Dorothy: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Dorothy Gibbons, CEO and Co Founder of The Rose. Death isn’t an easy thing to talk about, but Genevieve Keeney-Vazquez has made it her life work. Funeral Director and CEO of the National Museum of Funeral History, she shares today what happens when someone dies and how important the right type of service can be to loved ones.
She’s seen death up close and personal and knew her destiny from an early age. During her service to our country, she’s handled fallen soldiers, caring for them in ways that will touch your heart. When breast cancer stole her sister’s life, she knew what needed to be done and she shares why it was so hard to do it.
Let’s Talk About Your Breast. A different kind of podcast presented to you by The Rose, the Breast Center of Excellence and a Texas treasure. You’re going to hear a frank discussion about tough topics. You’re going to learn why knowing about your breast could save your life. Join us as we hear another story and we answer those [00:01:00] tough questions that you may have.
Genevieve. You know a lot about breast cancer and you know how it impacts a family. Tell us a little something about what happened in your family when breast cancer became a part of it.
Genevieve: Well, you know, I think impact is such, um, it sounds like a powerful word, but really and truly it’s, it’s almost indescribable how breast cancer truly does affect your family.
For me, When my sister was diagnosed, she was in her, uh, about 30 years of age— 31? And I just remember her telling me, and I didn’t really know a lot about it. Cause I was still young myself. I was like 26, 27. And, uh, you know, you don’t hear a lot about it when that young age. Uh, so when she told me that she had a lump in her breast and the [00:02:00] story that just resonates with me, the, the, the strongest in that time was she said, “Yeah, I, I was getting dressed and I felt this lump and I went to the doctor and I told them that I needed, I went to the doctor’s office and told the nurse I needed to see the doctor because I had a lump in my breast.”
And the nurse looked at her and said, “Oh, you’re too young. You can’t have a lump in your breast.” And my sister said, well, this just kind of happened like rapidly, you know, it was there one day and wasn’t there one day and then it’s there and I’m noticing it getting bigger. And she said, “well, it’s all in your head.”
Dorothy: Oh my.
Genevieve: And so it was, uh, you know, that was an impact right there, right? Is, you know, you’re going to the medical community for that support. And then you’re, you feel like you’re getting a door slammed in your face when you’re trying to find out what’s wrong with you. Um, and so, you know, fast forward, uh, you know, a few months later, my sister ended up being diagnosed with breast cancer and they did all the tests, they removed the lump, they tested and [00:03:00] everything.
And so when she lost all her hair, she went back to that nurse and said, It was all in my head, wasn’t it? And so it’s, you know, never, ever miss an opportunity to, to make sure if you feel something, to check it out. Because, had my sister listened to that person, and yes, they’re a healthcare professional, but they’re also human, and they made a grave mistake, and thankfully my sister was very adamant at following through. You know, we’re, we’re our own best advocate for our own bodies, right?
Dorothy: Absolutely.
Genevieve: Making sure that, that, um, if we notice something not right, that we, we get it checked out. And thankfully my sister did. Unfortunately, um, it led to many other battles for her with cancer.
Dorothy: That’s such a powerful story, Genevieve, for her to have been told that, but also for her to continue persisting until she found someone, or reached a point where it had to be looked [00:04:00] at. Now, this was many years ago.
Genevieve: Yeah, this was in the nineties.
Dorothy: As we’ve learned over these last few months, it’s still a misperception. It’s still a concept that exists today that young women are too young to have breast cancer. We often hear, you know, “Oh, you’re too young for a mammogram.” And we come back with, “no, she’s not too young to have breast cancer.”
So I think that story that you just told is the epitome of everything that we hear in young women. Now she fought breast cancer for how long?
Genevieve: She fought breast cancer for three years. Uh, and then she, she never really went into remission. She ended up being diagnosed, um, about a year later with thyroid cancer.
And interesting enough, you know, a lot of people think that it’s a, it’s a mass station of the primary cancer. Uh, hers wasn’t, it ended up being a completely different cancer in her thyroid. Uh, it was later learned that her cancers were estrogen [00:05:00] fed. So they had to find a way to suppress her body from producing estrogen because that’s what her cancer was feeding on.
And, um, she ended up, you know, obviously beating the thyroid cancer once they removed her thyroid. Um, and then she prophylactically removed her second breast that was, you know, still in existence at that time. But she was just like, okay, take everything that, could possibly have cancer. And so it was the uterus. It was the ovaries. It was the other breast, you know, and she was a fighter doing everything she could to fight that battle. Unfortunately, fast forward almost nine years later, the breast cancer did metastasize and settle into her spine and brain and took her life.
Dorothy: And she had children?
Genevieve: She did. Yeah, she does. I don’t know. How do you say it? Did? Does? The children are still here. She’s not, but her memory is. And so, yes, she does. She has two boys [00:06:00] and, and, um, you know, again, another blow to the family. Uh, you know, her son, who’s now 29. Um, but when he was 23, he ended up with testicular cancer.
Dorothy: Goodness.
Genevieve: Yes. And I learned that, um, again, let’s talk about you’re too young to have, right? That seems to be the theme here. Well, interesting enough that young males, primarily Caucasian, young Caucasian males, and it’s in there before usually the age of 25. Uh, are diagnosed with testicular cancer.
Dorothy: That’s true.
Genevieve: You know, and again, that’s, you know, another, uh, reproductive organ.
Dorothy: Right.
Genevieve: And that tends to be, um, you know, they tend to be a target for cancer.
Dorothy: Now, sister, nephew, you still had others in your family that were impacted by some kind of cancer.
Genevieve: Correct.
Dorothy: And one, another one with breast cancer, right?
Genevieve: Yes. I had another aunt that died of breast cancer. And I [00:07:00] also had, um, three other aunts that passed away from cancer, uh, different types. Um, my half sister died of liver cancer. Uh, both my sisters died three days apart of each other in 2006. Yeah, it was, it, it, cancer just robbed us of our family. And so you could imagine. Survivors guilts compiled with this black cloud that followed me around, often wondering when it was my turn, uh, to have cancer. Um, and so here I was, you know, 27 years old going, I was in the army and I’m, you know, talking to my doctor and I said, I need a mammogram.
And he’s like, “you’re too young for a mammogram.” I said, “no, you don’t understand. I need a mammogram and I need a peace of mind. I need to know I’m doing something for my own health,” and I really had to fight for that mammogram.
Dorothy: Oh my goodness.
Genevieve: At 27.
Dorothy: That’s exactly when you needed it [00:08:00] though.
Genevieve: Yes, I did. Yeah, um, you know, my, you know, knowing that my 30s were right around the corner, uh, and that’s when my sister was diagnosed, and my, At that time, I had learned my younger sister was diagnosed at 25 with liver cancer.
So, you know, I was right in that tender age and I had children, you know, I have children. I have four children at the time. And I was just like, I need to get ahead of this as much as I can. And, uh, it really pushed me to do all the tests that I could possibly do. And fast forward now, I’m 52 now. And, um, and I was in my late forties.
And thankfully, the, the Veterans Administration, uh, takes really good care of their vets, believe it or not. I mean, I know there’s a lot of bad stories out there, but when I got here in Houston and got out of the military, The Rose was where they sent me every year for my mammograms. And um, I’m so grateful to The Rose and so grateful for the programs that you have [00:09:00] for women.
Um, but I didn’t stop there. Uh, I, I talked to a geneticist and I actually went and, uh, had the BRCA test done. Just to get, again, another peace of mind. And for people that aren’t familiar with that, that’s an actual in depth genetic testing that they can do to test the markers on your DNA strands to, to basically look at your probability of getting cancer based on your hereditary genes.
Dorothy: So I’m almost afraid to ask yes or no. You could.
Genevieve: Dodge the bullet. They told me that I, based off of my testing results, that I had the same percent of getting cancer as somebody who does not have cancer in their families. So, all of a sudden I felt like I had a new lease on life. I wasn’t being followed by that black cloud. But then there’s the Survivors Guilt. That sits in.
Dorothy: That is, that is [00:10:00] so real. So true. Now I want to go back to what you said about The Rose taking care of the, uh, women, the vets who we used to be the exclusive contractor for all of the mammography that the veteran women needed and men because they had breast cancer too.
Genevieve: Yes.
Dorothy: And that was probably our proudest time. Now a little history. the radiologist who was with us at the time saw that need getting bigger and bigger and went to the VA and said, you know what? Y’all are missing the boat here. You need your own place. Of course I was heartbroken, but, but still she was absolutely right.
Because you know, that They could offer it in a different way than we could, and in the environment that so many women had already been in, and it was just easier. But it was such an honor for us to be able to serve, you know, in that small little way to the people that we respect so much.
Genevieve: When you call it a small way, I’m going to tell you, as, as a recipient, it was huge.
A huge way.
Dorothy: Thank [00:11:00] you, Genevieve.
Genevieve: I actually was I thought I was going to pay for it myself when I walked in the door and they were like, Oh no, you’re a veteran. Thank you for your service. And that went a long way. And so, um, I’m appreciative of those programs. And, you know, you speak to the fact that, you know, it was a big need in the veterans community.
And, you know, rightfully so, I got out of the military, um, in 2004. And I remember first stepping foot into the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center here in Houston and went upstairs to this woman’s clinic. Well, okay. I can’t call it a woman’s clinic. It’s more like a one room office where the women went to see the doctor.
And it was so tiny. I mean, the office I’m sitting in is bigger than what the woman’s clinic was back then. I can’t even call it a clinic because it was just almost like a one room office. And I got to [00:12:00] watch, uh, the, the growth and the expansion and the, the focus and the priority that they made women veterans there at the VA.
And I, I, I can’t not think that The Rose had a huge impact in that because you guys saw that it was a need. Um, that there were more and more and more women veterans and we deserve the same level of care and most importantly, a mammogram.
Dorothy: Oh that is— Had no idea. Thank you for that. Another another little part of the story of The Rose I don’t know about and only can learn about from someone—
Genevieve: And now we have this humongous clinic on the first floor.
I’m like, it’s, it’s like a little hospital in itself. It’s awesome.
Dorothy: I’ve been there. It’s, it, it is quite impressive and, and so glad that, that, that was a part of it. That is, that’s nice to know.
Genevieve: Yeah.
Dorothy: Now Genevieve is the director of the National Museum for, say it for me.
Genevieve: [00:13:00] Sure.
Dorothy: Genevieve is…
Genevieve: I’m the CEO and president of the National Museum of Funeral History.
Dorothy: Okay. As many times as I’ve talked about it, you would think I’d have no problem with it. But I will tell you that it’s the most fascinating place that I have been to. And I’ve been to museums all over the world. Now, when I went there, it was like, Oh my. Now it’s interesting that you had all of this personal experience with death.
And now you’re the CEO and president of this extraordinary museum, but you’re also a funeral director.
Genevieve: Yes, I’m also a licensed mortician here in the state of Texas. And I’m also a part time palliative nurse at the Michael E. DeBakey, where I take care of my dying fellow comrades. Um, I, I kind of want to say, Death is my life.
The experiences that I had with my family personally, and losing so many of my family members, they didn’t take away from the passion that I had that started when [00:14:00] I was seven, uh, to understand death, and what does death look like, and what does it mean, and what do we go through? How, how does that happen to us?
Dorothy: And what triggered that at seven? What triggered that?
Genevieve: Uh, a new segment. on television that I can only hear from my bedroom.
Dorothy: Oh.
Genevieve: So yeah. So it was quite a sad story. Um, but interesting enough, I’ll, I’ll try and sum it up. It was a new story on a baby that they had found in a trash can. And you know, that still happens unfortunately today.
And it was in that moment that I was curious. I was like, wow, what does that look like? I, I, it was a seed of curiosity to understand the concept of. And the visibility of death because, you know, nowadays, you know, we can see death in so many different ways and forms and video games and cartoons and news segments and the internet, prolifera, right?
It just didn’t that just didn’t exist when I was [00:15:00] seven years of age. And so. My curiosity was, was very much piqued. Uh, fast forward. Um, I was always seeking and learning, uh, to understand what type of profession could put me into that type of, um, uh, I want to say, Existence or working with that. I wasn’t sure how that was because they didn’t have forensic files or CSI, all those cool shows that they have nowadays that really kind of, they, they, they glorify— I want to say kind of glorify the professions a little bit, even though they are very much needed.
Um, and it’s, Most important for those who have a niche in it or have a special interest in it. Um, but I always say that I think death care doesn’t, you don’t choose death care, death care chooses you. Because it’s a perfect, it’s a profound drawing that you have, and you have to be [00:16:00] strong and you have to know your boundaries.
And so.
Dorothy: So speak to that a little bit. You know, I’ve listened to some of your podcasts, which are excellent, and the podcast is called:
Genevieve: “The Final Curtain Never Closes.”
Dorothy: “…Never Closes.” And I’ve been fascinated by some of the technical things that happen when you’re dealing when you’re handling a body that is dead and you’re preparing for the funeral or whatever service, but what about that other side that you have to be prepared for the boundaries with the family, how to read the family, how to know what to do with the family?
Genevieve: Yeah, it’s, I think people don’t realize is that, you know, you know, some people feel like. You don’t look like a funeral director and I’m like, well, what am I supposed to look like? You know, am I supposed to wear this top hat and have this grim look on me and walk solemnly all the time? Um, but we as funeral directors, we’re human and we are taking care of people during some of their most vulnerable times, emotional times, uh, times of anger.
Uh, [00:17:00] and we can’t not help but absorb some of that emotional impact that it’s had on the family. But at the same time, we’ve got to maintain our perspective and our professionality and make sure that we’re taking care of not only the family, but the deceased as well in a very respectful manner, according to law.
And so, um, after a while. It took me a while to learn my boundaries, and, and maybe there’s still some professionals out there that don’t know their boundaries, um, but to me, I usually can only work with one or two families at a time because I invest so much of myself into it, my heart, my soul, and my mind, um, that it’s an exhausting feeling that, that, that I have when I walk away and I realize that I have to regroup, uh, I’ve reached my boundary, And I’ve got to go back and recharge so that I can come back and, and give my 100 percent to the next family.
Dorothy: So Genevieve, is any family, [00:18:00] anyone really prepared for death?
Genevieve: Oh, absolutely not. And I, and I can, I can attest to that. I’m in the profession. Death is my life. I want to almost say I eat, breathe, live it, right? It’s been a part of me. It’s, it’s ingrained within me. But I can tell you to this day, when I found out that my sister passed away, I It took me to my knees, literally. And I thought, wow, here I am, I’m a funeral professional.
I just learned my sister passed away. And I was struggling in that moment. I had to literally tell myself, you’re not the professional, you are the family member. I had to give myself permission to grieve. But I wasn’t prepared because it’s different. It’s very different. And I don’t care how, how much somebody tells you that they are prepared for something.
When that moment comes. I see the transformation in people.
Dorothy: Oh, yes, [00:19:00] yes. No matter how many plans they’ve made or all of those different things that we think have us prepared, it doesn’t matter.
Genevieve: I think what people don’t realize is there’s an emotional impact that comes with losing somebody and that emotional impact does not turn on or can’t not be felt until the reality of death has been noticed.
Dorothy: And of course, even last week you discovered another part of your sister’s death that you—
Genevieve: Yes.
Dorothy: —obviously had planned for, but—
Genevieve: But, but wasn’t prepared for, you know, um, you know, you could, I look back on it now. My nephew, the one who was diagnosed with testicular cancer, it, we all went home for his wedding.
And so he, he got married on Friday to his beautiful bride. And the Monday before that, [00:20:00] my sister, unbeknownst to me, had prepared a card. 16 years ago to him, uh, to her son and his bride. And, uh, we, my dad and I were back and forth. We weren’t sure how to present this card or what to do. And so we all had met for dinner privately.
And I said, this would be the right time, you know, to present this card. And it was an impact for us all. Needless to say, none of us could talk. Um, I think if you were at that restaurant in that moment, and you saw the whole table was crying. Obviously nobody knows why, but we all knew why. And it was a beautifully, um, shared moment of bringing her back to be with us on that special day.
Dorothy: But think about the foresight of your sister. or whomever may have encouraged that, and I don’t know if that’s some of what you do in your ministry to the, to the people that are [00:21:00] facing a terminal illness, but that is so important, to leave something, no matter how much we think we’re not going to die, or we were determined to beat this thing.
The truth is having something tangible like that. Oh my goodness.
Genevieve: Yeah. I mean, that’s one of the things that I did notice about we as humans. We, um, several things. One, we’re a tangible society and we have a tangible mindset. We innately want to hold on. To, to somebody, to something that’s representative of them, um, and with that being said, we’re also very selfish.
We’re selfish because we don’t want to want, we don’t want to let our loved one go. They, they could be suffering on their deathbed, um, or they could be in a medical state that unfortunately, death would be a blessing for them, [00:22:00] right? Because they’re suffering, but we can’t bring ourselves to let them go.
And that’s the hardest part. And I can tell you, as I sit here today, I still hold on to my sister and her memories and all that she is to me and to all of us in the family and who she was in her lifetime. And what she represented. Um, so I think as long as I keep her memory alive, she’s alive.
Dorothy: And, and you said you had two sisters very close together who died.
Genevieve: Yes, I had a half sister. Unfortunately, I didn’t grow up with her. Uh, I was stationed, stationed in Europe, so I was kind of at a geographical distance, um, when the unfortunate uh, turmoil had hit the family with all of the cancer diagnoses. So I was actually getting it from afar, um, and, and that could [00:23:00] have led to the fact that the impact of it all was so great for me just because I wasn’t living it every day like everyone else was. You know, and, and I think that makes it harder.
When you don’t get to see the realities. And so with my half sister, both my, my, my full sister who had breast cancer, my half sister had liver cancer. They teamed up together because now they were on a very common journey and they could be there for each other. And so they had this very unique relationship that I was unfortunately not a part of.
Um, because again, cancer tends to, to unite those who have suffered that same challenge because unless you walk the walk, It’s really hard to relate with somebody, but if you’re human, if you’re empathetic and you’re compassionate, you can at least [00:24:00] try to understand. You’ll never fully, but, but try as you may, uh, to help.
And that’s where I was. I was like on the outside looking in, but at the same time, it still had a profound impact.
Dorothy: Oh, of course. And so often when we are on the outside looking in that helplessness, the. all the other emotions that you go through. Plus it’s the loss before the loss. It’s the, you know, this isn’t my mother, my sister, my daughter anymore.
Like I knew her. That is another part of this that is so difficult for family members.
Genevieve: And there’s so many things I could just go on about, you know, my sister in January before she passed away in June of ’06 and in January, she learned that her breast cancer had come back and it was at that time that she finally threw in the towel and said, I’m done fighting the fight.
And [00:25:00] that’s when she began getting all her affairs in order and wrote that card, uh, for the bride to be in the future. And, uh, she even gave my other nephew a birthday card on his 25th birthday because he was born with his own birth defects and a lot of challenges. And, uh, And it was one of those, just as she had hoped that one son would get married, she had hoped that the other one would reach the age of 25.
And so she, you know, in her dying days had this foresight and hope for both of her children, even though she no longer had hope for herself. And I think that that was just powerful and really represents the type of person that she was in life, always thinking of others as, as you know, in the perils of her own loss.
Dorothy: And no matter what, though, that had to have its own unique impact on you.
Genevieve: I was, I unfortunately wasn’t aware of it until it happened. So I’m now looking back on it and realizing the, [00:26:00] the, the power that she really possessed. And, you know, one of the things that I’ve always wondered, you know, a lot of times people say, I’m afraid of death.
But death becomes us all one day. So I’ve been asked that question, you know, are you afraid to die? And I said, no, I’m not afraid to die. I’m just afraid of how I’m going to die because I don’t want to suffer, you know? And so it’s, it’s kind of one of those things that you, you, you put in perspective, but when I have seen those that are dying and I think of my sister and my half sister, uh, when they were dying.
The only word that I can ever come up for it to really describe that, and I, and I, and I say it’s the same for people who are fighting cancer, it’s called bravery. I’ve never seen bravery the way I have seen it in a dying person. [00:27:00] They face it with adversity, calmness, and I guess they realize that this is the end, and this is, this is what it looks like.
Dorothy: That is such insight and, and also for family members, gives us another perspective on what that person’s going through and how they’re choosing to deal with it or not. But like you said, it is very brave.
Genevieve: Very, very brave. And you know, if I may mention, I’ve been in the study now for, oh my gosh, I think it’s been 20 years.
And I really don’t know how the study found me, but it did. I’ve been in a, uh, the study called the sister study. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it.
Dorothy: Tell us about it.
Genevieve: Yeah. Early on 20 years ago is when it began and they were looking for people who had been diagnosed with cancer themselves. Breast cancer primarily was the initial cancer of, I guess that created the program, but then they wanted [00:28:00] people who were survivors, who were sisters of those who either was diagnosed with it or passed away from it.
And they wanted to understand, so they, they were doing their own kind of like genetic study and mapping of why did one sister get breast cancer, but the other didn’t, and that’s how it all started. Um, and so, and they do annual updates with me all the time. I get a birthday card from them every year. You know, just kind of celebrating that I made another milestone.
Dorothy: Oh, but again, the foresight, because we know so much more now about breast cancer and how it spreads and that it’s a systemic disease and that, but at the end of the day, we really don’t know anything about who gets it, why they get it, what happens. And, and I guess that’s one of the dilemmas and one of the great frustrations of this particular research in, in breast cancer.
There’s, there’s There is no belief that if we ever could figure out what goes on in breast cancer, we’d figure out [00:29:00] what goes on in all cancers because it is so multi— different. You can have so many different kinds of breast cancer and it takes such different routes.
Genevieve: It truly does, yes.
Dorothy: So now, and I think this is such an important topic for us to even be talking about death, the funeral, preparing, what happens with the family members.
But who, who is the service for? Is it for the person?
Genevieve: The service is truly for those who are left behind. It’s an opportunity for people to come together, to pay respect, to honor that life that was lived, uh, to validate that the death has truly happened, uh, and help them to identify it. Um, there are times when people, you know, if you don’t, if you’re not able to attend a funeral and actually witness that person as deceased, you can sometimes exist with that unknown of perhaps they’re still out there somewhere. And I think that’s why it’s [00:30:00] always important to be able to have a funeral, to have a service, to come together and, and, and, and have those, uh, emotional moments that belong in a funeral. Um, some happy, some sad, it’s, it’s a rollercoaster of emotions.
You ever want to see, um, I don’t know. How would you say, you know, sometimes you can say in Houston, there’s four seasons in a day.
Dorothy: Yeah.
Genevieve: Uh, if you want to see like every emotion human can, can exhibit in, in, in hours, go to a funeral. You can, you can see them all because. They’re unleashed, if you will. They, they, they take over.
Dorothy: We have permission there to grieve, to laugh, to whatever it is that we need to do. And that permission we don’t often have in all our other things.
Genevieve: And people have to understand, too, is that grief has many faces, you know. And they really need to be open to understanding that grief affects everybody different, and it’s a lot of it’s just based on maybe the way they were raised, or [00:31:00] maybe they didn’t know that person as much as the person sitting next to them, or perhaps there was some, you know, love loss there throughout the way in life, and you just have to be respectful and open to that.
Dorothy: Tell me what’s the most rewarding thing about the work you do.
Genevieve: Wow, being able to educate. and help people understand or gain a little perspective on a part of life that we still know little about. I think that, and it’s not that we know little about because we all know about death. I think what we know little about is the emotional impact when we have our own personal touches with death.
Dorothy: That’s true.
Genevieve: Because we’re so removed from it through Through media, through television, through movies, you know, we, we, we get kind of brazen to [00:32:00] death through its entertainment that we seek. And so when it actually happens, it’s that emotional tsunami that you’re not familiar with.
Dorothy: So listening to you talk about your sister and the, and the card for her son, do we ever really heal from that loss?
Genevieve: Oh, absolutely not.
Dorothy: And, and we shouldn’t feel bad if we don’t?
Genevieve: No, not at all. I, you know what, I think we should feel bad is when we have what I call the second death. It’s when we’re no, we no longer recall those memories. We no longer have those feelings. We no longer grieve for that person because when now all of that is gone and it no longer happens then that person no longer exists. So I’ll be happy to grieve for my sister until the day I die.
Dorothy: Such good advice. Such good advice. One more. One more.
Genevieve: Sure.
Dorothy: Like I said, I’ve been to the museum. I think it’s [00:33:00] wonderful. But what is your favorite exhibit there?
Genevieve: Oh, it keeps changing. You know, the cremation exhibit was my favorite for a long time because Myself as a cremate— I am a cremationist. I know how to cremate. I want to be cremated myself. My sister was cremated, uh, several of my family members, in fact. Um, and I guess now that I’m going to talk about it, cremation, the history of cremation is probably my favorite, probably because I have a lot of personal experiences with it. And, you know, we’ve been talking about my sister so much, and we were talking about, you know, I was talking about the second death that when we no longer, Think about them or grieve about them and I remember when I was working on the cremation exhibit I was able to bring my sister back into my life because she was cremated and because they had come up with these really interesting things to do with cremated remains So, I took my [00:34:00] sister to Switzerland with me, cremated remain form, and turned her into a diamond.
And I also sent her to New York, and she is now created into a portrait that’s hanging at the museum. So you get to meet my sister through my sister’s ashes in a portrait called “Icons in Ash.” And so, yeah, so I got to like bring my sister back in my life. And so I go to work and I get to see her. I know it might sound morbid, but I don’t see her all the time.
It’s only if I go on an exhibit. But, you know, it’s, it was nice to say that she made an impact in some of my work I do today. And so, yeah, History of Cremation is my favorite.
Dorothy: Well, what a great, um, Interview. What a great storyteller you are. And thank you so much for sharing so many deep personal things about your own dealings with death.
[00:35:00] And also, I think this is something that’s going to give inspiration and Understanding.
Genevieve: Yes.
Dorothy: You know, and, and we see many, many survivors that do not make it through, and, uh, we see many that do, but for those that don’t, it is, it is tough, and I hope that every family who’s heard this, especially the story of leaving that card when the time is right, so that loved one knows that you’re still thinking of them.
Genevieve: Don’t be afraid to live and don’t be afraid to die. Just do your best.
Dorothy: Great great advice. Thank you again Genevieve for being with us.
Genevieve: Thank you.
Post-Credits: Thank you for joining us today on Let’s Talk About Your Breasts. This podcast is brought to you by The Rose. Visit therose.org to learn more about our organization. Subscribe to our podcast, share episodes with Friends and join the conversation on social media using [00:36:00] #Let’sTalkAboutYourBreasts. We welcome your feedback and suggestions. Consider supporting The Rose. Your gift can make the difference to a person in need.
And remember self care is not selfish. It’s essential.
