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Sitting in his office at his downtown Kansas City, Missouri, apartment, Kris Saim lets out a lifetime's worth of emotions into his microphone.
"The letter tends to be where I break down and all my raw emotions come out, which is great," Saim said. "Raw emotions are very healthy, especially as you're dealing with grief for yourself and others."
One way of dealing with his grief is through podcasting, which turned out to be more life changing than he thought.
The words in each podcast episode were originally goodbye letters.
"You spend a lot of time in a chemo chair," Saim said.
This is the second time Saim has fought cancer — he received the diagnosis of terminal stage four colon cancer four years ago at the age of 48.
"I had no clue I was going to reinvent myself at the age of 48 because of cancer," Saim said.
Now, it is less of a fight to live and more a choice to live.
"I had amassed this collection of 74 letters written to a variety of people," Saim said. "Anthony, my husband, decided, 'Hey we should do something with them, not just mail them. We should make a video of you reading these to people.'"
That is how his podcast, "Dying Out Loud," came to life.
"Where gratitude has no expiration date, and where we say the things we often save for later," Saim explains in an emotional episode with his children.
"Dying Out Loud" turns those goodbye letters into a living testament.
Saim brings the recipients of the letters onto the podcast, reading the letters to them in real time.
He is working his way through all 74 letters, having completed nearly 40 podcast episodes already. He has no intention of stopping even after the list is complete.
"Just reconnecting and sharing emotion with folks like that has been so tremendously helpful, healthy and cathartic for me," Saim said. "And I've found so much joy and gratitude from it. That's also like a great booster shot, like, every morning waking up and finding happiness."
In each episode, through the laughter and tears with his kids, his husband and other special people in his life, Saim hopes listeners can find purpose despite death.
"Not only are we sharing it with the world and letting other people draw off the lessons we're learning in the moment, but I'm also reconnecting with people that I might not have had a reason to connect with again," Saim said.
Saim recently shared on the podcast that he has decided not to continue chemotherapy so he can live his life to the fullest.
"This season is about hope and it’s about living fully inside your reality, not avoiding it," he said in that episode, where he and his husband, Anthony, shared a conversation about finding love and meaning.
That is the heart and soul of the podcast.
"Talking about death has really allowed me to find the kind of hope I need," Saim said. "I just feel a lot more ready for what's inevitable than I've ever felt before. There's a great sense of peace in that, and because of that, I'm fulfilled. There isn't one thing I need or want, besides having my people be okay whenever this happens."
Until that day, Saim says he will continue choosing connection and invites all of us to do the same.
"As long I have the ability to show up and get myself in front of my camera, I'm going to continue to just show the love, the appreciation, the gratitude," Saim said. "And just continue the conversation about what it's like to know you are dying. And we never know what day it's going to happen."
Saim wants everyone to keep this in mind: Newly released data from the American Cancer Society shows colorectal cancer is the number one cause of cancer deaths in men and women under the age of 50.
"That begs us to lower the age for a colonoscopy," Saim said. "And if I had my way, I would say that any young adult that has gastrointestinal issues should be eligible for a colonoscopy."
"Dying Out Loud" can be found on YouTube, Spotify and Apple, and is active on social media.
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