When We Die Talks – Details, episodes & analysis

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When We Die Talks

Zach Ancell

Society & Culture

Health & Fitness

Religion & Spirituality

Frequency: 1 episode/8d. Total Eps: 72

When We Die Talks is a collection of real conversations with real people about death, meaning, and what it’s like to be human.

Each week, host Zach Ancell speaks with an anonymous caller. It begins with one question: What do you think happens when we die? From there, the conversation goes wherever it goes. Belief. Doubt. Loss. Relief. Fear. Sometimes even laughter.

These aren’t experts or public figures. Just everyday people saying the quiet parts out loud. The result is raw, unpredictable, and deeply human.

New anonymous calls every Wednesday.

Want to add your voice? Apply to be a caller at whenwedietalks.com. Leave a voicemail and share a belief, a question, or a moment you can’t shake about death: 971-328-0864.

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Anonymous #35 — How Do You Keep Loving People When You're the One They're Going to Lose?

Episode 57

Tuesday, May 12, 2026 • Duration 52:00

This week's caller was diagnosed with a terminal illness at eight years old. They have never not known that death was part of their life.

They are an actor, a writer, a reader, a person who rescues snails and keeps a pet millipede and loves sharks because they understand what it feels like to be misunderstood. They are also someone who has spent their entire life figuring out how to live fully inside a body that makes that complicated.

This is a conversation about what it looks like to choose life, loudly, intentionally, and without apology, when death has always been in the room.

We talk about the guilt of knowing you're going to hurt everyone who loves you, the difference between being afraid of death and being afraid of dying, and why so much of how we portray terminally ill people in media gets it completely wrong. We also get into what they hope they can do once they're gone, why they want to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival even though their doctors would disagree, and the one thing they still want to experience before they die, which is not what you'd expect.

In this conversation:

The difference between fearing death and fearing the process of dying
Why "you don't look sick" is something we should all agree to stop saying
The guilt of knowing your death is going to hurt the people you love most

Book recommendations: Reverie by Ryan La Sala; I Fell in Love with Hope by Lancali

More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list

Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube

Nemosené: Your Life Story
A guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

About When We Die Talks: When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the Episode Guide. It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.

Stay Connected
🌐 Website: whenwedietalks.com
📰 Substack: When We Die Talks
📸 Instagram: @whenwedietalks
▶️ YouTube: When We Die Talks
🎵 TikTok: @whenwedietalks
📚 Anonymous Book Recommendations
✉️ Email: zach@whenwedietalks.com

Want to share your thoughts? Leave a voicemail at 971-328-0864 and share what you believe happens when we die. Messages may be featured in a future episode. If you’d like to have a full conversation, you can apply to be an anonymous caller at whenwedietalks.com.

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Anonymous #34 — Can The Losses That Broke You As A Teenager Also Be The Things That Made You?

Episode 56

Tuesday, May 5, 2026 • Duration 48:40

This week's caller is a pediatric nurse who has been around death long enough to stop fearing it and start getting curious about it.

They lost their father to suicide as a teenager. A few months later, they were the one doing CPR on their childhood best friend after an accidental fentanyl overdose. They were sixteen. They didn't become a nurse because of those losses exactly, but those losses made them someone who couldn't look away.

This is a conversation about what it looks like when death becomes a daily presence instead of a distant fear, and what a person builds out of that.

We talk about what it's like to have a job where you see about two people die every week and what your mind does to keep moving. We get into reincarnation through a video game analogy that is really fascinating, the difference between what you believe and what you hope, and why this caller's fear isn't death itself. It's leaving people behind. We also hear the story of a man who died alone because he'd told his children he never wanted to see them again, and what he asked this caller to pass on.

Content note: This episode includes a brief mention of suicide and accidental overdose. Neither is dwelt on at length.

In this conversation:

What it actually feels like to watch someone die and how nurses keep moving after
The three-lives theory: reincarnation, Mario, and why deja vu might mean something
Why their fear of death is really a fear of what they'd leave behind
What a dying man asked this caller to tell people, and why she still hears his voice

Book recommendation: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list

Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the

A guided audio interview to capture your story in your own words for the people you love.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Bonus — Don Sires: Exit Interview

Episode 55

Tuesday, April 28, 2026 • Duration 01:06:55

This one is different.

When We Die Talks is built around anonymous conversations — people calling in to talk about death, dying, and what they think comes next. No names, no faces, just honest conversation. This episode breaks that format entirely, and I think once you hear it you'll understand why it had to.

Don Sires was one of the very first guests on this podcast. Over a year ago he sat down with me, not anonymously, by his own choice, and talked about living with ALS, his Baha'i faith, and what he believed waited on the other side. That episode, Episode 8, became one of the most listened to conversations this show has ever had. It's still the one I get contacted about the most.

A few weeks ago Don texted me. His nurse had given him four to six weeks to live. And then he asked if I wanted to do a wrap-up interview.

That's very Don.

I went to his home and we sat down one more time. This conversation is quieter than the first one. Slower. The Don you met in Episode 8 is still very much there, the curiosity, the warmth, the willingness to go deep, but you'll notice the difference. He wanted to wrap things up, offer some final thoughts, and leave something behind.

If you haven't heard Episode 8, please start there. Get to know him first. Then come back.

I'm honored that Don trusted me with his story over a year ago. I'm even more honored that he trusted me with this.

Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the video version on YouTube

Support the show

About When We Die Talks is a podcast built around anonymous conversations about death, loss, and how contemplating mortality shapes the way we live. If you’re new here, start with the . It’s designed to help you find conversations that match where you’re at—curiosity, grief, hesitation, or openness.

Anonymous #33 — Why Does Some Grief Get to Be Spoken Out Loud and Some Doesn't?

Episode 54

Tuesday, April 21, 2026 • Duration 46:12

This week's caller has been living with grief long enough to become a student of it. They lost their mom at twenty-two. Then their cat. Then their soul dog thirteen months ago.

This is a conversation about grief that doesn't rank itself, animals as family, and what it means to believe your soul chose this life even when this life has been really hard.

We talk about losing a parent young and what it does when no one ever talked about death before it happened. We get into ecological grief, the mourning of a world as it used to be, and how a hottest summer on record in Greece sent this caller on a path toward becoming a grief recovery specialist. We talk about souls, reincarnation, the possibility that time doesn't exist where our animals go, and the very real question of whether you'll get to meet your dog again.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, we end up laughing about whether the old souls are just patiently waiting while the young souls keep coming back around to figure it out.

In this conversation:

Ecological grief and why grieving a changing world is not a disorder, it's a response
Anticipatory grief — the kind that starts before you've lost anyone
Why they found it harder to lose their cat than their mother, and why that makes complete sense
The case for anti-speciesism in grief work — why every animal deserves to be mourned without shame

A few lines from the call:

"Death is the only thing that is sure that's gonna happen to our body after we're born, and yet no one speaks about it."
"I didn't even want to live anymore." What losing their soul dog did, said plainly.
"We don't overcome grief. We learn how to live with grief."

Book recommendation: The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller

More book recommendations from past episodes:

Anonymous #32 — What Do You Do With a Faith That Can't Explain the Worst Thing That Happened to You?

Episode 53

Tuesday, April 14, 2026 • Duration 37:32

Note: This episode includes an open discussion of suicide and suicide loss. Please listen when you're in a good place to do so.

This week's caller has lived through a concentrated stretch of loss that would bring most people to their knees. A beloved grandmother who raised them. Another grandmother, expected but still hard. And then, in March of 2021, their husband — suddenly, traumatically, in a way that left no warning and no clean answers.

They came to this conversation not from a place of unresolved pain, but from one of hard-won peace. And they wanted to talk about how they got there.

At the center of it is a belief they've held since childhood and leaned on through every loss: that no one dies without a final chance. That in the last moments of any life, there is still an opening — for forgiveness, for grace, for something that doesn't close until it actually closes.

In this conversation:

Losing three significant people in three years and how each grief felt entirely different
What it means to find your grandmother on the floor and just know before you know
Surviving the death of a spouse by suicide
Why the caller believes their husband is in heaven and the theological reasoning that got them there
The difference between religion and relationship, and why that distinction mattered most when the questions got hardest
What it means to be a widow in your forties when you were expecting to grow old together

A few lines from the call:

"I didn't know up from down. I was totally crushed."
"He didn't commit suicide. He died by suicide."
"In those last twinkling moments — every single person has that one last opportunity."
"When it's my time, I'll be ready. And not fearful."

Book mentioned in this episode: The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

More book recommendations from past episodes

Anonymous #31 — What Happens If There's No 'You' Left to Be Afraid of Death?

Episode 52

Tuesday, April 7, 2026 • Duration 44:33

This week's caller has been sitting with death since childhood. They grew up deep inside Pentecostal religion, the shouting, the standards, the constant weight of what comes next, and instead of finding comfort there, they left with more questions than answers. They've been chasing those questions ever since.

This is a conversation about ego, identity, and why the thing afraid of dying might not even be you.

We talk about growing up in a religious household and what happens when you rebel your way into actually thinking for yourself, the idea that "authentic personality" is a contradiction because the word personality comes from persona, which means mask. We get into reincarnation, not the hopeful kind, but the honest kind: consciousness continues, the ego doesn't. And the caller makes a case that death isn't just okay. It's necessary. Without it, nothing means anything.

In this conversation:

Growing up Pentecostal and what that does to a kid who can't stop thinking about death
Why the caller stopped calling themselves an atheist and what they believe instead
The ego as the thing that panics and what's left when you start subtracting it
Their version of reincarnation: the consciousness returns, but you don't, and why that's actually fine
Why they believe death gives life its meaning and the thought experiment they used to make that case to a believer
How psychedelics and long stretches of solitude helped them stop fearing and start accepting

A few lines from the call:

"It sounds like you've been in an existential crisis since you were a child." What their therapist said, and why it tracked.
"I'm nobody and it's not a bad thing. It's a liberating thing."
"On psychedelics, I'm more ready to die than at any other time."

Book recommendations: The Book of Enoch

More book recommendations

Anonymous #30 — What Happens to a Family That Grief Breaks?

Episode 51

Tuesday, March 31, 2026 • Duration 42:01

This weeks caller lost their baby brother on Thanksgiving Day when they were five, and has spent their whole life with what they call "a little bird called death" on their shoulder. They're a death doula, a trauma-informed yoga instructor, a Reiki master, and an adventure motorcyclist, and they're still terrified of death.

But somehow, that's exactly what makes this conversation so good.

The caller is funny, self-aware, and refreshingly honest about the contradiction of doing death work while being afraid of death. We talk about watching grief reshape their entire family after their brother died, what it actually feels like to hold space for mass shooting survivors, and a late-night fight that ended their relationship with their father for good. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, they work out, out loud, a theory about death that involves dimensions, dreamlike transitions, and shedding the skin to see what's really there.

In this conversation:

What death anxiety actually feels like when you're wired for it, including the moments it just crushes you out of nowhere
Losing their brother at five, and how that grief quietly shaped everything after
Holding space for trauma survivors, and what they get out of it that they didn't expect
Their working theory on what happens after we die: dimensions, metamorphosis, and coming into a new space without trauma

A few lines from the call:

"I've been sitting with a little bird called death on my shoulder my entire life."
"We're not actually dead until we're dead. We actually are alive all the way until we die."
"Maybe when we die it's like having a dream. And when we wake from this dream of death, we come into being in a new space."

Book recommendation: Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul by Stephen Jenkinson

More book recommendations from past episodes:

Anonymous #29 — Can Having Parkinson's Teach You How to Live?

Episode 50

Wednesday, March 18, 2026 • Duration 42:40

This caller grew up without religion, lost their mom to suicide at 13, and spent years in a fear of death so overwhelming they couldn't be around skeletons or eat meat. Then they were diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

But somehow, this is not a sad episode.

This week's caller is funny, sharp, and genuinely at peace — not because life got easier, but because they stopped waiting for it to. We talk about what it actually felt like to go from debilitating death anxiety to building a community, writing a book, and strapping roller skates back on at 46 after a hip replacement. We talk about what a Parkinson's diagnosis changed, and what it quietly gave them. And they say something near the end of the call that I've been thinking about since: that they're just glitter. That glitter sticks to everything and you can't get rid of it no matter how hard you try.

In this conversation:

What death anxiety actually felt like — before a diagnosis put it in perspective
Losing their mom to suicide at 13, and how that fear lived inside them for decades
Finding purpose through Parkinson's — and why they call it a "terribly wonderful gift"
Hope vs. belief: how they hold both, especially when it comes to their mom
Being a single parent of four kids (two grown, two teenagers) while living with a progressive disease
Dark humor, living intentionally, and not caring who watches you dance in the rain
What they still want to do before they're done — and why it's simpler than you'd expect

A few lines from the call:

"I guess I'll have to embrace this. So I did."
"Your hundred percent today looks different than your hundred percent yesterday."
"We're all just meat and electric jelly when it breaks down to it."

Book Recommendation: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

More book recommendations from past episodes:

Anonymous #28 — Do the People Who Sit With Death Every Day Know Something the Rest of Us Don't?

Episode 49

Wednesday, March 4, 2026 • Duration 43:58

What would change if we treated death as a human event, not just a medical one?

This week’s anonymous caller is a death doula. And instead of going abstract, they get surprisingly specific about what the end can look like and what people wish they’d put in place sooner.

A lot of this episode lives in the gap between what we assume will happen and what actually happens when things move quickly: who makes decisions, what families scramble to figure out, and how easily someone’s wishes can get lost if nothing has been talked about ahead of time.

It’s also a reminder that this isn’t only an “old age” topic. The caller talks about working with people in their twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties. Which quietly changes the question from “someday” to “at some point, and we don’t get to choose when.”

And underneath all of that is one simple reframe that keeps showing up throughout the call: the medical side matters, but the human side is usually what people need most.

In this episode:

What a death doula actually does (and what they don’t)
Why dying often needs more human support than medical support
Why end-of-life planning is a form of care
The reality that terminal diagnoses don’t only happen “late in life”
Why the timeline is the part none of us gets to know
What tends to help at the end — and what tends to complicate things

A few moments from the call:

“Dying is much more of a human event than it is a medical event.”
“You need more human support than you need medical support.”
“We have no idea when death will come for us.”
“I’m working with people who are in their twenties or thirties or forties or fifties, and they’ve received a terminal diagnosis…”

Book Recommendation: Anonymous Caller Spoiler (preorder link)

Anonymous #27 — Is the Fear of Death Worse Than Death Itself?

Episode 48

Wednesday, February 25, 2026 • Duration 36:20

What if death isn’t peaceful, or blank, or anything you can make sense of, but something you’re trapped inside?

This week’s anonymous caller doesn’t come in with a comforting belief or a story about loss. They come in with death anxiety. The kind that’s hard to explain even when you’re trying to explain it.

We talk through what the fear actually feels like when you get specific. Not just “I’m afraid to die,” but fear of being stuck, fear of losing control, fear of being alone in whatever comes next.

And toward the end, something shifts. Not because we solve anything, but because the caller says out loud what most people keep private and realizes that naming it helped.

In this episode:

A caller trying to describe death anxiety in real time
The fear of “eternity” as being stuck, conscious, and alone
How religious upbringing can leave fear residue, even after beliefs change
Control, spiraling, and what it feels like when the fear grabs hold
What talking about death anxiety does (and doesn’t) change
Why saying it out loud can soften the grip, even without answers

A few moments from the call:

“I just have this crushing fear of what I don’t want it to be like.”
“I am going to be stuck in eternity alone.”
“Us talking about it, it helps me… it might not even be like that.”

Book Recommendation: The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck); The Death Gate Cycle (Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman)

More book recommendations from past episodes: View the full list

Video Episode: If you’d like to watch this conversation instead of just listening, you can find the

When We Die Talks – Details, episodes & analysis

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