New Zealand’s ‘coffin clubs’ bury taboos about death

Kevin Heyward poses next to his Austin car coffin that he made at the Coffin Club’s workshop

By Ryland JAMES

It’s a task of grave importance, but there’s nothing to stop New Zealanders having a laugh as they work on DIY caskets in the country’s “coffin clubs”.

Elderly club members meet for cups of tea, a bit of banter, and to literally put the final nail in one-of-a-kind coffins that will carry them to their eternal resting place.

Kevin Heyward plans to be sent off in a box resembling a vintage Austin Healey.

Registration plate: DEAD1A.

Kevin Heyward’s Austin car coffin is fully equipped with a mock steering wheel, windscreen, rubber wheels, wooden mudguards, painted-on side doors, and wing mirrors

“My daughter came up with the idea,” the 79-year-old car enthusiast said with a grin, brushing sawdust off his overalls.

It’s fully equipped with a mock steering wheel, windscreen, rubber wheels with metal hub caps, wooden mudguards, a bonnet, painted-on side doors, and wing mirrors.

“The trickiest part was getting the mudguards lined up because of their curve,” Heyward told AFP at the workshop of the Hawke’s Bay Coffin Club in Hastings.

The hefty casket, which can be carried with six wooden handles, even has working headlights. The batteries, naturally, are currently dead.

“It weighs quite a bit and I’m a big man,” he said.

“I have said to my six grandsons they had better start weight-training, because they will be carrying it one day,” Heyward chuckled.

“There is a bit of humour in this car.”

The club is one of four that have sprung up around New Zealand, with the first opening in 2010 in Rotorua on the country’s North Island.

Some clubs boast as many as 800 people on their books, though one admitted “not all of them are above ground”.

At the Hastings club, Jim Thorne, a spritely 75-year-old motorcycle fan, used his skills as a cabinet maker to build a casket painted with a motorbike track. It’s stored in his garage, alongside a collection of motorbikes.

Thorne said most friends “are a little aghast and say ‘why are you doing that?'” when they hear about his coffin-making hobby. 

“Apart from the fact that I like the look of mine, it’s my input into my final days.”

– ‘Dying to get a coffin?’ –

“There is a certain mindset in some people that this is almost a taboo subject that they find very, very difficult to talk about,” Thorne said.

“They tend to overcome it. At the end of the day, it’s a reality of life, unfortunately.”

Elderly club members meet for cups of tea, a bit of banter, and to literally put the final nail in one-of-a-kind coffins

He breaks the ice with newcomers by asking: “Are you dying to get a coffin?”

But the club’s atmosphere is far from morbid.

Banter flows during the morning tea break as members chat over scones and hot drinks.

“We’re a bit unique, but we are happy. There are always lots of jokes,” said club secretary Helen Bromley.

Most members are seniors. The club provides a space to open up about death and dying during weekly meetups.

“I think everybody here has accepted that they are going to die, whether they’re decorating their coffin or helping others with theirs,” Bromley said.

“We’re a club that tries to empower people to plan their coffin, to plan what happens if they get sick.”

She said some members want to spare relatives the burden of meeting rising funeral costs. The club will also build and decorate coffins for grieving families. 

Coffin Club organiser Helen Bromley works on the lining of a coffin

On average, a funeral in New Zealand costs around NZ$10,000 (US$6,200), according to the national funeral directors association. 

Coffin prices range from NZ$1,200 to NZ$4,000.

– ‘Remember Me’ –

For a NZ$30 membership, the Hastings club gives each new member a pressed-wood coffin in one of three designs, ready to be decorated.

The coffins come in four sizes, each costing around NZ$700, extra for paint and a cloth lining.

During a tea break, Bromley announced that a member suffering from cancer was in intensive care after a fall. Her brother had asked the club to finish her coffin as a priority.

The club also builds ash boxes, which they sell to the local crematorium, and small coffins for infants, which they give away.

“The midwives and nurses at Hastings hospital have asked us to not ever, ever stop making the little coffins for them,” Bromley said.

“We donate to whoever. If there’s a miscarriage at home and they want a coffin, we donate.”

Members help knit blankets, teddy bears, pillows and hearts to go in the infants’ coffins.

Committee member Christina Ellison, 75, lost an infant daughter in 1968 and said she was comforted to know the club helps other families grieving the loss of a child. 

“The little baby coffins are so beautiful and done with so much care. The knitting that the ladies do is incredible,” she said.

Ellison is moving away soon and plans to take her coffin, which has been painted a blue-grey colour called “Remember Me”.

Complete Article HERE!

Asian Elephants display complex mourning rituals similar to humans

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Elephants are smart animals with strong feelings and they often work together. In India’s Bengal area, scientists found that elephants buried five baby elephants, according to a study published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa.

Researchers have limited the study of elephant thanatology—the examination of death and related practices— to the burial of calves. Observers had noted this aspect of behaviour in African elephants but had not documented something similar in Asian elephants until recently, despite both species diverging 4.2 million years ago.

The researchers wanted to clear up the second question – do Asian elephants, like African elephants, mourn their dead calves? And the answer is yes, and it is loud. The vocalizations from the elephants lasted between 30 and 40 minutes, but only in places far from human settlements.

They point out that this behaviour suggests elephants distinguish human spaces from non-human spaces to avoid disagreements. They also mention that elephants limited vocalisation to the burial phase.

The increasing encroachment of human activities into natural habitats and the resulting environmental degradation are forcing elephants to venture into human-dominated areas in search of food and other ecological necessities. This interaction has led to new behaviours in these majestic creatures.

Asian Elephants’ mourning behaviour

Parveen Kaswan, an officer with the Indian Forest Service, and Akashdeep Roy, a researcher at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, spent 16 months reviewing literature relating to elephant burials. They found five case reports that document this behaviour.

An elephant calf was buried on a tea estate with its feet visible.

Researchers have revealed that Asian elephants, similar to their African counterparts, engage in what we can describe as mourning rituals. Observations showed them vocalising loudly and burying their deceased calves, exhibiting a level of ritualistic behaviour that parallels human funeral rites.

The study reports a heartbreaking journey of a mother elephant. The mother elephant carried her dead calf for two days before letting it go. This extended time of grieving shows the deep attachment between mother elephants and their offspring. This could have been made stronger possibly by hormonal influences like oxytocin and the long gestation period elephants experience. This response is consistent with other studies on chacma baboons, olive baboons, African elephants and Thornicroft’s giraffes.

As per the study, the burial process is a collective effort, involving not only the mothers but also other females within the herd who act as surrogate caregivers, as well as elephants of various ages. This communal participation underscores the intricate social fabric of elephant herds and their collective mourning when faced with death. Notably, this ritualistic burial is reserved exclusively for the young. The physical impracticality of carrying the larger, heavier adults precludes them from receiving the same rite. This selective practice indicates that the elephants’ mourning and burial customs are particularly significant for the young, whose passing deeply impacts the social structure of the herd.

Compassionate behaviour

The research aimed to understand the ‘perimortem’ strategy and ‘postmortem’ behaviour of Asian elephants. The main evidence shows that someone or something transported the corpses from afar, treated with great care. They buried the corpses in preferred locations, always in a specific posture, which was an unusual lying position with legs upright.

The author said, “Our study found an interesting thing – the placement of carcasses with their paws raised in narrow irrigation drains. This strategic behaviour shows the care and affection of herd members toward the deceased animal and suggests that in a potential crush situation, pack members prioritize the head over the feet,” they highlight.”

“Elephants are social and affectionate animals and, based on an external examination of the carcasses, we also suggest that herd members gently placed the dead calves by grasping one or more legs,” the experts conclude.

The authors of the report thoroughly investigated the underlying reason for the death of the offspring through postmortem examinations. One of the conclusions is that there was no direct human intervention in any of the five deaths.

A buried carcass corresponding to case 3 of Bharnabaritea estate.

“Through direct and indirect evidence, this study highlights compassionate and helpful elephants’s behaviour during carcass burial. Asian elephants transport their deceased calves to isolated places, away from humans and carnivores, while searching for drains irrigation and depressions to bury the body,” the report states.

No infanticide among Asian elephants

Many animal groups, such as monkeys, meat-eaters, and rodents, commit infanticide or baby killing. Different reasons, such as elimination of competition, scarcity of resources, or maintaining social order within a group, contribute to this phenomenon.

However, the researchers found that there was no infanticide among the Asian elephants. They believe there are a few reasons why elephants don’t kill babies:

  • Elephants, particularly females and their young, live in close family groups forming strong bonds. This closeness possibly prevents them from hurting the young, actively encouraging them to cooperate in caring for them.
  • Baby elephants require long term care from their mothers and other females in the herd. This extended care and help from everyone might decrease the likelihood of someone killing a baby.
A buried carcass corresponding to case 2 of Chunabhatitea estate.
  • In the breeding process, elephants reproduce without having to kill their babies to quicken the mother’s readiness for another offspring. Unlike some other animals, the mother cannot immediately have another offspring if she loses a baby. Thereby, eradicating the need for males to kill babies.
  • Male elephants neither directly contribute to raising the babies nor participate in the close female groups. They prioritize finding females ready to mate rather than assuming control over a herd and eliminating other males’ babies. This social structure and breeding style decreases the likelihood of elephants killing babies.

Complete Article HERE!

Human Composting

— A Green Way to Return to the Earth

Human composting turns death into an opportunity to help the planet heal.

A natural burial is good for the planet and lets you be reborn as a part of nature

By HONORAH BROZIO

When someone dies, they can be put in the ground or an urn — but many are unaware that there is an alternative that returns the body to the earth in a natural way. Instead of traditional burial or cremation, there is human composting, which honors the natural cycle of life and creates a memorial specific to our loved ones without harming the earth.

Human composting is a simple process that lays the body on a bed of wood chips, alfalfa and straw. The body decomposes and turns into fresh usable soil in five to seven weeks. According to the human composting facility, Recompose, one human turns into about one truck bed of soil which can be used for a garden, tree or even spread among a forest.

Why is human composting better than traditional embalming or cremation practices? It is important to consider the average postmortem process. One day a man named Body dies. Body hangs out with the mortician who pumps him full of embalming fluids, drains his blood, removes his organs and creates a chemically preserved thing that is not natural, not human and definitely not Body.

When I think about modern death practices I wonder, why do we ignore death when we can embrace it?

The work involved in the embalming process is not natural for a human to experience and it exposes the mortician to harmful chemicals. The National Funeral Directors Association claims that embalmers inhale high levels of formaldehyde and are at risk for coughing, nausea, facial irritation and, in some cases, leukemia.

After the preparation, Body’s family picks out a casket, plans a ceremony, buys enough flowers to start a flower shop and buys a plot of land. So, is it worth it? Is it worth it to expose morticians to harmful chemicals and waste resources for a process that attempts to slow decomposition and maintain a body that is no longer alive?

Modern funeral practices involve cement vaults and caskets in order to preserve our loved ones for as long as possible. We delay the decomposition process for about a decade so that our bodies resemble canned goods in the bottom of a cement bunker. We waste time, thousands of dollars and land all because we want to look at our loved ones and imagine they’re still alive. When I think about modern death practices I wonder, why do we ignore death when we can embrace it?

Human composting is the opposite of traditional burial. With human composting, our bodies replenish the earth, not take from it. The process allows us to be among the trees or a meadow where we will forever contribute to the circle of life.

The possibilities of soil are endless. When I die, I want to become a carrot patch. With human composting, you could be a lemon tree or a tulip garden, and your family could make a garden and sit under the shade of your tree.

You are not a preserved lump at the bottom of a cement vault or a pile of ashes on the mantel. Rather, you would nourish the roots of your favorite plant and your family would be with you, laying under the sun.

Each individual is capable of changing the way we see death. After all, America’s extravagant funeral practices and embalming methods are relatively modern. The Library of Congress associates America’s booming death care industry with the Civil War because families wanted their loved ones preserved and returned from war. Embalming remained popular after the success of President Abraham Lincoln’s embalmed body during his lavish funeral tour. If luxurious funerals and embalming were influenced by societal changes, I believe human composting can reach the same degree of acceptance someday.

Moreover, human composting is crucial to the future of our planet. In 2019, the Population Reference Bureau notes that roughly 3 million Americans died. Typically, more than half of the population chooses cremation and the rest choose traditional burial meaning millions of people harm the earth for funerals on an annual basis.

If luxurious funerals and embalming were influenced by societal changes, I believe human composting can reach the same degree of acceptance someday.

Recompose claimed on their website that: “Cremation burns fossil fuels and emits carbon dioxide … Conventional burial consumes valuable urban land, pollutes the soil, and contributes to climate change through resource-intensive manufacture and transport of caskets, headstones, and grave liners.”

Earth Funeral, a human composting company in New York, shared similar data claiming one cremation produces about 535 pounds of CO2. While cremation saves land resources, it usually involves burning embalmed bodies which releases toxic chemicals into the air.

Unfortunately, human composting is only legal in seven states including Washington state, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, California, Nevada and New York. Even then, there are only a handful of human composting facilities in the country. Earth Funeral is accessible for people in New York, but if someone from Texas wanted to be composted they would have to transport the body all the way to a different state with a facility. 

The U.S. needs to legalize human composting in all 50 states because everyone should have the option to decay. I find it ridiculous that America’s legal burial options harm the earth but natural decomposition is illegal in 43 states. We’re allowed to be preserved and burned but not returned to the earth. We’re allowed to kill the planet but not help it.

Everyone can help promote human composting. It’s easy to spread awareness by sharing websites such as Recompose or Earth Funeral with your friends and family. Additionally, you can follow Recompose’s legislative tracker, a resource that updates visitors on which states are in the process of legalizing human composting.

By destigmatizing environmentally friendly burial options, we can move away from harmful burial choices and make decomposition a common burial practice. Normalizing human composting starts with the small steps of educating our peers until the knowledge reaches the legislature. Instead of scarring the earth, we can return to it.

Complete Article HERE!

Speaking of death

— Christians have an opportunity to eschew euphemisms and talk honestly about mortality.

By Rachel Mann

When my father died a couple of years ago, my family asked me to take the lead in organizing his funeral. I was happy to take this role: I am an experienced cleric used to working with funeral directors, and I have a strong understanding of the funeral process. What I’d never previously experienced—at least not from the point of view of a grieving person—is how readily those involved in the ministrations around a death speak in euphemisms. Perhaps it was a token of my grief, but I was annoyed by how many people couldn’t even say that my dad had died; most people, including the funeral director, said, repeatedly, that he’d “passed.”

Does it matter? At one level, no. The phrase “passed away” has been used to refer to death for 500 years. Still, it troubles me theologically. I fear that the prevalence of using passed as a way of speaking (or not speaking) of death indicates a society frightened by the finality of death, one that has opted for an overly spiritualized response to the last enemy.

A common refrain in my clergy circles is about how, on visits to plan funeral services with the bereaved, the only person prepared to use the “D” word is the priest herself. The bereaved will typically resort to any number of euphemisms to avoid it. This is entirely understandable. Shock is a natural reaction to death and, as creatures of language, we may be inclined to retreat to clichés that seem to soften the blow.

Indeed, at one level, euphemisms are entirely comprehensible as strategies to avoid the things we struggle with most. As Voltaire noted, “One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.” This applies to any difficult aspect of life, not simply death. Terms like downsizing and rationalization have been used for decades in business settings to avoid speaking directly about job cuts. In almost every area of life that really matters or troubles us—from sex through to war—there are forms of words that have been found to smooth out what’s difficult.

If death is the greatest human fear, it is hardly surprising that most of us will find ways of avoiding talking about it. The sheer number of ways humans have of avoiding the “D” word is both a testament to our creativity and an indication of how much we fear death.

Yet I think one of the imperatives on us as Christians is to be as honest as we can about death. Priests in particular are called to help people to pray and prepare them for death. Ironically, in an age when Christians are often parodied as delusional fantasists, we in fact have something powerful to offer as people who model realism and honesty about death. And one way we do that is by avoiding euphemisms at the point of death. If euphemisms are deployed in part to soften the nature of something shocking and appalling, ironically they serve to draw greater attention to that which they are meant to conceal. By being carefully and humanely honest about the singular finality of death, both priests and laypeople may be key agents in helping the bereaved to come to terms with the simple fact that, in this life at least, their loved ones are gone.

I am not suggesting that Christians should be crass. I trust we will always be sensitive to death’s ability to strip any of us of our certainties. But the quiet acknowledgment of the final nature of death may be significant both pastorally and for mission. In being clear that death has a shocking finality about it, Christians—as people who are committed to resurrection and new life—may be better placed to speak the good news of Christ. One thing we should not be afraid of in our faith tradition is the bleak reality that God incarnate, Jesus Christ, actually died and died horribly. He did not fall asleep or pass over or, to quote George Eliot, “join the choir invisible.” He died, in a vile and appalling way.

Resurrection is predicated on death. This is a powerful message in an age and culture in which technology and market economics have created the illusion that life and growth are almost endless. Growth is taken to be always good—and to be fair, growth is often a sign of life. Yet Jesus invites us to remember that unless a kernel of wheat falls and dies it remains a single seed. Jesus himself models a way of living abundantly that is grounded in the unavoidable reality of death.

Increasingly I read stories of billionaires seeking to cheat death altogether. In a culture where medical technologies have extended life among the wealthy to unprecedented levels, Christianity retains a potent voice on the inescapability of death. Even more powerfully, the figure at the heart of the Christian faith, Jesus Christ, signals that a fulfilled and rich life is not by its nature dependent on its length. At a time when religious faith is often parodied as absurd, childish, and fantastical, there is a profound opportunity to speak to the privilege of individuals and societies that seek to isolate themselves from the facts of human existence.

I know that there is nothing much I can do, as an individual, about the use of passing as a euphemism for death. At the same time, I can think of no greater vocation as a person of faith than to speak honestly about death, trusting in that even deeper reality of God’s resurrection.

Complete Article HERE!

Death Cleaning

— How to Survive an Estate Clean-Out After Loss

Advice from experts including a death doula on processing a home full of items while grieving

By

Organizing and clearing out an entire home is not most people’s idea of a good time. Doing so while grieving compounds that sense of dread and overwhelm. So perhaps it’s a bit of a surprise that The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, Margareta Magnusson’s 2017 book chronicling her approach to ordering an estate in the wake of a loss, was a smash success. Her humorous, accessible guide amassed a cult following among an audience of fans that grew even larger after Peacock released its eight-episode series of the same name last year. But because both the book and the show it inspired tackled an issue that most people will encounter—and one that’s often swept under the proverbial rug—perhaps it’s not all that surprising that consumers found themselves clamoring for more content on post-loss decluttering.

Public meditations on grief and discussions around it seem more easily broached following the COVID pandemic, which spurred a reckoning in how we deal with mourning. The years since 2020 have been characterized by plenty of discourse on grieving, Zoom grief groups, and other bereavement support efforts, opening the floodgates on conversations that might have struck folks as morbid prior but now feel decidedly necessary to have out in the open. Podcasts like Anderson Cooper’s All There Is serve an audience of those looking to reflect on loss and how to live afterward. In cleaning out the New York City home of his late mother, the celebrated designer and socialite Gloria Vanderbilt, Cooper was guided by a number of handwritten notes Vanderbilt left like breadcrumbs to help him along. “These are Daddy’s pyjamas,” read one dispatch on a piece of paper near a pair of satin trousers.

Family portrait of the Coopers as they play on a sofa in their home Southampton Long Island New York March 30 1972....
Family portrait of the Coopers as they play on a sofa in their home, Southampton, Long Island, New York, March 30, 1972. American author and actor Wyatt Emory Cooper and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper sit with their sons, Carter (1965 – 1988) and Anderson Cooper.

Not everyone is given such clear direction in how to sort through a loved one’s dwelling after their passing. AD caught up with some experts on the subject, including a professional organizer, the owner of a liquidation and clean-out service, a death doula, and Magnusson herself, to advise on how to face the inevitable task—which all our pros say can, and should, be put into practice before a loss occurs. “Start before you are too old, or too weak, or get that final diagnosis,” Magnusson tells AD. “The upside is a better, easier life in which you don’t have to worry about the people you leave behind and all your crap they have to go through.”

How do I clear out a house after someone dies?

Both Magnusson and Mark Ferracci, owner of the Central Maryland–based clean-out and liquidation service Sanford & Son Estate Specialists, say that age 60 is the time to start organizing the objects of your estate for those who will someday have to clear it all out.

Allie Shaw, a professional organizer operating in the Greater Toronto area, recommends starting off by taking inventory of all the important items inside the abode, including anything of sentimental value (like photo albums, beloved heirlooms, or official documents) or monetary value (such as jewelry or china). When her own mother was given months to live, she became Shaw’s first client. Over 10 months, Shaw and her mother “had lots of conversations, going through possessions room-by-room and item-by-item,” she says. “It was very cathartic and it was a time in my life that I was so grateful for. She often said, ‘I got more months because we had this time.’”

In conversations about death and estate organizing it may go without saying, but Shaw encourages having formal documentation in place, like a will indicating your wishes for certain belongings. Though the act of preparing a will and even death cleaning an abode while the resident is still alive and well might feel bleak to some people, it’s important to remember that setting things in order can alleviate major stress later down the line. “It is a monumental task and often people think they’re leaving everything behind as a gift, when I’d say most of the time it’s a big burden,” Shaw explains.

Consider what you can manage and when to call in the estate cleaning pros

There’s no rule of thumb to tell whether your particular estate will need a whole team of professionals to clean out. But whether it’s a small apartment or a sprawling mansion, clearing a loved one’s spaces after they’ve died is rarely a one-person job. Particularly for those who value sustainability and cringe at the thought of wasting the beloved items of a family member’s residence, estate clean-out services like Ferracci’s might be the way to go as they’re plugged into the proper channels to help prevent waste. His team is trained to recycle materials, to facilitate the sale of pieces that have value, and to donate items that no longer have a place with the deceased’s family members before resorting to the dumpster.

Death Cleaning How to Survive an Estate CleanOut After Loss

Like a number of estate clean-out services, Ferracci’s process begins with a simple conversation—an informal chat for which he doesn’t charge that takes place in the abode. “I always say the same thing to people: Get the personal stuff out, get the financial-related stuff out, get the family mementos out; things that you want, those are key,” he says of his preliminary discussions with clients. Making sure family members have combed through the residence for items they hold dear so that all that’s left are things they won’t mind parting with is crucial. “Before I come in to do the job, I want to know that all that stuff’s gone and that everybody’s picked through it.”

How much does it cost to hire professionals for estate cleaning? And how long will it take?

The cost of an estate clean-out varies by how large the home is, which determines how big of a crew the service will need and how many days to allot for the project. A typical family home will likely take two to three days for Ferracci’s team to process, and he estimates that 90% of his average clean-outs cost between between $2,500 and $5,000. His team will sometimes purchase items to sell from clients’ estates, which can help offset that cost: “One [clean-out] I just started, I quoted them $4,400. I gave them $800 for the contents and the price was $3,600, and I’ll be there about two and a half days.” Condos and smaller spaces will generally cost less, while hoarding situations as well as larger abodes drive the price tag up. Though it’s not the norm, Ferracci has encountered homes where the bill was as high as $20,000 to clean everything out.

If you’re coming at an estate clean-out from the “gentle” perspective, meaning you have time to get things in order while the resident is still with us, an organizer may be the way to get things going gradually. As Magnusson advises, “death cleaning is for the living.” Shaw says that in her experience, organizers will charge $50 to $100 an hour. The process usually takes place across several sessions of two or three hours each in order to get a sense for the volume and how much accounting there is to do.

How can I deal with the death-cleaning process while grieving?

Getting ahead of organizing and cleaning a home before a loss takes place is ideal, but that’s just not always possible. It’s likely that the majority of people faced with clearing out a loved one’s estate are still in the grieving process. Even when it’s not a full estate but rather a few rooms with the deceased’s items, the emotional weight can be heavy. Magnusson found clearing out her husband’s spaces in their shared home after his death, particularly his clothing, was “the saddest thing I have ever done.”

Death Cleaning How to Survive an Estate CleanOut After Loss

Some mourners seek the services of a death coach or death doula to help them navigate the complex emotions that surface during grieving. The process of estate cleaning, which can be stressful under any circumstances, is particularly difficult after a loss. New York City–based death doula Mangda Sengvanhpheng knows that there’s no official guidebook to navigating loss, but when it comes to sorting through the ephemera of a loved one’s life, it’s helpful to have a group of helpers around: “Whether that is with your family members, your loved ones, friends, doulas, therapists, whoever it is that can become a support team, find those people to help you move through that,” she suggests.

Parsing through the objects of a deceased family member’s home can often make for bitter fighting between relatives, something both Ferracci and Sengvanhpheng have experienced in their work. Whether or not there are fights over which items go to whom or which things should be kept versus which should be tossed, finding difficulty in the process of going through these items can be viewed as a microcosm for grief in general. For certain things from an estate that we simply have no place for, it’s ultimately about acknowledging that love and value and then letting go.

“An object is an object, right? A table is a table. But these things have meaning because we imbue meaning in them,” Sengvanhpheng says. “There are stories in the objects, there are memories in the objects. When we lose people, as irrational as it may feel, there’s a reason for [feeling tied to objects]. We lose someone physically and these items—something tangible from them that we’re holding onto—mean so much.”

Parting with a loved one’s things can feel like a jarring reality check in the wake of a loss. Sengvanhpheng’s work involves trying to reframe that: “Letting go of items can be a form of acceptance,” she says. “If, for example, your sister takes something from your mother’s estate that you wanted, you can acknowledge that and then find ways to accept that this is just the reality. How can we start letting go? We consider how you can connect to your mom in a different way.”

Sometimes, there’s a melancholy beauty about ushering these emotionally charged objects into their next phase and assigning them a new narrative. Grief coach Charlene Lam curated an art show on the experience of going through her mother’s home and the objects she decided to keep and discard. When Shaw was taking inventory of her mother’s estate, she happened upon a beautiful rocking chair that had a long history in the family and was very beloved to her mother. They landed on donating it to the local library so that generations to come might make good use of it. “It’s still there and they love it,” she says.

Delaying the death-cleaning process can end up costing you

For many people in the golden years of their life, Ferracci’s seen enough to recommend downsizing when a large family home no longer serves your needs. He’s met clients who have proclaimed that their parents’ move from a big house to a smaller condo in their twilight years was “the best thing they’d ever done”—giving them ability to travel, save money, and ease the burden of sorting through a massive house for their children when that time came. When elderly homeowners aren’t capable of maintaining their houses, issues like accumulated clutter, mold, rot, and overgrown yards can make for an especially pricey clean-out and can even cause the home’s value to go down.

For those looking to list the family home after clearing it out, delaying on a needed clean-out runs the risk of confronting a more difficult selling market later down the line. “You’re going to continue to do the maintenance and you continue to pay the bills for the house, and the house is vacant, and interest rates can start to go up,” Ferracci says. He’s dealt with clients who struggled to sort through items or found themselves in gridlock with family members about what to do with the estate, ultimately leading them to list the residence many months later for thousands less than if they would have been more efficient in the clean-out process.

Ultimately, your pace is your choice. How to prepare for a loss, or even your own death, is not something AD purports to have all the answers on, but dealing with the items of our lives is manageable with the proper tools, outlook, and support. “We are all dying,” Magnusson says. “This is not morbid. It is just fact. Take care of it.”

Complete Article HERE!

I Love the Beautiful Chaos of a Jewish Funeral

— There is something quite moving about all this grief amongst all this routine.

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It was only relatively recently that I learned that holding funerals within 24 hours was a Jewish custom, and not the general norm. I’ve been extremely lucky in having gone to quite few funerals, and almost all of these have been those of Jewish family members, so it simply didn’t occur to me that we might be doing anything unusual in having them so quickly. Without the understanding that this wasn’t standard practice, I didn’t consider it exceptional — but the impact it has on the process of mourning can be, in my opinion, a significant and unifying one.

In the Torah, we are told that “You shall bury him the same day. His body should not remain all night.” And traditionally, the urgency of the funeral is linked to the importance of returning the body to the earth and allowing the soul to return to God. As a culturally-not-religiously Jewish person, I was unaware of both the scriptural and spiritual reasoning until very recently. I would have placed the emphasis on the emotional reasoning, which argues that the immediate experience of loss, mourning and proximity to death is a deep pain to feel, and one which should not be undergone any longer than absolutely necessary. Now it seems clear to me that it’s more about custom than anything else. Either way, I have come to hold it as an immensely important, beautiful aspect of the Jewish culture around death.

In December, my great-great auntie Marjorie became quite ill and we as a family braced ourselves for an upcoming funeral. She, along with much of my family, lived in Manchester, so in the lead-up to her passing, the London sect of us were on slight tenterhooks in anticipation of journeying up on little notice. In these moments, the banal and the profound are forced to find some kind of harmony. When contemplating loss is simply too vast, logistics take on a special importance.

In some ways, the knowledge that you’re just waiting for a death to occur so that the chain of events can start to unfold can be quite tiring. Maintaining a state of urgency over an extended period of time is logistically and emotionally tricky, and having to be pragmatic in the face of something so sad can feel like an unnecessary added encumbrance. But ultimately, there is no actively good time for a funeral. No one is looking at their diary and finding the perfect date to dedicate to doing something none of us want to do. In some ways, recognizing that the funeral will be hard no matter what, and then allowing it to take precedence over all other commitments, is the best way to allow a loss the appropriate space it deserves in our lives.

When the day arrived, a large portion of it for me was taken up by travel. We woke up to cancelled trains — standard — and then huddled alongside however many other disgruntled passengers at Euston. My mum’s cousin Caroline and I ran at absolute breakneck pace through crowds of people to get seats as soon as the platform was announced. On the drive from the station to the cemetery, we passed innumerable family monuments: the prison to which my uncle was told his parents had been sent in a prank by his cousin, the sandhills where Caroline reported “practically torturing” my mum when they were little, the shop to which it was a very grown up privilege to be allowed to walk to alone. Despite most of my visits to Manchester now being for funerals, the city will always feel full of life. Our memories and our history are part of the fabric of the place, and so many of those who we’ve lost are kept alive in the stories we can’t help but keep telling.

The funeral itself was brief and beautiful. My great-great aunt was a truly incredible person whose innate kindness and protectiveness distinguished her as remarkable to everyone around her. With it all having to come together so quickly, the words people choose take on a special significance: they are candid, and emotional, and cut straight to the core.

And yet, alongside mourning and meaning exists the mundane. People keep being people, and we continue to have to get ourselves from A to B. On the journey back to the station after the funeral, I sat squashed between my uncle and my grandfather in the backseat of my great uncle’s car, and we sat for a short eternity in a gridlock outside my grandma’s primary school, entertained by stories about that time of her life. When we finally got to the station, we caught a train by the skin of our teeth. By holding funerals so quickly, we force our lives to fit into the space around them, and require them to find a way to enmesh themselves into the day to day. There is something quite moving about all this grief amongst all this routine.

Sitting on trains gives you the wonderful gift of time to think. I reflected on my privileged position, experiencing the funeral of someone so beloved as a peripheral mourner, and how this offered another insight into the magic of having a funeral within 24 hours of a death. With this custom, in the direct aftermath of losing someone the people closest to the deceased are immediately wrapped in love. Their family and friends flock to them and make sure they aren’t alone with their grief. The initial experience of living without someone involves being in a room full of people who are there to remember and celebrate them. A funeral within 24 hours catches you just as you fall into the abyss.

And whilst there are undeniable impracticalities, the system manages to account for most. For those who are unable to make it, attending a shiva in the coming days offers them another chance to support and commemorate and mourn for themselves, as well as to contribute to the elongation of the period in which those closest to the deceased are surrounded by care. Whilst the funeral comes quickly, this does not mark the end of the grieving process — rather, it’s the beginning of the talking, processing and feeling. I am grateful that, thanks to Jewish custom, that beginning starts within 24 hours of a death. It’s exactly what we need.

Complete Article HERE!

My dad’s funeral in the Philippines showed me it’s OK to party the pain away

— When my father died suddenly of a heart attack, I was thrust into an unfamiliar world of grieving

Jim Agapito, left, and his father, Simeon Agapito, being mall rats in 2017.

by Jim Agapito

After his father’s sudden death while on vacation in the Philippines, Jim Agapito rushed to his funeral. But when he arrived from Canada, he was thrown into an unfamiliar world where his sombre understanding of mourning was replaced by superstition and festivities.

It took three days to get to my dad’s funeral in the Philippines because of a chaotic string of flights and cancellations: Winnipeg to Vancouver, Vancouver to Tokyo and Tokyo to Manila. When I landed, it took another four-hour drive to my mom’s home in a small, rural area called Jaen, Nueva Ecija.

I was tired and devastated. When I saw the coffin, all I wanted to do was burst into tears. But I couldn’t.

Crying on the coffin is bad luck, I heard in my mind. It’s what I had been told again and again by my Filipino family, who were all intent on observing Filipino customs and superstitions for my dad’s journey from the living to the afterlife

Imagine that. You rush halfway around the world to grieve your father’s death but don’t cry on the coffin because it could curse both of you.

I thought, Rest his soul, Dad is already dead. Who would be getting the bad luck?

I felt torn standing before his coffin, surrounded by family and friends who seemed to be keeping it together. On the inside, I was a wreck, and I just wanted to grieve for my father the only way I knew how. I wanted to cry. I wanted to be sad. I wanted to be alone with my mom and my brother.

But in the Philippines, there’s an unwritten but important rule: No one grieves alone, and it’s the family’s duty to create a happy atmosphere for grieving loved ones. Even if that means karaoke.

A smiling man with shoulder-length hair puts his arms around a smiling woman and a smiling bald man. They’re all standing in a mall.
Agapito, centre, with his mom Yolanda Agapito, left, and dad Simeon Agapito, right, grabbing coffee in 2018 in Winnipeg.

Fulfilling my father’s dream

This push and pull of how to grieve was a shock because it had been 34 years since I’d been to the Philippines. I was born in Canada and visited my parents’ homeland only once when I was nine.

After they retired, my parents split their time each year between the Philippines and Winnipeg. Dad was in the Philippines for Christmas when he suddenly died of a heart attack.

It was my dad’s wish that my older brother and I would explore this country he loved so much. And there I was, fulfilling his dream under the worst circumstances imaginable.

I’ve been exploring my Filipino culture through a podcast I host called Recovering Filipino. I delve into everything from why we as a community love basketball so much to what’s the obsession with sweet spaghetti.

But all of that exploration and learning didn’t quite prepare me for this deep dive into Filipino customs surrounding death.

A different way of grieving

Funeral parlours are expensive in the Philippines and there is no refrigeration for the body.

Instead, my dad’s coffin was placed in the living room of my family’s home. A home that consisted of my entire extended family — Lola (grandma,) three aunts, three uncles, five cousins and their children.

The house is big, but it’s also in a rural environment and a farm. As a city-slicker living in Winnipeg, It wasn’t like any of the Manitoban farms I went to on school trips in grade school. Our family home in the Philippines was an open door. It felt like every cat and dog in the neighbourhood roamed in the house, and goats and chickens roamed the yard. My family had to rearrange their living space based on burial tradition and superstition to accommodate the funeral. People argued about the proper procedures for mourning and how the donation box should be presented (one aunt said it has to be covered in a certain way or it’s bad luck).

Two men dressed in formal wear stand next to a woman. An older woman in a wheelchair is next to the trio. The group is standing next to an open coffin surrounded by white flowers.
Agapito, centre back, with his mother Yolanda, Lola (Epifania Bulaong) and brother Mark Agapito grieving by Simeon’s casket at Yolanda’s home in Jaen, Nueva Ecija, Philippines.

When my extended family gave their condolences and tried to talk to me, it would go in one ear and out the other. It felt like there were too many people surrounding me, and there was an expectation to entertain the guests who came for the funeral. It was a nightmare.

Dad’s funeral also coincided with Christmas. Christmas to Filipinos is like the Super Bowl of holidays. It’s the absolute biggest event of the year. Everyone is celebrating.

I was unprepared for this highly superstitious, party-the-pain-away take on mourning.

After the funeral service, we had a party to celebrate my dad’s life. Filipinos don’t believe the family should be alone and sad; it’s the job of the guests to make sure the family will be OK.

The party atmosphere was hard for me to stomach. I felt guilty for having fun after my dad died. I thought about locking myself in a room and just crying. In fact, I did try doing that at first but it’s something my family wouldn’t let me do.

Instead, they took me to shopping malls, public markets and to eat all the sugar and fried chicken my body could inhale. There was dancing, there was karaoke singing, and they even took me to ride ATVs and hold snakes at an agriculture and off-road park.

Initially, it was uncomfortable and strange to mourn like this, but I soon realized that being surrounded by family in this way actually made the initial grieving process easier.

A man holds a large brown snake around his shoulders and in his arms.
Agapito holds a Burmese python while visiting the Philippines for his dad’s funeral in December 2023.

Even the dead aren’t left alone.

Filipinos believe the body must have company so that the person can go to heaven peacefully. They believe mourners must stay with the body for at least three days so the person’s soul knows they’re dead but they have family to support them on their journey to the afterlife. It’s called the Lamay or wake.

Although many people I met in the Philippines for the funeral were strangers to me, they showed me that my dad always made people feel like they were not alone.

“You’re probably unaware, but your dad was why I could attend college,” one of my cousins told me. He helped pay for that cousin’s tuition for several years.

I heard so many stories like this.

Dad’s body wasn’t cremated with the casket. Initially, this made me angry. It felt like he was being cheated somehow. But then my mom told me, “We didn’t burn the coffin so it could be donated to a family. People here are poor. It’s something your dad would have wanted.”

Several adults and children pose for a group photo in a park. One of the women in the group is holding balloons that say “70.”
Once called a ‘bad Filipino’ by his lola (grandma), Agapito, second from left with the rest of his family, has been on a cultural recovery mission to learn more about his roots.

A different type of loss

I see now that my dad was a guy who loved living life. He liked to have a good time, so celebrating his life with laughter, singing and dancing made sense.

But how do I reconcile that with my understanding of mourning?

Back home in Canada, I often think about the time with my family in the Philippines. They helped me get through a lot of difficult times when the crushing weight of my dad’s death left me paralyzed and speechless. They taught me it’s OK to let loose and have fun.

It’s been hard being back in Canada. I feel so alone. I don’t have the warm and fuzzy security blanket of the family to grab me when I feel sad. But my mom reminds me that all of them, including her, are just a video message away.

Complete Article HERE!