My formal death education began in 2005. After encountering an open grave in a Portland-area cemetery, I began to wonder about our choices. Inside lay an empty concrete liner, awaiting a burial casket with all the accouterments. I still remember looking across the the vast, headstone-laden hillside and imagining a city of concrete, metals and oozing embalming fluids just feet below the well-watered and immaculate lawn. As someone who deeply cares for the health of the planet, this shook me deeply.

As a result, I began working with my graduate program to integrate death and dying into my final project. Much of my research focused on state and local regulations, choices and accessibility. Although it was the conversations and interviews I conducted with people about their final death and dying wishes that moved me deeply and helped me realize we were sorely missing these conversations in our lives. In some cases, those I interviewed didn’t even know what their options were, or that alternatives to the commonly accepted ways were legal and even had historical roots. Shortly after I graduated, my research helped a local family hold a home funeral and backyard burial in Yamhill County, Oregon.

Since then, I’ve embraced a conscious, lifelong relationship with death and dying, including trainings, conversations, volunteering, self-directed learning and of course, more research. So much has changed in twenty years and I find myself now surrounded by people more willing and ready to talk about death than back then. Although it took a global pandemic for us to get there, I’m grateful for this cultural shift in awareness.

I never expected to feel so alive as a result of this work.

Death has taught me many things over the years, as it forever rearranges life in its wake. I’ve felt and witnessed the complex, sometimes confusing, ways that grief travels through individuals, families and communities. I have also struggled with how our current perceived choices and limited options have lead to financial hardship, disconnection, isolation and ecological damage.

It has become crystal clear that individuals, families and communities benefit from an awareness and understanding of End-of-Life and After Death Care pathways open to them. I’ve seen again and again how the courage to turn toward the inevitable and lean into it opens up connection with ourselves and others.

That’s why I have dedicated a large part of my life to providing others with the opportunity to develop a healthy relationship with death, and at the very least be encouraged to discuss what relationship they want without stigmatization.

We can’t predict the future or be sure our plans will be useful when that time comes. We can, however, predict that we will all face death and loss in our lifetimes. If we learn to embrace that truth, then we have the potential to strengthen our families and communities while we’re alive, living more fully as a result.

With this strength, we may be better prepared to align our values and choices when death moves through our lives, and leaves us forever transformed.