10 Things Your Doctor Won’t Tell You About Dying

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Learn what science has discovered so far about what happens when we die.

Death is a subject many people do not like to discuss, but it’s a part of life that we will all have to face. Sometimes the more you know about a certain subject, the less frightening it becomes. Here are 10 things you may not know about dying.

1. Dying is often a process. There are numerous causes of death, many of which are instant. For people who know death is approaching — whether from sickness or old age — there are certain signs. These signs include slowed breathing, weakened heart rate, and a change in color, says Zachary Palace, MD, medical director of the Hebrew Home at Riverdale in New York.

“In general, in the time leading up to death, usually the person will become pale because of a drop in blood pressure,” he says. “The fingers may get cold or turn blue. If you feel the pulse, it will be weak, and then they start to develop an irregular type of breathing, and that’s a sign that things are pretty ominous.”

2. When breathing slows, death is likely near. Dr. Palace explains that there may be gaps in between breaths where it looks like the person stopped breathing for 15 to 20 seconds. He says families often worry at this point, but he assures them that it’s a normal part of the dying process.

3. There are two stages of death. The first stage, known as clinical death, occurs when a person’s heart stops beating. About four to six minutes later, brain cells start to die from the loss of oxygen and biological death occurs.

4. Resuscitation may be possible during clinical death. But it’s not possible during biological death. However, doctors may be able to delay biological death by cooling the body, thus extending the window for possible resuscitation. Palace also points out that drowning victims or people in a colder environment may also delay biological death. “The colder the body is, the slower the metabolic rate,” he explains, “so you’re using oxygen up slower and that window may be longer.”

5. Hearing may be the last sense to go. Though it has not been scientifically proven, it is widely believed that hearing is the last of the senses lost before death. “It’s the most passive sense,” Palace explains. He says that when death seems imminent, “weencourage families to talk and share their last thoughts, love, and support with their loved ones because even though the blood pressure is dropping and they’re fading out, they can hear what we’re saying.”

6. You may urinate and defecate. When we’re alive, our brain is constantly sending signals to tell different parts of our body what to do. At death, these signals stop, and our muscles mostly relax. “The neck of the bladder and the sphincter are in a constant state of contraction, so when there’s no more neural signals to the bladder or bowels, then they relax,” Palace says. “So it’s not uncommon just after death for urine to come pouring out or for someone to defecate.”

7. Morphine is only used to ease the pain associated with passing. Palace says the biggest misconception he hears is that morphine is given to patients to help induce death. He says this couldn’t be further from the truth. “Obviously, physician-assisted suicide is not legal in most states, so morphine is not given to help hasten the end,” he says.

When people are dying, Palace explains, blood pressure drops and they are getting less oxygen to their organs. The body responds by gasping for air in a futile attempt to increase their respiratory rate. Doctors refer to this as air hunger. “That gasping is very difficult for families to see, as it obviously looks painful, and that’s where the role of morphine comes in,” Palace says. “The proper dose of morphine relieves the sense of air hunger, so they’re breathing more calmly and more comfortably.”

8. The body as a whole may be dead, but certain parts within are still alive. The brain is the first organ to begin to break down, and other organs follow suit. Living bacteria in the body, particularly in the bowels, play a major role in this decomposition process, or putrefaction. This decay produces a very potent odor. “Even within a half hour, you can smell death in the room,” he says. “It has a very distinct smell.”

9. There may be a scientific explanation to the notion of your life flashing before your eyes. A 2013 study from the University of Michigan found that dying rats displayed high levels of brain waves shortly after their hearts stopped beating. Researchers believe the finding could have implications for humans and possibly explain the near-death experiences many cardiac arrest survivors report. “It will form the foundation for future human studies investigating mental experiences occurring in the dying brain, including seeing light during cardiac arrest,” lead study author Jimo Borjigin, PhD, said in a statement.

10. Consciousness may continue after death. There is little scientific research available that tells us what happens to the mind after death, but a 2014 study may offer some insight. Researchers at the University of Southampton in England examined over 2,000 cardiac arrest patients in the United States, United Kingdom, and Austria. Of those who survived, 140 were surveyed about their near-death experiences, and 39 percent reported feeling some kind of awareness while being resuscitated. This sense of awareness included feelings of peacefulness and a sensation that time slowed down or sped up. Thirteen percent reported feeling separated from their bodies. While only two percent exhibited full awareness, researchers say this proves that more studies need to be done.

Complete Article HERE!

“I want to die at home, surrounded by people who love me”

For Dr Kate Granger, preparing for a ‘good’ death has allowed her to accept her diagnosis of incurable cancer

Kate and her husband Chris at the renewal of their wedding vows
Kate and her husband Chris at the renewal of their wedding vows

“Facing death is not something anybody ever wants to contemplate. But that is exactly what I’ve had to do for the past five years. At the age of 29 I had the perfect life. Happily married, successful career, great network of friends and family, beautiful home and in the early stages of planning to conceive our first child. My life was all I’d ever dreamed it would be. But all that was shattered into minuscule pieces when the cancer sledge hammer hit us, and we discovered my incurable diagnosis; a diagnosis that came completely out of the blue and destroyed our lives as we knew them.

As a doctor specialising in the care of older people I had some familiarity with dying. I’d sat and held the hands of patients as they drew their final breaths. I’d comforted families through difficult conversations around end of life care for their loved ones and their eventual bereavement. But now it was my own mortality that had come into a sharp, unavoidable reality.

The cancer was very aggressive and advanced; my kidneys had failed; I was in intractable pain. There really was no hope of cure no matter how optimistic your view. As a clinician I didn’t know any way to get through something so life changing, other than addressing it head on. Within days of discovering I had bone and liver metastases, I had made the decision that I did not want to undergo cardiopulmonary resuscitation. I wrote my Bucket List. I made a will. I started work on a memory box for Chris. I specified my end of life care preferences in writing. Attending to these practical considerations gave me a peace of mind that allowed us to accept what was happening, and then move on with living in the present with a degree of calmness.001

Thoughts about death often creep into my consciousness though. I wonder about what it will feel like, what symptoms I might experience and I reflect frequently on my personal vision of a peaceful, ‘good’ death. I’ve picked out my favourite music, particular candles with soothing scents and the books I’d like my Mum to read to me. I desperately want to die at home, surrounded by the people who love me. These preparations are designed to create an environment with comforting childhood memories, making me feel as safe as I can despite the horrendous circumstances.

However given my professional experience I know only too well that I may not achieve my serene death ambitions. I know that my symptoms may become uncontrollable at home, especially if I develop a bowel obstruction. I fear being bundled into an ambulance and carted off to hospital. I fear my eventual loss of independence. I fear not being strong enough to see it through to the end.

I have been extremely publicly transparent about my health problems by writing books and using social media. Looking back I think this is thanks to my inner teacher; I want to share my experiences to improve care for other patients. I felt so useless and lacking in purpose at the beginning of my illness. Getting my laptop out to write the whole sorry saga down seemed a natural response. I needed to process what I was going through and I wanted to emphasise how healthcare professionals’ behaviour impacts the people they look after. This project has now gone one step further, and I plan to share the end of my life on Twitter using the hashtag #deathbedlive. Unexpectedly I now have a huge social media following, and I hope one of my final legacies will be to promote a national conversation in society around death and dying by using this powerful voice.

I’m one of the lucky ones. I genuinely believe that. I have the support of an amazing husband, who has been there for me every single step of the way. He has made our lives truly incredible and I never know what the next lovely surprise might be. We are able to live comfortably in our own skins, with the lurking existence of the death gremlin, because we are honest and open with each other. Talking about death is never going to be an easy task, but Chris knows my wishes and I am absolutely sure that he will protect them right up until the end.

Complete Article HERE!

Prince’s death illustrates importance of having a will

By Gail MarksJarvis

Prince

Pop music star Prince apparently died without writing a will, and it’s likely that his relatives and business contacts will be fighting in a Minnesota court for years over his estate, estimated at $150 million to $300 million.

With no wife or children, first in line, according to estate law, are Prince’s six siblings. Under simple court rules governing inheritances when there is no will, each of the siblings will get an equal share. That will apply whether Prince was fond of each of the siblings or not. And with Prince’s complex estate, massive business dealings, his practice of secrecy and millions in wealth at stake, attorneys don’t expect this case to culminate quickly or simply.

“It’s ironic,” said Avi Kestenbaum, a New York estate planning attorney with Meltzer Lippe. “Prince, at age 57, spent 37 years making his legacy. He fought the music industry for control, and now he has no control.”

It’s a lesson for other people, whether rich or poor, famous or regular. When you die without a will, you get no say. If you hated a relative, your children might end up in that person’s care. If you divorced and forgot to take a previous spouse’s name off an account or insurance policy, your new spouse or children might not benefit. If you have a business, and children with no interest in it and no business savvy get control, the value of your life’s work could be destroyed.

After a death, if there’s no will, a house with both spouses’ names on it will go to the surviving spouse. But in an era of multiple marriages and divorces, inheritances get sloppy. Consider a father with grown children who have sweet memories of the home where they were raised. With no will, a second wife could inherit the house and give it to her own children from her previous marriage, leaving out the children who were raised in that house, notes estate planning attorney Adam Damerow, of McGuireWoods in Chicago.

On the other hand, estate planning attorneys recall instances in which second wives have been left homeless because a husband died without updating an old will to incorporate a second wife. In an old will, he leaves his home and everything else to his children.

“The kids kick the woman out of her own house,” said Kestenbaum.

In situations where everyone gets along, the children might ignore the will and let the woman stay in the home. But in some families not everyone gets along, Damerow said.

The court can’t guess what might have been in a person’s head, but certain rules apply when there is no will: If a person has a spouse and children, the estate is divided half to the spouse and half to the children. If there are only children, the estate is divided equally among them. If there are no children, siblings come next and inherit an equal share of the wealth.

Many people don’t write wills because they assume they are young and have plenty of time. Yet Prince was only 57 years old. Many people also do not want to think about dying, or worry about giving up control, said Kestenbaum. They say: “I’ll be dead anyway. Why should I care?”

But the Prince case illustrates one reason to care: His siblings now could be targets of people trying to exercise business interests that are not favorable to them, and even if the siblings got along well the pressures can divide them.

Estate attorneys say that they often see families torn apart as they deal with the division of property and control after a death. “The most fights occur where there is a business or real estate that is given to children equally,” said Kestenbaum. “How do you run a restaurant with four chefs in the kitchen?” he said. “So maybe you leave a business to one child and insurance to another.”

Families should revisit the will every few years because as time passes, one asset can gain value a lot while another loses.

Les Kotzer, a Toronto attorney, takes preparations for the family even further in his book: “The Family Fight: Planning to Avoid It.”

During years of working with wills, Kotzer noted that many grown children end up in feuds because parents failed to talk with their children about wills while still alive. Conversations can suggest better ways of dividing possessions. One problem Kotzer noted was that one grown child might have memories of playing a piano in the family home, while the child who is to be given the piano in a will might have a spouse that doesn’t want the instrument cluttering their house.

Complete Article HERE!

Duck, Death and the Tulip: An Uncommonly Tender Illustrated Meditation on the Cycle of Life

“When you’re dead, the pond will be gone, too — at least for you.”001

“Death is our friend precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love,” Rilke wrote in contemplatinghow befriending our mortality can help us feel more alive. Nearly a century later, John Updike echoed this sentiment: “Each day, we wake slightly altered, and the person we were yesterday is dead. So why, one could say, be afraid of death, when death comes all the time?” And yet however poetic this notion might be, it remains one of the hardest for us to befriend and reconcile with our irrepressible impulse for aliveness. How, then, are those only just plunging into the lush river of life to confront the prospect of its flow’s cessation?

The German children’s book author and illustrator Wolf Erlbruch offers a wonderfully warm and assuring answer in Duck, Death and the Tulip (public library) — a marvelous addition to the handful of intelligent and imaginative children’s books about death and loss.

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One day, Duck turns around to find Death standing behind her. Terrified, she asks whether he has come to take her, but he remarks rather matter-of-factly that he has been there her entire life.

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At first chilled by the notion of Death’s lifelong proximity, Duck slowly, cautiously, curiously acquaints herself with him.

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Death gave her a friendly smile.

Actually he was nice (if you forgot for a moment who he was).
Really quite nice.

With great economy of words and minimalist yet enormously expressive illustrations, Erlbruch conveys the quiet ease that develops between the two as they relax into an unlikely camaraderie.

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Duck suggests they go to the pond together, and although Death has always dreaded that, he reluctantly agrees. But the water is too much for him.

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“Are you cold?” Duck asked. “Shall I warm you a little?”
Nobody had ever offered to do that for Death.

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They awake together in the morning and Duck is overjoyed to discover that she is not dead. Here, Erlbruch injects the lightheartedness always necessary for keeping the profound from slipping into the overly sentimental:

She poked Death in the ribs. “I’m not dead!” she quacked, utterly delighted.

“I’m pleased for you,” Death said, stretching.

“And if I’d died?”

“Then I wouldn’t have been able to sleep in,” Death yawned.

That wasn’t a nice thing to say, thought Duck.

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But since any friendship is woven of “a continued, mutual forgiveness,” Duck eventually metabolizes her hurt feelings and the two find their way into a conversation about the common mythologies of the afterlife central to our human delusion of immortality:

“Some ducks say you become an angel and sit on a cloud, looking over the earth.”

“Quite possibly.” Death rose to his feet. “You have the wings already.”

“Some ducks say that deep in the earth there’s a place where you’ll be roasted if you haven’t been good.”

“You ducks come up with some amazing stories, but who knows.”

“So you don’t know either,” Duck snapped.

Death just looked at her.

Having failed to resolve the existential perplexity of nonexistence, they return to the simple satisfactions of living and decide to climb a tree.

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They could see the pond far below. There it lay. So still. And so lonely.

“That’s what it will be like when I’m dead,” Duck thought. “The pond alone, without me.”

Death sometimes read minds. “When you’re dead, the pond will be gone, too — at least for you.”

“Are you sure?” Duck was astonished.

“As sure as can be,” Death said.

“That’s a comfort. I won’t have to mourn over it when…”

“…when you’re dead.” Death finished the sentence. He wasn’t coy about the subject.

As summer winds down, the two friends visit the pond less and less, and sit quietly in the grass together more and more. When autumn arrives, Duck feels the chill in her feathers for the first time, perhaps in the way that one suddenly feels old one day — the unannounced arrival of a chilling new awareness of one’s finitude, wedged between an unredeemable yesterday and an inevitable tomorrow.

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“I’m cold,” she said one evening. “Will you warm me a little?”

Snowflakes drifted down.

Something had happened. Death looked at the duck.

She’d stopped breathing. She lay quite still.

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Stroking her disheveled feathers back into a temporary perfection, Death picks Duck up and carries her tenderly to the river, then lays her on the water and releases her into its unstoppable flow, watching wistfully as she floats away. It’s the visual counterpart to that unforgettable line from Elizabeth Alexander’s sublime memoir:“Perhaps tragedies are only tragedies in the presence of love, which confers meaning to loss.”

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For a long time he watched her.

When she was lost to sight, he was almost a little moved.

“But that’s life,” thought Death.

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As the river spills off the book and we turn to the last page, we see Death surrounded by other animals — a subtle reminder that he will escort the fox and the rabbit and you and me down the river of life, just as he did Duck. And perhaps that’s okay.

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Complement the immeasurably beautiful and poetic Duck, Death and the Tulip with the Danish masterpiece Cry, Heart, But Never Break and Oliver Jeffers’s The Heart and the Bottle, then revisit a Zen master’s explanation of death and the life-force to a child.

Complete Article HERE!

10 Myths about Palliative Care

By: CVH Team

Palliative-Care2

Palliative care is still widely misunderstood by many Canadians. Here are 10 common myths we often encounter. Help dispel these myths by sharing the facts with family members and friends, colleagues, patients and client.

1.  Myth: Palliative care hastens death.
Fact: Palliative care does not hasten death. It provides comfort and the best quality of life from diagnosis of an advanced illness until end of life.
See also: Palliative Care: Dispel the myth of hastening death

2.  Myth: Palliative care is only for people dying of cancer.
Fact: Palliative care can benefit patients and their families from the time of diagnosis of any illness that may shorten life.
See also: How do you know when someone is ready for palliative care?

3.  Myth: People in palliative care who stop eating die of starvation.
Fact: People with advanced illnesses don’t experience hunger or thirst as healthy people do. People who stop eating die of their illness, not starvation.
See also: Can you provide some guidance about oral nutrition at the end of life?

4.  Myth: Palliative care is only provided in a hospital.
Fact: Palliative care can be provided wherever the patient lives – home, long-term care facility, hospice or hospital.
See also: What is Palliative Care?

5.  Myth: We need to protect children from being exposed to death and dying.
Fact: Allowing children to talk about death and dying can help them develop healthy attitudes that can benefit them as adults. Like adults, children also need time to say goodbye to people who are important to them.
See also:  Don’t Use the ‘D’ Word: Exploring Myths about Children and Death

6.  Myth: Pain is a part of dying.
Fact: Pain is not always a part of dying. If pain is experienced near end of life, there are many ways it can be alleviated.
See also: Pain

7.  Myth: Taking pain medications in palliative care leads to addiction.
Fact: Keeping people comfortable often requires increased doses of pain medication. This is a result of tolerance to medication as the body adjusts, not addiction.
See also: Pain medication myths: Addiction and hastened death

8.  Myth: Morphine is administered to hasten death.
Fact: Appropriate doses of morphine keep patients comfortable but do not hasten death.
See also: Does morphine make death come sooner?

9.  Myth: Palliative care means my doctor has given up and there is no hope for me.
Fact: Palliative care ensures the best quality of life for those who have been diagnosed with an advanced illness. Hope becomes less about cure and more about living life as fully as possible.
See also: Health Care Decisions: An Approach to Decision Making and Advance Care Planning

10. Myth: I’ve let my family member down because he/she didn’t die at home.
Fact: Sometimes the needs of the patient exceed what can be provided at home despite best efforts. Ensuring that the best care is delivered, regardless of setting, is not a failure.

Complete Article HERE!

We think our attitudes to death are unchanging. They’re not

Death rituals such as the anglers who turned their friend’s ashes into fishing bait are nothing new. In the west, we could learn much from other cultures

By 

‘In Tana Toraja in Indonesia, they hold a festival called Ma’nene, during which they remove the bodies of favoured ancestors from their coffins and clean and dress them. Sometimes they even walk them around the village.’
‘In Tana Toraja in Indonesia, they hold a festival called Ma’nene, during which they remove the bodies of favoured ancestors from their coffins and clean and dress them. Sometimes they even walk them around the village.’

The 18th-century printer and type designer John Baskerville (he of the “Baskerville font”) was so averse to religion and its conventions that he requested that, upon his death, his body be buried upright in a specially prepared vault in an old mill on his property. In 1775, his wishes were fulfilled. In 1821, however, a canal was built locally and the mill was destroyed. The landowner at the time put Baskerville’s body on display until his descendants had it moved to a crypt in Christ Church, Birmingham. In 1897, the church was demolished and poor Baskerville’s remains were moved again, this time to the catacombs of Warstone Lane Cemetery. In 1963, a petition was put forward to the Birmingham city council that what little remained of John Baskerville be moved a fifth time to unconsecrated grounds, in keeping with his original wishes.

The petition was denied.

Baskerville wasn’t the only person in the 18th century (or indeed any century) to flout traditional death practices. Since time immemorial, people have sought alternative solutions to disposing of human remains. The news stories we see today – like the man whose ashes were turned into fishing bait and used by his friends to catch a 180lb fish – are nothing new.

Dr John Troyer, who heads the Centre for Death & Society at the University of Bath, is currently spearheading the Future Cemetery project in conjunction with Arnos Vale cemetery in Bristol. “The idea was to deliver a large-scale project that experimented with new approaches like projection, augmented reality, and Bluetooth soundscapes to engage visitors with this stunning but sensitive space.” In other words, you may someday be able to walk into a cemetery and listen to a hologram of a dead loved one speak about his or her life.

Ma’nene festival of corpses, Indonesia.
Ma’nene festival of corpses, Indonesia.

Although some people might be averse to these developments, we should remember that new technologies and death have often gone hand-in-hand in the past. For instance, postmortem photos began to emerge shortly after commercial photography itself became available in 1839, and carried on being popular into the early 20th century. Today, we might liken this to the trend among millennials to take “funeral selfies”.

The desire for alternative death practices is growing, especially among an ageing population of baby boomers who have been accustomed to having a wide range of choice in their lives.

Caitlin Doughty – mortician, writer and founder of the Order of the Good Death – educates the public about their options through her popular YouTube series, Ask a Mortician. She recently opened a new funeral parlour, Undertaking LA, which “allows families to reclaim rightful control of the dying process and care of the dead body”. The bereaved can wash and dress the bodies of their loved ones in preparation for burial. This process brings a mourner closer to death, and breaks down unwarranted fears of the dead body. “It’s what everyone did 150 years ago,” Doughty says, “and it can be a beautiful way to mourn.”

Although this type of intimacy with a corpse might seem alien to us in the west, there are many cultures around the world that have no problem interacting with the dead. Dr Paul Koudounaris – author of The Empire of Death – has travelled to more than 70 different countries and encountered countless cultures and belief systems along the way. His book features hundreds of photographs of the dead.

“In Tana Toraja [in Indonesia],” he tells me, “they periodically hold a festival called Ma’nene, during which they remove the bodies of favoured ancestors from their coffins and clean and dress them. Sometimes they even walk them around the village.” This past year, Koudounaris attended Ma’nene. After the festival was over, some villagers asked Koudounaris as an afterthought if he wanted to see their grandmother, whose dead body had been laid out in the hut next to his for the past month. “It was the casualness of it that was really striking,” he says. “In the USA, that would not be a casual situation that would slip one’s mind.”

Koudounaris rightly reminds me that we need to be careful about “treating ‘western culture’ as some homogeneous thing,” and that death rituals in westernised society can vary greatly. That said, the more intimate practices tend to come from non-western areas of the world. What Koudounaris hopes we learn from these cultures is that “the dead can still have a role in society, and that death need not be fatalistic”. Like Doughty, he hopes we can reclaim something from the past that we’ve lost: “The irony is that we once understood this in western society, we were much the same way. We forgot it over the past 200 years, and now we’re seeing a nascent movement to relearn that exact lesson.”

Ma’nene festival of corpses, Indonesia.
Ma’nene festival of corpses, Indonesia.

Back in Britain, Troyer continues to push the boundaries with the Future Cemetery project. He reminds us that: “What’s weird today is almost always normalised, forgotten about over time, rediscovered, turned into an ‘alternative’ that seems weird and then becomes normal again.”

Cremation was once considered a radical alternative to burial in Britain. The first woman cremated in this country was Honoretta Pratt in 1769. Today, approximately 75% of Britons are cremated. What will the next big thing in death be for us as we head towards the 22nd century?

 Complete Article HERE!

Rosemary, That’s For Remembrance

By Sarah Elizabeth Troop

cinderella-at-her-mothers-grave

For many there are no brunches, no flowers, no cakes, no surprise gift planning with other family members in secret on Mother’s Day. Instead, there are those who silently endure the day in pain and mourning for many reasons – the death of a mother, the death of a child, the woman who cannot conceive although she desperately tries and time is not on her side, the mother whose child is missing – all members of a secret club no one wants to join.

You may not be aware of it, but I’m willing to bet someone you know – likely someone you care very deeply for – falls into one of these categories. So, if you are one of the lucky ones – you have a mom you can call to tell her you love her, or a child to hold instead of a grave to visit on Mother’s Day, I’m asking you to please take a moment to reach out to your friends and loved ones this Mother’s Day and help them remember.

rosemary

Rosemary is an herb that has long been associated with remembrance and death. Since ancient Roman times when the herb was used in burial rites for this reason, to several accounts of funerals in England where mourners traditionally tossed bouquets of rosemary on top of coffins. In this respect, rosemary is probably best associated with Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5; “Ophelia in her madness names plants that were known for their capacity to ease pain, particularly inwardly felt pain” [1] – “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember.” 

rosemary bread

As human beings we have always honored important events and occasions with food and I want to honor your losses, your memories and your feelings of grief on this day, too. Here is a tea bread, you can take to a friend or make for yourself, incorporating rosemary with apples and lemon.

Rosemary, For Remembrance Bread

(Adapted from Nigella Lawson)

Apple mixture:

  •  1 large apple – Pink Lady or Fiji is what I use
  • 1 small sprig plus 1 or 2 long sprigs of rosemary
  • 2 teaspoons granulated or Baker’s sugar
  • juice and zest of 1 lemon
  • 1 tablespoon butter

Cake batter base:

  • 2 sticks of softened butter
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar plus more for sprinkling over top or casting sugar if you have that
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder

 

Preheat oven to 325˚F. Butter or grease a loaf pan.

Peel, core, and chop the apple and put in a saucepan with the small sprig of rosemary, the 2 teaspoons of sugar, the lemon zest and juice, and 1 tablespoon butter. Cook on low heat for approximately 10 minutes until the apple is soft. Set aside to cool, removing the rosemary sprig once the mixture has cooled.

Put the cooled apple mixture into a food processor and puree. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Cream together the butter, sugar and eggs. Combine the butter mixture with the dry ingredients then pour into your prepared pan and smooth the top. Sprinkle the surface with about 1-2 tablespoons of granulated or casting sugar and then lay the rosemary down along the center.

Bake the cake for 45 minutes, checking at the 35-minute mark to see how it’s going. When your cake tester comes out clean, remove from oven and cool. I refrigerated mine once it was cooled, although if you can’t wait, I’m sure it’s good warm as well!

Complete Article HERE!