The Family Plot Blog
B.L. Ochman on Remembering What’s Important
I had dinner the other night with B.L. Ochman, a legend in the blogosphere. She and I go back many years, and it was such a pleasure to see her and catch up. She has a guest post on cartoonist Hugh Macleod's website, GapingVoid.com. Titled "be yourself. remembering what's important," it has some great lessons for us all on life and death, living and dying, and family stories that may seem too fantastic but turn out to be true. It starts: "Three...
More on Donating Your Body To Science
Today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a great article by Marylynne Pitz, titled "Donating Your Body to Science." It's all about how to donate your body for medical research, how the business of organ and whole body donation works, and things to know about the process. While she interviewed me for the story, she quoted mostly people in Pittsburgh or Pennsylvania. These were the tips I provided on how to properly donate your body to science and...
Video Recording Life Reviews
A local hospice uses video to record patients' life stories as a keepsake for families, preserving their life history and providing a chance for family to get answers to questions before the person dies. This video record could also serve as a wonderful addition to a memorial service when funeral planning. In today's Albuquerque Journal, on the front of the Health section, there's a story headlined "Saying Goodbye - Hospice patients narrate...
Green Burial Tips for Earth Day
In honor of Earth Day, here are some eco-friendly tips for greening your burial and other funeral planning arrangements. The Green Burial Council has certified over two-dozen burial grounds around the country. As of 2010, you can find them in California, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Washington. The Green Burial Council certifies four...
Dear Abby on Death Anniversaries and Birthdays
In a recent Dear Abby column, a woman who loves to celebrate her birthday wrote to say her father-in-law died last year on her birthday, and this year there would be a memorial service on her special day. This is a woman who loves the candles, the cake, the singing, and getting taken out to dinner by her husband, who wasn't a huge birthday celebration fan, but did what he could to please her. This year, the family is getting together to hold a...
Crop of TV Shows About Death
The TV writer for the Denver Post, Joanne Ostrow, just did a great article on a host of television programs coming to the tube in the next few weeks that deal with the subject of death. The article, titled "In TV's many lenses, death is ready for its close-up," she writes about a bevvy of programs coming up: "Time to Say Goodbye," a new end-of- life religion special from CBS, features an overnight visit in a Florida hospice. "You Don't Know...
Death Anniversaries and Caring Communities
President Abraham Lincoln died on this day in 1865, nine hours after he was shot in Ford's Theater on April 14. April 14 was also the first anniversary of the death of my father-in-law Norm, who has impacted so much of the work I am doing regarding educating people on living and dying - our rituals, funeral planning, end-of-life issues, and how to make a meaningful, healing "good goodbye." Last year, on April 15, we extended our tax returns as...
Dear Abby on Viewing and Caskets
Dear Abby recently ran a letter from a woman who wrote in about making arrangements for her ex-mother-in-law who died unexpectedly, without a will. She was very close to the woman, so she worked with her ex-husband to make funeral arrangements that they thought she would have wanted. They decided to have Mom cremated, but had a four-hour viewing at the funeral home for the benefit of the grandchildren. Since she was going to be cremated, they...
ADEC Notes and Quotes
There is so much good information here at the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) meeting! Let me share a few quotes and notes from Thomas Lynch, poet and undertaker, the keynote speaker at the start of the conference. He's the author of The Undertaking and other stellar books. He had many wonderful comments on the arc of narrative regarding funerals. On the essential elements of a funeral: "You need to have someone who's...
How To Avoid Medical Donation Fraud
Whole body donation for medical research is a low-cost or no-cost option for body disposition. However, 2010 events here in Albuquerque show how one fraudulent provider can make what is meant to be a blessing into a curse. I've written about how to arrange body donation in a previous post. Two online providers mentioned, BioGift.org and Medcure.org, make a point of featuring the logo of Better Business Bureau (BBB) and stating that they are...
Funerals are No Place for Protests
Columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. recently did an opinion piece about the despicable actions of a so-called church that puts on protests at soldiers' funerals, claiming their deaths are punishment from God because America is a "fag-loving nation." Pitts warns the reader right off the bat that you will be furious when you finish reading this column, and he's absolutely correct. Click here to read his column. No matter what you think about our First...
Albuquerque-Kansas City Cremation Connection
Here in Albuquerque, there's a big news story about body parts - heads and torsos - showing up in plastic bins at an incineration facility in Kansas City, Kansas for cremation. Problem is, the company that sent the body parts was supposed to have done the cremation in New Mexico and returned the cremains to the family. What were these crudely hacked-up body parts doing in Kansas? Bio Care, Inc. is a company that purports to harvest human organs...
How to Insure Funeral Plans are Carried Out
So, here's a timely "What if?" question. What if your family doesn’t want to carry out your funeral plans? Suppose you want something really special for your send off, but aren’t sure your heirs will want to carry out your wishes. Say, for example, you want a Viking funeral, where the body is put on a wooden boat that is set ablaze and sent out to sea. How can you make sure your wishes will be carried out? There are several ways to insure your...
Passover In the Hospital, Next Year In?
The start of Passover this evening reminds me of how I spent Passover last year - in the hospital, at the foot of a loved one's bed, reading the story of the Hebrews' redemption from slavery in Egypt. We always say at the end of the seder, "Next year in Jerusalem." My wish was to do it again next year anywhere but in a hospital. Our family is gathering tonight, minus that loved one, and Passover will never be the same. My 82-year-old...
Book Review of Celebrating a Life
Celebrating a Life: Planning Memorial Services and Other Creative Remembrances by Faith Moore (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2009) provides many good insights for memorial service or funeral planning. Moore has a wealth of creative ideas for meaningful ways to honor a loved one. I especially like how she refers to the deceased as "the honoree" rather than well-worn phrases such as the dearly departed, the loved one, the person who died, etc. In...
Remembering Harry Willson
I first met Harry Willson at a Humanist Society meeting, where I bought his book "Myth and Mortality: Testing the Stories." It's a fascinating look at the beliefs or metaphors dealing with death, starting with the story of his own parents' deaths and his reactions. Willson died on March 9, 2010 at age 77, and a wonderful open house memorial service took place on Sunday at La Fonda del Bosque Restaurant at the National Hispanic Cultural Center...
Fishing for Men This Spring?
Love and death - common themes in all great art. With spring officially underway, thoughts turn from hibernating in the dark of winter to getting out in the light of days that last progressively longer. In addition to the information you'll find in my book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don't Plan to Die, you may find my first book to be of interest. A Girl's Pocket Guide to Trouser Trout: Reflections on Dating and Fly-Fishing...
Native America Calling
The public radio program Native America Calling today addressed funeral issues in regard to Native American traditions. I called into the program to contribute information about the similarities between Native American traditions and Muslim or Jewish traditions in regard to burial. While all three cultural traditions are essentially green in their burial practices - no embalming, using biodegradable natural materials around the body - there are...
Memorial Rocket Ride
Not many folks know people who build and launch rockets, but our family has that honor. At my father-in-law’s funeral, next-door neighbor John Currens volunteered to put a copy of the funeral program in the nose cone of a rocket he planned to launch. I was honored that he named the rocket Miss Gail. At the reception, everyone signed the program with best wishes for Godspeed, Norm Bleicher. The program actually got two rocket rides - the first...
Funeral Reception Food and Drink
When funeral planning, remember to extend your creativity to the reception after the service. As a reflection of the deceased, meaningful food and drink can be a great way to celebrate his or her life. If Mom’s brownies were the best, or Dad was known for his barbeque sauce, serve those items in honor of their memory. Hopefully he or she wrote the recipe down before they died! Honoring cultural roots with food is another way to go, such as...
Frozen Dead Guy Days
There's a festival in Colorado dedicated to a man who died 20 years ago and his body lies in a minus 100 degree deep freeze in a Tuff Shed. Is this a great country or what? In Nederland, 60 miles west of Boulder, they celebrate Frozen Dead Guy Days. Every March, for the past eight years, the festival includes coffin races, frozen turkey bowling and "Frozen Dead Guy" look-alike contests. The festival draws approximately 10,000 tourists, which...