TV series called Mortality Movies. So myself and two other death educators were based in Albuquerque, joined me on the set and we watched film clips and we talk about them and we have different themes, you know, related to death and grief and funeral planning and I'm planning a second series, second season, because there's still so much to cover and so many great film clips to illustrate with.

Wakil (10:00.638)
Wow.

Wakil (10:14.36)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I got to watch your Ted talk and it was really fun, really fun. I love that. That's unique. It's a unique format and beautiful. Yeah.

Annalouiza (10:27.126)
Mm-hmm.

Gail Rubin (10:27.148)
Yeah, and I was one of the first people to hold a death cafe in the United States. Death cafes started in the United Kingdom in 2011 with a guy named John Underwood, who was inspired by the work of a Swiss sociologist named Bernard Krittaz. And Bernard would have these gatherings at cafes. You have a little coffee or tea, some cake or cookies and talk about what's on your mind about mortality issues.

Wakil (10:56.878)
Mm-hmm.

Gail Rubin (10:57.318)
And John actually created a whole social structure to having this event and calling it a death cafe. There are certain rules you have to follow. Funeral homes can't use it as a selling opportunity. it's no agenda. It's just set by the people who are there and what they want to talk about. 

So I was the first one west of the Mississippi to hold a death cafe in September of 2012. The first one was in August of 2012 in Columbus, Ohio with Lizzie Miles. And now it's a worldwide movement with, and there have been thousands of death cafes held. So I was pleased to be one of the first people to say, I want to do this.

Wakil (11:50.069)
Yeah, right.

Annalouiza (11:50.581)
Yeah. I actually remember writing to John Underwood. I still might have that, that email, but I wanted to open up a death cafe here after I finished my herbal training way back a long time ago as well. But I always thought, is it really his name? John Underwood, you know, right? Like I just realized like, is this like, you know, his nom de plume for death cafes?

Wakil (12:06.414)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Gail Rubin (12:06.636)
Yeah, yeah.

Wakil (12:11.596)
Hahaha!

Gail Rubin (12:11.598)
Well, you know, I noticed in the funeral business, there were certain people who, is your name your destiny? There's a guy named Brian Flowers, who is very big in green burial, a woman named Julie Burns, who was a cremation expert.

Annalouiza (12:27.49)
Mm-hmm.

Gail Rubin (12:33.684)
It was just, it was too funny, but yeah.

Annalouiza (12:33.975)
That's so lovely. So Gail, what are your biggest challenges in your day-to-day work?

Gail Rubin (12:44.249)
So what I do is I'm a bridge between the general public and people in the end-of-life businesses. I don't consider myself a death doula. I don't particularly wanna be around people when they're dying. I've seen enough of that for the past year and a half, which I can tell you about if you wanna hear. 

But my biggest challenge is to get people to talk about death well before it darkens their doorway so that they can be prepared to better handle it. I'm a big advocate for pre-need funeral planning. Now, whether that means you actually pay for it, if you can't afford it, you know, just figure it out later. But it really helps to have either bought some kind of life insurance or, you know, in many cases, if you pre-plan with a funeral home, you are buying an insurance policy that will pay the funeral home. 

Wakil (13:47.256)
Yeah. Yeah.

Annalouiza (13:59.178)
Mm-hmm.

Gail Rubin (14:07.372)
And so helping people understand how much goes into end-of-life issues and planning for them. And it's not just funeral planning, it's estate planning, your advanced healthcare directive so that if you wind up in the hospital and you're unconscious, somebody can speak on your behalf and know what you want. So unfortunately, even though 100 % of us are going to die, less than 30 % of adults have done any of this end-of-life planning. And that's going to leave a lot of loved ones scrambling to figure out what to do, how are they gonna pay for it, and if they're doing the right thing.

Annalouiza (14:11.02)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil (14:23.352)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (14:23.57)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil (14:31.608)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and probably could also and has also created conflict among siblings and family members. yeah, so such a great, mean, that's pretty much the theme of our work here is to try to make sure people know this is something to pay attention to, something to talk about. So thank you for emphasizing that. So important. So what do you do to support yourself? What's whatever your resources that you have for when it gets hard, and you could also, wouldn't mind hearing that story that you offered of the year and a half. Maybe that'll be a good way to kind of segue into how you support yourself when it's hard.

Gail Rubin (15:14.498)
Well, so in terms of like making money at this, really my biggest moneymaker is holding the Before I Die New Mexico Festival. I'll get several sponsors to underwrite doing that. That's my biggest way of making money. I still sell books. I get a monthly royalty from YouTube for all of my YouTube videos. And I am a certified funeral celebrant. So I charge people if they want me to do a service for them. But yes, the past year and a half, I have had five family members die, including my husband, rather unexpectedly after surgery.

Wakil (16:04.004)
Well... Well… Mm.

Gail Rubin (16:09.496)
Prostate surgery and it led to all sorts of medical complications and within three weeks he was dead. 
Annalouiza (16:17.2)
Mm-mm. So sorry.

Wakil (16:21.828)
Mm.

Gail Rubin (16:34.446)
Last week on inpatient hospice, yeah. And you know, I talked to my brother-in-law when we were walking into the funeral home to finalize the arrangements that we had made the previous year.

You know, I've gone into many, many funeral homes and this time it feels different. I have no idea how people who haven't planned ahead can actually go and do this. 

Wakil (16:41.25)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (16:46.359)
planned.

Gail Rubin (17:01.774)
And it takes a lot longer if you haven't already planned ahead. But yeah, so Dave died and...
My both of my parents were still alive then and my dad had heart issues at the same time I was going through everything with Dave in the hospital in April of last year. And then Dave spent his last week in an inpatient hospice and I was with him around the clock. Well. In August, my dad turned 93 and like two days after that.

He had heart trouble again. And he was going to the hospital and I was talking to him on the phone and he said, I want what Dave had, meaning inpatient hospice. Yeah. And I said, we will get that for you. And we did. I flew there and I was, my older brother and I were actually in the room with him when he died at like shortly after four in the morning, but I was asleep. And he just kind of slipped away.

And even though we had pre-planned for my parents 10 years earlier, there was all this going from New Mexico to Florida, to Washington, D.C., where the burial was, where I was raised, and then back to New Mexico. 

Wakil (18:20.004)
It's a lot.

Annalouiza (18:21.377)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil (18:26.596)
Mmm.

Annalouiza (18:28.577)
Hmm.

Gail Rubin (18:30.862)
So that was, it left me with some very unsettled dreams, I think, was to process all that running around. It left me with some very unsettled dreams, I think, was to process all that running around.

Then my in-laws, Dave's mother and her second husband, they flirted with medical aid in dying together, both of them checking out at the age of 94. 

Annalouiza (18:41.013)
wow.

Wakil (18:45.251)
Wow.

Wakil (18:54.738)
Gail Rubin (18:59.576)
It's legal here in New Mexico, but it turned out that my mother-in-law qualified, but her husband didn't. He was too healthy. So he was like, well, we'll just… We'll just revoke hospice. But in fact, six months later, he was actively dying when I was called to come there. they said, he was sitting in a chair just drinking water, but he didn't acknowledge that I had come into the house.

They said, so my mother-in-law and their friend Bob said, should we call an ambulance? I said, no, I think it's time to call that hospice back. And I confirmed with their physician and she agreed. And I got the hospice. They had a nurse there in two hours and they looked at him and they said, yeah, this man is actively dying. And within three, four days.

Wakil (19:34.936)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (19:35.351)
hmmm

Gail Rubin (19:53.954)
He had passed away. And my mother took advantage of medical aid in dying shortly after he did. I mean, she wanted to go when he went, but it was the 4th of July week. So the nurse was on vacation. But it was so weird to schedule your demise. It was very interesting kind of living with that. And we actually did a very nice ceremony with her before the ingestion. We had a guitar player.

And I work with two death doulas here in Albuquerque. Thank God for them because the husband, he had terminal agitation that was pretty hard to handle and the doulas took care of that. 

Wakil (20:40.787)
nice, yeah.

Annalouiza (20:47.159)
Hmm.

Gail Rubin (20:52.384)
Yeah. And then my mom just died on October 31st. And that was the long series of hospitalizations with pneumonia, breathing problems. And she'd get well enough to go to skilled nursing and then decline again. And finally, the third ER admission since July, she was in the ICU and the palliative care doctors said he recommended hospice.

And I was like, I kept bringing it up to her each time she was with us. She was like, no, I'm not ready. So this time she didn't have a choice. And that was right before my Before I Die festival. So that was incredibly stressful. I did fly there. I was there for a week while she was still cognizant. And then as they kept increasing the morphine and the Ativan and she was sleeping all the time, the nurse basically said go take care of yourself and go back to New Mexico and do your festival. 

So I did. And it was just like, if I had not done this pre-planning, because the first day of the festival, I'm in, you know, back room making funeral arrangements, but because it was already set up, I was able to do that. 

Wakil (22:03.158)
Thanks

Annalouiza (22:06.135)
Hmm.

Wakil (22:11.17)
Yeah, yeah.

Gail Rubin (22:16.343)
And we set the funeral for the next week. I'm only just getting to the point where I can finally breathe and relax a little bit.

Wakil (22:19.97)
Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (22:20.247)
Yeah. And Gail, you know, I really appreciate you sharing this story with us, your life story. And I just want to take a moment to just, I appreciate this moment to bear witness to it. The hard it's, it's a hard lift. You had a lot of heavy lifting to do and it was easier for you because of the planning, but it's still heavy lifting. And I appreciate that you've done so well with this diverse kind of death processes and I appreciate you.

Wakil (22:53.401)
Yeah.

Gail Rubin (22:54.51)
Thanks. Yeah, we did wind up doing a dual graveside funeral for my mother-in-law and her second husband. That was different.

Wakil (23:03.944)
Beautiful. Thank you. Again, that's a wonderful story. Appreciate that very much. Yeah.

Annalouiza (23:14.071)
And since October 31st, how have you been resourcing yourself?

Gail Rubin (23:24.428)
You know, so it's been, we just had Thanksgiving and I was pretty sad most of the weekend. I was like,

Wakil (23:48.1)
Mm-hmm.

Gail Rubin (23:48.558)
… all these deaths and changes and I've been a, you know, you're a human being, but a human doing keeping busy to keep the grief at bay and finally easing off of all the doing lets the emotion seep in. And we need to do that. I've got some good friends here who we call them our deathies, death doulas and now, folks who like to come to death cafes and whatnot. And they've been very supportive of me. And it's good to have friends like that.

Wakil (24:25.688)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so important. My wife and I were talking to a social worker this week. She's got a terminal diagnosis as well, but she's doing really well right now. But she's been feeling depressed and upset. It's anticipatory grief, if you will. And I loved what the social worker said. She said, well, have you cried about this? And Wendy is a person, I think Annalouisa is another one of those people.

Annalouiza (24:29.109)
Mm-hmm.
Me and Wendy, yep.


Wakil (24:54.724)
… who doesn't cry very much. Yeah. And, and she said, so let's think about ways you might be able to get some of that out, you know, she's, have any, and Wendy said, there's some music maybe. So she's, you know, she said, she encouraged us to think about ways that we could embellish, you know, get into a space where she could actually allow herself to weep. And she said, that might be helpful. And I, so I really appreciate what you said, Gail. think, you know, I'm, besides the doing and all that stuff, which you can help yourself with.

The mourning is so important and doing whatever, however you mourn, doesn't have to be crying, but some sort of ritualized or thoughtful mourning of the loss we have. The losses can't be ignored, you know.

Gail Rubin (25:38.9)
One of the films that I love to show to help teach about planning for end of life is a movie called Elizabeth Town. And it's actually a romantic comedy, but it features a funeral and a wedding. It features a conflict between a family about cremation versus burial. But there's a couple of passages where the sister asks her brother, who's the main character in the film, have you cried yet? And he doesn't cry until finally he's on a road trip with his father's cremated remains. And that's a great film to check out.

Wakil (26:26.85)
Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (26:26.923)
Yeah. I also like how you mentioned that you seep. And I think I'm a seeper. I, after I get all my doing done, I might seep a little bit. Like that's how it comes out.

Wakil (26:36.964)
I like that. Seeping your weeping.

Gail Rubin (26:39.02)
Yeah.
Haha.

Annalouiza (26:41.931)
I'm seeping my weeping. It's little bits and pieces. Where are we on my questions? What frightens you about the end of your life?

Gail Rubin (26:55.714)
What frightens me about my end of life is I have a hot tub in my backyard, and I worry that I'll be, and since my husband died, I have no children. I have a cat that, you know, I could die in the hot tub, and no one would find my bloated carcass for days.

Wakil (27:22.681)
Oh my, yeah.

Gail Rubin (27:23.34)
And the first time I had that thought, I thought, well, maybe I should get a housemate. And like the universe listens to your thoughts. 

Wakil (27:32.164)
Yes.

Annalouiza (27:44.79)
Hmm.

Gail Rubin (27:47.53)
Two days later, one of my girlfriends, her son was in college here in Albuquerque and he had dropped out like six months shy of getting his degree. And he decided to return and take care of that six months of internships that he needed to do. But his brilliant idea was he was going to live in his car. Well, that. That lasted one night when his for one night because his car battery died in a rest stop 40 miles east of Albuquerque. 

So, you know, my girlfriend called me and asked me if I would go give him a jump and I'm driving out there and talking to on the phone this whole time. And I said, well, you know, I was thinking maybe I should get a housemate. So the universe delivered this wonderful distraction for six months. Whether he would have noticed if I had died in the hot tub, I think is another matter.

Annalouiza (28:27.115)
Oh my goodness

Wakil (28:34.916)
Yeah, that's so funny. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Annalouiza (28:38.212)
my goodness. Yeah, I understand that though.

Gail Rubin (28:43.583)
It was a good experience actually for both of us.

Wakil (28:46.724)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (28:46.856)
Yeah, you know, my kids have always thought I was going to end up old and naked and running through the woods somewhere. Like, you know, like that's for since they were little, they would always say that you're going to just be this naked lady living in the woods. I'm like, OK, sure. You know, until my daughter one day realized, like, I'm going to make a router necklace for you. So every once a day, I'm going to expect you to turn your router on so I know that you're still alive, mom.

Wakil (29:01.761)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Gail Rubin (29:01.912)
Ha ha ha!

Annalouiza (29:14.487)
She was like 10 years old when she told me this. She's just they want to check on me. So, yeah, the router pushed my button. I'm still here. I'm going to ping you. So that is interesting.

Wakil (29:26.724)
Yeah, yeah, that is a good one. Is there anything that you wish we would have asked you? Anything else you'd like to share with us?

Gail Rubin (29:41.272)
Well, I talked a little bit about the Before I Die Festival concept. I actually learned about that back in 2016. There was like a three-day event in Indianapolis around Advanced Decisions Day, you know, death and taxes in mid-April. And there was a group in Louisville that did a bunch of events over the course of October. 

And when I learned about that, I was like, I got to do I got to do a Before I Die festival. And I'm the only person that I know of in this world who has continued to do them. The folks in Louisville, that kind of fell apart. And the Indianapolis thing was a one-time grant. But I've continued to do it. I actually wrote a book how to about how to hold the Before I Die festival.

Wakil (30:40.122)
Oh yeah.

Gail Rubin (30:40.712)
And made a Before I Die festival in a box. I created games, the Newly Dead game, which is like the newlywed game, but the questions are how well you know your partner's last wishes. And yeah. Yeah.

Wakil (30:56.478)
That's great.

Annalouiza (30:59.403)
That is like the newlywed game.

Wakil (31:01.22)
Yeah, I get it. Yeah, it's great. I love it. And the nearly dead game is perfect. Yeah, there's been the natural organic composting people out here have done one last year and now they're doing another one that's coming up. they've got two in a row now. And it's about planning and also, of course, other newer choices for disposition of the body.

Annalouiza (31:05.503)
I love that.

Wakil (31:29.156)
Which is great. so I'm glad, you know, I remember when I first heard of that, I thought, how is somebody going to make a three day, I think it was two day, two day program about that? And it turned out it was packed. It was, I mean, they had like 600 people, you know, between online and, and, and, they were, and it was a beautiful conference with lots of really good information. And the one you and I met at was also pretty good, even though it was, it was actually too short. thought, you know, if I tried to put a lot into it to one day, but

Gail Rubin (31:56.12)
Yeah. Mine, the one I did in this year, 2024, was four days with a different theme each day, eco-friendly funerals, hospice and medical aid in dying, being prepared and unexpected deaths. And it was packed. Yeah. Lots of great information.

Wakil (32:20.42)
Yeah, Wonderful. Yeah. So glad you do that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I read about who came. It sounds fascinating. Can't wait to see them. So great. Yeah, thank you for doing that work. That's so important. Hopefully we'll get to join you. Maybe next year. We come and do.

Gail Rubin (32:24.566)
And those are coming out on YouTube so people can see those speakers.

Wakil (32:48.932)
All right. Yeah. You want to read your poem or you want one of us to? 

Annalouiza (32:59.639)
So we have her poem.

Gail Rubin (33:04.13)
Yes, no, I'd love to read this. This is the final verse of Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant, who actually wrote this when he was a very young man. And my dad, when I had asked him about his end-of-life wishes, he said something about wrapping yourself up in a blanket and laying down on a couch. And so he was moved by Bryant's poem in college. So this is the final verse of Thanatopsis.

So live that when thy summons comes to join the innumerable caravan that moves to that mysterious realm where each shall take his chamber in the silent halls of death. Thou go not like the quarry slave at night scourge to his dungeon but sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust. Approach thy grave like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Wakil (34:28.196)
Wow, yeah. I'm wrapping myself right now. Very beautiful.

Gail Rubin (34:32.302)
So we should all have a peaceful death.

Annalouiza (34:39.541)
May it be so.
Lovely.


Wakil (34:38.498)
Yeah, yeah, inshallah. Yeah. Well, thank you again, Gail. It's been really a pleasure. And I'm looking forward to seeing you again in person soon, someday. And have a great holiday season and everything. Yeah, it's been really nice. Thank you. Yeah.


Gail Rubin (34:48.824)
Thank you.
You too!

Annalouiza (34:54.859)
Yeah, I'll be holding you as the season ramps up too for, you know, all of our beloveds who are seeping.