Podcast Summary: Squeezed with Yvette Nicole Brown

Episode: The Long Goodbye
Date: September 24, 2025
Host: Yvette Nicole Brown
Guest: Stephanie Wittles Wachs
Podcast: Lemonada Media

Overview

In the Season 2 premiere episode, "The Long Goodbye," host Yvette Nicole Brown reunites with Lemonada co-founder Stephanie Wittles Wachs to explore the deeply emotional and universal experience of end-of-life caregiving. The conversation centers on Stephanie's journey as her father, Ellison, entered hospice and eventually passed away. The episode candidly examines anticipatory grief, the practicalities and misconceptions about hospice, and the relief—and guilt—that follow a loved one’s passing. It’s both a personal narrative and a beacon for other caregivers, focusing on making sense of loss, expressing love, and finding peace in the aftermath.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The First Signs of Loss and Disconnection

• Stephanie shares a harrowing audio clip of her father no longer recognizing her, marking the start of a new chapter in his decline.
  • (00:41) Stephanie: "Do you not recognize me at all?...You don't know my name? ...What is your name? ...Stephanie."
  • (01:08) Yvette Nicole Brown: "This was the first time Steph’s dad, Ellison, didn't recognize her."
• The role of seemingly small, everyday moments—like running the dryer at home—accentuates the surreal and dissonant feeling of beginning to lose a loved one piece by piece.
• Stephanie reflects on realizing her father’s loving gaze was gone, replaced by vacancy:
  • (01:56) Stephanie: "It’s like wild and very dissonant when someone...loses their mind and they look at you like a stranger..."

2. Caregiving Rollercoaster: Emotional Highs, Lows, and Resilience

• Both Yvette and Stephanie share the tumultuous journey of caregiving: brief moments of reunion (“he knew she was his daughter again”) then slipping away once more.
  • (02:44) Yvette Nicole Brown: "Some good days, some bad days, and this up and down is just part of it."
• Humor as a coping mechanism—anecdotes about Ellison's dark humor and T-shirts (“I’ve been social distancing for years” and “In dog years, I’m dead”):
  • (06:51) Stephanie: "It’s all, like, antisocial T-shirts."
• Stephanie explains the emotional complexity of maintaining daily routines (like sending kids to school) while navigating intense grief:
  • (05:49) Stephanie: "You have to keep going in this way that doesn’t allow you to stop and process...I’m fine every day. Because I’m busy."

3. Shared But Personal Grief: Comparing Declines

• Yvette and Stephanie compare their fathers’ illnesses—one’s mind slipping (Alzheimer’s, dementia), the other’s body fading (Parkinson’s), each a unique pain:
  • (08:23) Yvette: "The cruelty...is it takes the brilliance and the magic...and the body is still there. But the thing that made them...is just slowly diminishing in front of you."
• The shared experience of watching a loved one fade, but grasping for their presence as the illness progresses:
  • (09:08) Stephanie: "Our journeys though different are the same...how similar people’s experiences are in these moments."

4. The Transition to Hospice: Myths, Realities, and Decision-Making

• The decision to enter hospice is fraught with fear and misunderstanding, countered by a compassionate palliative nurse who reframes hospice not as an immediate death sentence, but as comfort-focused care.
  • *(14:18) Stephanie: "They tried to get him out of bed, and he just lifelessly went flat on the ground...We thought he had had a stroke."
  • *(15:28) Stephanie: "She explained what I did not know about hospice...the average person is on hospice for six months...as long as they need us, we will come."
• Yvette’s endorsement of hospice as a “gift,” emphasizing the relief from endless, taxing hospital cycles:
  • *(16:55) Yvette: "If there is one thing I want this episode to do...for people to understand the gift of hospice and what it truly is..."

5. The Impossible Goodbye: Hope and Denial

• The unpredictability of end-of-life trajectories—Stephanie notes that, even in Ellison's final hours, she kept hoping for a rebound due to his repeated recoveries in the past (“he had 25 lives”).
  • *(19:12) Stephanie: "I think it was because I had seen him turn it around so many times...I had seen him turn it around so many times."
• Navigating practicalities: listening to hospice nurses’ advice, wrestling with whether to cancel work for vigil, being told “He will be here when you get back”:
  • *(20:12) Stephanie: "One of the hospice nurses...she was like, he is not going anywhere. Come feel his feet. They are warm..."

6. The Final Hours: Bearing Witness in Intimacy and Waiting

• The emotional and physical toll of the very end: Steph and her mom stayed with Ellison for 36 hours, giving medicine, playing favorite music, waiting for the last breath.
  • *(28:06) Stephanie: "I played all of his favorite country songs...we were in that room...for 36 hours."
  • *(28:33) Stephanie: "I was crushing up the pills...putting them in the morphine...putting them in his mouth."
• The protracted waiting, comparing death to labor:
  • *(29:20) Stephanie: "You’re waiting for the end...that’s why it felt like labor to me..."
  • *(30:46) Yvette: "It felt like labor. Watching labor in reverse."
• The specifics and difficulty of observing death: breath changes, gasping, and finally, silence.
  • *(31:49) Stephanie: "And then he was gone. And the silence...I got to be with him when he took his last breath."

7. Aftermath: Peace, Guilt, and Relief

• Accepting the finality as both “supposed to happen” and still very hard:
  • *(32:47) Stephanie: "But it’s what’s supposed to happen, right? ...His body was ready. His body was done."
• Comparing deaths in her family—her brother’s opioid overdose felt more “robbed and wrong”; her father’s peaceful passing brought more acceptance.
• Questioning afterlife—contrasting her mother's firm belief in reunion with her and her father's skeptical, science-based view:
  • *(33:43) Stephanie: "My mom always tells me the only way I’m able to get through anything is that I know I’m gonna see Harris again...I struggle with knowing what’s next. I’m a cynic."
• Grieving caregivers’ relief—when the metaphorical quicksand recedes, there may be relief. Yvette stresses it's okay to feel this:
  • *(36:09) Yvette: "I think this is the crazy thing about being a caregiver. There’s guilt in every aspect...once they’re gone, you feel, like, the gratitude or the joy or the relief, if we’re honest, there’s a bit of relief..."
• Steph’s evolution: From quicksand to flying.
  • *(37:36) Stephanie: "The first thing I thought of was like, flying...I feel this like—I can go where I need to go."

8. Holding Onto Life: Memory, Humor, and Family

• Continuing to find joy and everyday life with her kids, using humor (kindergarten jokes at the bedside) as a bridge during tough moments.
  • *(38:38) Stephanie’s child: "Why did the cat not want to play volleyball? Because it had a hairball."
  • *(38:52) Yvette: "Tough crowd."

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Seeing vacancy in a parent's eyes is so weird."
  – Stephanie Wittles Wachs (01:56)
• "The only way I can explain that vacant stare is this: My dad is there, but he's no longer there."
  – Yvette Nicole Brown (10:48)
• "It takes the brilliance and the magic and the sparkle and the shine of our heroes."
  – Yvette Nicole Brown (08:23)
• "The spirit gets a little antsy, like, well, I did this."
  – Yvette Nicole Brown (23:33)
• "There's a relief to not being in quicksand anymore…You can’t breathe."
  – Stephanie Wittles Wachs (36:07)
• "I feel this like—I can go where I need to go."
  – Stephanie Wittles Wachs (37:36)

Important Timestamps

• 00:41-02:44: Stephanie’s father first doesn’t recognize her—audio, followed by her emotional reaction
• 05:49-06:29: Ongoing life tasks and the challenge of processing grief while staying busy
• 14:18-16:55: Deciding on hospice, explanation of what hospice is and isn’t
• 19:05-20:12: Hoping for a turnaround even at the end—Steph’s repeated denials
• 28:06-31:42: The final vigil, administering morphine, and Ellison’s last breath
• 33:14-35:10: Views on afterlife—Ellison’s skepticism, mother’s hope, Stephanie’s struggle
• 35:59-37:36: Steph on shifting from “quicksand” to “flying”—relief post-caregiving
• 38:38-38:52: Humor from children at Ellison’s bedside

Tone and Style

The conversation is candid, warm, and threaded with bittersweet humor. Yvette and Stephanie use frank language to demystify death, caregiving, and grief, making space for vulnerability and laughter. The tone reflects compassionate honesty—allowing listeners to feel less alone and more validated in the complexities of loss.

Takeaways

• Caregiving at the end of life is as real and human as any other stage, filled with ordinary moments and profound realizations.
• Hospice is a comfort-focused, supportive resource—neither shameful nor automatically a harbinger of death.
• Relief, guilt, and shifting identity after a loved one’s death are normal, and it’s important for caregivers to grant themselves permission to feel them.
• Storytelling, humor, and staying present—even in final moments—can bring unexpected comfort.

For anyone facing or reflecting on a caregiving journey, this episode gives voice to a wide range of emotions, experiences, and gently hard truths—serving as both validation and tribute to those living “the long goodbye.”