Tag: Grief and Grieving

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Dying with a plan: Do not go unprepared into that good night

DUST IN THE WIND: The Carolina Memorial Sanctuary is an 11-acre conservation burial ground where bodies are buried in biodegradable vessels. Above, a funeral takes place at CMS, which is also a conservation easement and North Carolina's first conservation burial ground.
DUST IN THE WIND: The Carolina Memorial Sanctuary is an 11-acre conservation burial ground where bodies are buried in biodegradable vessels. Above, a funeral takes place at CMS, which is also a conservation easement and North Carolina’s first conservation burial ground.

by Dan Hesse

Spoiler alert: You’re going to die. You already know that, but how much preparation for the inevitable have you made?

Living in Buncombe County, we can expect to live for 79.2 years, according to the local Health & Human Services Department. In a county with a quarter-million people, about 2,315 pass annually, an average based on 11,579 deaths in the five-year period from 2008–12, per a study by the department. The top three causes of death during those five years was cancer (2,563), heart disease (2,513) and chronic lower respiratory disease (784).

Last year was harder on us, though: 3,564 people died in Buncombe, the deputy registrar reports.

About 19 percent of Buncombe’s residents are 65 or older, according to 2015 U.S. census data — or 48,103 elders among a total population of 253,178. Of course, 65 is by no means the beginning of the end, nor does death target only the aged. In the five-year period covered by the above-cited study, we lost 170 people between the ages of 20 and 39, and 1,356 people between the ages of 40 and 64. And in 2015, we lost 176 people between the ages of 15 and 44 and 648 people between the ages of 45 and 64.

Given the ubiquitous and unavoidable nature of death, it seems that it should be an event we’d all plan for. But is it?

No one can confidently say that he will be living tomorrow — Euripides

Societal attitudes, traditions and responses toward death vary, but death is, well, as old as life. Carol Motley, founder of Bury Me Naturally Coffins and Caskets, says the advent of the Civil War and the resulting new practice of embalming was a catalyst for what American society now recognizes as a traditional funeral. “Before the war, you would dig a hole and put a body in it. During the Civil War, embalming tents became common at battlegrounds. You could get shipped home and not stink. And that was appealing,” she notes wryly.

Josh Slocum, executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, agrees that the so-called traditional funeral is a relatively new concept. “We have a really short historical memory, but when you look back into the 19th century, what we now call a traditional funeral — the chemical embalming; the public display at a commercial place of business; mass-manufactured caskets; the Cadillac hearse to the cemetery — it didn’t come along until the last quarter of the 19th century,” he says. “It was a commercially created tradition.”

The FCA is a national nonprofit focused on raising awareness about consumer and legal rights when dealing with the funeral industry. “Most Americans, your own family, just a short period of time ago, was having a funeral where the body was washed at home, laid out at your home, in a coffin built by a local woodworker or by somebody in the backyard,” Slocum says. “That was the conventional burial. Burial in a sheet or wood box is as old as human history.”

Death is just another path, one that we all must take — J. R. R. Tolkien

While many people aren’t intentional about addressing their death, it’s a topic worth exploring, says Caroline Yongue, executive director of the Center for End of Life Transition. The interfaith organization helps people make decisions and provide instructions regarding what happens to their body after death. “North Carolina law says loved ones can act as funeral directors, so it is possible to bypass the funeral industry completely. But you would need to be prepared for death, to be prepared for what it takes to handle it yourself,” Yongue says. And planning ahead is key. “We’ve defaulted to the funeral industry in the last several decades, so people aren’t aware that they have their own legal rights,” she continues, noting that after a loved one dies, it’s difficult to know what to do if end-of-life decisions aren’t made beforehand.

In many cases the deceased hadn’t been intentional about declaring wishes for their funeral and what they want to happen to their body, according to Yongue. Yet, there’s a comfort in not having to make those tough choices immediately after the last breath is declared: “A nurse or social worker walks in the room and asks, ‘Which funeral home do you want me to call?’ And the funeral home is called because that’s the path of least resistance.”

Motley concurs, saying that even those at the end of their path neglect the inevitable. “I can’t believe how many people are terminally ill, die and then we have to overnight a casket. Most of the time that’s what happens; you’re dealing with everything but the obvious,” she notes. “There’s not a place in our societal life where we address it. You have to make a concerted effort to do it. It’s not part of church, school, anything. And it should be. We should go ahead and fill out our death certificate.” You can get a death certificate in person, online or via mail, from the Buncombe County Register of Deeds.

Juanita Igo, a case manager with the Buncombe County Council on Aging, says she often sees that conversation placed on the back burner because of day-to-day stressors. “We work with people who don’t have enough resources to pay for their rent, their medication. … So sometimes just getting through the day is what they’re working on,” she notes.

Igo recommends using the Five Wishes document provided by the nonprofit Aging With Dignity. The document will help you determine what you want in regard to various aspects of medical and social preferences for the end of your life. “You’re taking people through a conversation that’s more natural to them, about what they want to have happen. Participants do have to get the form notarized, but it gets people thinking about those things and starts the conversation,” she says.

It’s not just the elderly who die, Igo adds. “It might be something that comes up suddenly, so it’s good to start the conversation.”

“Funeral planning has to be a family conversation, the same way we have conversations about where to go to college, how much it will cost and how we will pay for it,” says Slocum. He believes there is a distinctly American fear of death that keeps the subject irrationally inaccessible. “We don’t even like to say the word. If you look at the obituaries, and there’s 10 people in it, I bet you eight of them didn’t even die. They passed away, they went home to Jesus, but, by God, they didn’t die,” says Slocum.

The Rev. Ed Hillman, president of the FCA of Western North Carolina, also sees death as a taboo subject that needs to be brought into the light. “We don’t like to think about our own mortality. I think there’s an innate fear of death in all of us, and we think that somehow by talking about it, it will bring it about — which is not rational,” he says. Hillman points out that it’s everyone’s responsibility to have “the talk,” and that despite its uncomfortable nature, engaging the conversation can save anguish after a death. Unfortunately, “[not having the talk] can put our next of kin in a place where they have to guess what we want and end up spending resources that they might not even have in trying to figure out what a deceased person actually wanted,” he says. “The more detailed the plans, the less the next of kin has to guess about what the deceased person would want.”

Slocum says it also makes financial sense to determine your burial/cremation arrangements ahead of time. He urges people to approach this planning the same way they look for a car: Shop around. “Prices of funeral homes in the same city are wildly different. People don’t expect this. When you shop for a stereo, you’re shopping for a difference of price of about 35 percent; we don’t expect prices on the same model to range from $500 to $2,000. Not true at funeral homes,” he says. “You will find funeral homes, within driving distance of where you’re sitting right now, charging $1,000 for simple cremation and ones charging about $4,000 for that simple cremation.” The FCA of Western North Carolina compiles information about funeral costs in 14 counties. In Buncombe, the cost of cremation ranges from $895 to $4,460; and the cost of burial ranges from $1,495 to $6,940, with varying distances the funeral home will transport the body.

Slocum and Hillman make it clear that the FCA isn’t against the funeral industry. As Hillman notes, “The vast majority of funeral homes are really wonderful services for people, though every once in a while there are things people just do not need.” And Slocum adds that’s why the FCA’s mission is to educate consumers about their rights. “The Federal Trade Commission has the Funeral Rule that gives consumers important rights. You have the right to get quotes over the phone. Every funeral home you visit and talk about funeral arrangements with is required by law to hand you a printed, itemized price list at the beginning of the conversation,” he says. “Funeral homes are allowed to provide packages but they are not allowed to deny you itemized choices, and that’s one of the best ways to control funeral costs.”

Further, “Caskets, no matter what they’re made out of or how well they’re constructed, none of them will ‘protect or preserve your body.’ None of them will keep out air, water and dirt. None of them will keep you from decomposing,” Slocum notes. “There are caskets out there that are marketed as sealed and protective. And people of otherwise good sense can be misled. You’re going to be just as dead in a $10,000 casket as you are in a $2,500 cardboard box.”

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well-lived brings happy death — Leonardo da Vinci

But if a cardboard box is OK with you, there are ways to have a natural burial here in Western North Carolina. Yongue also runs the Carolina Memorial Sanctuary, an 11-acre plot of land that is the state’s first conservation burial ground. CMS has a conservation easement, and its burial techniques incorporate the chemical-free, unembalmed body, inside a biodegradable vessel, into the landscaping. “We all have a body, and it’s got to get recycled somehow. If we are conscientious about it, we can do it in a green way that has the least amount of impact on the planet,” she says. “Because we’ve got a lot of bodies on the planet.”

Yongue also doesn’t have anything bad to say about the funeral home industry. “Somebody’s got to deal with the bodies, but it’s incredibly expensive. And because people aren’t prepared, oftentimes they spend a lot more money than they would have if they had prepared for death,” she says. However, she knows unorthodox methods don’t always resonate. “Home funerals are not for everybody. Our hope is people become more informed about what their options are.”

Ultimately, Yongue believes, it’s about conveying postlife wishes, regardless of what those might be. Otherwise, she says, “It’s like going on a vacation, but you don’t plan for it. It would be like going to Europe, and the day of your trip arrives, you don’t have your passport, your luggage isn’t packed.”

Plus, a direct approach to death can have a positive effect on the living, Yongue posits. “If we walk around with death on our shoulder, we would be kinder, more compassionate, because everybody we see is going to die.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Floating cemeteries and space burials: Asia’s futuristic take on death

By Kate Springer

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A floating cemetery in Hong Kong? – Floating cemeteries drifting along Hong Kong’s coastline could be the solution to the country’s lack of land space and aging population.

By 2050, one in every four people in Asia-Pacific will be over 60 years old, according to the United Nations.

At the same time, 188,000 people per day are flocking to urban areas, putting huge pressure on real estate.

With more people dying and less space available, architects and city planners are imagining bold and modern ways to bury the departed, which are both efficient and respectful.

From conveyor-belt columbarium to floating cemeteries and even space burials, the Asian funeral scene is undergoing an exhilarating transformation.

Death might be inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be predictable.

High-tech deaths

Japan has seen perhaps the most dramatic changes to its burial scene.

Since the Edo period (1603-1868), inherited rural graves and, more recently, urban cemetery spots have been passed down through the generations of a family.

But the cost of keeping a burial plot has skyrocketed in recent years. Today, a spot in prestigious Aoyama Cemetery, in Tokyo, costs $100,000, while even locker-style columbarium — called nokotsudo — can fetch $12,000 at a centrally located Buddhist temple.

Furthermore, with single households in Japanese on the rise, reliance on an inherited burial site is less practical.

The Ruriden Byakurengedo columbarium, in Tokyo’s famous shopping district of Shinjuku, is one high-tech alternative updated to suit modern life in Japan.

From the outside, Ruriden looks like a traditional Buddhist burial building with wooden doors and gracefully curving eaves.

But upon swiping an electronic pass card to enter, the doors swish open to unveil a dazzling display of 2,045 LED-lit Buddha statues. The relevant Buddha glows a different color, guiding each visitor to the niche that houses their loved one’s remains.

Not an incense stick or memorial plaque is in sight.

A niche here costs $7,379, including maintenance, and can be used for 30 years before the remains are moved to a communal area under the building, to make way for incoming remains.

For many elderly without children, this removes the worry about maintenance of their niche, or passing it on to the next generation.

“Japan’s population is declining due to a failing birthrate … it is getting difficult to hand over the family grave to the next generation,” Taijun Yajima, head priest of Kokokuji Buddhist Temple in Tokyo, which operates Ruriden, tells CNN.

“But the tradition and sentiment towards the deceased has not changed even we though use high tech solutions. This columbarium just meets the needs of the times.”

The Shinjuku Rurikoin Byakurengedo, in Tokyo, looks like a spaceship and acts like a smart library for ashes.

“The building doesn’t feel anything like a crematorium,” says Hikaru Suzuki, author of “The Price of Death: The Funeral Industry in Contemporary Japan.”

When you swipe the card, a machine automatically fetches the relevant ashes from an underground vault and transports them across a conveyor belt system to the appropriate room.

The compact building holds tens of thousands of urns, and does not require an inheritor or maintenance by a family member.

A sea of ideas

In Hong Kong, there is barely enough land for the living, let alone the dead.

Burial sites, therefore, are impractical and 90% of the population opts for cremation.

But even ashes need a home, and reserving a niche in a public columbarium has become akin to winning the lottery, with thousands of families on waiting lists to secure a tiny square foot of space, according to the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD), which oversees these facilities.

Meanwhile, a private columbarium niche can cost over $100,000.

With about 50,000 deaths a year in Hong Kong — a city of 8 million people — there will be a shortage of 400,000 niches by 2023, according to the FEHD.

The “Floating Eternity” is a sea-faring cemetery aimed at relieving pressure on the city’s burial sites, and designed by local architectural firm Bread Studios.

“In Hong Kong, it’s traditional to visit our ancestors’ graves twice a year — at Ching Ming Festival, in April, and Chung Yeung Festival, in October,” says Paul Mui, design director at Bread Studio.

“It seems like a waste to reserve so much valuable land for places we only visit twice a year.”

The Floating Eternity, if built, would offer enough columbarium space to house the ashes of 370,000 people. The design incorporates cultural details, such as a positive feng shui design and bamboo gardens.

Lingering around the back of Hong Kong Island during off-season, the boat would dock in accessible spots for Ching Ming Festival, allowing relatives onboard to take part in traditional grave-sweeping activities.

Infinity and beyond

The Elysium Space service is taking off-land burials one step further, by launching ashes into orbit.

For $1,990 each, 100 families per rocket launch can send a 1-gram capsule of ashes into space. The satellite containing the capsules typically orbits the Earth for several months before blazing back into the atmosphere, like a shooting star.

“Space is not just about technology, it is a beautiful landscape that can be used to create poetic celebrations,” former NASA space system engineer Thomas Civeit, the founder of Elysium Space, tells CNN.

“Narratives about our souls traveling through the stars after we pass away already exist in Japan,” explains Civeit, adding that about 50% of the US-based company’s customers are Japanese.

The first launch departed from Kauai, Hawaii, in 2015, with another scheduled for this year.

Families can use an app to track the orbiting satellite, and even see it with the naked eye, if wearing binoculars.

“New practices like these don’t come out of the blue,” says Suzuki, also an adviser for Elysium Space

“The space burial is a culmination of technological possibilities and the younger generation’s desire to write a new story about the afterlife journey.”

Complete Article HERE!

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The condolences end. Being a widow doesn’t.

The second year without my husband is in some ways harder than the first.

By Lisa Kolb

being-a-widow

On the morning of my third wedding anniversary last Tuesday, or more accurately, the third time I celebrated my first anniversary, I awoke still hugging my husband Erik’s dark green Patagonia fleece. It was his favorite, the one he’s wearing in the photo we used for his memorial service program. I hadn’t needed to sleep with it in a while, but I did that night.

I lay there amid my luxurious new bedding, which, along with my new apartment, was supposed to make his absence feel less acute, since he was never associated with it. I listened to the uncomfortable hum of complete silence, but was too conscious of the day’s significance to go through my normal routine of blasting NPR in the bedroom and the TV in the living room to cut the quiet. I began to cry.

My husband Erik died at age 34 last May, along with five other young men, in a rockfall and avalanche on Mount Rainier. We were married for 19 months.lisa-wedding-228x300

I talked myself through the motions of breakfast and getting dressed. I wrote out an anniversary card with nowhere to send it, and walked to the old apartment building we shared in Woodley Park back when he was getting his MBA. I sat alone in the shabby linoleum foyer, on top of someone’s Amazon Pantry delivery box, and let memories flood in. I cried some more.

The day ended disastrously, despite the spa treatments and nice dinner with my mom that I thought might shore up the day from being wholly awful. I was upset at the server for bumping into my chair. I was upset that my mother was my dinner partner instead of my husband. I was upset that only a few people had acknowledged the day.

Year One of widowhood, the year when the grief is obvious and raw and ugly, gets all the support and attention. But Year Two is just as hard, and in some ways, it is lonelier.

In the first year, people check in constantly. They call, text, bring food, plan girls’ weekends and excuse — even support — the shuffling around in pajamas crying each day as we wait for the black, hollow feeling to lift.

The Year Two widow, however, is comparatively abandoned to the continued reality of a new and unfamiliar life. We are among the “walking wounded,” those largely without outward signs of trauma (weight regained, estate settled, tears more easily stifled) but who are still under equal, if different, strain.

I had an idea that passing the one-year mark meant the hard part was over, like crossing the finish line of a particularly grueling marathon, or getting to the front of the line at Target on a Saturday. But it is not over.

The one-year anniversary of a spouse’s death is not a benchmark for being healed. It’s merely the day after day 364, followed by 366, 367 and so on. For widows, anticipating relief upon the one-year mark is to be lulled, then hoodwinked, by a false target that implies to others, and even us, that we must be out of the woods, and thus less in need of continued support.

Year One is a struggle merely to eat, merely to get dressed in the morning, merely to think straight while confronting a crushing list of knife-twisting administrative to-dos, like car title transfers and insurance claims and endless calls to robotic customer service reps to tell them to cancel your husband’s account/subscription/delivery because he is dead.

By Year Two, those things are largely resolved. No small feat, yet it is all replaced by an equally daunting, though less obvious, list of second year to-dos, like learning to live with a new, solo identity after years of partnership. Like knowing that other people must think you should be functioning and working at a back-to-normal level again, and being ashamed and frustrated that you are just not. Like facing the immutable truth that he is still — still! — gone, always will be, and there is nothing you can do about it.

In other words, if Year One of widowhood is a struggle for survival, Year Two is the equally difficult struggle to begin living life again. It is hard. Our spouses just keep being dead.

Some days I do not care about anything. Some days, I am tired — tired of fighting my way forward, tired of feeling untethered, tired of not knowing how to configure the printer, tired of figuring out all the finances, tired of needing the television on, tired of taking the trash out myself, tired of still having to cancel his mail, tired of everyone else having a spouse, tired of missing Erik. Just tired.

Sometimes I’m ambushed by the sight of someone who looks like Erik.  It happened most recently on a sunny afternoon last month. I was walking down Connecticut Avenue to pick up allergy medicine at CVS, debating a detour into Krispy Kreme, when I caught sight of a man walking across Dupont Circle. He had Erik’s same lanky build, sandy blond hair and preppy style, right down to the tailored, pale pink collared shirt. I could not help myself and began following the man down Connecticut, then left onto N Street, sobbing behind my sunglasses, allowing myself the indulgence of imagining, just for a moment, that it was Erik walking around like everyone else, off to work or maybe his CrossFit class. When the man turned the corner onto 17th Street I let him go, realizing that on balance, it was probably less unhealthy to eat a donut than chase a ghost.

Bedtime alone is still hard. When I awaken in the middle of the night in a lonely panic, I listen to audiobooks or watch Netflix despite my and Erik’s strict no-devices-in-bed policy until my mind drifts to the story and away from my endless loop of “what will I do with the rest of my life … why can’t you be stronger and just go to the bank already to close his account … don’t forget to send Erik’s grandfather his baseball hat …”

It is a common refrain among widows that support tends to fall way off after a year. I wish more friends and family would reach out like they did early on. One friend used to send texts containing nothing more than emoji hearts, but it was enough. Some sent me articles or books they thought might help; others called to take me to lunch or dinner. Eating across from an empty chair — and knowing the reason for the empty chair — is difficult. Always initiating plans is tiring.

I want someone to really ask how I am doing, and say Erik’s name or talk about him freely. It keeps him alive. I know people are trying not to upset me by bringing him up, but I promise, he is already on my mind.

I do not blame my friends for their increased absence. Supporting a grieving friend long term requires time and stamina — intangibles already in short supply. There’s an emotional limit, as friends and family look to return to the safety of equilibrium. There’s also an intellectual limit: How could others understand the breadth of such a loss unless they have gone through it? Spousal grief is like Vegas: One must experience it personally to really understand how huge and overwhelming it is.

Some things are better, though. I regained the 10 pounds I dropped when Erik died and I could not eat. I feel strong enough to take ballet class again, after months of being too weak and sad to exercise. I socialize more readily. I laugh. I still cry, but the tears fall days apart, rather than hours; I no longer feel the need to add tissues to my wallet/keys/phone/lip balm check before I leave the house. I was able to clear out some — though not all — of Erik’s drawers. I have found some peace, and learned to accept the loss.

I am now dating Brodie, a widower. Uncannily, Brodie’s wife’s memorial service was on the same day as Erik’s, so what began as a supportive friendship through a shared timeline of grief has blossomed into something happy and wholly our own. But there are complications. I worry that he, too, could suddenly die young — perhaps an accident or fluke heart attack — and must give myself a pep talk every time he takes a flight, goes mountain biking or does not call or text immediately at an appointed hour.

I initially told no one we were dating. I am still sometimes reluctant to tell people, out of fear that they’ll think I no longer need support. I am afraid of being judged: Maybe it’s too soon, maybe people will think I am “over” Erik, maybe people will stop talking about him. But I will never be “over” Erik. Widowhood is sort of like being an amputee: Over time, the wound heals over, and I will learn to function well without my missing limb, but there will always be a vital part of me missing.

Later this evening, I will eat dinner alone and go to ballet class. I will go not because I am particularly in the mood, but because I know a step forward begins with a step out the door. I will go because Erik would want me to go and I want to be okay again — for him, for me, for Brodie, for my family. I am still rusty after not dancing for such a long time; my pliés are shallow and my pirouettes are off balance. But I am dancing again, and striving to get better every day.

The widow’s journey is a complicated and lengthy one. Awareness of that length — by us and by others — helps make it survivable. By acknowledging the loss’ enormity, we can forgive ourselves for continued stumbles and setbacks. I hope our family and friends can likewise know to be there to help us rise.

As I walk to my car after class, I will look up to the night sky and I will tell him, as I often do, “I am trying my very best, love.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Bereavement Practices of Growing U.S. Latino Population Have Been Ignored Too Long, Study Finds

‘The funeral industry wants to serve this community, but it doesn’t know how,’ Baylor researcher says

latino-bereavement-practices
latino-bereavement-practices

By Terry Goodrich

Death research in the United States mostly overlooks bereavement customs of those who are not Anglo-Protestants, says a Baylor University researcher. She hopes to correct that — beginning with a study of Catholic Latino communities, who often hold overnight wakes and present food to the deceased.

Candi K. Cann, Ph.D., who teaches courses on death and dying, took a group of her students in 2015 to a Latino funeral home in a Central Texas city in which nearly 30 percent of the total population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census statistics.

“My students — nearly all Anglo — were fascinated,” said Cann, assistant professor in Baylor Interdisciplinary Core of the Honors College. While the Latino population is burgeoning, “this world was entirely foreign to them. The idea of eating and serving food at a wake was one that my students found not only foreign, but repelling, and they couldn’t imagine eating in the presence of the dead.

“I realized that these practices reflect a central part of Latina/o identity formation, yet seem invisible to many, because the death industry in the United States remains so segregated.”

But change is coming, Cann predicts. Hispanics are the country’s largest minority — approximately 17 percent of the population — and expected to double to 106 million residents in 2050, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Funeral directors are seeing a need to expand their services, she said.

Cann’s study — “Contemporary Death Practices in the Catholic Latina/o Community” — is published in the journal Thanatos. At the request of the Funeral Service Academy, a national education organization for funeral directors and embalmers, she has prepared training modules about Latino grieving and funeral practices.

The hallmark of the Latino funeral is the extended wake, which often lasts overnight, Cann said. Mourners bring their children with them, and it is common for families to set up card tables so that they can play dominoes and other games and exchange stories about the deceased loved one. Flowers and candles are placed near the body when the visitation begins.

“The wake is not a quiet affair, but often loud and emotional,” Cann said. “Generally, from the time the deceased is brought to the funeral home, the person is not left on his or her own.” Family members often help with washing, dressing and applying makeup to the deceased after they are embalmed, she said.

That is in marked contrast to most modern Anglo practices, in which the body is usually taken from the hospital, or much less frequently, the home, and then prepared by the funeral home, not to be seen again until visitation, Cann said.

In her article, Cann cited a researcher’s previous study quoting two Cuban-American women in Florida — a mother and grandmother — about spending the entire night at a Cuban mortuary, setting up recliners and drinking espresso.

“It’s not like (Anglo) Americans . . . Once the body is there, we would stay with that body until it is buried,” one woman said. When mourners were hungry, “we would go in shifts — like Grandma was going anywhere! But we couldn’t leave her alone. Somebody was always there to keep her company.”

While families sit and eat in the presence of their loved ones, even within the Latino segment of the United States population, those practices vary, Cann said.

Catered services for Mexican-American funerals are likely to include enchiladas, burritos, tacos, rice and beans; at Columbian visitations, empanadas and plantains are common. In funeral homes that are not equipped to offer catering, food will be shared as offerings to the deceased, with others gathering for meals at the church after services or at the deceased’s home after burial, Cann said.

Many U.S. Latinos are Roman Catholic, but even among Protestant Latinos, Catholicism has a cultural influence, Cann said. Each Latin American country tends to favor certain saints, martyrs and icons, and immigrants carry those preferences into the United States and to subsequent generations, Cann said.

Statues and prayer cards with the pictures of these saints are often placed in the room of the deceased, as well as at funerals and anniversary Mass. The cards often display picture of the deceased, with birth and death dates, and a written prayer of intercession.

“These cards are portable and meaningful memorials,” Cann said. “They operate as a sort of souvenir — evidence of the relationship between the bereaved and the deceased and an assertion of the right of the bereaved to grieve.”

But everyday items, as well as religious ones, play a role in Latino funerals, she said. Many family members and friends also purchase caskets that come with memory drawers or insert panels to hold photos, letters, jewelry and keepsakes.

“The casket, candles, pictures, making a plate and offering it to the dead and saying a prayer . . . Those things recognize the deceased person’s role in your life and continuing your bond. But they are also a way of saying, ‘We’ll continue without you,’” Cann said.

In her research, Cann found that while the need for ethnic funeral services is growing, many funeral homes are not familiar with other cultures.

“The industry wants to serve this community, but it doesn’t know how,” she said.

Establishment of ethnic funeral homes with bilingual staff is on the rise, and some traditional funeral homes are actively recruiting bilingual staff, Cann said. Some also are making adjustments so that catered food can be served during wakes.

Cann said that her research is “an introduction. There is much more work to be done. Death practices in the contemporary United States are one of the few remaining places in which ethnic identity is emphasized and even solidified.

“I wanted to at least attempt to counter the myth of death in the United States as uniform and analogous,” Cann said.

Candi Cann is the author of “Virtual Afterlives: Grieving the Dead in the Twenty-First Century.” In her book, she explores how mourning the dead in the 21st century has become a virtual phenomenon, with the dead living on through social media profiles, memorial websites and saved voicemails that can be accessed at any time. Those practices make the physical presence of death secondary to the psychological experience of mourning for many, Cann writes.

Complete Article HERE!

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Dying Mother’s Lost Letter To Daughter Is Returned 12 Years After Her Death

By

lost-letter

If Blanche DuBois’ words about the kindness of strangers have ever been truly applicable, that time is now.

A letter written to a 4-year-old girl by her dying mother was found by a kind stranger and returned to the grown woman 12 years later.

Gordon Draper – the owner of Bondgate Books in Bishop Auckland, England – found the letter in a stack of secondhand books. He instantly recognized that it was extremely special.

The letter was folded with an old photograph of a woman with short hair and glasses. She had a young girl on her knee, who was undoubtedly her young child.

lost-letter2

“Bethany (my little treasure),” the letter begins. “If your dad is reading this to you, it is because I have died and gone to heaven to live with the angels.”

The letter goes on to explain,

My chest was very poorly, and I had an operation to make it better, but it didn’t work. I will always be in the sky making sure you are alright and watching over you.

The dying mother tells her daughter that it’s OK to grieve, and that she will always be with her.

I will always love you and don’t let anyone tell you it’s wrong to talk about me because it’s not. I hope you don’t forget me because I’ll always be your mam.

“I’ll always be your mam.”

Draper realized the importance of this letter, and decided that he must return it.

lost-letter

Here’s what the letter said in its entirety:

Bethany (My little treasure)
If your dad is reading this to you It is because I have died and gone to heaven to live with the angels. My chest was very poorly and I had an operation to make it better but it didn’t work. I will always be in the sky making sure you are alright and watching over you.
So when you see a bright star like in the nursery rhyme Twinkle Twinkle Little Star that’s me. Be a good girl and live a long happy life your dad and Granda will look after you and take you to school.
I will always love you and don’t let anyone tell you its wrong to talk about me because its not. I hope you dont forget me because I’ll always me your mam. Lots of hugs and kisses.
Goodbye
Mam
PS I’m depending on you to look after Rosie for me now. Don’t forget her will you not.

Draper wrote into the local newspaper, The Northern Echo. They ran the story on their front page last weekend.

Bethany Gash – who is now 21 years old with a child of her own – was sent the article by a friend. The letter had gotten lost five years after the death of her mother, when the family moved house.

Bethany was overwhelmed.

I thought it could never be found. I really can’t describe it because I never thought that the day would come.

When Bethany and Draper got in contact, he realized that they had already met. Draper had met Bethany’s mother when she had come into his shop to buy books for her young child.

“She was really poorly when she came in, but she bought lots of books for the kiddie who was just a little girl,” he said.

Bethany’s mother had been battling cystic fibrosis. She died in 1999, at just 36 years old.

“She really spoiled her with all the ‘Beatrix Potter’ sets and ‘Paddington Bear’ books, and could not have emphasized more that books meant a lot and she wanted to leave her something,” Draper added.

But after the move, Bethany never expected to see the letter ever again. “The length which these two gentlemen have gone to reunite me with it is just amazing,” she said.

To honor the memory of Bethany’s mother, Draper presented Bethany with a set of “Winnie the Pooh” books for her son, Oliver, just as he had done for her mother more than a decade earlier .

lost-letter3

“It’s so lovely seeing her again,” he said. “She looks like the same little girl I saw in her pram when she was in my shop before.”

Complete Article HERE!

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‘I miss you so much’: How Twitter is broadening the conversation on death and mourning

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Death and mourning were largely considered private matters in the 20th century, with the public remembrances common in previous eras replaced by intimate gatherings behind closed doors in funeral parlors and family homes.

But social media is redefining how people grieve, and Twitter in particular — with its ephemeral mix of rapid-fire broadcast and personal expression — is widening the conversation around death and mourning, two University of Washington sociologists say.twitter

In a paper presented Aug. 20 at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Seattle, UW doctoral students Nina Cesare and Jennifer Branstad analyzed the feeds of deceased Twitter users and found that people use the site to acknowledge death in a blend of public and private behavior that differs from how it is addressed on other social media sites.

While posts about death on Facebook, for example, tend to be more personal and involve people who knew the deceased, Cesare and Branstad say, Twitter users may not know the dead person, tend to tweet both personal and general comments about the deceased, and sometimes tie the death to broader social issues — for example, mental illness or suicide.

“It’s bringing strangers together in this space to share common concerns and open up conversations about death in a way that is really unique, ” Cesare said.

The researchers used mydeathspace.com, a website that links social media pages of dead people to their online obituaries, to find deceased Twitter users. They sorted through almost 21,000 obituaries and identified 39 dead people with Twitter accounts (the vast majority of entries are linked to or MySpace profiles). The most common known causes of death among people in the sample were, in order, suicides, automobile accidents and shootings.

Cesare and Branstad pored over the 39 feeds to see how users tweeted about the deceased, and concluded that Twitter was used “to discuss, debate and even canonize or condemn” them.

Among their findings:

  • Some users maintained bonds with the dead person by sharing memories and life updates (“I miss cheering you on the field”)
  • Some posted intimate messages (“I love and miss you so much”) while others commented on the nature of the death (“So sad reading the tweets of the girl who was killed”)
  • Others expressed thoughts on life and mortality (“Goes to show you can be here one moment and gone the next”)
  • Some users made judgmental comments about the deceased (“Being a responsible gun owner requires some common sense — something that this dude didn’t have!”)

The expansive nature of the comments, the researchers say, reflects how death is addressed more broadly on Twitter than on Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site. Facebook users frequently know each other offline, often post personal photos and can choose who sees their profiles. By contrast, Twitter users can tweet at anybody, profiles are short and most accounts are public. Given the 140-character tweet limit, users are more likely to post pithy thoughts than soul-baring sentiments.

Those characteristics, the researchers say, create a less personal atmosphere that emboldens users to engage when someone has died, even if they didn’t know the person.

“A Facebook memorial post about someone who died is more like sitting in that person’s house and talking with their family, sharing your grief in that inner circle,” Branstad said.

“What we think is happening on Twitter is people who wouldn’t be in that house, who wouldn’t be in that inner circle, getting to comment and talk about that person. That space didn’t really exist before, at least not publicly.”

Traditions around death and dying have existed for centuries, the researchers note. But increased secularization and medical advances in the 20th century made death an uncomfortable topic for public conversation, they write, relegating grief to an intimate circle of family and close friends.

Social media has changed that, they say, bringing death back into the public realm and broadening notions about who may engage when someone dies.

“Ten, twenty years ago, death was much more private and bound within a community,” Branstad said. “Now, with social media, we’re seeing some of those hierarchies break down in terms of who feels comfortable commenting about the deceased.”

Twitter use is still evolving, the researchers point out, making the site fertile ground for studying how social media is used for mourning in the future.

“New norms will have to be established for what is and isn’t appropriate to share within this space,” Cesare said. “But I think the ability of Twitter to open the mourning community outside of the intimate sphere is a big contribution, and creating this space where people can come together and talk about death is something new.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Burials, cremations, dissolving: the new ways to die well

BY STEPHANIE BOLAND

new ways to die well

Life after death is changing – thanks to scientific innovation. The best time to plan is now.

What happens to us after we die? It is one of the most profound spiritual questions, but also a practical puzzle. After all, whatever you believe happens to the soul after death – if you believe in a soul at all – there is irrefutably a body for someone to deal with. While there are many emotions that can make it hard to think about what you want to happen to your body, it need not be traumatic.

At least, that is what the researchers at the Corpse Project want to remind people. Set up last autumn and funded by the Wellcome Trust, this UK research programme has just published its first findings on what we might do with our bodies after we die.

I meet Sophie Churchill, the project’s founder, at a café in Queen Mary University of London. The goal, she tells me, is to help find ways to “lay our bodies to rest, so that they help the living and the Earth”. It’s not a case of being dispassionate but rather a quest to balance the social and cultural aspects of death with the scientific.

Sometimes, aspects of death that people initially baulk at can become more acceptable through conversation. One relatively new process, sold as a greener alternative to cremation, involves dissolving the body in heated alkaline water. “I was with 15-year-old urban teenagers, and you could see them scowling at the thought of being dissolved. But the more we talked about it and considered how odd it would once have seemed to go into machines and be cremated, [the more] they started to reconsider.”

Churchill points out that cremation, too, is a relatively recent phenomenon. The first official cremation in the UK took place in 1885, and it was only in the 1960s that the Catholic Church, for instance, accepted the practice and lifted its ban. Now, over 70 per cent of people who die in Britain are cremated.

Churchill is discovering that people can be open-minded, even if their beliefs are initially strongly held – though she admits that it may “still be a generation or two before new forms are accepted”.

“People will say, ‘Mourners always need a place to return to, to memorialise.’ But there are lots of people who do scatter ashes.” So, part of rethinking death might involve reassessing what we are comfortable with. I wonder if our general reluctance to talk about death makes it less likely that we will encounter different perspectives on how to deal with bodies.

Churchill’s studies with teenagers seem to support this. When asked to think about their own deaths, many of them were quick to engage with the idea, she says – “Being sent out to sea and burned in a boat, Viking-style, seemed to be very popular!” – and it was often their teachers who were more squeamish.

The Corpse Project is just one of a growing number of organisations committed to tackling the discomfort around death and dying. The Order of the Good Death was founded in 2011 by the mortician Caitlin Doughty and aims to “make death part of your life”.

The group of academics, funeral industry professionals and artists encourages people to educate themselves about dying, and even to become “death positive” by learning to accept and engage with their mortality. Its website covers everything from sky burials, in which corpses are left to be eaten by the birds, to how it feels to bury a relative if you’re a funeral director.

So what are the best options for someone wanting an environmentally friendly death? Until new methods such as dissolving become easily available, small tweaks can make a big difference. Doing cremation well, for instance, is important: the Corpse Project’s work partly involves investigating what sort of schedule allows crematoriums to operate at maximum efficiency.

If you want to be buried, it might even be a case of choosing a sustainable wood for your coffin. The Corpse Project is also investigating optimum burial depths and whether burials could be done strategically to enrich the soil where this is needed.

“But science never changes opinion by itself,” Churchill says. Luckily, every death is different, and can be a chance to invent meaningful rituals that incorporate innovative methods. The important thing, she stresses, is to think about it early, as one would with a will or life insurance.

“One day, this hand . . .” – she lays her hand on its back, limply – “. . . will do this. Twelve hours later, it’ll be a bit pale and clammy. And that will be it. The day will go on, with people going on having coffees, and so on.” She looks around her at the students milling in the sunshine. “To me, the last big challenge is to do that well.”

Complete Article HERE!