A lot of people have things left unsaid that they want to tell people who have died.
I THINK IT CAN BE EASY to look at my story and see the straightforward parts of it: my mom died, and now I live in a van and talk about death and dying. But that’s not complete.
There have been many years of sadness and figuring out what I’m doing and why. When you’re twenty-two, you don’t think that your mom can die. I was thrown into this world of figuring out what my life was going to be like. I chose the route of travel for many reasons, but it started when I told my therapist, “I just want to pick up and leave.” And he said “What do you have to lose?”
That’s a very sad and liberating thought.
Now, whenever I’m at a crossroads in my life, I ask myself that question.
That first van trip from California to Texas and back to Colorado was messy. I cried so many times. I didn’t know what I was doing and I missed my mom. But there’s something about being on the road that feels very important to me. It’s making this circle. My mom was killed by a truck driver while she was driving. For a long time, I was afraid of driving. I realized that at any moment, I could die on the road. After she died, I couldn’t even go down the street to the coffee shop because I was so nervous. When I started driving in my van, I was able to reclaim that experience.
I have an audio recorder that I took on my most recent trip around the country. Whenever I got into conversations with people I met that touched on death and dying, I asked if I could record them. That got me thinking about other ways to capture those conversations that may be unfinished. A lot of people have things left unsaid that they want to tell people who have died. I wanted to make that connection for people. I believe we can normalize the topic of death and dying. From that trip came the idea of a phone booth. I built a mobile phone booth that invites people to pick up the phone and talk to someone who has died.
Now I’m on tour, capturing these conversations, talking about death and dying, and reclaiming that space on the road. I don’t have to be afraid of it.
MORGAN BROWN
