Master Life-Cycle Celebrant®
Ordained Wedding Officiant
Funerals/Memorials Specialist
Certified Grief Educator/Tender
ADEC-Certified Thanatologist®
On this day three years ago, I sat in a corner of my father’s hospital room by the window, doing all I could to greatly reduce my own human footprint within his dying space. I carried an awareness on that autumn day, which would prove to be his last, that this act of emptying the… Continue Reading
This is the second in a two-part post about some of the F Words embedded in difficult family dynamics that can sometimes arise in my work as a funeral celebrant. To read the first post, click here. ************ FEAR For kicks, I anagrammed the word “Funeral” and all kinds of interesting words emerged (more on that later), not the least of which… Continue Reading
Death at a Funeral (2010). Lean in a tad too close to any funeral director and they’re sure to either regale or terrify you with tales of family dramas in the funeral parlor. Heck, if you’ve watched Death at a Funeral – either the UK or American version – you’re already an armchair expert… Continue Reading
A friend and I went out to celebrate Fat Tuesday the other night and we couldn’t help but smile at how Valentine’s Day, Mardi Gras, and the Lunar New Year bumped up against each other in the décor at this popular Cajun eatery in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District. Valentine’s Day. Ash Wednesday. Chinese New Year. I… Continue Reading
Writing Poems for the Dead I’ve heard that the dead gather to watch and listen when we write about them, and even if they want to be remembered in our small bodies of words, all too often the poems are a tight fit, clumsy and shapeless as air. We have to be careful writing poems… Continue Reading
