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Care of the Body After Death

By Glen R. Horst MDiv, DMin, BA

Family members or close friends may choose to be involved in washing and dressing the body after death has occurred. Caring for a body is not easy and can stir up strong emotions. See Moments After a Death. Many people turn to health care providers and funeral directors for help. They find comfort and assurance in entrusting the body to those who provide professional services. The deceased may have left instructions for their after-death care to be handled by the health care team and chosen funeral home. Other people practice religions or belong to communities that view care of the body as a family responsibility. Their faith community, elders or neighbours provide guidance and support for hands-on care of the body. For some, this is a way of honouring the person – a final act of kindness to him or her.

This article outlines the steps involved in the care of the body after death.

In advance of the death

Talk to the health care team in advance about family or friend involvement in after-death care. You may also want to talk to the health care team about the supplies and assistance that will be required.
Washing, dressing and positioning the body

Washing and dressing the body is an act of intimacy and sign of respect. Those who were most involved in the person’s physical care may feel the most comfortable in doing this. Continued respect for the person’s modesty is essential.

Regardless of whether the person died at home or in hospital, hospice or nursing home, washing and positioning the body is best done where death occurs before stiffening of the body (rigor mortis) sets in. Rigor mortis happens within two to seven hours after death. Regardless of the location of care, you may need four to six people to help in gently moving and turning the body.

At home, you can wash the body in a regular bed. However, a hospital bed or narrow table will make the task easier. Since the body may release fluids or waste after death, place absorbent pads or towels under it. It is important to take precautions to protect yourself from contact with the person’s blood and body fluids. While you are moving, repositioning and washing the body, wear disposable gloves and wash your hands thoroughly after care.

Washing the person’s body after death is much like giving the person a bath during his or her illness.

1. Wash the person’s face, gently closing the eyes before beginning, using the soft pad of your fingertip. If you close them and hold them closed for a few minutes following death, they may stay closed on their own. If they do not, close again and place a soft smooth cloth over them. Then place a small soft weight to keep the eyes in position. To make a weight, fill a small plastic bag with dry uncooked rice, lentils, small beans or seeds.

After you have washed the face, close the mouth before the body starts to stiffen. If the mouth will not stay shut, place a rolled-up towel or washcloth under the chin. If this does not provide enough support to keep the mouth closed, use a light-weight, smooth fabric scarf. Place the middle of the scarf at the top of the head, wrapping each end around the side of the face, under the chin and up to the top of the head where it can be gently tied. These supports will become unnecessary in a few hours and can be removed.

2. Wash the hair unless it has been washed recently. For a man, you might shave his face if that would be his normal practice. You can find step-by-step instructions in the video Personal Hygiene – Caring for hair.

3. Clean the teeth and mouth. Do not remove dentures because you may have difficulty replacing them as the body stiffens.

4. Clean the body using a facecloth with water and a small amount of soap. Begin with the arms and legs and then move to the front and back of the trunk. You may need someone to help you roll the person to each side to wash the back. If you wish, you can add fragrant oil or flower petals to your rinse water. Dry the part of the body you are working on before moving to another. Some families or cultures may also choose to apply a special lotion, oil or fragrance to the person’s skin.

5. Dress or cover the body according to personal wishes or cultural practices. A shirt or a dress can be cut up the middle of the back from the bottom to just below but not through the neckline or collar. Place the arms into the sleeves first and then slipping the neck opening over the head, tucking the sides under the body on each side.

6. Position the arms alongside his or her body and be sure the legs are straight. If the person is in a hospital bed with the head raised, lower the head of the bed to the flat position.

The Canadian Integrative Network for Death Education and Alternatives (CINDEA) has a video series on post-death care at home that includes videos on “Washing the Head, Face, and Mouth”, “Washing the Body”, “Dressing the Body”.

Next steps

If a funeral home is assisting with the funeral, cremation or burial, call to arrange for transport of the body to their facility. If the death has occurred in a hospital, hospice or long-term care facility, the staff will arrange for the body to be picked up by the funeral home of your choice. In hospital, once the family agrees, the body is moved to the morgue and kept there until transported to the funeral home.

If your family is planning a home funeral or burial, cover the body in light clothing so it will stay as cool as possible. A fan, air conditioning, dry ice or an open window in the room where you place the body will help to preserve it.

See also: Planning a Home Funeral

For more information about providing care when death is near or after a death, see Module 8 and Module 9 of the Caregiver Series.

For additional resources and tools to support you in your caregiving role visit CaregiversCAN.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Filing Tax Returns for the Deceased

By D.J. Wilson

Responsibilities exist

Losing a spouse or other family member or someone we are close to is never easy. Not only is the emotional aspect weighty, but there are responsibilities that come along with managing the decedent’s affairs. Organization and follow through are key elements when filing tax returns for the deceased. Together, they can help the process go smoothly.

Important to know

For those with taxable income prior to death, a final tax return must be filed. This is typically done by the spouse with whom they’ve previously filed jointly, or by a legally appointed representative of the deceased. In the case of a surviving spouse, they may continue to file jointly for two additional years if there are dependents and they have not remarried.

What the IRS requires

In most cases, the person responsible for filing the return, such as a surviving spouse, is likely named on the will. Whoever is filing the final return must report all income and financial information up to the time of the deceased person’s earthly departure. If there is no spouse, many times a child, trustee, close family member, or business partner is appointed as representative. Click here to learn more about filing tax returns for a deceased parent.

Is official notification of death required by the IRS?

Typically, the IRS generally does not require formal notification of death to accompany the return. However, on the final return, it must be clearly noted DECEASED, indicating that said person has died. The date of death must also be noted. Electronic returns will automatically state this information when properly programmed. In some rare instances, a formal death certificate may be required.

Decisions must be made

A major decision one faces is whether to prepare the final return oneself or use a tax professional. The tax filer is ultimately responsible for the accuracy of the tax return; thus, it is imperative that the final return is properly prepared. For complicated tax situations, or in the case where one is unfamiliar with taxes and/or does not feel comfortable preparing the return, the guidance of a tax professional is wise.

Why hire a CPA?

A Certified Public Accountant, or CPA, is an expert who is licensed to provide accounting services to the public. They are knowledgeable in tax preparation, internal auditing, and perform other valuable tax and financial services. Note that a CPA is an accountant, but not all accountants are CPAs. CPA is a special professional designation earned by qualified accountants. They must adhere to rules of ethics.

What type of information is needed to prepare a return?

Regardless of whether a tax return is done by an executor or by a professional accountant, the tax filer must gather information regarding the decedent’s tax situation to prepare a final return. The following information is generally useful:

  • A death certificate. Some financial institutions may require a copy before releasing information. CPAs may request a copy of the death certificate to confirm that someone is indeed deceased. In some rare instances, it may also be needed for the final return.
  • Proof as court appointed representative of the estate or deceased. This clarifies who is responsible for filing a tax return on behalf of the deceased.
  • Copies of previous tax returns. If the representative of the deceased does not have copies of the most recent tax returns, there are ways to obtain them. One may file a power of attorney to enable their CPA to obtain copies of previous returns. Alternatively, one may submit Form 4506-T to the IRS to request a transcript of the previous tax return. One must likely demonstrate representative or executor status.
  • A tax organizer. This is a document given to clients by their tax preparer to help individuals collect, organize, and submit information needed to prepare an accurate return. This helps to ensure that vital information is not overlooked. It also helps to confirm that all tax deductions and credits are noted. Paperwork that is generally important to collect and provide to your CPA may include 1099s, mortgage information, bank statements, investment statements, and more.
  • A copy of the will. This may outline other important financial information that may be useful for tax return preparation.

An important job

Filing tax returns for the deceased is a task not to be taken lightly. When a taxpayer passes away, a final return is still expected. This responsibility generally falls onto the surviving spouse or appointed representative. If the responsible party fails to file taxes for a deceased person, the IRS may take legal action, for example, by placing a federal lien against the Estate.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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She helps people cope with death.

— The Indiana Attorney General’s Office made her stop.

By Johnny Magdaleno

As one of Lauren Richwine’s clients lay in bed, his stepdaughter wrote a note and slid it into the shirt pocket over his motionless chest. Friends from the local music scene cried at his side as they prepared to carry the former bassist out of his home, permanently.

Cancer killed the young father. Instead of being rushed away to prepare for burial, his family kept him at home for a day. He rested in a sunroom, Richwine said, where the people in his life grieved and his children climbed in and out of bed with his body.

Richwine runs Death Done Differently — a Fort Wayne company specializing in “community-led death care.” She does end-of-life planning and informs people about alternatives to conventional funerals.

“Some people (say), ‘Isn’t it going to be traumatizing to the children, or couldn’t it be traumatic to see or be with someone after they’ve died?’” Richwine told IndyStar. “And I think, in my experience, it’s the opposite. It’s traumatic when we remove them too fast because we haven’t had time for this to really sink in.”

But as of this week, her work is on hold. On Wednesday she launched a new lawsuit against Indiana after the state shut her business down.

Attorney general’s office says she needs funeral director license

Death Done Differently caught the attention of the Indiana Attorney General’s Office in 2021. Someone filed a complaint against Richwine with the office. The complaint didn’t allege she harmed or deceived anyone, according to a copy reviewed by IndyStar, but said she “may require a license from the state to provide funeral services.” It doesn’t say who complained.

After giving Richwine the chance to reply, the office asked the State Board of Funeral and Cemetery Service for a cease-and-desist order.

Death Done Differently “offers several services that constitute the practice of funeral service,” the office said. It points to services like discussing body disposition, helping with legal paperwork and “readings, music, conversation, healing touch, or general companionship with the dying individual.”

State law says the practice of funeral service includes “the counseling of individuals concerning methods and alternatives for the final disposition of human remains.”

The board agreed. It issued a cease-and-desist order against Richwine on Aug. 21.

Richwine says her work is protected by the First Amendment

Her lawsuit claims Indiana is restricting her free speech because her work is speaking with and educating clients. Richwine’s attorneys want a judge in federal Northern District of Indiana court to issue an injunction that would stop the state from denying her “ability to speak with adults regarding death care.”

“There are a lot of people who currently talk about funeral options, funeral care that are not funeral directors,” Richwine said.

She gave the example of pastors. Some have “healthy relationships” with funeral homes and can be a link between congregants and funeral providers.

“Are they going to now be not allowed? Where does this end if they don’t want you talking about any of the laws and any of the funeral code at all?”

IndyStar has asked the attorney general’s office for its response to the lawsuit.

Former client: ‘She was just there to facilitate’

Andrea Schwartz’s family called Richwine hours after her daughter, Nova, was stillborn. It happened five years ago.

She told IndyStar Richwine played a different role than the funeral home her family worked with.

“Our experience was she was just there to facilitate, give us information, show us what our choices were, support us through it,” Schwartz said. “But then as far as the actual funeral, all the procedures and everything were done through a funeral home with their own funeral director.”

Richwine gave “warm support and comfort.” It was like night and day compared with Schwartz’s past experiences with elderly deaths in the family.

“It was never a positive experience” working with corporate funeral homes, she said. It was cold and impersonal, “like you’re just a number to them.”

“Kind of feeling like you were at a car sales lot the whole time,” Schwartz said.

Lawsuit says traditional funerals ‘medicalize’ death

Richwine’s lawsuit says she advises people about options other than the “historically recent innovation” of “embalming the body, holding a ceremony in a funeral parlor, and cremation or burying in an expensive casket.”

That process “medicalizes death,” the suit claims. It points to home funerals as one alternative, adding that bodies don’t present health risks to those in their vicinity for at least three days “in ordinary circumstances.”

“There’s a weird dynamic at work, where we have been normalized to relate to someone when they die as … not really belonging to us anymore,” Richwine said. “That’s part of what my work comes out of, this very strong belief that they still belong to those loved ones and the relational ties that were created, those deserve to be honored and respected.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Anticipatory Grief Might Be The Process You Don’t Even Realise You’re Going Through

— “We begin to grieve in advance, bracing ourselves for the impending loss.”

By

Although you may not have heard of the term ‘anticipatory grief’, there’s a good chance you’ve experienced it at some point.

Anticipatory grief is the grief we feel when we know a significant loss or major life change is on its way. For example, if someone we love has received a diagnosis of a terminal illness or dementia, we begin to grieve in advance, bracing ourselves for the impending loss.

First and foremost – give your feelings your attention as and when emotions arise. Whatever you are feeling is right for you.

Anticipatory creates a great wave of being out of control and that brings fear. Anything we fear we try to avoid. Acknowledge the different emotions, whatever they are. These can include – denial, anger, anxiety, fear, helplessness.

By acknowledging these reactions and allowing them to surface will help your brain and body make the necessary adjustments. All of these feelings are tendrils of our grief and don’t follow a particular pattern. It’s your own unique reaction to the shock – think of it being like a train being derailed.

If you look at each different emotion as a carriage, they need to be checked out and inspected before being put back on the track. A good way to identify how it is making you feel is to sit quietly on your own and try and find words to describe how you are feeling.

Use this time wisely

Once the loss takes place, we can be left with unresolved grief if we feel there are things we should have said or done or not said or done. This is your opportunity to clean the slate. Even in the best relationships, we still need the opportunity to say ‘I love you’ one more time.

Anticipatory grief can also create an inner conflict because we have the guilt of not wanting to lose our loved yet we do not want them to suffer. Our grief in anticipation can also feel completely different to our grief in real time. It’s never predictable or straightforward.

It’s natural to feel a loss of control during this challenging time and it’s good to just step back and identify the things that you can control and also the things you cannot control.

Things you can’t control

The diagnosis.

Timing: We never know exactly when the loss will happen and this can keep us running on adrenalin.

The reactions of others: As with all grief experiences, our feelings and reactions are totally unique to each of us and there is no set pattern. It is our own journey. This is important to grasp as comparisons to others who are experiencing the impending loss alongside us, can be so different from our own feelings. To cope with an impending loss well, we need to have confidence in our instinctive reactions to it, and that means identifying what we feel regardless of what we think we should be feeling or how anyone else is feeling or what others may expect us to feel.

Your emotions: So many things come into play when we grieve – our learnings about loss in childhood, previous ( unresolved ) losses can enmesh in our anticipatory grief and confuse and complicate our emotions. Allow it to just be.

Things you can control

Support network

It is so important that you have someone who can be your sounding board and hold you up when it all gets too much. Someone who will let you talk and give you gentle nudges in the right direction. People can sometimes be very quick to know exactly what you should do, and can often say the wrong thing, but each situation is totally unique and you will know. Learn to trust your initial instincts and trust yourself and don’t be afraid to say what it is that you need. Engage with medical staff or carers so you are informed at each step and can process the stages. When people offer help, take it. You need to care for yourself so you can care for your loved one.

Emotional care

You will rail against the unfairness of it but coming to the realisation that you have no choice will open you spiritually as you find an inner strength. Sometimes it is in the most adverse and challenging times of our lives where we have our greatest learnings and through these experiences we can actually become better people. Our appreciation of love and life deepens ands gains more value.

Fresh air and exercise

There is nothing better to soothe and clear your head than a walk in nature. Try to take a daily walk or at least every other day. The rhythm of your footfall and the fresh air can be better than medicine. If you have a dog that’s even better.

Communication

Be honest in your words and actions as this opens the door for truthful and meaningful conversations and enhanced feelings of love. You will dig deep into your reserves for the patience needed in a situation of dementia and it’s ok in those moments when your frustration takes over. You are only human and shouldn’t berate yourself. Mantras and mindfulness can help to find a sense of balance. Don’t underestimate the power of fresh air and exercise.

Making memories

This is huge. Any kind of grief isn’t just emotional, it’s physical too. By physically doing things you are working through something. Really think about what is important and what you will need to feel complete. Make your words a gift to both of you. Say and do the right thing. Have conversations whilst you can, take as many trips as you like down memory lane, visit places and people, before it’s too late. Apologise, forgive, complete. Choose photos together and create rituals. Read to them. Find what works for you.

Memories become a candle in the dark and forge a lifelong bond with those we love. Make good ones.

Knowing that there is an impending loss can make us realise the value and importance of our life and we don’t want to waste time. We want to make every second count.

Try this – think about what will be important to you at the end of your life and then ask yourself why isn’t it important today?

And that will keep you focused on the things you want to accomplish before you die. This is called living.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Why you should swap your bucket list with a chuck-it list

By Valerie Tiberius

On my father’s 75th birthday, he announced some news: He no longer intended to learn Spanish. He told me that for most of his life he imagined he would one day speak the language fluently, but this year, at this new age and vantage point, he was giving up that goal.

He seemed a little melancholy about it but mostly relieved that he no longer had this piñata of shame hanging over his head.

Best of all, he adopted a mental heuristic for this goal-no-longer that I believe has liberating potential for everyone: Learning Spanish, he told me, was now an item on his “chuck-it list.” (Full disclosure: My dad’s name for the list is a little saltier).

Bucket lists can be a fun, inspirational tool — they encourage us to chase new experiences, such as learning chess or going on an African safari. But let’s face it: They can also be oppressive, irritating reminders that you can’t afford that $3,000 flight to Johannesburg.

As a philosopher of well-being, I can tell you that philosophers tend to divide into three camps on the subject: hedonists, who think well-being is all about good feelings; objectivists, who believe we live well when we achieve things with value transcending the individual; and desire satisfactionists, who think well-being means fulfilling your own goals.

I am in the third camp. I like that this approach respects individual differences and explains why there are so many different good lives. But it also has a serious flaw: Focusing on pursuing our goals often leaves us running on a treadmill of desire and frustration.

The solution to this problem lies in choosing which goals to pursue. The mere pursuit of a goal won’t promote your well-being — you have to be selective. This is where the chuck-it list comes into play.

Are you the kind of person who is going to be on your deathbed regretting that you missed your chance to ride in a hot-air balloon, like Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz”? Then do it! But when I really thought about that long-held fantasy, I let it go pretty easily, along with parasailing and completing a “century” (a 100-mile bike ride). I felt liberated when I moved these activities to my chuck-it list. It freed me to think about what I actually want to do — which is, turns out, shorter bike rides and flying only in the safety of a commercial airplane.

Of course, building the chuck-it list can be difficult. In his book “Four Thousand Weeks,” Oliver Burkeman reminds us of the old time-management trick of thinking of your goals as rocks that you have to fit into the glass jar of your life. The advice is to put in the big rocks (important goals) first because otherwise you’ll fill your jar with little, unimportant pebbles and won’t be able to fit in the big ones later.

Burkeman dislikes this advice: He points out that the metaphor presupposes that we can squeeze in all the big rocks if we start with them, which might not be true. I agree. Sometimes, it’s a big rock that we have to move to the chuck-it list.

Discarding goals that we really care about is difficult; failing to complete them can elicit sadness or regret. For my father, the relief of letting go of speaking fluent Spanish came tinged with sadness because he saw learning a foreign language as valuable. When you move things to your chuck-it list because you can’t physically do them anymore (e.g., a marathon), there’s also likely to be a layer of disappointment about aging and the reminder of mortality. The same can be said about goals on a bucket list made impossible by financial constraints or time limitations: They force us to come to terms with circumstances beyond our control.

So what should we do about these negative feelings?

My neighbor, a retired pianist and choir director, told me she took learning certain difficult musical compositions off her bucket list. She described the resulting feeling as “sweet loss” — sweet because she can still listen to those beloved pieces, loss because she’s not going to be the one playing them.

Accepting this wisdom requires a shift in perspective. Bucket lists tie the value of our dreams to our value as individuals. Once we cut that tie, we can still appreciate the value of our abandoned goals by finding pleasure in the achievements of others.

Shifting away from a self-centered perspective can help giving up goals feel a bit less bitter. And really, what is the alternative? Keep everything on your bucket list and try to stuff all the rocks into the jar? This inevitably leads to disappointment and frustration. It might also lead to missing out on enjoying what wasn’t on your bucket list — things brought to you by serendipity that you couldn’t plan for, or things you’ve been taking for granted.

This is why I believe your chuck-it list is just as important as your bucket list. As you age, you grow into a different person with new priorities; your goals should evolve, too. Give yourself permission to remove those items you’ll probably never get to. And most important: Don’t feel so bad about it.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Terminal illness

— Navigating the struggles of acceptance

By Linda Thomas, RN

Reality knocked me for a loop one evening when my father-in-law called from his home in another state and asked for help. This kind of request was very uncharacteristic for him. We responded immediately and drove to his home. After much conversation and many questions from both sides, we eventually came to the hard truth. His cancer had progressed and, to my mind, was most likely terminal. I dug in and started contacting his doctors, trying to sort out his health issues and prognosis. This took most of a day. I came to realize he was seeing nine physicians! He was in a desperate state of denial. The oncologist repeated that he had been very open and clear with my father-in-law about the cancer and its spread.

My father-in-law had been readmitted to the hospital with a very determined but misguided surgeon. My father-in-law thought the surgery proposed by the surgeon would be a cure. It wouldn’t be, and I had the unenviable task of discussing end-of-life matters with the patient, something the surgeon should have been upfront about.

Hospice came to the hospital to discuss the care they could offer him at his home. He elected to enter into hospice, and we took him home. At this point, he was feeling fairly well, and he had a glorious two weeks with friends and family coming for visits from many miles away. Meanwhile, I quickly discovered I was in unfamiliar territory when it came to his care. It was increasingly difficult for me to care for someone I loved and had a close familial bond with. The amounts of medication he was allowed, the hard decisions I had to make… all were uncomfortably entwined with the closeness of being family. He asked for teaching regarding his health and prognosis, and we spent hours discussing end-of-life matters and the decisions to be made. Even though family was in touch, they were in their stages of denial. I became the liaison for the family’s questions, as well.

Uncharacteristically for me, I was struck with uncertainty, processing my grief while maintaining my professional duties. I relied heavily on the hospice nurses as they made their daily visits. The type of care I gave him, the large doses of medications that kept him comfortable… all were different when compared to my decades of working to save lives and titrating medications for patients who would, with the care given, most likely live to go home and resume their lives. I found myself relying on the hospice nurse, asking questions like, “Are you sure it’s ok to give him that large a dose of painkillers?” She worked with me, explaining how different this type of nursing was compared to the care given to save the lives of my usual hospitalized post-surgical, cardiac, neuro, psyche, burn, chronic respiratory, and emergency patients.

There were different, more intense emotions involved in caring for this terminally ill, beloved family member. I second-guessed myself in areas where I normally was quite confident. The advice that most helped guide me through the nights of caring for him was given to me by the hospice nurse. She repeated to me several times, “This is different from the nursing you are used to. You medicate this patient for his comfort… whatever it takes. You cannot overdose him. I repeat, you cannot overdose him.” So I learned a new skill. I learned to titrate medication for his comfort, to give him what he needed, without second-guessing myself. I kept him comfortable but functional.

And one night, he collapsed as he left the bathroom. He had no perceptible heartbeat. He had no perceptible breathing. After 15 minutes, he sat up and started talking! It blew my mind. Once he was settled back in bed, I teased him about him having left us to visit his favorite brother and his much-loved mother, both deceased. He suddenly looked at me with complete seriousness and said, “How did you know where I was?” He was thoughtful for the next few hours, then quietly said, “I’m ready. I’m ready to go, and I’m not afraid. I’ve done everything I needed to.” Three days later, he left us. That time there was no resurrection.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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More obituaries acknowledge suicide as openness on mental health grows

Deborah Blum holds a photo of her child, Esther Iris, who died by suicide in 2021. When it came time to write the death notice, Blum was open and specific about the mental health struggles that led to her child’s death.

By Debby Waldman

When Deborah and Warren Blum’s 16-year-old died by suicide in November 2021, they went into shock. For two days, the grief-stricken Los Angeles couple didn’t sleep.

But when it came time to write a death notice, Deborah Blum was clearheaded: In a heartfelt tribute to her smart, funny, popular child, who had recently come out as nonbinary, she was open and specific about the mental health struggles that led to Esther Iris’s death.

“Esther’s whole thing was that people should know and talk about mental health and it shouldn’t be a secret,” Deborah Blum told KFF Health News. “The least I could do was to be honest and tell people. I think being embarrassed just makes it worse.”

Deborah Blum in the bedroom of her teen child, Esther Iris.

While it was once unheard-of to mention suicide as a cause of death in news obituaries and paid death notices, that has been changing, especially in the past 10 years, said Dan Reidenberg, a psychologist and managing director of the National Council for Suicide Prevention.

High-profile suicides — such as those of comic actor Robin Williams in 2014, fashion designer Kate Spade in 2018 and dancer Stephen “tWitch” Boss in 2022 — have helped reduce the stigma surrounding suicide loss. So has advertising for depression and anxiety medications, which has helped normalize that mental illnesses are health conditions.

The covid-19 pandemic also drew attention to the prevalence of mental health challenges.

“The stigma is changing,” Reidenberg said. “There is still some, but it’s less than it used to be, and that’s increasing people’s willingness to include it in an obituary.”

The teen’s drawings.
A card Esther Iris made for their dad, Warren Blum.

While there’s no right or wrong way to write death announcements, mental health and grief experts said the reluctance to acknowledge suicide has implications beyond the confines of a public notice. The stigma attached to the word affects everything from how people grieve to how people help prevent others from ending their own lives.

Research shows that talking about suicide can help reduce suicidal thoughts, but studies have also found that spikes in suicide rates can follow news reports about someone dying that way — a phenomenon known as “suicide contagion.” The latter is an argument people make for not acknowledging suicide in obituaries and death notices.

Reidenberg said, however, the subject can be addressed responsibly.

That includes telling a balanced story, similar to what Deborah Blum did, acknowledging Esther Iris’s accomplishments as well as their struggles. It means leaving out details about the method or location of the death, and not glorifying the deceased in a way that might encourage vulnerable readers to think dying by suicide is a good way to get attention.

A surfboard in memory of Esther Iris, with notes from their community written on it, is outside the Blum home in Los Angeles.

“We don’t ever want to normalize suicide, but we don’t want to normalize that people can’t have a conversation about suicide,” Reidenberg said.

Having that conversation is an important part of the grieving process, said Holly Prigerson, a professor of sociology in medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and an expert on prolonged grief disorder.

“Part of adjusting to the loss of someone is coming up with a story of what happened and why,” she said. “To the extent that you can’t be honest and acknowledge what happened if it’s a death due to suicide, that will complicate, if not impede, your ability to fully and accurately process your loss.”

People close to the deceased often know when a death was by suicide, Reidenberg said, particularly in the case of young people.

“Being honest can lead to information and awareness, whereas if we keep it shrouded in this big mystery it doesn’t help,” he added.

A study about caregiver depression that Prigerson recently conducted identified avoidance as an impediment to healing from grief.

“Not acknowledging how someone died, denying the cause of death, avoiding the reality of what happened is a significant barrier to being able to adjust to what happened and to move forward,” she said.

Researchers are increasingly seeing bereavement as a social process, Prigerson said, and as social beings, people look to others for comfort and solace. That’s another reason the stigma attached to suicide is harmful: It keeps people from opening up.

“The stigma is based on the perception that others will judge you as being an inadequate parent, or not having done enough,” Prigerson said. “This whole thing with obituaries is all about others — it’s about how people are going to read what happened and think less of you.”

Stigma, shame and embarrassment are among the reasons grieving family members have traditionally avoided acknowledging suicide in obituaries and death notices. It’s also why, if they do, they may be more likely to address it indirectly, either by describing the death as “sudden and unexpected” or by soliciting donations for mental health programs.

Economics can factor in — sometimes people are secretive because of life insurance plans that exclude payouts for suicides. Sometimes they’re trying to protect reputations, theirs as well as those of the deceased, particularly in religious communities where suicide is considered a sin.

Avoiding the word suicide doesn’t necessarily mean someone is in denial. In the days after a loss, which is when most obituaries and death announcements are written, it’s often profoundly difficult to face the truth, especially in the case of suicide, said Doreen Marshall, a psychologist and former vice president at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Even when people can admit the truth to themselves, they might have trouble expressing it to others, said Joanne Harpel, a suicide bereavement expert in New York who works with mourners through her business, Coping After Suicide.

In the support groups she runs, she said, people vary in how open they are willing to be. For example, in the group for mothers who have lost a child to suicide, everyone acknowledges that reality — after all, that’s why they’re there — but they don’t all do so the same way.

“Some of them will refer to ‘when this happened’ or ‘before all this,’” Harpel said, cautioning against holding all mourners to the same standard. “They’re not pretending it was something else, but using the word ‘suicide’ is so confronting and so painful that even in the safest context it’s very, very hard for them to say it out loud.”

If you or someone you know needs help, visit 988lifeline.org or call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.<

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