Tag: Final Farewell

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Burials, cremations, dissolving: the new ways to die well

BY STEPHANIE BOLAND

new ways to die well

Life after death is changing – thanks to scientific innovation. The best time to plan is now.

What happens to us after we die? It is one of the most profound spiritual questions, but also a practical puzzle. After all, whatever you believe happens to the soul after death – if you believe in a soul at all – there is irrefutably a body for someone to deal with. While there are many emotions that can make it hard to think about what you want to happen to your body, it need not be traumatic.

At least, that is what the researchers at the Corpse Project want to remind people. Set up last autumn and funded by the Wellcome Trust, this UK research programme has just published its first findings on what we might do with our bodies after we die.

I meet Sophie Churchill, the project’s founder, at a café in Queen Mary University of London. The goal, she tells me, is to help find ways to “lay our bodies to rest, so that they help the living and the Earth”. It’s not a case of being dispassionate but rather a quest to balance the social and cultural aspects of death with the scientific.

Sometimes, aspects of death that people initially baulk at can become more acceptable through conversation. One relatively new process, sold as a greener alternative to cremation, involves dissolving the body in heated alkaline water. “I was with 15-year-old urban teenagers, and you could see them scowling at the thought of being dissolved. But the more we talked about it and considered how odd it would once have seemed to go into machines and be cremated, [the more] they started to reconsider.”

Churchill points out that cremation, too, is a relatively recent phenomenon. The first official cremation in the UK took place in 1885, and it was only in the 1960s that the Catholic Church, for instance, accepted the practice and lifted its ban. Now, over 70 per cent of people who die in Britain are cremated.

Churchill is discovering that people can be open-minded, even if their beliefs are initially strongly held – though she admits that it may “still be a generation or two before new forms are accepted”.

“People will say, ‘Mourners always need a place to return to, to memorialise.’ But there are lots of people who do scatter ashes.” So, part of rethinking death might involve reassessing what we are comfortable with. I wonder if our general reluctance to talk about death makes it less likely that we will encounter different perspectives on how to deal with bodies.

Churchill’s studies with teenagers seem to support this. When asked to think about their own deaths, many of them were quick to engage with the idea, she says – “Being sent out to sea and burned in a boat, Viking-style, seemed to be very popular!” – and it was often their teachers who were more squeamish.

The Corpse Project is just one of a growing number of organisations committed to tackling the discomfort around death and dying. The Order of the Good Death was founded in 2011 by the mortician Caitlin Doughty and aims to “make death part of your life”.

The group of academics, funeral industry professionals and artists encourages people to educate themselves about dying, and even to become “death positive” by learning to accept and engage with their mortality. Its website covers everything from sky burials, in which corpses are left to be eaten by the birds, to how it feels to bury a relative if you’re a funeral director.

So what are the best options for someone wanting an environmentally friendly death? Until new methods such as dissolving become easily available, small tweaks can make a big difference. Doing cremation well, for instance, is important: the Corpse Project’s work partly involves investigating what sort of schedule allows crematoriums to operate at maximum efficiency.

If you want to be buried, it might even be a case of choosing a sustainable wood for your coffin. The Corpse Project is also investigating optimum burial depths and whether burials could be done strategically to enrich the soil where this is needed.

“But science never changes opinion by itself,” Churchill says. Luckily, every death is different, and can be a chance to invent meaningful rituals that incorporate innovative methods. The important thing, she stresses, is to think about it early, as one would with a will or life insurance.

“One day, this hand . . .” – she lays her hand on its back, limply – “. . . will do this. Twelve hours later, it’ll be a bit pale and clammy. And that will be it. The day will go on, with people going on having coffees, and so on.” She looks around her at the students milling in the sunshine. “To me, the last big challenge is to do that well.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Never Too Old to Feel Orphaned

Mourning Parents in Middle Age

By Jo McGowan

Mourning Parents in Middle Age

I was nine years old when my father’s mother died. I still remember hearing the phone ring and knowing—instantly—that Grandma was gone. I was already in bed for the night but I ran down to the kitchen where my mother was on the phone with my father, who had been with my grandmother in the Rose Hawthorne Hospice. My older sister had also come running into the kitchen, and we held each other tightly in that tidal wave of grief and disbelief. It was the biggest and the worst thing that had ever happened to us.

In the middle of it all, sitting on the couch with Mom, waiting for Daddy to come home, I suddenly realized that my father was now an orphan. He was forty-five (touchingly young to me now). I remember meeting him at the door when he came home and thinking how brave he was, how strong. Years later, in my twenties, I understood that being “orphaned” at forty-five was not what I thought it was when I was nine. Now that I am fifty-eight and an orphan myself, I realize that it was worse. But also better.

My mother died eight years ago, my father a little less than a year ago. I’m still emerging from those twin losses. I don’t think I will ever be the same. I still wake sometimes, panicky, in the middle of the night wondering where they are. I still think of things I want to tell them. I still wonder what they would make of my life, my dreams, my stories. I still have questions that only they could answer. I miss them. Dreadfully and physically. There is a void in the center of my heart. I ignore it most of the time and carry on, because that’s what we do. But something has been torn out of me. Yet, strangely, I think I’m a better person now.

Does anything ever prepare us for the loss of our parents? When I was a young adult, I believed that when you reached your forties and fifties, you were beyond needing your parents. I was closer to the truth when I was nine. By the time my own parents died, everything had shifted. They were no longer the center of my life, and their new dependence meant that, whenever I was with them, I took on the role of parent myself, guiding them, making their decisions, steering them through life as I saw fit. That fact somehow made me feel I would be ready to let go when the time came.

But something funny happened when the time came. Time sped up or telescoped or folded in on itself—I don’t understand it and I don’t know how to describe it—and I found to my surprise that the immediate past had merged with the distant past to make a coherent present that was whole and entire of itself. Mom and Dad were young when I first met them—in their early thirties. As I grew up, I listened to their stories of times before I was even born, when they were younger still. I lived with them through their middle years and absorbed their lives without even being aware that I was doing so. I got married when they were the age I am now and I remember thinking in my youthful self-absorption that their lives were ending as mine was taking off.

Of course, that wasn’t true: their lives remained as full and as busy as mine is today, and I can see this now. But it took their deaths for me to understand fully the complete human beings they were—to realize that they had once been children, teenagers, college students, young adults, and that all of those selves were contained in the selves I knew as a child and took care of as an adult. They had friends, ambitions, secret fears. They had regrets. They had love. I, who loved them unconditionally my whole life, feel as if I am getting to know them at last. Now that they are gone, the complexity and richness of their lives is so much clearer to me. I wish I could talk with them again. I would ask for their thoughts on some of the things that I am thinking about now. I would go with them for long walks. I would introduce them to podcasts. We would discuss politics.

I find myself constantly calculating their ages in relation to my own, as if they are contained within me, living through me and I through them. They are a part of me now in ways they never were when they were alive and my love for them feels deeper and more complete. St. John Chrysostom is supposed to have said: “Those whom we love and lose are no longer where they were. They are now wherever we are.” It’s a pretty thought, and a comfort. Now I see it is also the plain truth.

Complete Article HERE!

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LEROY BLAST BLACK RECEIVES DUEL OBITUARIES FROM WIFE AND GIRLFRIEND

Leroy Blast Black was a loved man, that we can boldly affirm. We did not know Leroy blast Black, dubbed “Blast,” gone too soon at the tender age of 55, but obviously he was well surrounded during his illness.
Leroy Blast Black was a loved man, that we can boldly affirm. We did not know Leroy blast Black, dubbed “Blast,” gone too soon at the tender age of 55, but obviously he was well surrounded during his illness.

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Mr. Black died Tuesday at his family home in Atlantic City as the result of lung cancer “due to exposure to fiberglass.”

However, the most intriguing fact about the death of Mr Leroy Blast Black is the fact that two obituaries were printed in today’s Press of Atlantic City.

Indeed, it might have looked like a mistake on the obituary page this morning when two identical-looking (at first glance) listings appeared on top of one another, but the two different, but similar, obituaries were placed by his wife and girlfriend, respectively.

The one from the wife reads:

Black, Leroy Bill – 55, of Egg Harbor Township died August 2, 2016, at home surrounded by his family. He was born September 30, 1960 to Ethlyn and Wilfred Black. He is survived by his loving wife, Bearetta Harrison Black and his son, Jazz Black. He was also a father to Malcolm and Josiah Harrison Fitzpatrick…

The one from the girlfriend follows:

Black, Leroy “Blast” – 55 of Egg Harbor Township passed away at home on August 2, 2016 from cancer of the lungs due to fiberglass exposure. He is survived by: Jazz Black; siblings, Donald, Faye “Cherry,” Janet “Vilma,” Lorna “Clover,” Audrey “Marcia,” Sandra “RoseMarie” and a host of other family, friends and neighbors, and his long-tome (sic) girlfriend, Princess Hall…

Our colleagues at Philly Voice called the Greenidge Funeral Home, and the person that answered clarified: “The obituaries were placed separately because “the wife wanted it one way, and the girlfriend wanted it another way.” But he did not anticipate any problems because everybody knew it was happening.”

NBC News tried to reach the wife and the girlfriend but without any success.

Joseph Greenidge Jr., the funeral director at Greenidge Funeral Homes, told KYW Newsradio in Philadelphia it isn’t unheard of for there to be multiple obituaries written from different perspectives. But, he said, they took direction from Leroy’s wife regarding the funeral arrangements.

Complete Article HERE!

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I’m a Funeral Director. And Yes, My Stories Are Insane

By

funeral director

For something that literally happens to everyone, death is a remarkably taboo subject in American culture. It makes some sense, though. Who wants to think about the lights going off permanently, let alone deal with the actual logistics of dying?

That’s why I’m here. I’m a funeral director. I help you with the things you don’t want to deal with. No, it’s not exactly like Six Feet Under. Yes, you have to go to school to be a funeral director, at least in New York State. Everybody always seems surprised when I tell them that — maybe they think any guy selling bootleg Yankees hats off the street could throw on a suit and start handling funerals and grieving families.

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That’s ridiculous, for a lot of reasons. Not only are you dealing with dead bodies, which, beyond being frightening to most people, can also be host to all kinds of diseases, but there’s also the governmental red tape and transactions that could see tens of thousands of dollars changing hands. It’s certainly not a career someone could jump into blindly and excel at… especially given some of the situations I encounter regularly. These are just a few slices of what it’s like to be a New York City funeral director, one of the most overlooked, but essential, careers a person can have.

A normal day is never what YOU think of as a normal day

>For starters, I want to clear something up: every now and then I’ll run into someone who thinks it’s crazy that funeral directors charge money for what we do. It’s not. We do the job that other people can’t or won’t do. We provide a valuable service to the community. We’re not looking to rip you off, we’re just looking to be compensated for the work we do. Most people don’t have to deal with questions about whether they should make money in exchange for working hard, but death can elicit some strange behavior in the living.

My normal workdays are filled with events most people won’t ever experience in their lives. Picking up and tending to dead bodies, dealing with grieving families, taking funerals out to churches and cemeteries. To put it into perspective, remember that day at work when you spilled coffee on your pants and had to walk around with a huge stain all day? Well, my version of that involves throwing out a white shirt I was wearing because body fluid got all over it. The body fluid wasn’t mine. Yeah.

But, just like you, I have massive amounts of paperwork I have to do. After all, a job is a job is a job.

Hopefully you won’t have to attend too many funerals, but if you live long enough you’re almost certainly going to have face the music at least a few times. They’re rarely pleasant (except jazz funerals. Everyone should experience a jazz funeral — that’s how I want to go out.) but they’re a reality, and when you do have to go to one, there are a few things to keep in mind that will make your experience — and the funeral director’s — much better.

There’s no official dress code, but don’t push it

I understand that this nation is experiencing a full “dressing-down revolution,” but let’s evaluate. If you’re a male family member, a suit is almost a must. If you can’t wrangle a suit, slacks and a button-down are acceptable, but try not to dip below that. Polos are borderline and T-shirts are damn near disrespectful. I saw a guy walk into my place wearing an Angry Birds shirt, jorts, and Crocs. You’re going to a funeral, not a taping of Monday Night Raw. Put some effort in.

As for the ladies, just look nice. You have a few more options than the guys, but make sure it’s nothing too crazy, and NO JEANS. I swear I once had a lady walk in for a wake wearing a bikini and a cover-up that didn’t quite “cover up.” I assure you that anything you can wear to the beach isn’t appropriate to wear while standing in front of a casket. You don’t have to be a MENSA member to understand this.

Funerals are not the time or place for a buffet

In New York, we can’t have food in the funeral home. This isn’t just our rule, it’s also the New York State Board of Health’s rule. Food attracts bugs, vermin, and other unwelcome guests into funeral homes. We know this. The Board of Health knows this. The sign in our lobby is there so you know it.

This doesn’t mean “all food except the three dozen donuts and a box of coffee.” This isn’t Golden Corral. You should be able to handle going two or three hours without food — it’s why most wake times are split up, so you have a couple of hours for dinner in between.

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One day somebody tried to bring in four pizzas and a case of beer for a wake. I was tempted to let him in, because who doesn’t love pizza, but I had to stop him at the door. This led to my being cursed out in vile, creative fashion, but hey, those are the rules. And really you should know that pizza is only acceptable at a wake if it’s for one of the Ninja Turtles or Kevin from Home Alone.

Drinking, death, (and sex) go hand in hand, but know your limits

A lot of people need a nip or two to get through a funeral. It’s stressful, and sure, you might want to take the edge off. DO NOT DRINK TOO MUCH. Too many times I’ve witnessed people puking all over the bathrooms here. Years from now, you never want to hear the question, “Hey, remember at grandma’s funeral when you did seven tequila shots back to back at dinner and vomited into a potted plant?”

Things can get even dicier when sex is added to alcohol — death and sex have long been connected in art and literature, a truth I see lived out more frequently than you might expect. I had a funeral for an older woman who had a granddaughter about my age. The granddaughter was involved in the funeral arrangements, and during the afternoon visitation, everything went smoothly. As she was leaving, she invited me to a bar to join her for drinks between sessions, but seeing as I had to work the night session of the wake, I declined.

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Well, when she got back from the bar she was bombed. Staggering all over the place, knocking a plant down, slurring her words. It was bad. She mentioned something about needing to talk to me, but I blew her off, chalking it up to buzzed babble. When she disappeared for a while and the ruckus seemed to die down, I decided to slip off to my office to decompress.

Once I turned the light on, I saw that she was in there, sleeping. I woke her up (more or less to make sure she wouldn’t vomit in there), and she immediately clung on to my chest, talking about “wanting to thank me.” That hand on my chest surely made its way down to my crotch, and she was not letting go, despite my protests.

At that point, I knew I had to get her out of my office and off of my crotch, since no good could come out of this situation. I started to steer her out of the office by her shoulders while she began kissing my neck, making it out into the hallway. Luckily, one of her cousins saw me and pulled her away, and someone drove her home after that. At her grandmother’s service the next morning she couldn’t look me in the eye. Only after the casket was lowered did she come up to me and apologize.

Funerals are times for mourning, not violent grudge matches

Emotions run high enough during funerals, so don’t make things worse by continuing old grudges or starting new ones. One bad exchange can set off a powder keg.

I witnessed two brothers squabble over money from the minute they came in to make arrangements. The morning of the funeral it reached its breaking point. What started as a loud argument in front of the casket progressed to a screaming match in the lobby.

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By the time I got to them I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing — each brother was holding an unplugged floor lamp like a lightsaber, circling each other. It took me a second to process everything, but when I finally spoke up to tell them how ridiculous the situation was, one them smacked the other over the back with the lamp (I do have to respect the opportunistic nature of that fella), which led to a quick skirmish on the floor. It broke up pretty quickly, but it was neither the time nor the place for it — the correct time and place would’ve been the ECW Arena in 1997 — and everybody left feeling pretty embarrassed.

If you’re not hammered, violent, or blatantly rule-breaking, most other requests are OK

On the other side of the coin, if you have a special request for your loved one, don’t be scared to speak up. One person wanted me to play Nirvana on the way to the cemetery because it was the deceased’s favorite band. “Oh, and one more thing — CRANK IT.” You bet your ass I did it. There wasn’t a cooler hearse in the world that day. It got some strange looks from the people we passed on the street, but whatever.

I’ve received requests to wear a Mets tie while doing a funeral, to pass someone’s favorite bar on the way to the cemetery, to lead an entire collection of people attending a funeral in singing The Golden Girls’ theme, pretty much anything you can imagine. Have I rolled my eyes at some of the requests? Absolutely. But you know what? When you see how much it means to the family, it makes it all worth it.

People don’t really want to talk about death or funerals, and yeah, funeral directing is a strange job. Having your mortality thrust in your face every day you go into work gives you a pretty unique outlook on life. I don’t particularly mind the job as a whole — I wish it were more 9-5, but hey, I get to help people, and that feels pretty good.

Complete Article HERE!

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Parents Honor Daughter With Tea Party Instead of Funeral

She believed “love is a superpower” that could make everything all right.

BY

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In her last days, 5-year-old Julianna Yuri Snow of Vancouver, Washington, couldn’t move her arms or legs or breathe on her own, but that didn’t stop her from being as fabulous as she could possibly be. Every morning, she put on a princess dress and tiara and painted her nails with glittery polish, telling CNN reporter Elizabeth Cohen that “there’s no such thing as too much glitter.”

002The little girl suffered from an incurable neuromuscular disorder. Doctors said that there was “no light at the end of the tunnel” for her, and so she chose to forego medical treatments and died at home instead of in the hospital on June 14, 2016.

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Because Julianna loved tea parties, her parents decided to honor her spirit by throwing a whimsical party at the City Bible Church the following Saturday instead of a traditionally somber funeral.

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Friends arrived wearing floral print dresses and shirts, and the hall was decorated with everything she loved, including bright colors, pink balloons, and lots of glitter. There was even a nail bar where guests could give each other manicures and a cupcake bar where they could decorate frosted treats.

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One of the tables was filled with her old toys and tiny dolls, which the children who came were welcome to take home. And on one long table laden with tea sandwiches, there was a poster made by her grandfather, Tom Snow, which read, “Text from Julianna: Arrived in heaven! I am healed! Thank you for your love! Hope to see you in God’s time,” and a banner with a favorite saying coined by Julianna herself:

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Complete Article HERE!

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Choosing funeral music

By Barbara Chalmers

Choosing funeral music

When it comes to choosing funeral music, there are no rules, lots of options and plenty of help from Final Fling.

Beatles or Beethoven? Elbow or Elgar? King Singers or Kings of Leon? Frankie Vaughan or Frankie Goes to Hollywood?

Get Final Fling’s Top 10s for ideas for choosing funeral music:

These cover:

Funerals, memorials and life celebrations these days are as likely to feature disco divas as death marches. Monty Python’s tongue-in-cheek Always Look on the Bright Side may be your idea heaven or hell.

The best thing is to chat to those closest and involved in arrangements to try and settle on a ‘playlist’ that works for everyone.

Capture your favourites on your Wishes in Final Fling so others know what you like. Your idea of an uptempo number might be just the thing to set the tone but at the time of loss, it might be harder for others to make that call.

Tips for choosing funeral music

Think about mood and tone throughout the ceremony and build a simple soundtrack of four or five pieces of music or songs that allow for celebration, reflection, grief, goodbyes… maybe even joy and laughter.

You may also want to think about music for the wake or after-funeral gathering… a ‘mixed tape’ that allows for some reflection and some celebration. See 3 classicsthat work well in the mix. Think about live music too. There’s some great Scottishfuneral music… like Highland Cathedral (also popular for weddings). Somehow bagpipes and traditional instruments feel very poignant.

Timing funeral music

A  Traditional Funeral  in a crematorium lasts 30 minutes. You can use that time whatever way you want but if you’re sticking with the usual convention, these are the typical elements of a funeral or ceremony in a crematorium to help you think about music length and timing.

We’ve marked slots where you’re likely to be choosing music for a funeral. Depending on how many elements you have, each music slot will be around 2-3 mins long.

1. Guests arrive – MUSIC
2. Words of welcome
3. Music/ reading – MUSIC
4. Person’s story
5. Reflection – MUSIC
6. Reading/words
7. Commital (when the curtains close / coffin is lowered ) – MUSIC
8. Guests depart – MUSIC

See our guide to who does what at a funeral.

More resources for choosing funeral music

See Songs for Funerals or Funeral Helper for a library of funeral music and hymns.

Get more ideas from The Guardian’s Six Songs of Me.

Copyright and recorded music

Depending on the crematorium or venue and how up to date their music system is, you may need to have a copy of the original music to be allowed to play it. The wonder of Amazon is that you can download just the one track and make up your own ‘mixed tape’ for a fueneral. If you are supplying a CD, the crematorium usually expects you to provide the disc at least 24 hours before to check it works on their system. You should have all the music clearly marked on it with any instructions on timing.

Complete Article HERE!

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27 heartwarming pics of a man taking his dog on a farewell trip

By Alicia Barrón

Robert is making sure Bella lives out the rest of her days as a happy dog.

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When Robert Kugler found out his beloved chocolate lab, Bella, had cancer — he knew what he had to do.

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Robert adopted Bella as a puppy. She’s now 9 years old, or about 63 if you’re counting in human years.

In May, a veterinarian told Robert that what he initially thought was a shoulder injury was actually cancer and that it had spread to Bella’s lungs. The doctor had to amputate one of Bella’s legs and told Robert she had three to six months to live.

That was 14 months ago.

Determined to show Bella the same kind of unconditional love she had shown him throughout her life, Robert hit the road to give her the farewell tour of her doggie dreams.

He tells Upworthy it’s not everyday you get to just pack up, get behind the wheel, and go, but after losing two siblings in nine years, he began to look at time as being much more valuable than money.

As for Bella, he says, “She teaches me lessons every day, and I am so blessed to spend my time with her.”

Here are 27 of the most heartwarming photos from Bella’s farewell tour:

You can’t put a price tag on the type of love, loyalty, and companionship a pet provides, and these incredibly moving photographs prove it.

The bond between Robert and his “Bella girl” is truly special. In spite of Bella having cancer and only three legs, Robert says, she begs to be in the car nearly every time she’s awake.

You can follow this dynamic duo’s road trip adventures on Robert’s Instagram, and he says they’ve got no plans of slowing down anytime soon because “right now … sharing the love of this dog with the world has become my new purpose.”

Complete Article HERE!