Tag: After Death

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After a loved one dies, red tape adds to the grief

Bureaucratic delays and paperwork are frustrating, exhausting, emotionally crushing — and often unavoidable

by Allison Engel

In quick succession last spring, my family experienced three wrenching deaths: My brother-in-law died of a late-diagnosed cancer, my husband, Scott, died of a different late-diagnosed cancer and my mother died at age 100.

The last thing you want to deal with when you’re wrapped up in grief is red tape. It’s frustrating and exhausting and emotionally crushing. And yet it is unavoidable.

My family thought our financial affairs were organized. We had wills and beneficiaries were listed there and on all financial accounts. Many people don’t do that, which makes the post-death red tape so much worse. But even so, we’ve endured months of maddening experiences with banks, insurance companies, employers and the Social Security Administration — among others.

Here are a few of the most aggravating roadblocks:

Face recognition, voice recognition and fingerprint recognition speed up access when someone’s alive but present tremendous barriers for survivors trying to wind down accounts. When I sign in to my late husband Scott’s password manager and investment accounts, access codes are sent to his phone. Despite many tries, I find I cannot change that phone number. This means keeping Scott’s phone active, a needless expense.

Credit card mix-ups

If you think you and your spouse share a credit card, because each of you has a card with your name on it and the same account number, guess again. That card belongs only to the person who applied for the account. Credit card companies are alerted to a death quickly by the Social Security Administration, and will freeze a survivor’s ability to view the account online. Providing a paper statement seems logical, but our bank’s representative told me, “Once you’ve opted to get online statements, our policy is you cannot go back to paper statements.” It took six full months of begging to the bank’s “Deceased Management Team” (actual name) to be mailed statements for the months following Scott’s death. And it wasn’t easy to cancel some recurring charges.

At Best Buy, a customer service representative said I had to take a death certificate to a Best Buy store to cancel a Geek Squad subscription. I considered dressing in black with a veil but went dressed normally, with death certificate in hand, and got the refund.

Personal visits are discouraged

When your frustration level rises after marathon sessions on hold, you might be tempted to visit the bank or insurance office in person. Don’t. At one bank, an employee would not make an address change when I arrived, and referred me to the financial institution’s website.

I visited a Social Security office in person twice to try to change the address where Scott’s post-death Medicare bills were sent since I had moved — and was now paying those bills. An address change could not be done in person after a death, I was told; use his online account. But it is the one account not in his password manager and it has a unique username I don’t know. I hope his medical bills, arriving at a snail’s pace, all come before the Postal Service stops forwarding his mail to our old address.

Documentation overload

I bought multiple copies of Scott’s death certificate, but I was unprepared for how companies string out requests for other documents. Scott’s longtime employer clawed back his monthly pension without notification, then refused to tell me what documents it required other than the death certificate. The company needed to investigate Scott’s pension wishes, it said.

Scott had had only two choices: a higher pension that ended with his death or a lower pension that continued to me. From the dollar amount of the checks, it was obvious he had chosen the lower pension.

Two weeks after receiving the death certificate, the company rep asked for Scott’s birth certificate. Two weeks after that, our marriage license. Two weeks after that, she requested the original Social Security card I applied for at age 16. A friend, a retired district judge, pointed out that companies get only 30 days to resolve such issues. I called and told the representative that this limit had been exceeded. Amazingly, she called the next day and said everything was resolved.

Still, she insisted on sending the three months of withheld pension payments to my old address, even though I had provided proof of my new address weeks earlier.

Lengthy waits

Expedia required a death certificate and 30 days to quit sending Scott emails. I couldn’t just unsubscribe him because he once had been booked on a flight through Expedia, the online travel agency’s fine print disclosed.

At our bank, I had to make one appointment with an official to delete Scott’s name from our joint checking and savings accounts, and another to change beneficiaries on that account. I was told to plan 90 minutes for the first visit. (It took two hours.)

Most of the time was spent sitting in the banker’s cubicle, waiting while he tried to get the bank’s estate management group to answer the phone. He waited on hold for 43 minutes while I sat there. Deleting Scott’s name took a few minutes. The banker hung up without asking about the credit card linked to that account and had to call back. We waited another 18 minutes for the phone to be answered.

My return appointment for the beneficiaries took another hour sitting in that cubicle.

Many of these red-tape problems are made more galling as they often require phone calls with endless waits on hold. When representatives finally connect, they invariably start by the rote and insincere “sorry for your loss” scripts.

Grief is hard enough. Dealing with tech barriers and nonsensical policies make the months after a death into a second career of aggravating phone calls, emails and visits.

How to reduce these irritations

To minimize these frustrations, here are a few suggestions learned the hard way:

1. Keep an updated list of recurring credit card charges, organized by each card.

2. Make sure you have a credit card you applied for in your name.

3. Get a password manager to hold all your user names and passwords and make sure your executor knows your master password. If you have some accounts that are not included in a password manager, make sure your executor knows what they are (and also remember to update any list in case you change them periodically).

4. Buy at least six copies of the death certificate. Some companies allow you to email copies, but others require the physical certificate.

5. Do an inventory now and make sure you have birth and marriage certificates, adoption or divorce documents and Social Security cards. After many decades of marriage and multiple moves, some of these documents may have gotten lost. It can take weeks to get copies from the various agencies.

6. Don’t put the will or other important documents in a safe-deposit box. Getting access to it can be a lengthy process, particularly if your loved one misplaced the key. Even with a key, if family members suddenly need to get a loved one’s medical power of attorney outside of bank hours, for example, they are out of luck.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Death Comes For Everybody

— Here’s How to Make Yours Sustainable

By Paola Magni & Edda Guareschi

We can all agree humans need to reduce their impact on the environment. And while most of us think of this in terms of daily activities – such as eating less meat, or being water-wise – this responsibility actually extends beyond life and into death.

The global population is closing on 8 billion, and the amount of land available for human burial is running out, especially in small and densely populated countries.

To minimise environmental impact, human bodies should return to nature as quickly as possible. But the rate of decay in some of the most common traditional disposal methods is very slow. It can take several decades for a body to decompose.

In a one-of-its-kind study, our team analyzed 408 human bodies exhumed from grave pits and stone tombs in the north of Italy to find out what conditions help speed up decay

The environmental cost of traditional burials

Funeral rituals should respect the dead, bring closure to families and promote the reaching of the afterlife in accordance with people’s beliefs. This looks different for different people.

Although the Catholic church has allowed cremation since 1963, it still prefers burials. Muslims are always supposed to be buried, while most Hindus are cremated.

In Australia, however, the latest census revealed almost 40 percent of the population identifies as “not religious“. This opens up more avenues for how people’s bodies may be handled after death.

Most traditional burial practices in industrialised countries have several long-lasting harmful effects on the environment.

Wood and metal fragments in coffins and caskets remain in the ground, leaching harmful chemicals through paint, preservatives and alloys. Chemicals used for embalming also remain in the ground and can contaminate soil and waterways.

Cremation also has a large carbon footprint. It requires lots of trees for fuel and produces millions of tons of carbon dioxide each year, as well as toxic volatile compounds.

There are several alternatives to traditional burials. These include “water cremation” or “resomation” (where the body is rapidly dissolved), human composting, mummification, cryonics (freezing and storage), space burials, and even turning the body into trees or the ashes into diamonds or record vinyls.

However, many of these alternatives are either illegal, unavailable, costly or not aligned with people’s beliefs. The vast majority choose coffin burials, and all countries accept this method. So the question of sustainable burials comes down to choosing between the many types of coffins available.

What leads to faster decomposition?

Coffins range from traditional wooden caskets, to cardboard coffins, to natural coffins made from willow, banana leaf or bamboo, which decompose faster.

The most environmentally sustainable choice is one that allows the body to decompose and reduce to a skeleton (or “skeletonize”) quickly – possibly in just a few years.

Our research has presented three key findings on conditions that promote the skeletonization of human bodies.

First, it has confirmed that bodies disposed in traditionally sealed tombs (where a coffin is placed inside a stone space) can take more than 40 years to skeletonise.

In these sealed tombs, bacteria rapidly consume the oxygen in the stone space where the coffin is placed. This creates a micro-environment that promotes an almost indefinite preservation of the body.

We also found burial grounds with a high percentage of sand and gravel in the soil promote the decomposition and skeletonisation of bodies in less than ten years – even if they are in a coffin.

That’s because this soil composition allows more circulation of air and microfauna, and ample water drainage – all of which are helpful for degrading organic matter.

Finally, our research confirmed previous suspicions about the slow decomposition of entombed bodies. We discovered placing bodies inside stone tombs, or covering them with a stone slab on the ground, helps with the formation of corpse wax (or “adipocere“).

This substance is the final result of several chemical reactions through which the body’s adipose (fat) tissues turn to a “soapy” substance that’s very resistant to further degradation. Having corpse wax slows down (if not completely arrests) the decomposition process.

A new, greener option

In looking for innovative burial solutions, we had the opportunity to experiment with a new type of body disposal in a tomb called an “aerated tomb“.

Over the past 20 years, aerated tombs have been developed in some European countries including France, Spain and Italy (where they have been commercialised).

They allow plenty of ventilation, which in turn enables a more hygienic and faster decomposition of bodies compared to traditional tombs.

They have a few notable features:

  • An activated carbon filter purifies gases
  • Fluids are absorbed by two distinct biodegrading biological powders, one placed at the bottom of the coffin and the other in a collecting tray beneath it
  • Once the body has decomposed, the skeletal remains can be moved to an ossuary (a site where skeletal remains are stored), while the tomb can be dismantled and most of its components potentially recycled.

Aerated tombs are also cheaper than ordinary tombs and can be built from existing tombs. They would be simple to use in Australia and would comply with public health and hygiene standards.

Most of us don’t spend much time thinking about what will happen to our bodies after we die. Perhaps we should. In the end this may be one of our most important last decisions – the implications of which extend to our precious planet.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How human composting could reduce death’s carbon footprint

By Kristen Rogers

You probably know that composting banana peels and eggshells can help reduce your negative impact on the environment. But did you know that, once you die, you can do that with your body, too?

Human composting — also known as natural organic reduction or the reduction of human remains — is the practice of placing a dead body in a reusable vessel with biodegradable materials that foster the transformation into nutrient-dense soil that can be returned to loved ones or donated to conservation land.

The notion of going green even in death might sound far-fetched, but California has become the latest state to sign a human composting bill into law, set to go into effect in 2027. Washington became the first state to legalize human composting in 2019, followed by Oregon, Colorado and Vermont.

Advocates of human composting hope it can help slow the climate crisis driven by burning fossil fuels that produce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide and methane. Cremations require lots of fuel — cremating one corpse emits an estimated 418 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air, the equivalent of driving 470 miles in a car, according to Chemical & Engineering News, a publication of the American Chemical Society. In the United States, cremations account for 1.74 billion pounds of carbon dioxide emissions each year, according to Green Burial Council Inc., an organization that oversees certification standards for cemeteries, funeral homes and product providers engaged in sustainable burial practices.

“Human composting … uses much less energy than cremation, which uses fossil gas to create heat of over 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit,” said Katrina Spade, founder and CEO of Recompose, a licensed green funeral home in Seattle. “When human composting transforms the organic material of our bodies, carbon is also sequestered in the soil created. Rather than being released as carbon dioxide gas through exhaust during a cremation, the carbon matter contained in each body returns to the earth.”

Cristina Garcia, the California Assembly member who introduced the state legislation, said wildfires and extreme drought are reminders that climate change is real, and that methane and carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced. “For each individual who chooses (natural organic reduction) over conventional burial or cremation, the process saves the equivalent of one metric ton of carbon from entering the environment,” Garcia said in a September news release.

Recompose, Spade’s company, became the first human composting facility in the US when it opened in December 2020. Spade thought of human composting in graduate school after learning about livestock mortality composting, when farm animals are recycled back to the land, she said.

The industry is new, and there is little research on how much better human composting is for the environment compared with traditional burials, cremation or green burials. And the process isn’t carbon-free since it still involves machinery operated by electricity and transportation of bodies, materials and remains, said Ed Bixby, president of the Green Burial Council.

As interest in more sustainable end-of-life options grows, transparency about the practice is crucial, Bixby said. A recent National Funeral Directors Association survey that found 60.5% of respondents were interested in exploring “green” funeral options because of potential environmental benefits, cost savings or other reasons.

“With our families, we never want them to be disturbed or upset believing something that isn’t,” Bixby said. “If you’re going to do something, if it’s environmentally conscious, we think that’s wonderful. But we want to be sure that people understand what they’re buying into.”

At Recompose, human composting happens in a steel cylinder that’s 8 feet long and 4 feet tall, Spade said. A body is placed in the vessel on a bed of wood chips, alfalfa and straw.

“Human composting creates an environment in which beneficial microbes thrive, with a specific moisture content and ratio of carbon and nitrogen materials,” Spade said.

Over the next 30 days, everything inside naturally decomposes. One body creates a cubic yard of soil amendment — a substance added to soil to improve its texture or health — which is removed from the vessel and cured for two to six weeks. Afterward, it can be donated to conservation projects, or a certain amount can be returned to loved ones. But the amount loved ones receive can depend on what a state allows since the soil would still be legally considered human remains with regulations on what people can do with them, Bixby said.

The practice also avoids the introduction of nonbiodegradable materials — such as concrete or plastic vaults, steel caskets or lacquers — to the atmosphere or land, and forest depletion for wood caskets, Bixby said. Human composting would also protect funeral home workers from exposure to high levels of formaldehyde, which has been found to cause myeloid leukemia and rare cancers.

Human composting could lower the financial footprint of end-of-life arrangements, too. The median cost of a funeral with cremation in the US in 2021 was $6,971, and the median cost of a funeral with a viewing and burial was $7,848, according to the National Funeral Directors Association. But the median burial estimate doesn’t include a plot, headstone or other cemetery costs associated with a traditional burial, which can often double the cost, Spade said.

“Recompose strives to keep the price for human composting comparable to other death care options,” Spade said.

Recompose has composted more than 200 corpses into soil since opening nearly two years ago and has more than 1,100 people signed up for Precompose, the company’s prearrangement program, Spade said.

“We hear from our clients that knowing that their body — or that of their loved one — will be able to return to the earth is deeply comforting,” Spade said.

Not everyone is eligible for human composting. Natural organic reduction destroys most harmful pathogens, but there are three rare diseases that disqualify a body from undergoing human composting, Spade said: Ebola, tuberculosis and diseases caused by prions, which are abnormal, transmissible pathogenic agents that can cause abnormal folding of certain brain proteins.

The list of states allowing human composting may soon grow longer. A bill in New York state has passed both legislative houses and is on its way to the governor’s desk, Spade said. And in Massachusetts, state Reps. Jack Lewis and Natalie Higgins are leading a bill to legalize human composting there.

Most funeral homes, however, might not be quick to adopt the practice, Bixby said. Once a permit is issued, direct cremation can be done the same day, he added. A burial typically takes three to five days, while human composting can take up to 120.

“The problem I see, as far as this growing, is that you can’t do high volume,” Bixby said. “As long as this process is, having five or six (vessels) doesn’t do a lot of good. … As a businessman, my feeling is this really won’t gain much ground for that main reason.”

He added, “It doesn’t make a lot of practical sense. And I hate to make things about money because it shouldn’t be, but at the end of the day, when you’re providing a service, it has to be about the income because you have to keep the lights on.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How to be a widow

— A guide from a wife who doesn’t know either

When I lost my husband to brain cancer, I learned there is no road map for grief

by

Since my husband, Bill, died of brain cancer in June, I’ve found myself unclear about what it means to grieve. If I’m driving our kids to school and thinking about Bill, does that count as grieving? Is watching TV to distract myself somehow an expression of grief?

When I see his eyes at night and it’s unbearable, I think, “This is grief; I am grieving.”

Widowed

I am not rending my garments or wailing, but nonetheless I am a widow.

This new status felt strange at first, but then I decided it gave me license to disregard social norms and act how I wanted.

At a Girl Scouts meeting with a lot of parents I do not know, I make no effort to socialize. I just stand in a corner, not doing or saying anything. I don’t even bother to look at my phone.

I feel somehow superior to all the non-widows. I understand this might seem wrong. I’m not sure when my widow’s license expires.

What I wish I had known

Here’s what I wish someone had told us when Bill was diagnosed with glioblastoma: You just got a death sentence. You may feel optimistic because you’re young and still in good shape, and your tumor has a supposedly “good” mutation. But you have no way of knowing how much longer you’ll be alive. Wasting time now is folly.

Do what you want to do, go where you want to go, say what you want to say. Do it now. If you don’t, by the time you realize you really want to do that thing, go to that place, say whatever it is, it will be too late.

Nobody fights cancer

I don’t know how this vocabulary about “fighting cancer” got started, but it’s sadly misleading. For most people, having cancer is an entirely passive experience. All you do is lie around while people carve you up, inject stuff into you, and take pictures of your body.

Then, if you die, you’ve lost the fight — almost as if there were a scenario where you could have won if you had just fought harder.

What doctors don’t say

As soon as Bill’s tumor recurred, the doctors knew how this was going down. They couldn’t say, “The medical community has not yet figured out how to treat or even manage recurrent glioblastoma, so prepare to die.” But they had seen this show before, and their attitude toward Bill’s treatment became somehow more perfunctory.

We got Bill into a fancy immunotherapy trial that used a vaccine made from his cells, but I don’t think his lead doctor ever thought it was going to work. In fact, I’m pretty sure he actually said “I don’t think the vaccine’s going to work,” but he kind of said it into his elbow over Zoom, so I can’t be certain.

About five months before Bill died, this doctor and I talked on the phone, and he basically gave it to me straight. But Bill still couldn’t handle the truth, so I had to put on a hopeful face with him.

Bill died 18 months after his diagnosis. By the time the truth was unavoidable, his brain had stopped working, and it was too late to discuss it with him.

There’s a lot of driving when you have cancer

Bill always drove whenever we went anywhere. But after one of his surgeries eroded some peripheral vision, he couldn’t drive anymore.

He thought I was a terrible driver and would sit there silently fuming — often tired or in pain — as we drove to and from UCLA for his treatments. If you know Los Angeles, the drive from Pasadena to Westwood can be an absolute nightmare.

I started joking to people that the only thing worse than having brain cancer is driving from Pasadena to UCLA at rush hour. This always got a laugh.

I wonder now how long Bill would have lived without all those treatments. The question is unanswerable. But we definitely would have wasted less time stuck in gridlock on the 10.

There’s less crying than you might think

I’ve only really cried once, in a coffee shop with a friend. I managed to get control of myself, but it made me scared to cry because I fear I would never stop.

People have advised me to let go and cry. Maybe someday I will.

People keep telling me how ‘strong’ I must be

This may come off as a “humblebrag,” but I’m really not. I am just playing the hand I got dealt, which unfortunately has recently featured caring for a dying husband along with two kids and a dog.

Not long before that — and this also feels weirdly like bragging — I survived my own serious bout with breast cancer. Also, my mother suddenly died while I was getting chemo.

Nonetheless, I have to get up every morning because my kids depend on me.

Once they’re out of the house, maybe I’ll stop being “strong” and lie facedown on the floor for, like, a year.

Now we are three

I’m still not used to our family shrinking from four to three, and I don’t yet understand how we’re supposed to live this way.

My older daughter acts like nothing happened and nothing’s wrong. My younger daughter asks me, “Mommy, are you going to die?”

Bill would always say he just wanted to stay alive long enough to see them graduate from high school. He died before they even finished elementary school.

How people responded

I know that death scares people, and they don’t know what to say. Even some of my closest friends backed away when Bill was dying. Some of them said they didn’t want to bother me or feared I might be too busy.

I was busy some of the time, but other times I was just sitting in a chair waiting. Often, I screened calls because I wasn’t up for talking. But I appreciated the people who kept trying anyway and who understood that inside all the tragedy, it was still just me.

Thank you, National Basketball Association

Bill and I had our favorite TV shows, like most couples, but at a certain point he could no longer see the TV or follow the plots. Neither audiobooks nor podcasts held his interest either.

The NBA finals arrived as an unexpected godsend.

Bill was a big basketball fan and was content in his recliner listening endlessly to the games. There was a group of commentators he particularly liked involving some guy named Kenny “The Jet” Smith; he got more enjoyment out of those dudes than almost anything else in his final months of life.

I kept worrying the NBA Finals would end, but they just kept going!

Conversation stoppers

In the months since Bill died, there have been multiple occasions when I’ve had to decide whether to tell someone I don’t know well about his death.

Early on, it would come up in the “What have you been up to this summer?” conversations. I hadn’t really thought it through, so I would babble something like, “Well, not much, pretty low-key, I mean actually my husband died, sorry, you don’t have to say anything, anyway what have you been up to?”

These exchanges made me intensely uncomfortable, so I basically stopped talking about it.

A friend pointed out that my discomfort arose from what I perceived as being the other person’s discomfort. She said I should just tell people about Bill and let them deal with their awkward feelings.

Things I try not to think about

Caring for Bill created some moments of deep connection between us. But there were also tasks I had to perform, and he endure, that were demeaning and awful for both of us.

I try not to really think about this stuff, or about how at these times my love for him felt more like pity.

Death

Bill died in the night. We called up the hospice people and a funeral parlor. Then I crawled up onto the rickety hospital bed in our living room and embraced him for several hours till they arrived.

I said goodbye and how much I loved him, and I feel like he heard me even though I know that’s not possible. It didn’t feel like a corpse; it still felt like Bill.

The magic of material things

The house is still filled with Bill’s clothes, law school books, shoes, electronics, records, etc. I now understand why people keep their loved one’s belongings around for years or keep their room just as it was.

The presence of all his stuff makes me feel closer to him and even sometimes lets me imagine he didn’t die at all. Maybe he will magically reappear and want to look something up in his torts textbook. If so, I will be ready.

Bureaucracy

There is so much bureaucratic stuff to deal with after your husband dies. I’m not even close to sorting it all out. It often requires sending a death certificate

Having to prove to people that Bill actually, really died feels crazy.

They all tell me they’re sorry for my loss. Not sorry enough to spare me their bureaucratic rigmarole, though.

Lighter moments

My final words to my husband — after a conversation with his brother about Bill’s favorite actor, Paul Rudd — were “I hope you dream of Paul Rudd.” Obviously, I didn’t plan it that way — I thought we had a couple more days. He did really like Paul Rudd, though.

After we scattered Bill’s ashes in a stream in Ashland, Ore., I noticed a sign saying that this particular tributary provided drinking water for city residents. Oh, well. It was obviously too late — once again — to do anything about it.

There was also a stressful but somewhat hilarious situation involving competing meal trains that I didn’t want to find out about each other. There were some near misses, and I spent a lot of time running around hiding food.

Does this get easier?

The shock is wearing off and I’m sadder now than right after Bill died.

I think many people understand that grief is not a linear process, and so what I’m experiencing is not unusual. But I also have the feeling that people now expect me to function normally, since it’s been a while

I wonder when it will get easier, and whether that question is somehow a betrayal of Bill. I know he would not want me and the girls to suffer, but how can we not?

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Death as Life’s Work

In her new book, Hayley Campbell seeks to demystify death by sharing the perspectives of funeral home directors, gravediggers and others

By Robert DiGiacomo

What happens when people die is often glossed over. Yet as the adage goes, death is one of life’s few certainties.

Journalist Hayley Campbell in her new book, “All the Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life’s Work,” sets out to demystify death by writing about “the naked, banal reality of this thing that will come to us all.”

It’s a subject for which Campbell, 36, has been preparing for most of her life. As a little girl, she recalls death being ever present — she drew dead bodies after seeing her comic book artist father’s graphic novel about Jack the Ripper in progress, questioned the version of death from her Catholic school education and saw her first body at 12, when her friend, Harriet, drowned while trying to rescue her dog. The London-based Campbell has since written regularly about death and related topics for Wired, BuzzFeed, Vice and other publications.

“On an existential level, we have to think about death; not only will we die, but everyone we know and love will die.”

In “All the Living and the Dead,” Campbell spends time with those whose professional lives revolve around death, including funeral directors, gravediggers and an executioner. Warning to anyone who’s squeamish: She provides vivid details of what it’s like to dress the dead, perform an autopsy and process bodies for use in medical education.

“On an existential level, we have to think about death; not only will we die but everyone we know and love will die,” Campbell told Next Avenue. “I can see why people would avoid that topic, but once you start talking about death with people for whom it’s their job, you can see how you can compartmentalize it.”

Here are some key takeways about death — and life — from Campbell and the book:

Death is Never Far Away, Whether We Acknowledge It or Not

As part of her research, Campbell went places where few civilians dare. “We don’t want to think about it, so it’s sort of a secret,” Campbell says of many death rituals. “I love seeing the stuff that as a general civilian person you can’t see. It can be behind doors you pass every day — on every high street, there is a funeral home — but you don’t realize something interesting is happening there every day.”

Even when we must go to a funeral home, whether to plan a service for a loved one or attend a memorial, the experience is usually a fleeting encounter. For those in the funeral industry, it’s their way of being.

“It was a huge privilege to talk to those people,” Campbell says. “The thing they kept telling me was they do this job every day. When families have to use them, the family will be hugely involved and their best friends for two weeks. After the funeral, they will disappear and go back to not thinking that embalmers exist. I wanted to get through the appreciation of the work that has to happen. The world would look completely different if we didn’t have people collecting the bodies.”

There’s a Difference Between Being Desensitized and Detached About Death

As we enter middle age, death becomes ever more prominent, as we face the loss of parents, siblings, close friends, a spouse or partner — and our own mortality. Yet few of us are prepared for major loss. But when death is your reality, you have to develop a way to compartmentalize.

“People think death workers must be desensitized, but there’s a difference between people being desensitized and detached in a way that’s helpful,” Campbell says. “They’re not not thinking about death — they have thought about it a lot and stepped back just enough to do their jobs. They have thought about it so much that they have made peace with it. But I don’t think we as a society have been able to deal with it. So when someone dies, we completely fall apart.”

A New Generation is Rethinking the Funeral Ritual

As a younger generation — including more women — enter the funeral industry, rituals and attitudes are changing. This might mean a more personalized funeral service, a natural burial without a body being embalmed or even loved ones participating in a traditional ritual like dressing the dead, as Campbell did as part of her research.

“The role of the funeral director has changed to more of a counselor role rather than someone who just organizes the hearse,” Campbell says. “I do think women are changing it. Female funeral directors are more into letting families do things the way they want. But if they want tradition, they will organize it with the horse and the cart. I think they are just more open — the thing that is common among all the women in the funeral industry is they want to give people a voice and not force a certain way of doing anything on anyone.”

“The role of the funeral director has changed to more of a counselor role rather than someone who just organizes the hearse.”

Details Matter When Handling the End of Someone’s Life

Whether it’s the funeral director who kept underwear and socks in different sizes because families often forgot to bring undergarments for their loved one and he couldn’t live with someone not being properly dressed in their casket — or a gravedigger who provided a certain type of soil for the minster to throw on a coffin that would land more softly, those dealing with death regularly understand the difference the smallest details can make.

“They all had a sense of compassion and a sense of empathy,” Campbell says. “They all were doing little things in their job that no one would notice but they felt was the right thing to do. It may seem like something small, but when you think about grieving people and how they are so sensitive to everything, they are massive.”

Death Has a Way of Grounding You

Having written about death for most of her career, Campbell is not someone who’s faint of heart. But having immersed herself in death for three years to write the book, she came away with a new appreciation for life.

“It’s not like my eyes have been opened to things that I didn’t know about but the details have been filled in,” Campbell says. “I’ve seen dead babies and old, old dead people. I’m far more conscious of the old cliché that life is short. That is true, but you have no idea how much time you’re going to get. I think I’m more conscious of time.”

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5 Meaningful Ways To Remember A Beloved Pet

By jackmartin

One of the most painful things a pet parent can go through is the loss of a beloved pet. Even if death is inevitable, saying goodbye to an animal companion can be a challenging process. After all, your pet has already become one of the treasured members of your family. This indeed makes the grief more intense and complex. Thankfully, some ways can help you grieve healthily and honor the memories you had with your pet during their lifetime.

But how can you do that? Read on to learn the five meaningful ways to remember a beloved pet.

  • Hold A Memorial Service

Organizing a memorial service is one of the most traditional yet special ways to cherish the memories of your furry companion who has crossed the rainbow bridge. It can be an excellent opportunity to gather all the people who love and care for your pet. During the memorial service, you can request these people to share a good memory of your pet.

Moreover, there are ways to organize a pet memorial service. For example, if you choose to bury your pet, you may pick a burial spot in your garden or anywhere near your home. You can create a memorial garden where you can add a paving stone engraved with your pet’s name or image.

On the other hand, you may also decide to cremate your animal companion with the help of cremation providers like Lawnswood Pet Cremation and other similar options. In doing so, you can scatter the ashes in any natural spot or opt to keep the ashes with you at home, where you can rekindle your pet’s beautiful memories anytime.  

  • Buy A Customized Pet Jewelry Item

Another meaningful way of remembering your beloved pet is to customize a jewelry item for them. For example, with your furry companion’s name, you can buy things like brackets, cuff links, lockets, rings, and other similar products. You can also personalize the jewelry item by having it shaped like a paw or engraving your pet’s photo on it. However, if you want to be closer to your pet’s memories all the time, you may consider buying a jewelry item like a necklace, which is designed to keep a small number of your pet’s ashes in it.

  • Put Together A Pet Remembrance Book

It’s hard to forget your happy memories with your beloved pet. Hence, if you want to remember them even if they’re gone, you can create a photo album book containing all your pet’s photos throughout their life. Indeed, you’ve taken many pictures of your pet during their lifetime.

So, use these images to create a pet remembrance book where you can compile them and provide a brief description of the events depicted in the photos. For instance, if the pictures are stored online, you can use a photo editing app to create a digital pet remembrance book. However, if you want a physical copy of the photo album, you can buy a photo book in the store and create your own.

  • Hang Your Pet’s Portrait In Your Home

Painting your pet’s portrait can also be one of the meaningful ways to cherish their memories. You can hang it in the central area of your home, like the living room. This will always serve as your last memory with your beloved pet, who has passed already.

To get started, you can commission a pet portrait artist in your area to create the painting for you. You can find these professionals online, particularly on many social media platforms. You can also ask your veterinarian or some pet stores for some recommendations if they have any.

  • Make A Donation In Your Pet’s Memory

Donating money to animal shelters and other pet organizations can be a meaningful and powerful way of remembering your beloved pet. It can make you feel better because you can help other animals in your furry companion’s memory. You can use the money you would have spent on your pet to fund abandoned animals’ needs, including their food, medical care, treats, and even toys.

By doing all these things, you can make your pet’s passing more special. You can turn your grief into hope and love for other animals in need.

Final Thoughts

Mourning for a pet’s death can be a tough process. But you don’t need to dwell on that pain for a long time. Although you can never bring their life back, some ways can help you commemorate their life. You’ll have plenty of ways to remember a furry friend if you keep the information mentioned above in mind. These methods will allow you to say goodbye and maintain your connection with them for the rest of your life.

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Beauty in simplicity

— The funeral trends of today

“Tailor-made” funerals are on the rise.

When Annette Gardner’s father died, he was laid to rest with a traditional church service, complete with hymns and readings — only, in life, he wasn’t very religious.

“He hardly ever went to church in his later years,” says Gardner. “It was a nice funeral, but very traditional.”

That was almost 20 years ago. The funeral Gardner held for her mother in 2021 tells quite a different story; one which marks a fresh chapter in the way many Australians mourn. In a non-denominational chapel, her mother’s true colours shone through — with purple hydrangeas and a purple coffin to match. “She really did love purple,” Gardner jokes.

According to government research, Australia is rapidly becoming more religiously diverse. Within this trend, census data shows that almost 40 per cent of Australians identified as non-religious in 2021, a significant increase from 16.7 per cent in 2001.

In the world of funerals, rising religious diversity — and softening tradition — has created space for greater self-expression. Ray Leon, a funeral director with Simplicity Funerals, says there has been a shift away from strict adherence to specific rites and rituals, with many Australians — both religious and non-religious — opting for simpler funerals with personal touches. “People are taking aspects of traditional and modern funeral practices, and creating an affordable tailor-made experience,” he says.

Beyond the boundaries of “how things used to be”, the unique life story of a person can come to the fore, he explains. Leon has seen people arrive at their funeral in everything from a Harley hearse to a classic Holden HR Ute. Increasingly, services include simple, bespoke elements such as personal collections of art and belongings, or stories interwoven with photographs and video messages. “Recently, we even had a family who wanted a VB-themed coffin, and that’s exactly what we did.”

For funeral directors, the process of finding a creative space with a family is a sensitive one, yet immensely rewarding as loved ones become empowered to truly celebrate a life lived, while processing some of the grief of a life lost, Leon explains. For families, the modern, non-religious funeral offers unlimited potential for self-expression — which, as experienced by Sydney local, Jessica Gray — can be a blessing and, at times, a curse.

Gray farewelled her father, John, earlier this year. “Creating a funeral for Dad — who wasn’t religious and left barely any instructions as to his wishes — brought us creative freedom to reflect and celebrate who he was, yet also constant questioning in a time that was already so uncertain.”

The secret was to home in on personality, Gray explains. “Dad wasn’t a religious person, but he was spiritual. The reading we chose for the day, Buddhist Blessing, resonated with who he was to those that loved him,” she says.

It’s a sentiment echoed by professionals too. “There’s beauty in simplicity,” says Leon. “After all, a funeral doesn’t have to cost the earth to mean the world.”

In 2018, Gray’s father founded a local dog group, the Dogs of Double Bay. What started as a small WhatsApp group, grew into a 200-person-strong community with regular Friday afternoon drinks and annual Christmas parties. It was fitting then, that the dog lover and community carer was commemorated with a heart-warming farewell in a local pub from over 100 guests — and their dogs too.

Gardner also found comfort in coming back to basics. “It was a simple, beautiful funeral,” she says, speaking of her mother’s send off last year. “The special touches really reflected her love of life and who she was. We look back on that day and smile — Mum would have been proud.”

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