Changing The Way We Mourn: Laura Prince at TEDxGoldenGatePark (2D)

[Music] many people ask me how do you have a passion for death in Greece you've all probably heard that quote live every day as if it was your last it sounds great right but let me ask you something how can we live every day as if it was our last if we've never really truly thought about what it means to actually die who in this room has thought about your own death or even nice that's great or even where's the death of people that you love how do you want to die what's your feeling we're gonna look like who's gonna be there what are they gonna say about you have you talked to anything about what's gonna be done with your body and your possessions and is this the last message you want to send to the world you know many of us haven't thought about this because death can bring some of the most excruciating times to our lives but they're also some of the most important and the way is we in which we address our own mourning and death process can have an amazing effect in the way that we live our lives you know going back as a child I really didn't understand death very much I mean nobody talked to me about it in a very truthful or meaningful way the only thing I knew about cemeteries was the tombstones that they put on our lawns at Halloween and you know it wasn't till recently that so many support groups have actually surfaced for children you know we've had events like Columbine and the rate of teenage suicide and now we're actually talking about death in schools I was 15 one of my very best friends called me late at night and said she really needed to talk and like many other fifteen-year-old girls that was on the other line with my boyfriend and I said I'll call you back but I fell asleep but I never called her back and the next morning she killed herself as you can imagine I was in excruciating pain total shock she really was like a sister to me but the fact that I had to go to her funeral even felt like more punishment I mean I was terrified this year in the casket and I just didn't know what I was gonna say to her parents but when I got to the funeral I remember seeing a very uncomfortable chair most and although they're flowers everywhere I hated the way the place smelled and they didn't know how to talk take part in the conversations about how good or peaceful she looked in the casket but I remember at one point seeing a doorway in the back hallway of that funeral home and I imagined that behind that door there was an empty room and a stack of white porcelain plates I imagined myself going into this room slamming the door and screaming as loud as I could like through every last plate against the wall but at the time I I didn't want to be another angry teenager so I went back to school and I still did take my algebra test on Friday strange like when I think back to that time I pushed it away so much and I think I imagined that she didn't die or that she didn't even exist they just buried it and then by college I probably drank it all the way but for years I lived with this unbelievable amount of anxiety and fear and shame that if I didn't call somebody back that if I didn't follow through was something that something catastrophic was gonna happen and it was going to be my fault so it's like ten years later I was at a therapy session and my therapist looked at me and said why do you carry all this weight and it was that moment I just started bawling crying weeping I couldn't even explain him what I was crying about but this just opened up this amazing healing for me and I started to remember her I started to realize how much I actually missed this girl and this process is still happening for me today it was really humbling and it really just helped me to understand the power of grief and how important good morning is so also in high school I worked in an assisted living center and in college I studied gerontology so gerontology is a study of the social psychological and biological aspects of Aging so for many years I've had the opportunity to work with many older adults were close to their own death and these people really became my teachers and my elders so whether I was rubbing lotion on their their their wrinkled backs studying their lives or even going to their funerals one thing that I took away from that experience is that life goes by fast and before we know it it's over so until recently you would have found me living on beau sir Islands I took surfing trips Indonesia I went to India and meditated in ashram for months I Chi act in the Arctic has followed whales in Alaska and in Brazil I danced until I couldn't walk I took a job working on the National Geographic expedition ships this was an amazing time for me I traveled all over the world and I led thousands of people through rivers oceans and trails and I can remember thinking ha I think I did it you know breaking mythos with those older adults I I kind of became a passion junkie I thought I really wanted to get this life right and they really helped me to do this I mean for years I lived in the self-help and travel sections of bookstores I always thought that happiness was somewhere over there and it was something to be sought after and I thought they'd have us passionate enough about it that I would attain it so these moments on the boat I I was really I felt all set I mean I wasn't concerned about society's expectations or money and I wasn't like you know in college or anything I was well into my 30s and I was surrounded by people in their 40s 50s 60s and 70s who are on the same boat living their passions then one day off the coast of Alaska the captain said that I had an emergency phone call and I picked up the phone and it was my best friend Angela weeping on the other line and she said Sam's dead Sam was Angela's brother these two had a remarkable relationship something that I've never seen between two siblings and at that moment I remember looking around my small cabin and I was like trying to look for a way to call myself out of that room and I just kept thinking how is she ever gonna get through this so less than a year later from that moment I found myself standing in a cold refrigeration facility at a funeral home I looked down to my legs and I couldn't believe I was wearing pantyhose my upper body wasn't tired from a day on the water but from the sack of death certificates I held in my hands I left one passion for another and this passion is death so when I got that call I got on the first flight that I could to help Angela and her family Sam was just 28 years old when he died and his death was a very tragic and unexpected accident they had him cremated and scattered him over his favorite climbing spot Chapel Hill's where he first learned to climb throughout these days neighbors opened up their homes and spare bedrooms to strangers we all went to Sam's favorite places we drank his favorite beer and Sam's father's beautiful backyard we had a barbecue there was flowers objects representing his life children ran and played while Sam's girlfriend laid in the grass and cried his eulogy it was delivered organically by all of his closest friends his family did such an amazing job of emulating his stubbornness his honesty and Sam was funny there was some funny jokes being thrown around for those three days and he was a remarkable musician so music was celebrated they brought out his instruments and they played him it was a tragic time but his life was celebrated in a way that resonated with his family so throughout this time it was a very powerful experience for me because it seemed like I was always in the right spot at the right time I mean people were relying on me throughout those days and not only was I helping with the logistics but I was also helping people get through those moments of grief where they thought they couldn't make it through another through another second I would remind them to laugh to cry to be silent to be angry and most of all to just absorb the love and support that was around them to get them through the hard times ahead at one point I looked over at Sam's 15 year old sister magalie she was on the porch arranging flowers and I looked at her and I thought wow what a different experience you know that she's having that from my experience at 15 I wish that I could go back and help my 15 year old self she was so sad but yet her pain and uncertainty and grief had a really supportive space to be present Sam's funeral or Sam's memorial was amazing the way that there was ritual his friends got together and made a paper or a raven made out of paper feathers and scrap wood and at night we had a bonfire me lit it on fire was huge it was awesome and then when it was time for us to sleep we all slept in the same room that Sam had died in because being closer to his death actually helped us all for the closer to his life after the memorial I stayed after with Sam's family and helps pack up some of his clothes and belongings I painted the room where he passed away and of course they thanked me from my home but I realized that I had a gift that I could support people in the time of turmoil and I could create spaces for grief and mourning so when I got back on the boat as you can imagine I mean my daily life there just lacked the authenticity that I felt it's a memorial I started to feel a deeper passion for my own friends and family I really wanted a life that was more grounded and real some of the machinations of expedition travel the travails of the boat guests just seemed less important than done fulfilling and when I found myself up late at night studying funeral law and my cabin I thought am I crazy really this is it but I knew I had to get off the boat so I moved to San Francisco and began planning funerals memorials and see scatterings for families I've had the opportunity to work with hundreds of families who've lost loved ones and I can tell you to this day that this has been the most passionate and touching time of my life I've been around painful family feud's I'm learned more about how addiction and disease can kill a few times I've had to send bodies off to the Crematory alone because they had no family or friends to claim them I'll tell you there's been a lot of love and Nino's sansa book Tolstoy and the purple chair she writes the only balm to the pain of losing someone who love is celebrating the life that existed before this family here taught me a lot about the importance of celebrating life the baby you've seen this photo is Jessie Jessie's being held by his parents Trish and Starr this photos beautiful right it was taken the first time they're actually able to hold him we really when the umbilical cord was cut they realized that Jessie had a very serious constellation of birth defects Trish and Starr gave themselves ultimately and lovingly and fully in the face of letting them go the three of them had 19 days together and they removed him from life support you know as you can imagine when they got back to their normal life I mean people don't know what to say to you it's tragic death isn't this intuitive thing they may know how to deal with we need help we need to know what to say to people so we can give them the support they need people said things to them like you'll have another or that maybe Jesse was in a better place now or they asked when she was gonna try again draw all the unaware of things that people said to them they would say let's not forget that my son lived Jesse had a life and his life was important those 19 days were the most profound days of their lives yet nobody asks and the color of his hair or eyes you know so often we don't ask people about the people that they've lost because we don't want to make people revisit their grief but life is important and people want to talk about the people that they've loved and lost and the more comfortable we can all get with our own fear of death and our own uncomfortableness with mourning and grief the more space and help we can provide for people and you know we do need to be sensitive to cultural culture and and people's personalities some people need us to simply sit with them as silence and and they're not going to be as emotive as others but we still need to provide that space we still need to take death out of the closet and talk about it you know if I could give you one word what I felt working with these families it would be honored I've learned so much about love and life I remember working with one woman at a funeral and she was standing over her her father's casket and she looked at me and said it's strange now that he's dead I feel like I'm finally starting to forgive him but I wish I would have told him how much he hurt me I remember one woman who's 81 and she her mom who's a hundred and two died and we were signing the legal cremation paperwork and she looked at me and said you know I started to cry she said I know I look like an old woman to you but I feel like a little girl and I'm so sad she said no matter how old I get when I I still want my mom one man told me explicitly about the last and first time he kissed his wife and how she smelled like lavender both times and yes I met a woman who told me she wished she would have left the dishes dirty in the sink and made love to her husband one last time before he left for work and never came home you know death is so important celebrating life is important in celebrating life doesn't mean we deny ourselves reality of death but it honors the people that we've loved and lost and it honors the pain and grief that comes with this loss many of us were looking so far away from our families and friends that not only do we have to leave the funeral process up to strangers but we're also left to grieve on our own to write we need to ask ourselves how can we prepare for this journey how can we get and give the support that we need this is why I'm working on an organization called good morning in my vision the funerals and memorials that we create for one another will help us look at how precious life is and will also give us the strength that we need to get through it I'm I'm just amazed at in this day and age that we're not more prepared for this we're all gonna die here and yet just moments after you get the worst call of your life you have to plan an event that you don't want to go to you have to start shopping shopping around for funeral homes and cremation services get out your calculator figure out how much it's gonna cost start calling caterers and hotels and then start thinking about final will and asset just distribution my organization is gonna help people deal with these details we need better funerals why don't we have child psychologists on hand to help explain to these children what's going on we need grief massage therapists that know how to touch mourning bodies you know rather than having bereavement groups that are hard to access and lead to sterile rooms we should be taking people on to nature or maybe meeting them in the comfort of their own homes we need more compassionate legal and financial advice you know it's strange because out of I mean when people talk about funerals they always just talk they always say it's something that they forgot right they say oh I don't even remember the funeral I mean I just I just was in shock and I was just getting through it I want to create a funeral that will actually help people get through those times so rather than running out on some pursuit of passion I want to ask you to look at your whole life right now knowing that your heart will stop beating one day heal yourself and your relationships because you have no control over death and you might miss the opportunity and yes go home tonight and kiss your husband or wife tonight as it was the last kiss because it might be and your children play with your children accept them love them don't get so caught up and how great you need to make them but just thank them every day for all that they've given you and start talking to them about death start preparing them for your death you'd be amazed at some of those conversations that come out of it you know the truth is is that many of us in this room are probably grieving right now losing someone to death is some of the worst grief right but we've all lost jobs relationships our health we're just searching for parts of ourselves that we've left behind and many of us are so busily pursuing our passions in such a rush so we don't have time to actually sit with our pain and who we really are what if buried in our pain we can find the passion that we've left behind and living with our whole selves the joy and the pain we can find a passion more immense and deep deeper than anything out there and beyond so just remember life and death are two sides of the same coin so celebrate the lives of the people you've loved and lost because they are living inside you and becoming closer to the reality of death could just be one gateway to passion that which we already have thank you [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 141,297

Rating: 4.8198199 out of 5

Keywords: United States, America, stereoscopic, tedx talks, tedx talk, Area 5, tedx, grief, ted talk, 3D, stereo, TEDxGoldenGatePark, ted, San Francisco, ted talks, ted x, death, passion, mourning, Golden Gate 3D, English

Id: T4oTIJ-4mlE

Length: 17min 48sec (1068 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 29 2012