Endings With Special Guest Michelle Trieste

Yeah, it's time for a virtual campfire sit down with Terry Weiss. Welcome to Weiss Thoughts. Hey, everybody, welcome back to Wife's Thoughts. I'm Terry Weiss. Thanks for joining us for our virtual Campfires sit down today. And we got a special guest on the podcast today. She is a unique individual, to say the least. She provides end of life counseling. She's a voiceover artist and a freelancer and an entrepreneur. We're going to welcome to the program, Michelle Triest. Michelle, how are you great? Terry? And I did say your last name right? Pretty good. It's a good test or some people say Trieste like sad, so oh well, no, we're not sad. Well how are you? How are you doing today? Great? Great? Thank you? Northeast? Yeah, now you're in what part of the northeast Connecticut? Connecticut? Ah? Okay, we're in New York, so we're east Enders, right, we're Eastern Nice. I love New York. So let's just jump right into it, shall we. How did you get started a little bit about you and your journey that has brought you here? Ultimately, what brought me here was I ride a motorcycle, and a lot of people always ask me, aren't you afraid of dying? And I say no, I'm not. For me, whether I'm on my motorcycle or taking time out to fill up my cup at a monastery, I love to you at a monasteries. It doesn't matter if it's Buddhist, Christian. It's one of those places. Those two places is where I can be in the same rhythm of being close to life and death. And I think that's where you are closest to yourself and closer to everything else around you by being in that chasm. So but I lost my fear of death a while ago. That's when I had gone through escaping an abusive relationship. So yeah, just looking at all my history, the things that I've been through, and the jobs that I've been in, I just found that this was a good place for me to be and being with people that are going through grief or now I'm taking death Duela courses just to be with people in the most vulnerable place so they can learn what exactly is a death duela? What is that encompass Because a lot of people haven't heard that term, and and I must admit I hadn't really never heard that term. I've heard of and a lot of people probably heard of things like hospice care or maybe even end of life preparation. But what exactly is a death doula, right, So like a birth doula, like my younger daughter had a birth doula when she had a baby, which is someone who's there with you and helps you breathe as you bring someone into this life just to care for you and be with you so you're never alone, and you let the and you bring that life. In a death doula is you are holding the hand of someone as they are ready to leave this plane and transition. And what it does is it gives the family members a break as well, because someone can't be there with that person their loved one all the time. And so death duela is someone that hopefully has time to meet with that person when they're on hospital. Typically they have the doctor has let them know and there's nothing else we can do. If you want to extend your life, some people just don't want to, and they prepare and welcome whatever time they have left, and they want more quality of life than extension of life. So either way, you're a death duel and you meet with that person with the family, find out what it is they would like the end to look like, and then you honor that and you make sure that when the family members they have to leave the room or there's gaps where someone can't be there, you can be there for that person and let everyone know okay, things are getting close, and honor what they want for their vigil and then you help and the grief process a while as well, before, during, and after, right. I think a lot of that too. What you've just covered here and and information provided during the pandemic, you saw and heard a lot of things on the news about, you know, people who had family, friends and relatives in nursing homes, hospice care that were prevented from being with them, and even a lot of people that were maybe at that final stage of their life's journey were prevented from that final opportunity to share those final moments and make their transition easier. So I think definitely what you're talking about providing is make it makes it easier, I guess for someone to handle that both parties. Yeah, yeah, the person that's getting ready to leave. Some are more at peace with it than others. Some people have regrets or things that they want to share with the world. They don't want to just feel like they just disappeared where they never got to share with the community, not only their loved ones, their family, because some people are single, right or they don't have family around them, and they want to be able to share those words of wisdom or experience or regrets with others. So that's where as a Duela, you could be there to offer those hands and the years right comfort comfort totally. Yeah, because hospice. So I'm volunteering as a hospice volunteer as well. That's where I volunteer. But there's only so much time you can be there with someone. So Adula is someone that is brought in and brought in by the family or the individual. Yeah, I know, I know when we were speaking earlier in the week about you know, doing this episode here in White's thoughts, and we were just kind of getting to know each other a little better in that I had mentioned and we had talked about a great length that Western society. You know, I think the mindset of the general population is we're going to live forever, and a lot of us are caught off guard even when we know either the end for ourselves or one of our loved ones or you know, close companions is coming. I think there's a lot of fear there still, or a lot of different feelings because again, I know, when I was younger, in my twenties and even in my thirties, I'm like, ah, I'm going to live forever. You know, no, nothing's going to say. And now that I hit midlife, you know, I'm looking and I'm like, Okay, there's a lot of time that has passed, but I know there's still a lot of time forward. But we're kind of in the middle of that journey. And just like anything else in life, you know, you prepare for retirement. You have health insurance, you have auto insurance, you know, life insurance, everything. I think that it's wise to prepare yourself, both financially and spiritually for the last half or quarter of your journey, don't you think exactly, Terry. I'm fifty seven and I have grandchildren. My fourth one is coming upulation thank you and fund the time. Hey, that's why I was gonna get pregnant twenty one and cons I couldn't go to the bars. But now I get to ride my motorcycle. Right good. Yeah, So I think that this point in my life, with the fourth one coming, I want to be there more for HER's, which is different. She's a working mom, she already has one, and it's hard working from home and having a little babe a second one. They're only going to be fifteen months apart. So I want to be able to be there for her two days a week. Right now, I help her one day a week, but I want to be able to help her two days a week. And I want to be able to go and advocate to other people about being aware of preparing for the end. I've spent a majority of my life helping people prepare for As a financial advisor, I would help people prepare for having children, for retirement taxes, financial planning and itself is in arts and understanding the benefits that they have. And the closest I got to death was life insurance, and the closest I got to having people helping them prepare for not being able to wash and bathe. What they call the ADLs is long term care, and I've had long term care since I was thirty sorry, twenty eight years old, So yeah, I realized that a long time ago that it's important. Did you find it was a natural transition to go from a financial planner to an end of life planner? You know, yes, because so that financial planning part was the beginning. And then I've always even as my children were growing up, I always made sure I took time to volunteer. So in my volunteering, that's where I built up through different groups. So whether it was church, I would help with confirmation, I would help with creating small group ministry, so I saw what community meant to support each other. And then I became Stephen minister. That's when you're a lay person trained to be there all across different religions, it doesn't matter. So I would be a Stephen Minister and I would meet with individuals day once a week up to two years and just do deep listening with them and help them as they struggled through losing a loved one to death, or going through divorce, losing a job, so help them move through their grief and bereavement. So that part I did. But the piece I was missing now at this stage of my life is I really appreciate right now everything is as a sandwich generation right where we're meeting new life with the end of life because our parents or mentors that we've always looked up to are leaving, and so I'm like, I need to embrace that, and I need to honor those people and what they need to me. And I know there's so many people that want to be there for those too. So that's why the death duela is a key component because I didn't I didn't grow up learning about finance, and I never grew learning about how to be there for someone who's who's about to leave. So ill to be able to honor that and teach other people and share with other people. Yeah, basically you know myself, and it might have been your journey too growing up. Is you know, when a grandparent passed away, or friends of our family or what have you. Either, you know, unexpectedly we learned to deal with that in under the cloud of well we mimicked what mom and dad were doing, or you talked to your parents about it, and that I lost a good friend of mine when I was thirteen years old, and I remember my grandmother when she was alive. At the time, I was really broken up about it. In fact, he was tragically him and another child from my school were tragically killed by someone who was driving at night, swerved on the side of the road and hit them from behind. And I was actually supposed to go with them to walk to this store that evening to get a hockey stick, and my parents, my mother said no, you're not going, and I remember being pissed off at her and saying, why ain't you gonna let me go? You know, So there's a little bit of thinking about mind of divine intervention. It wasn't my time because the next morning when I got up and came down for breakfast, Dad had the newspaper, remember newspapers back in the day, and he put down the newspaper and he says, you know, Terry, sit down, and he says, I got to have a talk with you. And I thought I was in trouble for something. You know, when Dad says we got to have a talk, it's you're in trouble. But he said, last night, your friend Scott and another boy unfortunately were killed walking to the store. And he slid the newspaper over to me and it was basically second page news in our town, and I was just remember that that feeling of all the energy just being drained right out of me, and I just stood there with my mouth agape, and I didn't even cry for the first five minutes, and they were just staring at me, and all these thoughts I can remember at that time being that young racing through my head of oh my god, he's dead. Andy's applicky, you know, he was the other boy. He's dead. And then my third thought was if I would have went, I could have been dead, and I was. And then then the emotion came and they tried to console me, but I remember, you know, I was really broken up. I mean I didn't go to school for like almost a week. And I remember on the second or third day, my mom said, hey, your grandmother's on the phone, her mother. He wants to talk to you. And my grandmother imparted words that were really comforting to me, you know, and she said, honey, you know, the good Lord calls you when it's your time. And it was Scott's time and this other you know boy, Andy's time. They've done everything they were here to do, and we don't know the plan they might have suffered in their life or something tragic, you know, where they were going to suffer terrible pain, or something that there was a reason. There's always a reason, and we don't know the reason, but know that they're not suffering anymore. They are, you know, in the so is, you know the Catholic faith. You know they're with Jesus, they're in paradise. They are not suffering, and they're looking down upon us, or they're looking at us now and saying, don't cry, we grieve because they're not going to be here present with us to talk to face to face, what have you. They're in a different they're in a different place. And I found those words, you know, as I listened to them, I really found myself being comforted by them because someone took the time to a just listen and be try to put in perspective the situation and and so I think that's that goes a long way. And then the serve, you know, the services and the comfort that you can offer as well to people, because I think a lot of us are just unprepared exactly exactly in America. You know, more I look back at all this and read on everything, I realize even before I read it. Sometimes we just know something intuitively and just get it confirmed that here in America, we think we know so much. But we're such a young country and we have we tore ourselves away from our roots and traditions. We don't have really any we don't have many, like I always say, and when you look at religion. I was just at a death cafe the other night. I never heard of those. Wait wait, wait, hang on, hang on, stop stop time out. A death cafe, Hey, Bill, you want to go down to the deaf cafe. It's two for one night. What is a death death? Death? I've never heard of that yet. We'll talk about the universe and God. I had. I leaving a job, yeah, a full time job. I'm going into just working solo now, just speaking two groups. And and so someone and my old job recommended this book. It's called The Collected Regrets of Clover. If you can see this, and it's a fiction book. And can you believe this young lady who wrote this book. She mentions a death cafe. She really did her homework. And just the day before I had seen a local death cafe. Everyone should go check it out. Like people, just talk about what you and I are just talking about right now. We just talk about what our experiences. It's not a grief a bereavement group. So a young lady, Kate Malson here in Connecticut was holding a death cafe. So I went, and it is placed. It's all over the place, Like just google up death cafe. There's a website and you can just go and people share their experiences. Now, is this like a pop up place or is it an actual brick and mortar like if you go down to your local Starbucks. Is this a building that is always there? No, No, it's they're just kind of one offs. OK. So there's people that are facilitators I see, and they hold death cafes in every state, in every state. So if you got to get on the Google, then I have never heard. And it's so interesting. Yes, there's actually a lady I met there and name was Jan and she helps people deal with the loss of their pets. Oh yeah, I know that means huge. So you just go and you can share what your experiences are, what your what your thoughts are, and what have you thought about your own endings? Yeah? Oh well, well, speaking of speaking of pets, I mean that's always hit me hard, pets and sometimes yeah, maybe a little shame to say more than certain people in my life that have passed. Sure, because because pets. You know, I've heard it said pets offer they're the closest thing you can get to God. And that's a saying I've heard and I really have taken that to heart and experienced it in my life throughout the years. Is because they offer unconditional love. They don't care if you're overweight, underweight, tall, short, ugly, beautiful, make one hundred thousand, three hundred thousand dollars a year or five bucks a year. They just give you love. That's all you take care to And all they say is take care of me, treat me with respect and love. And I give that to you unconditionally. And sometimes we don't even treat them that way and they still give it back to exactly. They're always there, you know. I mean, I got to turn off those commercials on TV with uh is it Sarah McLaughlan with the and they show the animals. I'm like, come on, you and the camera crew. You can give them a sandwich or something and give them something. You'll give them some food, you know, and stuff like that. Really, you know, gets to me. But that's another Now, can people come to years to you for things like that too as well, or is it more towards actual people like people but if someone so what I do. What I'm focusing on is going and speaking to groups, whether it be in people's place of work, because, like you said, after COVID, much more awareness now of which if something good came out of it, that would be it. That's one of the actually exactly. So what I'm doing is going to companies and asking them, would you like to expand on your support for your employees so they can be aware of end of life. As a financial advisor, I used to go and talk about estate planning, investments, insurances, you know, the whole gamut. And so now what I feel that we're missing is to be taught not only financial, but how to prepare for end of life, you know, for yourself and for others that you love or your neighbors your name. Yeah, absolutely, and I'm looking to do to focus on March and move it moving forward. That's going to be one hundred percent what it'll be folkun And these are definitely important conversations that need to be had because you know, when me and my wife went to our attorneys some years ago and did our last will and our health proxies and our wishes, et cetera. You know, we also had the conversation about, hey, when one of us goes, if one goes before the other, do you want a funeral, do you want to wake? Do you want to be cremated? Do you want to have just a memorial surface? Things like that, right, Because again, these are things that have to be talked about, we kind of just push them to the side and say, eh, you know, that's a conversation for another day. But that day comes eventually, and you want to be prepared as much as you can. And you mentioned something interesting a few moments ago about you know, the West, our Western culture really having no culture per se when it comes to end of life, And we talked about the traditions, right, and we talked about too, I remember we talked about a few days ago. Eastern culture they seem to have it because of just maybe the rich history of their civilization out there that you know, they know, they respect elders, they care for the elders, they're there with them and probably a good majority of the cases to see them off and yeah, make the transfer like the Buddhists. The Buddhists have a monk that sit with the dying person and even as they and they start to read from I think it's the the Book of Death, and so they help that soul make that transfer and to back into back into the ultimate place we all came from. So whether your Christian bodd is is that your alarm going off? Yeah, that's okay. I hope there ain't no smoke or anything. Dinner's done. Well, do you find I don't know about you, Michelle, but do you find I'm finding that more people you know that in my circle are moving away from the traditional go to the funeral parlor, have awake funeral too, having like maybe an intimate private service for immediate family if they even go that far with a traditional funeral director or funeral parlor. Two more of we're gonna take care of this, but we're gonna have a memorial where people get together, like you said, and they celebrate the life, tell stories, have food, reconnect and maybe even men some past fences that may have been broken throughout the years in the family or friendships. Do you find that exactly? Yes? And so that for me, part of that legacy planning is to take a look at life, whether it's for the individual that's dying or the families, and use storytelling techniques to help them maybe reframe some of those stories, because they say, it's have you. I don't know if you've ever heard what they say. If you choose to you choose which wolf you want to feed? Is it the wolf of disappointment or is it the wolf of hope? So sometimes you just need someone to make that major choice and shift because a major reason why I'm doing this is because I've seen what disappointment holds on and grips onto people and how that tacks them. And this is the time where families and people, this is such a rich time for them to make that shift and so they don't carry on those hurts and pains, and then then it goes on to the next generation, whether it's you know, our bodies holds hold on to trauma. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. I agree. We all have something, maybe not in this life, but in a past life that holds on to us. And so what I want to do is just help make that shift so then they can look at things differently. I don't know if you have you ever seen the life of pie No believe it, And I worked at a video store for over a decade. I haven't seen it now. There's not a lot where I've read the book and watched the movie. But if you see the Life of Pie, I should say it, but I will. What he does is he tells is a beautiful story about the animals, and it's got amazing visuals, and he tells us an amazing story, and then he also shares another story, which is maybe with the human I sees. But in the end he says, it's up to you to choose which story we live by, and especially in today's society, I'm not sure you know. I'll ask your opinion on this, but what I see is a lot of negativity being thrown at us on a daily basis from all avenues, be it the major media or even social social media. And I just did a podcast episode the previous episode here on White' thoughts about social media, the promise and the peril and the pitfalls and like anything it can be used for great good. I was relaying that when I started on social media, I used it to keep in touch with people from college and family members that had moved away on different parts of the country in the world, and it seems like over the past ten fifteen years or so, it has just been turned into a a eating frenzy, gripe frist. You know, I'm going to attack you because you don't like chocolate chip cookies and you make your cookies this way or you know, instead of you know, like any tool, it can be used for good or bad, and with the bombardment of the negativity, and some might even go as far as call it conditioning just to keep yourself kind of in that depressed, perpetual mode where you don't have an awakening. And I think what you help provide is to bring people together, unfortunately through times of sorrow and a crisis, but to also maybe bring them an awakening to say, listen, learn from this experience, grow from it, and use it to propel you forward. Exactly. Yeah, that's a beautiful case of which wolf will we feed? And so I want to help people choose if they're ready to choose the the wolf of hope, not only for themselves but for the future. Like don't you know social media is definitely that wolf. There's pros and cons, life and death. You know, you're gonna choose, what are you going to choose? Here? But we have the ability to choose for ourselves, so don't just But I don't want people just waste their time and and shrink back. I want them to be brave and make the choice for good. Sure. And it's something you know, speaking about endings here on this episode of Wife Thoughts with Michelle Trieste and she is an end of life planner, uh counselor guru. I guess we could say death, Dahlia and so so much more voiceover artists, confidant, and so much more that I had. Unfortunately, we had a death with a gentleman who I've played music with or had played music with for over a decade, with a couple other gentlemen, and we knew that his time was going to be limited. He had had that information he had gotten from his physician, and unfortunately there was really nothing they could do for him, and he was given a finite amount of time. But however, he didn't even last the first sixty days of that finite amount of time. But the thing was is, like we talked about a few moments earlier, the family had a private service for just the immediate family, him and his children and wife and what have you. But then they had a memorial service. It was like unlike anything I've ever been or attended in my life. There had to be When I walked into this place that they had rented, I figured, Okay, there'll be maybe fifty sixty one hundred people here, you know, a couple hundred. There had to be five hundred plus people here. It was standing room only, and they had a big TV at the front with a stage in that they were going to play some music, people microphones giving their remembrances of him. They had catered food, and it was, like I said, standing room only tables. At first, my first thought was is this a wedding reception I walked into? But it was beautiful. Yeah, And there were tears shed, you know, there were tears shed, But there was a lot of memories. I met some people that I didn't know. He knew obviously they didn't know about me. We shared stories, laughter, tears, but mostly I came away with it actually feeling so much better after that few hours. And it was a celebration of his life. Although some might think, well, this is maybe a little unorthodox, but I see society here swinging more towards that rather than, like you said, delving into those stages of grief where you go through you know, anger, denial, disbelief, depression, what have you. Exactly. They say that the mess here death is that means like the more people are involved, the better, because you want people to connect and that's how we learn. Right. The saddest service I've gone to was I used to oversee manage homes for the disabled and I had gone with a resident and it was the saddest memorial because this gentleman that passed away, he was an attorney, he had I mean he had he had a lot of riches, you might say, and what was I felt very sad because there were only maybe fifteen people present and the eulogy was pretty much reading his link reading his LinkedIn. Wow he and he had donated money. Okay, check yeah, sorry, but you know it was like it was like reading someone's tax return. Yeah, he had made this amount of money. He was part of this he had this uh des like a resume, oh totally. And what I say tax return is because he had donated this amount of money to whatever that was it and there were all maybe fifteen people there. It was it was sad to me because I was like that's what can happen if we are not engaged part of the community. Just like you shared, that is a beautiful death. A beautiful life is a beautiful death exactly. I mean I've told my children growing up because I had this knowledge imparted on me in my late teens early twenties by a gentleman at an organization I was working at. And he was probably about my age now, you know, you know, mid fifties, and so I'm right there with you. And he said to you, he pulled me aside one day because I was always the guy, Yeah, I'll come in extra, you know, I'll work eight ten days a week for you, stay all day and all night. I was young. I figured why not make the money, because that's what's ingrained into us even as you get older in society. That's ingrained. You work, work, work, work, work. You know. He pulled me aside one day and he says, Terry, he says he got a second I want to talk to you in the back. I'm like okay, and he says, hey, you know, I just want you know you're a great worker and everything. In fact, he was one of my supervisors, believe it or not, at this organization. So this really kind of really struck home. And he says, you know, you do a great job here. You're always on call. You know, we can call you in in your days off. But he says, I just want to tell you one thing. Just remember, okay, and he says, please don't take offense to what I'm about to tell you. But when you get to the end of your life, maybe you're on your deathbed or what have you, and your time comes and you go. He says, people aren't going to say, gee, Terry was the guy who worked overtime all the time. Terry was the guy we could call in on our day off, on his day off at any job he was at, Terry got those TPS reports done, you know, on time. They're going to say Terry was a good friend, brother, husband, grandfather, father, confidante, what have you. Son. Just remember, don't lose sight of what really matters in your life. He says, it's good to be a good worker and to be dedicated to your trade or craft or organization, but just remember, because life moves pretty fast. And I'm thinking Ferris Bueller, you know, but he imparted that in and I'm paraphrasing. You know the conversation. It was about a five minute conversation. You know, we talked and I remember that. And the funny thing was about two years later I had to go to his funeral. Yeah so, but I it always stuck out with me, that conversation, and I paid that forward to my children. I, you know, because they dad, I don't know what I want to be, you know, I want to maybe be a veterinarian, or I want to be in criminal justice, or I want to And I tell them, listen, you do whatever makes you and your heart and you're soul happy long as you are not harming yourself or others. I'm sure me and your mother are fine. But at the end of the day, remember do something that matters. But don't be so engulfed in that that you let your life pass you by and you forget who you are. Okay, you can if you want to be a ditchitiger, you want to work at McDonald's, you want to be a CEO, you want to be a president. Whatever, do what makes you happy. It's your life to live, no one else's. And at the end of the day, when your time comes to pass away and go to that final place you want to go saying you know what I did, I tried, I loved, I laughed, what have you? And again, yeah, I know, and you go with that because I've never been to a funeral or a service for anyone. I don't think where somebody walked up to the you know, to the person, or walked up to the picture or the urn and said, yeah, they were working overtime all the time. What a great gall or guy. They know. I've never heard stuff like that muttered. And like you said, that gentleman left his legacy. He was already leaving that two years before he even moved on, before he died. Yeah, and that he planted that seed in you, right, And it just makes you wonder, you know, spiritually, are there are we getting nudges? You know? And again, whatever your religious beliefs or spiritual beliefs may or may not be, I believe there's some kind of divine plan for each one of us that we are nudged in certain directions and pulled back from this, you know. I mean, there's a great thing in the Christian faith that says because one of the criticisms of the Christian faith or Catholic faith is I pray and I pray and I pray, and my prayer never gets answered. Well, sometimes no answer is the answer. You shouldn't get that jobie. What's that? God's not a genie right, well exactly, but we all like to think that, you know, I know when I struggled with as far as spiritually is you know, God is all powerful. You know, they say, why does he let bad the most atrocious things happen to the most wonderful of people. You know, He knows, you know, and those those are things I struggle with. And again, you know, circling back to you know, what you do, Michelle and everything. It's getting people to engage, connect and and use those experiences and find comfort in each other at the end of the day. Yeah, be open to those those nuggets, those legacies of listening to other people. One of the a good movie to watch regarding what you just said, how people get stuck, how come things don't happen to you know, people that do the wrong things? Is that The Shack is a great movie. Seeing that one. Yes, okay, yes, that one. I've seen that one. You know another movie that was really it was a little off center it was with Robin Williamams What Dreams May Come. This was a one that he had made that was kind of off center. Not to for those I'm sure a lot of people have seen it, but not to spoil it. He passes away rather suddenly and leaves behind a family, but he doesn't believe he's dead. Cuba Gooding Juniors in it as well, and he's kind of like his guide on his journey in the afterlife, and Robin Williams doesn't believe he's gone initially, and the whole film, I would say ninety five percent of it takes place in his afterlife and what he's coming to grips with that he is not He's not alive anymore. It's done, and he has to come to grips with that. It's a really it's an emotionally tearing movie, but it's very very insightful. It's called What Dreams May Come with Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding Junior. Okay, I got it. I'll check that one. So so many talk to people what you can find out, and someone told me about if many Lives, Many Masters is a sure book or actually you can get it on an audio from the library and you just said something about future, So any lives, Many Masters was written by a doctor, Brian Weiss, and he's a psychiatrist, and he did hypnosis on someone and this is all real and he went back she had trauma and fears, and he helped her through hypnosis, go back to back into lives, past lives and help her helped her find closure. And in that she also said certain things in his personal life that helped bring closure. Sure, absolutely, And we don't know, you know, And that's yeah, that's the thing we you know, we think we know as human, as the human species, we can be extremely arrogant. You know. We think we know we have the answers, and there's a lot we don't know. There's a lot every day they're discovering that we just don't know. However, I think throughout history of our species that there have been individuals that have been placed here that have some knowledge of the other realms. You know, I've had spooky experiences or like I remember the grandmother I was speaking about earlier that helped me through a very traumatic time when I was around thirteen years of age, when she finally passed in her old you know, she lived to be almost eighty five years old, and I was a pallbearer at her funeral, and I remember, about a month or two after that, started having these vivid dreams and almost on a nightly basis about her, because I was broken up about it, because that was the grandmother. We really spent a lot of time at her house growing up as kids, and she always cooked the meals, et cetera, et cetera. And I remember one of the dreams because I was still pretty broken up about it. This is about a month after her funeral, and I remember having a dream we were back in her house, my sister, my mom, and dad, me visiting, and my grandfather was still alive now he had passed quite a few years earlier before my grandmother, and we were in their home and we were sitting at their little kitchen at table, and Grandma always made us dinner. And I remember we were eating and I'm looking around in this dream. It's like, you know how when you're in a dream state, Am I here? Yeah? I must be here because I'm doing this, And she slid a plate of chocolate chip cookies onto the table and she goes, now, you guys, eat up and I turned her around to look at her, and I'm looking directly at her in my dream, and I'm like, Grandma, what are you doing here? You died? And I remember she put her hand on my shoulder, and you know how when you come down to somebody and guy and give them she goes, Oh, honey, don't you worry about me. I'm fine, you have a cookie. And then I woke up and I was like, wow, WHOA. Now some would say that's just your mind trying to make sense of it all in that, but you know, I really believe that messages can be sent, you know, and delivered in some form, whether it's in a dream, an animal you know, or an event. You see a butterfly, a bird sits on you, you know, sits and s stairs at you, or something if you knew someone that was talking about bird, you know, stuff like that. I believe in that stuff. I believe even going into what I'm now going into, it's helping people plan for end of life. Is I've been sent in this direction at this time. I mean, I can't tell you how many things and people and connections are just like it's like spring, you know, everything's just popping and I think even for some of us, like for myself, there's people where I've gotten to be with them at the end, but also there's people where I wasn't able to be there. So like my little brother, he committed suicide, but I feel his presence and even though he struggled and he couldn't be here any longer, it was that was his time here. And so for me to help people value other people and their experiences and be present. That's also why I think that I feel a need to do this, is to help people just not feel like they missed out or sometimes when you just have someone there for you, right, Yeah, just that other person to bounce. So if someone wanted to reach out to you and contact you and learn more information. And noticed, I know you're on LinkedIn and other social media, and I noticed on your LinkedIn profile there was a was there a pamphlet that you had there or booklet that someone how do they get that? Yeah, so there's a link in my LinkedIn under my thing. I'm going to put that in the show notes and then link. Yeah. It's a life It's a like a free micro handbook Life Celebration, Legacy. It's a planning workbook so people it's free. So it's just helps to get people's minds wrapped around not only the legal aspect of organizing things, but starting to plant seeds for stories, for looking at the stories over their lives and if someone wants to even go even deeper as far as direction, I have something I think it's like nineteen dollars on my website, which is the artist celebrating life. If someone wants to go dig deeper. But I wanted to offer something free that would get people just beginning and start writing down things and just start to explore things that they want to have, maybe it's their visial or just things that they feel like they want to get, you know, do or see or share before their time comes. Because we never know when it'll be so right to get a kind of on their bikes and your website addressed for them to get some of these materials. Where would they go? Yes, it's Michelle Trieste dot com. Okay t R I E S T E correct right. The last name that people spelling many different or say in many different ways. I've heard it to other people and I'm like, I want to make sure I do this right. Yeah, I have like that and then I have YouTube as well that that you'll see more of my motorcycle adventures. Right, But it's about celebrating life. That's what it's all about. So when as as we get ready to close out today, here on White's thoughts with Michelle Trieste and dat Way. Thank you. It's been a great conversation. I've enjoyed just talk. Every time we talked, Terry all right, well they'll there'll be more, I'm sure, and hopefully not saying hey, you know, we'll be good. Well, good, all conversations are good. Yeah, maybe when I'm riding up north one with the group of guys, stop by, stop in the chateau. Device is always open for wayward travelers. That's it. We're in the country, so you story some cows, deer and everything. We u So someone comes to you and they say, all right, Michelle, you know I've downloaded your pamphlet from your website at Michelle Trees dot com. You know I've checked out your YouTube channel, I've checked out your LinkedIn and that, and they've reached out. What could one expect that, say, listen, I've got I've got a relative in hospice, and I think we really we need some help with this, Michelle, what take Can you take us a little bit here? What that process? Just a quick overview what that process might be like for someone? Sure, well, if you're local in Connecticut it's a small state. But if you're not too far within an hour and a half or something, I would I would travel to come meet with you your loved one outside that we can have a zoom together and take stock of where you're at, where your loved one is at, and we can spend a couple hours together. And then also sometimes people want to talk with me and find out, you know, how I can help their their business is just to be more well rounded in their benefits package and understanding because in a world of remote working, yes we really miss out in certain things. And having a workshop on site is something that can benefit a lot of people and really are employees because they're alone. I agree, Yeah, to really bring people in and bring them together, which is what I love to do. And as far as the death duel apart, if you are local, I can either spend some time. I'm only going to do that like twice a month because it is very deep I'm working. I want to be able to honor that person. Otherwise, I have some other death duelas that I can get in contact with that could be near you, so I can always offer that as well. Super great, fantastic, thank you and thanks for being on the program today. I really appreciate it. I'm sure our listeners really appreciate it as well. And again, if you want to get in touch with Michelle Triast, it's Michelle trist dot com t R I E S t E and also look for her on YouTube as well. Great information and great insight and there's always great conversation. Michelle. Thank you again, thank you,