Departure Directions
Doing Away with Default Decisions:
The power of community deathcaring + FREE DOWNLOAD
If your 90-year-old Aunt Bettina died tomorrow, there’s a pretty predictable pattern for what would happen next and how she’d be taken care of—unless, that is, you understand the scope of choices available to you, including, caring for your own.
Read the most recent posts below or explore by topic.
Making Sense of Life & Death
Legacy, Love Letters + Heart Wills
Departure Directions
Later is a Lie
The heart of Willow’s work is inquiries around death and dying. We often begin with the simple question, “What are your fears around your death and dying?” The answers are as diverse as they are universal. While I’ve written and said aloud a variety of answers on many...
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Are Cemeteries Dead?
I consider cemeteries to be beautiful, fascinating places whose look and feel informs us about current and historical cultures and societies. They also honour people who never made it into the history books and help us to imagine the lives of people from long ago.
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‘Tis the Season to Remember Our Dead
I yearn for more remembering and honouring the dead in my life. I feel enlivened and inspired when I reflect on the relationship, lineage and opportunity that I’ve been gifted by those who’ve come before and died before me.
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What’s Love Got to Do With It?
In the Jewish tradition the mourners are a distinct group. They are the parents, children, siblings and spouse of the deceased. At the funerals I went to while growing up in Montreal, the mourners sat in a special section upfront near the closed casket and the rabbi....
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What Happens After We Die?
“When we understand about death, we understand a lot more about life.” This was the key message I heard from Barbara Bartolome when she shared the story of her near-death experience<fn>1. In 1975, Dr. Raymond Moody's best-selling book Life After Life focused...
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Let the Love Flow
It happened just over two years ago. My heart was in my throat and I was starting to sweat. My 80-year-old Dad was sitting across from me in his kitchen-chair, an almost antique office chair with two-layers of seat cushions and armrests to help with the ups and downs....
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A Forgotten Treasure: Capturing Love in a Moment in Time
The rain pelted at the window as my 13-year-old daughter and I cracked open a journal I saved from my days as a teenager. I recently rescued the Hilroy notebook from the dusty box that had been in storage longer than she’s been alive. We lay on our backs on my bed,...
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Options, opportunities and openings: The Impacts of Greening your Death
Options, opportunities and openings are the promise of greening your death, in particular what happens to you after you die. For those of you who couldn’t join us at the May 28 gathering, here’s a wee snapshot of what unfolded at our first of two Greening Your Death...
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Learning From Death: A Mother’s Greatest Teacher
Twenty-five years ago, Akasha learned about life from her dying eleven-year-old daughter, Sarah. In a recent conversation Akasha described Sarah’s death as a “beautiful experience that profoundly changed who I am and the way I live my life.” I can’t imagine losing my...
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