Best Life Best Death

What is the so-called “Village Movement," in California and nation-wide? A way for people to help people, intentionally create community, and keep elders living well in their own homes! My favorite quote from this conversation with Kate Hoepke: “Young people step up to help their older neighbors for a lot of reasons – and deeply rooted is a need that younger people have for elders in their lives.”

Artist and art therapist Jackie Schuld and I discuss what prompted her to write “Grief is a Mess” and how creating these drawings and texts was helpful in a time of loss. Her charming animal characters find themselves in situations in which grief can surprise and overwhelm, or in which friends can be supportive or step on toes. Jackie’s genuine style and her creative joy make for a wonderful conversation!

In Part II of this conversation with Dr Christopher Kerr, he and I get into some nitty-gritty about what it would take to have more of us choose hospice sooner – thereby improving patient satisfaction, extending lives, lowering costs, and for sure increasing the quality of our final days. What gets in the way of doing what would make such a difference?

Dr. Christopher Kerr – of Hospice & Palliative Care Buffalo – studies and works daily with people who are at the end of their lives. After realizing that many of his patients had extraordinary experiences as death approached, he decided to design studies that would tabulate these experiences in a meaningful way. Dr. Kerr sees that these visions and healing experiences are “enormous gifts” to the dying and also to those left behind. They impact the bereaved because “how people leave us matters” – how we grieve is impacted by how we experienced the death. Listen in as Dr. Kerr and I discuss all of this and so much more in Part I of our conversation! 

Brie Smith - funeral director at Return Home - and I discuss Natural Organic Reduction aka “Terramation.” Get a look behind the sensational headlines of “human composting” and find out more about how this got started, first in WA state and then in CO and OR. How did it begin? What’s the process, science, and end result? How do families participate and what inspires people to choose this form of body disposition?

In Part II of our conversation, Barbara Karnes, RN and I move into talking about some harder questions that come up in the end-of-life arena, including: When someone is reluctant to have a conversation about the end of life, how might we approach the topic? Is calling in hospice a “defeat” in some way? How has hospice changed and evolved in the years since it first began in the U.S.? How do “doulas” fit into the picture? And in not talking about death directly – or perhaps in not experiencing it as directly as the generations before us – what have we lost? What do we have to gain?

Barbara Karnes, RN – hospice pioneer in the US and end-of-life educator extraordinaire – joins me to discuss her background, share her experience, and offer a few pearls of wisdom that we can put into practice today. How can we better understand the process of gradual death, and how can we benefit from “the gift of time” that is a gradual death? How can “gentle education” help our fear go down, so that we can be present for our loved ones?

After the sudden death of his brother, Preston Zeller decided to dive into his grief and his creativity by painting every day for a year. He made a gorgeous, moving, colorful film about the project, called “The Art of Grieving.” Preston and I talk about grief, loss, dignity, joy, family, art history, and the struggles of mourning.

Join me and Maria Fraietta to hear more about how the Nokbox - or Next of Kin box - could save you a lot of time and effort. These 14 folders and corresponding instructions are designed to make critical papers and items easy to find, file, and know what to do with when the time comes to manage the paperwork that surrounds a death. Get organized early in your life and/or use it as a map to find everything when someone has died.

Jamie Sarche, Director of Pre-Planning at Feldman Mortuary, a family-owned funeral business in Denver, CO discusses the advantages of planning a funeral in advance. Get ready to hear why grief rituals matter and to ask yourself, "Do I really want to google funeral homes on the day that I need to find one??"