What If We Didn't Have To Do Death Alone? - Crystal Meneses on Culture, Care, & Community

What if we thought about death not as something that needs to be handed over to institutions, but as something that communities could face together?

In this episode we talk with Crystal Meneses, a death worker, spiritual counselor, hospice chaplain, artist, musician, and longtime community caregiver. Crystal's path into death work began with watching a recording of her grandfather's funeral in the Philippines, which sparked questions around being able to one day provide a similar ceremony for her father. Questions that inspired her work to help us rethink how we approach death and dying.

Crystal and Jana explore the cultural differences in how death and grief are understood, including what Crystal has learned from her Filipino and Indigenous connections. They talk about the possibilities of caring for someone at home, tending to their body after death, creating rituals, and making intentional choices around end-of-life.

Crystal also shares what she's witnessed in the communities she serves - including elders, caregivers, young people, and people in prisons and other institutional settings - and the many ways grief goes unsupported.

Throughout the conversation, Crystal returns to the importance of relationship: building networks of care, making room for different spiritual beliefs and identities, and practicing togetherness in a culture that often treats death as something to manage alone.

We Discuss:

• Crystal's two grandmothers and the different cultural relationships she experienced with death and grief
• What it means to "bring death back into the hands of communities"
• Crystal's own hopes for her end-of-life care & how she cares for herself in this work
• Supporting children and teens through art and music when grief is difficult to put into words
• Indigenous, multicultural, and multispiritual approaches to grief and death
• The systemic barriers that make care and connection more difficult

Crystal reminds us that there isn't one right way to grieve, to die, or to care for someone who is dying, and that we may have more choices than we've been taught to believe.

Connect with Crystal on IG - https://www.instagram.com/crystalakinsmeneses/