The Surprising Satisfactions of a Home Funeral

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bereavement, chaplaincy, death, death and dying, funeral, funeral homes

It is very interesting to see the revival of the conversation of allowing death into one’s life.  Death in Western Civilization is something that has been economized to fit a market thinking and to remove it from the home.  The following article discusses one person’s perspective on the difference between a funeral home burial and a do-it-yourself funeral.

When his father and father-in-law died within days of each other, author Max Alexander learned much about the funeral industry

• By Max Alexander
• Smithsonian magazine, March 2009,

Two funerals, two days apart, two grandfathers of my two sons. When my father and father-in-law died in the space of 17 days in late 2007, there wasn’t a lot of time to ruminate on the meaning of it all. My wife, Sarah, and I were pretty busy booking churches, consulting priests, filing newspaper notices, writing eulogies, hiring musicians, arranging military honor guards and sorting reams of paperwork (bureaucracy outlives us all), to say nothing of having to wrangle last-minute plane tickets a week before Christmas. But all that was a sideshow. Mostly we had to deal with a couple of cold bodies.

In life both men had been devout Catholics, but one was a politically conservative advertising man, the other a left-wing journalist; you’ll have to trust me that they liked each other. One was buried, one was cremated. One was embalmed, one wasn’t. One had a typical American funeral-home cotillion; one was laid out at home in a homemade coffin. I could tell you that sorting out the details of these two dead fathers taught me a lot about life, which is true. But what I really want to share is that dead bodies are perfectly OK to be around, for a while.

I suppose people whose loved ones are missing in action or lost at sea might envy the rest of us, for whom death typically leaves a corpse, or in the polite language of funeral directors, “the remains.” Yet for all our desire to possess this tangible evidence of a life once lived, we’ve become oddly squeamish about our dead. We pay an average of $6,500 for a funeral, not including cemetery costs, in part so we don’t have to deal with the physical reality of death. That’s 13 percent of the median American family’s annual income.

Most people in the world don’t spend 13 percent of anything on dead bodies, even once in a while. How we Westerners have arrived at this state is a long story—you can start with the Civil War, which is when modern embalming was developed—but the story is changing.

A movement toward home after-death care has convinced thousands of Americans to deal with their own dead. A nonprofit organization called Crossings (www.crossings.net) maintains that besides saving lots of money, home after-death care is greener than traditional burials—bodies pumped full of carcinogenic chemicals, laid in metal coffins in concrete vaults under chemically fertilized lawns—which mock the biblical concept of “dust to dust.” Cremating an unembalmed body (or burying it in real dirt) would seem obviously less costly and more eco-friendly. But more significant, according to advocates, home after-death care is also more meaningful for the living.

I wasn’t sure exactly why that would be, but Sarah, her sisters and their mother were intrigued. Bob, her dad (he was the left-wing journalist), had brain cancer and was nearing the end. In hospice care at his home in Maine near our own, he wasn’t able to participate in the conversations about his funeral, but earlier he had made it clear that he didn’t want a lot of money spent on it.

Sarah hooked up with a local support group for home after-death care. We watched a documentary film called A Family Undertaking, which profiles several home funerals around the country. I was especially moved by the South Dakota ranch family preparing for the death of their 90-year-old patriarch, probably because they did not fit my preconception of home-funeral devotees as granola-crunching Berkeley grads.

So a few weeks before Bob died, my 15-year-old son, Harper, and I made a coffin out of plywood and deck screws from Home Depot. I know that sounds cheesy, but it was nice hardwood veneer, and we applied a veneer edging for a finished look. I could have followed any number of plans from the Internet, but in the end I decided to wing it with my own design. We routed rabbet joints for a tight construction.

“I guess we wouldn’t want him falling out the bottom,” Harper said.

“That would reflect poorly on our carpentry skills,” I agreed.

We rubbed linseed oil into the wood for a deep burnish, then, as a final touch, made a cross of cherry for the lid. Total cost: $90.98.

Sarah learned that Maine does not require embalming—a recognition that under normal circumstances human remains do not pose a public health risk (nor do they deteriorate visibly) for a few days after death.

When Bob died, on a cold evening in late November, Sarah, her sister Holly and I gently washed his body with warm water and lavender oil as it lay on the portable hospital bed in the living room. (Anointing a body with aromatic oils, which moisten the skin and provide a calming atmosphere for the living, is an ancient tradition.) I had been to plenty of funerals and seen many a body in the casket, but this was the first time I was expected to handle one. I wasn’t eager to do so, but after a few minutes it seemed like second nature. His skin remained warm for a long time—maybe an hour—then gradually cooled and turned pale as the blood settled. While Holly and I washed his feet, Sarah trimmed his fingernails. (No, they don’t keep growing after death, but they were too long.) We had to tie his jaw shut with a bandanna for several hours until rigor mortis set in, so his mouth would not be frozen open; the bandanna made him look like he had a toothache.

We worked quietly and deliberately, partly because it was all new to us but mainly out of a deep sense of purpose. Our work offered the chance to reflect on the fact that he was really gone. It wasn’t Bob, just his body.

Bob’s widow, Annabelle, a stoic New Englander, stayed in the kitchen during most of these preparations, but at some point she came in and held his hands. Soon she was comfortable lifting his arms and marveling at the soft stillness of her husband’s flesh. “Forty-four years with this man,” she said quietly.

Later that night, with the help of a neighbor, we wrestled the coffin into the living room, filled it with cedar chips from the pet store and added several freezer packs to keep things cool. Then we lined it with a blanket and lay Bob inside. Movies always show bodies getting casually lifted like a 50-pound sack of grain; in real life (or death?), it strained four of us to move him.

The next night we held a vigil. Dozens of friends and family trailed through the living room to view Bob, surrounded by candles and flowers. He looked unquestionably dead, but he looked beautiful. Harper and I received many compliments on our coffin. Later, when the wine flowed and the kitchen rang with laughter and Bob was alone again, I went in to see him. I held his cool hands and remembered how, not so long ago, those hands were tying fishing lures, strumming a banjo, splitting wood. Those days were over, and that made me sad, but it also felt OK.

We did have to engage a few experts. Although Maine allows backyard burials (subject to local zoning), Bob had requested cremation. A crematorium two hours away was sympathetic to home after-death care. The director offered to do the job for just $350, provided we delivered the body.

That entailed a daylong paper chase. The state of Maine frowns on citizens driving dead bodies around willy-nilly, so a Permit for Disposition of Human Remains is required. To get that, you need a death certificate signed by the medical examiner or, in Bob’s case in a small town, the last doctor to treat him. Death certificates, in theory at least, are issued by the government and available at any town office. But when Sarah called the clerk she was told, “You get that from the funeral home.”

“There is no funeral home,” she replied.

“There’s always a funeral home,” said the clerk.

Sarah drove to the town office, and after a lot of searching, the clerk turned up an outdated form. The clerk at the next town over eventually found the proper one. Then Sarah had to track down her family doctor to sign it. We had a firm appointment at the crematorium (burning takes up to five hours, we learned), and time was running out. But finally we managed to satisfy the bureaucracy and load Bob’s coffin into the back of my pickup truck for an on-time delivery. His ashes, in an urn made by an artist friend, were still warm as Sarah wrote the check. We planned to scatter them over the Atlantic later.

Then my dad died—suddenly, a thousand miles away, in Michigan. He lived alone, far from his three sons, who are spread from coast to coast. Home after-death care was out of the question; even if logistics had allowed it, my father had planned his funeral down to the clothes he would wear in his coffin and the music to be played at the service (Frank Sinatra’s “I’ll Be Seeing You”). We sat down with the funeral-home director (a nice man, also chosen by my dad) in a conference room where Kleenex boxes were strategically positioned every few feet, and went over the list of services ($4,295 in Dad’s case) and merchandise. We picked a powder-coated metal coffin that we thought Dad would have liked; happily, it was also priced at the lower end of the range ($2,595). He had already received a plot free from the town. The total cost was $11,287.83, including cemetery charges and various church fees.

I was sad that I hadn’t arrived in Michigan to see him before he died; we never said goodbye. “I’d like to see my father,” I told the funeral director.

“Oh, you don’t want to see him now,” he replied. “He hasn’t been embalmed.”

“Actually, that’s precisely why I’d like to see him.”

He cleared his throat. “You know there was an autopsy.” My father’s death, technically due to cardiac arrest, had happened so quickly that the hospital wanted to understand why. “A full cranial autopsy,” he added.

Well, he had me there. I relented. Then I told him the story of Sarah’s father—the homemade coffin, the bandanna around the jaw—and his own jaw dropped lower and lower.

“That would be illegal in Michigan,” he said.

In fact, do-it-yourself burials without embalming are possible in Michigan as long as a licensed funeral director supervises the process. I don’t think he was lying, just misinformed.

The next day I got to see my dad, embalmed and made up, with rosy cheeks and bright red lips. Clearly an attempt had been made to replicate his appearance in life, but he looked more like a wax museum figure. I touched his face, and it was as hard as a candle. Sarah and I exchanged knowing glances. Later she said to me, “Why do we try to make dead people look alive?”

On a frigid December day, we lowered Dad’s coffin into the ground—or, more accurately, into a concrete vault ($895) set in the ground. It is not easy for me to say this, but here I must report with embarrassment that in life my father had his own personal logo—a stylized line drawing of his face and his trademark oversize spectacles. It appeared on his stationery, his monogrammed windbreakers, even a flag. In accord with his wishes, the logo was engraved on his tombstone. Beneath were the words “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

It was different, the funeral director acknowledged, yet not as different as my father-in-law’s passage. Home after-death care is not for everyone or every situation, but there is a middle ground. Before my dad’s church service, the funeral director confided to me that he was exhausted: “I got a call at midnight to pick up a body in Holland,” a town 30 miles away. That night had brought a major snowstorm.

“You drove through that storm in the middle of the night to get a body?” I asked.

He shrugged, explaining that more people these days are dying at home, and when they die, the family wants the body removed immediately. “Usually they call 911,” he said.

It occurred to me that if more Americans spent more time with their dead—at least until the next morning—they would come away with a new respect for life, and possibly a larger view of the world. After Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, I saw a clip of her funeral. They had put her in a simple wooden coffin. “Hey,” I said to my son, “we could have built that.”

Max Alexander used to edit for Variety and People. He is writing a book about Africa.

You Can’t Always See Suicidal Intent

Tags

chaplaincy, mental-health, psychology, suicide

The following is a very challenging piece to read and contemplate. Many of us have experienced being caught off guard by someone’s suicide. I think as we read this, we should be aware of the challenges faced daily by those suffering and making choices to suicide as well for those who remain with the pain of loss from suicide.

By John M. Grohol, Psy.D.

When someone famous — in this case, a technologist — takes their own life, a lot of hand-wringing and second-guessing occurs. It’s called survivor guilt, and virtually anyone who’s ever known someone who’s died by suicide has gone through it.

“Why didn’t I see the signs?”

“Why didn’t I just listen more?”

“Why didn’t I just reach out and ask him if he needed some help?”

The list of unanswerable questions is never-ending.

But here’s the thing — you can’t always see suicidal intent. You can review all the checklists and warning signs in the world, but if a suicidal person is clever and dedicated enough to his or her goal, you’ll never see it coming.

Because feeling suicidal isn’t the same as when someone cries when they’ve physically hurt themselves. The crying, if done at all, is done on the inside — far removed from everyday life.

Clay Shirky, a well-meaning technologist himself, wrote about how we should just take better care of each other.

What a great sentiment.

But psychologists know that sentiments like this last for a time — in the moment of pain and grief — and then, for most people, fade away. It’s not because we’re unfeeling automatons who go through life forgetting the importance of human contact. It’s precisely because we’re only human that compassion fatigue can set in. You can literally wear yourself out by trying to look out for everyone else in your life.

The Suicidal Mind

People who are suicidal usually go through a set of stages with their suicidal thoughts and feelings. Most people who are suicidal don’t just wake up one day and say, “Hey, I’m going to kill myself.”

Instead, what happens is depression is mixed with hopelessness — a feeling that these bad things will never change — often accompanied by a sense of feeling trapped. Like there’s no way out of the circumstances of our life.

The feeling starts off small, as just a thought nugget — “Ending it would solve all my problems, wouldn’t it?” The more hopeless the situation appears to be (it doesn’t matter whether it is or not in reality), the more these thoughts start to take on a life of their own.

For most people, suicidal thoughts are the start and end of their suicidal intentions. Having an occasional suicidal thought even when you’re not depressed is not unusual and no reason to panic.

But for a small group of people, the suicidal thoughts don’t end or lessen with time and depression treatment. They get worse. They start to grow out of control, as the person moves from just thinking about ending their lives as an abstract concept, to starting to think about concrete ideas of how to do it (and do it successfully).

As these thoughts grow and a plan takes shape, people who are suicidal engage in some common behaviors. They start to give away some of their possessions (especially stuff that means a lot to them). They start to act more reckless than usual, perhaps driving in a manner unlike themselves, perhaps engaging in behavior you’ve never seen them do before. Their mood may vary widely as they wrestle with the internal demons that only they can see, and that only they can fight.

The Catch

There is, however, a small catch.

Some people are smarter than others, and some people know about these warning signs (thanks Internet!). So some smart, suicidal people can be ready to end it and give virtually nothing away to their loved ones or friends.

Worse, people who are hackers and technologists often code alone, game alone, and socialize primarily through technology. Which is great for goal-directed communication, but lousy for picking up on the subtle, non-verbal cues that often tell more of the real story of what’s going on with a person.

Reaching out and offering a helping hand is a good start. But for someone who’s already made the decision, it will not be enough. Especially if they’ve kept the worst of it inside, away from everyone.

Offering the helping hand through technology — through a tweet, a text, or a passing comment — isn’t as helpful as actually talking to the person you’re concerned about. Face-to-face if possible.

What a person really needs is an immediate intervention. Not just from a crisis hotline.¹ But from a real person (yes, even a professional), in their face-to-face world, to help them through the chaos and hopelessness.

Yes, they need the love and support of their friends and family — but that will never be enough. Because if we could treat and solve mental illness through just love and paying better attention to other people’s needs, psychologists and psychiatrists would be out of business tomorrow.

The Crux

Clay Shirky says:

The warning signs are well known…

The useful responses are well-known too…

And that is exactly the problem. Most of us know this stuff — even people who don’t deal with mental health issues everyday. If it’s so well-known, why do we continue to do such a lousy job in helping stop 30,000+ people from taking their own lives each and every year in the U.S.?

I don’t have the answer.

But I do have one answer — let’s stop treating mental illness like a second-class disease that is mocked, ridiculed, and discriminated against every day in this country. It’s the punch line to an endless array of bad joke in countless online forums and blogs. Let’s elevate and properly fund the mental health system to be equal to that of our general health care system.

Let’s stop sweeping people who are suicidal under the rug and pawning them off on volunteers to deal with.² While most are well-trained and fairly well-equipped, it sends the message that we, as a society, don’t take this problem seriously — by putting the people who are in the greatest emotional and psychological need in the hands of non-mental health professionals.³

And yes, by all means, reach out to your friends, your loved ones, and check in with them as much as you can.

But realize that you don’t always have the power to change another person’s life — only they can. What you can do is help them understand and use their own power to get help.

Footnotes:

1. Although crisis hotlines do what they can with what little resources our society bestows upon them. [↩]
2. Yes, that’s right, most suicide hotlines are staffed by volunteer laypeople. [↩]
3. And sadly, crisis hotlines’ quality varies considerably, as these stories from real life people tell. [↩]

Dr. John Grohol is the founder & CEO of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues — as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior — since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

Honest Questions About Grief From a Pagan

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bereavement, chaplaincy, chaplains, death and dying, grief, grief and loss, neo-pagan, neo-paganism, pagan traditions, Paganism, pastoral care, religion, spiritual care, spiritual foundations, spirituality

In our work in chaplaincy, we come across people from all different religious and spiritual backgrounds.  This requires us to have a basic sense of how one’s background will shine light on how a person will experience different emotional challenges.  Here is an article about someone who is pagan.

Posted: 02/07/2013 10:07 am

Wes Isley

Writer and Interfaith Minister

I’m having a crisis of faith. My partner of 18 years died last year, and in addition to grieving the loss of his tender presence and our precious time together, I’ve watched helplessly as my spiritual foundations have crumbled around me. I wasn’t prepared for that.

When he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, my faith — an idiosyncratic blend of Neo-Pagan traditions that include modern druidry and shamanic practice — gave me an abiding sense of peace and purpose throughout his illness. But once he died, those same practices ceased to sustain and comfort me. And despite having what I thought was a strong spiritual support network, I have found myself adrift without a community and unable to find any Pagan-centered resources to help me manage my grief. I wasn’t afraid to lose my partner, but I never expected that his death would take with it the one thing I thought I could never lose.

I have lots of questions. One question is why aren’t there more articles or blogs or books about how a modern Pagan deals with grief? One thing Pagans do well is celebrate: We celebrate the Earth with outdoor rituals and planting gardens; we celebrate the Goddess with thoughtful liturgies and inclusive leadership; and we celebrate creativity with drumming, colorful ceremonies and by making space in our lives for play. That’s all fine and well, but the painful loss of death is just as real as joyful celebration. Pagans talk a lot about how we are more in tune with the natural cycles of the world, of the seasons, of life and death — but why do I find more resources for dancing around a maypole than for mourning the death of someone you love?

Another question of mine but one often raised by other Pagans: Will there ever be a more cohesive Pagan community? When Christians die, for example, the faithful rely on established congregations, caring pastors, prayer circles and comforting Bible verses. But so many of us Pagans are solitary practitioners, or we frequent loosely knit groups that may only meet for workshops or special events. If you’re grieving during those gaps in the event calendar, where do you turn for support?

The diversity of belief among Pagans is one of our strengths, but it also poses a challenge for the grieving person. When everyone determines their beliefs or spiritual path from an internal compass rather than a mutually accepted book of Scripture, for example, it’s difficult to know how to offer spiritual support. What kind of prayers should be said — and to whom? Does a circle need to be cast? Am I allowed to perform certain ceremonies or is that only for initiates of the order?

I think that, in general, our culture doesn’t know how to process death and grief. We want to keep it busy, focus on the positive and offer empty platitudes. I’ve found that true of people from most any faith. Yet isn’t faith supposed to help us accept the inevitable? Sometimes Pagans seem the most insensitive of all, offering nothing more helpful than, “You must let go” or “Life is a series of changes.” Oh, is that all? Whew, now I feel so much better.

Pagan practice is predominantly self-directed, or at least that’s my experience. But grief saps your energy to such a degree that you simply can’t maintain your personal altar, focus during meditation or push yourself to attend the next drum circle. In my grief journey, I feel I’m moving mountains if I’m just able to pay my bills, maintain my friendships and show up for work every day. In other words, the ancestors and spirit guides are on their own. But why, when you felt them calling you so strongly before, why are they now so silent?

Maybe that sense of spiritual isolation after grief is universal no matter what faith we practice. And maybe I’ll feel more like my old self in six months or so. But what if I don’t? What if I abandon this Pagan path? I’ve already lost my partner; must I lose my faith, too? This brings me to my central dilemma: Whatever spiritual path we choose should be able to sustain us through the toughest of times; if it fails to do so, is it worth keeping? Once before, I changed my faith when it no longer made sense and failed to sustain. Is that about to happen again?

Deathbed Singers, Threshold Choirs, Grow To Comfort Sick And Dying

Tags

choirs, death, death and dying, dying, Hospice, music, music therapy, spiritual support

Music therapy is often a wonderful additional service offered to hospice patients and family’s at the end of life. In an interesting twist, this article describes people being escorted out of this world with song.

Deathbed Singers, Threshold Choirs, Grow To Comfort Sick And Dying
Posted: 05/02/2013 6:42 am EDT | Updated: 05/02/2013 9:19 pm EDT

by Jaweed Kaleem

WASHINGTON — Always face the person in the chair. Sense their breath, the rising and falling of the lungs, the blood’s flush on the cheeks. Watch the loosening and tightening of the muscles, the movement of the eyelids, how the hair on their arms straightens up. Don’t stand out. Speak softly. Blend in with the voices.

This was the advice of Ellen Synakowski to members of the Washington, D.C., Threshold Choir, only a few months into its existence. Their job: to use song to comfort the dying through the end of life.

As if repeating a mantra, they sang in unison as they rehearsed: “It’s alright, you can go/ Your memories are safe with us/ It’s alright, you can go/ Your memories are safe with us.”

“Words are good for many things, but they don’t seem sufficient when it comes to death. The feelings are just too deeply intense and words are too inadequate,” said Synakowski, a 55-year-old former academic journal editor who has always had a hobby of singing, whether it’s to the car radio or in a community chorus. “But music … music can reach those places where words alone can’t go.”

Death used to happen solely at home or in a hospital, with company limited to family, close friends and clergy. Solemn music would be reserved, perhaps, for the funeral. But as the options for the end of life have grown to include hospice, palliative care and other avenues that recognize not only physical but also emotional and spiritual well-being, Synakowski and like-minded volunteers are offering another service to the dying: soothing through a cappella song.

Each week, Synakowski and between five and 10 people gather around an imaginary bed to practice original songs written for the dying. The D.C. circle formed in January, and is one of the newest in a little-known, mainly U.S.-based network that began in Northern California 13 years ago and now includes dozens of groups across the country.

In the years before launching the choir, Synakowski was a theater critic, a parenting newspaper staffer and an editor at a physics journal. Now an aspiring creative nonfiction writer, she spends her days memorizing songs, calling hospices and hospitals to gauge their interest in deathbed singers, and placing ads seeking members in coffee shops, churches and newspapers. But it’s not easy to find volunteers and she’s just started to look for friendly care facilities that may house those who are dying and willing to listen.

“Do not initiate touch. If someone reaches out to you, you can respond,” she told the men and women gathered to practice in April in a massage school classroom in a nondescript, concrete office building that donated its space. It was a Wednesday night, and the singers, most in their 20s and 30s, had rushed in from their day jobs. They included a legal secretary, a massage therapist and an acupuncturist. “If someone asks you for water, or to adjust them in their wheelchair or bed, we can’t,” Synakowski said. That’s up to the nurse. They are singers, and singers only.

As if it were a worship service, she opened the meeting with a testimony, reading a letter from a woman who recently had another choir in California sing to her ailing mother who is in her late 80s. The students had never performed for the ill or dying, and they needed encouragement and inspiration.

“When you came to our church and sang, I had more energy than I have had in many months. When you and the choir sang to my mom, I felt your singing was able to hold a space open that we all fear. That ‘space’ could be death or just the struggle of sickness, and when it’s held open like that, we are less alone in it…When you sang, your voices had a kind of wisdom of being in dark places or feared places … My mom told me the feeling overwhelmed her, while you were all singing to her, of not being afraid to die.”

The D.C. choir practices for 90 minutes each week at the Potomac Massage Training Institute, where Synakowski is also a student. Laureen, the acupuncturist, joined after seeing a flyer at Starbucks seeking people who could “communicate kindness” with their voices. Becca, the legal secretary, had taken a class at the massage school, through which she met Synakowski. She brought her friend Leah, who has wanted to work with the dying ever since her brother died of cancer.

It will take six months, possibly up to a year, before the choir can reach its goals: having each member memorize 30 songs, and reaching enough understanding of the dying process and the effect sound can have during it, including receiving hospital and hospice volunteer certification.

For now, they prepare.

***

Synakowski’s husband and one or two men come to each rehearsal, though most Threshold Choirs are made up of only women. They’re located in nearly every major American city, and meet once or twice a month to practice. Each choir varies in its style and composition, though the majority skew older than 50 on average. They visit by request only to hospitals, hospices and private homes. The service is free, and because of limited resources, the groups usually don’t advertise unless they are just getting started. Oftentimes, it’s a chaplain, social worker or doctor who asks for them.

Two to three singers will go to a bedside, and they pick songs based upon what a patient or the patient’s family wants. The tunes can be slow or upbeat, and emotional or lighthearted, like “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” though most are original. At first, choirs sing two or three songs to gauge a person’s response. Sometimes, the recipient will move a finger, mouth a “thank you” or will change their breathing and relax their muscles. At the end of life, when human functions began to slow and cease, the signal for “I like this” can be as simple as a blink. Sessions last between 15 to 45 minutes, depending on the patient.

Family members are given song sheets so they can join in or continue after the singers are gone, though choir members themselves prefer memorization. The lyrics aren’t religious, and are meant for those who may be spiritual but don’t follow a strict dogma. It’s rare for a choir member to witness a patient’s last breath. Most people prefer to die alone or in the presence of family, say singers who have performed at deathbeds.

So far, Synakowski can sing just 10 pieces from memory. And while she has attended choir workshops in New York and Ohio, she has yet to sing to the dying. Searching fruitlessly for a choir since moving to D.C. nearly four years ago, she became tired of waiting and recently launched her own. Maybe she hadn’t sung to the dying before, she thought, but she loved to sing, was taught by the pros and felt at ease with death.

When the D.C. singers gather, Synakowksi doesn’t just train them in music, but poses questions about the end of life. What role does song play in transitions? What do they want to hear in their last week alive? The aim is to steer their minds toward thinking about the death that will soon surround them, and to weed out the uncomfortable. She starts by sharing her own experience.

Growing up in Lincoln, Maine, she sang in nursing homes with her Girl Scout troop. She went to her first funeral, for her aunt who died of ovarian cancer, when she was in third grade, and has vivid memories of the open casket and the raw grief in her rather stoic family. She was in her high school’s chorus, and was in a gospel choir as an adult until one of her vocal chords started to get chronically swollen about six years ago, making it tiring to sing for extended periods.

When her father died of a septic aneurism back home in 2000, she joined her siblings and mother in touching him, holding his cheeks, his legs and his feet, though she never thought to sing. When her mother was dying eight years later, Synakowski remembers rushing during the two-hour commute from the Bangor airport to her childhood home and spontaneously breaking out into song: “Swing low, sweet chariot/ Comin’ for to carry me home.” While singing, she got a call that her mother had died. It was one of the first times she realized “the transcending energy of music,” she says.

“I feel almost responsible to show up and do this because I understand not being (alive),” she says.

Syankowski first heard about the bedside choirs six years ago, when she lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the family moved for her husband’s job as a physicist. She came across the idea the way most people do: through word-of-mouth. But between work and taking care of two kids, it wasn’t until recently that she could manage the time to get involved.

There are 19 choirs in Northern California, the epicenter of the deathbed singers’ movement. They’re each aided in one way or another by Kate Munger, the founder and executive director of Threshold Choir. A 63-year-old resident of Inverness, Calif., 40 miles north of San Francisco, she’s a lifelong singer and former elementary school music teacher.

Munger, too, remembers the first time she realized the power of song at death. It was early November in 1990, when her close friend Larry was dying of AIDS.

“I found myself doing chores all morning and was supposed to sit by him in the afternoon, but was terrified when the time came,” recalls Munger. “He was comatose but agitated.”

She was upset, afraid and confused. So she did what she always did in times of trouble: She sang.

“I sang the same song for two-and-a-half hours. As soon as I started singing, he started to calm,” she says. The song was Gail McDermott’s “Hello, Moon:” “There’s a moon/ There’s a star in the sky/ There’s a cloud/ There’s a tear in my eye/ There’s a light/ There’s a night that is long/ There’s a friend/ There’s a pain that is gone/ Long are we waiting awakening/ Long are we singing this song.”

It took until until 2000, and many years between of Munger teaching music to kids, for the first choir to begin. Launched in El Cerrito, Calif, its first client was a terminally ill friend in her 50s with Lupus. In small groups, the original 15 members sang to her weekly in the nine months before she died, and she gave them feedback. Soft, blended voices felt better, she explained. Singers learned to read her body language. Even the smallest twitch of a limb could mean she was enjoying or put off by the music. At her death, they sang to her for hours on end.

Today, Munger leads Threshold Choir full-time as a registered nonprofit. It has a small part-time staff, 100 chapters across the U.S. and one in Australia, and a repertoire of 500 original songs written in a dozen languages. Most are no more than two minutes long, and have been perfected at annual camps that members organize in Northern California. The most recent one in April at a retreat center in Sonoma County drew 140 women. The titles of songs written and sung during those five days invoke wonder, ease and tenderness: “Welcome Home,” “May Peace be with You,” “What Light Do You Shine in the World.”

“There is no audition process to join. All I ask is that you feel the shiver when you hear about our work,” says Munger. “A mother’s heartbeat is the first sound that each of us hears. It feels to me that women’s bodies are the guardians of life entering this world and it feels right that we will be guardians of the gate out.”

Experienced soloists are often not the best fit because “projection of voice is not the goal, softness and comfort are,” says Munger. She, Synakowski and other choir leaders encourage those who like to sing but lack professional experience to join. It’s easier to teach them to mix their voices into the group’s, sing softly and focus on the dying instead of themselves.

***
The Threshold Choirs’ ultimate purpose may not be a creative one, but one that’s psychosocial. One of the hardest parts of dying, say those who have been at bedsides or been close to death themselves, is not pain but fear of the unfamiliar — of a stopping point — even for those who believe in an afterlife. Feelings of guilt and regret, too, can stress the body and mind.

While bedside singers may be unique in American culture, it’s not unprecedented. In some Hindu and Buddhist practices, hymns are sung near those who are dying, while mantras are chanted into the ear at the moment of death. In the Middle Ages, French Benedictine monks became famous for establishing infirmaries across Europe for the terminally ill, where they used Gregorian chants to soothe the dying. In more advanced hospitals and hospices around the nation, music therapists are employed to use instruments, such as harps, to calm the ill. And an emerging academic and medical field, music thanatology, is studying the effects frequency and tone have on a dying person, from changes in heart rate, temperature and respiration to better sleep and reduction in stress. Studies that have scanned brain waves near the time of death have indicated that hearing is one of the last senses to be lost.

“Our culture is coming to a great awareness of the role of song and music when it comes to pain, death and grief,” says Joy Berger, who teaches in the music therapy program at the University of Louisville and is the director of education for Hospice Education Network.

Diana Sebzda, the director of bereavement at the Karen Ann Quinlan Hospice in Newton, N.J., says she has often seen music used for terminally ill patients. It seems “to bring about a sense of peace to the dying by calming down their terminal restlessness and for the family bedside,” she says. “Often, the hospice team will request the music continue to play, even after the loved one has died, because it helps create an emotional environment to respect the transition period of the loved one who died.”

But deathbed songs can also go wrong. Research is still being done on how music affects the dying, says Berger. “Especially if the musicians are not clinically trained music therapists, assumptions and mis-uses of music can occur with … what music is selected, and outcomes to expect.”

“Music should never be imposed upon another, but rather should be empowering with and for the dying person. And, the same power of music to engage one’s emotions, memories, and memories can ignite overwhelming pain,” Berger says.

Some of the most traditional or least-equipped hospitals and hospices still don’t have music-therapy programs, let alone a relationship with deathbed singers. And the cooperation and interest among medical staff varies when it comes to Threshold, though personnel are typically asked to listen in and the choirs’ songbooks include appreciation songs for nurses and doctors. Once at a hospital in California, says Munger, two of her singers were pushed to sing for a patient who was in pain by a “desperate” nurse, even though they had not been invited. “So they started singing for Mr. Jones who sat bolt up in bed and ordered them out.”

***
While more experienced choirs have seen broad success in gaining membership and clientele, it’s a struggle for the newcomers in D.C. People come and go. Synakowski and her husband, Ed, are the constants, though others have started to come more regularly. She says local hospitals and hospices have be “very receptive” to the idea, thought she still doesn’t know who, exactly, the choir will sing to.

“You can’t just go around saying you are singing to people who are dying in beds. Some people are very uncomfortable with it,” Synakowski says. “I’m confused about how to market it.”

When she’s asked to explain what she does or when she makes a flyer, she leaves the concept a vague: “We sing to people at tender times.

With a group so focused on the dying, its rehearsals are often equally meditations and conversations on death as they are chances to harmonize. In the middle of the April practice, Synkowski asked singers to reflect on the role of music in transitions and what led them to the music and the dying.

Laureen Gastón, the acupuncturist who found one of Synakowsi’s flyers at Starbucks, talked about her mother and sister, who died four weeks apart a year ago. She first learned of Threshold Choir songs last summer while attending a community singing group at church during a vacation in Maine. “At the time, I thought that the idea of a Threshold Choir was intriguing given my latest losses and how much I sang at their bedsides. It made sense that others would do the same for their loved ones, but to hear about an organized group was news. Last night, I found myself singing those songs, and it transported me right back there to the ones I love,” Gastón said.

“My brother had died from cancer. His favorite song was called ‘Change,’ and back when he was in high school he had a senior quote which was from the song, it was amazing how fitting it was,” said Leah Dick, a massage therapist who wants to specialize in serving cancer patients. “I sing that song over and over and over again” to remember him.

Synakowski thought of her son, Byron, who was born Sturge-Weber Syndrome, a rare neurological condition that usually affects one side of the brain. A port-wine stain on his forehead signaled the condition, which was caused by vascular malformations. Byron suffered hundreds of seizures within less than a year after his birth that resulted in 11 hospitalizations. Doctors had to remove half his brain when he was 10½ months old, and he could have easily died from bleeding during the surgery or a stroke afterwards. It was 1997, and she now realizes it was then that her path in death and song really began.

“I told them they didn’t have permission to keep him alive if he did not want to be here,” says Synakowski. She would touch his small hands, holding him in her lap before and after treatments, lulling him to sleep with what she knew could be the last words he would hear: “This little little light of ours/ We’re going to let it shine/ … We won’t let anyone (blow) it out / We’re going to let it shine.”

He survived and is now a high school sophomore. Though weak on one side of his body, he enjoys playing volleyball, and is close to becoming an Eagle Scout.

“Going through that baptism, it enables me to say I can go in there and be with a child who is suffering,” she says.

Recently, Synakowski has started calling pediatric hospitals, asking if they would be interested in allowing song in their checkup rooms. “It made me comfortable with the idea that babies’ lives can end. It’s not just older people. People always say phrases like ‘his time was cut short’ and things like that. I think we are giving a certain amount of time on this earth, and that’s that. It’s the time we have to live.”

Activate Your Spiritual Resources When Fear Surrounds You

Tags

bereavement, Boston Massacre, Boston Terrorist Attack, chaplaincy, mental-health, pastoral care, Rev. Sue Wintz, spiritual care, spirituality, tragedy

In the face of tragedy, many times we look for spiritual support to offer guidance when grappling with the emotional upheaval it causes.  Here is a thought on supporting oneself in a spiritual fashion when fear begins to overcome.

The Rev. Sue Wintz

The tragedy of the Boston Marathon has reached yet another level of intensity in the past 24 hours with the manhunt and lockdown that has forced everyday life to be placed on hold. Residents have been told to stay inside their homes so they can be safe as law enforcement personnel do their work. 
The explosions at the marathon and the resulting deaths, injuries and mayhem were more than enough to raise one’s anxiety level; the events that continue to occur today bring that anxiety to yet a new level.

While there are many experts speaking out with sound advice on coping with grief and the emotional turmoil that the people of Boston and the rest of the country are experiencing, let’s not overlook an important resource.

Every one of us has some source of spiritual strength from where we all find meaning and hope in something in our lives. For some, it is a religious belief in a higher power, so the use of such rituals as prayer or reading holy texts and scripture can be a source of calm, hope and comfort. For others who are not religious, or engage in a belief system that does not include a single higher power, there are other ways to engage one’s spiritual side, such as:

• Light a candle to signify that you are holding the victims of the marathon, the law enforcement officers currently putting themselves in harm’s way find the person(s) responsible, your neighbors, the city and the country in your heart and thoughts.
• Engage in quiet meditation, taking time to simply sit back and focus on the quietness of your breathing.
• Participate in an activity that will occupy your mind with something that brings you calm or a sense of productivity: read a book, do a craft project, even clean the house.

Probably one of the most important things one can do today is to turn off the TV and radio. Don’t spend the day with it on watching the news over and over again or listening to the reports. If you feel you need to stay informed, then watch for a certain amount of time, such as five to 10 minutes at regular intervals, no less than two hours apart.

Give yourself the space to experience your emotions. Remember that feeling anxious, frightened, sad, isolated, angry or any other emotion is absolutely normal. Acknowledge those feelings then — hard as it may be — let them go, at least for the time that you are able to call on your spiritual resources to bring a sense of quiet.

It is especially important to recognize that if you or a family member has experienced a previous grief, particularly a traumatic one, such as the death of a loved one or friend, that the emotions you experienced then may come to the surface and magnify what you are feeling now. Again, that is completely normal, and it is very important that you be particularly careful about the media that you expose yourself to now.

Spiritual resources can be often overlooked when we are faced with events such as those in the city of Boston this week. Yet they can be one of the best tools we can use. Take the time today to discover yours and put them into practice.

And know that others have a candle lit for you and are holding you in their hearts.

Articles about Hospice Chaplaincy

Tags

chaplaincy, chaplains, Hospice, pastoral care, Plainviews, religion, spiritual care

I am sharing with you links to two open access issues of the online chaplaincy journal Plainviews that focus on Hospice Chaplaincy.

http://plainviews.healthcarechaplaincy.org/uploads/PlainViews-Special-Issue-on-Hospice-Part-1.pdf

http://plainviews.healthcarechaplaincy.org/PdfArticle.aspx?Url=fullissue.aspx&submit=1

I hope these articles will offer people some insight into the world of spiritual care within a hospice setting.

When Tragedy and Death Strike Suddenly, Everything Changes

Tags

bereavement, chaplaincy, death, death and dying, death and loss, grief, grief and loss, grief and trauma, grief professional, loss and grief, pastoral care, spiritual care, tragedy, tragedy and grief

When we are confronted with sudden tragedy and loss, something we as a nation have been experiencing again and again recently, it reminds us about the need to reflect.  For many, it is a time of re-prioritizing life, focusing on those things which help us grow and live to the fullest.  The following is one grief professional’s take on the subject.

Posted on April 16, 2013 by griefminister

 “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”

C.S. Lewis,  A Grief Observed 

Prayers go out at this time for the victims and their families in the horrific event in Boston.  The days ahead for those families and friends of the victims will be filled with the emotional turmoil of sudden, unexpected loss of significant people in their lives.  This event reminds them and us all that this world can be a cruel, unsafe place.

When death strikes, our world changes.  Suddenly we realize that the assumptions and beliefs we live by every day are not necessarily the way life really is.  Bad things can and do happen, not just to other people, but they can also happen to us and to the people we hold most dear.

When loved ones are taken by death or when tragedy hits the headlines we come to recognize that this world can be a very unsafe place to be, and that the plans and dreams we have for today or tomorrow can be shattered at any second by a random act of nature, a violent act of people we don’t even know or just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  We are forced to see how brutal our world can be and how fragile our lives are.

Whenever death and loss hit us, we go into shock, we look for answers to why tragic events and losses could have happened and we reflect on our lives and our beliefs.  Mourners, their caregivers and witnesses in the community are forced to learn quickly that:

• All of us are vulnerable and Death is inevitable.  It doesn’t matter how successful or unsuccessful you are, how religious you are, how much good you do for others, how many degrees you have, or how well you have planned for the future, death and grief come to us all.  One hundred percent of us are going to die and one hundred percent of us will say goodbye to people we care for.  Death is the great equalizer of all humankind. In tragedy we face our mortality.
  
• The most important things in life are not things.  People and relationships are most important.  After a tragic loss, survivors, their caregivers and witnesses to the tragic event feel compelled to get closer to family and the important people in their lives.  When we experience loss due to death–especially sudden, unexpected loss–we live in fear of what might happen next.  In grief we live in fear of what other valuable people might be taken from us.
• Time is precious, and it shouldn’t be wasted.  When loved ones die, we feel the regret for things said or not said, done or not done.  We wonder why we didn’t do things differently and why we didn’t cherish the relationships that we were given in our lives.  Our priorities change after loss. The “to do” lists and activities we once considered important seem trivial and even foolish in the aftermath of a loved one’s death and the onset of grief.  We search for meaning, purpose and joy in the “now” we live in when we realize that tomorrow or the next minute with our loved ones may not be ours.

Will tragedy, death and grief continue?  Unfortunately, yes. Important, loved ones will continue to die, tragedies will happen, and mourners will be left behind to grieve, hurt and pick up the pieces of their lives.  But loved ones can be remembered and honored in our grief.  The overflowing love we still have in our hearts for people no longer physically present can be expressed in healthy grief and in lives well-lived in memory of those loved ones lost.  We will not just be those surviving our loved ones who die. We will be living memorials to their valuable lives which cry out to be remembered.

We mourners left behind can learn the lessons of loss, remember them daily and change how we live now.  The physical relationships we still have can be treasured and appreciated now instead of after our loved ones and friends die.  We can let them know how much we care for them now in words and actions. In addition, we can make each moment count now rather than living in the past which cannot be changed or worrying about the future which we may not have.  Understanding now that this life is fragile, fleeting and far more important than we ever knew can enrich our lives and our relationships now.  And when the time comes and we run out of nows, we can say goodbye to others who die and leave this life when we die with fewer regrets.

Remember, all we have for sure is now.

“Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” James 4:13-15

Written by Larry M. Barber, LPC-S, CT, director of GriefWorks, CounselingWorks and KidWorks.

Larry is also the author of the grief survival guide “Love Never Dies: Embracing Grief with Hope and Promise” Available on http://grief-works.org/book.php. Also available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and your local bookstore. Available now for Nook and Kindle.

Stress Less and Optimize Your Relationship with Technology

Tags

psychology, sacred moments, sacred space, spirituality, technology

I think this short piece is wonderful advice, though I think one we all struggle with in our day to day lives.  This is not an piece suggesting disconnecting but instead suggesting making tech-free zones/times.

By Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.

 

One thing we’ve learned about the brain over the last 15 years is that it can form new neural connections throughout the lifespan. This is called neuroplasticity, you may have heard of it. Neuroplasticity occurs when we practice and repeat doing things and eventually it just become automatic, like a habit. We see this in walking, talking, learning new car routes, playing an instrument or even meditation. When it comes to the enormous repetition of a constant connection to our technology, you have to assume, or likely you’ve experienced that the brain is strengthening that habit often times with a stressful cost.

Technology is great, but we’re just infants with it and we have to begin evolving with a wiser relationship.

Not too long ago humans had many uninterrupted spaces in their lives. If you were sitting at lunch with a friend the focus was on the conversation and there weren’t many things that would intrude. Now the brain has rewired to constantly monitor beneath your awareness any incoming messages and if there is a sign of one, a knee-jerk reaction occurs to check it.

Sherry Turkle from MIT and author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, has been studying this for decades. She talks about the need to create sacred spaces that are technology-free zones, especially at the dinner table. This reminds me of a past research study I did on cultivating sacred moments and how that was found to be directly correlated to stress reduction and happiness.

Where are your sacred spaces? Do you have any? When do you get a chance to disconnect and “be with” yourself or whoever is with you?

What would be different if you had more sacred space in your life? Would you have more time to attune and be intimate with yourself or with your friends, family or colleagues?

You might argue that you are connected to more people because of technology, but we have to look at the qualitative difference between connection and intimacy. We can all be incredibly connected, but sometimes shallow waters are noisy and lack depth. Intimacy on the other hand is deep and it’s important to continue intentionally bringing this into our lives.

Technology is wonderful, I’m a big advocate of it strengths. At the same time, we’re just in the courting stages with it, feeling it out and learning what the best way to relate to it is.

Let yourself experiment with having sacred spaces with yourself and in relationships.

See what you notice.

As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction creates a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Spiritual Support At The Hospital Is The Soul Of The Healthcare System

Tags

chaplaincy, health care, pastoral care, spiritual care, spiritual support

I thought the following was a good example of the anecdotal value of spiritual care in health care.

Gina Ryder

Associate Community Editor

I didn’t realize how important spirituality in the world of modern medicine is to me until someone asked if I wanted spiritual support during my hospital stay for an upcoming knee surgery. As the community editor of HuffPost Religion, I wondered how our commenters felt about spiritual support so I asked them asked them via Facebook. Many of our readers have had remarkable experiences with pastoral staffs of various religious traditions in medical settings across the world. You can read those experiences at the close of this blog.

My story with real life spiritual support at the hospital has yet to happen. However, I have accepted a visit from a pastor in advance. To backtrack, I was on a year and a half journey of figuring out the cause of my knee pain. There were months of physical therapy, multiple tests and a series of second opinions with orthopedic surgeons. The pain and instability in my knee is complex. There’s a long history there and I was hoping for a doctor to truly listen.

While I understand and deeply appreciate my access to medical care and freedom to choose a doctor, finding one I trusted was a process that didn’t end like I expected it too. I was waiting for that feeling of inner peace to come. When it didn’t, I swallowed my doubt and eventually settled on the doctor who did the most thorough examination. He has stellar credentials and has done very impressive research on injuries related to mine. All good yet I desired a little soul in my medical staff.

In my search for the right physician, I couldn’t help but compare a hasty diagnosis to fast cash from an ATM. Being told a solution before fully understanding the problem did to my spirit what an impulse withdraw does to an account balance. It drained it. What I hoped for was not an ATM transaction but a visit back in time to slow and careful financial institution. When I was a kid and my mom went through the drive through at the bank I grew up in, the teller would put a lollipop in the air chute for me. I didn’t know it until later on but small gestures of personal consideration is everything when it comes to humanizing the automatic world of modern day medical care.

My last appointment before surgery went like this. The proxy. The policy number. Age. Year of my last surgery. Employer’s address. I answered lots of questions and I had lots of questions of my own, the major one being – “Am I going to be taken care of?”

I imagine this underlying concern to be buried in many patients. I know my pre-surgical anxiety was very present. It was something I thought I’d manage in private. However, when the receptionist asked for my work number, I gave her a testy response, letting some of that pent up frustration out in the wrong way. “My work number!?” I repeated her question with (misplaced) irritation. I’m not going to be at my desk when I’m under anesthesia. Plus, I’ve already written it down on like 50 forms. I apologized to the receptionist for being rude, remembering her question was normal procedure. What I didn’t know was also normal procedure was her next set of questions. What was my religion? Do I want spiritual support in the hospital?

When the receptionist asked me if I wanted a visit from their pastoral staff at my hospital stay, I felt taken care of for one of the first times on my long journey of getting to the bottom of my knee pain and deciding on operation. There are many ways for my knee to heal. My faith is a huge part of that healing and I’m glad the hospital gets that. Suddenly, I had real trust in the process, the kind of trust that comes from above.

I appreciate my technical doctor more than ever before. He’s awesome. I expect the spiritual support staff to be too. It’s not so much about a member of the clergy visiting me. It’s that just another hospital transaction included the assurance of care for my spirit. I got my answer to “Will everything be okay?” by being asked “Do you want spiritual support?”. I exhaled deep and gave the receptionist my answer. A slightly teary “yes”.

How I Made Peace With Death

Tags

Aging, bereavement, chaplaincy, chaplains, christian clergy, death, death and dying, doctors and nurses, healthcare, pastoral care, psychology, religion, spiritual care

The following is very valuable advice to all who are impacted by death from a professional standpoint.  While spiritual traditions discuss the need to contemplate one’s death, I think that those who are around death and dying on a constant basis could well heed some of the thoughts in the below piece.  I know that those who train in chaplaincy specifically focus on awareness of one’s own death, but perhaps this is something that needs greater stress in all aspects of care for the dying.

Posted: 01/29/2013 3:57 pm

Rabbi Joseph Meszler

Rabbi, Temple Sinai, Sharon, Mass.; Author, ‘Facing Illness, Finding God: How Judaism Can Help You and Caregivers Cope When Body or Spirit Fails

“Have you ever been in a room with someone who has died?” I asked. “I mean, have you ever been with someone’s body?”

The minister, who was significantly older than I was at the time, shook his head.

“Then maybe before the family gets here, you ought to go in and be with her yourself, just so you can get through your own reaction. You might be more helpful to the family that way.”

I was working as a chaplain at a hospital in Cincinnati. It was Christmas. I was in rabbinical school, and each year I would volunteer to take that particular overnight shift so the Christian clergy could be home for their holiday.

This time, however, a woman died on Christmas Eve. Her pastor had come to the hospital to be with the family and say goodbye to his parishioner. But as I feared, he usually dealt with bodies that were cremated or embalmed and dressed up. He hadn’t been around the newly dead, especially someone he knew.

He went into the room. When he came back out, he was a bit shaken, but I could see he was OK. The family arrived, and he put his arms around them.

I realize talking about bodies may seem morbid and bizarre, but clergy often have a strange relationship with death. We are around it frequently. Like funeral home directors, doctors, and nurses, we see people for who they are in all their mortality. It inculcates a feeling of humility and awe. And yes, it is still unnerving.

As a rabbi, I have buried many people. I have buried old people, young people and — thankfully very rarely — children. I was once even part of a small Michigan town’s Jewish burial society called a Hevra Kadisha, where I washed a congregant and dressed him in shrouds. In Judaism, bodies are not traditionally cremated or embalmed. The body is left in its natural state and buried in an all-wood coffin so there will be no barrier to returning to the earth.

One day that will be me, I sometimes think.

Some of the most interesting people I have met are dead. I sit with families, listen to stories, usually with both laughter and tears, and am tasked with writing eulogies. The tales are fascinating. There is often sadness and anger, especially if the death was tragic, but there is usually also gratitude. Being close to death can also be strangely energizing. It makes you not want to waste time.

If I am fortunate enough to be with someone as he or she approaches death, I offer a prayer called the Sh’ma. In Judaism, people strive to say this central sentence of our faith: “Hear Israel, the Eternal is our God, the Eternal is One” (Deuteronomy 6:5). If they cannot say it, I often say it for them with the family. While Judaism has no one theology of what happens to us after we die, monotheism ultimately affirms the unity of all. We are born from infinity, live our unique journeys, and return to infinity. We rejoin the Oneness, which we never really left.

I remember very specifically the moment I made peace with death. I am embarrassed to say I don’t remember the man’s name. There have been just too many funerals since then.

Again, it happened during rabbinical school. I was called out of the fourth grade Hebrew class I was teaching by a professor of mine at Hebrew Union College and told to go visit a man in the hospital who was dying. This was a man whose end was long, painful and unjust. He was a war veteran and deserved better. My teacher asked me to go and say the Sh’ma with him and his family in a final act of faith before he died, despite all he had been through.

Near panic, I climbed into my car. Who was I to stand by this person’s bedside? Why was my teacher picking on me?

I drove to the hospital, and I was shocked that they let me in and led me right to the man’s room even though I did not feel I belonged there at all. His family was not there. I stood by this man’s bedside, I took his hand, I stroked his knuckles with my thumb, I recited the Sh’ma prayer, and I told him everything would be OK. I do not know what made me say that last part, but I did.

Ever since that night, I have had to believe that whatever room I find myself in, God is in that room with me, and we are all part of God’s Oneness. I cannot prove it. I cannot explain it. I just believe it to be true.

Death is disconcerting, upsetting, humbling and invigorating. It is as natural as it is inevitable. And it can be liberating to name our fears and say, “One day that will be me.”

That goes for you, too.