My formal death education began in 2005, after encountering an open grave in a Portland-area cemetery. Inside lay an empty concrete liner, awaiting a burial casket holding what I only assumed would be an embalmed body. I still remember looking across the the vast, headstone-laden hillside and imagining a city of concrete, metals, sythetics and oozing embalming fluids below the well-watered and immaculate lawn. As someone who deeply cares for the health of the planet, but also really enjoys cemeteries, this shook me deeply.

I wondered about our choices.

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 to options, but what I found was so much more. The conversations and interviews I conducted with people about their final death and dying wishes moved me deeply, and they helped me to realize that we were sorely missing them in our everyday lives. In most cases, those I interviewed were unaware of their options and had misunderstood what was legally permissible, such as viewing an unembalmed body and conducting your own home funeral.

Shortly after I graduated, my research helped a local family hold a home funeral and backyard burial in Yamhill County, Oregon.

Individuals, families and communities benefit from an awareness and understanding of End-of-Life and After Death Care pathways. I’ve repeatedly seen how the courage to turn toward the inevitable and lean into it opens up connections beyond what we may expect. It also helps close the gaps in understanding.

It took the challenges of a global pandemic to elevate the awareness of our society’s avoidance of grief, death and End of Life decisions until absolutely necessary. I welcome this cultural shift. Covid also shined light on our failings to care for those in the margins and the many people who still die alone, unclaimed and in poverty. This is a particularly troubling reality and one I’m trying to better understand how to address.

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 and the discomfort it may bring with it, then we have the potential to strengthen our families and communities while we’re alive, possibly 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 communities, and leaves us forever transformed.