Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Gail Rubin. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Gail, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?
I have been self employed since 1990, with a few employment gigs since that time. The idea of a regular job repels me now, but long ago, the idea of “security” in a regular job was attractive.
My background is in television and public relations/event planning. My last regular job was as a public relations professional for an arcade game/computer game company. That was actually a lot of fun, as I went to a number of conventions in places like San Antonio, Las Vegas and San Francisco to help promote the company’s products.
But as a business owner and a pioneering death educator, I get to go to the conventions of the National Funeral Directors Association and the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association. I’ve been attending these conventions as a reporter on new trends in death care for 15 years now. People in the industry know me and support my work, as I support them with YouTube videos about exhibitors’ new products and services. Plus, as the Doyenne of Death, I stand out in a crowd with my snazzy clothing that features skulls and fancy cowboy boots!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m a pioneering death educator who uses humor, film clips and outside the box activities to get people to plan for our guaranteed exit from life. My motto is: Talking about sex won’t make you pregnant, talking about funerals won’t make you dead. Despite great advances in medical care, humans still have a 100% mortality rate. Yet less than 30% of adults make any end-of-life plans. That leaves 70% or more of our loved ones scrambling to respond not IF but WHEN there’s a death.
I got into this field after I got married to my husband Dave in 2000. We had a very creative Jewish Western wedding, asking our guests to dress in Western wear and holding the reception in a converted horse barn. Everyone had such a good time, I wanted to write a book about creative life cycle events and call it Matchings, Hatchings and Dispatchings. I got to write a monthly feature in our local newspaper about weddings, births and deaths, and the stories about funerals got the most reader response. There were already many creative wedding planning books, but at the time there wasn’t much about creative funeral planning. So I focused on funerals, and my first book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die, changed the course of my career.
I became The Doyenne of Death. A doyenne is a woman who’s considered senior in a group and knows a lot about a particular subject. Since 2010, I have created many outside-the-box ways to break the ice about discussing death. I created The Newly-Dead® Game, which is like the old Newlywed Game TV show, but the questions focus on how well a couple knows their partners’ last wishes. There’s also a Singles edition everyone can play.
I was one of the first people in the United States to hold a Death Café in September 2012. I also coordinated the Before I Die Festival in New Mexico for seven years. In addition to the Mortality Movies TV series, I created and hosted another TV interview series, A Good Goodbye. I’m also a Certified Funeral Celebrant and Certified Thanatologist, a fancy name for a death educator. I spoke on the topic of planning ahead for death in a TEDxABQ talk in 2015, A Good Goodbye.
After graduating with a degree in Communications, Television and Film, I worked at C-SPAN for five years. That served me well after YouTube came along. I post videos about a range of end-of-life related topics. Most recently, I’m focused on Mortality Movies, films that can help people understand and plan for end-of-life issues.
I’m the author of four books on end-of-life issues and death education: A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die; Hail and Farewell: Cremation Ceremonies Templates and Tips; Kicking the Bucket List: 100 Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die; and The Before I Die Festival in a Box.
The Association for Death Education and Counseling recognized my work with their prestigious 2024 Community Educator Award. Visit my website at www.AGoodGoodbye.com.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
Even though we all have a 100% mortality rate, less than 30% of adults do end-of-life planning: estate planning, advance medical directives, and funeral planning. That leaves 70% or more of our loved ones scrambling to gather information and make expensive decisions under a fog of grief. I am on a mission to increase the percentage of people who plan ahead. As a lover of films, it fulfills my creative drive to use movies and TV shows to memorably teach death education lessons.
People remember information in a scene from a movie or TV show 30% more than what they hear a speaker say. Using movies and television to spark engagement and education on end-of-life issues, I created and host a television series that combines video clips and guest expert information about planning for end-of-life.
Mortality Movies is a series of 30-minute episodes that tackles different themes related to death, funerals, grief, and a host of end-of-life issues. I also host Mortality Movie Night at a local funeral home every other week. These creative activities open the door to education and discussion of death in an upbeat, non-threatening way. You can see Mortality Movie episodes and film clips on YouTube by subscribing to my channel: @GailRubin.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
In the Animal Humane thrift store, I found the perfect sign for my kitchen coffee bar. A cartoon guy holds a mug that reads “JAVA,” he’s wearing fuzzy pink slippers and has a sheet over his shoulders. The text says, “I’m super lazy today, which is like normal lazy but with a cape on.”
I need that reminder to chill out. I’m a human being who’s been doing way too much to avoid feeling. Perhaps you can relate. Over a span of 24 months, I had seven deaths in my family… eight if you count my cat.
In April 2023, Dave, my husband, helpmate and best friend, died unexpectedly from medical complications after a “low risk” surgery: heart attack, sepsis, kidney failure. His heart stopped and was revived with CPR that broke three ribs. After a week in the ICU, he spent his last week unresponsive on in-patient hospice. With a few breaks, I was always with him. When I left the room to make a phone call, within 15 minutes, he died. He was 71 years old.
Four months later, my sweet, smart, handsome father had a heart attack two days after his 93rd birthday. Speaking to Dad on the phone in Florida before the EMTs arrived, he said, “I want what Dave had.” He meant in-patient hospice.
My brother Mitch and I promptly flew from Albuquerque to Florida. We saw Dad just before he lost consciousness. “It all went so fast,” he said. “Love you to pieces.” Three days later, we were asleep in the room with him when he quietly slipped away shortly after 4:00 a.m.
Then in December, my 94-year-old in-laws Myra and Al flirted with Medical Aid in Dying, or MAID for short. Some call it assisted suicide, some, death with dignity. It’s currently legal in New Mexico and nine other states and the District of Columbia.
They went on home hospice, hoping to die together. It was Al’s idea. He was Myra’s second husband, not Dave’s father, a “large and in charge” kind of guy. However, while tiny, frail Myra qualified, Al was deemed too healthy. He put it off, and they dropped off hospice.
Six months later, Al was actively dying and not mentally competent to sign the MAID paperwork. I got them back on home hospice and stayed there around the clock to care for them. I also hired death doulas to help during his last day.
After hours of terminal agitation, the hospice nurse asked, “Is there someone he might be waiting for?” A doula told her Al’s first wife and a son had died long ago, and there was one estranged daughter, Karin. At the mention of her name, he visibly relaxed. Al expired on his king size bed at 3:00 a.m. July 2nd.
Myra passed peacefully the afternoon of July 8th using Medical Aid in Dying. We had a small gathering in the living room, with candles and roses, readings and singing. She drank a two-ounce mixture of five potent medications with a sorbet chaser. The sorbet helps cool the burning taste of the medicines.
Myra had a strong reaction to the wasabi-like taste and initially only drank half of it. Steven, her son, my brother-in-law, worried what would happen if she didn’t finish it. He said, “Drink it, if you want to see Al.” “Drink it, if you want to see Al.” “Drink it, if you want to see Al!”
“Stop saying that!” Those were her last words. She drank the rest of the mixture and swallowed more sorbet. Within three minutes, she was asleep on her lounge chair, and within the hour, she died.
Meanwhile, the hits just kept coming. I made six trips to Florida in 2024 for my declining 94-year-old mother. She had three hospitalizations for pneumonia between July and October, the last time in the Intensive Care Unit. The doctor recommended hospice in the hospital. I flew there for her final week. While she was still conscious, I asked her for words of wisdom. “Don’t go to jail.” Good advice. Thanks, Mom.
But I was not there when she died. Have you ever been so mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted… people notice? A hospice nurse took me aside and said, “We’re taking good care of your mother. You need to go home and take care of yourself. You’re a good daughter.” I left the next day. Mom died five days later, on October 31st – yes, Halloween, the start of Day of the Dead.
The silver lining is they all died as peacefully and painlessly as possible on hospice care. Because we had already planned and paid for their funerals, that took an enormous burden off my shoulders.
And then, three more deaths.
My cat Ilsa developed Feline Infectious Peritonitis, a fatal disease. She had to be euthanized while I was away on a much-needed vacation. My cat sitter friend Vince handled the vet visit, sharing it with me on Facetime.
I was a wreck the rest of the day. That afternoon, a rainbow bridge stretched from the sea to the sky, and I wept for my cat. We can be so much more emotional about our pets than our people.
Then in March 2025, two unexpected deaths: my brother-in-law Steven, and Al’s daughter Karin. They both died suddenly in their homes. Each lived alone. Their bodies were not discovered for days until police did wellness checks.
This was my greatest fear. I’ve lived alone since Dave died. I imagined dying while soaking in my hot tub, no one finding my bloated carcass for days. So, I got a college student housemate for six months! Although I’m not sure he would have noticed if I was dead in the hot tub. And each morning, I text a fellow widow to confirm we’re both still alive.
That’s a lot of death in a short period of time. How much could you take?
All this time, I’m busy, busy, busy working to make a living as a death educator. That’s DEATH, not DEAF. My motto is “Talking about sex won’t make you pregnant, talking about funerals won’t make you dead.” Although, given these last two years… at least I’m not pregnant. And despite great advances in medical care, we humans still have a 100% mortality rate.
There’s a casket in my garage. It holds a jauntily attired plastic skeleton named Lola. As in the song from the musical Damn Yankees, “Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.”
Grief is like Lola. She always gets what she wants. What she wanted was me. But I kept putting her off.
She got me anyway, with insomnia, weight gain and strange body pains. After Steven died, she added exhaustion, searing back pain, and BO – Bereavement Overload.
An acupuncturist I saw for the pains pressed these spots on my upper arms. “Is this tender?” Yes, it was and still is! “Those are grief points.” You might want to check your own arms. Many of us are grief-stricken and don’t know it or know what to do about it.
The acupuncture helps. Grief support groups, good friends and therapy helps. A little cannabis before bed helps. It’s legal in New Mexico! And yes, my super lazy coffee guy sign helps too. Remember him?
That sign reminds me to be a human BE-ing, not a human DO-ing. To slow down and feel those uncomfortable feelings we often try to avoid. I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death and returned to the light. You can too.
Grief is the price we pay for great love. We don’t mourn the loss of what we don’t miss. So, let’s not sell ourselves short. Love large and feel the grief.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://agoodgoodbye.com/
- Instagram: gail.rubin.doyenne.of.death
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gail.rubin.3/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gailrubinctagoodgoodbye/
- Twitter: @TheFamilyPlot
- Youtube: @GailRubin
- Other: The Doyenne of Death Podcast: https://redcircle.com/shows/7a64fc6b-64b6-4ca1-96f9-81c11d039521
