Blog Archives

End of Year Assessment - Taking Action in the New Year

12/28/2016

When we come to the close of the year, we take stock of the things we have done and left undone. One important thing to do as adults is to make plans for our death. Some of us have made plans for our death; some of us have decided that it’s too big a subject to tackle. That is true. Death care and plans can be overwhelming at times especially when you consider the fact we have to come to terms with our own mortality. Who likes thinking that our lives will one day be over? Who likes thinking that one-day our loved ones will have to take care of the myriad of details that often accompany death? I think most of us just don’t like thinking about it. I know I don’t. What I do know is that these topics are vital to think about and make plans so that our loved ones are not left wondering what to do.

The best way to get through the unpleasant feelings of inaction is take action. One of the best ways to get over this fear is to shop around. By actually going to service providers you will have a good idea what you are dealing with and much of the mystique will disappear. Make a list of your local providers. Once you are armed with the knowledge of your rights you can go out on your own. Shopping for a funeral or for cemetery space can be something you do once a week or once a month. A single shopping experience might take a half an hour. Once you have completed the shop, take notes about what you liked and did not like about the provider. This is just a fact-finding exercise. It allows you to see what kinds of things are available to you and gives you a chance to ask questions when you are not feeling the pressure to purchase services like you would in an at need circumstance. It should free you and make you more at ease with the process of making plans.

Shopping without the necessity to buy immediately opens you up to seeing clearly how the industry works so that you can make your plan. Once you know how it works, the process becomes clearer. Once you have put your toe into the process and begin to take ownership of the plan, fear and uncomfortable feelings should slip away. Once you take the pall off the industry for yourself, then they are no longer like the Wizard of Oz on the throne and become more like the man behind the curtain. Knowing the process, making plans, and being open with our families are ways to take back the mystery of the death care industry. Death comes and we need to know what to do for our families and us. Being prepared is truly a gift of love to those who love us. This old year is coming to a close, we take stock in the things we have done. We make plans for things we have left undone. Let us make further strides in our making our plans and ownership of the knowledge of the death care industry.

#preplanning, #planningfuneral, #funeralrule, #deathcareindustry

0 Comments

Family Recipes - Sharing the Wisdom

12/21/2016

0 Comments

Growing up, cookie baking at Christmas time in our house was a big deal. Mom had her cookies she would make and Dad had his. They both would make their big batch on a Saturday before Christmas. Dad would take the two of us girls down to the church use the gas stoves and spread out. Dad needed help making the balls of dough to keep up the production line of these one-at-a-time-made cookies. I think he also took us so that Mom would have peace at home while she worked. I only have come to this conclusion because I too am a mother who looks for time alone to do tricky baking. Dad made Lukken Wafers - a Belgian waffle cookie. I am not sure what the back story is on these cookies, but I know we are not Belgian. Dad did tell me once, but I think I was too young to grasp the importance of the story. I loved these cookies. They were light, crispy and had this flavor I could never put my finger on. I enjoyed these excursions to the church in Ionia, Michigan where we would be all alone with Dad. He would play the Saturday opera on the radio. We would get to play in the church hall. When we got home, Mom would have hers done and we would have tins of yummy cookies. I did not always like my mom’s cookies. I did once I got older, but I always loved the Lukken wafers.

We moved to Milwaukee and grew up. The times we spent at church were not as special. We did not have the place to ourselves, and the dynamics of life changed. Dad’s alcoholism grew worse and the baking time was just not as much fun anymore. Dad would go into treatment eventually and these cookies stopped being made altogether. These cookies had a secret ingredient – some kind of whiskey or brandy.

In 2007, after I had had my boys, Dad and I researched cookie recipes to be made for Christmas. I found a box of his mother’s cookie recipe and we sent emails back and forth with our discoveries. I found a gumdrop cookie recipe that he remembered from his childhood. I asked him to make the Lukken wafers. That year we had tins and tins of cookies. It was just a bit insane. I did not know it at the time, but that would be the last year we would all celebrate Christmas together. In the years that followed I had wanted to make these Lukken Waffers. It seemed silly to have this unusual iron and not make them. The trouble was I had no recipe. I looked everywhere for it year after year. I knew it was written in his long-hand on thin stationary paper, but where could it have been. I looked for years. I even took to the internet to find a recipe. I tried to make them with that recipe, but it lacked something.

This year I tried looking again. I went through all of Mom’s recipes. I thought even that maybe he had hidden the recipe somewhere in his office files. Nothing. Then I thought that Dad might have written it on the computer to save for future use. I messaged my sister to see if she could boot up his old Mac and see if she could find it. Again I took to the cookbook shelves. Then I saw for the first time in about eight years a pile of papers under the New York Times Cookbook, a book a use every year to make my ginger bread cookies. I pulled out this pile and there it was in and among the sheets his hand written recipe with his notes-a priceless find indeed. The secret ingredient was cognac, not whiskey. At about the same time, my sister found his recipe on his computer. I have made the dough this year and it smells right. Tomorrow my younger and possibly my older boy will help me make the balls for the cookies.

We don’t know when we will leave this earth and what knowledge we will take with us. Just this last week we took my Mac to the Geek Squad and the smart man there told me an old computer saying, “If something exists one place it does not exist.” Yes, I purchased a device to back up my information. The first thing I did when I found this recipe was to scan it into my computer and send it off to my sister. Now, this recipe exists in more than one place. When my mother-in-law died, I lost a few family recipes. She did not always feel secure enough in her English to have me cook with her. That makes me very sad. Having a rich family tradition to hand down is so important to me and the foods we make that we make from one generation to the next connect us in a shared experience. So cook with your children. Show you sons and daughters in law how things are made (especially if they want to learn). Make sure the information resides in more than one place. Once we pass from this earth, if we have not shared the information or made it easy to access, our information dies with us.

#familyrecipes, #grief #greenburial,#preservingfamilymemories,

0 Comments

Life and Death - Living Through Them

12/14/2016

0 Comments

Each of us will experience physical death. That’s just part of the package of being a living creature. Life can be joyful and painful. That is also part of the package. We can choose to take life head on. We can take life as it comes and make our way through it. Each one of our lives is a unique life. Sure, we live our lives connected to one another and yes, we share themes in our lives, but each life is a special story that only one can tell. I love that each one of us has a story and can bring a perspective on a situation that belongs to that person and his or her understanding through the experience of life.

As with life, so is death. Each one of us enters into death uniquely. We rarely get a second chance. I listen to people’s death stories often. They can be quite beautiful and I honor those stories as sacred moments in people’s life. Often these stories are painful - filled with the pain of separation that death brings. Often the life story seems left unfinished. Sometimes the life is cut far too short when the person had what we had hoped would be a long and full life. Death so often disappoints. We can make plans. We can talk things through with our families. We can even take steps to ensure we have the kind of death we want. In the end, death can come when we are not looking and take the person from our lives.

Some of us have had to make peace with terrible deaths that have torn our hearts. Sometimes we feel as though someone has been stolen from our lives. Sometimes it takes years to move forward and in some way make peace with the realities of life and death. Moving forward can come in small ways as we attempt to make a life without those we love. Small ways can make way for larger changes if we need to make them. Each life is unique and so is each death. Let us take a breath and look at who we have intersecting our lives and enjoy life with them. When the time comes that we part company in death, let us remember the joy that they brought us as only they could.

0 Comments

Remembering and Christmas Trees

12/7/2016

0 Comments

The year winds down this month and many of us celebrate important holidays as a family or according to our spiritual traditions. For me, I must always have to grapple with the tree. My father was the king of all Christmas tree decorators. He did not come this way by happenstance, but through a long line of ancestors who have loved the Christmas tree. His grandfather had his house wired for electricity in order for him to have lights on his tree. Growing up with the tree as a focal point of the holiday preparation, I grieve a little each year knowing that I will not have him with me and his trees belong to the ages. The first year following his death was by far the most difficult for me, however, I still need to brace myself and allow myself time to figure out how I will do the tree. My children love the tree as much as I do and I want them to know the joy of a beautiful tree. What I must do is make the tree my own. I learned from him how to do a tree, but I must make the tree – my tree. I honor him, but it can never be his tree. It has to be my tree, but one that allows me to remember my father. It can be no other way. I have found that June around his birthday and the day he died, and December around Christmas are the times I feel his loss the greatest. The only way through for me is to acknowledge the truth and move through it in love. This is not always so easy. Sometimes I still rage at the fact I have to face another Christmas without him. The fact remains, I do. In order to make it bearable I take the joyful memories with him, hold them close and remember him.

#dealingwithgriefatchristmas,

0 Comments

RSS Feed

Caroline Vuyadinov

I graduated from St. Vladamir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Crestwood, New York with a Master of Divinity. I trained as a chaplain following graduation and worked with a wide variety of people.

When I moved to Canada, I began work in a women's halfway house in Hamilton, Ontario which worked with women in conflict with the law on a federal level. I became the program manager and loved working alongside the women, creating their plans for their reintegration back to the community. I also worked as a liaison with the parole board, parole officers and other community service providers.

Upon my return to the United States, I worked in the Death Care Industry as a Family Service Counselor, which lead me to become a green burial advocate. I co-founded Midwest Green Burial Society with Juliann Salinas. I speak to community groups and have developed practical seminars for a variety of audiences. I have been interviewed on a national podcast and was featured on a WGN spot dealing with green burial.

End of Year Assessment - Taking Action in the New Year

Family Recipes - Sharing the Wisdom

Life and Death - Living Through Them

Remembering and Christmas Trees

Caroline Vuyadinov

Archives

Categories