#21- Talking about Sickness, Death & Grief

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This episode is a bit different than the others. In this episode, I get extremely personal about my 3 year hardships with loss, death and grief. In the past three years, my family has been on a crazy journey that involved Cancer hitting three of my dearly loved family members. Throughout this time, my students often didn't know what to say to me or how to talk about this topic, so now I'm teaching you how to talk about death and grief and when people have sick family members.

Join me in this very honest podcast episode!

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Transcript

Today's episode of the Real Life English with Gabby podcast is a little bit different than usual. Today, I'm teaching you how to talk about death and serious illnesses and how you can talk to someone who just lost a family member. This one is personal to me because my family has been hit with cancer three times over the past three years. I've lost two family members to cancer, and my dad is currently in the middle of his cancer battle. During this whole situation, my students have asked what to say and how to talk about these kinds of situations in English. That's why I think it's time to talk about life, death, and grief. All right. Let's do this thing.

Hey there, welcome to the Real Life English with Gabby podcast. I'm your host, Gabby, your fun and friendly English teacher from the one and only New York City. My goal is to teach you phrasal verbs, idioms, and slang that will help you speak English confidently and understand real American conversations. Are you ready to improve your English skills? Let's jump right in.

Welcome back to the podcast. I promise for those listening for the first time that normally the topics on this podcast are happier and more fun. But sometimes we just have to hit those real-life scenarios that are tougher to talk about. Today's going to be a bit different, like I mentioned in the intro, because it's a true story from my life. In short, in the past three years, since 2021, cancer has impacted my family significantly. Today, I'm going to talk about it publicly for the first time.

Honestly, this is a difficult topic for me to talk about, but I want to talk about it for two main reasons. Number one, on this podcast, I try to teach real-life English that you can use in your daily life. Unfortunately, sickness, death, and grief are a big part of life. Secondly, I want to tell the stories of the three men in my life, who I love dearly, who were hit with cancer. All right.

So this podcast episode is going to have three different parts. Firstly, I'm going to teach you some words by telling my story. Then I'm going to teach you expressions that you can tell someone when they just lost someone that they love. Third, I'm going to talk a little bit about the grammar and how to talk correctly about death in English because it's actually one of the most common mistakes to make. So today I'm teaching you 15 new words and expressions. Here are those words: diagnose, a terminal illness, life expectancy, close-knit, to take a turn for the worse, to be admitted, the ICU, unconscious, pass away, battle with cancer, to say our goodbyes, stage four cancer, to undergo treatment, to draw your last breath, and to keep something at bay.

All right. Let's get to the story.

[00:04:00]

I'm going to take you back about 15 years, to the year 2009. This was the year that my uncle Sam was diagnosed with cancer. At the time, he was in his fifties. My uncle, who lived in Florida, was a pastor and a retired New York City police officer. He loved to help other people.

He was diagnosed with one of the worst cancers out there called multiple myeloma, which is one of the 10 deadliest cancers. It's very much a terminal illness with a very low life expectancy rate. When we heard about the diagnosis, it hit our family very hard. I have a family that is very close-knit. In fact, growing up, my cousins were always like my siblings. My uncle Sam was actually a second dad to me. He is the pastor who married my husband and me on our wedding day.

At the time, back in 2009, doctors thought that he wouldn't have long to live. You see, this type of cancer is usually very quick. But my uncle was a man of faith, and he knew that he would survive longer than the doctors said that he would. And he was right. He went on to live over 10 more years with that disease. He was able to see four grandchildren be born and grow up. Honestly, he was a miracle and he totally confused medical professionals. His case can actually be studied in some of the cancer medical journals because of how successful his treatments were.

It's crazy because I know of two other people who had multiple myeloma, and they died within a year. We were extremely grateful that we got more than a decade with my uncle.

In the fall of 2021, in the middle of the COVID chaos, he suddenly took a turn for the worse and was admitted into the ICU. Within days, he was unconscious, and then he passed away. He lost his decade-long battle with cancer on November 3rd, 2021. None of us were able to say our goodbyes. We were all left sad and grieving.

Not even six months later, in the spring of 2022, my uncle David was diagnosed with stage four esophageal cancer. This is cancer of the esophagus, which, simply explained, is what connects the throat to the stomach. This is one of the worst cancers, and it has one of the lowest survival rates. My uncle underwent treatment at the second-best cancer hospital in the USA, which is Memorial Sloan Kettering here in New York City. My uncle was a retired police officer who saved many lives and helped many people throughout his life. You'll notice that both of these uncles were retired police officers. Actually, on this side of my family, my father's family, there are five boys and three girls, and three of them were police officers.

So, back to the story. My uncle David was actually a police officer on September 11, 2001, and he helped on the ground rescuing people after the Twin Towers fell. You may or may not know this, but a lot of rescue workers from 9/11 have since then died of cancer and other lung diseases because of the exposure to toxins that day. This mainly affects workers who were there long-term after that. After 9/11, there were a lot of people on the ground going through the wreckage and the rubble, trying to look for survivors. You'll hear a little bit more about this shortly.

My uncle's doctors concluded that his cancer was actually a result of his exposure to toxins during his rescue work after 9/11. Because of this, he was given a hero's funeral and buried as a hero. His name will soon be added to the survivors' list from 9/11 with the other police officers, firemen, and rescue workers from that terrible time in American history.

My uncle fought hard, but unfortunately, he lost his battle with cancer in September of 2023. Those of you who've been on my email list for a while will probably remember me sharing this with you back in September. I was actually there in the hospital room with my uncle as he drew his last breath. He fought until the end.

Believe it or not, I'm telling you parts of this story. When I tell people, they're just like, "What?" Believe it or not, the same week that my uncle passed away, my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I honestly can't tell you what my family went through because three of the brothers out of eight children—they were beloved brothers, uncles, and fathers—had all three of them hit with cancer in such close proximity, or so close to one another. It's been a very challenging time, but we've gotten through it with God's help.

I do have some good news. The story finally does not end in tragedy. My dad finished his radiation treatment back in February, and he remains on hormone therapy to keep the cancer at bay. He's very strong. He's a fighter, and we're trusting that he'll get through it. His success with radiation treatment honestly was the good news that my family needed after years of just bad news and cancer stealing the lives of good men. So currently, we're trying to enjoy every single moment with my dad. He's an amazing father to my sister and me, and he is the absolute best grandfather to my two sons and my two nephews. Now, interestingly enough, my father was also a 9/11 rescue worker.

My father has one of the coolest jobs ever. He's an engineer, but he's a safety engineer for the U.S. Army. And so, he oversees a lot of construction projects of bridges and various other projects. One part of my dad's job is actually emergency response, rebuilding, and rescue. And so, he's had safety training, and he has been on the ground after major hurricanes, storms, and tragedies that happen in the USA. He's there.

For example, after Hurricane Katrina, he went down to Louisiana. After Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, he also went there. And the list goes on. For 30 days, he's gone and worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week, helping people rebuild their lives. And so, with 9/11, he actually worked for six months going through the wreckage, looking for possessions and signs of victims whose bodies were never found.

Whenever I tell their stories, when I talk about my uncle Sam, my uncle Dave, and my dad, I usually call it "my three heroes" because it's about my two uncles who were police officers and who helped so many people throughout their life, and about my dad, who also helped thousands of people rebuild their lives after tragedy and natural disasters.

To any of you out there who have battled cancer, or you're helping a loved one battle cancer, I just want to tell you that you have my whole heart. I'm fighting with you, I'm praying with you, and I'm absolutely wishing the best for your family. The biggest lesson that I've learned in the past three years, and actually since the COVID pandemic in 2020, is that life is short. Embrace every moment. Hold nothing back. Spend as much time as you can with your loved ones, and don't wait. Don't stop doing what you want to do, going on adventures, and telling people that you love them.

All right, [00:14:00] so let's review some of this vocabulary that you just learned from the story.

The first word that we have is diagnose or to be diagnosed. This means to have a disease or condition identified by a medical professional based on the symptoms and the medical tests. So, you have random symptoms, you go to the doctor, and they diagnose you by identifying what it is that you have.

The next expression is a terminal illness. So, the word terminal can have two meanings. Typically, if you go to an airport and it says, "Oh, my flight is in terminal 40," that's one definition. They call it a hub in an airport. But terminal [00:15:00] actually also means something that ends your life or something that causes death. So, when we say terminal illness, this is an illness for which there is no cure. When someone says that they have terminal cancer, it means that they're going to die from it because there is no known cure or treatment.

Next, we have life expectancy. Life expectancy is the amount of time that someone is expected to live. We use this in many different contexts, right? We can say, "Oh, the life expectancy in the United States is 68 years old for men." But in this context, when we're talking about it with cancer, we're talking about how much longer someone is expected to live taking into account their cancer. So, how much longer is someone expected to live?

This next word is not about sickness, but because I mentioned it in the story, I want to explain it. I said that my father's side of the family is very close-knit. This is an expression that describes people who are very caring, very supportive, very close. It's typically used to describe families, but it can also describe a community. You can say, "The people that live in my neighborhood are very close-knit," or, "My coworkers, we're all very close-knit."

Next, we have an expression, "to take a turn for the worse." This is a phrase that is used when someone's health condition suddenly gets worse. So, maybe someone is pretty stable in their condition, but [00:17:00] all of a sudden things just get worse. Typically, they are not expected to recover from this.

Next, we have the word admitted. Now, this also has multiple meanings in English. For example, when someone admits the truth or when they admit that they committed a crime, it's when someone says that they are responsible for specific actions. For example, "The criminal admitted what he did and was sentenced to prison." But in this context, someone can be admitted to a hospital. That's what this is. It's the process of being taken into a hospital or some kind of medical facility for treatment. We could say, "My aunt was admitted to the hospital for treatment." In the context that I used it, it was that my uncle was admitted [00:18:00] to the ICU.

The ICU is the Intensive Care Unit. This is a very specialized department in a hospital where they take very, very critical cases and patients. They receive really intensive medical care and monitoring.

The next one is unconscious. I'm sure you've heard of this before, but unconscious is a state in which someone's not awake, so they're not able to respond to people or to activities.

Next, we have pass away. It's a phrasal verb, and it means to die. This is a very polite way to say that someone has died. There are many ways to say that someone has died in English, but this is [00:19:00] one of the polite ways.

Next, we have the expression that we use when someone has cancer and they are actively fighting cancer. We say, "His battle with cancer." This is a phrase that we use when someone is struggling or fighting against cancer. This involves treatment and efforts to overcome the disease. For example, a lot of times later in life, someone might have cancer and then they get cured. I'm sure you know people who had their cancer come back later in life. Sometimes, when someone gets cancer again, they don't want to fight it. They don't want to go through all the crazy drugs and different treatments and suffering. We wouldn't really say "battle with cancer" in that context. "Battle with cancer" implies if someone is actively trying to treat their cancer.

Another expression that you heard was to say your goodbyes. This is an expression that is like a final farewell. Sometimes, when family members are passing away, the hospital will call, the doctor will call and say, "You might want to get people to come in and say their goodbyes," or, "It's time to say your goodbyes."

Next, we have stage four cancer. In English, we say that cancer happens in stages. In the US, stage one is the most basic level, and level four is the most advanced stage because this stage shows that the cancer has spread to other parts of the body. My uncle David, by the time they discovered his cancer, it was stage four. My uncle Sammy's cancer, multiple [00:21:00] myeloma, is such a dangerous cancer that they don't even have a stage four. It just goes up to stage three.

Next, we say undergo treatment. This is the expression that we use when someone's in the process of receiving medical care, medical therapy. They're getting some kind of care that's fighting or treating the disease.

The next expression is to draw your last breath. This is a phrase that shows that someone has died, but you're specifically talking about their final breath right before they die. You'll see when people are talking at funerals, they say, "Oh, he drew his last breath, surrounded by family and friends."

Lastly, we have the expression to keep the cancer at bay. To keep something at bay means to keep it controlled so that it cannot spread or progress. So, I said that my dad is currently on hormone [00:22:00] therapy that is keeping the cancer at bay. The radiation killed the cancer, and the hormone therapy is keeping it controlled.

All right. So now that we got the vocabulary out of the way, I want to teach you expressions to tell someone who's lost a loved one. Unfortunately, the topic of death and sickness is a very realistic topic. It's something that we're all going to have to experience someday, whether it's a friend, a coworker, a neighbor, or a family member. This is very important for anyone who is going to have to use English to talk about death or suffering or grief.

Firstly, the most common thing to say to someone is, "I'm so sorry for your loss." Now, loss, L-O-S-S, not lost, [00:23:00] L-O-S-T. Loss is actually the noun form of lost. Lost is an adjective. So, when you're telling someone, "I'm sorry for your loss," you're saying, "I'm sorry that you lost a family member." Some people just say, "Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry," but the official expression is, "I'm so sorry for your loss."

The next one we can say, which is definitely more formal, is, "My deepest condolences to you and your family." A condolence is an expression of sympathy. I would suggest using this expression for someone in a position of authority, if it's your manager, if it's your professor, someone who is above you.

Here are some other expressions that you can say:

"Please know that you're in my thoughts and [00:24:00] prayers during this difficult time." Thoughts and prayers are usually put together, and it's a really common thing to say anytime there's a difficult situation. So maybe a family had their house destroyed by a tornado, and you would hear on the news people saying, "You're in our thoughts and prayers," or, "You have our thoughts and prayers."

Next, we say, "I'm so sorry for what you're going through," or, "I can't imagine what you're going through, but I'm here for you if you need anything." Go through is a phrasal verb and it means to experience. So it's basically telling someone, "I can't imagine what you're experiencing. I'm sorry. I'm here."

Next, instead of sending thoughts and prayers, you can also tell someone, "I'm sending you love and strength as you navigate this difficult time." This is also a little bit more formal.

The next one is something that you'd say to a friend: [00:25:00] "If you need to talk, or if there's anything I can do to help, please don't hesitate to reach out," or, "Please reach out. Please let me know." Reach out is a phrasal verb, and it means to contact someone, to make an effort to communicate with someone.

At both of my uncles' funerals, my uncles were very, very loved by so many people. A lot of people said, "Gabby, your uncle will always hold a special place in my heart." When you know someone who died, this is a really good thing to tell their family and friends, because it means that this person was so special to you, and they'll always be in your heart.

Lastly, similar to one of the other expressions, you can say, "I'm here to support you in any way I can."

Okay, so the last thing that I want to talk to you about is using the [00:26:00] words die and dead correctly. Ninety percent of students at my school use this incorrectly. So, let's talk about it.

Firstly, the word die is an action. So, you would say, "He died. She died. They died." You do not ever say, "He was died." We don't need "to be" with "die," since "die" is a verb.

However, to be dead is different. To be dead is the state of death, and to die is the act of death. To give you an example: "The fish is dead. It died last week." This is very important if you're talking about people, but also if you're talking about pets. I know this is also a sensitive topic. I used to [00:27:00] use the example of a dog, but I don't use that anymore. Now I use fish because people are not as attached to their fish. So, someone calls you and says, "I'm so sad. My fish died. He died. It died. She died last week." But you can also say, "My fish is dead," meaning, "My fish is in the state of death." "He died last week" means the action actually happened last week.

So again, "die" the verb, not "to be." We never say "to be died," "was died," "is died." That's D-I-E-D. "Dead," D-E-A-D, requires "to be" because "dead" is an adjective. So, "to be dead" is the state.

Now, again, I know this is dark, but it's very important when you're talking about suicide. I know that in many of your languages, suicide is a verb, and you would say, "He suicided." But in English, we actually don't say that. If you're talking about a celebrity death, for example, you can say, "She killed herself. He killed himself," or, "He committed suicide. She committed suicide." We actually use the word "commit," like commit a crime, commit murder, commit robbery, and commit suicide.

All right, thanks for sticking with me through this very difficult episode. I know that for some of you who have experienced the loss of a loved one, this might have been very difficult for you to hear. I'm thankful that now you know what to say whenever [00:29:00] you encounter situations like this. Don't forget that I have a study guide waiting for you that has all of the vocabulary and everything that I taught you from this episode. I promise that the next episode will be a much, much happier one. Thanks so much for tuning in.

Well, that's a wrap for today's episode of the Real Life English with Gabby podcast. Be sure to download today's study guide so that you can learn how to use this vocabulary confidently. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe for more weekly adventures in English learning. Also, I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a review.

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