MINI EPISODE: How to become better neighbors with death (with Amelia Chiarenza)

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Introduction – 0:00

BLAIR HODGES: Welcome to another mini episode of Relationscapes. I'm Blair Hodges, an independent journalist in Salt Lake City exploring gender, race, sexuality, ability, class, and more, trying to understand what shapes us, what divides us, and what can bring us together.

Amelia Chiarenza was worried about her aging father. His health was declining, and she wasn't sure how much longer he would be in her life. That's when her apparently healthier mom surprised everybody with a terminal diagnosis. Within 16 months, both of Amelia's parents died. And if that wasn't bad enough, her best friend unexpectedly died too.

This shook Amelia to her core, like it would with any of us. The hard truth is that if we're lucky enough to live long enough, we will face the loss of loved ones. One way to cope with this is to avoid this fact at all costs until we have no choice but to face it.

Another way is to try to make friends with death. Or maybe at least become tolerable neighbors with it.

Amelia Chiarenza joins us in this episode to talk about how to be better neighbors.

 

Losing Three Loved Ones – 01:25

 

BLAIR HODGES: Amelia Chiarenza, welcome to Relationscapes.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Thank you for having me, Blair. I'm excited to be here today.

BLAIR HODGES: There were several different ways I wanted to start the interview, and I chose the most boring possible way, which is chronology. So I just want you to lay out what happened when you experienced three deaths that kind of put a fork in your road. Just give us the basics of what you experienced that has led to your current work with Cultivate Being.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Sure. And I think chronology gives good context, so why not start there?

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: So it started with a sudden diagnosis my mother received, and she died eight weeks later.

BLAIR HODGES: And how old was she when she was diagnosed?

AMELIA CHIARENZA: She was 76.

BLAIR HODGES: Okay. She's 76. She's diagnosed. And that's quick. That's quick from diagnosis to death.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Very rapid, yes. And a few months later, my best friend was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and then died.

BLAIR HODGES: And how old was she?

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Forty-nine.

BLAIR HODGES: Okay.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: And then during all of that, my father was suffering from pulmonary fibrosis and dying, and I took care of him, and he died the following summer. And so within 16 months, three core people to my being, as I call it, died.

BLAIR HODGES: I mean, your life was also going on when all that was happening. What did your life look like personally and professionally as you experienced those losses?

AMELIA CHIARENZA: I was working a very demanding corporate job in aerospace and defense, and my mother got sick at the outset of 2020. So—

BLAIR HODGES: The beginning of the pandemic, yeah.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: And it was very much at the beginning of the year, the outset of the year, really. So what was going on in my life was continuing to work a very demanding international job in aerospace that quickly was impacted, as we all were, by COVID. And the pandemic was really in the noise, so to speak.

What was intimate and what was happening for me in my life right then was around these core people, these dear loved ones to me, and their lives taking a turn and ending. And so that was a prominent fork in the road. My partner and I were very much working busy jobs full-time and hustling and doing all of these things. And there was a very fast shift into monumental changes for people who are very close to me and close to us.

 

Leaning Closer to Death – 04:22

 

BLAIR HODGES: I mean, first of all, I'm sorry to hear that. And hearing you tell the story in the podcast was so moving, to get to know your relationship with them and get to know them through your love for them. That's, to me, the power of the podcast, getting to know them on a personal level through your experiences and the experiences of the people who knew them as well.

But people have people die in their lives, and they don't upend everything and kind of change their whole trajectory. But you did. It seems like a ton changed for you. So talk about what happened and why.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: First, thank you for those kind words. It really fills me up to hear that the podcast has landed for you in that way. You're absolutely right. Upended is a wonderful word for it. My life was upended, and I call it my hard pivot. I went from working, as I said, a wonderful and demanding job and career, climbing a career ladder, to making decisions that pointed me in a very different direction.

I was completely drenched in a force to write my story. So I began writing my book, and a number of factors and things in the universe started to point me and allow me to make such a pivot. And one of those being, namely, in early 2024, I was laid off from my job.

BLAIR HODGES: Hmm.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: And I was already writing my book. I had been contemplating an audio project around this, and I turned to my partner and I said, "I want to finish my book from my childhood home."

And percolating in the background from the time that my mother was actively dying was this curiosity and desire to understand the role and resource of a doula in end-of-life care, an end-of-life doula.

And there were so many moments where there was so much loneliness. There's loneliness that happens in shock and in mourning and in grief. And I've so enjoyed listening to Relationscapes. I know when you spoke to Ann Pinkerton, and that conversation about losing loved ones and loneliness that's there. I had a strong hope that details of my journey and my story could offer some comfort to others.

And I talk about in the podcast, it's really how to have a new narrative of death.

BLAIR HODGES: You reminded me of Anne Pinkerton, because it seemed to me like both of you leaned into death rather than trying to look away. I think so much of Western American life pushes us away from death. We don't directly see it. We're not with it as much as people in America's history were. We're not having wakes and stuff in our living rooms, and we're not the ones usually prepping bodies, or experiencing the other intimacies with death that existed for previous generations and previous humans, and humans in other places throughout the world other than the West today. We're kind of away from it.

You and Anne and others lean closer into it and want to know it more intimately. A phrase you use in the podcast is that you wanted to "live death," which is obviously a paradox there. But I think that phrase says a lot, though. You wanted to live death.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Precisely. And it's part of my belief that end of life and dying and death is so potent from a living perspective. And it's why in the podcast, in my conversations, they all start from a place of living. It's not to negate fear or other emotions that will happen. It's to view them in a new way.

And it's funny when you say going toward death.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah?

AMELIA CHIARENZA: It's funny because I think about myself. I've always been a person who is, okay, I'm going to jump in the deep end. I'm a very curious person, and I want to learn. I want to grow. And if I don't understand something, I want to try to understand or try to gain some insight. And I think this pivot I've made in my life, for me, serves as a very strong example of my doing that, where it was something that I just, in all of my body and being, had to go in this direction and live death.

 

Skirting the Abyss – 09:17

 

BLAIR HODGES: Did you find any tension between leaning into it, getting closer to it, versus becoming obsessed with it or letting it take over? Because I could see a scale from completely avoidant to completely obsessed, right? And how to strike this balance of healthfully coping with something and not getting rid of the negative emotions or avoiding them.

I love that you mentioned it's not about not having fear or not having grief or not having sorrow, but it's about adding other things to that stew. But it seems like it's threading a really delicate needle there, and I don't know if some people are ready to take that journey or not, emotionally or whatever. But it seems like you were.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: I must have been. I think I am. I love that you asked that question.

I will tell you, I have not reached a point where I've had an awareness of, I'm on this tightrope and I have to be careful that I don't lean too much to one side from obsessing about it.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, and fall into the abyss with Nietzsche and go lose your mind or something.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Right. Although I'm a thinker. I mean, I studied philosophy, so it's funny that you bring up—

BLAIR HODGES: Me too.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: But I haven't yet come to that point. And you asking that question is really valuable to me because then it allows me to think through, oh, at some point I may need to have that awareness that I may need to look at, oh, have I gone to that place?

Although I think that I would attribute having compounded loss over a rapid period of time was such a steep, more than a learning curve.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. It's like a learning cliff.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Right. I would almost attribute that everything that I experienced and approached and viewed and observed, maybe somehow that has prepared me for threading that needle and that balance. And I think I would have to also attribute it to the things that I've done since then, in terms of creating the podcast and releasing it out into the world and writing my book and publishing it and becoming an end-of-life doula and where I've focused my energy in life now.

I would say it's part of threading that needle.

 

Unexpected Companions in Loss – 11:41

 

BLAIR HODGES: The core component to me is the relationships you're building in the wake of that. You talk about how—here's kind of a paraphrase from the podcast—you say there's something magical or profound about talking to people who knew the people that you love who have died. These people from your parents' lives showed up as unexpected guides.

And I would add maybe unexpected companions even, because they're not just guiding you, but you're both sort of lost in the woods together. So who's guiding who, right? But they're there and you feel less alone.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Mm-hmm.

BLAIR HODGES: And you introduce us to those people.

What stood out to me about your show is, it wasn't the usual suspects. You didn't go to siblings or other family. The people you chose were a hospice nurse, an estate sale worker, organ donation professionals, a handyman that just worked with your parents over the years.

So the people you ended up connecting with, to me, were unexpected. But how beautiful it was to see other lives that your parents were woven into that gave you a new perspective on who they were as people and connected you to people who were still here who knew them. That's the core thing to me. I think those relationships can keep us out of the abyss if we can stay connected to other people.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Yes. There's such a beautiful tapestry of humanity in that. And again, thank you for those wonderful words because it was really important to me in creating Cultivate Being that it be something that listeners could go on a journey with me and get to know these wonderful people as I learn more about them and as I learn more about what they have to share about their experience of my loved ones, but also their experience of that path.

They were these incredible characters that were really showing up and showing up in unique ways for me. And I was learning, and I continue to learn so much from them and from their conversations. And your point about connectedness, I had this passion around bringing that forward for listeners and for people so that they can imagine and maybe think about and question, oh, where is that maybe showing up for me? Or where could that show up for me in my life?

Because there is this incredible connectedness that we have, and there's an incredible unique quality to every person's experience of death and of loss. And I wanted to create something that could honor all of that.

 

The Handyman – 14:32

 

BLAIR HODGES: I keep thinking back to the handyman episode, and it was so interesting. He was someone who worked with your parents, right? But also, he talked about how he'd become close to them, and it seemed like more than a working relationship. And speaking of Anne Pinkerton, she talked about disenfranchised grief, and I think what he experienced certainly would be a form of disenfranchised grief, because if you're sad, what do you say?

Like, "Oh, this couple that I worked for died." That doesn't convey what their relationship was, even though that's the bare bones of what it was. But how do you explain that? And you got to see your parents through his eyes. What did his perspective bring to you? What more did you see about your parents through this person who knew them in a very different context than being their child?

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Well, I love that you called out that episode. I mean, Doug is his name, and isn't he just a character? 

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: He's such a loving soul and has great perspective and stories. And what it revealed for me was I did not understand how tight that connection was between him and my parents. And yes, he was their handyman. The bare bones of it, he was their handyman. At the same time, he was so familiar with the nuances of their relationship.

My parents met in the fourth grade.

BLAIR HODGES: Mm-hmm.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: And when he describes the back and forth, little argument—not even argument, just back and forth—of trying to make decisions about what they're gonna pack up, and Doug's helping them pack up the van for their trip, he could describe the love and respect that they had for one another.

And I think at one point he even kind of mimics one of their voices. He had those intricate details and that intimacy. And I think one thing that was really key that comes out of that episode too was, in that conversation, my realization of his mourning and grief in losing them, and my not seeing that or knowing that when it was happening.

I remember telling Doug that my dad died was exceptionally difficult. It was very difficult to let anyone know. But when my father died and I let Doug know, that was a poignant and strong moment. And I knew it was at the time that I was telling him. At the same time, until we had the conversation on the podcast, I was missing a whole thread of detail that Doug revealed for me in that conversation when he talked about, I think he says, "It's like a story with no ending."

BLAIR HODGES: Right.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: I think that's very, very special too, when your awareness can be expanded to think, oh, there's so much more going on than what I'm experiencing in this one moment. And now I have this person who's showing me another angle. It's really special.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, it is special. It's sort of like, I mean, Doug's giving you additional things to be sad about, more things that you could grieve. Sort of like he's expanding your grief, but he's also being another person to carry that grief with, alongside you and with you. Does that make sense?

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Yes. And it's absolutely bringing us closer.

BLAIR HODGES: Yes.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: That conversation, we have a new level of connectedness because I was able to see and hear more of those nuances. And that's something I love about the audio medium too, and why it was important to me to create a podcast, is I'm a storyteller. And I love allowing space for others to imagine and for others to set their imaginations in motion around what's happening in their life or what has happened or what might happen.

And when Doug was talking to me in that conversation, even with all the other guests in this season, I was very present in the conversation. And then as I reflected on it afterwards, I found myself with new imaginative thoughts. And so your point about expanding grief, or maybe it's saturating it a bit more.

I think that's part of it.

 

The Estate Sale – 19:18

 

BLAIR HODGES: And it's not the kind of saturation that has to drag you down either. There's something elevating about it that's really beautiful. Doug knew your parents for a long time, but you're also doing this with people who only briefly encountered your parents, and even one person who encountered them after the fact. I'm thinking about the estate sale.

So this is a woman who deals with estate sales. This is a practical thing that people kind of need to think about when we're losing parents, especially as we get older and are people who are going to lose parents and are going to have to worry about what to do with all this stuff.

I enjoyed that episode, to see you reckoning with what we do with possessions and belongings, what they mean to us, and also that there are other people who this is part of their life and careers, to interact with people. So I assume the estate sale person, she probably doesn't often get interviewed about her work by the people that she's working with. What did you find in your conversation with her?

AMELIA CHIARENZA: I think it's safe to say that that was a first for her.

BLAIR HODGES: Right.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: It was a first for me as well. That episode was—they were all very important for me to include. Those were important conversations that I wanted to have and that I wanted to share. That one in particular held an important place for me because of the significance of that process. It's more than a process, but that going through and that honoring of my parents' belongings, their beloved things.

And it also was important because I did have a belief that this is something that a lot of people, at some point in their life, once or more than once, will approach.

BLAIR HODGES: Mm-hmm.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: And they will have to do, or they will choose to do. And for me, I didn't know what that was like. I didn't understand the behind the scenes of it. And because it was such an opening of a door for me in terms of understanding what it could be and how she—her name's Michelle, and in that episode I speak to her, and she really, in working my parents' estate sale, opened up a whole new forest for me, really.

I think I reference in that episode, it was really scary. That was something I was really scared about. I had a lot of fear around it because of the emotion, because of the magnitude. My parents had a lot of things, and a lot of things that held so much meaning to them and for them.

BLAIR HODGES: So you're afraid it would hurt to help get rid of things, that it would be painful?

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Yes, I was afraid it would hurt. I was afraid of the hurt. I was afraid of the guilt I would feel for decisions that I would make.

BLAIR HODGES: Oh, that's that thing my mom loved, and someone's going to wind up with it for like $10 or something.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Right. I had fear about how to even do it. How does one go about this? And what is it like interacting with people who you didn't know a couple weeks ago or a few weeks ago? And so she was just amazing. She helped open up this whole new vantage point for me.

And it was important because of all those reasons I've stated. And I think it's also important because we can think about the environments we have around us and what we choose to have around us and the things that hold meaning for us, and why do they hold meaning? And how do we want to choose to pass them forward to someone else?

BLAIR HODGES: Mm-hmm.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: And I think we even talk about it in the episode, Michelle and I, around what's the space that you create? As a doula, there's work that I'll do around that, in terms of understanding what are some choices and desires that someone might have of what's that space that you want around you in these significant moments.

And so there are all these themes and threads in that episode around it, when it's from the foundation of this story around this estate sale and having to get rid of all these things. And your point around she wasn't someone who knew my parents in this life, but she's someone who knew my parents in the newness after their death.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: And that was something that was also so new, was to learn, gosh, she knows them. She gets them.

BLAIR HODGES: She had to go through all their stuff, help sort it, help organize it. It was the museum of their life, basically. She became a curator.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Yes, yes, she was a curator of it. Exactly.

 

The Work of a Death Doula – 24:06

 

BLAIR HODGES: It's an important episode. I think people that are going to be facing things like that would really benefit from listening to it.

You mentioned being a death doula. Let's talk more about that. I see some overlap between what Michelle was doing and the work of a death doula. Talk about what your work actually looks like.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: In our culture in the United States, when we say a phrase, "contemplate mortality," I have found that a lot of people think through, oh, having my affairs in order. Meaning, do I have my paperwork? Those are also very important and need to be part of this puzzle and part of this web. Doula work is more expansive than that.

And in contemplating death, in thinking through wishes, desires, wants, how those might change, what are priorities, it touches on all the spheres of our lives and isn't just focused on one piece of the puzzle.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, maybe give us some examples of what your work has looked like.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: An example is I had a woman I spoke with who was not ill. She was not staring into a life-altering diagnosis at the time. She was in her 70s, and she wanted to learn more about what other resources she could access when and if she gets ill.

She wanted help thinking through what were the most important things to articulate to her sons because she was struggling and she was challenged by how to have those conversations with her children about what she wanted as she aged. So as a doula, I have those conversations and ask questions, and there are exercises to do to help reveal that for her and to articulate those things.

BLAIR HODGES: Hmm.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: So that she feels like she's answering some of her questions and feels as though she's at a better place with what she's working to achieve.

Another example is a gentleman who has just received a diagnosis that is life-altering and has a slew of medical options in front of him, yet isn't quite sure if he wants to take one of those paths or not and wants to do some work to understand what does he really want in terms of quality of life as he moves forward?

And so as a doula, I can work with him and help him articulate and reveal what ultimately he would like to have happen.

BLAIR HODGES: As you're doing that work, do you find yourself emotionally going back to what you went through with your parents? Or on a professional level, how does the professional and personal overlap for you?

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Hmm. They're very much interconnected. I think that's a benefit and I think that's a positive. On my website, I talk about bringing my whole being to my work, and I think that's really important in serving as a doula. At the same time, what I will share is when I'm doing that work, I am very much there for that person.

And what I mean by that is I'm not thinking about my own personal experiences. I'm not reflecting on my best friend who died. I'm not making comparisons to what I've experienced. One thing that's really critical in the role is being highly tuned into the presence for that person in those moments and at any given moment.

And so a lot of the training and the work is around being fully ready to be in that place, and also recognizing what is the care, as a practitioner, I have to have for myself going into that space with a person or a family, and also coming out of that space with a person or a family.

I don't believe that it would be human to not be impacted by the lovely people with whom I get to work, of course, and I should have that. And while I'm doing the work and while I'm with them, it is fully around who they are in those moments and what is happening for them in those moments, if that makes sense.

BLAIR HODGES: It makes sense. I think your work can't help but be impacted by what you've personally experienced. But then on a professional level, when you're doing the work of a death doula, your personal experiences are more in the background because you're being present with the person that you're working with in that moment.

 

Between the Unique and the Universal – 29:32

 

BLAIR HODGES: Before we go, I wonder if you could offer up a key takeaway from your Cultivate Being work that kind of invites people to learn more about it?

AMELIA CHIARENZA: It's hard to pick one.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, it is.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: A key takeaway is I talk to people about this intersection of what's unique and what's universal, and recognizing that there's going to be all these unique qualities of what you experience and what you think of as you maybe listen to the podcast, unique things in your life, and then there's going to be a universality to the humanity of what we experience.

And to be reminded that that exists, that there's health in the unique qualities, and there's bounty in the universality of it.

BLAIR HODGES: The universality of it is what connects us to other people. And I think that's at the heart of the project. I personally think that our own being is inextricably connected to the people that we're with, that on a fundamental level, who we are is not completely separable from the people that we're with.

And I think Cultivate Being demonstrates that really beautifully. So thank you for creating it, and thanks for talking with me about it.

AMELIA CHIARENZA: Oh, thank you, Blair. It's a pleasure. You probably can tell it's a passion project, and I hoped at the outset of this that it would land, that it would resonate, that it would have impact, and that it would provide comfort. So thank you.

 

Outro – 31:12

 

BLAIR HODGES: Thanks for listening to this mini episode, and thanks to Amelia Chiarenza for joining us. Her career has spanned work in radio, NCAA Division I athletic coaching in rowing, and aerospace technology development. Now she spends her time as a speaker, podcast host, and death doula. She trained with INELDA, the International End-of-Life Doula Association.

Her book is called Recovered Alive. Her podcast is Cultivate Being, and you can learn more about her work at cultivatebeing.com.

If you're ready to spend a little bit more time with death right now, I also have a few fellow traveler episodes to recommend. Check out Anne Pinkerton's episode, "The Disenfranchised Grief of Sibling Loss," and also Maddie Norris's episode, "Dead Dads Club."

Our theme music is by Mates of State. I'm Blair Hodges in Salt Lake City, and I'll see you again soon on another episode of Relationscapes.