What are the policy considerations for integrating medical and social care to transform the way we care for older Australians at the end of life?
Did you know, you are going to die! Have you considered what it’s going to feel like. Look like. Sound like. If you have considered your own mortality, chances are its going to have been in a way that is ‘other’ to yourself. We are getting pretty good as a society , talking about death as an abstract thing that happens to someone else without ever really considering what that reality means for us. Death can be messy or clean. Loud or quiet. Death can be alone or in company. There can be tears of anguish or relief. There can be pain or peace. While we might know all this, we rarely put ourselves in the picture. If you talk to people diagnosed with a terminal illness, or
When was the last time you really listened…? That might seem like a silly question, it’s not often we think about the sense of hearing but if you8 are a person who can hear you use it every day… but are you listening? We hear a lot of stuff all the time. We have so much background noise in our lives for so much of the time that when we go places like the outback, we get astounded by the true silence. Some of that background noise is made up of hundreds of inane conversations we have every week, the majority of which we will never remember. They are the background noise of our social relationships. But when a person feels like they have not been heard, that
What comes with age? There’s lots of things people say come with age, things like wisdom, patience, tolerance, respect – things that we seem to spend a lifetime learning and acquiring. But there are other things that happen with age as well and often that culminates in developing a sense of what truly matters to us in life. We define what it is that we value the most. I’d like to tell you a story about a lady and we’re going to call her Maggie. I met Maggie when she was having a real struggle in life. She had had an accident; she had been near death and spent months in a hospital. She had no family to speak of and being in her 80’s she was declining
I have been thinking a lot about my grandparents of late. Before my mum died she asked me to make sure that my grandmothers ashes got placed where she had wanted them to be, with her husband, my grandfather. I had my grandmother for 40 years of my life, most of that we lived together in various ways, and I adored her. Grandad died when I was much younger and his death was one of the most traumatic deaths I have known. Back in the 1980’s ashes urns were not buried as a standard practice, the ashes were at times dug into the earth under the monument. It didn’t feel right then when the cemetery offered to have Nanas ashes put in the urn in the ground then,
While I keep working on an actual blog, I thought I would share a few podcasts that have hit the socials recently. There is also a Podcast for SBS called Grave Matters which you can find here – https://www.sbs.com.au/audio/podcast-episode/dead-curious-how-can-we-do-death-and-dying-better/j6faym76f
Alkaline Hydrolysis is a process of reduction of human tissue, whereby the elements of the body return to a liquid state and placed back into the water cycle. Alkaline hydrolysis is a process of chemical reduction whereby organic and protein-based materials are reduced to liquid. There are different ways of doing this, using both pressurised machines with high temperature, and unpressurised machines with a low (or atmospheric) temperature. There are two main companies providing this technology in the USA – Bio-Response and Resomation. This is a relatively new method of human body disposal, which is both a disruptive technology and a working technology. This process is known by many names including flameless cremation, water cremation, Resomation, Aquamation and it is legal in more than 20 states of the
In 2023 the Geeveston Progress Association opened up this patch of land pictured here, to natural burial. A local community volunteer run cemetery, for the community, by the community. It is an exciting step for Tasmania, being the first space set aside in a cemetery for natural burial in the state. I have been looking at natural burial for a long time. In 2017 my family and I traveled to the UK and spent time visiting many natural burial grounds and meeting with cemetery managements and funeral directors. In 2019 I completed a Churchill Fellowship to continue looking at it, and I expanded the scope. It was 10 weeks, 6 countries, 21 flights, 4 train journeys, 47 interviews, 2 conference, 3 chauffeurs, 4 guided tours, 2 interpreters, scores
Funeral Director: Why DIY Funerals Do Work Funeral Director: Why DIY Funerals Do Work Good news! While we have spent the last hundred years outsourcing more and more of life, the DIY movement has been claiming it back, and those who want to avoid funeral costs are working out the many and varied benefits of this approach to death. In the last 120 years we have lost over 5000 years of knowledge about caring for our dead. Every one of you is capable of caring for your dead. It is legal, it is possible and it can fundamentally change what it means to grieve in this world. Facts – * funeral directors are not always a legal requirement in every situation; * there are many things
Have you ever considered what your funeral will be like? Who will attend.. what will they say… what will be chosen by way of flowers, music and decoration… will there be tears.. will people celebrate you and all you meant to them? But more than that, what would you say if you had the chance… What would your last words be? Last week Edwin and I were privileged to have the opportunity to attend the very first living funeral ceremony in Tasmania. The very generous and thoughtful Maria Lazovic came to Tasmania and offered her Living Funeral session for the lovely people of Hobart. More than just a time to contemplate mortality, this is a few hours of intense soul searching and internal reconciliation of both what is
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