When Annette Gardner’s father died, he was laid to rest with a traditional church service, complete with hymns and readings — only, in life, he wasn’t very religious.
“He hardly ever went to church in his later years,” says Gardner. “It was a nice funeral, but very traditional.”
That was almost 20 years ago. The funeral Gardner held for her mother in 2021 tells quite a different story; one which marks a fresh chapter in the way many Australians mourn. In a non-denominational chapel, her mother’s true colours shone through — with purple hydrangeas and a purple coffin to match. “She really did love purple,” Gardner jokes.
According to government research, Australia is rapidly becoming more religiously diverse. Within this trend, census data shows that almost 40 per cent of Australians identified as non-religious in 2021, a significant increase from 16.7 per cent in 2001.
In the world of funerals, rising religious diversity — and softening tradition — has created space for greater self-expression. Ray Leon, a funeral director with Simplicity Funerals, says there has been a shift away from strict adherence to specific rites and rituals, with many Australians — both religious and non-religious — opting for simpler funerals with personal touches. “People are taking aspects of traditional and modern funeral practices, and creating an affordable tailor-made experience,” he says.
Beyond the boundaries of “how things used to be”, the unique life story of a person can come to the fore, he explains. Leon has seen people arrive at their funeral in everything from a Harley hearse to a classic Holden HR Ute. Increasingly, services include simple, bespoke elements such as personal collections of art and belongings, or stories interwoven with photographs and video messages. “Recently, we even had a family who wanted a VB-themed coffin, and that’s exactly what we did.”
For funeral directors, the process of finding a creative space with a family is a sensitive one, yet immensely rewarding as loved ones become empowered to truly celebrate a life lived, while processing some of the grief of a life lost, Leon explains. For families, the modern, non-religious funeral offers unlimited potential for self-expression — which, as experienced by Sydney local, Jessica Gray — can be a blessing and, at times, a curse.
Gray farewelled her father, John, earlier this year. “Creating a funeral for Dad — who wasn’t religious and left barely any instructions as to his wishes — brought us creative freedom to reflect and celebrate who he was, yet also constant questioning in a time that was already so uncertain.”
The secret was to home in on personality, Gray explains. “Dad wasn’t a religious person, but he was spiritual. The reading we chose for the day, Buddhist Blessing, resonated with who he was to those that loved him,” she says.
It’s a sentiment echoed by professionals too. “There’s beauty in simplicity,” says Leon. “After all, a funeral doesn’t have to cost the earth to mean the world.”
In 2018, Gray’s father founded a local dog group, the Dogs of Double Bay. What started as a small WhatsApp group, grew into a 200-person-strong community with regular Friday afternoon drinks and annual Christmas parties. It was fitting then, that the dog lover and community carer was commemorated with a heart-warming farewell in a local pub from over 100 guests — and their dogs too.
Gardner also found comfort in coming back to basics. “It was a simple, beautiful funeral,” she says, speaking of her mother’s send off last year. “The special touches really reflected her love of life and who she was. We look back on that day and smile — Mum would have been proud.”
It started, as they say, on TikTok. It was January 2021 and I was still a skeptic, a 30-something feeling like I’d perhaps aged out of the increasingly ubiquitous world of short-form video before ever even learning how to use it. But it was the second season of what had become a much-longer-than-two-week pandemic, and I had already painted two walls in my small studio apartment and wallpapered another. I was running out of things to do. And so, I logged on.
If you’ve ever used TikTok, you know that the algorithm figures you out—fast. Pretty soon I was scrolling through a perfectly personalized, curated mix of funny animal videos, healthy-ish recipes, and a sprinkling of spiritual teachings. That’s when I saw a video that impacted me in ways I could have never predicted.
The post (which I have since tried to find again to no avail), offered advice about connecting with a departed loved one. According to the person in the video, the best way to make contact is to be direct about wanting to (aka saying it out loud). What’s more, they advised viewers to pick something in the world to be a signal that the person is with you—something specific but still in the realm of possibility.
Why not? I thought. I’d been on the lookout for signs from my dad, who died when I was 11, for years. And I’d even gotten some. But, save for one intense phone experience with a medium on my 30th birthday, I’d never really gotten intentional about it. So one night, I stood out in the street and asked him to send me a sign.
Initially, I settled on uniquely colored cars as my “signal.” I think I had seen a lime green car go by as I was meditating on it. Plus, my dad worked in car sales. Soon, though, I realized there are way more funky colored cars on the road than you might think. So, in an effort to narrow it down, I randomly tweaked the signal to just orange Subarus. I had no connection whatsoever to the particular car, I’m pretty sure I had just seen one, one time, and thought, Huh. That’s an unusual looking car.
Life went on without consequence. But soon, a few curious things started happening. I was home one evening and had a sudden urge to check an email address I don’t typically use or look at. I opened it up to find an email marked the same date I stood out on the street asking for a sign from an old friend of my dad’s. “I just found an old photo while I was cleaning out a desk drawer,” the email read (with a photo of my parents and I from 1991 attached). ”I think you may recognize it. If you do, it means that I knew your father from ~1970/71, until I left Brooklyn in 1983.”
I, quite frankly, lost it. Could it have been coincidental timing? Sure. But in grief, and in life, my motto is to take what I like and leave the rest. I couldn’t shake the feeling that my message had been received. If this worked, I thought, maybe the whole signal thing would work, too.
Shortly after I connected with my dad’s friend, my mom and I set off on a month-long, cross country road trip. It was a bucket list item for both of us, and—having been recently retired and recently laid off, respectively—there was no better time to take an extended trip. I mentioned the orange Subaru thing in passing, and to our delight and surprise, the next two weeks on the road brought at least one of the cars into our sights every single day.
Toward the end of the trip we planned to meet with the friend from that fateful email for lunch. When I didn’t see my signal on the 45 minute drive, I reassured myself that it was okay. That it didn’t mean anything.
But as we pulled into the restaurant, there it was: An orange Subaru, pulling out of the parking lot as we were pulling in.
Spotting these cars in the wild has become sort of a love language between friends and I. If I’m with someone who knows about it, we’ll point (scream) it out. I’ll often open my phone to find photo messages of orange Subarus spotted by friends and family. There are a few in my neighborhood that I now recognize by license plate.
Signs are a common source of comfort for people experiencing grief. As New York City-based grief counselor Jill Cohen, CT, pointed out to me, they’re usually happened-upon as opposed to being sought out (as in my case), but she is always moved by the impact they have on a grieving person.
“I can’t tell you what kind of comfort it brings to my clients when they tell a story about seeing a sign,” she said. “They will be in the middle of a tear-filled moment, and there’s this smile in the knowingness. It’s an inexplicable phenomenon that happens quite a lot, and the comfort it gives is unmatched by many other ways of comforting.”
A few people have asked me how I picked my signal. And while it’s true, there is no big, meaningful story about how and why I picked this very specific, quite frankly super random sign, what I think matters most is the big, unexpectedly meaningful results yielded by incorporating the practice into my routine.
It’s not always easy to find a way to keep someone’s memory alive that feels good to you. There is no right or wrong way to remember a loved one, but, in an effort to avoid painful feelings, there have certainly been times where I admit I avoided—or felt unable to—remember him at all. As I’ve processed my grief, it has become easier. I have filled my home and my life with his belongings. I ask my family questions about him. I have his favorite things tattooed on my body. I listen to more than my fair share of Grateful Dead.
But incorporating this small practice has made me feel close to him in a totally new way. No matter what is going on in my life, if I see an orange Subaru drive by or parked on the street, I stop, smile, and think of my dad. If I’m ruminating on a decision, the signal helps me feel like I’m making the right choice. Each sighting feels like a “hello” or an “I’ve got you.” It’s a small prayer, a brief moment that helps him stay front of mind, even for just a few minutes. And no matter what you believe, that mini meditation and moment of connection is comforting, meaningful, and yes, pretty powerful, too.
— A remarkable documentary on medically assisted death
‘Getting to bring him home and put his bed right in the middle of the living room and then surround him with love was the greatest gift.’ Ondi Timoner and Eli Timoner in Last Flight Home.
Film-maker Ondi Timoner captures her family in a transitional phase, approaching death head-on in Last Flight Home, after her father requests the right to die
In late January 2021, Eli Timoner was hospitalized with difficulty breathing. It had been a long, slow physical decline. The 92-year-old entrepreneur and father of three had been paralyzed for 40 years after a stroke when he was 53; during the isolation of Covid, his mobility worsened, putting a great strain on his wife of 55 years, Elissa. Now, due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure, he was permanently bedridden. Reached by phone in the hospital by his daughter, the documentary film-maker Ondi Timoner, Eli reports that he feels finished, is “just waiting to die”.
“Waiting to die?! I thought you were waiting to see me today,” a shocked Ondi responds. But Eli is adamant: “If they could give me goodbye powder, I’d take it.”
Last Flight Home, Ondi’s remarkable documentary on her father’s final days and medically assisted death, begins from this point of certainty. To be bedridden meant a transfer to a full-time care facility, which was a non-starter for Eli. He was in constant pain, tired, done. Cut to, less than five minutes into the film: a Zoom call between hospital-bound Eli, Elissa, Ondi and her siblings Rachel and David, discussing the possibility of medically assisted suicide. The conversation is the film in miniature: at once profound and practical, wry and devastating. A rare example of how to approach death collectively. How to do it legally, according to California’s End of Life Option Act. (There are 10 states that allow for medical aid in dying, in addition to Washington DC.) How to do it spiritually, as a family losing their patriarch, best friend, husband, father, grandfather. How to answer your loved one when, faced with terminal illness, they say: “I want it to end. Right away.”
The Timoners were supportive of Eli’s decision for medically assisted death, though confused on how to enact it, let alone live it for the state-mandated 15-day waiting period between evaluation by a physician and the administration of the lethal prescription. “I had no idea. It was like walking on the moon in my parents’ living room,” Ondi told the Guardian.
Last Flight Home captures a transitional phase – tasks to do, words to say, love to be honored and consecrated. There are final Zoom farewells, sentimental and largely upbeat, peppered with anecdotes from Eli’s time as founder and CEO of Air Florida in the 1970s and his lifetime as a friend. A follow-up appointment via Facetime with a different physician to confirm, in compliance with California law, the first doctor’s approval of the prescription. A meeting with a death doula, to whom Eli expressed his fear of being placed in a coffin while still alive. Practice drinking a smoothie with a straw, to ensure that Eli can, again in compliance with state law, take the medicine by his own hand. Conversations about life, about feelings of shame and gratitude, about funeral plans, old photos, monthly utility bills.
“There’s an unreality to it all,” Elissa, mostly camped on the living room couch, says in the film. “We’re just putting one foot in front of the other.”
The surreality, a mixture of familial candor and delicateness, was “a position that a lot of people find themselves in, and families find themselves in, because our culture doesn’t really set us up – we don’t talk about death,” Ondi said. “We’re really, really scared of it.”
Before her father’s decision, Ondi hadn’t really faced it, either. “I was panicking” at the beginning, she said, initially unaware of California’s End of Life Option Act. She began recording her father’s phone calls from the hospital. “I knew it was going to be imminent. I was just horrified at the concept that he would die as degraded as he felt. And he just felt like there was nothing for him here any more, and that no one cared besides the four of us, and that his life had really added up to a failure”, in large part due to material losses as a result of his disability. (Eli Timoner was forced out of his company following his stroke before the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990.)
“Getting to bring him home and put his bed right in the middle of the living room and then surround him with love was the greatest gift,” Ondi said. “I don’t know where I’d be today if I didn’t have that chance. He was my best friend, my pal, and I was devastated, absolutely devastated.”
The cameras started rolling soon after, first as an archive rather than as a film. “I do a lot of recording, and my family is used to that, so no one knew that I was making a film, including me,” said Ondi. “I was desperate to bottle him up somehow.”
Filming such sensitive, raw moments was a family agreement. Eli, ever supportive of Ondi’s work, was on board with any future project to be made from the cameras installed throughout his living room. (Ondi also edited the film.) So were Elissa and David. Rachel, who has supported many people and their loved ones at the end of life as a senior rabbi with Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, was more wary.
Clockwise from top left: Elissa, Eli, Rachel, Ondi and David Timoner in an archival image taken at Boeing headquarters in Seattle on 30 October 1979.
“It felt so private,” she said. “Even though I don’t shy away from talking about death and having these conversations, it did feel like it was really just for us and not for anybody else’s eyes.
“Part of what’s important about the dying process is that it be unmediated,” she added. “That it could be just private.” She came around slowly first to the filming, then to its public distribution. Her father was supportive, first of all, as was her mother, who found comfort in the footage after Eli’s death, watching it nightly for months. “If my mother is getting solace from this, then that’s by far the most important thing,” said Rachel. And then there was the effect on audiences. Viewers of the film left the theater “in awe about life, about love, about that if we are courageous enough to turn toward death, we turn toward life,” she said. “That to me feels like a really holy purpose. And I relinquished any concerns I had.”
Plus, she said, it could help influence other states to adopt compassionate choice laws. The film is adamantly for compassionate choice, which is still working through the New York legislature – “If you’re terminally ill, you should have the right to terminate your life if you don’t want to suffer any more. It’s a right over our own bodies,” said Ondi.
But the film does not shy away from discomfort with the process as it currently exists. The administration of the medicine is an ordeal of choreography and solemnity, trying to balance saying the last goodbye with specific, critical instructions; the final mixture must be consumed in full in under two minutes. That countdown, in which Eli, held by children and grandchildren, struggles to swallow the bitter poison against the clock and says “I can’t” is edited down but still feels 10 minutes long, a stressful race against time.
“It felt like an obstacle course,” said Ondi. “There’s got to be a more humane way to do this … We were surrounding him and it was going to be this really peaceful journey out, and to see him saying ‘I can’t stand it’” – referring to the taste of the final medicine – “that that was his last experience on earth was really sad to me.”
But in the end, peace. Eli died shortly after finishing the medicine, on 3 March 2021. Until then, he comes across as compassionate, generous, funny. “This film is exactly who he was,” said Rachel. “He just paid attention to everybody else, and rooted everybody else on,” said Ondi. “And I just aspire to have one-tenth of that generosity and grace.”
A final act of generosity: the willingness to speak openly about death, to offer a model of how one could embrace the end. “I hope people get inspired to face the fact that they and everyone they love is going to die,” said Rachel of the film. “And if they have the courage to talk about it, and to plan for it a little bit, that they have a real chance to have a beautiful, good death. And that that is a way for them to seize their lives. It is a way for them to embrace their living.”
Last Flight Home is released in US cinemas on 7 October and UK cinemas on 25 November
Grief often accompanies the loss of someone close and can be a difficult process.
“When an individual passes away, they leave a hole not only in our hearts but also in our social networks, in our family lives, in our village, or town or community,” says Shannon Lee Dawdy, professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago.
But what can we do with this gaping hole? For many, hosting a funeral or participating in a death ritual to say goodbye to the deceased channels this grief. Funeral rituals allow people to come together and not only acknowledge their loss, but also come to an understanding of how to go on and re-weave the social fabric, explains Dawdy. Death rituals are much more than just for healing individually; they also allow different communities to unite and fix rips or tears in their social fabric in their own ways, she says.
Cultures around the world have a distinct set of beliefs that guide their funeral rituals. Let’s take a closer look at five unique traditions that celebrate and honor the departed.
1. Endocannibalism: Feasting With the Dead
The earliest instances of cannibalism date back to over 800,000 years in Spain’s Atapuerca Mountains. Anthropologists think early hominids likely used it as a territorial defense strategy. But today, anthropologists find cannibalism is used for more than just survival purposes.
The Wari people of Brazil and the Fore tribe in Papua New Guinea are two examples of tribes that consume deceased community members as a religious or cultural practice. Feasting on the dead is a way for the Wari tribe to socially mourn. They believe the funeral rites allow their ancestors to transform from humans to spirits, and the feast allows an individual to release painful memories that can linger after a loved one’s death.
For the Fore tribe, the cannibalistic tradition calls on women and children to consume the flesh of Fore members. Everything except the gallbladder is removed from the dead body. The remains are mixed in with ferns and cooked in tubes of bamboo that women and children both prepare and consume. While the act is viewed as a symbol of love and grief mixed together, medical researchers have discovered that many Fore tribe members may be victims of a fatal degenerative disease called kuru due to their cannibalistic practices.
2. Finger Amputations
For the women of the Dani tribe in Papua New Guinea, cutting off the top of their finger in a funeral ritual to mourn the loss of a family member or loved one is a cultural norm.
While it’s unclear why the ritual mainly involves women, the ritual, called Ikipalin, is a way for women to physically display their grief. The practice involves tying a string tightly around the upper part of a finger for 30 minutes. This allows the finger to become numb and prepares it for removal. Then, an ax is used to remove the upper half of the finger and the open wound is cauterized, to avoid further bleeding and infection.
The ritual is rooted in religious beliefs that suggest finger-cutting can ward off the deceased person’s restless spirit. Though the Indonesian government recently banned the practice for all tribe members, the aftereffects of the mourning ritual can still be seen on the hands of many older women of the tribe.
3. A Blindfolded Funeral
In the Philippines, blindfolds are not for the mourners, but for the deceased Indigenous people of Benguet. And because of the diversity found in the Philippines’ regions, this is just one of many unique burial rituals. In this practice, the blindfold protects the deceased from the suffering world.
The deceased are cleaned, blindfolded and tied to a chair, which is then placed in the main entrance of a home. The hands and legs are tied together to keep the body in a sitting position for eight consecutive days.
During those eight days, the elders perform a bangil rite, which involves the reading of a biographical chant of the deceased. The mourners also strike bamboo sticks together to ensure that their loved one reaches heaven. The reason why the deceased sits in a chair is so that when they are removed, they can rest in the fetal position.
4. Hanging Coffins
Though the funeral practice of hanging coffins dates to over 2,000 years ago, the Igorot people of the Philippines still practice this ancient burial custom today.
For the tradition, one carves out their own coffin from hollowed logs. The coffins have various intricate designs that represent fertility and longevity. Upon death, the deceased are placed inside their coffins and then hung off the side of a cliff or cave.
The height of the hanging coffin represents the status of the individual. Typically, male community leaders or distinguished members of society are placed higher on the cliff. According to the community’s beliefs, the higher the dead are placed, the greater their chances are of reaching a higher position in the afterlife.
Today, the hanging coffins can primarily be found in the town of Sagada, though many have deteriorated and even fallen over time. Various cultures in China and Indonesia have also practiced hanging coffins.
5. Death Beads
A shortage of burial space encourages a new funeral practice in South Korea. People are transforming a loved one’s ashes into shiny colorful beads. “Death beads” have been growing in popularity since the early 2000s as a way to honor and keep the deceased nearby. A law passed in 2000 now requires anyone in South Korea burying the dead to remove the grave 60 years after burial, which could influence the new practice.
Bonhyang, the death bead company founded by Bae Jae-yul, features beads that range from blue-green to pink, purple and black in color. Ultrahigh temperatures melt and crystallize cremated ashes that are stored in shiny beads, and the process takes just 90 minutes. Instead of wearing the colorful beads as jewelry, many opt to display them inside glass containers in their homes, where they are accessible to the whole family.
— More than half of Medicare beneficiaries are diagnosed with dementia during their lifetime and, of those diagnosed who receive intensive end-of-life care, most are from racial and ethnic minority groups, according to a new study.
“While people with dementia received intensive services less often than people without dementia, those with dementia who did receive intensive services were more likely to be from racial or ethnic minoritized groups,” says Elizabeth Luth.
Intensive treatment includes mechanical ventilation, intubation, feeding tube initiation, and new dialysis.
Researchers have known that race and ethnicity play a role in the intensity of medical care at the end of life, but the difference is more pronounced among individuals with dementia, they say.
“Dementia appears to have a multiplicative effect,” says Elizabeth Luth, an assistant professor in the family medicine and community health department at Rutgers University and lead author of the study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
“This difference is not problematic if it reflects patient preferences for intensive services,” says Luth, who is also a faculty member at Rutgers’ Institute for Health, Health Care Policy & Aging Research. “However, additional research is needed to understand whether these differences may be attributable to other factors, including systemic racism, discrimination, poor physician communication, and other barriers to accessing health care.”
To measure the role of race and ethnicity in end-of-life care for people with dementia, Luth and colleagues calculated total medical costs for 463,590 Medicare beneficiaries nationwide. Using claims data, the researchers tallied inpatient, outpatient, carrier, skilled nursing facility, and hospice expenditures for patients’ final 30 days of life. Higher costs indicated greater care intensity.
In addition to determining 51% of Medicare patients die with a dementia diagnosis claim, the researchers made another discovery: Race and ethnicity may influence how people with dementia live out their final days.
“While people with dementia received intensive services less often than people without dementia, those with dementia who did receive intensive services were more likely to be from racial or ethnic minoritized groups,” Luth says.
The magnitude of this effect differed by dementia status. For example, among people without dementia, compared to non-Hispanic Whites, Asian American, and Pacific Islanders had 73% higher odds of intensive care at the end of life. However, among persons with a dementia diagnosis, Asian American and Pacific Islanders had 175% higher odds of receiving intensive procedures.
The findings should prompt efforts to improve end-of-life care and outcomes for people with dementia, Luth says. Medicare reimbursements for physician-led advance care planning conversations could help, she says, as would end-of-life care counseling for all hospitalized patients.
“In the absence of a designated decision maker, the default approach in end-of-life care is to provide intensive services,” Luth says.
“If there isn’t anybody advocating either way, whether it’s the family or the patient themselves, the default is always more hospitalization, which might not be the type of care the patient wants or needs.”
A diagnosis of dementia, a category of diseases affecting memory and thinking that includes Alzheimer’s disease, can feel overwhelming and upsetting. You might worry that you will lose control over your life and ability to make your own decisions. Fortunately, receiving a diagnosis of dementia or Alzheimer’s does not mean that you cannot execute legal documents or make decisions about plans for your future finances and health care.
People with dementia can execute legal documents to plan for their futures when they have the mental state — or capacity — to do so. Capacity refers to your ability to understand the contents of a legal document, such as a will, and know the consequences of executing it. If you know who your family is, understand your assets, and comprehend your will, you can execute a valid will and plan for the distribution of your estate after your death, provided you understand what you are signing and its effect on your life.
The following can help you in planning where you wish to live, what kind of care you receive, and what happens to your assets if you get severely ill or pass away.
Health Care Power of Attorney
Consider appointing a health care agent to make medical decisions if you become incapacitated. You can name a health care agent using a health care power of attorney, sometimes called a medical power of attorney or a durable power of attorney for health care. Your health care agent can make medical choices if you can no longer do so.
Picking someone you trust, such as a responsible child or spouse, or another family member, can give you peace of mind that they will have your best interests and desires in mind when they make decisions. For instance, dementia patients who prefer receiving in-home care can express this wish to their agent.
In the power of attorney document, you can also state your intentions regarding health care and limit your agent’s capabilities if you wish.
Living Will
For an added layer of protection, you can also draft an advance directive or living will that states your desires regarding medical treatment if you are unable to communicate with your physician. Your living will can express whether you want treatment to prolong your life.
Financial Power of Attorney
Using a financial power of attorney, known as a power of attorney for property, you can select a trusted individual to handle your financial affairs if your disease progresses such that you can no longer make financial decisions. Your financial agent can manage your money and pay bills on your behalf, but they cannot use your money for themselves.
In the power of attorney for property document, you can restrict your agent’s powers. For instance, a person might specify that the agent can manage personal accounts, but not sell the family home.
Long-Term Care Planning
After a dementia diagnosis, consider whether you would like to receive long-term care at home or in a facility, and whether you intend to apply for Medicaid or long-term care insurance. If you want to apply for Medicaid, you might need to prepare your finances to become eligible.
Last Will and Testament
Making a last will and testament, also known as a will, can help ensure your assets go to your family and friends when you pass away. You can determine how much of your money each beneficiary will receive and make bequests to individuals. For example, if you have items of sentimental value, you can leave them to specific people. Without a will, your assets will transfer to your heirs according to the law in your state.
Imagine a group of old (mature) friends gathered for a “girls” weekend in balmy Florida. The friendships started in grammar school and have continued for the better part of 50 years. These women have met at least once a year for more than 25 years and shared life’s ups and downs. On this trip, one of the women pulls out a deck of cards called Talk of a Lifetime, and the play begins. I don’t have to imagine, they were my cards and my friends, and we spent the evening sipping wine, taking turns uncovering questions from the deck, discussing end-of-life topics, and laughing! We learned much about each other’s life and end-of-life goals that night. Who would have thought talking about death could be so much fun?
Conversations with loved ones and providers are crucial to the advanced care planning process. In a recent AARP survey of 2,000 adults, “54 percent had not completed a medical power of attorney or advance care directive, and a whopping 62 percent of those said they had not gotten around to it; 15 percent said they did not know how; and 13 percent said they did not like talking about these things.”
Here is a fun solution for those who have their head in the sand. The following games are designed to help people have those conversations in a painless and fun way. Try them out over the mashed potatoes or wine at your next family gathering.
1. Talk of a Lifetime. Created by the National Funeral Directors Association offers 50 cards with 50 questions to help you learn more about your loved ones. Players share stories about life, the things that matter most, and how they want to be remembered.
2. Hello Game is the easy, non-threatening way to start a conversation with your family and friends about living and dying and what matters most to you.
3. Go Wish gives you an easy, even entertaining way to talk about what is most important to you. The cards help you find words to talk about what is important if you were to be living a life that may be shortened by serious illness.
4. The Death Deck is a party game that lets you explore a topic we’re all obsessed with but often afraid to discuss, DEATH. With a playful tone and a sense of humor, The Death Deck is a game and tool that allows friends and family members to open up and share thoughts, stories, and preferences about life and death in a non-threatening and surprisingly fun way. Players partner up to guess answers to deep, funny, and sometimes weird questions on death. With 112 cards and numerous ways to play, The Death Deck encourages lively conversations and life-changing dialogue.
5. Heart to Heart Cards game is designed to make it easier for a family member, a caregiver, or a health provider to understand what a loved one wants through the EOL. Each card is in English and Chinese and is designed to help reach Chinese-speaking community members. However, they can be used by healthy individuals who want family members or friends to know what they would like when their lives may be threatened by injury or disease.
6. Heart2Hearts: Advance Care Planningcards provide 52 conversation starters about advanced care planning. Be prepared to have the most meaningful conversation of your life. Playing, completing the innovative workbook, and discussing it with your loved ones will give them a priceless gift…peace of mind. They will know your wishes and can follow them if you cannot make health care decisions yourself.
7. Elephant in the Room is a set of 96 cards in 4 categories of scenarios and questions for discussion. Each individual can confirm their preferences, enhance communication with their family and health care team, provide time for family and other loved ones to understand decisions, and relieve uncertainty or guilt about decision-making. These are personal conversations, not medical consultations, and they will require a loving commitment of time and attention from all involved.
8. Death Conversation Game facilitates open thinking and conversations on death in safe, respectful environments of chosen friends, family, students, clients, colleagues, or strangers. The depth and breadth of the conversation depend on you. Whether it’s death-related theology, ideology, metaphysics, bookish details, relationship considerations, bereavement, and a number of other subjects. Available online only through Apple or Android.
9. GraveTalk from the Church of England offers 50 unique cards for use in small groups, each with a thought-provoking question to start the end-of-life conversation.
Life: What is important in your life? How would you like to be remembered?
Death: What experiences of death have you had so far? What do you think death means?
Funerals: What will happen when you die? Do you need to make any plans or choices now?
