If you think the cost of living in the United States healthcare system is high, wait till you see the cost of dying.

A new report details the direct financial impact of a loved one’s death, as well as the less tangible costs of loss.

The 2023 report on The Cost of Dying was released today from Empathy, a company that helps people manage the logistics and emotional burdens of death. The report includes results from a survey conducted with nearly 1,500 people who had lost an immediate family member in the prior five years.

Overall, the average direct costs related to the death of a loved one can reach $20,000. That’s before factoring lost income from taking time off or healthcare costs required to manage health and mental health symptoms.

On average, survey respondents reported that they paid $3,584 to the funeral home (lower than the 2021 national median cost of $7,848 reported by the National Funeral Directors Association). Burial plots cost respondents an average of $1,841. Smaller expenses, such as catering, officiants, flowers, music, and invitations can add more than $1,700 combined, making the funeral the single biggest expense associated with a loved one’s death.

But the costs don’t end with the funeral. Survey respondents reported paying an average of $4,384 to deal with financial matters, such as hiring accountants and paying bills.

Respondents spent nearly $5,000 on legal matters, including lawyer fees and costs associated with selling off assets. Disposing of real estate can add another $4,000.

Many respondents reported using their own financial resources to pay death-related bills; 42% used their own credit cards or checking accounts and 36% used their savings. Just 14% were able to tap into funds specifically designed for these purposes, such as life insurance or last arrangements insurance.

Rinal Patel, founder of Pennsylvania-based Suburbrealtor, experienced firsthand the costs associated with the death of a loved one.

In February 2022, her 35-year old brother died of a heart attack while he was in Dubai for work. Patel spent more than $4,000 to fly his body back from Dubai and footed the entire bill for his funeral, about $10,000.

“He was my only brother, and I couldn’t let him be buried in a foreign country,” she said.

In addition to direct costs, Patel’s brother’s death also cost her income. As a business owner, Patel missed out on deals while she was away mourning her brother.

“His death cost me a lot financially, emotionally, and psychologically,” Patel said.

Lost work

Death-related costs hit at a time when many people can least afford them.

Nearly all (92%) employed respondents reported taking time off or adjusting their work commitments to manage the experience. For many workers, that costs them money indirectly.

Nearly one-quarter (23%) of respondents reported taking unpaid time off, while about half (51%) took paid time off. Women were more likely to take unpaid time off than men, and half as likely as men (9% vs. 19%) to report feeling satisfied with their employer’s bereavement leave policy.

Empathy’s report says that most U.S. companies offer one to five days of bereavement leave. But most people need more time than that to manage logistics of death, let alone to properly grief.

Jasmine Cobb, a licensed grief and trauma therapist from Texas, was lucky that she could use accrued paid time off when her mother died in 2020 from complications with metastatic breast cancer.

Though her employer at the time was supportive, Cobb noted the mismatch between most employer bereavement policies and employee needs.

“Generous bereavement is an oxymoron and is generally non-existent,” she said. “The most I’ve heard of companies extending is about two to three days max, which tends to be incongruent when experiencing a profound and significant loss.”

The health costs of death

In addition to significant financial impact, 93% of survey respondents reported having experienced at least one health symptom as a consequence of their loss. A majority of respondents experienced at least two symptoms and 34% had four or more symptoms for more than a few months.

Persistent symptoms included anxiety, reported by nearly half (46%) of respondents. Other symptoms included disrupted sleep (38%), weight loss or gain (33%), irritability or anger (30%), and memory impairment (30%).

Women were more likely than men to experience symptoms for a year or longer. For example, 23% of women and just 12% of men reported experiencing anxiety for more than a year. Women were twice as likely as men to experience prolonged sleep disruptions (16% compared to 8%) and weight gain or loss (14% vs. 7%). One in ten (11%) women reported persistent panic attacks compared with 6% of men.

Tennessee-based Brittany Nicole Mendez, 27, a marketing officer at FloridaPanhandle.com, still experiences symptoms associated with loss, seven years after the death of her brother.

Mendez, then 20, was visiting her family in San Francisco for Christmas when she learned her 22-year old brother had been hit by a car while walking on a pedestrian crosswalk. He died the next day.

Though the direct financial burden fell to her parents, who started a GoFundMe to help with the unexpected funeral costs, Mendez didn’t get paid for the extra weeks she spent in California with her family.

The real cost to Mendez has come in the form of lasting mental health challenges.

“I never experienced true anxiety, panic attacks, or depression until after he passed away,” she said.

After her brother’s death, Mendez had difficulty eating and sleeping. She still suffers from extreme panic attacks caused by the fear that she or a loved one will lose their life unexpectedly.

Danielle Jones, 38, of Tampa, Florida, also experiences lingering health impacts of her mother’s death from heart failure in 2021. Jones’ mother died on her 57^th birthday.

Jones paid for everything out of pocket, including travel and the process to clear out her mother’s house. She minimized expenses by replacing a funeral with visitation with specific friends and family. Her cousin, who worked for a funeral home, helped out by paying for her mother to be cremated.

But the nonmonetary costs have taken a toll on Jones.

“Her death rocked my world,” she said. “It was hard to go back to work. I cried between work calls.”

Jones started seeing a therapist, but the therapist was disorganized because she herself had just had a death in her own family.

“I quit seeing her,” Jones said. “I couldn’t handle the missed appointments.”

Jones said there were many nights when she could not sleep through the night. She said she only ate if someone reminded her to. Cooking, grocery shopping, and taking walks all reminded Jones of her mother. They would speak daily during these routine activities.

“I couldn’t walk int my kitchen because it made me think of her,” she said. “It was hard to get back to my life as I once knew it.”

Though Jones is a certified nutritionist and wellness strategist who writes about her experience with grief, she said she’s gained 20 pounds since her mother’s death. She blames the emotional stress of her grief.

It may be no wonder that the effects of death can last so long. The process of managing a death can take a lot longer than expected. Resolving all the financial matters associated with a loved one’s death took respondents about a year on average. They spent an average of 20 hours per week dealing with these issues. More than half (62%) said that these issues took longer to complete than they had expected.

Planning can offset the direct and indirect costs of death. Not only does it relieve financial burdens if some expenses have been prepaid, but people whose loved ones pre-planned their funerals reported missing less work and experiencing less anxiety, sleep disruption, and memory impairment. Pre-planning also reduced the likelihood that people would have trouble enjoying everyday activities after they lost their loved one.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

February 1, 2023February 1, 2023

Comparing green funeral options

— From composting to natural burial to water cremation

Throwing a funeral that leaves Earth a bit better off, maybe

By Michael J. Coren

I’m standing at the summit of Fernwood Cemetery just outside San Francisco. Live oaks sprout from the hills like leafy castles. A red-tailed hawk turns circles in the sky above me. And below me, hundreds of bodies are slowly returning to the earth. This vista takes in one of the largest natural burial sites in California. Every person here (or their loved ones) decided that their last act should be as green as possible.

My own mother died in July with no instructions on how she wanted to be laid to rest. My sister and I faced wrenching weeks planning her funeral. We had to navigate a disorienting “death care” marketplace, as the industry is called. I faced the unenviable task of sorting through options such as Titan Series Steel Casket, Bahama Blue Granite Cross Grave Markers and something called the Athena Urn Vault. These were only the accessories. Securing a burial plot in my area — even with just a shroud and no headstone — could cost $15,000.

Overwhelmed, my family finally chose a simple cremation, scattering my mother’s ashes in a small park under a Monterey pine. Cremation was not the most climate-friendly choice, but it felt like the best we could do in the crush of the moment.

Dying in modern America has never presented so many difficult (or expensive) choices. Tradition once circumscribed us. In the 20th century, 95 percent of Americans had one kind of death ritual: embalming and then viewing the body in a funeral setting, says Shannon Dawdy, a University of Chicago anthropologist.

But a distinct shift is underway in how we approach death. More than half of Americans are seeking greener funerals, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, and the percentage is rising. The funeral industry is responding: You can now be entombed in a coral reef. Donated to science. Freeze-dried and shattered into thousands of pieces. Set adrift in an ice urn. “Purified” by mushroom suits. Or, in a return to the past, simply buried in your backyard.

A snow-covered grave at Herland Forest, a natural burial cemetery in Wahkiacus, Wash., on Saturday.

What makes a funeral green? I found lots of claims — and a few studies — about the things that make a meaningful difference for the environment. The search also raised some discomforting questions: Just how open was I, for example, to dissolving my body in a vat of lye? (I’m in. I think.)

So I’ve marshaled the best available evidence to help you make a more informed decision for yourself, or someone else. The most important step, no matter what you choose, is just to start. In the United States, only 24 percent of Americans plan their own funeral. That leaves it up to your loved ones during one of the most difficult times in their lives.

Here’s your chance to decide.

Casket burial vs. cremation

For Jacquelyn Day Hovakimian, 35, a librarian in Lakewood, Calif., her funeral was too much to face. She wanted her death to leave the world a bit better, “but every time I initially tried to look into it, I got too emotional,” she said. “Oh God, death. But the more I faced it, it took away the taboo and emotions, and I could make a logical and unbiased decision for myself.”

She eliminated the idea of cremation or an elaborate coffin burial. While these account for 94 percent of all funerals in the United States, they are also the worst for the environment. Each year, cemeteries in the United States use 64,000 tons of steel and 1.6 million tons of concrete — enough to rebuild the Golden Gate Bridge — in addition to more than 4 million gallons of embalming fluid, according to the nonprofit Green Burial Council.

Each cremation, which incinerates bodies with propane torches, emits greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to driving 500 miles in a car. Both methods are relatively new, having displaced millennia-old traditions of simple shrouds or pine coffins in just the past century or so.

“The modern American way of death is really a post-Civil War phenomenon,” says David Sloane, an urban planning professor at the University of Southern California and author of the book Is the Cemetery Dead? “And it’s clear modern funerals are the worst environmental polluter by far.”

Human composting

Next, Hovakimian looked into human composting. This method places human remains into a steel vessel with nothing more than water, heat, mulch and preexisting microbes, accelerating natural decomposition. After about 45 days (and some turning of the vessel), the body becomes a cubic yard of nutrient-rich soil and bones.

Tom Harries, the founder of Earth Funeral, an Auburn, Wash.-based firm offering the service, says “soil transformation” has been done for all ages, from fetuses to centenarians. The soil is returned to loved ones or spread across reforested land on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, where soil and trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air.

A “cradle” is used for natural organic reduction at Herland Forest.

The environmental impact is negligible, consuming about 40 gallons of water and a modest amount of electricity. Human composting is already legal in California, Washington, Oregon, Vermont and Colorado, as well as for anyone willing to ship a body to those states.

Natural burial

Natural or green burials account for a tiny but growing share of all funerals in the United States. Bodies are buried in a shroud or biodegradable caskets made of wood, bamboo or cardboard. No embalming, grave liners or conspicuous headstones are allowed.

Some cemeteries offering green burials may protect and restore wildlife habitat, while others, such as Life After Life in Brooklyn, plan to turn industrial brownfields and urban sites into cemeteries serving local communities with new parks. Natural burials, like human composting, have minimal environmental impact — perhaps even positive. The Green Burial Council estimates the process sequesters 25 pounds of carbon dioxide while avoiding energy-intensive mowing, fertilizing and watering.

Walt Patrick, senior steward of Herland Forest, visits his own grave at the natural burial site. Patrick placed a stone from his time in Nevada to mark the site.

There’s no single standard for natural burials, but at least 368 cemeteries offer them in the United States, while some state organizations will help you plan a burial on your property. You can also hire someone like Elizabeth Fournier, known as the “Green Reaper,” an independent undertaker in Oregon and author of the Green Burial Guidebook.

Water cremation (alkaline hydrolysis)

None of these options worked for Hovakimian. Human composting wasn’t available in her state at the time, and she felt a burial plot, however green, would make it hard for her family to “let go.”

Instead, she picked a process called alkaline hydrolysis, or water cremation, through the California-based company Pisces. The technique, first used by funeral homes around 2011 and legal in about 28 states, immerses bodies in a vat of hot, highly alkaline water (95 percent water, 5 percent potassium hydroxide). The soft tissues dissolve within a few hours. The resulting tea-colored liquid — a sterile mix of salts, sugars and amino acids unwound from DNA — is safe to pour onto the ground as fertilizer, or down the drain. As in conventional cremations, the bones are ground up into a fine powder.

The roughly four-hour process uses a modest amount of electricity and water (about 400 gallons). While a bit more expensive than conventional cremations, greenhouse gas emissions from the process are negligible.

For Hovakimian, choosing water cremation “was incredibly easy.”

“I’d rather put less crap in the air, and maybe leave the place a little better for the future,” says the librarian, whose family came around to the idea after initial resistance. “It also just seems a little nicer than being set on fire.”

Measuring the impact of a green funeral

How can you pick what’s right for you? Consider your culture and whether you want something traditional — knowing today’s “traditional” funerals date back, at most, to just after the Civil War, says Sloane.

For perspective, consider the work of Dutch sustainability researcher Elisabeth Keijzer. She has tabulated the environmental impact of everything from the cotton lining in coffins to the emissions from driving a hearse. Not all emissions, or effects, are direct. Composting and alkaline hydrolysis do not directly emit much greenhouse gas, but building the facilities where they take place consumes significant energy.

Given these differences between funerals (and countries), it was hard to pin down exact numbers for each process. But in a 2017 study, Keijzer found a clear pattern: Burials and cremations had the largest impact, particularly on the climate, while options such as human composting or green burials were much lower, if not dramatically different from one another.

Ultimately, she questioned the focus on funerals entirely. Compared to other activities during a person’s lifetime, the climate change impact of a funeral is “very small,” she wrote. The most carbon-intensive conventional burial represents just over 0.03 percent of the average Dutch citizen’s lifetime emissions. In the United States, where per capita emissions are about twice as high, this share would probably be even lower.

Ultimately, one eco-friendly burial will not outweigh a lifetime of emissions. So choose a green funeral, if you wish. But from a climate perspective, the way you live will always eclipse what happens after you die.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

January 29, 2023January 29, 2023

Financial planning tips for every family caregiver

By Rebecca Holcomb

Taking care of family in the best of times can be difficult. Some estimates claim 18.2% of the US adult population, or more than 43 million Americans provide unpaid in-home care for an adult relative. The numbers go higher as the cared for get older or when Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are taken into account.

Caring for an ailing family member or one at the end of life can be daunting. Exhaustion, an endless routine, and a constant need to be ready can drain even the healthiest caregiver. There have not been a lot of studies on what many are calling ‘caregiver syndrome.’ However, a recent survey found that 70% of all caregivers in retirement age, die before the person they are caring for.

The mental, physical and spiritual strain on the body can be so critical that a caregiver’s life can drain away while trying their best to care for their loved one.

With this in mind, here are some tips to help family caregivers do the near impossible.

Routine Conversation

When a loved one gets sick and needs long-term care, dealing with the ramifications usually falls on the next of kin. If the person is married, it’s their spouse. Or, in the case of elderly parents, it might be a child. A sibling might step in with a brother or sister who gets sick.

End-of-life choices and financial decisions can significantly impact your health and the health of those you care for.

Some of the topics that need to be discussed repeatedly as circumstances change are:

What part do you want the caregiver to play in tending to your financial assets

? If you don’t want them to play a role in your finances, who will facilitate those decisions?
Where do you keep your estate documents? Have they been updated to reflect your current last wishes?
If you are sick and need long-term care, how can the caregiver make you most comfortable? What resources are available to help ensure you’re well taken care of?
How do you want to be remembered?

If an illness runs long, the person being cared for may change their minds repeatedly on the above questions, especially if cognitive decline is a factor.

Dementia and Other Cognitive Issues

One area that can be prevalent in long-term care is the incidence of cognitive decline. This is the gradual deterioration of mental faculties due to neurological or physiological disturbances.

Dealing with these situations can be arduous as they often take years to take full effect. Getting important issues taken care of beforehand is essential to ensuring your loved ones get the care they need.

Some factors to consider if a loved one is showing signs of cognitive decline are:

1. Financial Power of Attorney (POA): Ensuring that someone can make medical and financial decisions for your loved one is crucial to their end-of-life care. In cases of cognitive decline that doesn’t respond to medication, a loved one’s ability to choose wisely for themselves may suddenly disappear. If this happens and a POA isn’t already in place, you’ll have to file a conservatorship instead.

2. Medicaid/Medicare : Medicaid is a government medical and dental insurance program for low-income families. Medicare is a government insurance program for individuals aged 65 and older. If your loved one qualifies for one or both of these programs, they can significantly impact the financial toll that long-term care can take on your loved one’s assets. Apply for them as soon as you think your loved one might qualify.

3. Alternatives to state-led programs: If your loved one doesn’t qualify for Medicaid, paying for long-term care can be expensive. Look for ways to cut those costs down.

Hire a part-time caregiver
Hire a family member
Ask your loved one’s doctor to prescribe a nurse
Take advantage of technology and community resources

Scheduled Breaks

One area that caregivers often overlook is their own mental and physical health needs. Even if your loved one has everything in order, managing it can take a toll. Scheduling routine breaks for yourself is essential to ensure you stay healthy and happy despite caring for an ill family member.

Some ways you can make sure you and your loved one are cared for are as follows:

Schedule a CNA or Nurse: Two to three times a week, allow for a medical professional to take over the job you usually tend to. A nurse or CNA ensures your loved one is cared for (if they are at home) and allows you to attend to other errands or take a break.

Involve a trusted family member: Enlisting help from a sibling or other family member can give you a much-needed reprieve. This once-a-week break (or more) is crucial to keeping your mental health intact.
Transition to Assisted Living: Despite most people not wanting to put their loved one into a facility, sometimes a transition to assisted living can help ease the pressure of constant, 24/7 care.

No matter how you handle it, scheduling time to rejuvenate can help ensure you are around during your loved one’s last years.

Dealing With Death

No matter how long your loved one is cared for, death is the great equalizer. Planning a funeral when a loved one has passed away can be overwhelming, especially considering most people only plan one or two funerals during their lifetime.

Taking time to grieve is critical to ensuring wise decisions are made concerning the funeral and aftercare for your loved one’s estate. Before making any choices about the funeral, read over your loved one’s legal documents, including their last will and testament. Doing so will give you time to understand and ensure your loved one’s final wishes are considered.

Once you have those in place and the funeral is over, the next step is dealing with their estate. This situation can be overwhelming, especially if their legal documentation isn’t complete or they have a large estate to distribute.

When partitioning your loved one’s estate, have their legal documentation handy to ensure you’re giving the right part of the estate to the right person. 35% of Americans say they’ve experienced family conflict over an estate that was mishandled or didn’t have an estate plan set up ahead of time.

Considering these situations can help family caregivers ensure they have a much easier time dealing with end-of-life care for loved ones and to deal wisely with estate planning issues that may arise after a loved one dies.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

January 28, 2023January 28, 2023

How different cultures deal with grief and mourning

A group of colourfully dressed women mourning a death in India.

By John Frederick Wilson

Grief is a universal emotion. It’s something we all feel, no matter where we come from or what we’ve been through. Grief comes for us all and as humans who form close relationships with other people, it’s hard to avoid.

Studies of grieving brains – be it scans of the brain regions which process grief, or measures of the stress hormone cortisol that is released in grief – show no differences in relation to race, age or religion. People of all cultures grieve; we all feel sorrow, loss, and despair. We just do it – and show it – in different ways.

James Averill, a US professor of psychology, has compared this to sexual feelings which, like grief, are biologically driven but expressed in elaborately different social contexts.

Here are several examples that demonstrate how grief and mourning can look very different depending on where you live and come from.

1. Collective grief is common

When it comes to grieving in the west, the focus is often placed on the individual. People talk about their personal grief, and counselling is usually arranged for just one person – even support groups are attended by individual members. But the reality is that the family – or for many Indigenous people, the tribe – grieves collectively, and in some cultures this is more pronounced than others.

In Hindu families in India, for example, relatives and friends come together to support the immediate family in an elaborate 13-day ritual. A widow ceases to be the head of the household and her place is taken by the wife of her oldest son.

Typical of Native American culture, the Lakota tribe elders use the phrase “mitakuye oyasin”, meaning “we are all related”. The death of anyone in the tribe is felt by all.

Scrolls with names in Chinese script to honour dead relatives.

In Tibet, the Buddhist mourning period following a funeral lasts 49 days. During this time the family gathers to make clay figures and prayer flags, allowing for a collective expression of grief.

Collective grief is also the norm in traditional Chinese culture, but here the family also makes collective decisions – which sometimes exclude the dying person. This was seen in the 2019 film The Farewell, which was based on director and writer Lulu Wong’s real life. In the film, a Chinese family discovers their grandmother has only a short time left to live and decides to keep her in the dark, scheduling a wedding in order to gather before she dies.

2. Grieving times vary by culture

After a bereavement, a steady return to normal functioning can typically take two or more years. Experts no longer talk of “moving on”, but instead see grief as a way of adapting to loss while forming a continuing bond with the lost loved one. But again, this varies from culture to culture.

In Bali, Indonesia, mourning is brief and tearfulness is discouraged. If family members do cry, tears must not fall on the body as this is thought to give the person a bad place in heaven. To cry for too long is thought to invoke malevolent spirits and encumber the dead person’s soul with unhappiness.

People walking along road in colourful clothing. — Traditional funeral and cremation ceremony in Ubud in Bali, Indonesia.

In Egypt, tearfully grieving after seven years would still be seen as healthy and normal – whereas in the US this would be considered a disorder. Indeed, in the west, intense grief exceeding 12 months is labelled “prolonged grief disorder”.

3. People like to visit the body

The way people interact with the dead body also differs culturally. For example, between the death and the funeral, the Toraja people on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, treat their relative as if they were ill rather than dead, by bringing them food and keeping them company.

Women Catholic devotees wearing traditional mourning dress.

Europe has its own customs. In the UK until the mid-20th century, along the Yorkshire coast, the lying-out of the body was done by women of the village. Friends and family would come to view the deceased, pay their respects, and recall memories of the person. This practice continues in some countries.

In Italy, for example, a temporary refrigerated coffin is delivered to the family home so people can bring flowers and pay their respects in the immediate aftermath of the death.

4. Signs from above

In the UK, some people believe that white feathers are a message from heaven, though this is often dismissed as childlike magical thinking. But in many African societies, spiritual connection to the deceased is considered normal and very real.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the traditional belief is that the dead become spirits but remain in the living world on Earth. They are thought of as the living dead. The spirit may appear in dreams in their human form.

Voodoo altars representing the spirits of the dead people. — Voodoo altars representing the spirits of the dead people in Benin, West Africa.

5. Sending on the spirit

The Māori people indigenous to New Zealand set aside time to grieve and mourn. They perform rites for the dead in a process called “tangihanga”. First, rituals send on the spirit, then the body is prepared by an undertaker, often helped by family members. The body returns to the family home for the family to reminisce in celebration.

Mourners with wreaths on their heads. — Throughout the tangihanga, mourners dress in black and wreath their heads in kawakawa leaves.

Elaborate rituals follow, including dances and songs and finally a farewell speech. Traditional artefacts including clothes, weapons and jewellery are displayed. After the funeral, there is a ritual cleansing of the deceased’s house and feasting, before an eventual unveiling of the headstone.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

January 18, 2023

Want A Viking Funeral?

— Only State That Allows It Is Colorado

celtic, vikings, saxons, native americans, slavics…

By Mark Heinz

There’s a slim chance you legally shuffle off this mortal coil legally with as much flair as Darth Vader in “Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi,” but there’s no way you’ll get to depart this world like King Arthur in “First Knight.”

In the former film, the deceased Sith lord, still in his full black armor, is set ablaze atop a funeral pyre on land. In the latter, the body of the mythical king of Camelot is pushed out to sea in on a floating pyre, then one of his knights sets the vessel ablaze with a flaming arrow.

It’s illegal to burn a body in a floating boat anywhere in the U.S., and a single town in Colorado is the only place in the country where you can legally burn a corpse on a dry-land funeral pyres.

No Wyoming Demand

The popular conception of what are commonly called “Viking” funerals – a flaming longship – aren’t historically accurate anyway, said Joe E. Pray of Pray Funeral Home in Charlotte, Michigan.

“They (Vikings) were more likely to drag the boat ashore and burn it on dry land with the chieftain’s body and his possessions inside, or just bury the entire boat without setting it on fire,” Pray told Cowboy State Daily.

He and his family offer unusual or themed funerals.

And Wyomingites don’t seem interested in Viking funerals, regardless of whether they’re historically accurate or more fanciful, Joey Casada told Cowboy State Daily. He’s the head of the Wyoming Funeral Directors Association and funeral director at Jacoby Funeral Home in Rawlins.

“We haven’t heard of any requests for Viking funerals, open funeral pyres, the human composting or any of those sorts of things,” he said. “Most folks in Wyoming are apparently OK with the standard methods of cremation or burial in a casket.”

Pyres Offered In One Colorado Town

In the United States, open-air cremation is legal only in Crestone, Colorado, according to the US Funerals Online blog. However, only a handful of such pyre services are allowed each year, and they’re exclusively for Crestone residents.

And people might want to think twice about open-air cremation, Pray said.

“I’ve seen it, and it’s actually a gruesome process,” he said. “It’s probably not something I’d want to watch happen to a loved one.”

Original ‘Stairway To Heaven’

Pray said he learned about Viking burial practices during a trip to Norway – and the real thing didn’t match most people’s imaginations.

Contrary to popular belief, the mighty Northmen didn’t honor their dead by setting longships with bodies in them ablaze upon the fjords, he said.

Instead, when a Viking of prominence died, his body and possessions – sometimes including horses and livestock – were placed inside his grounded longship.

“They included all the stuff they figured the deceased would need for his journey to Valhalla,” Pray said.

Norse historians claim that in at least one instance, a deceased chieftain’s concubines were slain so that they, too, could accompany him.

Oftentimes, the entire thing was buried, Pray said.

“There still are some of those burial mounds around Norway,” he said.

In other instances, the ship was burned ashore.

“The smoke from the funeral pyre was called the ‘stairway to heaven,’ so they (Vikings) came up with that long before Led Zepplin did,” Pray said.

It Wouldn’t Have Worked Anyway

Even if Vikings had wanted to burn their dead in floating longships, it wouldn’t have worked, Pray said.

“A boat on the water is just going to burn to the waterline and then stop burning,” he said. “We’ve seen that here on Lake Michigan when some drunk people accidently set their boat on fire. If we know that’s what happens, then the Vikings probably knew that too.”

For those who really want at least a facsimile of Viking honors, Pray said his funeral home offers burial or cremation vessels “that are shaped like a Viking ship.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

January 15, 2023January 14, 2023

Preparing Jewish bodies for burial, an artist finds inspiration

‘I could have painted landscapes,’ says Karen Benioff Friedman. Instead, she’s portraying the rituals around death.

Angels of Mercy Embrace the Dead, 2023, oil on canvasboard.© 2023 Karen Benioff Friedman.

By Stewart Ain

When a Berkeley rabbi in 2004 announced that he wanted to form a chevra kadisha, Hebrew for a group that cares for the dead before burial, an artist in his congregation signed herself up.

Karen Benioff Friedman had a mostly secular upbringing, and hadn’t known much about Jewish burial societies, but she knew she wanted to be a part of one.

“What I found compelling is the idea that we never leave the dead alone,” she said.

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Thresholds: Jewish Rituals of Death and Mourning – Placing the Metah into the Casket, 2019, oil on canvas. © 2023 Karen Benioff Friedman.

Ten years later, while Friedman was studying human anatomy and classical realism at an Oakland art school, she learned of 18th century paintings of Prague’s chevra kadisha. They depicted tahara, the rituals of the burial society.

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Thresholds – Jewish Rituals of Death and Mourning – Tying the Avnet, 2023, oil on canvas. © 2023 Karen Benioff Friedman.

As part of these rituals, bodies are placed in a white shroud before they are lowered into a casket. Coincidentally, Friedman had been painting images of shrouded figures. Seeing the Prague paintings made her think that tahara could be her subject too.

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Tahara, 2021, graphite on paper. © 2023 Karen Benioff Friedman.

“I could have painted landscapes or pets, but this is what really moved me,” said Friedman.

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Taharah: Pouring the Second Bucket, 2017, oil on canvas. © 2023 Karen Benioff Friedman.

Since then, Friedman, now 59, has drawn, painted and etched more than 150 images of tahara, each a window into a ritual so private that many Jews have little idea what it looks like. Those who perform tahara wash the body, and sit by it through the night, reciting prayers and psalms.

In her paintings, gauzy figures, some enveloped in light, attend lovingly to the dead, cradling their heads and pouring water over their bodies. The mood is somber, despite the daubs of bright blue she often uses for the aprons of the women of the chevra kadisha.

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Thresholds, Attending Grandmother’s Passing, 2020, charcoal on paper. © 2023 Karen Benioff Friedman.

Tahara calls for men to care for men and women for women, so Friedman’s subjects are mostly female, because, she said, that is what she knows from her own participation.

Respecting tahara, which means “purification,” Friedman would never try to draw or take photographs of the deceased. But she didn’t work solely from memory either. She hired models to impersonate both the living and the dead. One model did a “pretend tahara while another pretended to be a body that was dressed in a shroud,” she said. She worked from the photographs she took of them.

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Angels of Mercy Embrace The Dead, 2019, charcoal on paper. © 2023 Karen Benioff Friedman.

Friedman paints in oils and makes monotypes, a form of printmaking. All her drawings are in charcoal.

Many of her works depict angels. “One of the main pieces of liturgy we talk about is the one about the angels of mercy who embrace the metah — the female body,” Friedman said. “Angels come up a lot, including standing outside the gates of heaven. I love the concept of the angels.”

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Angel of Death Holding an Infant, 2022, monotype on silk. © 2023 Karen Benioff Friedman.

Ultimately, she said, she wants her works to teach about the mostly hidden work of the chevra kadisha, and its commitment to respect the dead, no matter who has died.

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Shmira (Guarding the Dead), 2019, oil on canvas. © 2023 Karen Benioff Friedman.

“We are all equal in death,” she said. “We all wear the same thing and are buried the same.”

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A Soul, 2023, monotype. © 2023 Karen Benioff Friedman.

An exhibit of Friedman’s work will open on Feb. 5 at San Francisco’s Sinai Memorial Chapel and run through March 19.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

January 13, 2023January 12, 2023

8 Caring Sympathy Messages

— What To Say When There Are No Words

Words of kindness can have a powerful impact.

By Samantha Maron

When it comes to death and grief, finding the right words to express the deepest sympathy can be difficult. Loss is a natural part of life, but it often leaves us feeling adrift, unsure, and afraid of saying the wrong thing to a person going through an immensely difficult time. The truth is that every person responds to loss differently. While some grieve in private, others prefer the physical presence of friends and loved ones. Whatever the case, sending a sympathy card (even if the words aren’t perfect) to let them know they’re on your mind is important. Below are sympathy messages and words of comfort to offer in a time of need.

Condolence Messages To Write in a Sympathy Card

There are several important things to keep in mind when writing a sympathy note. Two of these are the recipient and the circumstances. For some, the right approach is a message that will make them smile (or even laugh), and provide a brief respite from their grieving process. For others, a spiritual quote or condolence can show solidarity at a sad time that’s often accompanied by loneliness and isolation. Personalization is important, so be sure to customize your sympathy card messages for a family member or close friend according to their situation and your relationship to them. Here are ideas to get you started.

1. I’m So Sorry for Your Loss

When you’re just not sure what to say, don’t be afraid to say something simple, like “I’m sorry for your loss” or “I’m thinking of you in this heartbreaking time.” Writing this in your sympathy card is the clearest way to show love and support. Don’t avoid sending condolences because you’re worried about coming up with the perfect words. (Really, the only words to avoid are “I know how you feel,” which centers you instead of focusing all attention and support on the grieving person.) “I’m so sorry for your loss” can be an opening that allows your friend to share their sadness, or a simple phrase that signals caring thoughts and heartfelt sympathy.

2. I Remember When

One way to add something special to a condolence card is to share happy memories of the person who has passed. This may be a memory of a time they did or said something light and humorous, which can help to give the grieving family some joy on a difficult day. It may also be a memory of a lesson or special message they passed down to your family, like encouragement to pursue a project or support during a difficult time of your own. Memories are incredibly personal, but they also show the family that their loved one had a positive influence on people and will be well-remembered by many.

3. What an Amazing Person

There are other ways — apart from or in addition to sharing a memory — to pay homage to the person who has passed. Were they particularly caring or loving? Did they always bake something special to welcome newcomers to the office or the neighborhood? Could they make everyone laugh? Consider the impact the loved one had on those around them. By referencing specific traits or behaviors, you’re telling the grieving family that you saw the gifts their loved one shared with the world, and that you appreciated them for it. Doing this shows the aggrieved that the legacy of their loved one will live on.

4. A Spiritual Reference

For many, spiritual references are a useful way to navigate loss, especially in initial stages of grief. It’s important, however, to respect the grieving person’s faith — or lack thereof — before referencing God. Religion and spirituality are deeply personal, and referencing them may not always be appropriate. When it is appropriate, consider quoting spiritual texts or beloved hymns. Avoid messages that suggest the loss is part of a larger plan — for example, “Everything happens for a reason,” or “God makes no mistakes” — as these diminish the loss by implying that it’s for a higher purpose. Instead, reference spirituality and messages of peace and love in a way that supports the grieving family by acknowledging the depth of their loss.

5. Sending Love to Your Family in a Time of Sorrow

If you didn’t know the individual who passed, but you do know members of the family, consider writing a condolence card to the grieving person rather than in memory of the deceased. This may reference their influence, such as how they raised such wonderful children, but you can avoid speaking of the deceased person entirely if you don’t feel comfortable. Simply writing heartfelt condolences to the grieving family of the deceased is often enough to show that you care without overstepping.

6. A Poem or Quote for Comfort in a Challenging Time

We don’t always have to find the perfect words ourselves. Loss is a universal experience and has been written about and spoken of in many ways throughout generations. It may be useful to share a quote or a few lines of a poem that you think your loved one will appreciate and perhaps find peace in. When it comes to poems and quotes about loss, you can tailor the writing to the specific individual you’re sharing it with. In some circumstances, it may have religious or spiritual elements. In others, it may be humorous or very serious. If the deceased or someone in the family had a particular love for one writer or singer, it might be special to share a line from them as an homage. Taking the time to pick out a quote they will really appreciate will show the family or your loved one just how much you care.

7. They Left an Impact and Fond Memories

After a loss, we often grieve the missed opportunities and moments our loved one could have shared with us before their passing. Speaking to their impact can ameliorate some of that pain. This could mean referencing the wonderful way they raised their children, speaking to their community fundraising, or sharing a time they helped you navigate a challenge. Knowing their loved one leaves a lasting legacy behind can bring great comfort to the deceased family.

8. A Promise of Help

While sympathy messages and deepest condolences are a wonderful way to support a family or coworker emotionally, logistical needs must also be met. Of all the gestures, tokens, and gift ideas, availing yourself to provide a service during a time of loss is always appreciated. This is especially true if the grieving family has elderly relatives or small children. A promise of help should be intentional and specific so that there is no undue burden on the family to pick up the phone and ask. Rather, you want to give the family the tools and resources they need to care for themselves during loss. That may be gift cards to local restaurants or maid services for the home, or even babysitting support so that they can make arrangements. Taking a few simple tasks off their mind can make a big difference.

Meaningful Messages and Sincere Condolences

When it comes to words of sympathy, there are many ways to share love and comfort at a hard time. The simple act of sending a sympathy card is a welcome show of support for the grieving family.

Depending on your relationship with the deceased and their family, you can further personalize your sympathy message by sharing loving memories, messages of love and comfort, and even quotes or song lyrics. Another way to show up for loved ones during times of loss is with the offer of support and help. Just be sure to take care of the planning so that your offer doesn’t add to their burden. Loss is never easy, but family, friends, and the right words can help us to navigate loss.

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