Death and It's Impact - with Yvonne Caputo | Epi.19

[00:00:00] So the topic we're discussing today is death and its positive impact. When the listeners will be hearing this for the first time, they will be thinking, death, how can that have positive impacts? That will come to a surprise. Yvonne, I want to go. And I said, Mom, tell me. And she went into exactly what I said before. She was just ready.

[00:00:27] So what I said to her was, what I said to my father when he was in the active stage of dying, I will miss you. I think I understand. Talk to God. Between the two of you, decide when it's time.

[00:00:45] Right. So my passion is for those of us who are still alive to provide those things for our children and our loved ones, because when the end comes, and it will, it makes the road so much easier. And children, if your parents come to you and say, I've got these documents, I want to sit down with you. Do it.

[00:01:11] My best friend did it with her daughter, and both of them said it was one of the most intimate things that they had ever done as a mother and daughter. Be tuned into the active action podcast. Step into a world of engaging conversations with leading experts, where every episode is your chance to learn, grow, and stay inspired.

[00:01:41] Become our premium supporter and get access to expert articles and strategy guides on personal and professional development, and enjoy lots of other exclusive features. Visit our website, activeaction.fm for more information and to explore all episodes. Don't forget to check our merchandise for exciting goodies at activeaction.shop. Now sit back, relax, and enjoy this episode.

[00:02:06] Hello, welcome back to another episode of the active action podcast. It's me, your host, Dr. Naziv back with you again. Today, I wanted to talk to you about a very unique topic, big shout out and a huge appreciation to all our listeners who are sticking with us and listening to our episodes regularly. Just want to let you know that we did start premium supporters program for the active action podcast.

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[00:03:28] So today, we'll be talking about death and its positive impact. And we have with us Yvonne K. Capito. Good morning, Yvonne. How are you doing this morning? I am fine and good morning to you and your listeners. Thank you so much, Yvonne. So dear listeners, Yvonne has been a teacher and she taught in Erie, Pennsylvania public schools for 18 years.

[00:03:57] She has also been the vice president of human resource at the retirement community and a corporate trainer and consultant and a psychotherapist. She has a master's degree in education and clinical psychology. Yvonne is an author, psychotherapist, trainer, and a teacher all together. Well, what you said reminds me just something that has gone on since I was a little kid.

[00:04:26] And that was, I love to learn. So I just kept going back to school and going back to school and going back to school. And it all proved in hindsight to be pretty providential. Okay. Hmm. Thank you for that quick introduction, Yvonne. So the topic we're discussing today is death and its positive impact.

[00:04:54] Like when the listeners will be hearing this for first time, they will be thinking, death, how can that have positive impacts? Will that will come them to a surprise though? So when I was going through the topic and the questions, I was surprised that death and positive impacts, how can they go by together? Do you have any quick thoughts on that? Well, yes, because it happened with my dad.

[00:05:20] And dad and I had very intimate conversations about death and dying. And dad was really very clear about when the aid came, that he would like it to go a certain way. And we made our conversations legal. And I was fortunate enough that dad called me on the phone in January of 2009 and said, can you come home? I'm afraid.

[00:05:50] And I said, I'll be in the car in the morning. And I arrived at my child's home. And two and a half hours later, my father was gone. And it happened exactly the way I wanted it to. And the way he wanted it to. Dad said that he wanted to go feet first out of his own home.

[00:06:14] Now, what that meant was that he was going to die at his beloved home and be carried out of the home. And it's what happened. And I was able to get in touch with the hospital where dad had been a couple of weeks ago. I was able to call them and say, hey, things aren't looking good.

[00:06:40] Can you please get dad's do not resuscitate order over to the hospital? They're bringing him in. At that point, I thought they were going to take him in. Well, as what I call grace would have it, the emergency room doctor called the EMTs who were working on dad and said, you can stop. And because he said that, I was able to lay down beside my father.

[00:07:10] Tell him that I loved him. Tell him that he was going where he wanted to go, which was to be with my mother. Told him that I would miss him like crazy. And then I did what was the glue in our family. I said the Lord's prayer. And he was gone. And I had to go down to the emergency room. So I was going to follow the ambulance.

[00:07:38] And when I went out, now this is western Pennsylvania, northwestern Pennsylvania. And the snow is coming down an inch an hour. And they had the ambulance doors open. So the light was shining on my father's face. And there was this warm, sweet smile. A smile I will never forget. And the EMTs looked at me like I'd lost any marble that I might have had.

[00:08:06] And I said to them, you just did what my father wanted. He wanted to come feet first out of his own home. So having had those conversations with Dad, he trusted me to take care of him in the most sacred of ways. And that was his very last journey. So when I think of that night, do I miss him?

[00:08:36] Absolutely. Can I cry the drop of a hat? Sure. But there is this sacred joy that I feel every time I think of my father. And that's because we had those conversations. And that's because we made them legal. And because he really, ultimately trusted me to do what I said I would do.

[00:09:01] Thank you so much, Yvonne, for sharing that perspective and sharing that journey with us. I can realize how you were feeling at that time. But also how parents mean to us. And it's a very, very difficult time. But how you maintain your composure as a person is commendable given how much you loved your parents.

[00:09:26] A very difficult thing to do and a rare trait to find in someone to have that composed. And listening to the wishes of your dad. I want to ask you something. When this situation was happening. So how did you come to have these conversations about death and dying based on that time? I worked in a retirement community. And I loved my job. I was on the ethics committee.

[00:09:55] And we had a case where there was a woman who was deep in the stages of dementia. So she could no longer speak for herself. She had some really severe medical issues. And her daughter did not want us to treat those medical issues. The woman did have what's called an advanced directive. Okay.

[00:10:20] And that's that legal document that says what someone wants when the end comes. The problem with her legal document was that it was from another state. The other state recognized quality of life. And the state of Pennsylvania didn't recognize that. So our retirement community was in a bind. Legally, we couldn't honor the daughter's wishes.

[00:10:49] And what ended up happening is that the case went to court. And the court appointed someone other than the daughter to allow for whatever medical treatment was deemed necessary. If that medical treatment didn't work. All right. And it would have been medical treatment that would have kept the woman more comfortable. It wouldn't have changed the outcome.

[00:11:16] It just would have meant she would be in less pain and were comfortable. If it didn't work, then the daughter could take over and say no more medical treatment. Just let mom go. When I sat through that meeting, I thought about my dad. What did dad want? What did the state of Pennsylvania require?

[00:11:37] How in the world could we set something up so that for the most part, we could assure that dad could go in the way that he deemed that he wanted. So I called dad and I said to him, do you have an advance directive? He had his will done. He had everything set up, but he had never heard of an advance directive. So I explained what it was.

[00:12:04] And I said, if I can find an attorney to draw that, I'll come home and we can go together. Is that okay with you? And he said, yes. So he and I sat at an attorney's desk and went through all the necessary items. The document was signed and we were ready to go. And this was six years before dad passed away.

[00:12:29] So that's how I knew that something needed to be done because I watched something happen where the document wasn't recognized in our state. So I didn't want that to happen to dad. Thank you so much for sharing that Yvonne really thought provoking and like how that actually inspired you that even to think about those things that you went through and beyond.

[00:13:01] I know Yvonne, you're an author and you have a couple of very wonderful books. And one of them is about your father conversations that you had with her. The flying with dad. The book is about the conversations that you had with him about he telling you the stories of World War Two and about your relationship with you and your father.

[00:13:26] Can I ask you this question that your book is about the conversation with your father? So what actually prompted those? It was a spur of the moment thing. Dad and I talked every week on the phone, maybe twice a week. I live on the other side of the state. And we would talk about his medical treatments. We would talk about in-home care. We would talk about medical reports.

[00:13:55] We would talk about food. We would talk about all that kind of stuff. But when it came to anything else, the conversation would lag. I'm not a sports fan, so I couldn't get into the Steelers or the Pirates or any of that kind of stuff.

[00:14:11] But on one night, it was January of 2008, he told me this funny, quirky, off-the-wall story about making an emergency landing in a B-24 in Belgium toward the end of the war. Now, you wouldn't think that an emergency landing would be a funny story, but it turned out to be. The landing was safe. They were safe. And beyond that, the story was fun.

[00:14:41] He'd never talked about the war. And I don't know what spurred him to do it, but I'm a lover of history. So when Dad was telling me the story, I said, Dad, give me a second. Let me get a pencil and paper. His exact words were, what the hell do you want to do that for? My response was, gee, this is really good. Let me write it up. This is probably something the family would like to have.

[00:15:11] So the very next phone call, I said to Dad, if you're willing, start at the beginning. How did you get into the war? And story after story after story just started rolling off his tongue. And I took notes. And there were times that he told me things that I didn't believe. So I would do some research because he was 85 years old.

[00:15:38] Did he remember it exactly the way he told the story? And I'll give you an example. He did basic training at Miami Beach. And they were billeted in hotels. And they did the morning calisthenics and all that kind of stuff on the beach itself. Well, Dad needed to use the latrine. So he gets over to the latrine.

[00:16:04] He's so weak that when he drops his pants to go, he falls into the latrine. The soldiers came and picked him up out of the latrine and threw him in the ocean and took him to the hospital. Dad said he was treated with arsenic. And arsenic's a poison. And I said, no way. What about penicillin?

[00:16:30] He said, it was arsenic, just little bits of it, enough to kill the bacteria. And lo and behold, he was absolutely right. At the time he was in Miami, penicillin had been developed by the British, but it was so expensive. And they were in the midst of a war that they couldn't mass produce it. So their scientists came to the United States.

[00:16:56] And with our help, penicillin became a very inexpensive drug. So that's how our conversations went. And the more that I took down in terms of notes, this was only intended for the family. I thought. And then I thought, wait a minute. I think I have a book. My dad's stories were so unique.

[00:17:23] They were the personal stories of an ordinary G. He wasn't in any of the major battles. It was just these day-to-day, sometimes pretty awful things that he experienced. That's true. And so I just started putting it all together. And that's how flying with dad came to be. Now, the side part for your audience is, prior to the working on the book, dad and I weren't close.

[00:17:54] Not in the way I wanted to be. I wanted us to be talking about real, live, emotional kinds of things. And that's not a place that he was comfortable. By the time we finished all of the necessary stuff for the book, I had the dad I always wanted. And he got the daughter that he didn't know he had. We became close in a way that I always wanted to be close with him.

[00:18:25] So flying with dad is the first section is about our family life so that readers can get a sense of what that distance was like between dad and I. Mm-hmm . The second part of the book is dad's story in his voice. And when my publisher asked me to rewrite that section, I thought, how am I supposed to do that? To write it in dad's voice.

[00:18:51] I have all the letters that my father wrote to my mother during war. Mm-hmm . So I was able to read and reread those and then come up with dad's voice. The third part of the book is how the writing of the book was the bridge for dad and I to become a father and a daughter in a whole new way.

[00:19:19] Thank you so much for that very unique and wonderful perspective you've earned and that wonderful story about your dad. That I would really encourage our listeners to check that book out of the flying with dad. If you want to know the stories of an ordinary person that went through it, World War II, what actually happened during those days, those very, very unique and wonderful stories. And also you don't get to hear them often.

[00:19:47] So this is a wonderful opportunity for you to know about those by the wonderful and unique writing of Yvonne. So the book's name is flying with dad. And I urge you to check that out. And thank you so much Yvonne again for sharing that wonderful story with us. Those stories, those unique perspectives about the World War II and writing those in your books. I'm sure my audience would get to learn a lot about that era from your book.

[00:20:16] Coming back again to the topic Yvonne, I wanted to ask, you mentioned about talking about the death and dying. These are difficult conversations Yvonne. So can I ask you, talking about death and dying, although it's difficult, how did you get beyond that difficulty? Back again at the retirement community.

[00:20:41] I was the head of human resources and my personal thought was my door needed to be open all the time. I should be available to the employees. Well, I was up on the third floor, which was also a wing that had residence. And that open door meant that they could come in. And we became friends. Some of the residents became friends.

[00:21:10] And as a part of that friendship, they started telling me things that they just wanted to voice. And oftentimes what they wanted to voice was, I just want to go. And what I learned to do with them is something that comes from being a teacher and comes from being a psychotherapist.

[00:21:36] If someone says something that deep, that personal, that's time for me to sit back and listen. And so I would say, what makes you say that? Tell me about it. And they would get into, and it was usually, I'm tired. I hurt all the time. I've lost my spouse. My friends are dying.

[00:22:05] I've done all of the things that I've wanted to do, or I haven't done things I've wanted to do. I'm just ready. And so oftentimes that will happen, even for younger folks who have critical illnesses. Right. It gets to the point where what looks good to them is letting go.

[00:22:32] And so that's where I learned to be comfortable with it, was just listening to people who wanted to talk about it. I never got the sense that what they were saying was suicidal. It was that they were talking about an eventuality and actually this happened with my mother. I went home one Sunday when I was still living on the other side of the state.

[00:23:01] And she was in pain all the time. She sat in a recliner and watched TV. She could take care of herself. Her memory was slipping and she knew it. She knew that dementia was encroaching. And she, I was watching TV with her and she said to me, Yvonne, I want to go. And I said, Mom, tell me.

[00:23:29] And she went into exactly what I said before. She was just ready. So what I said to her was, what I said to my father when he was in the active stage of dying, I will miss you. I think I understand. Talk to God. Between the two of you, decide when it's time.

[00:23:55] And because of the dementia, she sat back and was thoughtful for a couple of minutes. And then she looked at me and she said it again, Yvonne, I want to go. So I just listened and said the same kind of thing. So that's pretty much the history of how it happened for me. Okay, Yvonne, that's a deep and thoughtful perspective.

[00:24:23] And also having those conversations to begin with in the retirement community, with the residents, they mentioned that they think it's time for them to go. And then again, having that same experience exactly in your house with your mom. Actually, there's lots of food for thought. And what you said is about people having, whether your category is that as the lost hope or they don't have anything more to achieve.

[00:24:48] And having these thoughts of going back to God and having either fulfilled their life in this world or losing hope in this world. Many people today think about dying that might come from losing hope or having fulfilled their duties with the world.

[00:25:08] But people who have these thoughts, especially if these are among young children or young people that who have more to offer, do you have any advice for them who goes through these suicidal thoughts or others? One of the things a psychotherapist does is to find out what's making them hopeless.

[00:25:32] Any young person who talks about dying needs to get professional help. And that professional help needs to be ongoing. I had an experience with a student when I was teaching. And here's a 12 year old who's saying to me, I think about my life and what good am I? I've not done anything. I've not added any value.

[00:26:02] So listening to that and, and just asking questions. But again, if as even as a teacher, if I heard any kind of suicidal ideation, I picked up the phone and called the parents. And I told students that this is something that I have to do. To make sure that the parents knew so that those students could get the assistance that they needed.

[00:26:29] As a teacher, I couldn't, I couldn't do that kind of work. It needed to be done by a professional. So that's the answer that I have. Anytime that a parent hears it or a teacher hears it, take it seriously. Take it seriously and make sure that the child gets or the young person gets the help that they need.

[00:26:54] So, I want to ask you again, Yvonne, when these students came to you and they talked about this, did you ask them why they're thinking this way or what was the issue? Was that stress of their education or something personal? Because having thought of dying is one of the biggest stages of losing hope when you don't have any hope with this world.

[00:27:20] I just want to ask you that question because maybe that might be beneficial to the young adults and the audience of this podcast. If they have similar thoughts, like how can they overcome those and even take support from the parents, which actually many hesitate to do these days. But can I have your thoughts on that?

[00:27:45] My hesitancy is that I haven't worked with someone young like that for a long, long time. Okay. Hmm. But if someone right now, a youngster told me that, I would do what I said I was going to do. And that's that you're telling me that you don't have a lot of hope. You're telling me that you're fearful of things. You're telling me that you're anxious about stuff.

[00:28:12] And it's serious enough that I'm going to reach out and let your parents know. And, and it would be an ongoing thing professionally for somebody to see someone to be able to talk about it. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And the one thing I do want to say is that sometimes people think if they talk about death and dying, they're encouraging the person to do it.

[00:28:42] And that's not the case. Um, you can't encourage somebody to do it. What someone who's young or even an older person, if they're saying something like that, it's being open to listening to what they have to say. And making sure that they get the help that they need. Mm hmm. Very, very important message to take away.

[00:29:10] Dear listeners, if you're having similar thoughts, I really encourage you to consult with someone, right? Even less to talk to your parents because your parents might not know what's going on in your life. Parents can be our best friends. So maybe reaching out to them would be a wonderful decision that you're not making yet. And for, for everyone, 988 is a crisis line.

[00:29:37] It is, uh, the suicide and crisis lifeline. Maybe the young person isn't comfortable talking to their parents. So picking up the phone and using that 988, there is a person on the other end who's trained to listen. And trained to help. Thank you so much for that information, Yvonne. I'm sure the listeners would find that useful.

[00:30:06] So the number is 988. It's a suicide and crisis line. Again, so if you're having your thoughts and you're hesitant to reach out to your parents or a loved one to discuss those, please reach out in the suicide and crisis line of 988. You have someone experienced waiting for you to listen to you and, uh, potentially providing some advice. So please leverage that.

[00:30:32] Um, I wanted to like ask you, Suzanne, that you mentioned that having these conversations with your residents and your students about death and dying actually changed your grief journey. How did that actually happen?

[00:30:46] I think a variety of ways, knowing that I could be of support to a student, knowing that they were comfortable coming and sharing your journey. And a lot of times it wasn't anything as serious as in suicide. It was just, they needed some guidance. They needed somebody to talk to.

[00:31:15] And being helpful in that way has always just made me feel good. Just made me feel good that I could be there for somebody. I had a history where I didn't always feel that I had that somebody. And I know how isolating and lonely that can feel. The second thing is what I talked about a little bit before.

[00:31:46] When I was with my father and he was actively dying and I could do the things that needed to be done so that his wishes can be honored. That's joyful. It's joyful to know that he trusted me. It's joyful to know that he gave me the gift. It's joyful that I was able to honor that gift.

[00:32:16] Are there times when I just miss him? I would love to have him. One more pot roast dinner. Then I'll cook that pot roast dinner for dad. And we can sit and chat because I've got more questions for him that I didn't ask. And that I would like to know. But at the same time, honoring his wishes, there's nothing better than that.

[00:32:47] Thank you so much for sharing that wonderful words of wisdom. I really encourage my listeners like the precious time you have with your parents. Just cherish them. You don't know when they would not be around you. So very important thing to remember the time you have your parents. Just cherish them. And Yvonne said how these conversations actually changed her grief journey and how she got strength.

[00:33:15] And now she's constantly reminded by the wonderful moments. And she has many questions for her dad, which she would really like to ask him. But also have dinner with her dad is exactly the same feeling, dear listeners, that we actually go through when we don't have our parents with us or a loved one with us. So while you have that, cherish that moment. Very precious.

[00:33:42] And it won't come back because just time really flies fast. Well, if I can say too, I recently talked to a book club and these are all folks that read Blind Dad. And that's a lot of fun when somebody's read the book. And there were three young people in the audience and they hadn't spoken up or commented. So the teacher in me called on them.

[00:34:11] And one young lady, I said, what was it about the book? And she said, well, I just love history. And I particularly like World War II. And your stories were, your dad's stories were so interesting. And then the other young lady said, I was thinking all the way through the book. What a wonderful relationship I had with my father. I have with my father. And it just made me appreciate my dad all that much more.

[00:34:37] The third young lady said, I don't have a really good relationship with my dad. But your book has made me want to have a better one. So I am finding time for dad and I to just hang. Mm hmm. For an author or for a teacher, life doesn't get any better than that.

[00:35:03] When you put that spark in one person to do something that they hadn't necessarily thought of doing. Mm hmm. For sure. I really encourage the listeners to check out this book, Flying with Dad. That will provide you not only with some wonderful World War II stories, but also it will have food for thoughts like how you can cherish the moments you have with your parents.

[00:35:30] And just by going through the wonderful journey that Yvonne went with her father is really, really precious. And I'm sure like you will get to learn a lot about not only one World War II, but also how to build this wonderful bond with parents and how to instill that and keep that going while they are with you.

[00:35:51] Also, if you are having any difficulties with grief, if you're thinking about that and you need someone to help out to, I also encourage you to reach out to Yvonne. And you can definitely do that if you go to our website, activeaction.fm and search Yvonne's name. So you will find her web page. So there are links to her socials and contacts. So if you do want to reach out to her, feel free to do that.

[00:36:16] Also, if you have any questions for her, you can also shoot me an email and I'll send that to Yvonne as well. A follow up here too, for your audience is there's a document called the five wishes and it's an advanced directive. It's $5, which is not expensive at all. It's legal. I believe in 42 states. It goes deeper than a normal advanced directive.

[00:36:45] So I said to my dad, how do you want to be remembered? What do you want your children to know? What kind of a funeral do you want? Do you want to be cremated or do you want to be buried? So all of those intimate questions, I also knew about dad. My five wishes is done. My advanced directive is done. I have open conversations with my children when necessary about what I want.

[00:37:13] So my passion is for those of us who are still alive to provide those things for our children and our loved ones, because when the end comes, and it will, it makes the road so much easier. Thank you so much for providing that information. And I'll encourage my audience to check those out. We are very at the end of our podcast, Yvonne. I just wanted to ask you one last question.

[00:37:43] Do you want to want our listeners to know and do from your thoughts and perspective and wonderful experience? Just what I said in the last statement. Go to an attorney, go to five wishes.org, get the document, fill it out and share it with your children. And children, if your parents come to you and say, I've got these documents, I want to sit down with you. Do it. My best friend did it with her daughter.

[00:38:13] And both of them said it was one of the most intimate things that they had ever done as a mother and daughter. Wonderful. Thank you so much again for your time this morning and sharing your wonderful stories about your father. We got to know about your book and the perspective of death.

[00:38:31] And it has impacts and also some very important information like the 988 crisis line and what people need to do when they have these thoughts and how parents and children can support one another. I wish you a very good luck with your journey. Thank you for having me. Dear listeners, if you have learned anything new from this episode, do let us know. Your feedback is really valuable.

[00:38:59] Also, I would urge you to check out Yvonne's web page in our website if you want to get in touch with her. Apart from that, if you did find value to our episode and also to the other episodes of the podcast, I do urge you to provide a virtual tip in our tip chart that you can do in www.activeaction.fm.com. So that was everything for today.

[00:39:26] I encourage you to stay active and take action until we come up with the next episode. Take care, everyone. Thank you for joining us on the active action podcast at activeaction.fm. We hope today's episode gave you some entertainment, fresh perspectives and a little extra motivation to take action in your own life. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

[00:39:53] And if you enjoyed the show, share it with someone who might love it too. Oh, one more thing. Become our premium supporter and get access to expert articles and strategy guides on personal and professional development. And enjoy lots of other exclusive features. Get started for free. Visit our website activeaction.fm.com for more information. Take care, stay active and take action. Take care, stay active and close to my friends and care. Thank you. Bye.