Most of us spend our lives pretending we have forever. We push off difficult conversations, delay dreams, and take tomorrow for granted. But the truth is, we don’t have forever. We have about 3,200 weeks, according to average life expectancy. Knowing this can make us work a little harder, love a little deeper, live more intentionally. But how many of us actually sit with the reality that our time is limited? How many of us talk openly about death before it’s too late?

In this episode, I talk with Michaela Morrill, a death doula who helps people and families navigate the final chapter of life with grace and meaning. A death doula does for the end-of-life what birth doulas do for the beginning—they guide, support, comfort. Michaela sits beside the dying, helps families plan memorials, manages paperwork, and serves as a compassionate presence for those preparing to say goodbye to someone they love.

I met Michaela on an evening in October at the Winthrop Book Depot & Café in Winthrop, Massachusetts. We sat in a circle with eight strangers at something called a Death Café, an informal gathering where people come together to openly discuss death and dying, to increase awareness of our mortality and make the most of our finite lives. These Death Cafés happen in homes, coffee shops, community centers, and online. They’ve become a global movement, held in dozens of countries around the world. When I heard there was going to be one at my local bookstore, I signed up immediately.

I’ve always found thinking and talking about mortality strangely life-affirming. But the main reason I was there that night was because I was still trying to make sense of my mom’s death a year earlier. Five weeks after being diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, she suffered a medical crisis and lost consciousness. The doctors gave us a choice: prolong the inevitable with machines that would only extend her suffering, or let her go. We chose the latter.

A year later, I found myself at Michaela’s Death Café. For two hours, we did what most people avoid: we talked openly about our losses, our fears of death, the realities of dying, what we got right with the people we’ve lost, and what we wish we’d done differently. Though each of our experiences was unique, we found common threads that made us feel less alone. Together, we helped one another find words for thoughts we’d carried but never quite been able to express.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What a death doula does and how they guide people through life’s final chapter

• What it’s like to sit beside the dying and bear witness to their last moments

• The most common regrets people have at the end of life—and what they teach us

• How Death Cafés create space for honest conversations about mortality

• Why talking about death can be strangely life-affirming rather than morbid

• How confronting our mortality can bring clarity to the way we live

• Why we live as though we have forever when we only have about 3,200 weeks

• How to find peace after loss and honor the people we’ve loved

• What the dying can teach us about living more intentionally

💡 Find a Death Café near you: www.deathcafe.com

💡 About Curiously: www.curiouslypod.com

What Death Teaches Us About Living with Micaelah Morrill