Sarah Cavanaugh:

Hi, I'm Sarah Cavanaugh, and this is Peaceful Exit. Every episode we explore death, dying, and grief through stories by authors familiar with the topic. Writers are our translators. They take what is inexpressible, impossible to explain, and they translate it into words on a page.

Today I'm talking with writer Rebecca Wolf. She's been writing since she was 16 when she became a contributor to the popular Chicken Soup series. After that, she started her own well-known personal blog, Girl's Gone Child, where she chronicled her journey into motherhood. She was an early mom blogger. She frequently writes about her life for publications like Refinery 29, Huffington Post and Romper. She's also got her own newsletter, the Braid. Today we're talking about her second book, All of This: A Memoir of Death and Desire. The book is about being on the brink of divorce and then learning her husband has stage 4 cancer. She gives us a really honest look at marriage, parenthood, cancer, grief, and what it's like to be a widow. Let's get into it. Hi, I am looking forward to this conversation. I loved your book.

Rebecca Woolf:

Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

What I'd love is some context around why this was such a complicated loss for you.

Rebecca Woolf:

Yeah, so first of all, anyone who's been in a tumultuous marriage and is ready to leave that marriage knows that they've been grieving. I was grieving my marriage and my husband for years. So I think I basically got to the point where I had finished grieving the loss of what I thought I wanted and what I thought we would be, and was finally at the point where I was like, "Okay, I don't want to be married to you anymore." And then he gets diagnosed. It was like days if not weeks after that conversation, he gets terminally diagnosed. So it was almost as if I just buried our marriage and now I have to dig us up and figure out how to be the wife that I want to be, that I feel like I need to be knowing that I am no longer the wife.

I already told him that I don't want to be the wife. So it wasn't anything I had to think about. Obviously, I was going to be there with him and take care of him and try to give him as painless and joyful and exit as I possibly could. And I do feel like I was able to do that for him. I needed to do that for him and for me and for our kids. But once he wasn't here, and those four months of between diagnosis and death were excruciating. They weren't like, oh, he had this wonderful, ... It's pancreatic cancer. If anyone has experience with it is, all cancers are terrible, but it's especially excruciating. You don't have a good day. There were no good days. It was terrible and that it was terrible, and then it was just terrible the whole time.

So his death brought relief in that way too, that he was no longer in pain and his death brought relief in that I could finally bury us, which I was already starting to do. So my feelings were of obviously sadness. I didn't want him to die. I didn't want my kids not to have a father. I mean, obviously that was not any, but I also didn't want to be with him anymore. And both things can be true. And when he was no longer here, I got what I wanted, which was not to be with him, not exactly what I wanted, obviously. But there is that part of it that was like, "Yes, I don't want to be married anymore. I don't want to co-parent with this person either. So now I don't have to." Which is also something you're not allowed to say out loud.

I don't know what our co-parenting would've been like after our marriage, but I do have a lot of friends who are in hellish situations with their former spouses, and I don't know what that experience is like because I never had that, and it would be false for me to admit that it's easier or harder for me or harder for them. There are advantages of my situation, and for me not to admit that is disingenuous. So I feel like it's important to talk honestly about these things and to do so in a way where I don't feel bad about saying that.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Because he kind of gave you permission to write this story.

Rebecca Woolf:

Yeah, I think it's sort of he did and he didn't. Right? And that's sort of the conversation. It's like, he knew I was going to write about this because I've literally written about everything that's ever happened to me ever. Even the most mundane shit is like I dropped a water bottle on my toe or whatever. I've been writing about everything. So he knew that I was going to write about this, and I don't necessarily think that he knew that I was going to write the book that I wrote. So it's definitely what is consent? I wrote a piece recently called What Is Consent to a Ghost? And it was about this idea that when someone isn't here to tell their story or their side of the story, is it fair to tell yours?

Sarah Cavanaugh:

That's a great question.

Rebecca Woolf:

Which is very valid criticism, and I'm very aware of that criticism. I heard quite a bit of it and continue to. I'm really sort of open and receptive to hearing that because I get it, and I don't know how to answer that question, except that I think if you are going to write about a person or an experience with someone who has died and it's complicated and you're writing about your relationship with them in a way that doesn't necessarily paint them as a hero or a perfect husband or person, it's important to do the same for yourself.

So for me, I knew that if I was going to write the truth about our marriage, about my relationship with him, about who he was to me, that I needed to also write about my flaws and foibles and all the different things that make me human as well. So this book was basically uncovering the rock, lifting it, and letting all the little creatures scurry out from under it, because there's a lot in this book that I had not disclosed. There was a lot that I write about in this book that I think most people wouldn't disclose, which is why I'm so proud of it and also why it was a polarizing thing to publish.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

That makes sense. That makes sense. And you ask beautiful questions. The central question you posed right at the beginning, is it more important to bury the truth of a dead man than to honor the truth of those who survived him? And this is what you're talking about.

Rebecca Woolf:

The majority of people, this is the question I get over and over what I'm teaching memoir or I'm talking to people about writing, there's so many things I can't write about because this person was going to judge me or they're going to hate me, or I can't say this, or I can't openly disclose that. And we're so, so afraid of our audience, which I think it's a completely natural thing where no one wants to be judged, no one wants to be-

Sarah Cavanaugh:

It's human nature.

Rebecca Woolf:

Of course. But the problem is you have communities of people who are unwilling to talk about things that are very universal. And I think if there's one thing we learned from me too, it's that once people start talking about these very universal things, even when they're difficult, even when they're upsetting, you allow other people to do the same. And I think for me, with this book, I didn't have an example. There wasn't a widow's story that resonated with me at all. People were bringing me books and memoirs about widows, and I mean, I have 17 copies of year of magical thinking, which of course I'd already read. And it's like people bring you the same stuff, right? They bring you the same condolence card and the same books and the same poems at the same funeral. It's like everyone has this sort of stock responses to when things happen.

And the thing is it's not that simple and death is complicated, and we're all very nuanced. And if we're not telling various kinds of stories across spectrums, then we feel really isolated in our grief because we don't see it anywhere else. We're not seeing it televised. We're not seeing it sort of culturally discussed. So all of these stories are kept secret. It doesn't mean that they're rare at all. It just means that there's not enough people willing to talk about them. So it was really important for me to write the book that I needed for myself.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Yes. And you give permission to other people who are grieving in the same way, not to feel shame.

Rebecca Woolf:

Yeah. Death is hard enough, grief is hard enough, to pile shame on top of that. And it's funny because for years really, I felt like my experience... People who lose the love of their lives and they're heavy, heavy grief for that loss. I always was like, "Oh my God, I feel like I can't even call myself a widow because I wasn't feeling those feelings." And then it took me some time to realize my kind of grief is harder in a lot of ways because you can't openly share how you're feeling, right? You're feeling guilty for the actual feelings you're feeling, which is a terrible feeling to have when you're going through something like that, is you're like, "Oh my God, I'm feeling this way, but I'm not allowed to be."

And then you start spiraling and trying to figure out what's the best way to grieve? And does it become performative after that? And do you even know how you're feeling because you're not allowing yourself to feel those things. And a lot of people that I talk to and I've talked to after this book has come out are basically just living these sort of secret lives because they feel like they can't fully represent themselves as they are as this happens. They're now defined by this thing. They're now this person that people feel sorry for, or they feel weird dating or they don't know how to talk about it. So it's canned responses. Canned responses.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

I'd like to pay you a compliment because I don't think it's obvious that you would stick around and take care of him, especially when you're estranged from someone. I don't know that everyone does, and I think that took a lot of heart on your part to stay and care for him. I just admired that.

Rebecca Woolf:

Thank you. That was never, ever going to be something. If there's one thing that I could do as a wife, it's take care of... It was the only time I felt like I was a good wife, if that makes sense.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Yeah.

Rebecca Woolf:

And also, here's the thing, to be a caretaker to someone who's terminal is very different than to be a caretaker for someone who is chronic. And knowing that what kind of diagnosis he got, I don't know that I could have taken care of him for four years.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

But four months, yeah.

Rebecca Woolf:

I don't think I could have, don't know how people can, honestly, I have so much empathy and sympathy for people who are taking care of anyone, specifically spouses, because I know a lot of people were and are in my situation, as I've talked to them, who've had to take care of people who they were in difficult relationships with. And the kind of pain and resentment and shame you feel for not wanting to do it and doing it anyway, to me would be paralyzing. I couldn't do that, but four months I totally could. And of course I would. And him too. I remember when, and I wrote about this in my book, when you have to choose your power of attorney, I wasn't sure if he would want me to be his power of attorney. I wasn't sure if he wanted me to make all this decisions for him.

He didn't flinch. He's like, "Of course I do." And I think for all of the troubles we had in our marriage, it also speaks to the strengths that we had. And then he knew me. He knew me. We knew each other better than anyone. That doesn't change the fact that we had conflict, but I knew him intimately and deeply, probably better than anyone. And same with him for me. So he knew what I was capable of and the kind of partner I would be for him, even though we had our shit.

And I think because of that, my book is sort of a love story. You can have all of these things at once. You can have this shattered marriage and also have this beautiful love story, and they're all wrapped up in each other. And there was love there. There was love throughout his death. And I still feel like there's love. I'll always love him, obviously it's complicated. But it was not, again, I don't feel like anything that happened between us while he was alive through his dying and now is unusual. I think my experience is probably pretty standard. It's just not, again-

Sarah Cavanaugh:

We're not talking about it.

Rebecca Woolf:

It's so much easier when someone's on here just to remember all of the things that we loved about them. And we do this with everybody. We make them saints and we speak only to their good qualities and the good memories. But there's a lot of pain in life and in relationships. And-

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Why do you think we're supposed to represent people as good after they die?

Rebecca Woolf:

I think the idea that they're not here to speak for themselves or to grow and/or to change and to get better means that we sort of leave that up to us to do that for them.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Sort of writing their legacy.

Rebecca Woolf:

For sure. I think there's survivors guilt. I think we all have it. And I think when you feel guilty, you automatically sort of paint or push or edit people to be better than they were or kinder, or go back and edit your own experience. It makes you feel better about yourself. I think really all it comes back to that. We don't want to feel shame. We don't want to feel guilt. We don't want to feel pain. So we tell a story that keeps us from those things.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So in Peaceful Exit, we talk about death openly, and we talk about how in this culture, oftentimes someone would reach our ages without ever having seen a dead body. But it sounds like your story about death is very different.

Rebecca Woolf:

Death is something that feels very comfortable to me, almost comforting because I accept that it's happening, it's going to happen to all of us. And that feels very freeing to me. I love cemeteries because I love this idea that we memorialize each other, that we put each other somewhere and then go there. And that it's... I don't know. I love the idea of whenever we drive past where my husband's buried, we're always like "That's where dad lives." And I love that there's just this place where parts of him still are, and you can just hang out with parts of people. I don't know. It just feels ancient. It's like we've been doing this since the beginning of time. We bury our dead.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

I love when you drive by the cemetery, you're like, "Hello dead people."

Rebecca Woolf:

Yeah. Yeah. We've always been like that. And when Hal was alive, we used to go to cemeteries all the time, huge fans. And we do Dead Dad Day at the cemetery where we bring his favorite songs and we do a dance party on his grave. That's sort of always been how our family rolls when he was here. We just sort of make it into a party. So we did the same with his funeral. He had funeral at the Whisky a Go Go, which is a music venue,-

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Fantastic.

Rebecca Woolf:

... very famous music venue on Sunset, which at the time when my friend whose idea was, I do not want to take credit for it was totally her idea called to see if they would do a memorial there. They're like, "Sure. And we've never done there before." But you can literally call up a concert venue and say, "Can we have a memorial there? And they could say yes. And then you're having a funeral at the Whiskey. We had bands play and my son performed, and our friends who were all artists did incredible performance art. And it was the coolest funeral ever. And I was like, he would've loved this.

Yeah. We talk all the time. Me and my kids like, "Oh, put that on my epitaph. Put that on my headstone. That's how I want to be remembered. Make sure that that's... Play the song on my funeral." We talk like that all the time. And I think my goal is for them to feel comfortable with death and not afraid of it. Obviously, they've lost one parent, so there's fear in some of them that I'm going to die all the time.

I have to be on call. I do not go anywhere and not have my phone here. They think I'm going to die, some of them, which is totally normal. And so I try not to be like, "I'm fine, I'm not. I tell them, yes, I'm totally going to die, you guys. Totally. Yeah. Yes, you're right. Yeah. But you never know and we should be prepared for it. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about it."

Sarah Cavanaugh:

I absolutely love that, that you have a family that's so open about it and you're accepting and you're all talking about it. That's fabulous.

Rebecca Woolf:

We still have, when Hal died, me and my son went through his ashes and picked out the little bone rock, the rocky bone of the ashes, the likes. They look like little pebbles, and we put them in little dishes and they're all around the house just like dad's bones. And none of that feels weird to me. It feels weird that it's weird. I don't know. It's like the head in the sand, don't want to think about it, don't want to talk about it. The idea of morbidity to me doesn't make any sense. We're here and then we're not here. And it's as normal to not be here as it is to be here. And also, I think I'm really into levity. I'm really into having fun with these sort of difficult-

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Telling the truth.

Rebecca Woolf:

Yeah. And it doesn't have to be so serious. It doesn't have to be so dark.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Agreed, agreed. Well, I would love, love to read a passage of your incredible vivid language and then just see what comes up for you after I read this. "Grief is nonlinear. It's sneaky and sharp, like a serial killer in a movie where there's no warning, no suspenseful music, no screeching of violins. And one night when you think you're fine and everything's fine, and 'Oh, look at me living my life thriving, even,' it's boom bang, and then suddenly you're on the floor with no memory of how you got there. Grief put a roofie in your drink, and now the room is spinning. Grief is supposed to be a Mack truck, but really it's a Prius with the lights off. No way to know it's coming until you're under its wheels.

Rebecca Woolf:

I think we sort of have this idea that something happens, something traumatic happens and we immediately fall apart, and then we get better, and then we get better, and then we're okay. We need to believe there's this three X structure to it or something. And that's never been my experience. I think it's probably very few of our experience. I think for a lot of us, especially when you have an initial trauma like that, you're in shock for tho that first year. Maybe in those first three months, you're in survival mode if you're a single parent and grief hits you way later. And in times in places where you're absolutely not expecting it to.

I will never have the cry myself to sleep breakdowns. I have breakdowns at the grocery store or in my car, or if I see something, they're always out of nowhere. And I think it's almost like as soon as you get to a place, you're like, "Oh, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good." It's the universe, whatever. Just sort of like, "No, actually." It's in there. You still have it in there. And I think we suppress so much that at and moment where we feel like we're free or open or "Ah, I'm good now." Our bodies are like, "Okay, you're ready to have this feeling. Look at you. You're doing great. Okay, you can handle this now."

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Yeah. Yeah.

Rebecca Woolf:

My husband died five years ago and I just started seeing a therapist three months ago, and I think I literally couldn't do it until now. I couldn't carry, I've been in such survival mode with my kids and raising my kids and making sure they're where they need to be, that I haven't even really given myself permission to really dig into those feelings. And so I finally am, but it's taken me five years. It's taken me five years to really get into that. And grief is a lifetime thing, and it's not even just, I think with death, I think a lot of people are grieving relationships forever, we're grieving our youth. We're grieving our children growing up. I'm very deeply heavily in the sort of anticipatory grief of my son going to college. And we don't talk about anticipatory grief either, which is very real.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Oh, it's real. Yeah. I have three kids, so I understand. Yeah.

Rebecca Woolf:

Life is big and hard and full of changes and deaths, even non-physical deaths and grief is like "Surprise."

Sarah Cavanaugh:

It might be because I live in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, but I absolutely love the scene on the Oregon coast, which is a great example of that when you see your sun go around the rock and disappear, and it speaks to that incredible disappearance of death. And the imagery in that scene is just so fabulous.

Rebecca Woolf:

Thank you. That feeling of having no control, no power, not being able to see your kids.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

It's intense,

Rebecca Woolf:

Is really intense. And I think before my husband died, I didn't have that as much. I was kind of really trusted that everything would be okay. And I'm not a helicopter mom at all, nothing. I am very okay with life looking like life looks. And that was the first time I had had that feeling where I was like, "Oh my God, it's just me now and I can't go after my son because I've got all these other kids with me. And I'd be choosing him over them." And I became very aware of the fact that it was me and four kids and underneath all of the other stuff of grieving and losing a partner is suddenly I'm alone with four kids, which is every day it feels like it's a Sophie's choice. It's like I've had to choose whose performances to go to and miss the other ones.

And so much of our relationship was the parental part of it where we would divide and conquer. And now it's just me dividing and conquering with myself. 6I have friends obviously who help and pitch in and stuff and take my kids when I need them to, but my kids need a parent there. It's just me. And so there's a lot of grief in that too, and that he's missing all of this and that he can't be there for my kids and that it's just me. And I can't just go after one of them and leave the other three. I have to be with them all somehow at the same time, which is impossible. And that is, as a mother, you want to be able to give them as much as they possibly can. And when you know that all you have is so much and you can't give that to them, you're grieving a part of your what you want for them too.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Yeah. So parents listening to this, what advice do you give around grieving with children?

Rebecca Woolf:

I have four very different children. I don't know if that there could be four more different children, and I have four children who handled the death of their dad in four completely different ways. I think at the end of the day, children, people, all of us just want to feel safe and seen. And I think what was really important for me was giving them not... First of all, I didn't push them into therapy, any of them. That was an option for all of them. Two of my kids have been in and out of therapy since he died. The other two have done other things that were therapeutic but have not been specifically in therapy. But first of all, they were very involved in the funeral. They designed my husband's headstone. We had totems so that they all had necklaces with this totem for this turtle, which is a big part if you read in my book, the turtle becomes sort of the totem to his death.

They designed a turtle headstone. They all had turtle necklaces that they wear. Some of them still wear them. We went on this trip to the Oregon coast right after he died, where we could come together as five because we'd never been a family of five before. We went from four to six because I have twins. My last pregnancy was twins. So we were sort of establishing ourselves as a new unit and being very aware that this is what our family looks like now. We talk openly and honestly about him, for better and for worse. I had a complicated relationship, so did they. He was not an easy person to live with for the same reason he wasn't an easy person to be married to. So talking about their feelings, but also not pushing them to talk about their feelings. They know that I write about this stuff very openly.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Do they read your writing?

Rebecca Woolf:

None of them have read my book. None of them have met, read my first book, either even my son, who the book is about. They follow me on Instagram and see what I post and read my stuff sometimes, or they know what my book's about, but they don't feel the need to read it because they were there-

Sarah Cavanaugh:

They were there.

Rebecca Woolf:

... and they don't really care. But again, we celebrate his birthday. We celebrate Dead Dad Day, which is the day he died. We listen to the music that he listens to. On his birthday every year we watch his favorite movie. We definitely acknowledge him.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

You keep his memory alive.

Rebecca Woolf:

We keep his memory alive. There's still pictures of him in the house. We crack jokes about it sometimes they're like, "It's good Dad wasn't here. He would've hated this." He's still with us. We still talk about him, but it's no shame around any feeling, none. You want to talk about him, you don't want to talk about him.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

I just love the advice of letting them arrive at their own timing and that you have four, and they've all arrived at different times.

Rebecca Woolf:

They all sort of in their own ways, grieved in this really beautiful organic to them way. My son did not play piano until his dad got sick and he taught himself, and now he's like a genius piano... His dad played piano every day, every day our whole lives. And when he got sick and couldn't play piano anymore, my son went to the piano, 13 years old, started playing, and literally, there's not a day that passes where he doesn't play.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

That's incredible.

Rebecca Woolf:

This is in them for, this is a huge part of who they are. My little ones were just turned seven when he died, and my oldest was just turned 13, and he had his bar mitzvah literally weeks before his dad died. So as much as he was a part of their lives now, the lack of him is a real presence in their lives. And they find ways, I think, to acknowledge that in their art, in their work, in conversations. It's tricky. And again, it's so fluid. They change. I change, obviously, some time has passed now, so we're very used to this is what our family looks like and this is who we are. Our grief looks a little different. Yeah.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

I love the scene where you're dancing to Prince. I think you were filling his grave and dancing to Prince with the kids, and I just love how you let the kids metabolize their own grief in their own time.

Rebecca Woolf:

The burial. That was really important for me, for them to be alone in that for that reason, because I didn't want anyone to judge them for whatever it is that they were going to do. Obviously people aren't going to judge children based on how they handle their dad's death, but I wanted them to just free reign, and I ended up becoming really close friends with the woman at Hollywood Forever. Her name's Noelle. She's incredible. And she was so amazing with my kids and my family, and really let us create our own a la carte death experience. Let my kids drive the golf cart. They designed the headstone, obviously, and for the burial, we had him cremated and they buried his ashes. We kept some of the ashes to spread. I wanted each of my kids to have a vial of ashes to spread on their own.

I wanted each of them to have their own individual experience with that, and then together we would bury the rest of the ashes somewhere we could come visit. He had no plans for his body when he was dying, wouldn't talk to me about it. He gave me no directions. So that was sort of my way. I was like, "Okay, we're going to figure this out. Me and my kids together." Which is why it's so funny, because it's so obvious when you see the headstone or if you were at our funeral, that this is a death that was planned by kids.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

It's so great.

Rebecca Woolf:

But I love that. To me, that felt right, especially because of the relationship that I had with him. At the end, I was like, "I wouldn't want my wife who wanted to leave plan my shit. I would want the people who didn't want to leave me."

So they were super involved, but we did this amazing... He loved Prince. I brought speakers to the cemetery, blasted Prince, and I didn't think they would do this, but they ended up doing the entire digging themselves. They dug his grave, they put all the dirt over the grave. I remember those. The guys were standing there ready to do it, and then I was like, "I don't think we need you. They're doing it all." And I have these pictures of them with their shovels, and the music was playing and they were shoveling, and they threw some stuff in there, some artifacts, some guitar picks, and a few things that they wanted to bury with him.

And it was the most amazing burial experience. And then when it was all over, we all danced on his grave. Again if there were people watching, we wouldn't have done that. We wouldn't have felt comfortable. They certainly wouldn't have felt comfortable with that. But because it was just us in the cemetery with our speakers, it was like, "No, this is..." And it felt totally right, and it was like-

Sarah Cavanaugh:

He would've loved it.

Rebecca Woolf:

... what he would've wanted. Totally.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Well, and he gave you a gift by not planning, giving you the freedom.

Rebecca Woolf:

I agree. Now I agree. At the time, I was like, "Oh my God, you couldn't have given me something?" Because you want to-

Sarah Cavanaugh:

You want to provide for the person what they want.

Rebecca Woolf:

Of course. And so it's really frustrating. I was super mad at him right after he died. I was like, "How dare you give me no directions." But I think you're right. In retrospect, it was a totally a gift because we did a really cool thing. But what if we didn't have great ideas? And we would have... Luckily we had we're a fun group and good ideas.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

You had great ideas. So did the experience of Hal's death make you think about what you want at the end of your life? And did anything change or surprise you over the last five years you've had to metabolize your grief and-

Rebecca Woolf:

First of all, he had a very painful death. And I was angry. I was really angry with him for a while because he didn't give any of us closure, specifically his kids. That was my biggest concern through all this obviously was them. And I was very frustrated that he did not give them anything. And after he died, they were like, "Did dad leave me something or did he leave me a note or a thing?" They wanted something, which is why I became super into making sure there was some sort of symbolic thing they could hold onto because he didn't provide that. And I was so mad. I had friends who were like, "We will film you speaking to your kids," or all these people had volunteered to help make something. He refused to do anything. And so the entire time I was like, "I'm never going to die this. I'm never going to die this. I'm never going to die like this." But then again, I also, hopefully my death isn't an excruciatingly painful one where I have terminal cancer and I can't blame him. He was dying.

So I want to acknowledge that also-

Sarah Cavanaugh:

It's beyond his control.

Rebecca Woolf:

I don't know. And we don't know. And we have plans. We have birth plans and death plans and plans for everything. And then when it happens, obviously that all goes to because the reality is very different from the plan always. So I'm very aware of that, and I think that has made me, I talk to my kids all the time about death, and if I ever get to this place, I don't want to live like this. Please don't keep me alive. I'm so afraid I think of getting to that point. I'm like, "Please kill me first before I get to that point."

But no, I think for me, it's more than it's taught me how I want to die. It's taught me how I want to live and what I hope that by the time I get to the point of death, I'll be able to not fight it and to be open and to accept it in a way that he didn't. His lack of acceptance and the way he refused to acknowledge it to me was the most harmful part and the most difficult part for me to navigate with my kids. Because you're watching somebody die and them saying, "No, no, no, I'm not dying," is very confusing for a child and then having to say, "No, he is actually." And then him being... He was not comfortable with death ever.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Yeah. What does a peaceful exit look like to you?

Rebecca Woolf:

A peaceful exit looks like an acceptance and an acknowledgement of all that came before it. And not necessarily in a "This is your life way," but I hope that whenever my time comes, I'm able to say to really sort of gaze into the eyes of all of my past selves and sort of celebrate them and thank them and acknowledge them and let them go. I want to, in this life become comfortable with loss. I want to become comfortable with my own loss, with the loss of other people. And so I guess to answer your question, peaceful exit for me is just learning to love the feeling of letting go, even though it's painful in spite of that. And maybe because of that, but sort of leaning into that.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Yeah. Yeah. It was such a pleasure to meet you.

Rebecca Woolf:

It was such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you.

Sarah Cavanaugh:

Thank you for listening to Peaceful Exit. You can learn more about this podcast and my online course at my website, peacefulexit.net. If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know. You can rate and review this show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This episode was produced by Larj Media. You can find them at larjmedia.com. Special thanks to Ricardo Russell for the original music throughout this podcast. More of his music can be found on Bandcamp.