The Family Plot Blog
Beware of Emails Bearing Funeral News
Beware of emails that purport to be alerting you to the funeral of a friend. It may be yet another tricky way to activate malware on your computer. The Cleveland Plain Dealer recently ran a column titled "Funeral service e-notice may contain malware: Plain Dealing." The article by consumer affairs writer Sheryl Harris starts out: Funeral homes – and the rest of us – need to be on alert for a nasty new email scam. This scam appears to swipe the...
Freeze the Dates for the 2014 Frozen Dead Guy Days Festival
In 1989, the body of Bredo Morstoel traveled from Norway to the U.S., coming to rest in Nederland, Colorado, where his grandson planned to operate a cryonics lab. Though the facility never opened, “Grandpa” Bredo remains famously frozen—in a storage shed. People from around the globe come to celebrate his “on ice” existence during Frozen Dead Guy Days. The 13th annual Frozen Dead Guy Days, a wild and wacky celebration with a hearse parade,...
More on Brain Death and Life Support
There's a thoughtful piece in today's Huffington Post on end-of-life considerations looking at the heart-wrenching stories of Jahi McMath and Marlise Munoz. "Death Has Become a Choice" by Rev. Kevin William Wilde, president of Loyola University, discusses the fundamental questions these cases raise about how we understand death. He lays out the stories of how McMath and Munoz came to be brain-dead, and the different situations that led their...
News and Notes: Pet Hospice a Growing Trend
Can bringing in hospice services for our pets help us better consider the benefits of hospice and palliative care for the people in our families? The topic of pet hospice is considered on tomorrow's A Good Goodbye Radio show. Our guest is Kathryn Marocchino, a professor of death and dying at California State University in Vallejo and founder of the Nikki Hospice Foundation for Pets. Please join us live online at 6:00 p.m. ET | 3:00 p.m. PT for...
Coffee in Heaven Poem
Those of you who love your caffeine will get a smile from this poem. (Re-posting, as this morning's entry didn't show up on the blog.) COFFEE IN HEAVEN by John Agard You’ll be greeted by a nice cup of coffee when you get to heaven and strains of angelic harmony But wouldn’t you be devastated if they only serve decaffeinated while from the percolators of hell your soul was assaulted By Satan’s fresh espresso smell? (Note of irony: the image of...
The Value of Time
Here's one of those emails with words of wisdom that made its way into my in-box recently. It speaks of the value of time. To realize the value of a sister/brother, ask someone who doesn't have one. To realize the value of ten years, ask a newly divorced couple. To realize the value of four years, ask a graduate. To realize the value of one year, ask a student who has failed a final exam. To realize the value of one week, ask an editor...
Pet Hospice: When It’s Time to Say Goodbye
Hospice for pets is a growing trend, just as compassionate end-of-life care is growing for people. When pet owners look to ease the pain of a pet’s death, they also seek a more meaningful goodbye. Kathryn Marocchino, a professor of death and dying at California State University in Vallejo and founder of the Nikki Hospice Foundation for Pets, joins host Gail Rubin on A Good Goodbye Radio to discuss the end-of-life care movement for pets. Topics...
Updates for Today’s Radio Shows!
Exciting news for today's A Good Goodbye Radio show! The interview with Erika Hayasaki, author of The Death Class: A True Story About Life, now will include Dr. Norma Bowe. She's the professor who teaches the "Death in Perspective" class at the center of this nonfiction book. Dr. Bowe, PhD, RN, MS, CHES, is a death educator who takes her classes on field trips to cemeteries, mortuaries, hospices, prisons and other real-world settings. Her...
Court Ruling: Aid in Dying Is a Fundamental Right in New Mexico
Breaking news! New Mexico Second Judicial District Judge Nan Nash today issued a landmark decision that terminally ill, mentally competent patients have a fundamental right to aid in dying under the substantive due process clause of the New Mexico State Constitution. Download a PDF of the ruling. Here's the news from a release by New Mexico Compassion & Choices: Court Rules Aid in Dying Is a Fundamental Right Under New Mexico Constitution...
Mailing Cremated Remains: New Rules from the Postal Service
If you're thinking about mailing the cremated remains of a loved one, the rules have recently changed. Make sure you know the latest regulations from the U.S. Postal Service! (UPDATE: There are new rules as of September 2019 - read here.) It used to be you could send cremated remains either domestically or internationally via First Class Registered Mail service. No longer! Effective December 26, 2013, the only option now is to utilize Priority...
NDEs: We Are More Than ‘Clods of Dirt’
When a man of reason has several clinical deaths and lives to tell about it without neurological impairment, it makes for a very interesting presentation. At yesterday's Doorways of Santa Fe meeting, Stephen Young spoke about his personal take on near-death experiences he had following heart surgery. Within a 72-hour period 14 months ago, he clinically died and was resuscitated – four times – and he had three near death experiences. In the...
Learning Life Lessons from ‘The Death Class’
College and university classes on death and dying can teach a young adult a lot about life and living. “Death in Perspective” is a popular class taught by Professor Norma Bowe at Kean University in Union, New Jersey. Dr. Bowe’s class is designed to "develop an understanding of the nature and experiences of dying, death, and bereavement." The class has a three-year waiting list. The Death Class: A True Story About Life by Erika Hayasaki focuses...
Video: Discussing Advance Directives
http://youtu.be/pvc9sXhMkNI In this episode of the television series A Good Goodbye, host Gail Rubin speaks with Mindi Horwitch, LISW, an advanced care planning consultant, on why so many people who say they want to die at home (about 70%) wind up dying in the hospital (also about 70%). Many people are afraid to talk about death, so they don't have a much-needed conversation before there's a death in the family. Mindi and Gail discuss two ways...
News and Notes: Charging into the New Year
Happy New Year and welcome back to work! A lot of great news came in over the holidays I'd like to share with you. The Association for Death Education and Counseling let me know that I've earned the CT designation, which means Certified in Thanatology: Death, Dying and Bereavement. I've been a death educator ever since A Good Goodbye came out in 2010. Now I've got the certification to prove it! In yesterday's Albuquerque Journal, an article on...
Discussing End-of-Life Issues on Radio and in Print
Two end-of-life media interviews of interest you may want to check out: In today's Albuquerque Journal, on the front of the Health Section, there's a big story titled New Mexicans Advocate for More End-Of-Life Choices. It's got an attention-grabbing picture of me and Lola at a recent Death Cafe at Sheila's Sweets. (Lola's the life-sized plastic skeleton who has a seat at the table. Remember, "Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.") It starts out:...
End-of-Life Care: Brain-Dead Means Dead
The sad situation with Jahi McMath, the 13-year-old brain-dead girl on a ventilator in Oakland, California, shows the need to have more education on end-of-life issues. The parents protested the hospital's intention to remove the girl from a ventilator that's keeping her alive. They hope for a miraculous recovery and seek to have her body transferred to a nursing care facility in New York. But brain-dead means dead. If the ventilator was turned...
Funerals: How Do We Organize The Party No One Wants to Plan?
Allison Copening, CEO of Seasons Funeral Planning, talks about the party no one wants to plan.
A Joke About Divorce and Death
A 98-year-old man and his 96-year-old wife are sitting in the divorce attorney's office, glowering at each other. "Why are you here?" the attorney asks. "We want a divorce," she says. "We've hated each other for years," her husband adds. "Well, how long have you been married?" the attorney asks. The wife replies, "Eighty years in June." "Well after eighty years of marriage why, at this late stage of the game, would you want a divorce?" the...
Short Video on Body Donation to Science
If you plan to donate your body to science, make sure to take care of the paperwork now! Here's a short video clip from A Good Goodbye TV about what you need to know NOW. Plus there's bonus info on a great way to learn how to call up funeral homes and make preneed arrangements. http://youtu.be/n65nJstb1_A The 4-DVD set of all 12 A Good Goodbye TV interviews is now available. Find out more and order a set today!
A Facebook “Sympathy” Button?
On Facebook, people often mention the death of a pet or a parent or a person who is special in your life. Unfortunately, the only way people can respond to the news is by pushing the "like" button or by making a sympathetic comment. There's news in the paper today that maybe Facebook will be coming out with a "condolences" button. Rather than inappropriately clicking "like" in response to bad news, you could have a "sympathize" button....
New DVD Series Kick-Starts Funeral Planning Conversations
Millions think a basic legal will can handle their estate, funeral arrangements and post-death formalities. They’re dead wrong. Understandably, many shy away from the subject until their time comes. However, just like talking about sex can’t get a woman pregnant, Gail Rubin (known to many as The Doyenne of Death®) is helping millions realize that talking about funerals won’t actually kill them. Fusing her humor and quick wit with years of...