Storytime with MrBallen | Rosie Grant

Summary

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MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories

“Storytime with MrBallen | Rosie Grant”

Release Date: January 23, 2026
Host: John Allen (MrBallen)
Guest: Rosie Grant (“Ghostly Archive,” author of To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes)

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Episode Overview

This episode features a captivating conversation between MrBallen and Rosie Grant, a librarian turned viral “cemetery TikToker” known for uncovering and recreating recipes engraved on gravestones. This unlikely practice leads to profound discussions on grief, mortality, traditions, and the power of food as a bridge between the living and the dead. Along the way, both guest and host share personal stories of loss, near-death experiences, family, and the mystery of what follows life.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Rosie’s Unusual Path: From Librarian to Cemetery Cookbook Author

• Rosie’s Origin Story (02:59)

  • Began as a library science student during COVID; could only find internships in a cemetery.
  • Came from a family of “ghost tour guides,” so cemeteries weren’t foreign places for her.
  • Started “Ghostly Archive” on TikTok documenting her experiences.
  • Discovered her first gravestone recipe (spritz cookies) in Brooklyn; her TikTok post went viral overnight.
  • Quote: “When I posted it on TikTok, it went, like, super viral, like, overnight. Like, NPR called me the next day.” (05:11)

• The Community Side of Gravestone Recipes (06:42)

  • Rosie’s project shifted from curiosity to active community archiving—interviewing families, geolocating markers, and compiling oral histories.
  • Recipes range across North America, with New York boasting the most.

• Becoming the Go-To Expert

  • Families started reaching out, asking Rosie to feature their loved ones’ recipes.
  • The project led to a published book: To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes.

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Food, Memory, and Mortality

• Connecting with the Dead Through Food (05:44)

  • Listeners shared personal stories of making loved ones’ recipes to feel close to them.
  • This highlighted food’s power in grief and memory.
  • Quote: “It was just these really personal food stories of using food and death, and they blended together when they missed their person.” (05:48)

• Talking About Death (10:56–13:43)

  • Rosie reflects on death as a taboo subject—even in her family of “ghost tour” guides.
  • The “death positive movement,” born from hospice work, advocates open discussion about death as emotionally healthy and practical.
  • Quote: “It’s not like, ‘yay, death’, but it’s healthy if we talk about these things with loved ones... I think food to me is a much easier access point to it.” (13:05)

• Death Traditions and Changing Attitudes (31:11)

  • Rosie notes how picnicking and eating in cemeteries was historically normal, but is now seen as taboo.
  • Death rituals—including food—vary widely across cultures and eras.
  • Quote: “In the early days, food, people would picnic in cemeteries... and you would be picnicking with grandpa or someone else’s relatives. It was so normal.” (31:11)

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MrBallen’s Near-Death Experience and Reflections

• Life-and-Death in Combat (13:53–20:58)

  • MrBallen shares a vivid, detailed account of nearly dying from a grenade blast in Afghanistan.
  • Describes the emotional process—primarily matter-of-fact and focused on loss for loved ones, rather than fear.
  • Quote: “I was not sad. It was shockingly matter of fact... my brain processed it as like, you are about to die—hard stop.” (16:36)
  • “I simply know death is coming... Whatever I want to do, it’s timed against how much time I think I have. But it’s not sad, it just is.” (20:35)

• Impact of Mortality Awareness

  • The experience removed his fear of death and instilled a sense of appreciation and urgency for life.
  • Led to candid discussions, even with his wife, about burial choices and legacy.

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Personal Loss, Ritual, and Processing Grief

• Witnessing Family Death (33:38–36:18)

  • MrBallen describes his aunt’s passing, being present at her deathbed, and the emotional significance of that final gift.
  • Rosie discusses the roles people play in grief: “top of the cliff” (preventative) and “bottom of the cliff” (present with the suffering).
  • Quote: “I feel like people do full death doula trainings, literally just to sit next to someone while they’re there...” (35:22)

• Death in Wartime vs. Family (36:34–39:45)

  • MrBallen recalls the emotional challenge of distinguishing enemy combatant deaths from loved ones, and the universal reality of mortality—even amidst conflict.
  • The lines between “us” and “them” blur; all humans are “just like bags of blood and bone trying to make sense in the world.” (39:01)

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What Comes After? Speculation and Philosophy

• Rosie’s Thoughts (26:23–28:37)

  • Raised Catholic but now agnostic; likes the idea of a soul continuing on.
  • “Whether it’s a second life or we just become particles and my dust scatters in the wind, there’s something very pleasant about that too.”
  • Considers death akin to the time before birth—non-existence without pain or awareness.

• MrBallen’s Philosophy (28:37–29:53)

  • Invokes the classic philosophical “why is there something, rather than nothing?” question.
  • Wonders if our existence either has a reason or is just a cosmic accident.

• Desire for Understanding (29:53–30:59)

  • Rosie longs for knowledge in the afterlife—hopes “there’s a spirit guide” to answer every question.

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Cemeteries, Traditions, and the Future

• Rosie’s Burial Plans (23:26)

  • Plans to have a gravestone with a recipe; is already arranging a plot with her husband.
  • Discusses “aquamation,” body-to-gem transformation, “mushroom pots,” and the impermanence of memory—even cemeteries fade with time.

• Changing Perspectives (31:24–33:34)

  • Traditions around death and food vary regionally and culturally (Irish wakes, Catholic symbolism, etc.).
  • There’s value in remembering, but it’s also normal—and possibly healthy—to accept forgetting over generations.

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Paranormal, Synchronicity, and the Comfort of Mysteries

• Rosie’s Psychic Experience (40:29–42:58)
  • Shares a story about visiting a psychic who seemed to channel a deceased friend during a difficult period of her life.
  • For Rosie, it was comforting and indicative of a larger mystery, even if not “proof.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Going Viral:

  • Rosie: “NPR called me the next day, and they’re like, 'What is going on with this?' And I was like, I have no idea. Like, I’ve just learned about this woman.” (05:11)

• On Grief and Food:

  • Rosie: “My mom died a few years ago, and I make her cake every year when I miss her... and it helps me feel like she’s closer to me.” (05:44)

• On Facing Death:

  • MrBallen: “As it hit my shoulder, I actually actively thought, okay, you’re about to die. There’s no escaping it.” (00:31)

• On Near-Death Acceptance:

  • MrBallen: “I was not sad. It was shockingly matter of fact... It wasn’t ‘I’m going to die.’ It was, ‘My poor mom.’” (16:36)

• On the Death Positive Movement:

  • Rosie: “It’s not like, ‘yay, death.’ It’s healthy if we talk about these things with loved ones... Food to me is a much easier access point to it.” (13:05)

• On Existential Wonder:

  • MrBallen: “Why does anything exist? ...That sort of forces you to realize that if there’s a reason for everything to exist, we’re part of it.” (28:37)

• On Grave Rituals and Memory:

  • Rosie: “Even cemeteries won’t be around for forever... Most people, like, you won’t be remembered much beyond a generation or two. And that’s okay. Engaging with it a little bit more makes it a little less scary.” (25:08)

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Important Segments and Timestamps

• [02:35] – Introductions and Rosie Grant’s “recipe on gravestones” phenomenon
• [05:11] – First viral TikTok and discovery of the spritz cookie gravestone
• [10:56–13:43] – Death as taboo, the “death positive” movement, and food as the bridge
• [13:53–20:58] – MrBallen’s grenade story: near-death experience, what he thought about, and aftermath
• [23:26] – Rosie’s burial plans, “aquamation,” and reflecting on impermanence
• [31:11] – History of eating in cemeteries, food, and death traditions
• [33:38–36:18] – Story of MrBallen’s aunt's passing and thoughts on grief roles
• [36:34–39:45] – Wartime deaths vs. family deaths; shared humanity in all mortality
• [40:29–42:58] – Rosie’s story about a psychic confirming what she felt about the presence of her late friend

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Overall Tone

Warm, curious, and deeply reflective. Rosie brings a gentle, archival enthusiasm for her quirky niche and for the universal human experiences of grief, ritual, and memory. MrBallen shares with candor and humility about his brushes with mortality and how they’ve shaped his outlook. They both deftly shift between lighthearted discussions (graveyard recipes) and profound questions of existence, loss, and meaning.

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Final Thoughts

This episode artfully blends the macabre, the folksy, and the philosophical. For those new to Rosie Grant’s world, it’s an introduction to an extraordinary cross-section of viral culture, history, and human connection—and for fans of MrBallen, it’s one of the most personal, vulnerable interviews to date. Through gravestone cookies, combat flashbacks, and favorite cemetery traditions, both guest and host offer listeners a new way to approach (and maybe even celebrate) the inevitable: death.

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For Further Exploration

• Rosie’s book: To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes
• Rosie’s TikTok: @ghostlyarchive
• Death Positive Movement
• Variations in global funerary traditions

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Down as I'm watching this grenade hit my shoulder. As it hit my shoulder, I actually actively thought, okay, you're about to die. There's no escaping it. And I was told I was maybe 30 seconds from death.

[A]

From my experience growing up, death is a pretty taboo topic. Now I'm around people talking about death all the time. Are you a big cemetery person yourself?

[B]

I don't know if I'm a big cemetery person.

[A]

That's a weird way to phrase it.

[B]

Yeah, I do think about death. I want to do more with my life, with the second chance. I do have that feeling, but it's not nearly as pronounced as I don't have a fear of death. On today's episode of story time with Mr. Ballin, we have a truly unique guest. You'll see in a minute what I mean when I say unique, because what they do. I didn't even know this was a thing, but it definitely is, because when she made her first post back in 2021 about sort of what she does, it went super viral. And sure enough, what she's discovered really is a phenomenon, but it's one that I promise most of you have never heard of. It's fascinating. Not only do we cover what she does, but it also sort of led us to this really deep discussion around death, mortality, and what happens when you die. I didn't expect the conversation to go that way, but that's the way it went. And it was great. It was an amazing conversation. I think you're really going to enjoy it. Also, side note, my. My voice is terrible, but I was just so excited to get this interview in that we decided to push forward. So I apologize for my voice, but it's because I love all you fans of the strange, dark and mysterious. And so, without further ado, let's get into today's episod.

[A]

I am Rosie Grant, aka Ghostly Archive, and this is Story Time with Mr. Ballin.

[B]

All right, so, Rosie Grant, I know what you do. I mean, what you do is One of the more unique things I've seen, certainly on the Internet or just at large, it's you. You find recipes on gravestones, and you make those recipes, and you post about it online, and you get in touch with the families and the relatives, and it's gone super viral. But I guess now I've explained what you do, but tell me how the heck you got here. How did you start doing that?

[A]

Well, I got started with this when I was trying to become a librarian. I was living in D.C. and I went to library science school. It was pretty much, I think, 2020 is when I started the program. In 2021, I had to do an internship. So it was early days of COVID I. All libraries were closed to new people. And so I interned at the only place that I could find, which was in a cemetery. So I was.

[B]

Of course.

[A]

Of course. Yeah. When you're trying to become a librarian. Yeah. Really? Yeah. They were busier than ever. And, I mean, it was wonderful. And I should say my parents are both ghost tour guides. So, like, being in a cemetery wasn't that weird from things that I did growing up as a kid. Are you a big cemetery person yourself?

[B]

I don't know if I'm a big cemetery person.

[A]

That's a weird way to phrase it. Yeah. Have you gone to cemeteries?

[B]

I frequented cemeteries.

[A]

You frequented? I think I was very similar going into this. I frequented cemeteries, but I didn't know anything about the death industry or how that worked. And so I got to basically do digital archives with their archivist, and I would take photos, and I'd go on these site visits to geolocate different gravestones. And I made this sort of online tour of the cemetery. And in the process, I started a TikTok of like, what's it like to intern at a cemetery? And pretty much everything came from there. I didn't learn about my first gravestone recipe until maybe five or six months after starting the account. It was just at first, different gravestones and memorials. And then I found a spritz cookie recipe on a gravestone in Brooklyn, New York.

[B]

And so you actually brought me some of your spritz cookies. Yeah. And in full candor, I've already tried them, and they're quite good. And actually, as I'm tasting this. So did you know it was like a thing that people literally engrave recipes on on gravestones?

[A]

Did not know it was a thing. I was surprised to find one. So, like, in the early days of it. They're good, right? They're, like, nice and Buttery. Yeah. Really good. In the early days of TikToking about different memorials, it was just different, interesting gravestones. In Baltimore, there's like, a Ouija gravestone, and in other places, there's like, these, like, you know, edgar Allan Poe has an interesting gravestone. So I was just featuring, like, unusual gravestones around D.C. and so when it came to gravestone recipes, I learned about Naomi, who has this spritz cookie recipe in Brooklyn. And I thought, like, what do those cookies taste like? They're on a gravestone? And, like, it didn't just say, like, she liked baking or cooking was important to her. It, like, literally is the ingredients to make her recipe. So when I posted it on TikTok, it went, like, super viral, like, overnight. Like, NPR called me the next day, and they're like, what's. What is. What's going on with this? And I was like, I have no idea. Like, I've just learned about this woman.

[B]

And.

[A]

And even more so, the number one comment that I was getting from people, of course people were like, this is so interesting. I've never heard about this. But even more so, I was getting comments like, my mom died a few years ago, and I make her cake every year when I miss her, or my dad died 10 years ago, and I make his chili every Sunday, and it helps me feel like he's closer to me. And it was just these really personal food stories of using food and death, and they blended together when they missed their person. And I was like, there's something here. Like, what is this of, like, connecting to the lost loved ones through food? And so I was learning more about Naomi when I learned about a woman named K who has a fudge recipe. And then I learned about a woman named Maxine who has Christmas cookies. And that kind of started the journey of learning about gravestone recipes.

[B]

You speak about these folks, like, you clearly have put a lot of time into learning about them, not just their recipe. And it seems like you also have a pretty deep connection with some of the family. Is that fair to say?

[A]

Yeah, I would say. And I, you know, through the process of it, it didn't begin that way. And the first three folks who I learned about, they were already very viral and online before I came along. Facebook groups had posted about them. Lots of online cemetery groups in the world, and they had all featured these three over the years. But then as I started learning about more folks, and I think when I was at about eight recipes, families started reaching out, and they were starting to say, like, I thought my mom was the only one crazy enough to do something like this, like try her cheese dip recipe. And so from there, I was like, oh, I need to start interviewing people. And so it became a community archive in the sense of, like, I would reach out to the family members. I have this crazy Google Map of, like, where each of the gravestone markers are. I have this insane Google Doc. I have a spreadsheet. This is the library science in me of, like, the data behind each person. But then with each, that would be oral histories. So I would interview the families. It would just be like, who is this person? Who's the person behind the recipe? What does this recipe mean to your family still? And things like that. And, I mean, it's at this point now, it's also included traveling. I visited all of the recipes in North America. So I went up to Nome, Alaska, and down to Florida and New Orleans and Nova Scotia and the Midwest and up and down California, and New York State actually has the most gravestone recipes. So I've been all around New York for that reason. Yeah.

[B]

And so you were studying for your library sciences? To grape, My mom actually got her library sciences degree.

[A]

Get out.

[B]

I'm very familiar with how technically difficult it is to get one of those degrees.

[A]

That's incredible. Oh, I love that. Is she a librarian, or does she work anywhere in that?

[B]

She's also a writer, and she pioneered writing our podcast. She's one of our writers.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. I'm obsessed with that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So gay librarians.

[B]

Yeah, that degree. The degree is gnarly. But so did you. You have this. This cemetery internship. You go viral with this really unique idea, like, basically posting about these spritz cookies from Naomi. How do you go from. Well, what I'm doing is I'm getting my lib sciences degree on a course to be one of the most, like, introverted, like, quiet, private lives. Being a librarian to. Now you have this amazing new book called To Die for A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes. This is incredible. It is. All these. This. All the recipes that you've done, all.

[A]

The recipes with all the family approvals. There's a few more that I haven't gotten approvals from the family yet, but these are the ones that I was able to connect with, visit photographed, and, of course, learn their stories. So that was kind of. It did become a lot more public and social than I think I was expecting.

[B]

Yeah. So, like, how have you responded to this new life path? Or do you feel like you're still sort of like, what's going on.

[A]

I am still. I think every time I find a new gravestone recipe, I'm like, and that's it. The door is shut. I have no more people to research. But now it's kind of turned into this. It's grown almost beyond me. I'm getting phone calls. Some of the folks featured in this book, they learned about it from the project. So they, like, had seen a TikTok, and then their parent, they decided to do a gravestone recipe for their parent. One of the women who was featured in it, when I connected with her daughter, and I was like, hey, your mom has this gravestone recipe, this really good Kostia Varnishkas. She's buried in New Jersey. And I was like, can I include your mom in the project? And she was like, well, like, what are you exactly planning to do with, like, this information? And I was like, well, I'm working on a book. Could I include your mom in the book? And she's like, are you the right person to be doing this? And I was like, I had this, like, whole moment. I was like, I'm just a library science person. Like, maybe I'm not the right person to be doing this. And I should say I didn't really play up the TikTok side because I wanted to, like, show my other credentials. And I was like, well, I was an English major and I was a creative writing minor, and I love food writing and all of this stuff. And so she's like, well, there's this tiktoker who does gravestone recipes, and I think she should be doing this.

[B]

That's me.

[A]

And I was like, yeah, I'm like, she should be doing this also. That's me. Yeah.

[B]

What has this experience of becoming the go to person to, you know, talk to these families and make these recipes and sort of connect with the dead in a sense. What has that done for, I guess, your relationship with mortality?

[A]

Mm, that's a great question. And I would be curious to hear what your kind of entry point is, because, like, death, from my experience growing up, death is a pretty taboo topic. I think. My. My. My parents are ghost tour guides, and we go to cemeteries all the time. We love visiting cemeteries.

[B]

And.

[A]

And death is still really taboo. And my parents don't want to talk about where do they want to be buried? How do they want to be remembered? It's just, like, a very uncomfortable topic because it implies that we will die, which we will. Well, unfortunately. Yeah, exactly. And I think growing up, I remember my first awareness of that. I would die and my loved ones would die. I went to my great grandmother's funeral. I think I was maybe like seven. And right afterwards my cousins were planning a trip to Disney World and they invited me and I said no. Cause I was like, what if my parents die? So I didn't go to Disney. Cause I was so scared of like my parents just randomly died while I was gone. But I was really freaked out by it as a kid and I was so like, consumed. I remember reading books and just like I was so freaked out by it. And I think moving into adulthood, like I had a girlfriend die in college who was. We were English majors together. And I just did not know how to process it, didn't know how to talk about it with friends. And my whole little friend group who this girl was a part of just kind of fell apart. And so we had no idea how to process it and talk about it. So then flash forward to now where I feel like I'm around people talking about death all the time. And it honestly has taught me that it gets easier the more you talk about it. Which is kind of why I like gravestone recipes in the sense of like, it's easier to talk about food to be. What meals do you like? How do you want to be remembered? You make really good cookies. Do you want that to be served at your funeral? Maybe you don't even want a gravestone. Maybe you want your ashes scattered somewhere. That's important to you. Maybe you like the song and you want this played at your funeral or you want this on your deathbed. So there's just a lot of things and the idea that it's healthy to talk about these things. This is also, I should say, based on the death positive movement. Are you familiar with that?

[B]

I saw a reference to that in one of your interviews. Oh, no, I'm not familiar with.

[A]

I wasn't either until this. It started in hospice. Basically this idea that people and society are better off if we talk about these things. It's not like, yay, death. Like woo hoo, we're gonna die someday. But it's healthy if we talk about these things with loved ones. Of like, how do you want to be remembered? And again, I think food to me is a much easier access point to it rather than the sense of failure or whatever that we'll all die. So yeah, in any case, I think I feel a little bit better about it, but I think I still have a journey to go for getting more comfortable with my own mortality.

[B]

I'll tell you a quick Story about my own feelings around mortality. So I was in the military before I. Before I, you know, started telling stories on the Internet.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

And I.

[A]

A natural crossover.

[B]

Yeah. You know, it is. It is. And when I was overseas in Afghanistan, we effectively were ambushed, and a grenade actually detonated quite literally next to me.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Yeah. And in fact, when the grenade came over the wall, it's nighttime. I'm on night vision. And so the way there was a drone overhead that was shining down on us with infrared light. You can only see it on night vision. So, like, to the world, it's pitch black, but in this circle of light that we're in, we can see. And on night vision, the light began to strobe, which is actually a targeting system. It means the Dr. Drone is saying, we're gonna attack here. It was a mistake, but I'm basically in a strobe light. Okay. Suddenly, I'm in a strobe light. As this grenade comes over the wall, it's like chaos. And the grenade kept coming in and out of focus because the light cast on it over and over. And then this took a matter of less than a second for the grenade to literally.

[A]

But there's this flashing thing coming.

[B]

Oh, my time, slow down. As I'm watching this grenade, like, appear, disappear, appear, disappear, and hit my shoulder. And as it hit my shoulder, I actually actively thought, okay, you're about to die. There's. There's no escaping it. And I remember thinking what a bummer it was that it was going to detonate at this point, and that my head will be blown off, which is really graphic. But I really was.

[A]

But it's like, you experienced that. Yeah.

[B]

And I was thinking about how I won't be able to, like, my mom won't be able to, like, see me again. And I was like, oh, my God. Like, that was the pain. It wasn't. I'm going to die. It was my poor mom. And then as the grenade is falling in this fraction of a second, it reached my torso, and again, it's just falling. You know, the speed it takes to fall. But everything really did slow down. And I thought, okay, I'm still definitely gonna die, but at least my face will be intact and my mom will see me again. And then by the time it reached the ground, I was like, oh, it might just hit my legs, blow my legs off. I might live. This is pretty good, right?

[A]

Shoot.

[B]

So it detonates. And I was with six other guys that I was in the unit with. And it was honestly horrific. I mean, everybody's down, there's a gunfight going on. And I basically was immobile and I was literally under fire, dragged out to this other alleyway where I'm not safe. There are combatants literally firing rockets and just shooting arbitrarily in our direction. I'm watching tracer rounds, which you can see every period. Like when you shoot like five rounds in a row, one shows up. It's like a bright light. I'm seeing tracer rounds skipping all over the place. And the people we've just attacked, who are attacking us, they're like 15ft away. At any moment they could come into this alleyway. And I'm alone in this alleyway because they're dealing with this huge contact down there. And so I have this, like, I've been mortally wounded. I can't pull my tourniquets to stop the bleeding off of my kit because I just was so weak from blood loss. And so I can't take off the life saving equipment. I know I'm dying and it's not sad. This is where I'm getting to with mortality. And I tell people this story for this reason. I was not sad. It was shockingly matter of fact. I was sitting in an alleyway anticipating that. I'm like, okay, I should have died down there at the contact site. Now I'm bleeding to death for sure. Or if I don't bleed to death, the people that we are in the middle of a gunfight with are for sure going to come over here and kill me. And so it was just factual. Like my brain processed it as like, you are about to die hard. Stop. This is in 2014. I was 26 years old.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

And the thought that was going through my mind in addition to the matter of factness, as my vision actually went completely gone, I couldn't hear anymore. So I'm like in this black void, but I'm still alive. All I thought about was my wife, Amanda. And we had made the decision to wait on having children before I went on this deployment. Like, oh, we'll have time, right? And I was like, man, like, I guess we don't have time. And I pictured her on the couch in our home in Virginia, just like with our cats, just watching tv and like, probably tonight someone's going to tell her that I'm dead. And what I also thought was, like, we don't have kids. She's young, she'll be devastated, no doubt. But what's going to happen here as time's going to go on and she's going to marry somebody else and have a different life. She'll respect me and honor me, but I'm gone. And then I also thought, I wonder what the newspaper will say about my death. No, not the story. Just will they write Jonathan Allen, like killed in action Jonathan Allen or killed in action John Allen? It was just like, I wonder if it'll say my full name or John Allen.

[A]

These are the things that you're going in through of like fire and everything. One near death experience after another. That's so crazy.

[B]

And so the, the one guy who was not gravely injured on this, this contact. There was like seven of us. He was our medic, sort of luckily. Oh my God, he's up for all sorts of awards. He, he came over to me and I could, I could feel him, I couldn't hear or see him. And he put tourniquets on me and they literally whisked me out, carried me out to helicopter and they saved my life.

[A]

Amazing.

[B]

I, so I survived. Obviously I survived.

[A]

Here I am not a ghost.

[B]

But you know, the, the, the reality for me is that of course there was, you know, we had to process this thing, which I really didn't do a good job of for a while. I actually ignored it. I just never talked about it. It took me four years after coming out of Afghanistan to just talk to the guy who saved my life. We're at the same team, we see each other in the halls.

[A]

We didn't talk because you have to recognize that. Yeah.

[B]

But eventually when I sort of came around to maybe the death positive side of things, I was like, I need to look at this. I looked at it as like a tremendous gift. And it wasn't that like now I have a second chance. Definitely that the lasting impression it gave me was right now we are living and we don't think about it. You don't wake up and think, okay, I better make sure my heart beats and I gotta breathe, circulate my blood.

[A]

You're like 100 emails to whatever. Yeah, you just live. Yeah.

[B]

But what I felt in my. Almost certainly had I not been rescued, I would have died. I was in the final stages. I was told I was maybe 30 seconds from death. Oh my God, you're ready to die. You just don't know it. And it's. For me, I was, I was very badly injured. I didn't feel anything. If anything, it was just sort of like, yeah, this is it. That said, I'm thinking about my name, spelling in the newspaper or something and what it did for me is it made death feel not scary.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And so it's a. It's a. I want to do more with my life, with the second chance. I do have that feeling, but it's not nearly as pronounced as I don't have a fear of death.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I simply know death is coming. And I do think about death. It informs a lot of my decision making. Like, whatever I want to do, it's timed against how much time I think I have. But it's not sad, it just is.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think people are so weary or scared of, like, what's going to happen when you die. And granted, I don't really know, but I got close enough to me, it was like, you're ready to die. You just don't know it. As messed up as that really is.

[A]

Yeah. It's like, hard because I think I don't want to focus on it on the day to day of the fact that, like, I'll wake up and being like, oh, yeah, like, people I know might die today or tomorrow or in 30 years or whatever. And like, once you get kind of over that, like, you can go down the hallway of it's just fear taking over you all the time, or you can go down the hallway of like, yes, I accept it and this is okay and I'm gonna live my life. And if anything, I think the idea of the death positive movement is like, well, okay, how do I want to live my life then? Because I can either be really scared about it or completely ignore it, or I can just live my life. You know, I only have this life that I know of for right now. I might as well take advantage of it and, you know, do a very cool storytelling podcast or be a cemetery TikTok or whatever makes us happy, rather than. I'm just, you know, I think, I think also the pandemic for me, I was a lot more death aware. Cause I think we were all talking about, like, our loved ones might die. And I think I felt very similar of like, I'm not really thinking about my death in the sense of like, how am I gonna go out? Like, it's more of like, well, what will my husband feel about this and what's he going to do and what will my siblings do? And like, yeah, it's so. I don't know. The brain is so interesting like that. That's crazy.

[B]

And you mentioned earlier that your folks gave ghost tours and you've mentioned several times that you have this affinity for cemeteries. Of course. Is that because your folks gave Ghost tours that you have this interest in cemeteries, or is this just, like, innate? You've just always been interested in them?

[A]

I think I've always been interested in them. I find them really peaceful places. When I was in high school, I would walk through a cemetery on my way home. Just that was the shortcut, was through a cemetery. And it's fun to, like, read through names and see different, like, funny quotes or inside jokes or people's photos and art. And there's just so many things on different gravestones that I find, like, endlessly interesting. It's like a little piece of each person. And, I mean, if you walk through a cemetery in the Midwest, the cemeteries in the Midwest are like, everything. Like, you know, someone's fishing boat might be on it or, like, a photo of their favorite beer can or, like. Like, literally anything could be on a gravestone. So I just. Yeah, I don't know. I really have always liked them, but I'd say more recently, I've been learning of, like, how. What's cemetery preservation like? And what is it like to bring the community in and what's the history of American cemeteries and all of the, you know, extra pieces to it other than just the vibe?

[B]

So do you plan to put a recipe on your gravestone?

[A]

I feel like I have to at this point. I have to. Yeah. Are you, like. Do you and your wife talked about doing a cemetery as well, or gravestones?

[B]

The thing is that that could be a topic of discussion.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

That is on limits for us. We have not had it.

[A]

Absolutely. It's one of those things of, like, you don't usually deal with it until you have to deal with it. I feel like because of, you know, what I do with. With TikTok and with cemeteries, and I love cemeteries, of course. Yeah. I mean, I feel like, you know, it's an exciting topic. So I'm working with Congressional Cemetery, where I interned, and I am getting a plot there with my husband. And we're talking about, like, do we want to be cremated? Do we want this type of burial space? Do we want our ashes scared? Because you can have. You can buy a plot and just have a memorial, but not have your body there. There's new things in death studies these days. Aquamation is the new cremation, where you essentially are. It's the same result at the end of. You just have some organic materials, but it's just through water. Your body has run through water for, like, a month, and then you turn into this material. Ruth's Cremation is just you know, you're fired up and in a matter of minutes, basically, you turn into the material. So Aquamation's an option. You can get your body turned into gemstones so your family could have jewelry of you. You can get your body shot into space. You can get your body turned into a body farm or donated to science. You can. There's these things called mushroom pots now, which I'm still learning if that's like how legit that is. But it sounds interesting of like, you put this body into a suit and then it's just. It sprouts like new organic materials. And it's very circle of life kind of thing. And I think for me, some of the things that I care about is like, I want people to miss me when I'm gone. I want to be mourned, but then I kind of want people to move on with their lives. Like, I would much prefer, you know, slowly fading into the distance over time. I still, I guess I'm balancing at one point of like, oh, it's important to remember people's names. But also, like, even cemeteries won't be around for forever. Like, the American cemetery is unusual as a model that we die and are buried there. And given this expectation that you will be taken care of for forever, but for forever means that can mean anything. And a cemetery could be relocated, the gravestones could be lost. This happens all the time. And in particular, like, so I went to my sister in law's Peruvian. I went to Peru a little while ago. And it's. You rent a space and apparently in Europe there's different models of it as well, but in a lot of different countries, you rent a space and then if your family is not around every five years to pay for it, a new person comes in and you're just cleaned out and that's that. But outside of that, yeah, most people like you won't be remembered much beyond a generation or two. And that's okay. It feels like engaging with it a little bit more makes it a little less scary. Not that I know what's gonna happen afterwards, but, yeah, I don't know.

[B]

What do you think happens when you die?

[A]

I don't know. I feel like I listen to a lot of paranormal podcasts for, you know, for this reason. And I still am like, I mean, I was raised Catholic, so I'm probably some sort of amalgamation of like, I'm no longer Catholic anymore. But I feel like that gave me the sense of like a soul. And I like the idea that a soul continues on. I don't know what that is or that means. And I think of like, I have. I think my family is very like Pascalian Wager of like, well, you either know or you don't know. But like, it's nice to believe in something. So I think for us it's like it doesn't hurt me to believe that like, you know, we'll live on in some way afterwards. Whether it's a second life or we just become particles and my dust scatters in the wind and like there's something very pleasant about that too. What do you believe?

[B]

I don't know. In a way, my. I forget who said this to me in my life. It was a family member. I think it was my dad. I was talking about death or I was. Death had come up and it was like, well, do you like feel bad or do you feel sad about the time before you were born?

[A]

Whoa.

[B]

And I'm like, no, it doesn't exist for me. And they're like, yeah, that's probably how death is.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

I don't know if that's supposed to be a good or bad thing. And that's also a very like, sort of like intense way of viewing it.

[A]

But also, yeah, like, there's a sense of like, why put meaning to it if it just. It is what it is kind of thing. I think like, if that is what happens at the end, I'm like very. I feel very like non emotionally attached to that again. I think like for me, like in my day to day or even in the work that I do, like, I like to think that like there is something else. I don't know what it is. It's not that I even necessarily am like a heaven and hell person, but I'm like, it's nice to believe that there's something like. And I think about this again, maybe less for myself, but more for like my parents and my siblings and my loved ones and my friends where I'm like, you know, what are you gonna do with the fact that, you know, like every Taylor Swift song and your cat all have crazy names and like you have this crazy like personal job and this thing and like we have all these memories from our 20s and our 30s, like anyways, just like all the micro moments of humanity. I would love to believe, get to continue on somehow. But it might not. It really might just be like at the end.

[B]

Yeah, maybe. But I also think that. So I studied philosophy in college and I used to love like thought experiments where the professor presents something that sort of forces the class to take a stance. And I find myself constant, literally, constantly, I think about this. It's a. When I go to bed, this is a thought I have all the time I think about, like, why does anything exist? And it just keep zooming back. You can have this conversation with anyone. Okay, so. So here we are, right? Okay, so why are we here? Oh, well, because our parents and their parents and, like, evolution or maybe have a religious reason for it, but either way, like, that's how we got here.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Okay, well, why is the Earth here? Why does Earth support life? Why does life exist? Why is the sun here? Why is the Milky Way here? And then if you're like, oh, it's science. Things just are out there. It's just wrong. It's like, okay, why? Why? Why does anything exist? Yeah, because it sort of forces you to realize that if. If there's a reason for everything to exist, we're part of it. So there has to be a reason we're here. Or it's the complete opposite, and we're just, like, here.

[A]

We're just here.

[B]

Which is very difficult to grasp.

[A]

It is.

[B]

But, like, what. What is the universe a part of?

[A]

Yeah, this is the librarian's child of, like. But I want the information. I know it's.

[B]

Someday.

[A]

I really want that information. All the stories that I bet they have, I know it is really. I mean, that's maybe, like, this is a very selfish thing that I do hope there's something else. I think I would love to just, like, either, you know, I die and I get some sort of, like, spirit guide who's like, hey, like, ask any question. And, like, you have infinite access to just what is reality. And I'm, like, very excited. And I want to be like, I want to know everything. Like, I just. I'm so excited. If that's the thing, and if that's the case, then, you know, it doesn't really matter either way. But, like, I just want to know everything I know. Mysteries of history. I've, Like, I just. I'm like, I just want to ask all the questions of, like. I honestly had never thought to think beyond our planet because there's so many questions I have about our planet that I'm like, oh, will I maybe know that? Like, will I just have. Does the universe just become this, like, you know, interconnected soul? Like, I guess this is a very Carl Jung way of thinking about it of, like, just, like, one body of universe. And that's why we have archetypes, because it's just, like, a shared Consciousness and we just go back to that afterwards, but then you know, everything. So I really, I love the idea of that. That would be very cool. But who knows? You might not. I don't know.

[B]

So what would you say is something that you've learned explicitly from doing what you do? Like, what's one thing you've learned?

[A]

How to make a good chocolate chip cookie.

[B]

Very practical.

[A]

Yeah. But I'd also say, like, I think we celebrate death and death traditions can change so much. I think for me, I grew up with food and death were very disconnected. A comment that I get quite often on TikTok is like, ew, you bring food to cemeteries. That's so disgusting. But also, in the early days, food, people would picnic in cemeteries. We have tabletop gravestones. And the first American national park was the cemetery before we had official national park. And yeah, people would just picnic on them on the weekends. And you would be picnicking with grandpa or someone else's relatives. And it was so normal. And nowadays we have like, yeah, like, I get, like. I get some very strange comments of people being like, they're gonna haunt you or like, that's so disrespectful. And I was like, well, technically, from our. The way that we're taught of, like, how to behave in cemeteries in some cases, like, I would have assumed that originally, but, like, now that I've learned the history of cemeteries and other even just how other cultures do different food and death traditions. So in any case, it's just I've learned a lot about, like, how people use food to remember someone. Even if, like, for me, I grew up with being like, it was a little bit more taboo, I guess. I guess everything is taboo. Catholic, lots of guilt.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What did you grow up as?

[B]

I was Unitarian Universalist.

[A]

Very nice. What does that mean? I don't know.

[B]

It was very open minded. It was sort of like, you believe what you want.

[A]

You do you. I love that. No, that's actually. That's so rad. And I wish would probably all benefit from being a little bit more like that. Catholics were very fire and brimstone. I do love a Catholic cemetery. They have a lot of, like, you know, motifs. And I guess when it comes to like, death, you know, we have like, the body and blood of Christ, which is a lot of food and death. You eat this thing. And so there's something. I haven't looked too much into that, but I'm like, it has to be something there of like. Death is very associated with the traditions of food. We have Meals together. You know, we have. I'm Irish. And so, like, we have the Irish wake where we gather around the casket of the person who just passed away and we're drinking around them, and. You know what I mean? Like, that's. I don't know.

[B]

So a lot of tradition around death.

[A]

Oh, for sure.

[B]

There's much more than I think we realize across cultures. And food is a big part of it.

[A]

Exactly. Does your family have any particular funerary traditions that you all do?

[B]

No, no. But I feel like we need to get into this death positive movement.

[A]

Hell, yeah. Thinking about it. That's great. Do you mind if I asked? The last funeral that you went to, my aunt. Oh, nice.

[B]

Yeah. She died in 2012.

[A]

Oh, I'm so sorry.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. No, it was. She was the first person I watched die.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

So she had breast cancer.

[A]

She.

[B]

Andy. She. It was crazy. She was, like, fine. She was 45.

[A]

Oh, my gosh.

[B]

And she went home. She was living in Seattle with her twin boys and her husband Matt, and she just went back in for pneumonia. And it actually really was sort of not a big deal.

[A]

Oh, my goodness.

[B]

I was out in the. In San Diego for military training, and my family was like, hey, Andy's going back in the hospital. But it's. It's really just sort of an overabundance of precaution here because she has cancer. But it just. It just spiraled. And then before long, I was flying to Seattle.

[A]

Oh, my goodness.

[B]

You know, Andy's, like, so full of life.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I walked into the hospital, and I know she's going to die. It's very clear. And her husband's there, and he's sort of in shock, and my dad and his brother. So her brother and I went and just held her hand and in a way, because I was the nephew, and I was definitely close with her, but, like, my father and his brother and her husband, they're there. But this is so deep cutting. It's almost like they can't quite be here in the moment. And I sort of almost intuitively recognize that, like, I'm just gonna be super close to Andy because she's. She's here still.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

She seems to know we're in the room with her, but she's doing, like, the death rattle. It's like the end of her life. And I held her hand and I was like, it's okay. Like, you can go. Yeah. And then watching her die, you know, it's like, it was profound and beautiful and fucking devastating, you know?

[A]

Yeah. What A gift that you gave to her, though, being there with her. I mean, that's. I feel like people do full death doula trainings, literally just to sit next to someone while they're there. Because there's something I heard a Peacekeeper, someone who, like, worked as a Peacekeeper, saying something like this. And maybe you are this type of person of like, you're either two people, two types of people in life. You're the person who is stopping people from jumping off of the cliff. And like, you're. It's very preventative. It's maybe more at a distance. Or you're the person at the bottom of the clif working with people who have fallen off of the cliff. And it's very, like, face to face. And I feel like people who do grief, workers, death doulas who can just sit at the bedside are the people at the bottom of the cliff who are like, things went on beforehand that are out of my control. But I'm with you now. And, like, I can be here. And, you know, a lot of times you can't be one or the other. I think some people can do both. I think I'm more of a top of the cliff person. But maybe you're a bottom of the cliff person.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, the other side to this, truthfully, is, and I haven't talked about this, but, like, so Andy's death, you know, that's like my family. And it was, you know, it was really difficult. It still is. But then when I was deployed overseas, I saw death in a very different way.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, I mean, candidly, I saw as a Navy SEAL and, like, we're going out, you know, effectively with the intent to do harm.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, no matter how you want to cut it, it's. It's. No matter how you feel about it, that's active duty.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I remember, like, one of the first times that it wasn't me, but somebody on our team took somebody else's life. And I had to. It's called Seek. There's a machine you use to fingerprint people.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

It's an archive of all the people. And this, for the record, the person we took out, like, they actively shot at us. Shot. It isn't like it was a, oh, whoops, we got it wrong.

[A]

Well, this is kind of how it is. Yeah. Right.

[B]

And again, like, you know, people can make the claim that we shouldn't have been in the first place, whatever. But. But I remember I was fingerprinting him and he was dead. And the son had just come up, and we're in his compound in his house. And I had this really difficult sort of realization that, like, if the roles were somehow reversed and, like, I'm in my home in the United States, like, would I take up arms against a foreign country that had come into my country? Probably. I probably would. And he had family. I'm sure they were fine. But I'm, like, fingerprinting him, and he's just been killed.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

So he's, like, fully looks alive, minus gunshots. And I, like, had to tell myself that this was different than Andy. Like, this is.

[A]

Wow. That, like, came through your head.

[B]

Well, because I want. There was, like, empathy. Even though, like, there's no more gun fighting, like, there's nothing happening now we are at the full. Like. Like, it's over and done with, and we're just processing the scene. And there's. It's very professional. Like, the post contact is very professional. We all just do our jobs, and mine was just fingerprint. And I couldn't help but have that sense of humanity, of, like, feeling bad, even though I'm not kidding. I walked into a hallway, and I. I went up a stairwell before he was shot, and my teammate came right behind me, and the guy was laying in wait and shot a shotgun that hit my teammate right in the chest. And it turned into this whole thing. So it was like this horrible thing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, he lived. But, yeah, like, it's. I think that I left Afghanistan, especially with my own brush with death and even that and several other people that I seek. It's hard not to feel that humanity, even in the worst of places and in a situation where you've sort of been in. You've almost been told to look at them. Not like, they're not like Andy. They're not like Andy. They're different. The same way they look at me is different. Yeah, but we're all just like bags of blood and bone trying to make sense in the world. Yeah. It's difficult to grapple with.

[A]

I think, like, that's a good thing, though. I mean, it's. Because I'm imagining it would be really difficult to hold on to, like, a sense of humanity and to be able to, you know, do your job. I don't know. I think that's really. There's something. There's something really, like, there's a spark there of the fact that you got to experience that. That basically, it almost sounded like your aunt was there with you while you were experiencing that. Like, I don't know. These are Things like that that make me believe in a soul.

[B]

I think that's fair. I think. I think it does. I. I think that there's also. It's such a big part of human experience. Totally. Imagine that there's some element that is a soul.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Why does religion exist to begin with? Because everybody over humanity has thought about it.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

You know, it's not like one day we said, oh, I think religion's a thing. Yeah. Like for the sake like all of time, it seems like there's been some idea that there's a higher power of something, some kind.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

And like, I hope there is.

[A]

I hope there is. And like, whatever. It looks like I'm so down for whatever tradition it turns into, but like, it's nice to think about these things. And then like. Yeah, I feel like, what an extreme scenario of like you're seeking and your aunt is there on some level with you whether it's just like presence of mind. And I think like, this is so. Have you ever. This is like such a tangent, but I swear it has. This is just reminding me. Have you ever seen a psychic before?

[B]

I think, but only as a child and sort of ad hoc. And it was not serious.

[A]

Totally. Well, and you know, you saw a mentalist in a previous episode and that also. I'm still curious. Like, there's so many. There's a lot to. To unpack with that. But I saw there's this. There's this psychic Inela. And I should say, like, I love paranormal stories. I love ghost stories. I think to me it's like my, like very soft level of engaging in these, like higher topics. But I saw her and she asked me to pull up my phone and voice record us during the whole thing. And then she immediately starts talking about my friend in college who died, who took her own life. And she's like, she's really worried about you. And I had been going through when I first moved to la, so this was maybe about two years ago that this happened. First moved to la. Very homesick. I'm from Virginia myself, and I was like, I miss home and I miss my family and I feel very fish out of water and what am I doing here? And the TikTok was doing great, but I think I personally was just really struggling and I was thinking about my friend a lot who had taken her own life. And I was just like. I don't know, like, she was just like. I just was almost disconnected, but I was just thinking about her all the time. And I go see the psychic and the psychic is like, yeah, your friend Emily's really worried about you. And I was like, what? Like, I don't. Only my partner I've talked to about this, like, and she's like, yeah, like, the one who was probably gonna be a teacher. And I was like, yeah, no, I know this. Who? My friend. Like, yes, yes, she was gonna be a teacher. That's crazy. And she's like, yeah, like, you need to start. You need to start doing things for yourself a lot more. You need to start prioritizing a little bit more. And honestly, it was just, like. It was, like, really crazy to have that confirmation because, like, my friend, during some of these, like, just very dark moments where I'd, like, wake up crying and I'd fall asleep crying because I'm like, I just miss my family. Like, what am I doing in la? This is awful. And, like, just a lot of, like, dark thoughts. And, like, with those dark thoughts, my friend would be there with me. So it was so crazy to have, like, a year of this of my friend just always suddenly being there with me, like, in my mind. And then an external person would be like, yeah, no, she's with you. She's like. And I will say, like, things have gotten much better. I actually really like my life in la. My partner and I have, like, we moved to a neighborhood that made things so much better. And my friend is less present of mine now that I'm in a good place. And I can't help but wonder if, like, I was being, I don't know, sensing her or something like that. But it was a very strange synchronicity that I kept thinking about with, yeah, I don't know again, soul who knows something's there. I don't know.

[B]

So obviously you have this incredible book that has just come out to die for. A cookbook of gravestone recipes. It's more than just a recipe book. There are stories in here, amazing pictures. You should be very proud of this. It's beautiful. This is incredible. Thank you so much.

[A]

Thank you so much. This is such an honor to be here. Thank you.

[B]

Thank you. The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail], progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

[A]

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