When I watched his films Two Steps Away and Clouds, I wondered why Justin Baldoni was making such deeply thought-provoking films about these magical people and their wonderful loved ones in their final stages of life.
“The soul is the last to leave the sinking body.“
Ferenc Birtalan
That’s when I found out about the talk he gave at the End Well Symposium, an annual conference in San Francisco on death, planning and rethinking approaches to mortality.
When Justin was 20 years old, his uncle was in the fourth stage of lung cancer. Justin hardly knew him because Louis lived in Florida and they lived in Oregon. Justin grew up feeling a strong calling to go and meet him. So he bought a plane ticket and went to see her. They spent a lot of time together. Justin has fond memories of it all.
A few months later, his father called to say that Uncle Louis had only days left and was receiving hospice care.
Donna, Louis’ wife, was not coping and the family needed help. Justni felt called again, she wanted to go and be there for her uncle’s last days. She had no idea what she was going to do, but her heart was pulling her irresistibly.
On the last night, as her uncle drew closer to death, her breathing slowed and became labored, as part of the transformation process she had visions and began to talk to her sister who had died young.
“Scientists who study the dying process have found that dying people often see, hear or feel deceased relatives or angelic beings and talk to them.”
Justin asked the nurse if there was any music his uncle particularly liked. The nurse replied that yes, there was a Frank Sinatra album in the car. It’s a mix of all the songs Louis likes.
Justin ran out, grabbed the CD, ran in and put it in his laptop and started playing it. His uncle was soon out of breath. It was the first experience
Justin had ever had of someone’s soul leaving their body.
His aunt was sobbing as Justin held his uncle’s hand, and the music suddenly stopped at that moment…
The aunt’s sad face changed and she started to smile. It turned out to be the song that had been playing during their first dance.
– Inexplicable,” Justin says in his speech. He always knew there had to be more to these moments, but what he experienced shook him to the core of his soul. He let go of the idea at that moment, but the experience still had a profound impact on the rest of his life.
13 years ago, in a dark period of his then dead-end career and stalled life, Justin asked himself the question during a late-night soul-searching session:
“What am I really doing here?“
His question was not just a nightly existentialist lament, but also a challenge: what is the value of contributing to the lives of others and at the same time giving purpose to his own life?
Justin took out a piece of paper and wrote:
“My Last Days”
A show about life told by people who are dying.
At first it seemed like a brainstorm, but the words on the paper looked back at him with the anticipation of a new idea.
Justin wondered what if he could make a series of documentaries in which people living with fatal circumstances could tell their own stories? It was enough to get him out of his anxiety and back to work.
Two years later, the first episode of My Last Days was released on SoulPancake’s YouTube channel. The first season featured Zach Sobiech, a 17-year-old American boy diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.
“I was told I only had a few months to live. But I still have a lot of work to do. I want everyone to know: We don’t have to be dying to start living.”
The series struck a very deep chord. Zach’s episode alone has been watched 16 million times. In the week of his death, 10 million.
Before his death in May 2013, weeks after his 18th birthday, Zach released a song, “Clouds”, and became the first independent artist to top the iTunes charts. He currently has 22 million views.
After hearing Justin talk about his girlfriend, Zach told him to go and propose to this woman he clearly loved. Now they are married. And Justin, through Wayfarer Entertainment, the production company he founded to create the series, launched the Man Enough movement to challenge unhealthy definitions of masculinity.
Three seasons of the YouTube series My Last Days and a spinoff miniseries have been released on the CW network.
In total, 25 episodes were produced over seven years. The series became the most-watched documentary series of all time. It reached 100 million viewers. The sea of letters that poured in revealed that many people were saved from suicide by watching it.
For Justin, it was the beginning of a turning point, both personally and professionally.
Justin lost three friends in the year before the speech. Among them was Claire Lucia Wineland, an American activist, writer, speaker and social media personality. Claire supported children and families with cystic fibrosis through her non-profit organisation, Claire’s Place Foundation.
Claire inspired Justin to create the film Two Steps Apart, which he dedicated to her memory.
After the film, the book became a bestseller. And in 2020, Justin made Zach’s story into a movie. But more on that in a future post…
If you speak English, you should watch the full video above. I think it’s beautiful how Justin applied the idea from the movie Two Steps Away to the birth of his own children.
“There is a theory that I liked. You can understand death by comparing it to birth. So… while we’re in the womb, that’s the limit of our existence. And we have no idea that our next life is only inches away. So… maybe that’s true of death. Maybe death is just our new life, inches away from us.”
Justin gave his daughter as loving a welcome as he could. He thinks there will be another time like this…
