"I would have stood up in front of the doctors and said, hey, time out. Can I just take her home and put her in her garden?" Sarah Cavanaugh's mother died of cancer in 2002, after aggressive treatment that kept her far from home and from her grandchildren. Sarah didn't know what her mom wanted, because she didn't have the words to ask. Twenty-four years later, she still wonders.
Sarah is a writer, the creator of Peaceful Exit, host of the Peaceful Exit podcast, and co-author of the book Peaceful Exit: A Guide to Reimagining Your Final Chapter. We talk about naming your death story, making peace with your relationships, possessions, and body, and building what she calls a Pexit Pod. We also talk about a whale. (I'm still talking about that whale.)
Turning on the basement lights and naming your death story
Sarah writes that instead of treating death like a scary basement we refuse to enter, we can flip on the lights, look around, and start deciding how to decorate. It's probably a mess down there. Her advice is to pick one box, open it, and deal with that one thing for the day. It's awkward and scary, but we have to start somewhere.
Sarah compares a death story to a money story: you absorb beliefs about death from the people who raised you. Her parents wouldn't talk about the loss of her brother, and she grew up terrified, with no language for death at all. Her story was that grief was to be suffered alone. That story can change, she says, and she's living proof. I see it at the bedside. We die the way we live, and as Sarah reminded me, people can change even after 80 years of living one way.
Praise, patch, and pardon: making peace with people first
Sarah suggests starting with three lists. The praise list is the people you want to thank right now. The patch list is the relationships that are a little off and that you want to repair. The pardon list is the hardest, the deeper work of forgiveness, for the grudges you're ready to release. Instead of waiting for deathbed confessions, you do it while people can still hear you.
I love that she starts here and not with the will. Her co-author, Lynya Floyd, told her that if the paperwork came first, people would throw the book out the window. Once you've done the heavy lifting of making peace, the paperwork flows right out of it.
Making peace with your possessions and your body
Sarah told me about a photographer she cared for whose big prints covered every wall. The woman had started giving them away because she thought nobody would care about her work. Sarah handed her a pack of sticky notes, and together they labeled the pieces as a collection, which was eventually donated to the University of Washington Special Collections. What you value, someone else will value. Sarah suggests inviting someone you love over and asking what they love among your things.
Peace with your body is harder for many of us. Sarah was a dancer through college and had to rewire her whole relationship with her body, and a bad skiing crash meant giving up downhill skiing. She suggests practicing letting go now, so it isn't quite so hard the day you have to give up your car keys. Knowing your body also tells you what comforts it at the end: warm socks, certain music. For me, quality of life means being able to be outside, even if that means opening a window.
How to talk to your parents about death
Sarah hears from a lot of adult children of boomers asking how to talk to mom or dad. It doesn't have to be the big sit-down. She suggests going in sideways: listen to a podcast episode together that tells a third person's story, then ask, what do you think? You can also ask your parents what they learned about death as kids.
I tried this with my own parents, who are alive and healthy. I asked if I could look at their trust so my sister and I would understand their wishes, and they handed me a huge binder of typed boilerplate from an attorney decades ago. One section said they were really into a church I have not once seen them attend. ("It doesn't say that.") It turned out to be a fun way in to talk about what actually matters to them. Small conversations move the ship five degrees, and you end up somewhere completely different. Also, everybody will know who's getting the soup ladle (me).
Speak plainly, keep your forms ready, and leave a trail of peace
Even Sarah finds it harder with her own family. Her father died last December, and the communication hasn't been there, though she respects that everyone is on their own timeline. Her advice is to get comfortable talking, even if you practice in front of a mirror. Use the word death instead of passed away. Tell people where your binder is, keep a paper copy, and have your forms ready. When the photographer was taken to the hospital, staff didn't honor her form saying do not resuscitate, and Sarah had to go in person as her advocate to get her released.
What I see consistently is that when there's a plan a family can point to and say, that's what dad wanted and that's what I did, guilt, shame, and doubt are taken out of the grief. Sarah said doubt is underestimated, and it has stayed with her for 24 years. If you want a way into this conversation, borrow her story. Tell someone you love that you heard a woman on a podcast who still wonders what her mother wanted, and see where it goes.
What is a Pexit Pod?
Pexit is a contraction of peaceful and exit, coined by Sarah and her friend Tracy while teaching an online course. Your Pexit Pod is the people who will handle the jobs at the end of your life and after you die, from your digital afterlife to funeral arrangements to who will care for your body. Choose people with the skills for the job, Sarah says, and they may not be family. They may get your passwords and go through your closet, so trust matters.
Sarah's friend Ann has eight people in her pod and hosts a death brunch every year. Sarah described her own pod as something like a third place, where you belong to something bigger than your own death. I love that. Everyone picks up an oar and rows in the same direction. (I can't get away from the sailing analogies.)
A whale, five degrees, and taking your time with the book
Sarah picked up my five degrees metaphor and told me about a technology near Seattle that senses whales surfacing far out, so big ships can adjust course a little and miss them. Then I had to confess that I've hit a whale. We were on our first sailboat on San Francisco Bay during Fleet Week when we felt it. I went to the stern and bellowed my best Dory impression in whale, and the whale came up on its side and waved a flipper at me.
Sarah's advice for her book is to take your time. It isn't a cover-to-cover read. This is a hard conversation, so give yourself a lot of grace, and if you've experienced trauma, pause and get professional help. I think it's a perfect book club book. Read it with your sister or your best friend, and give yourself six months.
About Sarah Cavanaugh
Sarah Cavanaugh is a writer, the creator of Peaceful Exit, and host of the Peaceful Exit podcast. Her mother's death from cancer in 2002, and the silence around loss in her family before that, shaped her work helping people talk openly about death, dying, and grief. She is the co-author, with Lynya Floyd, of Peaceful Exit: A Guide to Reimagining Your Final Chapter.
In this episode
- 00:00 Meet Sarah Cavanaugh
- 02:00 A tour of the scary basement
- 03:16 Your death story
- 05:37 Praise, patch, and pardon
- 08:24 Peace with your possessions
- 10:10 Peace with your body
- 14:35 Talking with your parents
- 21:03 What does a peaceful exit mean to you?
- 21:56 Desires, rituals, and options
- 23:44 Communication in families
- 24:25 When your family doesn't want to talk about death
- 25:00 Speak plainly about death
- 26:08 Binders, forms, and advocacy
- 27:46 How planning eases guilt and doubt in grief
- 30:04 Your body story and aging
- 31:00 Use stories to start the conversation
- 32:45 What is the Pexit Pod?
- 37:07 Whale metaphors and detours
- 40:41 A new death story, and community
- 42:22 Advice for reading the book
- 44:28 Called to train as a doula?
Caring for someone near the end? You don't have to figure out the last days alone. Book a Guided Care Planning Call and we'll talk through what's ahead.
Feeling the pull to do this work? Pay attention to that. I teach it at Compass Doula Academy.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts · 46 minutes
If there's anything else you're dying to ask, let me know: christy@christybraun.com
