Would you prefer to be cremated or buried in a casket? Washington might give residents an additional option if it becomes the first US state to legalize an unusual end-of-life practice — composting human remains.
“Recomposting” — which advertises as more environmentally friendly than traditional funeral practices — is a process where a human body is quickly decomposed using heat-loving microbes and beneficial bacteria.
The temperature is kept at 131 degrees Fahrenheit (55 Celsius) for 72 consecutive hours. The remains are then added into soil that can be used as mulch for trees, flowers and other plants.
Washington State Sen. Jamie Pedersen, a Democrat, plans to introduce a recomposting bill in January, NBC reports.
If passed, the bill would legalize recomposting in Washington so citizens could choose an alternative to the traditional methods of burial and cremation of human remains.
The Seattle company Recompose would be responsible for the actual composting of human bodies.
In 2017, Pederson introduced a similar bill but says it failed due to opposition from religious groups, according to NBC.
Neither Sen. Pedersen or Recompose, the company that would be responsible for the actual composting of human bodies, responded to a request for comment.
“The transformation of human to soil happens inside our reusable, hexagonal recomposition vessels,” the Recompose website says. “When the process has finished, families will be able to take home some of the soil created, while gardens on-site will remind us that all of life is interconnected.”
During the recomposting process, bodies are screened for non-organic materials like metal teeth fillings, pacemakers and artificial limbs, which are recycled whenever possible.
The entire process takes a month, and can produce a cubic yard of soil per person, according to Recompose.
While this may sound ideal to people wanting an environmental-friendly option to burial, not everyone can go through the recomposting process. Some pathogens (like the bacteria that causes anthrax) may be resistant to the composting process, so people with certain health conditions may be ineligible.
While recomposting has yet to be made legal in the US, “green burials” (bury human bodies without chemicals) are legal in all 50 states. Currently, recomposting a human body is legal in Sweden.
One thing never ceases to strike fear into the heart of parents: the idea of our kids dying before us
The idea that someone could be in your life one day and gone the next was incomprehensible to Jo Davies’ sons.
By Jo Davies
I was at the grocery store the other night when my younger sons and I ran into my next-door neighbour toting his six-week-old son.
After cooing over Junior’s beautiful blue eyes and his adorable expressions for a bit, one of my boys asked to touch the little one’s cheek. My neighbor hesitated for a moment and then declined, saying the baby hadn’t yet had his second round of vaccinations.
I was shocked for a moment, then smiled, reminding myself we were dealing with that most nervous of Nellies: the first-time parent.
Whether you have kids or not, you’ve likely heard the stereotype of the hyper-responsible first-time mom or dad jumping to boil the baby’s pacifier the second it touches the floor or rushing to the ER for every uptick in temperature.
Undoubtedly, this initial hyper-vigilance serves a purpose: it’s Mother Nature’s way of ensuring the survival of the species. All parents go through it, and most get over it.
There’s one thing, however, that never ceases to strike fear into the heart of parents: the idea of our kids dying before us.
A few weeks ago, my sons’ classmate died at the age of 15.
He was a nice boy — quiet and respectful and kind. His death was unexpected, shocking and a heartbreaking introduction into the ways of grief not only for my two sons, but their school community as well.
At this point in their young lives, my sons haven’t experienced the death of anyone close to them except for their grandparents. That was obviously upsetting for them, but their father and I were able to help them to rationalize it, because their grandparents were much older than them; they’d lived a good life and left a legacy for which their many friends and family would remember them fondly.
When their friend died, however, it was virtually impossible to come to terms with it.
Despite the best efforts of their teachers and school counsellors, my boys were at a loss. The idea that someone could be in your life one day and gone the next was incomprehensible to them.
I asked myself: knowing what I know about death (my father died suddenly when I was 24), how can I make the death of their friend make sense to them? I came to the conclusion that I can’t.
There is no way to make sense of such a tragic circumstance, to find a silver lining. All I can do is try to help them cope with what’s happened.
To that end, I’ve done my best to read up on teenage grief, so I can be useful to my sons.
I’ve learned that, as with adults, teenage grief is as unique as each individual who experiences it. It can’t be dictated or forced to fit someone else’s conception of what’s appropriate.
I’ve also realized that for teenagers, grieving is just one more complication in an already turbulent period of life. The death of a close friend can cause them to question their own, newly formed identities as young adults; to ask questions they might never have considered before about life and mortality.
What’s been hardest for me in this process is watching my sons come to the realization that life, at its core, is uncertain. There are no guarantees of happy, long lives for the ones you love, even if you wish there were.
Up until now, their teenage brains (with their still-developing sense of consequences) have helped to make them feel invincible, or if not invincible, at least unconcerned with thoughts of dying — which seemed to me to be as it should be. Kids should be able to live their lives without constantly thinking about death and dying.
Now they know words like “hearse” and “pallbearer” and “condolences.” They have witnessed the depths of a parent’s grief as they listened to their friend’s mother describe all the ways she will miss him.
They’ve also been surprised by kindness from unexpected quarters; friends they didn’t know cared who gave them a hug or a tissue.
They have learned a lot of things over the past few weeks, as have I.
Mainly, I’ve learned that there was still a part of me that thought I could keep them safe from the harsh realities of life. I can’t, and that hurts.
However, just as I taught all three of my sons to use a spoon, to tie their shoelaces and to say “please” and “thank you,” I can teach them other things that are even more useful.
I can teach them to value each day they have on this earth, to be grateful that they knew their friend, and to be happy they were good friends to him during his short time here.
Bobbi Manka, right, works with her colleague Jen Gallois, left, at Tyson Fresh Meats on Dec. 11, 2018, in Elgin. Manka’s co-workers helped her following the death of her husband, Dan Manka, in January 2016.
Bobbi and Daniel Manka were settling into bed after a night out dancing when Daniel stood up, clutched his chest and gasped, “911.”
Just like that, Bobbi Manka lost her husband of 44 years and gained “a hole in my heart that will never be replaced.”
But she has found comfort where she didn’t know she would: at work.
Grief after the death of a loved one inevitably follows people to work, where employers and co-workers often are unprepared to handle the immediate sorrow or the surges of pain that ambush mourners at milestones like birthdays and holidays.
Some of the shortcomings can be linked to insufficient bereavement leave policies, but often what fails is the human response to a suffering colleague.
“We have become an increasingly death-denying society,” said Amy Florian, CEO of Corgenius, a Hoffman Estates-based organization that trains businesses on how to help grieving clients and employees. “And when we don’t talk about it, we don’t know how to do it well: how to accompany people through grief.”
Florian said employers would be wise to prepare for the impact of grief on business as aging baby boomers, who are staying in the workplace longer, move toward the end of life.
“We are in for a death boom, we are in for a dementia boom,” said Florian, a fellow in thanatology, the study of death and bereavement. “All of these things are going to happen but firms are not prepared for it.”
Being prepared includes understanding that grieving individuals will cope differently, and employers should accommodate their unique needs, Florian said.
Nearly 90 percent of employers say they offer paid bereavement leave — usually three days for an immediate family member — but that’s not nearly enough time for many people, especially when the death is sudden, she said. Employers might want to consider more generous policies as well as expand them to accommodate deaths beyond immediate family, as losing an aunt or friend can be just as devastating if the relationship was close, Florian said.
No federal law requires employers to give workers time off to grieve, though Illinois has a law, which went into effect two years ago, that provides up to 10 working days of unpaid leave for the death of a child at companies with at least 50 employees.
Florian said employers also should not expect grief-stricken employees to function normally when they return to work, as their concentration is shot, their minds are disorganized and they may be prone to making mistakes. Some employees will need additional support for a month or two once they’re back on the job, such as flexible work schedules, more breaks, adjusted expectations and someone to catch errors, with the assurance that their performance reviews won’t suffer, she said.
Educating co-workers on how to best support a grieving colleague can also help. Many people fumble awkwardly as they try to express sympathy, or avoid the topic altogether because they don’t know what to say, Florian said.
“What is often very shocking for people to learn is that ‘I am so sorry’ is not the best thing to say when someone dies,” Florian said. “The focus is all wrong, it’s on the comforter and not the griever.” Better to ask about the person who died — what they were like, how it happened, making sure to use his or her name, she said. If someone doesn’t want to talk about it, they will close the door on the conversation, she said.
Bobbi Manka pokes her head into Scott Leckrone’s office at Tyson Fresh Meats on Dec. 11, 2018 in Elgin. Leckrone, Manka’s boss, and other colleagues provided emotional support to Manka after her husband died in January 2016.
Manka, 64, who lives in Genoa, a town about 65 miles northwest of Chicago, said she was surprised to discover how often people didn’t ask how she was doing after her husband died suddenly of a massive heart attack two years ago.
“They are afraid that they might trigger something and you might start crying,” she said. “Even if I did, it would have been a good thing.”
But Manka, an administrative assistant in the Tyson Foods sales office in Elgin, was pleasantly surprised at how her colleagues stepped up during her crisis, even though she’d worked at the company only two years at the time and no one from the office had met her husband — the kind of guy “who would take his shirt off and give it to anyone,” she said.
Her boss and a colleague not only attended his “celebration of life” but stayed through the event and got to know her family, she said. When her three days of bereavement leave were up and she couldn’t bring herself to return to work, she was given an extra week off unpaid. She was eager to return when she did.
“My world had been rocked so incredibly hard that coming back to work helped me, because the house was so empty,” Manka said. “Work was my safe place for a long time.”
As she struggled to adjust to her new reality, Manka sought counseling from Tyson’s chaplaincy program, a network of 100 chaplains employed by the company to help Tyson workers navigate life challenges. She found solace in the Bible verses she was given and the advice about how to help her children through their grief as she dealt with her own.
Small kindnesses in her office of 12 have made a big difference, she said. On Manka’s first birthday after her husband’s death, her co-workers presented her with a big cake and card, and told her “we want you to know you’re part of the family,” Manka said. On her wedding anniversary, or when anything happens that triggers memories, her boss can detect a shift in her mood and urges her to take a walk and clear her head.
Such accommodations pay off in the long term, Florian said.
“People who felt they were treated compassionately during times of grief are incredibly loyal to their employer,” she said.
Grief last year cost employers an estimated $113.27 billion in reduced productivity and on-the-job errors, a calculation that takes into account not only the deaths of loved ones but also other traumatic losses such as divorce or home foreclosures, according to the Grief Recovery Institute, an organization based in Bend, Ore., that trains therapists and counselors in grief recovery.
That estimate is up from $75 billion the last time the nonprofit released its Grief Index in 2002, a increase driven by inflation as well as changing workforce demographics as the population ages, said Operations Manager Ed Owens.
Yet employers are rarely proactive about addressing grief in the workplace, and typically only seek help when an employee has died and co-workers need support, said David Fireman, executive director of the Center for Grief Recovery and Therapeutic Services in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood.
“If I had my druthers, (grief training) would be a built-in component to employee orientation,” Fireman said.
While the aging population is one source of workplace grief, another is the city’s violence. Fireman’s organization last year counseled students and faculty at the Chicago Waldorf School after a teacher at the school was killed by a stray bullet while she waited at a nearby Red Line station. He continues to be available to them because “grief is a process and there might be delayed reactions,” he said.
GrieveWell, a nonprofit in Ann Arbor, Mich., that provides grief training to employers and peer-to-peer support for grieving adults, is trying to raise the profile of grief as an “unspoken public health issue” with dangerous consequences if it is not addressed, said Amy Milanovich, former executive director.
Unresolved grief, a clinical term that refers to intense mourning that persists for a long time and interferes with daily functioning, has been linked to an increase in heart disease, stroke and cancer, she said.
The workplace has become increasingly important as a source of support as community traditions that used to surround people in mourning have been cut short amid a social expectation to get back to life as usual, she said.
“Everyone around is someone who could be in grief and everyone needs to be someone who can support them,” Milanovich said. In addition to conducting business lunch-and-learns on the topic, GrieveWell offers a deeper training in active listening for employees who want to be the designated ear colleagues turn to in time of need.
ComPsych, a Chicago-based provider of employee assistance programs, has seen a steady increase in crisis counseling calls about bereavement, likely because employers have become more aware of the need for mental health support, spokeswoman Jennifer Hudson said. Employees over 60 are the most likely of all age groups to seek bereavement help, the company’s data show.
Eric Freckman, a certified financial planner in Palatine, said grief training at his firm has led to improved relationships with clients, who often find themselves navigating unfamiliar bank accounts and investments when a spouse or parent passes away. Increasingly, grief strikes even before death as more people live longer with diminished capacity, he said.
People tend to make emotional decisions around money, especially when they’re grieving, so it takes empathy to guide them to the best decision, Freckman said.
“There’s the answer in Excel of what they should do,” he said. “But getting people to actually do that is very difficult.”
Financial adviser Eric Freckman, left, meets with Keith Leust, of Barrington, at the Guillaume & Freckman office on Dec. 27, 2018, in Palatine.
Freckman said he used to be “sort of terrified” of talking with clients about their loved one’s death, and would avoid it by sticking to discussing numbers. But after training with Florian at Corgenius he feels comfortable engaging in conversations about the loss — “How did you find out?” he asks. “What was it like for you?” “Are there phone calls we can make for you?” — and leaving the paperwork to later meetings. Ninety percent of clients want to talk, and the care shown has helped solidify trust, he said.
“We keep track of people’s birthdays, we try to call and let them know we’re thinking about them, that we know it’s a hard day, the first Christmas alone,” he said. “It’s all relatively simple stuff when you think about it.”
The simple stuff can make a big difference, Florian said. She knows from experience.
Florian was 25 and a new mom to a 7-month-old boy when her husband, John, went to a business meeting and never returned. A farm insurance agent, he was killed when his car was struck broadside on a rural Iowa road on a sleety February night.
“I felt like my future had simply evaporated in an instant,” Florian said. “And nobody knew what to say to me.”
Florian, a stay-at-home mom at the time, felt “every breath was different” after that day, as she adjusted to the empty pillow, the coffee for one, the realization that “anyone could die at any time.”
She felt alone as many people avoided talking about her husband after the funeral. She was grateful to those who did, especially when they said his name.
“It’s such a comfort to know that John’s life made a difference, that someone remembers besides me,” she said. “That his death left a void in the world, not just my life.”
Florian noticed the various ways well-meaning people’s support was insufficient. They’d ask if she needed anything, but she felt bad taking advantage of those offers, worried she’d be a burden. More helpful, she said, was when people identified what needed doing and offered to do it, such as shopping for groceries, weeding the garden or babysitting her son.
Florian recalls working with a financial professional who would change the subject when she started to tear up. So she was impressed when another financial planner, on their first meeting, looked at her file and said: “I see that you are widowed. Tell me about John.”
Her experience propelled her to get a graduate degree in pastoral studies and advanced certification in grief counseling, and she taught ministry courses on death and grieving at Loyola University for 11 years.
Decades after John’s death, Florian is remarried, and her sadness lives alongside her joy. She can still be sent into a sobbing fit in the grocery store aisle when she hears a certain song – and that’s OK.
“The point of healing is not to forget,” she said. “The point is to remember.”
Whether it was Bambi’s mother, Mufasa, or Syndrome, everyone remembers that one Disney death that really made an impact. Likely, it was your first encounter with a character meeting an untimely demise. Well, according to a new study from the University of Buffalo, Disney films can actually play a huge part in helping kids understand and accept death.
Why Disney movies specifically? Well, first and foremost, Disney (and Pixar) movies feature a lot of death. In fact, according to Business Insider, researchers Kelly Tenzek and Bonnie Nickels analyzed 57 Disney and Pixar films and found that, overall, there were a total of 71 character deaths. Researchers also noted that characters in kid’s movies are twice as likely to die than characters in movies aimed for adults.
In addition to all the death, the study, which was published in OMEGA Death and Dying, confirmed that the movies also feature themes that allow kids to handle death in a way that they would otherwise not be able. The movies use intentional patterns to teach kids lessons about life and death via “the character’s status in the film, the cause of death, whether the death was presented or implied, and also whether they were the good or the bad guy.”
An example of one of these themes in action is the fact that in several Disney movies, the main villain falls to their death instead of actually being killed by the protagonist. Think of Gaston in Beauty and the Beast or Captain Hook in Peter Pan. Why is this significant? According to the study, this frees the hero from responsibility and makes the death feel more justified in the eyes of young kids.
Disney movies also benefit from the fact that they are primarily animated. This allows kids to engage with the concept of death without it feeling too real. A child can know that a character such as Mufasa has died but also know that the character is ultimately fictional, which in turn allows them to grasp the concept of death without being overwhelmed.
So next time you’re watching The Lion King for the 100th time with your kid and you’re totally Timon and Pumbaa’d out, appreciate that, in addition to lodging the rhyme of “thin-skinned” and “downwind” in your head for the rest of the day, it may just help your kid come to understand mortality a bit more.
Dr. Bob Uslander’s No. 1 goal is to provide people who are in the final stage of life with a “soft landing.”
To Uslander, who runs a Del Mar-based medical practice, that means focusing on patients’ dignity, quality of life, and peace of mind as they approach their final days.
A former emergency room doctor, Uslander said he launched his practice – Integrated MD Care – about three years ago after noticing gaps in the health care system, particularly when it comes to caring for elderly patients and those with serious illnesses.
His solution was a model for delivering health care that creates a deep connection between caregivers, patients and their family members. The care team includes a doctor, nurses and therapists, and works with patients in their homes.
While the health care system, including palliative and hospice care, is very compassionate and works to make patients comfortable as their lives end, said Uslander, what’s missing is someone talking to them about their options for their final days, and how they want to experience their end of life.
“No one is talking to them about how they want to die, and what they want that experience to be,” Uslander said. “They miss the opportunity to have a truly empowered, transformational and meaningful end-of-life experience. The conversations aren’t happening.”
Before launching his practice, Uslander said he set out to research end-of-life care and see what was available What he found was a gap in the health care system, which he is trying to fill. He said he is not aware of any other practice like his.
“We’ve proven the model, that it works,” said Uslander, noting that he has seen the results in the improved quality of life for patients and their families.
In 2017, Uslander began caring for Jane Gillenwaters of La Costa, who suffered from pulmonary fibrosis, a condition that left her wracked with coughing spasms, gasping for air.
Jane’s husband of 62 years, Ed Gillenwaters, said the family watched as Jane deteriorated and lived with fear, anxiety and discomfort, knowing there was no cure for her illness.
Uslander took over her care in the final weeks of Jane’s life, and there was an immediate change. Not only did Uslander make changes that left her more physically comfortable, such as finding her a new, more effective machine to dispense oxygen, and taking her off of medications that weren’t helping, but he also talked to her about her end-of-life options and listened to what she had to say.
“His care restored her personal dignity. The more she talked about what she was thinking and feeling the more relaxed she became,” Gillenwaters said. “What he did was set her free from terrible fear and anxiety that is too often associated with impending death.”
The change in Jane’s outlook in turn lifted a “crushing emotional burden” from her husband and children, said Gillenwaters. When she died, Gillenwaters said, she was relaxed and peaceful, and no longer struggling for each breath.
Uslander has assembled a team of nurses, doctors, social workers and therapists, who can offer a range of services depending on the needs and desires of patients. Those services might include massage or music therapy, nutrition assistance or acupuncture.
The practice is considered a concierge service, said Uslander, meaning that doctors and nurses are available by phone on a 24/7 basis.
Patients pay a monthly fee ranging from several hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on their specific needs. The practice does not accept insurance, because Uslander said, “the low reimbursement and onerous administrative burden reduces the ability to provide excellent care.”
Because his practice is privately run, said Uslander, he has the option of reducing or waiving fees where appropriate. He’s also launched a nonprofit, the Integrated Lifecare Foundation, to provide education and raise money to pay for end-of-life care for those who can’t afford it.
Gillenwaters said he was so impressed by the care provided for his wife that he has since joined the foundation’s board of directors.
“Families need to know that such an approach is available to make the ending of loved ones’ lives comfortable and dignified,” Gillenwaters said.
For those interested in learning more about Uslander’s care and treatment model, he is scheduled to give a talk from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 8, at the Solana Beach Library, 157 Stevens Ave., Solana Beach. More information can also be found on his website, integratedmdcare.com.
When someone dies at home, everyone in the family is affected. Looking after a relative who is at the end of their life can be enormously rewarding, but carers have many unmet information and support needs. This can take a toll on their physical and emotional health.
Here are some tips if you are looking after someone nearing the end of their life.
1. Look after yourself
Carers looking after someone with a life-threatening illness have higher levels of emotional distress, including depression and anxiety, than the general population. It’s important you look after yourself.
Self-care might mean finding time to take a break from caring by signing up for yoga classes where calming breathing techniques are practised, or seeking counselling or support groups.
Caring can be very rewarding for both the carer and the patient. Research shows caring can make people feel closer to those they’re caring for. Carers often feel proud that they have been able to look after someone in their last years, months or days of life.
It can be a positive experience to think about the rewards of caring, like spending more time together or knowing you’re making a difference to a loved one at a difficult time.
It’s important you look after yourself.
2. Get informed
Caring for a relative at the end of life is likely a new experience. Many carers are learning on the job and often don’t feel practically or emotionally prepared for the task. Research consistently shows carers want to know how to safely carry out practical caring tasks, like moving the person in and out of bed, preparing suitable meals, and giving medication.
Emotional tasks might include listening to the patient’s worries and helping the patient write down their preferences for care and treatments in an advance care plan. When patients have an advance care plan, carers report less stress because key decisions have already been made and documented.
Palliative care services often have support groups or information sessions, which help carers feel more prepared and better informed. Such groups help meet carers’ information needs. They also increase self-efficacy (the belief of being able to personally succeed in caring tasks).
Recently, distance learning has been offered to carers and evidence shows this helps them feel more prepared to carry out their duties.
A carer’s emotional tasks might include listening to the patient’s worries.
3. Ask for help
Many current approaches to supporting people nearing the end of life involve working with whole communities. Known as compassionate communities, these approaches are based on the concept it is not just up to an individual carer, or the health service, to look after people approaching the end of life. Support can be everyone’s responsibility, from pharmacists, librarians and teachers to employers and colleagues.
Apps, such as Care For Me, and websites can help co-ordinate help from friends, family and the community. The website Gather My Crew offers a way for carers to list tasks they need help with, to take some of the pressure off themselves.
4. Talk about it
When someone is critically ill or dying, family members often decide not to share their worries with each other. Psychologists call this protective buffering. People do it to try to protect their family and friends from worrying more.
Although it is well-intended, protective buffering can make people feel less close. It’s OK to share worries with each other. Being able to talk about feelings means being able to deal together with the difficult things like pain or fear.
Talk about your anxieties.
Using the “d” words (death and dying) can be difficult, and is an outright taboo in many cultures. Find language that suits you: be direct (death), or use metaphors (pass away) or less direct phrases (getting sicker) so that you can talk about worries together.
5. It’s OK to think about the future
It’s hard to balance feeling positive and feeling sad about the person approaching the end of their life. Many family members and carers say they feel guilty for thinking about the future or making plans for after the person has died.
But research in bereavement has shown it’s normal and healthy to move between focusing on the here and now, and on the life after the caring role ends. This might be reassuring if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t always want to face emotions head on – distracting yourself by thinking about the future is actually a natural and healthy thing to do.
