“My name is Nicola and I’m here because… I’m frightened of dying,” I say to the group of strangers sat around the table in front of me. But that’s not what I mean, not really. What I meant to say is that I’m here because I’m frightened of not living – there’s a difference. I’m smiling but my heart is pounding and my palms are sweaty. I’m deeply uncomfortable.

It’s a dark and rainy Bank Holiday Sunday and I’m at my first death café meeting, held at the atmospheric Arnos Vale cemetery in Bristol. Until a few years ago, I shut down any thoughts I had about myself and those I loved dying. I was actively disconnected from death, the truth was too painful a prospect to consider.

But then both of my grandmothers passed away. They were 86 and 79 respectively, one had dementia and heart failure while the other had terminal breast cancer, yet their deaths had come as a huge shock to me. I had so fiercely avoided considering that death was even a possibility – let alone a probability – that I didn’t even say goodbye. I still grapple with this, along with the idea that two women that I had loved so much, who had been so vital in life, could one day just… cease to exist.

The death café, a not-for-profit social franchise, is the brainchild of a British man called Jon Underwood. It was Underwood’s belief that Western society doesn’t ‘do’ death particularly well. We have a tendency to avoid and ‘outsource’ it, handing over the handling of our loved ones in their final days to doctors, nurses and undertakers.

Inspired by the Swiss Café Mortel movement that aimed to removed the ‘tyrannical secrecy’ out of topic of death, Underwood wanted to create a place where people could drink tea, eat cake and talk about dying. And so, the first death café event was held in 2011 at his kitchen table in Hackney. His mum, Sue Barsky Reid, a psychotherapist, held the meeting. It was a huge success and, together with his mum, Jon wrote a guide to holding your own death café in 2012. There are now death café events held in 65 countries all over the world.

The objective of the death café is to ‘help people make the most of their (finite) lives’ and regain the control over arguably the most significant aspect of being alive. This message is made all the more poignant when I learn that Jon passed away suddenly two years ago, aged just 44.

In my family and friendship circle, we hardly ever broach the subject of death and if we do, it’s with a certain amount of gallows humour. When my mum asked my dad if he would like to be buried or cremated, he suggested she just put him out with the recycling on big bin day. We laughed, and quickly dropped the subject. I still don’t know what his wishes would be at the end of his life. I don’t know what the wishes are for anyone close to me for that matter, not even my own.

While the organisers of the death café carefully stipulate that this isn’t grief or bereavement counselling, everyone has their own personal reasons for attending. Some have lost someone close to them, others have started to think about the end of their own lives and others are simply curious.

My own reasons are that I had reached the age of thirty having never really acknowledging that people die. I mean, I knew, but until that point it remained a fairly abstract idea. When my grandmothers passed away, with their deaths came the realisation that at any point in the near or distant future, my life – along with those of everyone I love – will one day expire. This knowledge can sometimes feel like a crushing weight. Am I making the most of my life? Am I doing enough living?

The meeting is held by a facilitator, but she doesn’t set an agenda. Instead, the twelve of us sit around a table nursing teas and coffees and she allows the conversation to ebb and flow naturally. The strangers gathered are made up of a broad range of ages, genders and ethnicities, and we all hold varying ideas about what death means. Yet the meeting remains respectful, confronting and moving all at once.

I struggle to articulate my feelings around death without getting overcome with emotion. But I listen to the fears, hopes and beliefs of these strangers who share so honestly and freely, and we all laugh when I tell them I worry that if I die unexpectedly that my sons might one day read the half-finished novel lurking on my desktop before I’ve had chance to properly edit it. What if my legacy is just a few crap chapters of a yet-to-be completed book?

My head is still in the meeting long after I get home. I stand in the kitchen and look out at the tree in the middle of the garden. I recently learnt that the previous owners had planted it many years ago to commemorate the birth of their son, but he had sadly passed away. And so, as my own children play in the shadow of the tree that was planted in celebration of a life that has already ended, my mind wanders as it invariably does to this person, this stranger. How can he be dead if he’s alive in my thoughts? How can he cease to exist if those that loved him in life, love him still in death? My grandmothers might have passed away, but I feel them with me every day. To say that they no longer exist is simply not true.

There is still the fear, there is still the existential dread. But after my first meeting –and I plan on attending more – there’s also a renewed urgency to my life. We’re all here for a finite amount of time. Ignoring that fact doesn’t buy you a few extra years. We’re all born and we all die, but it’s the bit in the middle that really counts.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

July 5, 2019July 5, 2019

Planning Your Own Funeral & Memorial Service

by Anthony Martin

Planning your own funeral is not something anyone gets excited about. In all honestly, who would?

But you know what? There is great value in doing so.

Before we jump into the nitty-gritty, how about a funeral joke to lighten the mood?

Here’s a good one…

I was a little taken aback when I got my receipt from the funeral parlor. On the bottom of the receipt after the bill, it read, “Thank you. Please come again.”

In all seriousness, if you are considering planning your own funeral ahead of time we sincerely commend you. It takes courage to do so, and you will find it’s very rewarding once it’s done.

To help you on your quest, you’ll find in this article why you should plan your own memorial, how to do it, and discover four different ways you can ensure your funeral is paid for.

Why You Should Be Planning Your Own Funeral

The reason why you should plan your own funeral is quite simple.

If you don’t plan your own funeral, your family will have to while in their darkest hour.

Here’s the cold hard truth of it.

When you pass away, your family will be going through an incredibly dark time full of grief and sadness. They will miss you terribly.

Your loved ones having to make tough choices via planning your funeral only adds to the emotional stress they are enduring due to your passing.

Nobody likes to think of their own mortality, let alone plan for it. You should take the time to do it for your family, so they won’t have to while under the greatest emotional stress of their life.

Here’s some really good news.

Planning your own funeral is actually very easy! Not to mention, it won’t take as much time as you’d think to knock it out.

All you are really doing is documenting exactly how you would like to be remembered.

The best part is, once you’ve done it, you never have to do it again!

Taking a little time planning this ahead of time will pay huge dividends in the future. You’ll save your family from a lot of grief, and they will know how much you cared because of what you’ve done.

You Have To Document Your Plans Or They Do No Good

You could literally just use a blank piece of paper and that would suffice.

No matter how you do it, you must document your final wishes, or all your preparation is worthless.

Not to mention, however you choose to transcribe your funeral plan, you need to store them in a place where they are easily accessible by your family.

The idea is upon your passing, your family will naturally locate your final wishes, so they can follow your instructions. This will alleviate them from having to make these tough choices while they are grieving.

There are lots of free funeral planning guides online such as this one or this one, if you prefer to have something that pre-outlines everything.

Ultimately, it does not matter exactly how you document your final wishes. All that matters is that you do it, so your family can put it to use.

How To Plan Your Funeral

Planning out your own funeral has a process that will actually be very familiar to you.

No seriously, it will be.

Think of it this way.

Have you ever bought a vehicle? You likely have at some point in your life.

Think back to your last car buying experience. It probably went something like this…

Calculated your budget
Decided if you want a car, truck, van, etc.
Identified which makes and models you were interested in
Compared those models to see which one(s) you like most
Selected a model
Chose the color, interior & exterior options, etc.
Bought the vehicle

The procedure to plan your own funeral will be just like that. The only real difference is A) You won’t take delivery of your product right now 😇 (at least we hope not), and B) you will be selecting options related to a funeral rather than a car.

Burial, Cremation, Or Donation

By far the biggest choice you will make is choosing to be buried, cremated, or donating your body to science.

Your budget may play a role in deciding which one of these you go with.

Remember, the cost of a funeral varies greatly among these three options. On average, a typical burial service will cost anywhere from $7,000-$10,000. At the same time, a cremation service will cost between $1,500-$5,000. Donating your body to science will usually cost nothing.

With the availability of affordable funeral life insurance plans to cover end-of-life costs, most people can adequately insure themselves for an amount necessary to cover whatever sort of memorial they prefer.

What To Do With The Remains If You Choose A Burial Or Cremation

If you choose to be buried, you then must select what you want done with the casket. If your wish is to be cremated, then you must choose where the urn or ashes are placed.

Believe it or not, there are quite a few options. There are pros and cons to each, so decide which one you think best suites you.

In Ground For A Burial

This is the stereotypical burial so to speak. The casket is placed inside a burial vault that is roughly six feet underground.

In Ground Lawn Crypt For A Burial

A lawn crypt is a pre-made tomb that is typically comprised of concrete and steel whereby multiple caskets can be stacked upon one another.

Lawn crypts are sometimes referred to as in ground mausoleums because they are essentially a completely enclosed shell that preserves the casket(s) far better than a burial vault will.

Above Ground Lawn Crypt For A Burial

This is identical to an in-ground lawn crypt, except that it’s above ground. It provides the proper water drainage to ensure the enclosed casket is preserved.

In A Private Mausoleum Above Ground For A Burial Or Cremation

A mausoleum is an above ground structure that is built specifically to hold the remains of single family. Private mausoleums are quite costly, but if you desire exclusivity and privacy for your whole family a private mausoleum is the way to get it done.

In A Community Mausoleum Above Ground For A Burial Or Cremation

Many cemeteries have mausoleums built that are public. This means anyone can elect to have their remains placed there. Usually those who elect this feature just don’t want their remains placed underground.

The most important thing to understand about a community mausoleum is that it’s public, so other people unrelated to you will also be stored alongside you.

Natural Burial

In this situation there are no embalming fluids, caskets, or burial vaults used. Instead, the remains are placed directly into the ground allowing the body to naturally decompose.

Sometimes with a natural burial, they will utilize some sort of biodegradable casket or shroud just as long as they don’t impede the decomposition of the remains.

Green Burial

This is almost identical to a natural burial with one key difference. For it to be a green burial, the cemetery where the remains will be buried must not use pesticides, and there must be no other bodies buried in the cemetery when embalming fluids or caskets were used.

Spreading Ashes For Cremation

For those who wish to be cremated, one of the most popular options is to have their ashes spread in a location of great significance.

Spreading ashes is certainly an option, but be sure to mind local and state laws. Every state is different, so don’t assume anything. Basically, some states and local ordinances allow it, and some don’t. In addition, those that do allow it often have restrictions regarding where you can spread the ashes, so be sure to double check before pursing this option.

Memorial Reef For Cremation

A memorial reef is a unique option whereby the ashes of the body can be infused with concrete and shaped into a statue of something (could be any shape you like) and placed on the ocean floor.

You will need to work with a business that provides these kinds of services. It’s not something you would want your family to do on their own.

Viewing Or No Viewing

Do you want your loved ones to have one final chance to visit your body? Some people do, and some people don’t. The choice is certainly yours, but it’s definitely something you must decide upon.

Viewings can take place at a funeral home, church, synagogue, or any other location of your preference (assuming the owner of the building agrees to it).

One thing to keep in mind is that if you prefer to donate your body to science and you want a viewing, you will be required to pay for the cost of the viewing.

Now Choose The Details To Round Out Your Plans

At this point, you’ve chosen between a burial, cremation, or donation. You’ve selected what to do with the remains, and you’ve decided whether or not to have a viewing.

All you have to do now is finalize the details such as location, flowers, music, etc.

Look the list below and decide which ones (if any) apply to you. Then document your preferences along with all the other stuff.

Memorial service location
Where the remains will be placed
Type of casket or urn
Flowers
Music
Attendees
Name(s) of those who you wish to make your arrangements
Open or closed casket for a service
Clothes, glasses, & jewelry to be worn for a viewing and/or final resting
Any military preferences for veterans
Marker/headstone preferences
Pallbearer suggestions
Obituary preferences (key points you want addressed in your obituary)
Post funeral reception preferences

4 Ways You Can Ensure Your Funeral Is Paid For

At this point, you’ve fully planned out your entire funeral which means your family won’t have to make these tough decisions while grieving your loss.

Now all you’ve got to do is put together a plan to ensure the expenses of your funeral don’t fall on your family.

Here’s the deal.

The greatest burden you can pass on to your loved ones is to saddle them with your unpaid funeral costs.

The truth is most families don’t have the cash needed to pay for the funeral outright. As a result, loved ones will resort to taking on debt in order to ensure you receive a respectable memorial service. Very often the debt they agree to takes years to pay off.

If you do nothing else, please make sure you financially prepare for your funeral to ensure your family doesn’t have to take on debt to do it for you.

Having said all of that, you have four basic options to pay for your final expenses.

1) Life Insurance

Life insurance to pay for burial expenses is a very popular option mainly because it affords immediate protection.

There are even life policies available that were designed specifically to cover end of life costs. They are often referred to as “burial insurance for seniors” or “final expense life insurance”.

They are small policies meant to provide just enough coverage to pay for final expenses. These policies are particularly helpful for folks over 80 who likely cannot qualify for a traditional life insurance policy. The cost of burial policies is generally affordable since the face amounts are low.

2) Save Money

This option should only be considered by those who are financially disciplined. In essence, you are electing to set aside a set amount each and every month until you have enough needed to cover all your final expenses.

The obvious drawback to this option is the fact that if you pass away before you’ve saved enough, your family will have to come up with the difference.

3) Pre-Need Contract

A pre-need policy is contract between you and a specific funeral home. Basically, you completely design your funeral service with them, and they tell you how much it will cost.

The policy is backed by a form of life insurance, but it’s a different kind of life policy compared to the one you obtain on an individual basis. The main difference between a pre-need life policy and an individually purchased life policy is that one day you will stop making payments on the pre-need policy.

Funeral homes that sell pre-need policies will try to get you pay off the balance of your funeral over the course of 3-5 years. Because of this, the monthly payments on a pre-need policy can be costly. They frequently end up being $100-$500 per month depending on the total cost and how long you give yourself to pay it off.

4) Funds From The Deceased’s Estate

Although not recommended, you could rely on your family liquidating your house, investments, or other valuable property as means to pay for your final expenses.

There’s no question that this is an option.

However, it should honestly be off the table for the most part.

Here’s why we say that.

It takes a lot of time for your family to be able to liquidate your estate. For one, the probate process can easily take months. That alone will condemn your family with having to temporarily generate funds to pay for your funeral.

Even after the probate process is complete, they would still need to sell off whatever valuables you own which takes even more time.

Again, this is an option, but because of the time involved, it should be a last resort.

Put Together A Will Or Living Trust

A will or living trust will address the legal matters associated with your death which is why it’s important you not leave this step out.

Now, whether you go should go with a will or living trust is purely a personal preference that will likely be determined by the complexity of your estate. This article gives a good outline about the pros and cons of each one.

The best thing to do is to consult with a wills and trust attorney, and let them help you decide which is best for you.

However, if you are the independent type and want to set up a will on your own that’s perfectly okay. Truthfully, a lot of people do with much success.

There are many online resources available to help you setup a will. If followed properly, it can be relatively simple and accurate.

If you do elect to setup a will without the assistance of an attorney, at least use a guide to ensure you do it properly.

On the other hand, a living trust is far more complex, and should be done with the assistance of a professional. From implementation to structure, they are very different and subject to different laws which is why professional legal help is suggested.

You might be wondering… Why do I need a will or trust anyways?

The reason is simple.

You want a will or trust to shore up the legal matters associated with death.

Just like all the other elements of your funeral, if you don’t prepare for the legal ones, you condemn your family with having to deal with them.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

July 3, 2019July 3, 2019

It’s important to think about our own mortality if we want a good death

Australian oncologist Ranjana Srivastava says: In order to die a good death, it helps to have lived a good life. And a good life must involve contemplating one’s own mortality.

By Sally Pryor

It’s a circular philosophy that, as it happens, doesn’t feature nearly enough in the average person’s thinking, at least not in secular Australia. But for oncologist Ranjana Srivastava, living and dying are completely intertwined, and it’s those patients who are able to accept their own death – inevitable, albeit often untimely – who have inspired her to contemplate what it means to die well.

It’s a question, she says, that many doctors don’t manage to properly consider. The medical profession is focused largely on treating illness and making patients better.

“As I have matured as a doctor and became an oncologist, I have been very struck how there seems to be very little place – or no place, sometimes – in our day to talk about dying, let alone dying well, but simply dying,” she says.

And yet her work involves dealing, daily, with dying patients, often caught up in the complexities of the medical system, at sea when it comes to dealing with what happens next. From the young woman, unable to work and far away from her family, to the 80-year-old man, refusing to accept an end point when it comes to treatment that isn’t working, Srivastava can see all the ways that our society – focused primarily in succeeding and moving forward – leaves little room for contemplation.

Srivastava has been writing, compulsively, since childhood, but it was relatively early in her medical career that she realised the power of story-telling, of human narrative, in allowing her to empathise with her patients, and to do her job properly.

“I’m incredibly aware that no matter how ambitious you are as a doctor, you can only do so much, so that’s why a lot of my public writing and thinking has been devoted around how do we empower everyone else, and how do you not just talk to doctors, but how do you go around doctors and talk to people and patients?” she says.

Her latest book, A Better Death, is a meditation on all the different ways in which death, and our awareness, can give meaning to our lives, even without a terminal illness.

“I guess I saw from an early age that what resonated with me, even as a trainee doctor or even going back as medical student, was someone’s story, because you could present a sterile case,” she says.

We’re sitting in a bustling Melbourne cafe, amid a noisy Saturday morning brunch crowd. On the face of it, it’s a jarring setting in which to nut out the concept of death, but Srivastava has a tranquility about her – a calm and blessed kind of reason – that makes you think she’d be the perfect person to have to deliver bad news, and to guide someone through the process of dealing with a terminal diagnosis. Those familiar with her writing – she is a regular columnist in The Guardian – will know that her commentary often starts with the story of an individual. It’s these personal stories that often drive the point home more vividly than any textbook.

“When I began writing, I thought, well how do I convey what I feel without illustrating why?” she says.

“And I continue to think that the way we empower people and the way we educate people is through letting them get a glimpse of themselves in each of those patients.”

One of the most important lessons she has learned is that everyone has the ability to control the way they die, through the way they choose to live out their last days. The many stories in A Better Death bear this out in different ways, but all with the same ultimate conclusion: if we could all live knowing that we will one day die, our lives will have more meaning, and we will be more motivated to leave some kind of legacy. Insisting on further treatment, even when it has become futile, or refusing to make arrangements for family and help them plan for the future, can make dying well impossible. But how individuals respond to dying has as much to do with society’s fear of morbidity, of talking about death, as with the individual.

“I absolutely think we have control over it, but the more I work, I think that it needs to be almost a societally determined thing,” she says.

“I think it’s very difficult for an individual to do this on their own, because there are so many forces. I will see this, where one of my patients will say, ‘I think I’m ready to just go peacefully, to stop treatment, to focus on being outside on a day like this and enjoying the gardens’, and someone else, who has not come to terms with their mortality but someone close to that patient, will have a different view. And I think it’s always easy to get taken in by that, and I think our medical system makes it very difficult to call it a day.”

Ultimately, she says, dying without a sense of peace is costly, both to the individual, and to society at large.

“There is an enormous cost to the family and to survivors, and this borne out by research and evidence, and then there is the cost to the taxpayer and society, so at every level there are serious costs,” she says.

“I think it’s driven both by patients and doctors, I would say, I don’t think every doctor is pushing patients to have more treatment, to not adopt palliative care, to not think about quality of life, I don’t think it’s as binary as that, and I think it goes back to the kind of society we are. There’s a lot of instant gratification in life – you want something, you get it. You see something, you can buy it, and health literacy is low in general. So I think people genuinely have trouble believing that many chronic illnesses and terminal illnesses cannot be reversed, and are not curable.

“We all have to ask this question of ourselves as to how we are going to contemplate our mortality and not just leave it to our doctors.”

And yet, she says, her work – and the world in general – is filled with examples of hope. While she is “continually astonished” by the number of elderly patients who, when asked, say they have never thought about dying, she is often consoled by examples of people who have thought the whole thing through.

“Just in the news I was listening to Bob Hawke’s widow speak about his death, and one of the things she said that quite struck me was Bob felt he had nothing else that he wanted to do – he was ready,” she says.

“And I thought, here is a man who has soared to the heights of accomplishment, and somehow he has managed to step back and back every year and every decade, until he has reached a point where he says, I have done what I need to do… I found that remarkable, and that’s why there is so much peace associated with him – he lived to a good age, he was able to live well, but he was able to articulate to the family left behind that he was ready to go, and I think it’s very consoling.”

How does she think she will come to deal with her own mortality?

“That’s a really good question. I would like to think that a career in oncology will not have been wasted when it comes to my contemplating my own mortality,” she says. “The reason I could never be sure about this is that I see how people can change when they are ill. It’s very difficult to be over-confident about how you would be when you are sick, when you are speaking about it when you are well. It’s something that each of us has to experience for ourselves. But I do feel that I am more blessed than most in having a lot of good teachers.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

July 2, 2019July 1, 2019

What Exactly Is a ‘Mushroom Suit’?

Eco-Friendly Burial Options Explained.

By Danielle DeGroot

Going green with natural burial options.

The tragic passing of longtime television heartthrob Luke Perry a few months ago put a spotlight on the subject of green and eco-friendly burial options. It was recently revealed that the late actor was buried in a mushroom suit, a special burial suit designed to aid in the natural process of decomposition, but more detail on that later.

Though it may not be a topic many of us are comfortable talking about – perhaps one we only think about when faced with a loss – knowing what is out there, and understanding eco-friendly burial, is worth some thought.

Why Go Green?

Burial in a casket and cremation are the most common methods of burial, however, these options actually have a significant negative impact on the environment. Burial in a traditional casket made of metal or plastic prevents the natural process of decomposition. These caskets can use chemical-based finishes, toxic plastics, and chemicals, like formaldehyde, that are used for traditional embalming, which is a carcinogen and poses a risk to those who work with it regularly.

Cremation, or a traditional-style casket, is often considered an eco-friendlier option due to the lack of land use. The process of cremation itself requires the burning of natural gas and, in turn, releases harmful greenhouse gases. Additionally, other harmful chemicals such as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury, and hydrofluoric acid are released into the air. There is an eco-friendly process for cremation that has been developed, such as bio-cremation or water resolution, which is a process using water, heat, pressure, and potassium hydroxide to accomplish a cremation without toxic or harmful chemicals.

Green burials are burial practices that have a low environmental impact. Leaving a smaller, less harmful footprint on the planet as one’s last act conserves natural resources, preserves the environment, and also benefits the health of those who work in the industry by not using conventional embalming. The Green Burial Council is made up of two nonprofit organizations working together to further the green burial movement, support and develop more sustainable practices, and continue to honor those who have passed with respect for their lives, treating both the earth and the grief and burial process with respect.

A natural burial, in industry terms, specifically means a burial where the body is interred in the ground without the use of a vault, a traditional casket, or any chemicals. The deceased is wrapped in a biodegradable shroud or uses a pine or woven wicker casket. The options continue to grow as cemeteries around the country have begun to offer natural burial grounds.

Natural and eco-friendly burial options have been growing in popularity over the last 20 years or so. Pine, cardboard, bamboo, and willow are all earth-friendly material used to make caskets that leave less of an impact on the environment. Urns have been fashioned out of biodegradable materials, such as seashell shaped urns made from recycled paper and clay, designed to break down once placed in a body of water, and cornstarch, which eventually biodegrades completely. The options continue to grows as interest in environmentally friendly burial grows.

About That Suit

Luke Perry chose to be placed into eternal rest wearing Coeio’s “Infinity Burial Suit”, a burial garment made with totally natural and biodegradable components, including microorganisms and mushrooms with a job to do. The specially designed suit has three goals: to help in the decomposition process, to neutralize toxins from the body, and to transmit nutrients back into plant life, thus completing the process by restarting life. The company plants two trees for every suit and shroud sold, another step in its goal to continue the cycle of life. The suit costs $1,500 and is available for order online.

The average casket cost anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000, though the price tag can top $10,000. The cost of cremation is about $1,000, and none of those estimates include funeral services. So while a $1,500 price tag seems steep in comparison it is actually on the less pricey side of the choices.

The choice to be interred in a mushroom suit was not about fashion or headlines, it was a choice an individual made to give back in a unique way. Due to his celebrity status, that choice brings awareness to this delicate subject.

Keeping It Local

We have plenty of options for going green in the afterlife right here in Colorado, and most are locally owned businesses and products. Here is a breakdown of some of the green and natural burial options the Centennial state has to offer.

Roselawn Cemetery in Fort Collins and Evergreen Memorial Park in Evergreen are two of the cemeteries that offer a range of green and natural burial options in Colorado.
Crestone Cemetary Natural Burial Ground located in Crestone, Colorado, is the state’s first and only natural burial ground to be Green Burial Council certified.
Nature’s Casket out of Longmont creates handcrafted caskets using pine trees killed from pine beetles. Repurposing these trees into blue-stained pine caskets, their products are 100 percent biodegradable and use all non-toxic materials. Though these caskets are only available in Colorado, the company also offers a selection of intricately handcrafted pine urns and provides free shipping on them nationwide.
The Natural Funeral is an independent local funeral home located in Lafayette that specializes in green and natural funeral methods. Using locally produced and naturally made products, they offer a variety of green funeral options, including pine caskets from Nature’s Casket, cardboard caskets, handmade and painted pine urns, and custom crafted painted gourd urns. Living urns, seed pods, and water urns are also offered as are bamboo burial shrouds.
Goes Funeral Care in Fort Collins is another local funeral business that works with the Green Burial Council and offers a range of green burial options at either Crestone or Roselawn Cemetery.
Seven Stones Chatfield is a botanical gardens cemetery located in Littleton. Seven Stones offers many different burial options and is very different than the somber rows of headstones one might find in a traditional cemetery. An artistic and peaceful place, Seven Stones offers artistic memorials and tributes made individually to honor everyone laid to rest there. Cremation gardens with sculptures and walking paths, waterfalls, and quiet spots to sit and remember. Green burial options are available and growing, with a Meadow of tall grass and natural granite boulder markings. There is even a spot to remember our furry family members with green burial and a pet memorial area. A unique and intriguing place Seven Stones also celebrates life by hosting events such as art, music, and nature festivals throughout the year.

Donate Your Body to Science

For some people, this can be a final act of giving back, perhaps too old or sick to donate organs; some will choose to let their body be used for medical and academic research. This is actually far more common than one might think, and there a plenty of options here in Colorado.

If you are one of those people who may want to give back by letting your body be a research tool, you can do it at no cost. Science Care Colorado has a donor registry where people can sign up and pre-register to become a donor.

Most of the major universities have donor programs, as well, and work with the State Anatomical Board to use these gifts to learn and better serve patients. The University of Colorado School of Medicine at Anschutz Medical Campus holds an annual Donor Memorial Ceremony each spring to remember, honor, and thank those who have given of their bodies in this way. It is a highly emotional event and brings together the community, the families of the deceased, and those who have learned from them.

Former Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and former Dean of the school of Medicine Richard D. Krugman, MD offers this statement on the donor memorial:

“I have always been impressed that the Anatomical Donor Memorial Service is one of our most emotional events. Just what this service means for students and donors’ families and friends really resonated in a letter I received last week from a woman who wrote, ‘I was the ancient, white-haired lady in the second or third row weeping through most of it. Not just sadness, but a lot of gratitude, empathy and happiness. It was so well done – the prayers, the Arrhythmias (our student a capella group), the student bagpiper, and the very touching speakers … It was emotional, full of respect and in every way, it meant a great deal of closure for me.'”

Preserving the planet goes far beyond recycling soda cans and not using plastic straws. And all of us, celebrity or not, can make a difference in this unexpected way. Though it is an uncomfortable subject, it is one we will all face at some point, for ourselves and for loved ones.

Have you thought about green and natural burial options? Is there an option or place that you know of here in Colorado that we missed? Please share your thoughts and sentiments with us in the comments below.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

June 30, 2019June 30, 2019

Fear of ‘perfect storm’ with opioid prescribing and terminally ill patients

A prominent academic wants to alleviate GPs’ concerns about potential professional repercussions – and prevent them from leaving palliative care.

By Matt Woodley

Dr Geoffrey Mitchell, Professor of General Practice and Palliative Care at the University of Queensland, recently wrote an article on the ‘very public’ debate relating to opioid use, and tension between standard end‐of‐life care and voluntary assisted dying, as a ‘perfect storm’ that is impacting GPs and other health professionals.

‘Some are choosing to abandon end-of-life care altogether rather than risk professional ruin should they persist in the use of any opioid therapy,’ Professor Mitchell said.

Professor Mitchell cited previous newsGP articles as evidence doctors are worried. He said he was motivated to write his article in order to help alleviate concerns and prevent a wave of GPs from leaving palliative care.

‘[GPs responding like this was] no surprise to me. I’m aware of the risk-averse nature of a lot of GPs and the fear of litigation is quite high with some of my colleagues,’ he told newsGP.

‘The fear is that the use of medicines to minimise suffering and distress at the very end of life may hasten death and be construed by critics as euthanasia by stealth.

‘The reality is that the person is dying. While treatments such as opioids may theoretically shorten life marginally, it is the disease that causes death, not the treatment.’

In a recent ABC interview, RACGP President Dr Harry Nespolon agreed with this position and reiterated that the college is alarmed about the impact increased scrutiny on opioid prescription is having on doctors providing palliative care.

‘Good palliative care does require the use of high-dose opioids, and that’s what patients deserve,’ he said.

‘They deserve a good death and a painless death. All this is doing is asking doctors to prescribe fewer opioids for patients who really should be getting them.’

According to Professor Mitchell, the increased emphasis on opioid diagnosis, combined with incoming voluntary assisted dying laws, has emboldened critics of palliative care and led to misinformation that can actually harm patients.

‘If [terminally ill patients] need strong opioid medication and can’t get it because their doctor won’t prescribe it, well then that’s the other side of the coin – the person is going to be suffering unnecessarily in their final days and hours, and that is unacceptable,’ he said.

‘Critics of palliative care think it’s quite often assisted dying under a legal guise, which is not true.

‘It’s just wrong, but it’s out there and so people who might not be feeling particularly confident about what they’re doing will say, “Well, I don’t want a bar of it”.’

However, despite the current climate of fear, Professor Mitchell believes a study he co-authored last year should go some way towards alleviating litigation concerns and help ensure patients receive proper medical care.

‘Of all case law online and all tribunals, all settings, we found 12 cases. Of those, only two had adverse findings recorded, and neither led to criminal proceedings,’ he said.

‘What that says is that if your case is looked at, if you’ve shown due care and attention, the likelihood of getting into trouble is negligible.

‘Many of the cases were … findings which were more to do with system issues, rather than personal issues.

‘Things go wrong, obviously, and they have to be looked at, but because people by and large know how to use opioids or are cautious about their use, when things go wrong it’s usually not the person, it’s something else.’

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

June 29, 2019June 29, 2019

Finding Empowerment Through Grief

It may be one of the hardest things we’ll go through in our lives, but how can grief help us find empowerment and strength even when it seems impossible?

By Carol Lawrence

Grief is one of the most universal experiences that we can go through as human beings. Regardless of how each of us learns to cope with the loss of a loved one, one thing is certain – the way we reflect on loss can teach us valuable lessons that we carry with us for the rest of our lives.

Though it may seem impossible in the early stages of grief, finding empowerment in times of tragedy can be an invaluable tool in the healing process. Even if death has no religious or spiritual connotations for you, it is still possible to transform these emotions into a sense of serenity, whether it takes weeks, months or even years.

Learning Compassion

While your circumstances may vary, the likelihood is that loss, grief and even organising a funeral will come with a great deal of pain. When we experience emotional turmoil or suffering in our lives, we often turn to those around us for help and support. However, when someone dies, it is likely that you will not be the only one experiencing this loss and pain, and will spend time in a period of shared grieving.

In the early stages of grief – particularly in the days leading up to and following a funeral – emotions can run high, and everyone around you will be dealing with their grief in their own personal way. While it may be extremely difficult, taking heart in your shared memories, and the impact that person had on your lives can foster a sense of compassion for your friends and family, as you help one another to find strength and peace.

It’s common for this period of shared grieving to help strengthen these relationships, as you learn to support and share with one another.

But grief doesn’t just teach us to feel compassion for others. In order to feel empowered and at peace, it is important that we learn to feel just as much compassion for ourselves. Grieving can be difficult if you are the family member in charge of organising a funeral, or if you have other responsibilities in your life.

Instead of ‘staying strong’ and bottling up these feelings, giving yourself the space to grieve can help you to put those responsibilities in perspective. Grieving teaches us both the fragility and the value of life, and encourages us to be kinder to ourselves and at peace with our own feelings – something that will invaluable as you move on with the rest of your life.

Living Each Day

However old you are, the death of a loved one has a way of putting things in perspective, and making us re-evaluate our priorities. In an ideal world, of course, it shouldn’t take a bereavement for us to live our lives to the fullest. Unfortunately, many of us are living increasingly busy, hectic and stressful lifestyles that leave very little time for self-reflection. Sometimes changing our lifestyles is just too scary until we have the impetus to do so.

When someone passes, it can be a harsh reminder of the time we’ve spent so far, and the time we have left to pursue our goals. When a loved one dies suddenly or unexpectedly, this awakening can be even more painful and jarring.

In certain situations, especially for families that have lost a loved one to a long, terminal illness, it could be their own encouragement that forces you to break those negative habits. For some, witnessing the way in which their loved one embraces all that life has to offer towards the end of their own life can be an inspirational experience, and a shining example to follow.

Whatever the reason, it is perfectly normal to feel the sense that “life’s too short” after losing someone you love, and it’s fine to acknowledge the value in this. As long as it does not lead to destructive behaviour for you or your family, this attitude can often lead to a happier and healthier future.

Remembering the Past, Looking to the Future

Grief can help you look to the future in more ways than one – and this doesn’t always mean taking a spontaneous round-the-world trip. The early stages of grief are hard, and it’s understandable for moving on to feel disrespectful or even impossible, almost as though you are dishonouring their memory.

As painful as it may be, however, grief has a way of reminding us that life goes on even after people pass. The only way to create experiences and memories for future generations is to carry on living after they are no longer with us, and live in the manner that they would like to have seen.

For some people, reminiscing about the past while trying to move on into the future is the hardest part of the grieving process. You may fall on either side of the spectrum when it comes to navigating this process: some choose to close themselves off from any and all memories, and will not even speak of their loved one; others will fill their home with photographs and sentimental items, and seek to remember the good times they spent together.

We all grieve differently, and there is no correct way in which to deal with this, or any part of the grieving process. If you are weighed down by memories, however, then incorporating the positive and happy memories while still living your own life can be a positive way of learning how to move on.

Remembering the lives that our loved ones have lived can also empower and encourage us, helping us to learn from their own experiences, achievements and mistakes. Learning from those that have passed even after they are gone reminds us that they can still live on in our memories, affecting our choices and the generations to come.

Learning to be Grateful

Well-wishing friends may have approached you with cliches such as “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”, and they can easily seem tired and trite. But for some, this precise mentality be a real help when learning to deal with the loss of someone close.

At first, the feeling of love can seem like an unnecessary burden – after all, it is because we love that we feel pain when someone is no longer with us. However, the gratitude that comes to many of us after the passing of a loved one is a very special gift, and is one of the most powerful grieving tools available to us. Though it may be an unwanted gift, especially at first, it is a gift nonetheless.

There are, after all, plenty of people in the world who do not have these familial bonds, or anyone close or dear to them. While the grieving process is so much harder when it is for a person that was dearly loved, it can remind us of how lucky we are to have people in our lives that we wish we hadn’t lost.

This outlook may not come readily when you are first grieving; it may take time, practice, and further loss. When we arrive at it, however, it can change the feeling of grief from a negative and crippling experience to something more positive and hopeful – a chance to cherish the bonds that tie us together.

The death of someone can be a tremendous lesson in what it actually means to live. It offers us a period of reflection that we don’t always have the ability to tap into in our daily grind, and a chance to treasure what we have as much as what we’ve lost. It may not happen overnight, but it is possible that your final stage of grief will change too – transcending acceptance to reach a point of genuine healing.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

June 28, 2019June 28, 2019

What Death Should Teach Us About Life and Living

Death is not a counterpoint or contradiction to life, but a profound teacher about the meaning of human existence.

By Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

One of the great Jewish spiritual teachers of the 20th century, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel argues that facing death gives life meaning; that life and death are both part of a greater mystery; that by virtue of being created in no less than God’s image, we can imagine an afterlife for humanity — yet at the same time death itself is an antidote to human arrogance; and that in death we pay gratitude for the wonder and gift of our existence.

Death as a Way to Understand the Meaning of Life

Our first question is to what end and upon what right do we think about the strange and totally inaccessible subject of death? The answer is because of the supreme certainty we have about the existence of man: that it cannot endure without a sense of meaning. But existence embraces both life and death, and in a way death is the test of the meaning of life. If death is devoid of meaning, then life is absurd. Life’s ultimate meaning remains obscure unless it is reflected upon in the face of death.

The fact of dying must be a major factor in our understanding of living. Yet only few of us have come face to face with death as a problem or a challenge. There is a slowness, a delay, a neglect on our part to think about it. For the subject is not exciting, but rather strange and shocking.

What characterizes modern man’s attitude toward death is escapism, disregard of its harsh reality, even a tendency to obliterate grief. He is entering, however, a new age of search for meaning of existence, and all cardinal issues will have to be faced.

Life as a Way to Understand the Meaning of Death

Death is grim, harsh, cruel, a source of infinite grief. Our first reaction is consternation. We are stunned and distraught. Slowly, our sense of dismay is followed by a sense of mystery. Suddenly, a whole life has veiled itself in secrecy. Our speech stops, our understanding fails. In the presence of death there is only silence, and a sense of awe.

Is death nothing but an obliteration, an absolute negation? The view of death is affected by our understanding of life. If life is sensed as a surprise, as a gift, defying explanation, then death ceases to be a radical, absolute negation of what life stands for. For both life and death are aspects of a greater mystery, the mystery of being, the mystery of creation. Over and above the preciousness of particular existence stands the marvel of its being related to the infinite mystery of being or creation.

Death, then, is not simply man’s coming to an end. It is also entering a beginning.

Our Greatness: The Question of an Afterlife and the “Image of God”

There is, furthermore, the mystery of my personal existence. The problem of how and whether I am going to be after I die is profoundly related to the problem of who and how I was before I was born. The mystery of an afterlife is related to the mystery of preexistence. A soul does not grow out of nothing. Does it, then, perish and dissolve in nothing?

Human life is on its way from a great distance; it has gone through ages of experience, of growing, suffering, insight, action. We are what we are by what we come from. There is a vast continuum preceding individual existence, and it is a legitimate surmise to assume that there is a continuum following individual existence. Human living is always being under way, and death is not the final destination.

In the language of the Bible to die, to be buried, is said to be “gathered to his people” (Genesis 25:8). They “were gathered to their fathers” (Judges 2:10). “When your days are fulfilled to go to be with your fathers” (I Chronicles 17:11).

Do souls become dust? Does spirit turn to ashes? How can souls, capable of creating immortal words, immortal works of thought and art, be completely dissolved, vanish forever?

Others may counter: The belief that man may have a share in eternal life is not only beyond proof; it is even presumptuous. Who could seriously maintain that members of the human species, a class of mammals, will attain eternity? What image of humanity is presupposed by the belief in immortality? Indeed, man’s hope for eternal life presupposes that there is something about man that is worthy of eternity, that has some affinity to what is divine, that is made in the likeness of the divine…

[T]he likeness of God means the likeness of Him who is unlike man. The likeness of God means the likeness of Him compared with whom all else is like nothing.

Indeed, the words “image and likeness of God” [in the biblical creation story] conceal more than they reveal. They signify something which we can neither comprehend nor verify. For what is our image? What is our likeness? Is there anything about man that may be compared with God? Our eyes do not see it; our minds cannot grasp it. Taken literally, these words are absurd, if not blasphemous. And still they hold the most important truth about the meaning of man.

Obscure as the meaning of these terms is, they undoubtedly denote something unearthly, something that belongs to the sphere of God. Demut [likeness]and tzelem [image]are of a higher sort of being than the things created in the six days. This, it seems, is what the verse intends to convey: Man partakes of an unearthly divine sort of being.

Our Smallness: Death Teaches Humility

Death is the radical refutation of man’s power and a stark reminder of the necessity to relate to a meaning which lies beyond the dimension of human time. Humanity without death would be arrogance without end. Nobility has its root in humanity, and humanity derived much of its power from the thought of death.

Death refutes the deification and distorts the arrogance of man.

He is God; what he does is right, for all his ways are just; God of faithfulness and without wrong, just and right is he.

Just art thou, O Lord, in causing death and life; thou in whose hand all living beings and kept, far be it from thee to blot out our remembrance; let thy eyes be open to us in mercy; for thine, O Lord, is mercy and forgiveness.

We know, O Lord, that thy judgment is just; thou art right when thou speakest, and justified when thou givest sentence; one must not find fault with thy manner of judging. Thou art righteous, O Lord, and thy judgment is right.

True and righteous judge, blessed art thou, all whose judgments are righteous and true.

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

— Daily Prayer Book, from the Burial Service

Death as Gratitude for Existence

If life is a pilgrimage, death is an arrival, a celebration. The last word should be neither craving nor bitterness, but peace, gratitude.

We have been given so much. Why is the outcome of our lives, the sum of our achievements, so little?

Our embarrassment is like an abyss. Whatever we give away is so much less than what we receive. Perhaps this is the meaning of dying: to give one’s whole self away.

Death is not seen as mere ruin and disaster. It is felt to be a loss of further possibilities to experience and to enhance the glory and goodness of God here and now. It is not a liquidation but a summation, the end of a prelude to a symphony of which we only have a vague inkling of hope. The prelude is infinitely rich in possibilities of either enhancing or frustrating God’s patient, ongoing efforts to redeem the world.

Death is the end of what we can do in being partners to redemption. The life that follows must be earned while we are here. It does not come out of nothing; it is an ingathering, the harvest of eternal moments achieved while on earth.

Unless we cultivate sensitivity to the glory while here, unless we learn how to experience a foretaste of heaven while on earth, what can there be in store for us in life to come? The seed of life eternal is planted within us here and now. But a seed is wasted when placed on stone, into souls that die while the body is still alive.

The greatest problem is not how to continue but how to exalt our existence. The cry for a life beyond the grave is presumptuous, if there is no cry for eternal life prior to our descending to the grave. Eternity is not perpetual future but perpetual presence. He has planted in us the seed of eternal life. The world to come is not only a hereafter but also a herenow.

Our greatest problem is not how to continue but how to return. “How can I repay unto the Lord all his bountiful dealings with m?” (Psalms 116:12). When life is an answer, death is a homecoming. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Psalms 116:14). For our greatest problem is but a resonance of God’s concern: How can I repay unto man all his bountiful dealings with me? “For the mercy of God endureth forever.”

This is the meaning of existence: to reconcile liberty with service, the passing with the lasting, to weave the threads of temporality into the fabric of eternity.

The deepest wisdom man can attain is to know that his destiny is to aid, to serve. We have to conquer in order to succumb; we have to acquire in order to give away; we have to triumph in order to be overwhelmed. Man has to understand in order to believe, to know in order to accept. The aspiration is to obtain; the perfection is to dispense. This is the meaning of death: the ultimate self-dedication to the divine. Death so understood will not be distorted by the craving for immortality, for this act of giving away is reciprocity on man’s part for God’s gift of life. For the pious man it is a privilege to die.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!