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β€œLest we forget, a morgue is also a community center”
~ Ocean Vuong

WELCOME 2023!

We’re so glad to be back with you…and ecstatic to announce that Exit Strategy for Dying has found an amazing place to call home in the historic and breathtaking Hudson River Valley.

As a death doula and an educator on the ground now, I will be deepening roots within our local community, building the dream that COVID derailed for a little bit. Of course, we will still be here highlighting resources and inspiration for you to dig into from cyberspace. Be on the lookout for more exciting news in the very near future…


Karen Bellone
 

Courtesy of The New Yorker

In this beautiful and poignant animated short film Death and the Lady: When the Grim Reaper Comes Knocking by Geoff Bailey, an elderly woman’s loyal dog attempts to ward off the arrival of an unexpected visitor. Watching it may bring a tear or two, but it is well worth it!

You can find this little gem of a movie here.
 

Ocean Vuong, the Vietnamese-American poet’s second collection, Time is a Mother, written in the aftermath of his mother’s death, portrays what it’s like to feel out of control with grief while paradoxically allowing grief to enhance the deceased's presence: eternal absence with continuous presence makes grief a sacred act.

You can read the full NPR article here and find the book here.
 

The video for BjΓΆrk’s Ancestress is a powerful portrayal of making meaning through ritual supporting the transition of her late mother to Ancestress through working with the elements. She writes:

β€œFor 20 years i have not been able to attend funerals as something in them rubbed me the wrong way….Probably what was offending me most was how can one set off the spirit in such a claustrophobic environment as a church? When the soul sets off, it needs to be outside so there is room for how enormous it becomes when it merges with the elements”

Watch Ancestress here. You can listen to the entire album Fossora here.
 

Image by NOR

β€œIf You Want To Give Something back to Nature, Give Your Body.”

Speaking of returning to the elements, in this Opinion piece, mortician Caitlin Doughty and founder of nonprofit Order of the Good Death, discusses how human composting, or NOR (natural organic reduction), fulfills many people’s desire to nurture the earth after dying and explains the process step-by-step. Recompose, based in Seattle, is leading the charge of shifting the death care paradigm making NOR legal and bringing this as a death care option to the public. It is now legal in six states and counting: Washington, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, California, and New York.

Read more about the environmental impact of NOR here.
 

Courtesy of ProPublica

In this deeply responsible article about hospice, ProPublica not only highlights a very alarming trend of fraud within the industry, but thankfully also provides a wealth of resources when the time arrives to find a hospice that’s right for your needs. This is a great piece to keep for the long term, as you don’t need this information until you need it desperately.

Read more here.

 

The death care industry's systems currently in place are dangerous as they risk the loss of identity for trans and nonbinary people. On the frontlines of this issue, Chicago-based organizations, Brave Space Alliance and S.O.U.L work directly with the medical examiner's office and funeral homes, who are in charge of signing the death certificate, to ensure trans and nonbinary folks aren't misgendered or deadnamed during end-of-life care.

Brave Space's Dignity Project is also offering microgrants, a name change clinic and a funeral fund to help them create a living will to explicitly state how they want to be buried, presented, named and dressed in, similarly to what transgender male, Elisa Renaud pictured here was able to do in order to ensure his body will be treated with dignity. 


Read more about what these on-the-ground organizations are doing to support the trans and nonbinary communities through end-of-life complexities here.
 

In the name of adding more ritual and ceremony into our daily lives for general well-being, this NYT article offers us the opportunity to create an audio time capsule with anyone we love. It cites the recordings the author made of her grandmother, and the gift they became for her father. β€œBack when her death was still raw, he would listen and cry. β€œ (Now her father says) β€œβ€¦I’m at the point where I hear her voice and just feel close to her.” Not only would the day of recording be filled with meaning, the result of it could also end up providing us with a beautiful healing tool for our grief later on.

You can read the article here.

 

β€œAs she nursed her mom through cancer and dementia, a tense relationship began to heal”

Photographer Lori Grinker's relationship with her mom was strained for much of their lives, but when Lori moved into her mother’s one-bedroom NYC apartment to take care of her, they found healing when Lori started taking photographs of her. She titled the project, All the Little Things, which started as an idea to take 20 photos which turned into well over 100. Sharing memories emanated from the picture-taking, and ultimately a mutual understanding evolved. All the Little Things won the Bob and Diane Fund Grant in 2022, which supports visual stories focused on Alzheimer's disease or dementia.

You can read the full NPR article here, and find the entire project here.
 

This  review of Dr. Jay Wellon’s memoir, All That Moves Us, highlights the profound need that the human-being-within-the-doctor has to engage with his  patient’s stories; to counterbalance the distance he must maintain to treat them.

Seeking out the wisdom of doctor-writers that have come before him ~ Oliver Sacks, Sherwin Nuland, William Carlos Williams, Anton Chekhov ~ Mellon finds the thread he can connect with. β€œI’d focused on the clinical details of the cases, instead of exploring patients’ emotional and spiritual dilemmas.” This insight is the backbone to the narrative medicine movement; a game-changer in patient care as it relates to engaging with our humanity no matter whether one is the doctor or the patient.

You can read the New Yorker review here and find the book here.
 

β€œWinter might appear brutal at first glance, but it beckons us to learn to not fear the loss of control…”

~ Karen Bellone

Please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone you feel might benefit from these resources and articles.

Interested in collaborating?

We’d like to issue a call to collaborate in building our online community. Please let us know if you’d like to participate as a guest blogger - you can find us at info@exitstrategyfordying.com
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