When We Die Talks

Content note: This episode includes open, direct discussion of suicide, including details of the caller finding their son after his death and the caller's own suicidal thoughts in the months that followed. If you are not in a place to listen to this one, that's ok. 

This week's caller is a psychic medium who spends their days holding space for other people's pain. Ten months before we spoke, they lost their 21-year-old son. For the first five months, they cried every day. Their brain still scans the house for him, and it's only now starting t...

Content note: This conversation talks openly about drug addiction, recovery, overdoses, and near-death experiences. The subjects are heavy, but the call itself is warm, curious, and funny in places. If today isn't the right day for it, that's okay.

The first time it happened, the power went out in the bathroom where the caller had collapsed, and their phone dropped into SOS mode. Nothing else in the house lost power. They've been asking what that meant ever since, and the question of energy and consciousness sent them down a rabbit hole that runs through the...

Content note: This conversation includes discussion around a terminal diagnosis and a period of chronic suicidality. If you aren't in the right space for this today, that's ok.

This week's caller is the other half of last week's conversation, the one living inside the diagnosis instead of beside it. They have a former colleague who once opened a tense workplace meeting with three words: I believe everybody. That idea has stuck with them ever since, and it shapes how they think about death now, including their partner's hope that some part of them will linger...

Our caller's framework for what happens after we die starts with basic physics: energy can't be created or destroyed. From there, they work backward. If someone survives a traumatic brain injury and comes out unable to remember who they used to be, wanting different things than they did before, are they still the same person? Our caller thinks so. Just changed. It's the same logic they apply to death itself.

Their partner has a terminal illness, and has had it since before the two of them met. Long before this relationship, their partner had already lost two...

The caller was raised by two atheist parents who explained death the way you'd explain any other natural process: you die, you break down, you go back into the earth. They never fully believed it. Their grandmother offered something else, reincarnation, and the caller spent years circling that belief instead, even as they kept collecting moments that didn't fit cleanly into either story. The strangest one came from their own child, three years old at the time, who had a sudden and vivid memory of dying somewhere else entirely, complete with a name and a place, then lost the...

A note before we start: This episode includes discussion of a suicidal crisis and the loss of a pregnancy. If that's more than you can take in today, that's okay, come back to this one when you're ready.

The caller keeps their twin daughters' ashes inside a teddy bear on a shelf beside their bed. Most mornings, they say good morning. The girls' names were Scarlet and Violet, named, in part, for Pokémon.

Long before that loss, the caller had already been thinking about how to speak to someone who's grieving. Sitting w...

Content note: This episode includes discussion of suicide, physician-assisted death, psychosis, and serious illness.

The caller and their late partner met when they were nineteen. For the better part of a decade they were each other's person, the one you call with good news, bad news, or at 4am when you can't stop thinking about what it will feel like to stop existing. For most of that time, the caller was the one afraid of death. Their partner wasn't. Then their partner, searching for anything that might work against treatment-resistant depression, tried psilocybin. It went...

Our caller was sitting in a college class when a professor, mid-lecture, turned and looked directly at them and asked what it might have been like to be sheltered with your partner under a mantle in Pompeii, watching ash come down. The caller says every hair on their arm stood up. That was the professor's window into something he already suspected about them.

Years later, at an artist market, a stranger asked for a reading. The caller doesn't usually charge, and doesn't usually push, but something came through anyway: a message from the woman's late grandfather, gone...

Content note: this episode centers on suicide loss, discussed directly. If that's not something you're in a place for today, it's okay to sit this one out.

Our caller found their housemate in the home they shared, staged in a way that made sure they'd be the one to find him. He'd also been their romantic partner at one point, and one of their closest friends. The application that got them on this call was written about a month shy of the one-year mark.

They used to believe in ghosts, built on a childhood theory...

This week's caller calls themself a radical death advocate. Not because they think dying is good, but because they see it as a part of the life cycle we're better off accepting than fighting. They're mostly at peace with the first death, the physical one. It's the second death, the one where your name stops being spoken, that they're still working through.

From there the conversation moves through an ofrenda they keep in their home for a close friend they lost suddenly last year, and what it means for that friend to become part of the conversation...

This week's caller was diagnosed as a type one diabetic when they were 22 months old. They've spent their entire life managing something that can genuinely kill them in either direction, and death has been a fact of daily life rather than a distant idea.

From there the conversation moves fast and wide. A reference to Coco and what it means to be remembered. The Big Bang and where the energy to start it came from. Consciousness, and why science still can't explain it. Being raised Catholic and no longer able to fully believe it, while also not...

This caller was born into death. Their mother survived a rare, near-fatal condition as an infant only because a doctor happened to be at the house that day, checking on a dying sister. That's the reason this caller exists at all and it sets the tone for everything that follows.

From there, the conversation opens into a full cosmology the caller has been building for years: reflections in a bubble, a lava lamp as a model of consciousness, the Mandelbrot set and what fractals might have to do with the soul. Robert Monroe's astral projection experiments, the...

This caller doesn't come from a place of loss. They come from a place of curiosity, and a theory they've spent years quietly assembling.

It starts with reincarnation. But not the straightforward kind. Not a linear return to another body in the next moment. The caller imagines all points in time as equally available. Past, present, future. When you die, you pick a new life from any of them.

From there, the conversation moves into the one electron theory: the idea that a single electron might be tracing a path so vast and complex that...

This episode includes an open and personal conversation about suicide, suicidal ideation, and suicidality, including experiences from childhood. If you're in a tender place with any of these themes, please take care of yourself first. If you need support, Thrive Lifeline is a great resource. 

This caller has spent most of their life in relationship with death, and they'll tell you that relationship started before they had words for it.

A first-generation Filipino American who grew up without a fixed sense of home, they found their way into community death care not through a course o...

This week's caller grew up in a Roman Catholic household where death was treated as simply another part of life. Something to be at peace with rather than afraid of. But the conversation quickly turns to something that's shaped most of their adult life: being the one who shows up.

From early childhood spent in chemo waiting rooms to becoming, at 16, the family member who could see what others couldn't (or wouldn't) admit was happening to aging parents and grandparents, this caller has spent years as the person carrying the weight of decline that the rest of...

This week's caller is a retired physician who spent decades at the bedside of dying patients and now works at a funeral home. They have been present for death on both sides: as the person trying to slow it down, and as the person who shows up after. Somewhere in all of that, faith became the thing that held it all together.

This is a conversation about what it looks like to build an entire life around proximity to death and come out the other side more certain, not less.

We talk about the difference...

This week's caller is 79 years old and has spent the last three years going down every rabbit hole death has to offer. All in service of a book that's about to come out.

They have lost a husband and a mother. They have survived breast cancer. And somewhere in all of that, they stopped being afraid of dying and started being afraid of being dead.

This is a conversation between two people who have ended up in surprisingly similar places on a topic most people won't touch.

We talk about what it means...

This week's caller was diagnosed with a terminal illness at eight years old. They have never not known that death was part of their life.

They are an actor, a writer, a reader, a person who rescues snails and keeps a pet millipede and loves sharks because they understand what it feels like to be misunderstood. They are also someone who has spent their entire life figuring out how to live fully inside a body that makes that complicated.

This is a conversation about what it looks like to choose life, loudly, intentionally, and without...

This week's caller is a pediatric nurse who has been around death long enough to stop fearing it and start getting curious about it.

They lost their father to suicide as a teenager. A few months later, they were the one doing CPR on their childhood best friend after an accidental fentanyl overdose. They were sixteen. They didn't become a nurse because of those losses exactly, but those losses made them someone who couldn't look away.

This is a conversation about what it looks like when death becomes a daily presence instead of a distant...

This one is different.

When We Die Talks is built around anonymous conversations — people calling in to talk about death, dying, and what they think comes next. No names, no faces, just honest conversation. This episode breaks that format entirely, and I think once you hear it you'll understand why it had to.

Don Sires was one of the very first guests on this podcast. Over a year ago he sat down with me, not anonymously, by his own choice, and talked about living with ALS, his Baha'i faith, and what he believed waited on th...

This week's caller has been living with grief long enough to become a student of it. They lost their mom at twenty-two. Then their cat. Then their soul dog thirteen months ago. 

This is a conversation about grief that doesn't rank itself, animals as family, and what it means to believe your soul chose this life even when this life has been really hard.

We talk about losing a parent young and what it does when no one ever talked about death before it happened. We get into ecological grief, the mourning of a world a...

Note: This episode includes an open discussion of suicide and suicide loss. Please listen when you're in a good place to do so.

This week's caller has lived through a concentrated stretch of loss that would bring most people to their knees. A beloved grandmother who raised them. Another grandmother, expected but still hard. And then, in March of 2021, their husband — suddenly, traumatically, in a way that left no warning and no clean answers.

They came to this conversation not from a place of unresolved pain, but from one of hard-won peace. And they wanted to...

This week's caller has been sitting with death since childhood. They grew up deep inside Pentecostal religion, the shouting, the standards, the constant weight of what comes next, and instead of finding comfort there, they left with more questions than answers. They've been chasing those questions ever since. 

This is a conversation about ego, identity, and why the thing afraid of dying might not even be you.

We talk about growing up in a religious household and what happens when you rebel your way into actually thinking for yourself, the idea that "authentic personality" is a...

This weeks caller lost their baby brother on Thanksgiving Day when they were five, and has spent their whole life with what they call "a little bird called death" on their shoulder. They're a death doula, a trauma-informed yoga instructor, a Reiki master, and an adventure motorcyclist, and they're still  terrified of death.

But somehow, that's exactly what makes this conversation so good.

The caller is funny, self-aware, and refreshingly honest about the contradiction of doing death work while being afraid of death. We talk about watching grief reshape their entire family after their brother d...

This caller grew up without religion, lost their mom to suicide at 13, and spent years in a fear of death so overwhelming they couldn't be around skeletons or eat meat. Then they were diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

But somehow, this is not a sad episode.

This week's caller is funny, sharp, and genuinely at peace — not because life got easier, but because they stopped waiting for it to. We talk about what it actually felt like to go from debilitating death anxiety to building a community, writing a book, and strapping roller skates back on at...

What would change if we treated death as a human event, not just a medical one?

This week’s anonymous caller is a death doula. And instead of going abstract, they get surprisingly specific about what the end can look like and what people wish they’d put in place sooner.

A lot of this episode lives in the gap between what we assume will happen and what actually happens when things move quickly: who makes decisions, what families scramble to figure out, and how easily someone’s wishes can get lost if nothin...

What if death isn’t peaceful, or blank, or anything you can make sense of, but something you’re trapped inside?

This week’s anonymous caller doesn’t come in with a comforting belief or a story about loss. They come in with death anxiety. The kind that’s hard to explain even when you’re trying to explain it.

We talk through what the fear actually feels like when you get specific. Not just “I’m afraid to die,” but fear of being stuck, fear of losing control, fear of being alone in whatever comes...

What does death look like when it’s part of your job?

This week’s anonymous caller is an EMT who’s around emergencies and dying on a regular basis. And because of that, this conversation doesn’t stay in the abstract for long.

We talk about what CPR actually does to the body, the gap between what people think happens in a medical crisis versus what it really looks like, and why end-of-life wishes can get complicated the moment fear enters the room.

A big thread in this call is about cl...

What happens when you’re 19 and you’re loving someone with a terminal illness?

This week’s anonymous caller is an anthropology student who’s been studying death, grief, and ritual. But that interest isn’t abstract. Their partner has a terminal illness, and it’s been sitting in the background of their life and relationship for a long time now.

A big part of this conversation is what it does to time. The way the future starts tapping you on the shoulder in normal moments. The way regret shows up early. The way even sma...

What happens when your mind stops feeling like a safe place to live?

This week’s anonymous caller shares about experiencing a psychotic break in 2020, and what it changed about how they relate to death, reality, and their own sense of self. They do an unusually good job describing what psychosis can feel like from the inside, including a “movie logic” kind of certainty that’s hard to understand until you hear someone try to explain it.

A big part of this conversation is what came after. The caller talks about grounding themselves in logic...

What if something big happens… and your life still mostly goes back to normal?

This week’s caller has had two heart attacks, starting when they were sixteen. On paper that sounds intense. But this conversation isn’t heavy. The caller brings a calm, laid-back energy that makes the whole episode feel surprisingly easy to sit with.

We talk about how they think about death, including a loose, pop-culture Buddhist view of reincarnation, and how they’ve learned to live with uncertainty without forcing certainty. There’s also real, grounded detail about their heart cond...

What do you say to a child who asks, “Am I going to die?”

This week's caller is a physician who works with children who have cancer and has training in pediatric palliative and hospice care. In this conversation, she shares what it’s like to talk honestly with families about death. Including a story about having to tell a seven-year-old patient that she is going to die.

This is a heavier episode. The subject matter is difficult, and the conversation doesn’t shy away from that. But it’s also thoughtful and full of co...

Suicide touches more lives than we often realize. And yet, it’s still something many of us don’t know how to talk about.

In this episode, an anonymous caller reflects on losing their brother to suicide and what it’s been like to live with the impact since. Rather than trying to explain what happened or search for answers, the conversation stays with the ripple effect. How loss lingers, how it reshapes relationships, and how it continues to move through the people left behind.

This is a gentle conversation. There’s grief here, but there’s...

Many people are curious about conversations around death but hesitate to listen because they worry it will feel emotionally overwhelming.

This episode challenges that assumption.

In this anonymous call, the conversation begins with an expectation of tears. What unfolds instead is something more layered. Grief is present. Loss is real. And still, laughter, warmth, and unexpected lightness find their way into the room.

If you’ve been curious about this podcast but unsure where to begin, this is a gentle place to start.

In This Episode:

This week’s Saturday Contemplation, A Year You’ll Never Get Back, sits with a simple truth: this year is over, regardless of how it went. Instead of turning toward regret or self-judgment, this reflection invites you to look back gently at how you spent the time you were given. What filled your days, what quietly shaped you, and what this past year reveals about the life you were actually living.

This contemplation is also the final release from the project this year. As the year comes to a close, it offers a moment to pause before rush...

What if your afterlife looks exactly like what you expect to find? That question sits at the center of this conversation with our caller who has died more than once and come back with stories that challenge the script many of us inherit about death. She begins with a fire-breathing accident that leads to severe burns, an awake surgery, and a coma where there is no tunnel of light—only darkness without walls, filled with taunting voices. She runs for days inside that void before turning to fight, and everything changes.

What follows is survival without a ro...

This week’s Saturday Contemplation turns toward the stories we inherit (from others and ourselves). The ones we pick up early, absorb quietly, and sometimes mistake for who we actually are. It invites you to notice what in your life feels genuinely yours, what feels borrowed, and what becomes possible when you begin setting down the stories that no longer fit.

Saturday Contemplations are a simple way to pause, reconnect, and reflect on the parts of life we often rush past. They won’t appear every single week, but they’ll show up regularly alongside the podcast. And if...

Death wasn’t an idea for her growing up—it was something that walked beside her. In this call, we trace a life shaped by early violence in South Africa, a strict Catholic upbringing that equated identity with sin, and a long stretch of years where death felt more like an exit than a fear. She talks about grooming, a marriage built on uneven power, the mental health system that kept missing the mark, and the small, steady voices that helped her stay alive long enough to want to keep living.

From there, the conversation opens into what...

This week’s Saturday Contemplation sits with the truth that many parts of our lives don’t get the endings we hoped for. Conversations fade, relationships drift, and chapters close without warning. Instead of forcing closure, this contemplation explores what softens in us when we let some things remain unfinished.

WWDT+ is being put on pause for now which means all Saturday Contemplations will be free moving forward (you can also listen to all of the old ones now too). They may not happen every single week, but the plan is to release one anytime there’s a new...

Mortality feels different when you’re sitting beside a parent and waiting for the breath that doesn’t return. In this call, we stay close to that moment—not with big theories or tidy comfort, but with the real stuff: complicated love, sudden anger, the guilt that shows up long after it’s “too late,” and the small rituals we use to get ourselves through the night.

He talks about a fractured relationship, the final hours in the hospital, and the split-second when a kind nurse became the target of blame. From there, the conversation widens into the quieter...