Caitlin Doughty's Blog, page 26
October 7, 2017
Faces of Death: Landis Blair
Could you tell me a little bit about your work, Landis?
I am a pen and ink illustrator and author of a number of little picture books of nihilistic whimsy. When I’m not working on my own projects, I do illustrations for various magazines, books, and websites. More recently, I’ve also started a project of drawing small Victorian styled memorial pet portraits. Regardless of what I am working on, though, my drawing style and stories have a natural tendency to fixate on some aspect of death and loss, stemming out of my own insecurities and fears.
My biggest influence and inspiration for my work comes from Edward Gorey. When I initially discovered his work in high school I felt guilty that I was so attracted to his drawings and stories because they dealt with the darkness of the world which most people I grew up around pretended didn’t exist. The fact that Gorey was able to take this darkness and insert layers of farce on top of it made me realize that it was okay to dwell upon these things. And let’s face it: death is funny and absurd in the face of everything our culture does to try and stop it.
In addition to illustration, I also edit the Ask a Mortician Youtube videos and help the Order of the Good Death with a variety of other creative tasks.
Illustration from From Here to Eternity, written by Caitlin Doughty and illustrated by Landis Blair
What are you working on his year?
The biggest things happening for me this year are that two books I illustrated are coming out this Fall. The first one is a 450 page graphic novel called The Hunting Accident: a True Story of Crime and Poetry, and the second is Caitlin Doughty’s latest book From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death. As these two projects are winding down I’ve just started working on another book which will be a compilation of morbid nursery rhymes that I am writing and illustrating.
Page from The Envious Siblings, written and illustrated by Landis Blair.
What does death positivity mean to you?
Death positivity for me is about no longer pretending that death does not exist and about giving everyone permission to engage honestly with death according to their own desire.
What other death-related job that you don’t have, would you want?
The death-related job fantasy I sometimes think about is being a caretaker of a small old cemetery. I would live out my days wandering around being grumpy while gardening, tidying things up, chasing out mischievous teenagers, and digging graves. In the evenings I would sit in a tiny house on the property thinking about all the dead people around me as I sipped some whisky before bed. If you know of a job opening like this, please let me know.
Illustration from The Hunting Accident, written by David Carlson and illustrated by Landis Blair.
When you die, what do you want done with your corpse?
Until I hear about or can think of something more creative, a natural burial sounds pretty perfect to me. However, I think it would really interesting to dig my own grave even if it were many years before I died. I don’t know how this would be possible, but I really like the idea of being able to visit my open grave regularly while alive in order to contemplate it, fear it, befriend it, and become intimately connected with the space itself long before I decompose there.
You can find out more about Landis’ work and upcoming events/appearances by visiting his website. He also recently started offering bespoke memorial pet portraits. – we’re pretty sure you’ll want one of those.
You can follow Landis on Twitter and Instagram.
September 30, 2017
POP GOES THE REAPER! – September 2017
Myeashea’s Picks:
Death: A Part of Life – Radio Miniseries
“A lot of the time, we’re not prepared for it, because we don’t want to talk about [death]. Well, we’re gonna talk about it.”
This five part mini-series, led by news broadcaster Bill Kelly, explores practical and emotional concerns related to death, dying, grief and preparing for the inevitable.. Over the five episodes, a variety of panelists provide insight regarding coping, planning, and care and support systems. They also spend time explaining the variety of options that are available when a family or group are preparing for a death or faced with a life-threatening diagnosis. The series is based in Ontario, Canada, so there are some local and regional specific references that may not be relevant. However, overall, the series is focused how death is managed personally, socially, economically and politically.
You can listen to all episodes of Death: A Part of Life on the CHML website.
Passed on: African American Mourning Stories – Book
Passed On looks at rituals in death and dying within modern African American communities through a historical, cultural and personal lens. Author, Karla FC Holloway examines the ways in which burials and rituals have become a critical part of preserving black culture and identity. She also talks about how segregation, social vulnerability, and systemic violence have shaped 20th century African American death industries- from funeral services to pop culture representation. From the slavery to lynching, medical experimentation and lack of medical care, street violence, police brutality, even the painful and violent loss of her son, Holloway discusses how centuries of tragedy have robbed the African American community of the luxury of thinking a good long life was a given. She also touches on how this type of shared experience has led to a type of extravangance within African American death rituals and the roles that they play for the family as well as the community.
Passed On is available on Amazon.
Swiss Army Man – Film
A buddy film in which one of the buddies is a corpse. This film is bizarre and surreal, yet somehow very tender and endearing. There is also a surprising amount of farting throughout the film. It starts when Hank (Paul Dano), hopeless, stranded on a desert island, is about to attempt suicide and notices a body washed up on shore. The body, Manny (Danielle Radcliffe), is slowly reanimated over the course of the film as Manny and Hank set off on an adventure to go home. Manny the corpse seems to be a reflection of Hank’s memories. Hank teaches Manny how to live, about love and desire, even naturally bodily functions. While Manny’s body a number of useful tools to help Hank survive- starting with becoming a fart- powered jet-ski. Yes, there is a bit of comedy, but there is something captivating about the relationship between Hank, a suicidal hopeless man, teaching Manny, a lifeless corpse, how to build a life. Overall, I’m still not sure how I feel about the film, but I can’t stop thinking about it.
Watch Swiss Army Man on Amazon or YouTube .
Gabby’s Picks:
Alice Isn’t Dead – Podcast
Alice Isn’t Dead is a serial fiction podcast from the creators of Welcome to Night Vale. It follows truck driver Alice as she searches across America for her wife, who she had long assumed was dead. In the course of her journey, she will encounter “not-quite-human serial murderers, towns literally lost in time, and a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman.” Although most of the stories are paranormal, a lot of the narrative in Alice Isn’t Dead surrounds Alice’s grief for her wife, which is lovely, and sad, and complicated. And, like other Night Vale presents podcasts, Alice Isn’t Dead does lots of neat things with the medium, which stands it out miles ahead from other fictional podcasts.
Visit the Night Vale Presents website to see the various listening options for Alice Isn’t Dead.
What Remains of Edith Finch – Video Game
What Remains of Edith Finch is a first-person narrative adventure video game for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. In the game you play as Edith Finch Jr, the last remaining member of the Finch family, and are tasked with exploring the Finch house and its surrounding areas. As you explore the house, you’ll encounter various shrines and memorials dedicated to each deceased Finch relative. Interacting with these memorials reveals a “vignette” for the player to play with — ultimately experiencing how each family member died. Each vignette in What Remains of Edith Finch is completely unique from the last, and the game is subsequently captivating and emotional all at once. The game is a super gorgeous example of how the medium of video games can encourage players to interact with death and loss directly.
What Remains of Edith Finch is available on PlayStation 4, on Xbox One, and on Windows via Steam.
“Divers” by Joanna Newsom – Album
Joanna Newsom is an American musician, harpist, and piano player, whose music is melodic, and warm, and haunting all at once. Her most recent album “Divers” —which was released in October 2015— is centred around her “fear of loss”, following her marriage to her husband (comedian Andy Samberg) in 2013. In an interview with Uncut, Newsom described this feeling as “… a very heavy thing, because you’re inviting death into your life. You know that that’s hopefully after many, many, many, many years, but the idea of death stops being abstract, because there is someone you can’t bear to lose.” The themes of mortality and loss are ever present in the album, never backing down or shying away from expressing her fears and grief, and by the end, Newsom seems to stand tall, overcoming her death anxieties, as she invites the listener to stand alongside with her in this acceptance of mortality.
Krista’s Picks:
The Keepers – Netflix Docuseries
On November 7, 1969, Sister Cathy Cesnik vanished on her way to purchase a present for her dear friend. Two months later, her body was discovered near a garbage dump in Lansdowne, Maryland. To this day, Sister Cathy’s murder remains a mystery, but two of her former students will not rest until her murderer is brought to justice and the conspiracy surrounding Sister Cathy’s untimely death is blown wide open. Beautifully executed, Netflix’s rivetingly honest docuseries The Keepers takes you deep into the mystery of Sister Cathy’s murder, a case almost 50 years in the making, and explores the desperate need for closure for the survivors of victims of violent crime. Ten out of ten highly recommend that you binge watch all seven episodes!
Ghostland – Book
When it comes to death positive literature Colin Dickey is no amateur. In fact, he is quite the expert. Author of Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius and Afterlives of the Saints, Dickey does not disappoint with his latest book, Ghostland. Dickey explores the afterlife from the perspective of space and place, and discusses how we inhabit the architecture of the spirit world. He uses the haunted house to illustrate how the dead affect everything around them, including our own anxieties, long after they have left the realms of the living. From the story of The House of Seven Gables to the Merchant’s Museum in New York City, Dickey reminds us that the work of the dead never ceases, whether we believe in ghosts or not.
Get yourself a copy of Ghostland at your local library, bookstore, or here.
Death Note – Manga / Movie / Anime
Based on the acclaimed Manga Series turned Anime, Death Note follows high school teen dream Light Turner, who stumbles across a supernatural notebook. Light discovers that death will come to anyone whose name he jots within its pages. Inspired to take to the streets with his newfound powers, Light goes full vigilante. But Light’s obsession with using the book to take out evil attracts the attention of a mysterious detective name L, whose only aim is to stop Light as the death toll spirals out of control. Another Death Note plus: it is now a Netflix Original Film! The mind-bending manga is a must read and the anime is equally a must see, but if you don’t have time to catch up with this no-holds-barred series, check the out movie on Netflix.
Death Note manga, anime and Netflix movie.
Sarah’s Picks:
Ladybug, Ladybug – Film (1963)
Based on a real event that was featured in a 1963 issue of McCall’s magazine, when an alarm sounded in a rural school, signaling a nuclear attack within the hour. This film feels like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone, particularly episodes like The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street and The Shelter. Ladybug, Ladybug focuses not on the experiences of the adults but of the schoolchildren. Beautifully directed and featuring some excellent cinematography, viewers of the film follow one group of children and watch how they react as they grapple with the idea of death, survival, and the denial of death from the adults around them.
Watch a 10 minute clip from the beginning of the film on YouTube or on TCM.
Destroyer – Comic Book Series
Like all stories that have found a permanent place in our culture’s consciousness, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein continues to strike a chord because of its timeless themes of creation, responsibility, prejudice, and isolation. Victor LaValle’s Destroyer is a timely and important take on the Frankenstien story, centering on scientist Dr. Jo Baker, a descendant of Edward Frankenstein. When her 12-year-old son is gunned down by police, without consequence, she is consumed by grief and a fueled by the desire for justice to be served. Destroyer continues to explore the themes of Shelley’s original work, and thoughtfully incorporates modern day manifestations of them. The most compelling theme here for me is grief as a motivator, and how it can isolate and transform you. In this interview LaValle discusses the theme of grief in Destroyer in depth.
Keep an eye out for easter eggs in Destroyer, including Dr. Baker’s hair paying homage to The Bride of Frankenstein, or her son being named Akai, after Akai Gurley who was shot and killed by a police officer in 2014.
Issue 1 of Destroyer is available here.
Deathfolk Magic by Bye Bye Banshee – Album
I had the immense pleasure of getting to hear the premiere of Jezebel Jones’ Deathfolk Magic during her live performance at the Death & the Maiden conference earlier this year. Jones describes the album as a ‘death positive project’ with songs about natural burial, decomposition, Santa Muerte and pet loss. As corny as it sounds death, folk, and magic are the perfect adjectives to describe this audible momento mori that Jones has conjured up in her beautiful and moving songwriting and performance. A must have for any deathling’s collection.
Deathfolk Magic will be released on October 1st. You can hear a preview and purchase here.
Contributors:
Gabby DaRienzo is a Toronto-based independent video game developer and artist, who is currently developing death-positive funeral home simulation game A Mortician’s Tale with her studio Laundry Bear Games. When Gabby isn’t making games, she hosts and produces the Play Dead Podcast which talks with game developers about how death is used and approached in their games. You can follow Gabby on Twitter, where she tweets about death, videogames, and art.
Krista Amira Calvo is a bioarchaeologist living in a tiny studio apartment in the Upper East Side with her partner, a necromancer. She excavates and studies human remains, sometimes in Transylvania, and studies the anthropology of death and end of life care in third world countries. She loves ramen, her two cats, and television shows about food. She is currently doing research on feminism in bioarchaeology while simultaneously feeding her partner her subpar attempts at authentic ramen. She is very death positive. Follow Krista on Instagram.
Myeashea Alexander is a biological anthropologist and science communicator from Brooklyn, NY. Currently, she is researching early African- American communities, burials, and skeletal pathologies. Additionally, Myeashea manages her blog, The Rockstar Anthropologist, and operates a mobile bone lab as part of her public outreach project that provides hands on learning opportunities for classrooms and community centers to learn about forensic anthropology, archaeology and science. You can follow Myeashea on Twitter and Instagram.
Sarah Chavez is the executive director of The Order of the Good Death and co-founder of the feminist death site, Death & the Maiden. With a costumer father and a celebrity publicist mother, Sarah spent her childhood on the sound stages of Hollywood, immersed in the pop culture dream factory of Los Angeles. She currently resides on a farm in California, where she does things for her Italian Greyhound, and cooks decolonized funeral and death ritual foods. You can follow Sarah on Twitter and Instagram.
Pop Goes the Reaper! original artwork by Momalish Follow them on Instagram.
September 29, 2017
September 19, 2017
My First Death: When We Are Old We Will Eat Ice Cream In the Rain
“I have something on my mind. It’s a tumor.”
Joy roared with laughter even as tears streamed down her cheeks.
“That’s how Heather told all of our friends!”
Despite the tears and the choked, breathy softness that took over Joy’s voice throughout the course of our conversation, there was unmistakable pride in how she talked about Heather.
“I didn’t mourn her at all before she was gone. She believed she wasn’t going to die, so I believed it, and that was it.”
Joy suddenly seemed very far away, her smile hinting at a piece of a memory she chose not to say out loud. Whatever it was, it was just between her and Heather.
You might remember Joy Nash from one of her many theater or film roles. Often cast as a bold, brazen (and sometimes bizarre) beauty, Joy first caught the public eye with her YouTube video, A Fat Rant. Most recently she was in the latest season of Twin Peaks where she played the mysterious Señorita Dido.
And while Joy has made a career thus far on playing daring, larger-than-life characters, talking with me via Skype from her studio apartment, her three-legged cat Birthday 2 (yes, there was a Birthday 1 and he had four legs) thumping around in the background, Joy was hushed, thoughtful, vulnerable.
Every time I gave her an out, when talking about Heather just seemed too hard, she shook her head and said, “No, no, I love it, I love talking about her.”
Growing up in Redlands, California, Joy and Heather had met in the 5th grade, but were “super friends” since the 8th grade.
“We met at a tiny Christian school where there were 17 people in our 9th grade graduating class. We went to the high school the next year and there were 3000 kids, so it was huge. But we had each other.
We took most of our classes together because we were the Christians in this big, new, scary school. But we were the arty ones of the Christian kids,” Joy found this statement funny. “We were the ones in drama. We had everything in common.”
One time Heather and Joy skipped school, “Which was UNHEARD OF. We were such goody-goodies.”
“We skipped school and went to Forest Lawn, the cemetery. There was an art exhibit going on there or something. But it started raining really hard, so we decided to go to Thrifty’s because they had ice cream. We thought it was a wonderful idea to eat ice cream in a rainstorm.
So we got inside and there was a line! And the people right in front of us were this pair of little old ladies; white hair and knitting bags. They were standing there, arm in arm, doing the same thing we were: buying ice cream in a rainstorm.
I can’t remember if Heather hit me or I hit her, but she was like, ‘That’s us! That’s us! We’re going to be old and we’re going to eat ice cream in the rain.’”
Joy took a minute to collect herself; mentioned something about the privilege of growing old. When she was ready, she smiled, sighed and said, “Yeah…” and we continued.
Shortly after Joy and Heather bought ice cream in the rain, they both went off to college. Heather went to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Joy went to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
They wrote each other – actual handwritten letters – every week. “We were religious with those letters. There was nothing I’d rather do than sit down and tell her about everything. I still have them. I don’t read them often. It’s a lot…”
In one of those letters, written during their sophomore year, Heather revealed that she’d been feeling “weird”.
“Her hands had been tingly, like pins and needles for a week, and her leg was feeling like that, too. It was only the one side. She went to the doctor and they didn’t know what it was, so she was supposed to get a brain scan.
She had the first scan and they found something. It could be water on the brain or a mistake on the scan, or it could be a tumor. They didn’t know.”
It turned out to be a tumor – Glioblastoma. The tumor was fast growing, in the center of her brain, and inoperable. All research at the time suggested that Heather would only survive six months to a year. She lived nearly two.
It was during Heather’s first trip home after her diagnosis that she came up with the line, “I have something on my mind. It’s a tumor.”
How did people respond to that?
Joy furrowed her brow. “I can’t remember. Nobody expected her to die. If anybody’s telling you a story about someone who had cancer, it’s usually how they overcame it.”
But Heather’s illness progressed, slowly paralyzing her left side and compromising her motor skills. When Joy and Heather’s mom visited her in Michigan the next winter – “I’m amazed that her mother let her go back to college. I was so proud of her.” – she “had a big, moon face from the steroids she was on, and she could barely walk with a cane.”
But Heather never believed she was going to die, so neither did Joy.
“Heather came and stayed with me at USC for a weekend. She was just like a baby bird. I had to help her put her clothes on, her underwear. That was awkward, but I was her nurse, and we were friends. ‘I’m going to stand by you, and walk with you, and we’re going to get where we’re going, and that’s that.’
She just made me happy to be around her. We’d always be laughing and joking, always, always, always. But there was one moment in that weekend where I said, ‘I’m scared, what will I do without you?’
But that’s the only time I can remember even thinking that, or saying it out loud.”
In the summer of 2001 Joy went back to Redlands to be with Heather. “We spent so much time in the garden looking at stuff. It was kind of like we were old ladies. We would just sit around and look at pretty things. She would paint a lot.”
After Heather’s birthday on September 12th, Heather decided to undergo brain surgery.
“She had two tumors. The one that she’d had for the longest she called ‘Grandpa’. And then there was ‘Mini Me’. Mini Me was the new one, and Mini Me kept getting bigger and bigger. I saw a scan of her head, and it looked like Mini Me took up 25% of the space in her skull. She started having seizures.
The doctors said they’d done everything, and the only thing that they could possibly do was a really invasive brain surgery where they would try to take Mini Me out. Heather wanted to do that.”
Joy, Heather, and Heather’s family went to the UCLA Medical Center to prepare for surgery. Part of the preparation was for friends and loved ones to give blood if they could. Joy and Heather’s mom donated blood, as they had the same blood type as Heather.
“Heather was with us when we went. She was in a wheelchair, but we couldn’t take her into the back while we gave blood, so we left her in the waiting room.
I bled the fastest, so I came out first. And as I was coming out to the waiting room, I heard her voice asking this room full of strangers, ‘Would you like to hear some poetry?’
So she straightened herself up, her painfully thin body, and she recited ‘Death Be Not Proud’ by John Donne. She recited it from memory.”
A few days later Heather had her surgery. Joy was in the room as she was wheeled off.
“I can’t remember the last thing I said to her. I think it was, ‘I’ll see you later, I love you,’ or something like that.”
Heather came out of surgery and from there Joy, two more of Heather’s friends, and Heather’s family could only wait.
As Joy explained, when a person undergoes a brain surgery like Heather’s, the surgery can’t really be called a success until the brain stops swelling and reduces back to its normal size. “Best case scenario, it reduces and [the doctors] deal with what they’ve done. Worst case, it continues swelling and you don’t wake up.”
Heather lay in a coma as Joy and her family took turns sitting with her, holding her hand, talking to her. During this time Heather would sporadically jump and flinch.
“When I was singing all these songs I knew, she would get even more active and jerk and stuff. The nurses would come by and say that they knew it seemed like she was responding, but she wasn’t really. I guess to brace you for the fact that she might not wake up.”
Heather never woke up.
“I can’t remember the exact conversation, but I remember her mom saying, ‘I talked with Heather before the surgery and she doesn’t want to be hooked up to something forever. The swelling isn’t going down, we’re going to take her off life support.’
So we all made our way into the room and they took out the tube. But she wouldn’t stop breathing!”
Joy laughed incredulously. Again she seemed proud of Heather.
“We were there for maybe two hours and she was going strong!”
At 7am Joy got a call from Heather’s mom. The family had asked that Joy and Heather’s friends give them some privacy, so they had all gone back to the Tiverton House where families of UCLA Medical Center patients stay.
“Heather’s mom was like, ‘It’s happening…’ I can’t remember exactly what she said. I just knew, ‘We have to go there right now, it’s happening now.’
So we went running through the parking lots and up the elevator. But she was gone when I got there.”
Words failed her and Joy cried softly. When she spoke again, she seemed to be picking through her memories.
“I remember it was quiet. Her hand was really tight in a fist. She just looked like she was sleeping. Her head was wrapped, parts of her red hair were sticking out. Later, her mom gave me and the people there some of her hair. I have it still. She was so proud of her red hair.
Afterwards we all went to brunch at the W Hotel in Westwood.” Joy laughed at the relative oddness of the going to that very posh hotel. “We were hungry! We hadn’t eaten in a long time. We were still alive!”
That day, and the subsequent days before the funeral were a blur. Joy spoke slowly.
“I remember the funeral…It was huge.”
Two months.
“I don’t remember what I wore to the funeral,” There was a long pause, and she seemed troubled for a moment. “I can’t remember…”
“Heather was there. They had her in a coffin. She was wearing a dress, this beautiful champagne-colored chiffon thing, it looked kind of ‘20s and it had lots of rhinestones on it.
Her mom asked three of us to speak. Someone who had never met Heather, had only known her through the email list [Heather’s mom’s support email list, which numbered in the thousands], someone who was closer to Heather, and me.
The guy who had never met Heather talked the longest – naturally, because he was a man and he didn’t know her. That’s how it always works, right?”
She chuckled and ever so slightly rolled her eyes.
“I just read from a letter she’d sent me. I don’t remember now exactly…I think it had something to do with death or life or Heaven. I put pennies in the coffin with her.”
Joy and Heather had always given each other the lucky pennies they’d found. “So we knew we were thinking of each other.”
Joy leaned her head against a wall and closed her eyes for a second. She told me a story about when Heather had a shunt put in and she had huge “railroad train track staples” going across her shaved head. Nonetheless, Joy took Heather to the store; she remembered watching Heather walk down the aisles.
“I was so proud,” Joy said, maybe not so much for my benefit, her gaze distant.
“Yeah, that’s my friend. Yeah, we’re together. Nothing is a disaster if we’re together.”
All photos courtesy of Joy Nash.
Louise Hung is an American writer living in Japan. You may remember her from xoJane’s Creepy Corner, Global Comment, or from one of her many articles on death, folklore, or cats floating around the Internet. Follow her on Twitter.
My First Death: When We Are Old We Will Eat Ice Cream In the Rain
September 15, 2017
September 13, 2017
September 3, 2017
August 30, 2017
Faces of Death: Jeff Jorgenson
Tell us about your work, Jeff.
I am a funeral director, funeral home owner and advocate-at-large for families looking to simplify and engage in the death process. I have been in the industry for a little over 11 years now, and in the evolution of my career, have come to invest my time and money in changing how society connects with each other and professionals at the time of funeral arrangements. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your perspective, this is a lifelong journey to help change attitudes and understanding of the process.
The changes that I want to see are ones that put the power of care, selection and planning into the hands of the family and reduce reliance on us. Our industry has taken decades of engineering weird products and services into arrangements under the auspices of “healing” when really the only thing that comes out of it is profit. While some of the things we have come up with have some real merit, much of what we “require” or expect in death care is nonsense in place to fleece the client.
I know that this comes off with a great deal of hubris, especially to the industry insider. I suppose I’m alright with that though. I’ve worked in many a traditional funeral home where I would step back and ask myself “Is any of this doing anyone any good?” The best I could do to justify selling crap to people was “Well, they are the ones that want to buy it.” When I heard that coming out of my mouth, I knew that I had to do better than that.
For those of you that are looking sideways at me thinking “but isn’t your funeral home ‘for profit’?” The answer is yes, but just because I selected a tax status for my company and have to earn a living to eat, doesn’t mean that I have to do it at the expense of the families we serve. For me, that means creating company policies that make sense to families, uphold the laws, and minimize risk to our company. When those things are in balance, our jobs make sense and we are able to help people.
I came to the funeral industry with a background in business, aviation and logistics and a keen interest in environmental stewardship. Throw into the mix of two decades in fine dining, I have a strange mix of experience that lends itself to operating a funeral home in an efficient, lean, and high touch service manner. It’s weird, but it seems to be working for us. Ultimately, it is our goal as a team to strip away as much of the traditional model as we possibly can so we can serve our clients in the most honest, refreshing and healing way that we can. My colleagues at Elemental, Jessica, Stacey and Brad, knock it out of the park every day that they come in. How they do it is a laser focus on actively listening to the clients and implementing what they want. I’ve got the best teammates a guy could ask for.
What are you working on his year?
There are quite a few things on the table right now, too early in the rumblings to bother going into. I will say though, every last thing that is in the works right now is something that is driving hard at changing our industry for the better and giving knowledge, power and help to those in the community that have wanted a voice in death care. I know that is super vague, but to be honest, there’s a few of us in The Order toiling over what next steps we are going to take to bring sensible death care to communities across our country. Stay tuned. Good things are going to be coming out of their hard work.
What does death positivity mean to you?
In recent history, as readers of The Order’s collaborators already know, the industry has taken an “expert role” in the handling of the dead. They have dictated what is best for the family and what is best for the dead. Society has willingly, dare I say gleefully, dropped in lockstep with this notion that a professional can whisk away their death problem when it comes to pass. In early days, I suppose it was less defined as us/them and probably still is that way in small town funeral care. What has happened as an outgrowth of that revenue is that the industry has gotten greedy and sucked at their own Kool Aide for too long. I’ve worked alongside traditional funeral directors that genuinely and passionately believe that not embalming and doing a visitation is a recipe for long lasting grief and stunted healing. Caitlin, myself and many others have pointed out that there is a “death denial” in these practices and have suggested that making mom look like she’s “just sleeping” might not be the healthiest way to go about this.
If we as professionals are going to meet the public on their own terms, it is going to take the industry re-evaluating what our role is in the death process. For years I’ve said that, in the future, we will be hired to do what we are licensed to do. That means that we will be in charge of transportation, and disposition permitting (burial and cremation) and for those that want it, preparation of the body. I believe that being a key part in the conversations that families have and removing obstacles in the planning of a good death mean that we can be key players of death posititivity.
What other death-related job that you don’t have, would you want?
There are death related jobs that I don’t currently do? When you own the funeral home, there really aren’t many areas that you don’t touch or haven’t done. In all seriousness, I can’t imagine one of the death related jobs that I would want more than my own. For me, I’ve got the catbird seat.
When you die, what do you want done with your corpse?
While I’m sure readers would like something a little less pedestrian, my whole family has been cremated and I will be as well, but if we actually get alkaline hydrolysis on the books here in Washington that will be the disposition. If I change my mind to “ground into taco meat for people in the flyover states” you will certainly be the first media channel to know.
Many of our readers may remember Jeff from this video he did with Caitlin, covering one of our most FAQ here at The Order – are Viking funerals legal? Watch it to find out!
A frequent contributor to The Order, including Hey Funeral Directors, Get the Hell Out of the Way!, and Alkaline Hydrolysis: Seattle Style , Jeff also has an outstanding blog on his funeral home website, Elemental Cremation and Burial . He was recently featured in this CNN piece on cremation in the U.S. and in this great piece on The Stranger, about why Seattle is at the forefront of alternative death care.
You can follow Jeff on Twitter and Facebook.
August 23, 2017
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