The Family Plot Blog
March 10 Laughing and Learning Workshop
Folks in the Denver metro area, mark your calendars to attend Laughing and Learning: A Practical End-of-Life Workshop. This upbeat three-hour workshop will give you the tools and the inspiration to take practical steps for outlining your funeral plans/memorial celebration, drafting your own obituary and/or famous last words, and preparing advance medical directives. Presenter Gail Rubin, CT, is a death educator who uses funny film clips to...
Tips to Approach Decluttering and Downsizing
No doubt about it, it's a challenge to undertake downsizing and decluttering. Here are eight tips to help approach the daunting task of minimizing your stuff. Give Yourself Time to Downsize It takes decades to amass a significant amount of stuff. Don’t expect to get rid of it all in one weekend. When my parents were downsizing from their home of 33 years to a three-bedroom condominium, it took months of work – including three yard sales and...
TED Radio Hour on Rethinking Death
Among the many great TED Talks online, there is a playlist devoted to New Ways to Think About Death. Several of those talks were featured over the weekend on NPR's most recent episode of The TED Radio Hour, titled, "Rethinking Death." The talks included interviews with artist Candy Chang, who created a public art project in New Orleans related to her talk "Before I die I want to...," Amanda Bennett, who spoke on "We need a heroic narrative for...
Home Funerals Without the Funeral Home
In the Business Section of today's New York Times, there's a big article about the small but growing movement to return funerals to the care of family members. "Start-Ups Take Rites From the Funeral Home to the Family Home" looks at the particulars of helping families care for their own dead until disposition by burial or cremation. Not only can home funerals make the events after a family death more meaningful and emotionally-satisfying for...
![[Video] A Good Goodbye TV on Cremation](https://i0.wp.com/agoodgoodbye.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DVD-Cover.jpg?resize=365%2C250&ssl=1)
[Video] A Good Goodbye TV on Cremation
Your cremation questions are answered on the second episode of A Good Goodbye TV, now available on YouTube. This 26-minute interview features Tom Antram, the president and CEO of FRENCH Funerals and Cremations, and Buck Dyck, a funeral director and funeral home location manager. Among the topics discussed: Why cremation has skyrocketed in popularity. What cremation actually entails. The funeral home's process leading up to cremation, so...
Obituary for Sara Haynes McGee
Sara H. McGee passed away peacefully in her sleep at the age of 78, while visiting her son Michael White McGee in Denver, Colorado, over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, 2015. During the course of her life, Sara lived in many places and played many roles: Artist, Psychotherapist, Traveler, and avid Genealogist. Art: Sara’s passion for art developed early. She painted, managed art galleries, collected art, and eventually became an art...
Ack! The Musicians You Grew Up With Are Dying
A great meme appeared on my Facebook feed recently. It read, "DEAR BANDS I GREW UP WITH: PLEASE STOP DYING. THANKS." With the passing of David Bowie and Glenn Frey of the Eagles, if you're a Baby Boomer, chances are these deaths hit close to home. David Bowie actually provided a great example of planning for end-of-life, by embracing hospice care at home and prophetically scheduling his last album Blackstar to be released on his 69th birthday,...
![[Video] Mortality Minute on Jews, Tattoos and Suicide](https://i0.wp.com/agoodgoodbye.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/old-wives-tale3.jpg?resize=400%2C250&ssl=1)
[Video] Mortality Minute on Jews, Tattoos and Suicide
This Mortality Minute video created for Waldman Funeral Care in Houston, Texas clears up some misconceptions about whether Jews who have tattoos or who committed suicide can be buried in a Jewish cemetery. The video debunks an old wives tale, also known as a bubbe meise. A transcript of the information follows the video. Mortality Minute audio spots are available for businesses to sponsor for airing on their local radio stations. Customized...
Diana – An Excerpt from A Non-Swimmer Considers Her Mikvah
Mary Carter, author of A Non-Swimmer Considers Her Mikvah: On Becoming Jewish After Fifty, wrote about the shock of learning about a death from an unexpected part of her personal history. This essay from the book provides a thoughtful look at feelings of guilt and grief. (Note: Woven throughout these Coyote Diana essays, and appearing in italics, are lines from the Al Chet, which is the confession of sins recited ten times in the course of Yom...
Feb. 19 ABQ Death Cafe
The next Albuquerque Death Cafe will take place on Friday, February 19 from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. at French Funerals and Cremations, 7121 Wyoming Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM. Please note the different place and time from the last Death Cafe. Funeral director and location manager Buck Dyck will take participants on a tour of the facility and be available to answer questions. The funeral home is located on the west side of Wyoming, just north of the...
Funeral Flowers Joke
A new business is open and one of the owner’s friends wants to send him flowers for the occasion. They arrive at the business site and the owner reads the card: “Rest in Peace.” Understandably, the owner is angry and calls the florist to complain. After he tells the florist the obvious mistake and how angry he is, the florist replies, “Sir, I’m really sorry for the mistake, but rather than getting angry, you should imagine this. Somewhere there...
[Video] A Good Goodbye TV on Preplanning Funerals
A Good Goodbye TV, the only television series devoted to discussing funeral planning issues, is coming to YouTube on The Family Plot channel. Host Gail Rubin, CT, interviews experts in a range of end-of-life areas on what you need to know BEFORE there's a death in the family. The first episode is all about pre-need funeral planning. The guests interviewed are Barbara Stewart, Community Liaison, and Mark Ballard, Director of Sales, both with...
David Bowie’s Lessons on Dying
Rock star David Bowie proactively planned for his death - something only about 25% of the population does. On January 10, 2016, at the age of 69, he had a gentle death at home, with palliative care controlling the symptoms of his liver cancer. His loved ones were with him at the end. He is a role model for us all on planning for end-of-life. Many people with advanced cancer don't plan to die. Yes, hope for a cure is vital. And yet, despite...
How Much Mercury is in Your Mouth?
Your dental fillings can harm the environment if you choose cremation for your final disposition, because there's mercury in them thar amalgams. How much mercury? A study completed by the University of Minnesota Dental School gives the surprising answer. Mercury is a naturally occurring element in our environment. You'll find mercury emissions in volcano eruptions. It's also generated by man-made activities - mostly gold mining, coal...
Resolving to Get End-of-Life Organized?
If one of your New Year's resolutions was to get organized, consider including organizing for end-of-life issues -- since we never know when that's going to happen (*STRESS*!). Not to fear, A Good Goodbye has lots of free resources to help you. If you haven't downloaded the free 10-page planning form from the website, sign up through the News & Notes box on the right side of the home page. You'll get immediate access to your choice of a...
March 11-13: Frozen Dead Guy Days!
The 2016 Frozen Dead Guy Days festival in Nederland, Colorado will, as always, feature a parade of hearses, coffin races, and a polar plunge. In addition to all the other festivities, Gail Rubin will be there to emcee three rounds of The Newly-Dead Game® and present continuous showings of "Grandpa's in the TUFF SHED," the documentary that tells the strange but true story of how Bredo Morstoel became the Frozen Dead Guy. The festival,...
Feb. 21: A Taste of Honey Jewish Funeral Traditions Talk
The 13th annual A Taste of Honey, the Albuquerque Jewish community's stimulating educational event, offers the opportunity to savor Jewish life at its best. The event, which takes place on Sunday, February 21, 2016 from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. features a stellar keynote speaker and ten breakout sessions with outstanding speakers in five topical areas: culture, history, music, spirit/soul and international intrigue. The keynote speaker at 10:00...
Five Good Reasons to Downsize Your Stuff
You don’t have to be old or dying to downsize. When you’ve lived in the same place for a decade or two or three, stuff accumulates. We get attached to pieces of clothing, books, knickknacks, photographs, papers, all sorts of objects. It’s a challenge to embrace simplicity. Not many reach the level of hoarding, where your possessions crowd out the opportunity to live a normal life or entertain guests in your home. That’s living dangerously....
Mortality Minute Video: Jewish Burial = Green Burial
Want to engage your audience's curiosity about end-of-life issues? Mortality Minute radio spots are now available as online video spots, branded for the sponsoring organization! Funeral service or cremation providers, cemeteries, estate planning attorneys, hospices, and insurance agencies can all benefit from investments in these short, informational videos. Each 60 second spot expands to 90 seconds with the introduction and follow-up mention...
Feb. 13: Laughing and Learning End-of-Life Workshop
The Conscious Aging Network of New Mexico presents Laughing and Learning: A Practical End-of-Life Workshop with Gail Rubin, Certified Thanatologist Workshop Description: Most people aren’t comfortable with their mortality – only 25% of us do any end-of-life planning, such as advance medical directives and pre-need funeral planning – even though humans have a 100% mortality rate. That leaves 75% of us unprepared and devastated, not IF but WHEN...
January 23: It Doesn’t Have to be Expensive to Die
Looking for ways to minimize funeral costs? Come out for a free, enlightening talk by Gail Rubin, CT, The Doyenne of Death®, titled, "It Doesn't Have to be Expensive to Die: Affordable Funeral Planning." The event will take place on Saturday, January 23, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. at the Cherry Hills Library, 6901 Barstow NE, Albuquerque, NM. The talk is the third in a series of four presentations, "Begin the New Year by Thinking about The End,"...