Lately Posts

Don’t Make Your Family Ask, ‘Does This Spark Joy?’ If you’ve found yourself at any point blissfully origami-ing your underwear a la Japanese organizational guru Marie Kondo, you may be ready for the Scandinavian decluttering trend of “death clea...

Green funerals are a hot topic right now, but what does it actually mean to have a green funeral or natural burial? Broadly speaking, having a green funeral (or “farewelling”) means that throughout the process, environmentally-friendly practices will...

I’ve been in the events and entertaining world for over a decade. A few years ago, when my younger sister confronted a serious health crisis, I started thinking—reluctantly—about life and death. I didn’t know where to turn for information, and I was...

If you’ve said goodbye to a dearly loved pet, you know there’s a special kind of sadness that accompanies this sort of loss. The grief you may experience after losing a pet is not to be diminished or underestimated. It is real, it is valid and there’...

The Cost of Avoiding the Death Conversation As I was growing up, when it came to intimate or difficult topics, we weren’t a very open family. I had girlfriends who couldn’t wait to ask their moms for love advice—not me. I was the teenager who us...

The death of a loved one affects us on every level. Mentally, we’re preoccupied with thoughts and memories; emotionally, we experience a rollercoaster of intense feelings; and physically, we’re overwhelmed by the immediate and long-term responsibilit...