Blog Posts

Simplicity

9/19/2018

The word simplicity has kept rattling around my head these last two weeks. Simplicity carries peace and wholeness with it. Simplicity conveys a sense of completion. Simplicity uses the essentials to get the job done—whatever the job happens to be. Simplicity of thought has such elegance and beauty. Sometime our hectic lives do not afford us the time to stop and think of what we truly need. Sometimes our cacophonous lives block out the quiet voice of our hearts. Taking time and being present in the moment—seeing what we need in the moment—might be a luxury to some of us, but it might just be what we need to move forward. We might feel that we do not have a moment to stop and see the beauty around us. Simplicity eludes me more often than not; however simplicity is my deepest desire.

When I think about final plans and what to do with my body, I know in my heart I want what is simple and kind. I do not want a lot of fuss. I only want the essentials done to my body. I want my body washed, anointed, dressed and kept cool until the funeral. My body has been good to me considering what I have put it through. In the end I do not want to put it through a lot of extra effort just to preserve it for a few extra days. I hope that my body will get the honor and respect it so deserves. I have made plans for all my final decisions that have to be made. I hope the simplicity of the plan will allow those who have to actually have to carry it out a chance to catch their breaths a moment, and spend time with each other in love. I hope I can learn to live more simply—to live by the ideal of what is essential so that when my time on this earth draws to a close those closest to me will automatically embrace my simple and gentle plan.

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Everything Stopped

9/12/2018

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Everything stopped. Everything changed. Nothing has ever been close to the same again. The feeling of helplessness still lingers with me seventeen years after the fact. I suppose I will never be able to move along past the moments when those airplanes hit those towers. I suppose the reason I am stuck in New York City has to do with the fact I lived and played in New York for six years. Some of my most cherished memories took place on top of those towers. I suppose I am stuck there because the events of that day began in New York City, and I am stuck there wondering why this had to happen. The hit to the Pentagon shocked me. The heroic acts committed in Pennsylvania humbled me. Their example of courage and love should rest in our hearts and give us the courage to do smaller acts of courage and love. I know that everything stopped in that moment and what followed was like a horrible dream from which I cannot awake.

I long for the time when we as a people were not afraid. I long for the time when we could hold civil conversations with people who do not agree with our perspective. I know part of me still lives in the pre-September 11 world. I suppose this is how grief functions. When we experience loss, perhaps the difficulty is that part of us remembers the time before the loss and longs to live that way again. We live then in a dissonance with reality. As long as we are aware to the nature of grief and memory, we can move on and begin to accept the reality for how we must now live.

Loss teaches us lessons all the time. Sometimes the loss can remind us of how we can live. Perhaps we can take the love we once felt and use this to mold the new reality we must now face. With the loss of September 11, we could begin to live life unafraid. Perhaps we could remember those who gave their lives on that day so other might live free of tyranny, and allow others to hold differing views. We could once again be a nation where we hold conversations so that we can come to a meeting of the mind. Let us not allow fear and loss take us away from who we are and who we can be. Perhaps everything stopped and changed forever, but still we can loosen our grip on the fear and grief the past might hold and move forward in courage and love.

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Effort of Will

5/16/2018

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I know that people often feel the need to care for the bodies of those we love because humans tend to care for the bodies of their loved ones in a variety of ways. In North America, however we usually either cremate or embalm our loved ones’ bodies upon death. From my experience, many people do not wish to be embalmed but getting that accomplished is often very difficult—especially if the family has not done research beforehand. The industry markets cremation as an environmentally friendly process, but in fact it is not so green once you consider what goes up into the atmosphere—possibly mercury or plastics. Consider the fact that we are burning something and this is released into the atmosphere.

Most of us do not like to think of the bodies of our loved ones having to decay or be destroyed. It is certainly not a cheery topic, but a topic we need to consider because one day we may be called upon to take charge of the final details for someone we love. If we have not considered our options we might choose the least difficult option —a funeral home packages. I do not want to talk about the troublesome packages offered by funeral homes. I do want to address the fact that the industry offers two diametrically opposed choices, neither which is gentle on the environment. On one hand we are told we can preserve their bodies “forever”. On the other hand, we are told the body does not matter anyway—ashes to ashes. The funeral home will not likely explain the toxic nature of embalming fluid nor the amount of fuel needed to perform a cremation or any other troublesome facts of these two processes. In the end we are left with bodies that can no longer nurture the earth either by toxins in the process (embalming) or by destroying all the nutrients (cremation).

Why do we do this? I do not know. Maybe we do not want to really look at death. Maybe we are not offered the option that would better suit our values. Maybe we have been so far removed from the cycle of life that death is so foreign to us, and we just do not know what to do. Whatever the reason, we need to take time and look at options for the care of the dead so that we can make informed decisions when we need to. At the time we face the death of a loved one, we might not be as strong as we would hope to be. Making a stand can take a lot of energy that we might not have. Take a gentle approach with yourself and your choices you I continue to be shocked at how difficult it is to have a body simply washed and anointed with oils. This simple approach probably would not easily line the pockets of the death care industry, and that is probably the reason many find this so difficult to find. It should take a sheer effort of will to have simple and environmentally friendly options. When the time comes, be gentle with yourself and do the best you can with what you have to work with. That is all we can do anyway.

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Ten Years

5/9/2018

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My father departed this life ten years ago next month. The gravity of this anniversary strikes me profoundly. The month of his death has always been a difficult one. It encompasses his birthday, Father’s Day, and finally the memorial of his death. June has not been a fun month for ten years. This year, however, the memory of his death shocks me in a way I had not anticipated. How can he have been missing from our table, our conversations, and decision making these ten years? Of course the answer is that he hasn’t really, but we have missed that laugh and clever wit for far too long. The hardest part of missing him is when I truly need to know something that only he knows or have his sage advice, I am impoverished. He was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but he always knew how to have a good time, loved deeply and believed in God. One does not find that every day of the week. My father prayed every day. He told me once that he learned the importance of daily personal prayer in seminary and how it was essential to his formation as a priest. One of my joys is that I have many of his prayer books and the lists of people for whom he prayed daily. I also have his Bible. I personally do not like that particular translation, but I love to hold it and feel his hands again. These are my little treasures. I miss him every day, and I can’t believe I have had to live ten years without him, but I have. I will continue to do so and carry his memory and the lessons he taught me for the rest of my life.

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Taking Some Time

3/28/2018

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For the next few weeks I will be taking a break. I need some time to reflect and decide a few things. Thank you for stopping by. Peace to you all.

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Transition into Transition

3/21/2018

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We entered spring this week. We have transitioned into transition. For those of us living in the North, spring sometimes eludes us. As a child, I always thought spring was the time of puddles and mud. Eventually, however, the trees would bud and the green lace would begin to hang from the boughs. I love spring. I love the transitional seasons. I like the journey rather than the destination. Perhaps that is because I believe we do not usually get to the destination we often seek, but rather the destination is just another stop along the journey of life.

Spring is such a hopeful season where we awake from the slumber of winter, turn our face to the sun, and look forward to new life. The buds on the trees always strike me in spring. Each bud contains all the information it needs to become a full grown leaf. I am always fascinated by the power of life we find in nature. All the information needed for a new life is often so small, so fragile, but it has all the information it needs to be who or what it can be. Cells divide, and divide, and divide and we have a new life, but all life comes from such a small and unassuming beginning. Now, once life begins, there is no telling what might happen. Perhaps, the new life will go no further than the bud. Maybe someone will come along and break off the branch and what had begun will come to an early end. Maybe, however, the branch will put out leaves and put one more year of growth on the tree. There is no way of telling from the bud what the end of the story will be.

What I like about spring is the hope it gives us. Each year, we see the end of the slumber of winter and experience the waking up of spring. Many of us turn our thoughts to the cycle of life—this continual end of life and rebirth. Sometimes we go through a period of time in our lives where we need to take a step back, or even retreat. In that time, we can come to ourselves and see a new way or new path that we would like to take. When the springtime of change is upon us, let us take the step in the new direction. Let us push forward like the little buds and discover the new life we might be entering. This year may we put forth a new layer of growth and strengthen our journey. All the information we need to become who we are becoming resides already within us.

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The Idea Man: Stephen Hawkings

3/14/2018

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Today, the world says goodbye to one of our best known idea people, Dr. Stephen Hawking.His thought provoking ideas has served to challenge and enlighten. He will be missed, but his ideas and how he lived his life in the face of health obstacles will remain. I cannot hope to cover his life and achievements better than the myriad of articles being written today. I just want to say to him, thank you for your ideas and spirit.

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The Band is Breaking Up

3/7/2018

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When I am not fighting the good fight for family’s rights in death, I drive a school bus. I love the bus and it allows me to have enough free time to commit to my death work while I raise my family and care for my mom. I have a full life. I love it. On the bus I love listening to my little ones as they begin to put together ideas they have learned in school. Sometimes what they say is so thought provoking because they see things from a fresh point-of-view. I also enjoy how the bus route becomes a community. Throughout the year and year to year, the route takes on an identity and hierarchy asserts itself, and I, as the driver, must be on the top of that hierarchy or chaos reigns on the bus. The community on the bus is never stagnant. Children graduate and move on, while new younger students arrive to fill their spots. I find this all very fascinating. I have a route which I have had for years. This year, I had fewer stops than in previous years which made my mornings and afternoons easier, but also let me know that larger changes were coming. The school year progressed as it always does, but by the end of January, I began to see some changes in behavior I had not seen in a long time. Then last week one student left the route. The following day, the other kids were more chatty than they had been in long time. They let me know that more than a few would be leaving the school at the end of the year. Then it hit me. The “band was breaking up” and these kids were going through a grieving process. Luckily for them, they have a driver who knows a thing or two about grief. I was then able to read the situation for what it was—grief. Once I was able to interpret their behavior, things settled done. Children feel things deeply, but might not always be able to express them in ways adults can understand. We need to be open to what they have to tell us when they are ready to reveal their feelings. I am not a counselor on the bus, I drive them and keep them safe as best I can, but I can and do lend an ear to their concerns and they know that I listen to them. Sometimes the kindest gift we can give- is to allow people the space and time to tell us what they need to when they are ready to tell us.

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Shock and Horror

2/28/2018

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Most weeks the idea I present for this blog kicks around my head for some time until it becomes fully formed. Sometimes, however, I wake up on a Wednesday morning and have no idea what topic I will write on. Today was one of those rare days. I have a topic I am working on, but it is not ready. The idea needs more research, and so I was left without an idea. This morning at my day job I asked two of my friends who know what I do, “Give me a topic on death. What do you want to know that you do not already know?” They looked at me with such shock and horror streaming from their eyes. It was as if I had just committed some taboo, which of course I did. I forget that even when people know what I do, and know how important this topic is to my heart, that they themselves are not comfortable talking about death. This reaction also told me I need to be more open myself with the topic of biological death. I need to be more attentive to those who appear open the topic. I hope one day that the topic of biological death will not be such a taboo topic. Sometimes I feel dejected by the work I do. Sometimes I feel that the work it too much and wonder what change can I really make. When I meet up with an experience like I had this morning, I am reminded of the importance of my work and how suited I really am to it. I must encourage people whenever I can to talk about death so that when they must deal with death, they might have some place to begin their work. To be fair to my friends, once the horror of my question passed, they were able to give me suggestions which I might cover in the future.

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Planning on the Fly

2/21/2018

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What happens when you must plan a funeral for someone you love who has died with little to no planning for his or her funeral? If we have done our homework, and researched what we want to happen in our time of death, we can use that information to help plan for the funeral. If we know our rights and are aware of the sales techniques of funeral directors and family service counselors (cemetery sales persons) we will be better able to plan a funeral from scratch. We will have a leg up on the rest of the population who may not know their rights in death. Knowing what awaits you in a funeral home’s or cemetery’s office allows you to make informed decisions. Knowledge gives you options even if you do not feel like you have many. Knowledge is power especially in a situation where a provider does not expect the consumer to have much of knowledge. This is the good news.

What happens if you have all the knowledge and still the options available are not ideal? What if time is an issue? What if you want to spend more time with your family and shopping around for a funeral is not what you want to do? What if you have to cross state lines with a body? What if the options you had hoped for are hard to come by, are too expensive, or you cannot find a funeral director who sees your vision? We then take a deep breath and put things into perspective. We decide what is most important. We choose an option we can live with, even if it is not the best. We do our best that is all we can do. We ought not to spend our time trying to do this funeral thing perfectly. That might just be an impossibility anyway. The end of life happens once in a lifetime. We must honor this time. It will not come around again. Planning a funeral takes a lot out of a person emotionally. When you have to plan a funeral at the time of death, planning a funeral is even more difficult. Be gentle with yourself and do not let the planning get in the way of connecting with those who have come to remember your loved one.

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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.

Simplicity

Everything Stopped

Effort of Will

Ten Years

Taking Some Time

Transition into Transition

The Idea Man: Stephen Hawkings

The Band is Breaking Up

Shock and Horror

Planning on the Fly

Caroline Vuyadinov

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