The Family Plot Blog
Albuquerque Death Cafe Today!
Today's the day for the fifth Albuquerque Death Cafe! The event starts at 4:00 p.m. at Sheila's Sweets, 8600 Indian School Road NE, just east of Wyoming. A reporter from the Albuquerque Journal will be there to do a story. Yesterday, KASA-TV did an interview with Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death, about the Death Cafe, Create a Great Funeral Day, and tools to start funeral planning conversations. Visit the Death Cafe page at AGoodGoodbye.com to...
News and Notes: Halloween and Day of the Dead
This is the week for skulls and scary things as we approach Halloween on Thursday and the Day of the Dead celebrations on November 1 and 2. Before spirits can go a-haunting or our beloved departed can return to this world, someone has to die. Hence it is highly appropriate that Create a Great Funeral Day is this Wednesday, October 30. This year is the 14th anniversary of the holiday started by Stephanie West Allen, author of Creating Your Own...
Casket Trends from Traditional to Futuristic
At the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) annual convention and expo, there were plenty of caskets on display. They ran the gamut - from traditional units for burial to green cremation caskets to futuristic pods. At the traditional end of the scale, Batesville Casket Company had this carousel of caskets showing how one model can be modified to look feminine, masculine or gender neutral. While women make up 51% of the population, only...
Create a Great Funeral Day October 30
This October 30th is the 14th annual Create a Great Funeral Day. This “holiday” right before Halloween provides an upbeat excuse to start a conversation on a topic most families hesitate to discuss. The first Create a Great Funeral Day, started by attorney and mediator Stephanie West Allen, took place in 2000. She registered the day at Chase’s Calendar of Events in 1999. A few years earlier, she saw her husband struggling to pull together a...
Thomas Lynch on Cremation and Accessories
Thomas Lynch, an award-winning writer who also happens to be an undertaker who comes from a family of funeral directors, was one of the star speakers at the 2013 National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) annual convention and expo. He and Dr. Thomas Long, a theologian, co-wrote a book just introduced at the convention, The Good Funeral (Westminster John Knox Press). We spoke one-on-one in the press room at the convention. Lynch said, "Both...
Opening the NFDA Convention & Expo 2013
Greetings from the opening of the National Funeral Directors Association annual convention and expo in Austin, Texas! I'm here to report on new trends in funeral service, and let you know about innovations that will be coming to the general public. Almost 6,000 people from around the world have come here for this event, with 101 delegates from 43 countries - including 43 from Australia! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jOrd3diJx4 Among the...
The Lady and The Reaper Animated Short
A sweet old lady is living alone at her farm, waiting for the arrival of death so she can meet her beloved deceased husband again. One night, while sleeping, her life fades out and she is invited to cross death's door. But just when she is about to do so, the old lady wakes up inside a hospital's ward: an arrogant doctor has taken her back to life and he will fight hard against death to recover the old lady's life at any cost....
How Can Baby Boomers Handle Aging Parents’ Healthcare Crises?
Talk with Katy Butler, author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door, on A Good Goodbye Radio October 23 The Silver Tsunami of baby boomers, many contending with their own health issues, also face caring for their elderly parents with serious health conditions. End-of-life scenarios too often end up in the hospital pursuing futile medical treatment, when as much as 75% of the population says they’d like to die at home. An adult aged 50-plus to 60-plus...
Silver City and T or C Death Cafes a Success!
This past weekend, the first Death Cafe conversations were held in Silver City, NM on Saturday, October 12 and in Truth or Consequences (T or C), NM on Sunday, October 13. While the conversations were dramatically different from each other, each was a success in its own way. The Silver City Death Cafe was held at Javalina Coffee House with four participants in addition to facilitator Gail Rubin with A Good Goodbye. We all fit around one big...
The Legacy of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross helped spark the conversation about death and dying with her pioneering work in the 1960s first reported in her book, On Death and Dying. She noted five stages of reactions in the dying: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. She pointed out that during the course of an illness, individuals tend to go back and forth and may experience different stages at the same time. I'd like to point out that not only...
Silver City Film Talk Tonight
Tonight's the night for Laughing in the Face of Death: Funny Films for Funeral Planning at 7:00 p.m. in lovely Silver City, New Mexico! The Western Institute for Lifelong Learning (WILL) is coordinating this free presentation on the campus of Western New Mexico University, in the Global Resource Center Auditorium. For more information or to reserve a seat, contact 575-538-6835 or email info@will-learning.com. In this upbeat talk, I illustrate...
News and Notes: Life Planning and Death Cafes
Questions about advance directives, wills, trusts, probate, guardianship, and powers of attorney are best addressed before a health crisis hits. Inevitably, these important questions fall to the bottom of the to-do list, at the family's peril. Retired probate judge Merri Rudd, co-author of the comprehensive book Life Planning in New Mexico, knows what happens when families fail to plan. She saw many tragic examples in her courtroom over 10...
Breaking Bad Walter White’s Albuquerque Obituary
Regular readers of this blog know that it originates in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the setting for the recently-expired television series, "Breaking Bad." While the city celebrates the 42nd annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta this weekend, last Sunday, the town was a-twitter about the finale of the award-winning TV series and what happened to the main character, Walter White. Guess what? He died. And a local "Breaking Bad" fan club...
Albuquerque Death Café Tackles a Taboo Topic Over Tea and Cake
Fans of the growing social movement describe events as “fun” and “life-affirming” One hundred percent of humans will die – death is not optional. But talking about it? Most folks don’t want to go there… until now. The worldwide Death Café movement is changing all that, bringing strangers together over tea and cake to discuss mortality concerns. Stories about it have appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, Boston Globe, NPR, MSN.com and many...
Happy Birthday, Mr. St. Francis
Today, October 4, is the feast day for Saint Francis, renowned for his love of animals and the natural environment. It is also the birthday for my father-in-law, Norman Bleicher. He too was known for his love and care for animals, especially dogs. Over his lifetime, he collected many images and sculptures depicting St. Francis. If he were alive today, he would be 86 years old. Thinking good thoughts about a good man. The inscription on his...
Discuss Wills, Trusts, Probate and More on A Good Goodbye Radio
Wills, trusts, probate, guardianships, and powers of attorney may intimidate the average baby boomer or senior citizen. Family relationships get strained: who makes decisions, who speaks for whom and who controls the money? These important questions are best addressed before a health crisis hits. Retired probate judge Merri Rudd, co-author of the 5th Edition of the comprehensive book Life Planning in New Mexico, knows what happens when families...
Cremation Concerns
This past week, two stories surfaced about cremation that illustrate important points about having a conversation and making arrangements BEFORE there's a death in the family. One concerns legalities about who can or must authorize cremation for someone else, and the other concerns who in a family pays for cremation in the indigent death of an estranged ex. In the Albuquerque Journal, a front-page article told the story of a distraught mother...
“Ask A Mortician” Caitlin Doughty on A Good Goodbye Radio
“Ask A Mortician” Caitlin Doughty's sensational YouTube videos include amusing, fact-based commentaries on “Dangerous Corpses,” “Pet Death,” “Talking to Your Kids About Death,” “Scientific Donation,” “Corpse Poo,” “Exploding Caskets” and much more. What else could you learn from her? “With death, ignorance is fear,” Doughty said. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with being interested in mortality and death. Death is where every single one of...
News and Notes: Muslim Funerals, Bernie and Funeral Etiquette
This week on A Good Goodbye Radio, I'm honored to have Dr. Ahmad-Rufai Abdullah on to discuss Islamic funeral and burial traditions. Dr. Abdullah is a leader of the Islamic Burial Society of North America, formed in 2006, and has trained hundreds of volunteers to conduct the Islamic Janazah ritual to prepare the deceased for burial. The funeral traditions of Muslims and Jews are remarkably similar. Dr. Abdullah encourages cooperation and...
Glenn Morshower on Life, Death and Living Fully
Glenn Morshower has never been a military officer, an FBI agent or a policeman… but as an actor, he plays them on TV and film. Through his long and fulfilling career, he may be best known for his role as Agent Aaron Pierce on the TV series “24″ from 2001 to 2009. Morshower spoke recently at Craig Duswalt's RockStar Marketing BootCamp. I had seen him speak at this event back in March. Then as now, he rocked the house with some mind-bending...
People and Pet Cemeteries
In the state of New York, your cremated remains can now be buried with your beloved pet's - but the pet cemetery can't advertize that fact and they can't charge extra to inter you there. A New York Assemblyman wants to change that. A New York Daily News story on September 14 announced that pet cemeteries will now accept human cremated remains for burial alongside their pets. While this is still a rare arrangement, there's a growing interest in...