Cover of Before I Go

Before I Go

Before I Go

By: Vision Quest Communications Inc.
Listen for free

Season's Savings | 0.99 €/month for 3 months

5.99 €/month thereafter - terms apply. Cancel monthly.
Summary
 ABOUT BEFORE I GO…Embracing the Journey of MAiD: “Death is not an ending but a change of worlds.” Indigenous nations have a long history with ceremony and tradition around death. A member of the Gitxaala Nation in BC, Marion Brown has Pulmonary Hypertension (PH). PH is a chronic progressive condition that will, as with other members of her family, eventually take her life. And so, Marion has made the decision to use the MAiD program when she feels the time is appropriate. An experienced documentary producer and interviewer in her own right, Marion will turn the microphone around on herself. Along with family and many professional experts, she and her daughter Danielle will share this extraordinary journey with you. By openly discussing the experience of choosing medical assisted dying through an Indigenous lens, along with wisdom and stories – about family & ancestors, history & trauma, healing & love – Marion and Dani hope that their journey will provide unique and thoughtful perspectives, encourage your own conversations with those close to you, and perhaps provide some comfort. After all, living & dying are the human experiences we all share. Join us bi-weekly for some of the most profound and thought-provoking conversations of a lifetime. *****CONTENT WARNING***** Each episode of this podcast touches on subjects related to trauma, misogyny, racism, medical racism, sexual misconduct, Residential Schools, as well as many aspects of death and dying. Self-care is our priority, and we ask that you please take care as you listen, step away for a break when you need to, and use the resources below for support. *****RESOURCES***** Mental Health Support Resources: https://www.hopeforwellness.ca/ , 24/7 telephone: 1-855-242-3310, Online chat NIHB Mental Health Services regional office First Nations Health Authority (BC), Toll-free: 1-866-913-0033, info@fnha.ca MAiD Resources: https://www.fnha.ca/what-we-do/healthy-living/end-of-life-journey/medical-assistance-in-dying Centre for Education and Research on Aging https://nctr.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/When-the-Time-Comes-Final-Edit-and-Format3510-march-24.pdf https://www.dyingwithdignity.ca/blog/reclaiming-cultural-teachings-about-mortality-grief-loss-death-and-dying/ https://endoflifedoulaassociation.org/doula-list-maid/ https://camapcanada.ca/ https://abo-peoples.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/CAP-2024-FinalReport-PEOLC-MAID_WEB_EN-.pdf Grief & Loss Support Resources: https://www.beendigen.com/programs/talk4healing/ https://www.hospicenorthwest.ca/services/outreach-program/ https://lumarasociety.org/indigenouswellness/ , 1-866-9LUMARA, info@lumarasociety.org https://livingmyculture.ca/ Indigenous Books on Grief and Loss:https://www.strongnations.com/store/item_list.php?it=1&cat=3027 Residential School Support Resources: https://www.irsss.ca/ , 1-800-721-0066 for Survivors and Their Families https://nctr.ca/contact/survivors/ , The National Residential School Crisis Line 1-866-925-4419Vision Quest Communications Inc. Hygiene & Healthy Living Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Grief in One Hand, Joy in the Other

    Grief in One Hand, Joy in the Other
    27 Sep 2026

    In this episode of Before I Go, Marion and Dani share unexpected hopeful news after Marion’s recent right heart catheterization: she has mild residual pulmonary hypertension and is beginning to imagine a future she once thought she might not have.

    They’re joined by Dr. Don Wilson, a Heiltsuk physician and obstetrician-gynecologist, for a conversation about Indigenous representation in medicine, systemic anti-Indigenous racism in healthcare, and the difficult questions surrounding Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). Together, they discuss how Indigenous communities hold diverse beliefs about death and dying—and why people deserve access to information, compassionate care, dignity, and autonomy.

    The conversation also explores caregiving, anticipatory grief, and the challenge of making room for joy while carrying loss. As Dr. Wilson puts it, Indigenous people often have to carry “grief in one hand and joy and celebration in the other.”

    Content note: This episode includes discussion of serious illness, death and dying, MAiD, medical racism, and grief. The conversation is personal and educational, not medical advice.

    Health Resources:

    Suicide Crisis Line: 988 988.ca

    Hope for Wellness Hotline: 1-855-242-3310 https://www.hopeforwellness.ca/

    Wisepractices.ca


    Chapters:

    00:00 Marion’s health update and unexpected hope
    08:00 Caregiving, anticipatory grief, and family milestones
    12:59 Meet Dr. Don Wilson
    23:33 How Marion’s MAiD conversation began
    27:30 Anti-Indigenous racism in healthcare
    36:55 Indigenous diversity and beliefs about death and dying
    47:27 Why it matters to understand the MAiD process
    54:12 Checking in: adjusting to a new reality
    59:03 Part two: returning to the conversation
    1:06:07 Holding grief alongside joy
    1:14:18 Dr. Wilson reflects on Heiltsuk experiences of death and grief

    Show more Show less
    52 min
  • Breaking the Silence

    Breaking the Silence
    12 Sep 2026
    In this episode, Dani and Marion continue their powerful conversation with Esther Armah, a journalist, framework creator, and founder of the Armah Institute of Emotional Justice. Picking up from the previous episode, Esther deepens the exploration of silence, erasure, and emotional inheritance, sharing how growing up in a home where children were seen but not heard shaped her as an observer, listener, and storyteller. She recounts the 1966 military coup in Ghana that exiled her family, and how her mother’s decision—almost thirty years later—to finally tell the story of “the night the tanks came” ended Esther’s decades-long night terrors. Together, they examine how history is so often told through the voices of men, leaders, and institutions, while the stories of women and children—those facing tanks in their homes, carrying terror in their bodies, and holding families together in the aftermath—are erased. Esther describes her work on emotional justice as an effort to name these omissions, confront the silences, and recognize the emotional realities that official histories leave out.The conversation moves into emotional patriarchy: the ways women are taught to center men’s feelings, excuse their absences, and extend endless grace to fathers and husbands, while judging and withholding that same grace from themselves and other women. Esther reflects on how she unquestioningly protected her father’s reputation while judging her mother’s choices, and how she had to unlearn those patterns and reclaim her mother’s courage, leadership, and protection as central to the family’s survival.Marion weaves in parallel experiences from Indigenous life in Canada, including whitewashed histories, the ongoing legacies of Residential Schools and Indian Hospitals, and the ways trauma and erasure show up in the body as illness and “rare” diseases. She reflects on the emotional inheritance passed down from her mother and grandmother—the decision to interrupt corporal punishment, the insistence on gentleness, and the belief that patterns of harm can be broken. Living now with a life-limiting illness and a Hickman line that keeps her alive, Marion wonders what she has inherited through trauma, and what she is consciously choosing to pass on instead.From there, Dani, Marion, and Esther explore caregiving, burnout, and the myth of endless strength for women of colour. Dani speaks candidly about pouring from an empty cup, resenting the pressure to be the one who always shows up, and the fear of becoming “the person who doesn’t help.” Esther introduces the idea that what we often call generosity can actually be dishonesty—pushing past our limits to protect an image of ourselves as endlessly giving, while hiding our exhaustion, anger, and resentment. She underscores the importance of care-receiving, communal care, and the hard work of learning to ask for and accept support.Marion shares a formative moment from caring for her own mother at the end of her life, when her mother urged her not only to know when to ask for help, but to accept help—a teaching that reshaped how Marion understands strength, vulnerability, and support. They talk about how women of colour are often celebrated for resilience and endurance, even as those expectations slowly break their bodies and spirits.The episode also returns to masculinity, emotional suppression, and accountability. Esther reflects on her father’s incarceration and the emotional damage she could see in his eyes when he returned—"something taken that never came back." She introduces concepts like emotional incarceration and emotional solitude, and talks about her Moving Masculinity Project, which creates spaces for men (including incarcerated men) to confront their own emotional isolation. She emphasizes that this work must happen in community amongst men themselves, rather than relying on women to absorb and process the pain of men while carrying their own.Throughout, Esther invites listeners to think about willingness as the true starting point for healing—not perfection, not capacity. She describes this as a "circle of willingness", a small group of people committed to holding space for hard truths, breaking silences, and practicing new emotional languages together. She suggests beginning with the language of emotional justice—through her book and other resources—and then allowing that language to transform not only individuals, but families, workplaces, spiritual communities, and all the places we belong.At its heart, breaking the silence is an invitation to name what we’ve inherited, to notice where we have centred some people’s feelings and erased others’, and to ask hard questions about what we want to carry forward. It is a conversation about living fully, even in the face of death, refusing to simply lie down and accept the roles or diagnoses handed to us, and choosing instead to grow, reflect, and love “until we take our ...
    Show more Show less
    51 min
  • What Is Emotional Justice?

    What Is Emotional Justice?
    29 Aug 2026

    In this episode, Dani and Marion welcome Esther Stanhope, a framework creator and founder of the Amar Institute of Emotional Justice in Ghana. Esther introduces Emotional Justice, a framework for understanding how untreated trauma—and the ongoing legacies of colonialism, racism, apartheid, and other systems of harm—shape how we see ourselves and each other. Together, they explore the importance of emotional literacy and having the language to name what we carry, challenging the idea that education, achievement, or success can free us from trauma we have never been given the space to process.

    The conversation turns to emotional inheritance: the grief, survival strategies, silences, and emotional patterns passed between generations. Marion reflects on the profound trauma carried by her Indigenous family through Residential Schools, Indian Hospitals, and colonial violence, while Dani considers the ways each generation can work to create a different inheritance for the next. Esther introduces ideas including intimate revolution, intimate reckoning, and wellness in the face of warfare, asking what it means to care for ourselves and one another while living within systems that continue to cause harm.

    Dani, Marion, and Esther also explore masculinity, emotional suppression, caregiving, and accountability. Esther discusses her Moving Masculinity initiative and the need for men to develop emotional literacy and do the work of healing in community with one another—without placing that emotional labour back onto women. At its core, What Is Emotional Justice? is an invitation to name what we have inherited, understand how history continues to live within us, and imagine what we want to carry forward—and what we are ready to leave behind.

    Content in this episode includes frank discussion of trauma, racism, colonialism, medical racism, sexual abuse and misconduct, Residential Schools, Indian Hospitals, violence, grief, death and dying, and intergenerational trauma. Please listen at your own pace, take breaks when you need to, and take care of yourself as you do. Thank you for joining us on this journey.

    Health Resources:

    Suicide Crisis Line: 988 988.ca

    Hope For Wellness Hotline: 1-855-242-3310 https://www.hopeforwellness.ca/

    Wisepractices.ca
    Emotional Justice - Esther Armah:     https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/717082/emotional-justice-by-esther-a-armah/9781523003365


    Chapters:

    00:00:00 Content Warning & Land Acknowledgement

    00:00:54 Meet Dani, Marion, and the Before I Go Journey

    00:02:31 Marion’s Health Check‑In: Miracle Drug and Fragility

    00:04:10 Grief, Uncle’s Passing, and Holding Heaviness

    00:05:50 Introducing Esther: Creator of Emotional Justice

    00:08:12 From MAiD to Medical Racism: How the Podcast Evolved

    00:10:40 What Is Emotional Justice? Defining the Framework

    00:16:29 Intimate Revolution & The Language of Whiteness

    00:19:01 Marion on Education, Loss, and Calling a Thing a Thing

    00:21:29 Emotional Inheritance: What We Carry Across Generations
    00:29:09     Residential Schools, Indian Hospitals, and Inherited Burden

    00:34:30 Unexpressed Grief, Masks, and Wellness in the Face of Warfare

    00:39:39 Turning to Men: Masculinity and Emotional Illiteracy
    00:43:48     Marion’s Journey with Indigenous Masculinity and Trust

    00:47:21 Toxic vs. Traumatized Masculinity & Moving Masculinity Project

    00:55:48 From Survival to Thriving: Doing Our Own Work

    00:56:19 Marion & Dani’s Reflections: Mind Blown and Seen

    00:57:43 Closing Invitation: Self‑Care Is Not Optional
    Show more Show less
    1 hr
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet