Today is my father’s name’s day, St David of Wales. He loved St. David for as long as I can remember. Every March I (St. David’s Day) Dad would bring home daffodils to the house and we would remember St. David of Wales. When he and mom went to Wales the time they spent at St. David’s was always so very important to both of them. When Dad became an Orthodox priest, he took the name David in honor of this saint. Today is a day I remember my daddy. Some other days I set aside for memorial are mixed. Dad died in June - the month of his birth, and Father’s Day. It’s a rough month. In June, all his natural days of remembrance come on top of each other that often times I do not feel I have little a chance to catch my breath and move forward. Today is the day I like to remember my daddy. For me it is a more quiet day of memory when I can take my time and feel my way through it. I buy daffodils and remember my dad as my dad and all his funny whimsical ways. Sometimes we can take the time and remember those we love when there’s little pressure to do so. Sometimes the anniversary of the death or birthday can be so difficult. Sometimes it can be nice to set aside a time where all we need do is to remember the person we love because we love them and nothing more.
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I love speaking with people who are interested in knowing more about their rights and green burial. Last week I received such a call from a woman who needed information quickly. They had intended to prepare for their loved one’s death, but they did not have the time they had hoped for. I gave her the local information I had, but the one thing I most wanted the person to know was to take whatever time the family needed to make the decisions. Even when death comes suddenly, we can take some time to figure out what needs to happen for the person’s final details. Final details can overwhelm easily. The industry takes the position of the authority. They have been trained this way. The fact of the matter is they are not. The family remains the true authority in terms of planning your loved one’s memorial.
Take a breath before diving into the myriad of details that must be decided upon. If you have already engaged a funeral home, a person’s body can be refrigerated for weeks if not almost indefinitely. You do not need to make decisions within two days or less. Pressure to make quick decision comes because the industry would like to move the process along. They want you to have a sense of urgency when making your decisions. Do not let the industry bully your family into making decisions you just don’t want to make. Do not let them tell you the family needs to accept certain details because it is part of a package. Sometimes religious or spiritual reasons make it necessary for moving at a faster pace. If this is the case, then I hope the community already knows how to handle these decisions. If you want to wait for another family member to arrive to help you with the process, take the time and wait. This time should be for the family and not a time for allowing the death care industry tell you what you need to do or for them to hand you package deals when you might not want the package. If you need to take a break and talk before signing any contract for service, take the time. Death care should be about making the family comfortable with the choices they must make and not about rushing. Breathe, take your time and then decide. Few of us find making final decisions about our loved one an easy process. Many of us would rather just get on with the process, but sometimes we need to take a moment and think about what is best to make a fitting memorial for our loved one. #preplanningfunerals, #howtoshopforfunerals, #deathcareindustry Many of us rush about and do not take the time to experience our lives. We wake up, go to work, come home and go to sleep only to wake up and start the cycle all over again. Lest you think I am coming down hard on those who work, I am not. What I mean to say is that we need to live our lives and find the joys when we can. Finding joy is not always the easiest of all tasks. Sometimes we just need to move through the rough events as best we can. Sometimes the rough parts of life have given us secret gifts that aid us further in our lives. These times leave marks on our lives, but they do not have to cripple our future. If we live our lives numb to what is around us, we lose out on so much of our lives.
This week I was scrolling through my news feed on Facebook and saw an article, which I wish I had finished about a nursing home changing their procedures around death. What struck me was that they had decided to no longer take the body out the back door anymore but leave through the front door from now on with people gathered to escort them out. It got me thinking about how often in our society we push death aside and wish people would just hurry up and get over someone’s death. Death is part of our lives. We love and we lose those we love in death. As much as we wish this not to be, death happens. We need not sweep their deaths under the rug and pretend it never happened. Those around us can be courageous and come to the memorials or listen to us tell stories when we get back to work. At the least we need not avoid those we know who have had someone they love die recently. That just adds to isolation on all sides. Death can allow us to can reach out of our sheltered lives and bond with each other. We have all known the loss of someone we love. As unpleasant as death is, it is a shared experience. Life gives us opportunities; do not be afraid to acknowledge these difficult events in each other’s lives. The alternative death care movement has a new book worth reading – Changing Landscapes. Unlike many books on the market, this one is compiled from a variety of contributors. Changing Landscapes gives the reader a variety of topics and approaches towards the same goal – environmentally friendly family lead funerals. I am honored to be one of the contributors of this book. I invite you all to pick up a copy. I don’t think you will be disappointed.
#deathcareeducation, #greenburial, #alternativedeathcare, #familyleadfunerals The average cost of a funeral in the US is around $9000. Let that sink in a bit, and that does not include cemetery costs. I am often amazed that we as a society allow this. Sure there are states that allow families the right to care for their loved one without a funeral director, but not every one. Just how many citizens know their rights when faced with the death of a loved one? Few of us really know our rights, and the death care industry can be very intimidating. When faced with making decisions at the point of death, many of us would rather just get the details handled and get back to grieving with those we love. What I find so disheartening is that we have allowed an industry to assume the position of authority in one of the most vulnerable and intimate times in our lives. There are other criteria to consider in making death care difficult to acquire. Let us look at the financial side of things. Perhaps your family does not have to worry about the financial aspect of dealing with death care. Being financially secure is a wonderful thing, but what about those in our community who have little financial support? What about those who have no one? The state will step in for those with little or no means. Some people do not have anyone to claim their bodies in death. There are those, however, when the cost of burial becomes so high that families are left with the gut wrenching decision to leave the body behind. We need to look at this practice with our hearts and minds and consider how we have allow this to happen. We need to have a gut check. Do we want a society where only the wealthy can die and have a decent burial? When did having a funeral become something we needed to “keep up with the Jones’s”? Why is that we sit by an allow this to continue? For me death care is a social justice issue. People should be allowed to care for their families in death in a decent manner, and not be in a financial bind to do so. What can we do? First, we must know our rights. We can then take the steps, by reading, researching and speaking out about what goes on in our communities in the death care industry. We could contact our representatives and let them know what we think of the present state of affairs. We can speak openly with our friends and family about what we have learned. Perhaps your faith community could start a death care ministry. Exposing the industry and the issues families face goes a long way to enacting change. Perhaps you can find a more creative way to help? Take a step, no matter how small towards a change that will matter in people's lives at one of the most vulnerable times they face.. #familyrights, #costofdyinginus, #socialjustice I have spoken much about the Serbian Slava and even explained why the Orthodox make zito or koliva for memorials. Last week my family celebrated our Slava on John the Baptist Day. I have said before that there many recipes for zito. Really, it’s an open-ended recipe. You need to use wheat berries and it needs to be sweet. My mother–in-law even made it with no sugar added for those she loved who were sugar free. If you do this, you cannot skip the raisins. Here is her recipe: 1 ¾ c. wheat berries 2 c. walnuts 2 c. raisins 1 c. powder sugar 2 packages vanilla sugar ½ bottle vanilla extract ½ bottle rum extract ½ tsp. clove ½ tsp. nutmeg Zest of one lemon
#sebianslava, #koliva, #zito, #zhito, #memorial, #orthodoxchristiandeathpractice, #serbianzitorecipe
I spent much of this past weekend sorting through things, sorting, recycling and throwing things away. It feels so good to have cleared the space and let go of the past. Granted, this kind of change takes me awhile to actually begin to take action, but once I have started, I am reminded that I enjoy this process. I have not always enjoyed this process. In 2011, I cleared two homes – my mother-in-law’s and our own as we prepared to come to the US. Cleaning my mother-in-law’s home was not fun. I remember standing over a pile that was going to the garbage and my dear friend telling me of his struggles clearing mother’s things. It’s just an awful feeling to be missing the person who has just died and what we are left with is the stuff that must be sorted.
That time following the death of someone we love is filled with intensive work- physical and emotional. First, we have to deal with the body of our loved one. That part of the process in and of itself can be very emotionally draining. We have loved this person and we are left with a body that must be dealt with. We cannot escape dealing with the physical body following death. We then have to find documents and write an obituary. The list can go on. Even if we do not have to make decisions we still have the memorial and burial or whatever is planned to remember our loved ones to go through. We have to greet people and participate in the event. After we physically let go of our loved ones at the funeral, we find that we need to let go of their physical things and that is often a lengthy process and can exhaust us. After the crowds have gone and most people have returned to their everyday life, there is still much work left to do. When I was deep in sorting through things, I found that the anger and deep sadness could be as strong or even stronger. I recall sorting through my mother-in-laws things, wishing I could speak with her again, but all I had left were her things. They are lovely things, but I would rather have another coffee with her and learn the things that went unlearned. It was all kind of horrific. I felt lost and broken, and I had this almost impossible job to do. During this time, I tried to take care of myself the best I could. I asked for help, but not just from anyone. I asked for help from people I knew would not criticize my process. I did not do the sorting all at once. I would make small trips and do things in sections. I did smoke through this time. I don’t know if I could recommend this, but what I do know is that I always try to take a harm reduction approach to things. Perhaps this was better than something else I did not do? I don’t know. I do know that I stopped smoking after completing the cleaning of these two homes. If you find yourself sorting through the things left behind by someone you love dearly, be gentle with yourself. The work following death can be so huge that we might need to take it a little at a time. The emotional work can be as difficult and it is often intertwined with the physical work. Take your time and just do what you can when you can. I suggest having people around you who know and love you and whose advice you might be able to accept. If you are like me, I do not always respond well to someone telling me what to do, unless I know they are right. You might find there are those close to you who have had to do this work. Those might be the ones who can best offer the support that comes from experience. I also suggest trusting yourself. Listen to yourself because only you know what is possible for you. This part is more of a marathon than a sprint. Still, even if we think we have weeks or months to complete some of the work, we might find that a deadline looms. If you keep on pace and have a good support network, the task can get done. In a way, this long goodbye through sorting through her things gave me insight into her as a person that I would not otherwise have gotten. I felt very close to her, but still I would rather have had another coffee with her. Many of you know that I am an Orthodox Christian, but I came from a family where both grandparents on my mother’s side were atheists. As a family we shared many meals, conversations and good times together. I do not mean to imply that everything was roses and sunshine; we are, after all, still human. Not all conversations were so easy to deal with, but at the end of the day, we loved each other and that is the glue that binds. Growing up in this atmosphere where religion or lack there of, taught me many things. One thing I learned was that not everyone is going to agree with my perspective on life, but that I can love him or her. Recently, I read an article giving believers advice on how to console nonbelievers. It’s a good article. Some of what they had to say shocked me because I would never say some of these things to people ever.
My advice to believers and nonbelievers alike is not to bring religion into the conversation when trying to console someone. I am a Christian, but my perspective on theology and the afterlife might just not agree with theirs. When someone has died, your particular religious perspective should not leave your mouth, unless your regular conversations include religion or spirituality and you agree. We all experience the finality of death even if we believe in an afterlife. The relationship we have had with the person who has died has fundamentally changed with their death. We all know they will not be showing up at a family feast – serving or sharing stories. The finality of death can make it difficult to move on in our daily life. We can console one another because we know that pain of loss. We ought not give advice or opinion unless asked. We need only extend our heart and hand to those who are in the pain of loss and grief. Funerals and Memorials should be a time of coming together, and sharing love with each other regardless of religious perspectives. Do not cause more pain to anyone because we think we are well meaning. We all ought to act in a loving way with those who are suffering the loss of a loved one. The beginning of the New Year always looks so hopeful. People have made plans to change their lives for the better and hope they can stick to these plans. For me when I make a change in my life I have to think about it a long time before I even acknowledge that a change needs to be made. Sometimes these periods of time come after a long time of precontemplation experiences where I begin to even notice a change needs to take place. Change is hard. Yet, most of life is change. The change caused by death sometimes comes when we have not prepared ourselves. That is the nature of death. We all know that we die, but many of us just do not want to think about it nor plan for it. Facing the death of a loved one, planning their memorial services, or planning our own wishes can take a toll on us. Who really looks forward to planning memorial services and facing our own death? Not many of us. Perhaps that is why society comes up with forms we can use to make the process easier. I don’t know.
We are in a new year. Be kind to yourself. If you made the resolution to write a plan for your burial and funeral, do not despair that you have not already made one yet or that if you haven’t done one by a certain time. All is not lost. This process is cyclical. We do need to tell those we love and make sure they can be found in more than one place, because if it exists in one place it does not really exist. I urge you that if you do not have a “completed” plan write down what you have now. You can always change it when you want. Remember these plans are supposed to be an act of love for those who love us. They are meant to guide them along the way. Be kind in your choices. Change is all around us. Sometimes death visits us and we have to act and without a guide - making plans can be difficult. I know this from experience. This is why I urge people to make a plan. We are not always afforded the luxury of slow change. Sometimes we just have to act. Having a plan helps those who will have to deal with the physicality of our death. 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 |
Caroline Vuyadinov
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