Yvonne Caputo | Five Wishes That Transformed My Father's End-of-Life, Our Relationship, and My Grief

Dive into the depths of grief, joy, and the paradox of emotions with Yvonne Caputo on Grieving Voices this week. From personal tales to professional insights, learn how attentive listening can transform relationships and provide peace in life's transitions.

Yvonne reflects on personally challenging life transitions that led her to therapy as she grappled with feelings of loss. Her journey emphasizes not just the grand losses but also those smaller ones that cumulatively shape our lives.

Episode Highlights:

The Paradox of Emotions: Yvonne talks about containing paradoxes—how we can experience joy in sorrow, teaching us valuable lessons about mental health and resilience.

Storytelling & Healing: Listen to how conversations with her father about his WWII experiences helped unearth latent PTSD and transformed their relationship by simply offering an attentive ear.

End-of-Life Wishes: Discover why discussing end-of-life preferences is crucial as Caputo recounts honoring her father's wishes for a peaceful passing versus the traumatic hospital death of her mother without known wishes.

Therapeutic Practices: Learn from Caputo’s approach to providing comfort in therapy—validating experiences without judgment—and its impact on elderly individuals in caregiving settings.

From dealing with personal loss to facilitating meaningful dialogues around mortality, this episode is a testament to the healing power of being heard. 

RESOURCES:

• Book | Flying with Dad
• Book | Dying with Dad
• fivewishes.org
• Grief Recovery
• Book by Annie Sklaver Orenstein |

Transcript

Victoria Volk: Hey. Hey. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of grieving voices. Unless this is your first time listening, thank you for joining us. And thank you or being here. Today, my guest is Yvonne Caputo. She is a psychotherapist, corporate trainer, consultant, and she has been a teacher and the head of a human resource department in a retirement community. She has a master's degree in education and clinical psychology. She is the author of Flying With Dad, a daughter, a father, and the hidden gifts and his stories from World War two, and Dine With Dad tough talks for easier endings. Thank you so much for being here. And when I was looking through your laundry list of lost which I think if we all just took stock and wrote down really all of the stuff that we've been through, that life is thrown at us, whether from childhood or dog, you know, or first pet dying or having to move once, twice, three, four times, losing friendships in that process as adults, moving and having to change communities. And, you know, it's I mean, just you become ingrained in where you live. Right? Like, these relationships become ever of your life, the UPS man, the mail man, the your delivery people, you get to know these people. I'm just kinda going off a tangent here, but If we think about how many losses we really have in life, I think we would be kinda shocked. Most of us. I mean, I I've I've done that, and I was shocked But, you know, I think it's good from time to time to really take stock of the things that have happened to us that have shaped us. And so, what are the losses that have shaped you? And the work that you're doing.

Yvonne Caputo: It it's interesting you started out the way you did because it brought up something. That I sort of forgotten. And that's that in nineteen eighty nine, I met and married this wonderful man. That's not a loss, but he had two children from a previous marriage that he was committing to living near. So I, without thinking much about it, knew that I was going to be leaving the city that I loved leaving a job that I loved, leaving friends that I loved, and moving into this unknown world, and then when I got to Southeastern Pennsylvania.
I couldn't find a teaching physician. So all of those things combined I remember thinking if I'm not okay in two years, with all of these changes and losses, then I'll go back to therapy. I was in therapy at six months. Because, you know, as you said, leaving a town that I've been in for twenty years, leaving a kinds of friends leaving those connections. It was Erie, Pennsylvania, and it's one of the most beautiful places in the world. It has a pen insulin that's thirteen and a half grams around that I used to ride every day after I would leave my teaching position. So there were lots of losses. Becoming a step parent, becoming a parent for the first time. You know, to a nine and seven year old. So it was it was a mixed bag.
It was one of the best things are ever done. We celebrated our thirty fifth wedding anniversary yesterday. But yes, there were lots of losses. In that celebration.

Victoria Volk: Well, happy anniversary.

Yvonne Caputo: Thank you.

Victoria Volk: Exactly. Like, that's the perfect example of these things that people generally forget about. Right? Like, we just don't it it's like, well, it wasn't traumatic or you know, we we have this we tend to have this hierarchy or compare. And, you know, I shouldn't be sad about this. This should be a great time, but yet it's the both and

Yvonne Caputo: Mhmm. Can

Victoria Volk: be incredibly excited about something but incredibly sad and melancholy and grieving. Two, we can do we can hold both of those things at the same time.

Yvonne Caputo: I use this phrase with my clients. A lot, but I also use it generally in life. Sound mental health is the ability to contain the paradox. You can, you can't, you will, and you won't, it isn't, it isn't. So sadness and joy can be together in the same bubble. And knowing that I think is extremely soothing, you know, to be able to say, okay, I can be sad about this. And at the same time, I can experience joy the joy that goes with it. But you're right. That was not something I was taught in grade school, nor was I, you know, taught in high school or college. It was only later in life that I heard that statement from a psychologist and I went, oh, wow. Boy does that say it all? And when I think about it containing the paradox, What's a good synonym for contained? Mhmm. There really isn't one. You know, it it it really is what it is. It's it's that it's right there at the same time. Two things. So you're absolutely right. We can hold joy and we can hold sadness at the same time.

Victoria Volk: You said hold in and I was actually thinking holding, like, just holding both of those emotions, like, contained in holding. But at the same time, it's, like, it has to go somewhere. Right? The grief has to go somewhere. Even the joy has to go somewhere. Right? Like, we can't it's like, you know, if you are so grateful for somebody and you really let's say, I mean, withholding our pain and our grief can have the same effect of holding our joy and our appreciation and our gratitude for people. Right? Like, there is a suffering that happens in that too. Right? Because I think I don't know if I'm getting my I'm not getting my point across here. What I'm trying to say, but the energy has to go somewhere. Right? And so either the energy of joy or the energy of sorrow, like containing it does something to our bodies. You know, we can manifest symptoms. And if we don't speak it or don't share it or if we do, will it be received the right way? Or will it, you know, we can have these expectations of, if we say something to somebody that's positive, will they have the response we want? You know what I mean? Like, there's just that's getting into, like, really deepen the weeds of relationships and communication and all of that. But I'm not sure I'm get getting my point across here, but Maybe you

Yvonne Caputo: There are two things that I think of when you say that. And that's for any of us when we're hearing somebody who is in sorrow or who is in joy. To listen Mhmm. To just listen. And, you know, nod heads or say aha or even tell me more, you know, to invite that person to continue on that path that they're on because Absolutely. They need to explore it. They need to explain it. They need to have somebody who's going to who is going to validate it just by listening. The second thing that I think of is this. When my father died, I was with him. And his dying wish was to be taken feet first out of his own home. Which meant he was gonna be on a gurney. And that's exactly what happened. And when the EMTs put the gurney down behind the ambulance and the ambulance doors were open. And I saw the look on my father's face. I went Yes. And the EMTs looked at me like I lost every marble I might have had. But what joy was coming out of me was the soft sweet smile on my dad's face. Because he and I had had intimate talks about death and dying. And I knew exactly what he wanted. And when I saw that the end was coming, being with him at home, the EMT's working on him, I knew what had to do. I picked up the phone, I called the hospital, I said, you know, so do not resuscitate water on dad's chart. They're bringing him in. Please make sure it's at the emergency room when they come. Now that's not the first time of his own home. But Grace was with me in that the emergency room doctor called and said, you can stop working on it. So I laid down beside my father. I told him that I loved him. I told him that he was gonna be with my mother, which is part of our conversation. He saw mister. And then I did what we always did in our family, the glue, I said the Lawrence prayer in his ear. And he was gone. So that joy did get expressed And it's hard for people to understand that I continue to feel that profound sacred joy when I think about my dad's death because he and I worked so closely on how he wanted it to be.

Victoria Volk: That's beautiful. You are on the same team. Like, you were his cheerleader, you were his advocate. And I think so many people don't get that opportunity, first of all, don't maybe have that safe person that they trust. Maybe, you know, to follow through. Right? When because we're taught how to acquire things and people people not what to do when we lose them. So what got you to that point to be able to be able to let go and not hold this grip and not let your ego get in the way.

Yvonne Caputo: My entire career from the time I graduated from college, feels like preparation for that journey.

Victoria Volk: You

Yvonne Caputo: know, being the teacher, being the psychotherapist, particularly working in the retirement community. As a member of the executive team, I sat on the ethics committee. And we had a case where a woman with severely tameshia could no longer communicate at all, developed an abscess on her foot, and the doctor in charge said, local bass and antibiotics. The daughter trying to be her mother's advocate said, no. Mom's advance directive, the document which gives legal power to somebody to speak if you can't speak for yourself. Said quality of quality of life. And the daughter didn't feel like antibiotic, cerebral palsy would equality of life that it was really time to let her mother go. The problem was that the quality that quality of life was recognized in our state. And so the case ended up going to court, a surrogate was provided to allow for the BaaS any antibiotic and then should that not help and an amputation be needed, the god the daughter could step in and say no. I'm sitting here on this case and I'm thinking about my dad and I'm like, whoa. Does he have an advanced directive? What is that? How do I go about getting one of that? One of them. So I did some research. Social workers are very helpful. And I called dad, and I said, I know you have a will, but do you have an advanced directive? What's that? So I explained it. And he said, oh, no. He said, I never never thought about doing anything like that. And I said, well, okay, Dan. If I find an attorney and I come home, Would you be willing to sit and get it done? And he said, sure. So here I went to the attorney's office and he made me, his healthcare, his legal, medical power of attorney. And so I felt pretty good about that until one of the vice presidents came back from a leading age conference. And this is conference that does everything about retirement communities. And she had this document called the five wishes. And she was just so excited about what this document did. And I asked her if I could borrow it. She said, sure, return that bar. It laid on my desk for a long time, and my desk was pretty messy. So one Friday night, I decided I needed to clean off my desk so that the housekeeping people would clean it because they wouldn't touch it. If it was the way I kept it. And I pulled out the five wishes and started to read and I went, oh, by. This takes an advanced directive to places I never dreamed or possible. How comfortable do you want to be? What do you want your children to know? What do you feel best about in your life? And very simply laid out, the questions were all there. If dad if I was gonna do this with dad and dad said, no, I don't want that. No, I don't want that. All I had to do is cross a line. And I took the document. I wrote one for myself and I took the document and drove home to see that kind of quaking because my father get angry quickly. So I wasn't quite sure what I was gonna meet when here I was taking in something that was similar to something he'd already done, but he was in just the right frame of mind. He towing his legs over the hospital bed. That's where he was again. He was a broken diabetic. Pat in the seat. I sat down in the warmth of him. And we went over the five wishes. Question by question by line. Do you want your organs to be given after you die. That's one of the questions. Dad said, hell no. He said, I can't imagine anybody would wanna probably in Rack and Rowan. Do you want what do you want for your funeral? Well, he said my husband was gonna say because he's got a glorious tender voice. He named exactly what songs he wanted in the funeral. He said, I want you children and grandchildren to do the readings, but you choose. You know what we'll speak to you. And so on and on, he goes, and I'm writing these kinds of things down. And at the end of getting it done, I just reached for his hand, and once again, it was the Lord's prayer. And it was one of the most intimate beautiful transcending experiences I've ever had in my life. So when the time came, I knew what dad wanted, and I went into automatic pilot. He had trusted me with the advanced directive and he had trusted me and named me on the five wishes. And there was no way in the world that I was not gonna honor. What he asked me to do. So for your audience in grieving voices, for me, do I miss my dad? Oh, absolutely. Would I like to cook one more pot roast dinner for him? Absolutely. Are there questions I have for him about world war two and other things that he did? Absolutely. Can I mail into tears and he's been gone fourteen years now? Absolutely. But also in there is this profound, sacred joy that will make me just smile. Because of dad's trust in me, that gift he gave me and the gift I gave him in return.

Victoria Volk: Were you an only child?

Yvonne Caputo: No. I remember

Victoria Volk: how did that work with communicating to the siblings and did they were they all on board with everything as well?

Yvonne Caputo: They were on board. My sister said she probably couldn't have done it. To backtrack, there's another story. One of the sorrows that I have, one of the things that I still grieve is my mother's dementia. She went from being one of the most gifted women I've ever known. Intellectually, socially, spiritually. And to see her, not know what she did five minutes ago. It was heartbreaking. So we had some things we needed to do when she had surgery for colon cancer. And my brother and sister and I or a team. And my older brother said, okay, Yvonne, you take care of the psychological piece. You know that. Connie, you take care of some of the medical pieces, and I can take care of these. So we kind of divvied up the the the responsibilities so that when the time came, you know, it was me. It was me that then did what I needed to do. And the result of what that was is they were both pleased. They missed the fact that they weren't with dad, but they were pleased that he had somebody with him. And that I stepped in and and did what he asked me to do.

Victoria Volk: You think it was the contrast of that experience with your mother that really kind of propelled you to curate a different experience with your dad?

Yvonne Caputo: Absolutely. Absolutely. My mother died in the hospital, in the sterile and god bless hospitals for what they do. I mean, I I wanna say that, but in this sterile atmosphere, and I called her on the phone. We're six and a half hours apart by driving. And she started screaming. You've gone get me out of here. You've gone get me out of here. I don't want to be here. You've gone get me out of here. It was so bad. That the nurse came in and took the receiver from her and talked to me and said, I'll get it quieted down. I'm gonna hang up. That was the last conversation I had with my mother. And when she died, I was so angry. I was angry that she died in the hospital. I was angry that she died without somebody beside her. And you're right. It propelled me in a way Mhmm. To think about that doing something with that differently. So in this case, grieving can be the voice that you need to hear or the need that you need to respond to. In order to do something that needs to be done?

Victoria Volk: You had kinda touched on. I just kinda wanna back pedal a little bit, and we're gonna kinda jump around here a little bit, but you had touched on your dad's anger. And, you know, I'm a veteran too, and so I have a really soft spot for veterans and, I mean, World War two is the greatest generation. Right? What was your experience growing up? With that relationship with anger? And what were you taught about grief growing up?

Yvonne Caputo: The anger was always just below the surface. So I remember it being a teenager asking for thirty five cents so I could go to the Saturday evening high school dance. And my dad just flipped. Gave me the thirty five cents but it was it was painful because he was so angry. That was there a lot. The other part is if I were if I was in tears over something, and I was I'm hypersensitive. I there's a technical term for it. And if I was in tears, I was told to go into my room until I could get myself settled. There was no warmth through or come here, honey, what what's the matter? Tell me about. There was none of that. So I didn't learn what to do with my emotions. Until I went into therapy. And that was me to late twenties when I just looked at my life and said it's not working. I'm doing the same things over and over again and I'm getting the same results. So I got into therapy where I finally learned what those childhood experiences meant, what they taught me to do, and how I could do things differently. But what changed my relationship with my father was world war two. Because one, evening in two thousand and eight. He and I were on the phone. And we do blood tests and dialysis treatments and doctor and send the people across the street who were giving them in home care, and then we'd stall for anything to talk about. I'm not a sports fan. You know, my brother and sister had sports and dad and they could just go on and on and on about that kind of thing. But wasn't wasn't in my backpack, but dad opened up and told me your World War two story, quirky, funny off the wall about of all things losing their third engine which had the hydraulics and making an emergency landing in free Belgium. And I, as a history book, said to my dad, let me get a pencil and paper. I wanna take notes. What the hell do you wanna do that? So how it came about Victoria, I don't know, but the next phone call I said, tell me more. And the story's just started rolling. My taking notes, my asking TAM questions, my listening to the stories, changed our relationship deeply. He began to trust me and opened up to me in ways that I never dreamt possible growing up as a kid. I say frequently through dad's stories, I got the father knows who wanted. He got the daughter, he didn't know he had. And I was in my sixties when all this happened. So that's all a part of this, you know, grieving that in my sixties, I learned something about listening. About opportunities to listen. Now, of course, I did that as a therapist and why it didn't occur to me to do it my own father. I don't know. But he didn't. What came out of that for me was the deep understanding of where my dad's anger came from. It was PTSD. He went into the war because he wanted to fly. That was his main that was it. He wouldn't have had to have gone. He had a presidential deferment that would have kept him home because he repaired airplanes. He repaired the airplanes that young testing pilots in in dad's words busted off. So here's a guy who watched a fly, e ends up in England as a navigator on b24s, watching playing after playing after playing, explode in the sky because it hit flexed or it was tracked by a German jet. And he came home with that. But he told me at some point when we were doing all of this talking, said when I came home, and everybody seemed to be fine. I walked around Meville, my hometown, and saw guys that I knew were that were in the service, and they seemed to be just fine. So I wanted to know what was wrong with me. He had a recurring nightmare that lasted for three years. He had a flashback sixty years after the war, none of which he understood. So part of the closeness that came for Dad and I was when those kinds of things came up in our conversation because of my background, I could explain what they were and why they happened. And that it was a normal thing to experience when you have witnessed such abnormality. So that that talks about the anger and where it came from when I was a child and how dad and I navigated through it. Even to the point where the last phone call he had with me, he had been released from the hospital. I had said, To the social worker, he can go home when he's ready. Well, he they sent him home, no pain medication. He was an agony. He called me on the phone, and he ripped into me. I'm holding the phone. Out here, you know, while he's doing it. And I said to him, I said, dad, I said, I told him you could go home, when you are ready. Doesn't sound like you are ready. Victoria, he apologized. He said, oh, honey, I'm so sorry. I yelled at you. I didn't mean it. And I replied, dad, you were just venting. It's okay. So the grace that came with this closeness that I developed with my father is I got an apology. When we talk about grieving, I do miss that relationship. The one that I that dad and I were able to get to before he died. I missed that.

Victoria Volk: I missed that for you. My dad my dad was a Vietnam vet. Oh, what I know now about energy work and grief and all of that, I think he just held it all in. And it killed him, and he died of colon cancer at forty four. And he slept with a knife under the mattress. So coming back to the greater message about this is becoming that safe space to listen and having the patience to listen. I think it takes patience too. Right? Especially in this Western world. Right? We're just let's go go go go go. I have an example that perfectly illustrates this. My my I have a daughter that is a waitress. And there was a retired gentleman that had come in and he was asking her questions, like, what are her interests and things like that, and she said she what are her favorite classes in school and she said math and and shop class. He heard shop class and She said for the next twenty minutes, he just shared his life story about woodworking and his love of cabinetry and all of these things. And he tipped her, you know, a small small modest tip, a general, like, ten percent, whatever. Typical tip but he she noticed he was still outside when she was getting off of work. And she comes outside to take off the open flag and he approaches her, and he said, hands are a hundred dollar bill. And he said, this is for your next shop project. And she was so ecstatic. And she told him, she's I can't take this. This is too much. She said, no. I wanna give it to you. This is for your next next shot project. And she came home and she was so excited and she shared with me and I was and I said to her, this is exactly what I said to her. I said, you gave him your time. You listened to his stories. That's what that meant to him, I believe. Mhmm.
You had a shared interest, you were interested in hearing what he had to say, and he was excited to share. He gave him your time. He listened. So I just thought that was a great story to tie into this listening piece and giving people our time.

Yvonne Caputo: Well, that Same kind of listening happened very frequently to me when I was in the retirement community. My office was up on the third floor. And I want as the Human Resource Vice President. I want it by office away from the home of So if an employee wanted to come see me, they could do so, you know, discreetly. Because going to my office was like going to the principal's office, you know. But my office was on the same wing as a lot of the residents. And I always had an open door, and they would come in and sit down And eventually for some, what was said is this. Yvonne, I just wanna go. I wanna be done. I wasn't hearing suicidal ideation. I was hearing Well, let me finish by saying okay. My response was okay. Tell me more. My friends are gone. My partner's gone. I'm in physical pain all the time. I'm not doing the things that I love to do. I'm just ready. And I would ask what's your base perspective? Because when my mother said that very same thing to me a month before she died, I said the mom talked to God. You and God decide when it's time. But that kind of listening was what was needed in those moments when the residents came in or when my mom said it. Tell me about it. So and it can be so helpful, particularly with people who are grieving. Tell me about it. What's it like? And no interruptions and no commentaries And no Well, let me tell you about how I You just let them talk till they can't till there's nothing left to say. And that's what you said earlier about, how do you get rid of it? Mhmm. How do you how do you put it out there? I was asked by Seventh Great Teachers to come and talk to their kids about therapy. And I said, to the teachers. Please have the kids write questions. What do they want to know? So I'm not up there blabbering about what I do. I'm addressing their concerns. I saved the best question for last, and it was I read the question and my story just bounced out of me. It was not anything I planned. I said to and if you can imagine a group of seventh graders. I said, have you ever had a vomit? Have you ever had a stomach that was just churning in ugly? And you try to hold it down and you try to hold it down. But there was a point at which you either got to the bathroom or you got to a waste basket because it was coming whether you wanted it or not. And it was gonna smell ugly and it was gonna taste ugly and it was gonna look gross. And I really went into the effect great film. I said, however, how did it feel once it was all over? And they all responded, it felt better. And I said, that's what therapy is. Because the the person who asked the question was, if it's so good for us, has come at heart so much. So it's again that, you know, when dad told me the nightmare, the recurring nightmare, He was in the b twenty four. It was going down. He needed to get out. There was a place that he had to get through on his hands and knees. And on the sides of this kind of tunnel, little tunnel thing was all stainless steel. Any couldn't grab onto anything. There was nothing to pull himself through. And he always woke up screaming, and mom would say, what is it like? And dad was out to the home. It's just a bad dream. It was so bad at touring. He'd done channels in the mattress. Three years of those kinds of nightmares. So when we were talking about it, I explained the normality. Of nightmares given what he witnessed. And Sarcasm was an artful language in my family. So I ended the conversation with dad by just saying, Sorry, Hal. You're just normal. But I literally could hear his shoulders drop. Knowing that what he had considered to be something wrong with him for all of those years was a normal response. To a traumatic event. And that's central to my passion, okay, for talking to people particularly about death and dying. Having those conversations with my father were hard, hearing what he had to say was hard, knowing that we were talking about something that was going to happen was hard. But it created it was a part of the whole thing right there that created the closeness that he was he trusted me enough to open up to say, okay, in the end, this is what I want, and this is why I want it. So that's another passion that I have. Is that My five wishes are done. My children have. My five wishes. We talk about the end for me and what I want and what I don't want. Now, it's been a while, so I recognize that I need to go back and do that document again. But I don't want them to experience what I experienced with my mom. What did she want? How did she want it to be? What would have been better for her? Because it certainly wasn't a good thing that she was in the hospital all by herself in that sterile atmosphere.

Victoria Volk: Well, in estimate, a different approach too. I mean, once someone has is suffering from dementia, it's a little bit harder to do this, like, to prepare. Right? Because you don't know what frame of mind they're necessarily in. And if it's an honest depiction of really what they want, maybe, is that accurate or, like Yeah. Like, what is your advice, I guess, for listeners who, well, I guess, take care of it as soon as possible before this before dementia is even a thing. But What would you what would be your advice for that?

Yvonne Caputo: My advice is no matter what the age. No matter what your age is, get the documents, get them done, put them in a safe place. And broach the subject with your children. If it's an older person, broach the subject with your children, children You ask your parents. You know, when the end comes, mom, what do you want? How would you like it to be? Oh, honey, I I don't think we should talk about that. Well, I'm gonna plant the seed, mom, because I'm gonna come back and ask you again. At some point because I want to be able to take care of you in the way that you weren't taken care of. The five wishes w w w dot five wishes dot org, the document itself costs five dollars. You can do it online if you'd like, so you can, you know, use your typing and all that kind of stuff. And that stays for a year and a half. They keep that that for a year and a half. Also, in their store, they have a booklet. How to talk about it? How to bring it up. So they give guidance in that respect. Treat death and dying other than the elephant living room. You know, we we say, don't we death and taxes? The only thing that we could be sure we're in death and taxes. We'll talk about the taxes. But we won't talk about the death. I was lucky. I know that. It's not always possible to die in the way that you would like. Because that happens. But if it is possible, yet made the grieving process for me so much easier. So much easier. Because I knew what dad wanted and I acted on what dad wanted and we talked about it, we would be on the phone. After the document was done. And he would just pipe up and say, oh, I want to go. I'd say, okay. Talk to me. Tell me. And then sometimes we would be on the phone and I would say, I haven't heard you say you want to go. Well, things have been good, you've gone. I've been feeling pretty good and things gone along pretty well, so I guess I'm not ready now. So that's the way, you know, that's how easily it became for us to talk about it. As I said earlier, when I have the back of the heartbeat, you betcha. But equal to wanting him back on a heartbeat is the joy.

Victoria Volk: This is a reminder to me because I I'm a trained end of, like, do a thank you for that resource. I'm gonna actually add it to my website, but I have not asked my mom. And she's gonna be eighty two. So it's like, you know when I'm in it? I'm in it. I you know, and I haven't done anything with that training since I received it. I didn't know what that was gonna look like. I honestly, I still really don't. It's just a tool in my toolbox. And so what you're talking about is, like, speaking my language. Right? Like, my my dad passed away in the nursing home. I know it's not probably the way he wanted to go. And I know for sure that's not how my mom wants to go. So that I do know. She's made that very clear. But as far as these other things, I haven't we haven't had that conversation. And I think I get so wrapped up in my day to day and, like, the work that I do, like, I'm not asking the most important person, what do you want? You know? So this has been a very good reminder for me. To do so. So thank you for that gift today.

Yvonne Caputo: You're welcome. And to spread it even a little further, My granddaughter was diagnosed in her senior year in high school with leukemia. She's fine. She's in her mission. Okay? She's twenty three now and she's doing very well. But she was the five wishes were were given to her at seventeen to fill out. And this was chalk in Los Angeles. Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. They say it differently, choppies and Philadelphia. But I thought that that was pretty interesting. That the hospital would give her that document and ask her to complete it. Wow. Seventeen. So it's made me very aware of dates. And folks that have there's just some beautiful stories that go with dying with dad. One young person, like, to me, somebody in the forties as young, said, my parents have tried to talk to me about it. And I just said, no. No. It's not gonna happen right now. We don't have to worry about that. You know, it's too soon. And it flipped for her. She said, yeah, we have to talk about it now. And then there was an elderly gentleman who steadfast daughters. My five wishes are done. On my birthday, I wanna do a zoo, and I wanna talk about it. I want you to know what I want. That's my birthday present. I don't know anything else. I don't want any goodies. Just I wanna talk about it. So they got to the part of did you want to be buried or cremated? And he said, I want to be cremated. So the question is, dad, what do you want us to do with your ashes? They said, oh, I don't care. Do whatever is easy. And that was his persona. You know? Don't put your side. Well, just do leasing. And he said, just throw a moment of breath. And they said, wait a minute, dad. Wouldn't you like to have your ashes? Taken to the prairies in Canada where you grew up. In that one room house, He said, well, that's too much work. Well, wait a minute, dad. What if that's something we'd like to do? For you? He said, okay, I'll change that part of my five wishes. Give a take. The most profound was one of the women in my writing school who was acutely ill. Acuteal, years, surgeries, pain, disability. Not doing the job that she loved. And she got the five wishes and filled it out and then sat down and had hard her conversations with her kids and her husband. And I found out that she was going to hospice. She had made the decision no more searches. And what her husband did for us was set up fifteen minute calls on Zoom for her to talk to the women in a writer's group. It only lasted eight minutes because she was so tired, but she just kept saying, Yvonne, thank you for the five wishes. I can't tell you what it's been. My family is in agreement. We're all talking about the same things. They know I'm ready it's okay. And it's because we have to find wishes. What could be better than that?

Victoria Volk: To be able to that self agency, I think, is an organization called Dine with Dignity

Yvonne Caputo: Mhmm.

Victoria Volk: Around Capitol Hill. They're, you know, pushing legislation across different states. Yeah. I I think it's a very important topic that hasn't talked about enough to I don't think people realize that they have a choice, you know? Like, they have choices. But you've had a lot of grief, and I'm I we're kinda nearing an hour, and I don't know how you are on time.

Yvonne Caputo: I'm good. But you have

Victoria Volk: a lot of loss in your life that was before your mother, before your father. Would you like to share anything about those experiences and what those taught you?

Yvonne Caputo: I had an uncle. And the cousin who died by suicide. And it taught me to think a great deal about what was so bad. You know, what was what would be so bad that I would no longer want to live. And Are there times like that in everybody's lives? Of course, there are. However, given what it did to their families, I wouldn't never do that to my family. I would find a way through the miasma of whatever that bad stuff was. Because I just couldn't do that to my family. Losing my brother at the age of twenty six in a car accident was one of the most profound grieving experiences I've ever had. He and I were very close and we had the same kind of radar in terms of what we wanted and who we wanted to be and how the world got be and all that kind of stuff. And going through the process of grieving his loss, My spirituality was enhanced, a hundred fold. My belief in life. And I'm not gonna say religion because religion isn't it. It's spirituality. That what I want from my life is to have made a difference. In whatever way she performed, that that is. I I want to make a difference. And I found that through my brother's death. The other losses and uncle at the age of fifty two, uncle Mac. When we would see each other. First thing he would do is hold out his arms and expect me to run into them. And then he torn me around and he put me down on the floor. He was the person. He was one of the persons in the family that made me feel special. And he died at the age of fifty two. That was You never know how long. I have I had a great appetite at ninety six. Others who passed away in their late eighties, but you don't know. He went to sleep one night and he didn't wake up. You know? So living a life with purpose and trying to remember on a daily basis. What's important for me to do today? Where do I need to spend my energy? At the end of the day, can I close my eyes and say, yeah, what's a good day? Or it was a hire date, but that's okay. So each I think each and every one of them has taught me something. And I was, bless my mother. My mother took me to the library. Well, that's a little girl. And it was always she would say, what do you wanna read now? And she'd take me to that section, and we would talk about books and she would pull we would pull them out. And even as a little child, I would read about sorrowful things and how sorrowful things impacted the characters in the book. So I knew as a child that it was all it was it wasn't always rosy and creamy and that kind of stuff. What didn't happen in childhood was what to do with those feelings. Like I said earlier, that came, you know, when I did therapy. So there has been a learning process in each and every one of those, yes. To make me think about what I want having those documents ready. Right? And closing my eyes the final time and knowing that life was good. It was just good.

Victoria Volk: Was the uncle on your mother or father's side,

Yvonne Caputo: my mother's side. The two uncles that I mentioned were both on my mother's side. And they lived very close to us, you know, so that's why I had the relationship with them that I did. My uncles on my dad's side live far away, so we might get to see them once every two years. I didn't have the same kind of relationship with them.

Victoria Volk: How did you see the dynamic change between your parents when your brother passed? Like, what did that do to the family unit?

Yvonne Caputo: When my father was standing, receiving communion before he took a flight on the mission. He would say, if I come back, it's God's will. If I don't, it's God's will. So that was That was how he handled it. My mother never recovered. Never recovered. And she never we were we did the family outing a couple of years. We would rent this big sixty foot houseboat and it had, like, twelve bedrooms in it, and so the whole family would get together and we'd go around the lake in Tennessee. Mom and I were walking in the woods. We could pull up to the shore and anchor, and mom and I were walking in the woods. And she looked around and she said, Oh, Mark would have loved this. Mark being my brother. And then out of her mouth came, oh, Teddy shut up. You should be over this by now. And I said to her, no. Mommy, you can't. You're never gonna be over losing a child is something that is with you for your lifetime. But the way she was raised, her generation was. Yeah. You should be over it. Now luckily for mom, she was very much a believer and I think church being able to go to church and have the church. Was reassuring to her, but they handled it very differently. And my father was one who would say, I can't talk about it. It's not my way. So I am now thinking that it could have been very helpful for mom to be able to talk about it as much as she needed to talk about it. But she didn't have anywhere to express it.

Victoria Volk: I'm reading a book right now. The guest is gonna be on my podcast. I'm gonna botch her name, so I'm not even gonna try it. But her first name is Annie, and the book is called Always A sibling. And she talks about the the longest I'd never gave it any thought until I I read sorry, reading this book, but really the relationship with our siblings, if we are blessed to have a sibling, is the longest relationship. If you think about it, because we tend to all live our parents. Even those we marry, we were still in relationship with our siblings first. Like, those are our first and longest relationships. And in the book, she's just talking about how significant of a loss it really is when you lose a sibling. It's just very different.
It's that they're the people that know you unlike anybody else because they've been with you the longest. Anyway, that might be a book you might be interested in reading, but

Yvonne Caputo: Yes. Yes. Because the relationship I had with my brother who died. Was very much like that. We we spoke the same language. We had interest in the very same kinds of things. He was actually Mark called me and said, do you wanna come down to Pittsburgh? We're gonna go see. It's a famous nineteen seventies. Gordon, like okay. It came to me. And we did that together, and he was dating my best friend at the time. And then the following day, we went to a huge music store in Pittsburgh, Bullwringers. And he was looking at the coterminous and looking at the so looking at that. And that wasn't as a fairly material, really interested because I'm not and not musical in the way that work was musical.
And he said, okay. I'm ready to go. All he's got in his hands It's this little brown flat envelope. We get in the car. And I said, Mark, what'd you buy? He said dust in the wind. The song by Kansas. All you are is dust in the wind, and your catheter and I are wearing the back seat. What? I think the music is beautiful, but the words are awful. That was the weekend before he died. He died the following Tuesday. So I think that also explains what I said earlier. That that loss, that loss is probably the biggest loss I've ever experienced. Ever ever experienced.

Victoria Volk: And yet, it's not the one that you came on the podcast for.

Yvonne Caputo: You're right. I didn't. I feel his presence though, from time to time. It's like I had this guardian angel. Who's looking out for me.

Victoria Volk: Was that song played in his funeral?

Yvonne Caputo: No. It wasn't. But I'll be doing something. This was more when I be in the car and I have the car turned to a music station. But it would come on and I would feel his presence and it was like this message from beyond. That everything was gonna be fine. That whatever I was experiencing at the time was just normal to life and things would be fine.

Victoria Volk: One of the things that I I share about on my podcast and in conversation with people that you know, I personally had tried hitting a therapy once, my early twenties. And, you know, I'm trained and certified in grief recovery, which is not therapy, but it's very therapeutic. And it's not talk therapy. I mean, people talk, of course, but there's also action. Right?

Yvonne Caputo: Mhmm.

Victoria Volk: So what do you say and I'm curious what you would say to this too. So that's why I'm asking if people are listening who follow my podcast, they're probably wanting me to ask this. So I'm gonna ask. What do you say when to the thought that talk therapy alone doesn't work? Like, you have to take action with it? What are your thoughts around that? Because and this is this ties into actually another question. When you in your when you talk about processing your grief, like, I wanna know what that looked like for you. What did the act of processing your grief look like because I know what it looked like for me and it was using a method that's evidence based in yada yada, it's the grief recovery method. That's the action piece. What did that look like for you? And what what is the action that you feel like people need to take when they're in talk therapy or maybe not. I don't know what's your perspective of that. Howard Bauchner:

Yvonne Caputo: I value talk therapy. But there's also something about what you do. Mhmm. It's the doing thing. So if I go back and I think about the doing thing after Mark died, I would have to say that my presence in the classroom with kids changed. That doing for me was being there for my students in a way that had nothing to do with two plus two weeks before or putting a comma in the right place. It was there to be observant. It was there to look for pain. It was there to be a listening Yeah. It was there to give a hug that if I were to I I just knew. That if I were to be present for the kids, being actively present for the kids and my friends, that that would help me to heal. I would be doing something with the angst that I felt. I can give an example. We were sitting in the living room, talking about the wedding. And it just so happens we were looking through my husband's Foot album of these parents' marriage. And oddly enough, we were going to be getting married fifteen years to the day. Obvious ramen dad's wedding. And and and he didn't he and I didn't notice. And and we're kinda talking about this and and I looked and at the top of the stairs, there's pavement. She's seven years old and the tears are just dreaming down her face. So I went up, and we went into her room, and we sat on the bed, and I held her nice aggressive ladder. And she said, I'm never gonna know my grandmother. My grandmother's dead, and I'm never gonna get to know her. And so I said, that is a sad thing. You're absolutely right. So that's an action in terms of how I changed. That Seeing someone in pain gives me an opportunity to stop and say, the listening piece. When I was a human resource professional, we had a very dear resident in the memories ring die. And she's just lovely even in dementia. She was just one of these precious precious things. And I walked onto the unit and I could see one of the eights just trying to hold back the tears. And I would have turned, I said, could you use a hug? Am I just unfolded her ending? She sobbed. So being able to comfort someone in an active kind of way. Has been one of the ways I've managed my own grief. My the only, you know, that loss of of of my brother. Because there were times in my life that he didn't do that for me or I would do that for him.

Victoria Volk: That's a perspective I didn't expect. Thank you for sharing.

Yvonne Caputo: You're welcome. You're welcome. I'm grateful to Mark. In the oddest of ways, I am grateful for that grief. I am grateful for his loss. Again, what I am back in the heartbeat? Oh, there's so much I have to tell them. It's just so much I have to tell them. I want them to meet this family of mine, but I really started to become something through the grief process. Around his dad that I treasure. And I do say that, you know, when I'm working with people in in grieving, you know, here's where we go in. Boom. We dropped to the bottom. And then come up when you drop, when you drop, when you drop, when you drop, when you drop, and it may be years later, we don't go down again. And that happened to me in England the other mirror. But if we grieve actively, if we do something with our grief, if we honor the feelings, if we process the feelings, if we do something, then here's where we came in, here's where we come out. And I've got a diagram of this that I show. That grief is away, if processed correctly, that we can become better people, more true to ourselves.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. It sounds like your your compassion was just cracked open.

Yvonne Caputo: Mhmm.

Victoria Volk: It really does sound like that experience of losing your brother was what just let your compassion flood out and propelled you to give it to others. The love that you couldn't give to him. Right?

Yvonne Caputo: And I will remember your phrase. That it cracked open because that's that's pretty profound in and of itself. Yes, it cracked open.

Victoria Volk: I think for so many of us, for grief loss, you know, it can take us down. And crack us open to where we feel like we're in a million pieces. But I do think it not that yours I don't wanna say, like, not that it's a special person. Right? Not that it How do I wanna say this? I think different people are built. To do something with that. You know, I think a lot of the people that have experienced a lot of grief, a lot of loss or trauma, young in life, throughout life. I think it just builds you differently. You know, I'm yeah. I guess that's maybe my thought on that. For some people that may not experience a devastating loss until their twenties or thirties or forties later in life, that can be the very thing that just takes them takes them down and they find themselves in just completely lost, not knowing what to do. So what is one thing that you would like to scream to the world?

Yvonne Caputo: I am grateful for the loss of my brother in nineteen seventy eight. Because one of the life lessons that I was given is that If I actively grieve, if I actively work on it, I will get there. And so now if life throws something at me, that's hard. If I actively work at it, it will get better. And if it doesn't get better, then It's time for me a to go talk to somebody or b, sometimes it's meant for me, ending our relationship. You know, the the process of of greeting Mark and all the listens I learned from that. I hope it's made me I think it's made me a better person. And I'll take that.

Victoria Volk: It's a beautiful way to end this episode. Thank you for sharing. And Is there anything else that you would like to share that you don't feel like you got to?

Yvonne Caputo: I think we did well.

Victoria Volk: I think so too. Where can people reach you if they would like to connect with you?

Yvonne Caputo: I don't have my own website, but they can find me on my published website, which is in in Genium, I n g e n I u m books dot com. My email, if they would like to get in touch with me personally, is fairly simple. Yvonne, y v o n n e, author, a u t h o r, the number four at g mail dot com. Yvonne arthur four at gmail dot com. And you can also find me on LinkedIn. So if people wanna message me through LinkedIn, I'm there too.

Victoria Volk: Thank you so much.

Yvonne Caputo: In your books, please share your books. Okay. The first book is dying with dad. It sees World War two stories, kind of how those stories gave me the father I always wanted, and he got a daughter that he didn't know he had. And then dying with that is how I grew. There are lots of growth stories in there to be comfortable talking about death and dying. And the tagline for the book is tough talks for easier endings. It's how I got into having those intimate conversations with my father and what happened because of that.

Victoria Volk: And you can find those on Amazon.

Yvonne Caputo: Oh, everywhere. Yeah. Amazon earns a noble. If you are if you are an independent bookstore, lovered and they don't have it on their shelves, just go in and ask them to order it for you.

Victoria Volk: Alright. I will put the links for those books and your LinkedIn and probably your email address. In the show notes. And thank you for your time today. I feel like this was a very rich conversation. I've I have a to do list for myself in gratitude of this conversation. Yeah. Thank you for sharing the resource. Five wishes dot org. I will also put that in the show notes. Get on that, everybody. Your own advocate? Before it's too late, and thank you.

Yvonne Caputo: Oh, you're welcome. It was a pleasure.

Victoria Volk: And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life, much love.