My mom, I would say my best friend.

Yeah.

She was my biggest cheerleader.

And she was somebody that was beloved by a lot of people who, It's it's it is.

It is also one of these things that was like nine years ago that she was diagnosed.

And you think about, oh, one more like this ever.

Just like when... is that going to just, soften?

She called me up and she's like, you know, I'm not coming out because I'm not doing well.

And a couple, a week later, she's like, I just got diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer.

And we're like, okay, I'm thinking, what is stage four?

And like, how many stages are there?

And flew out to be with her a week after that, and she was just in pain, super uncomfortable and.

Just trying to be there and be present.

Then try to assess how I can be supportive.

And that was the first time that I, had the opportunity to support somebody that was dying.

And I had zero skills.

How am I in my 50s?

And I have no idea what to do to support one of the most important people in my life.

Honestly, I naively walked away from that experience thinking, okay, we got a master class.

We, had, we had a master class and how to die with grace and clarity.

And and then when my dad's health started to change, and thought this should be easy, you know, because we've just all we've, we've all had this experience.

But what, what I did not realize is we all had this experience.

It was still our own unique experience, and we chose not to talk about it.

And but then I, like I leaned into my dad.

I'm like look.

I'm.

I'm concerned.

And he would not engage with me in any of these conversations.

And I was like, okay, if he dies or goes through the, if he dies when he dies, I don't know how to support him because he was not willing to talk to me about it.

And he would say, I'm pretty sure you and your sister will make all the right decisions when the time comes.

And I'm like, well, I don't know about that because we're pretty very opposite on a lot of big life things.

And I said, I feel that if you use that strategy, you're going to be you're going to be dying and dead, and we're going to have some really difficult times afterwards.

And that doesn't seem like that's fair, you know?

So help us help you.

It got me really curious where where do people go to talk about death and dying outside of a doctor's office or a religious institution?

And I started, you know, googling, like, where?

What?

Oh.

Okay, there's, there's there's opportunities to talk when you have a terminal diagnosis or a life limiting illness, but where do where do I go right now just to try to like, I, I don't want to catch up the and I have I have a daughter who's in her 30s is like, how do I how do we talk about these things?

She was not interested to talk to me.

And I was like, okay, so that's when I just started doing this deep dive and started just reading, listening, watching things about death and dying just to try to make sense of it.

I, I do I believed that there were more people than just me that were looking for something more upstream, and it was from there at all.

At that same time, I'm like, I think I have to do something different.

That's when I said, I think I want to start a club.

I, I think said nobody.

I want to start a club to talk about death.

And I joke with my dad and I just say, you know, dad, I started a social club to talk about death because of you.

And he's like, you're welcome.

And and it's true.

It is so true.

And I tell him, I go, let me let me expand on that.

If it was so easy to talk to you about, death and dying like it was mom.

I wouldn't be this.

I would be still oblivious.

This is easier for everybody.

So it's like, dad, you've given me a gift that you had no idea was, so important because it's opened up so many other things in my life.