Resources
Advance Directive for Dementia from Dr. Barack Gaster, UW.
Aquamation or Flameless Cremation is a more environmentally friendly option as cremation and traditional burials emit toxins. The process is gentle and respectful, ensuring your loved one is treated with dignity and the process produces bone ash that is sterile and safe to return to the earth. The liquid component can be made available to families for use as compost or fertilizer. It now offered in Washington State through various entities such as People’s Memorial.
Dying is not as bad as you think’ | BBC Ideas (video 4 min) – It’s time to break the taboo that exists around death, argues palliative care doctor and author Kathryn Mannix.
End of Life Document Checklist: A Complete Guide for Families – this guide to understanding the documents we should all have ready before we die. From a living will to DNRs and power of attorney documentation, this guide walks you through what you need to know to simplify the process of preparing for this part of life.
End of Life Washington – End of Life Washington is a statewide organization that supports people preparing for their final days. We advocate for the right to a peaceful death.
Green Burial Council – This is the place to learn more about green burial and how to find certified cemetery stewards, funeral professionals, and funerary product sellers who share the commitment to create more sustainable after-death options for you, your community, and the planet.
Grief Dialogues — Elizabeth Coplan, a dramatist and writer charters a course in the stages of death brought to the stage in individual stories. “In a compassionate world, death should be celebrated the same we celebrate a birth,” she says.
HealthAdvocateX – A National organization committed to helping you transform into an active participant in your care. They are committed to helping everyone understand what health advocacy is, how to boost health advocacy skills and knowledge regardless of who you are. While they do not provide direct health advocacy services, they can connect you with people who do.
Hospice Foundation of America – Hospice or hospice care is specialized care that provides physical comfort and emotional, social and spiritual support for people nearing the end of life. Your hospice team includes doctors, nurses, social workers and home health aides who provide care that centers on your comfort and dignity. See Medicare Hospice.
Informed Final Choices – A wealth of information about end-of-life choices, plus details about the open-air cremation option available in Crestone, Colorado.
Mesothelioma Justice Network is dedicated to improving the overall quality of life for individuals diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases. Our pages are medically reviewed and verified by certified oncologists and hematologists, and provide the most current and detailed information about the asbestos industry and its health impacts.
Mushroom shrouding burial suits are now available and accepted at most green burial sites. Check the web for more information.
National Home Funeral Alliance – is a nonprofit organization. The mission of the NHFA is to educate individuals, families, and communities about caring for their dead.
North East Seattle Together – NEST is a 501(c)3 non-profit grass-roots community in Northeast Seattle. By providing a strong support network through volunteers and trusted business referrals, older residents can stay in their homes, and stay engaged in the neighborhoods they love for as long as possible. The NEST idea is based on a national model called the “virtual village model.” Currently there are about 120 virtual villages actively serving across the United States and many more in the works.
Patient on 7th Day of VSED – Kristina talks for 8.5 minutes on November 23, 2015, about her decision to use VSED as “a pretty beautiful way of going.”
People’s Memorial Association -People’s Memorial Association still fulfills the aim of the forward-thinking people who founded it more than 70 years ago: to provide simple yet dignified cremation or burial options and to ensure that one’s final journey is not the most expensive ride one takes. America’s oldest and largest funeral consumer organization, having enrolled over 190,000 members since its inception. No longer exclusively a cremation society, the association offers a full range of services. It has remained a vocal advocate of funeral reform.
Recompose – Recompose is a green funeral home specializing in human composting.
A Sacred Passing – A Sacred Passing offers death and dying education to individuals, community associations, and medical organizations. Our organization educates, collaborates, and shares ways to be supportive nonmedical companions.
Seattle Cremations and Burials – Cascade Memorial provides a modest and comfortable environment to plan and organize simple yet meaningful memorials for those you love.
VSED Resources Northwest – Working to increase awareness of Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED)… Because Compassionate Death is a human right. VSED is legally available in every US state. However, stopping eating and drinking requires careful planning and robust medical support. VSED must be done with caregiver support and should never be undertaken alone without proper consideration, planning, and assistance.
Films
How to Die In Oregon – In 1994, Oregon became the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. As a result, any individual whom two physicians diagnose as having less than six months to live can lawfully request a fatal dose of barbiturate to end his or her life. Since 1994, more than 500 Oregonians have taken their mortality into their own hands. In How to Die in Oregon, filmmaker Peter Richardson gently enters the lives of the terminally ill as they consider whether – and when – to end their lives by lethal overdose. Richardson examines both sides of this complex, emotionally charged issue. What emerges is a life-affirming, staggeringly powerful portrait of what it means to die with dignity.
A Will For the Woods – What if our last act could be a gift to the planet? Determined that his final resting place will benefit the earth, musician, psychiatrist, and folk dancer Clark Wang prepares for his own green burial while battling lymphoma. The spirited Clark and his partner Jane, boldly facing his mortality, embrace the planning of a spiritually meaningful funeral and join with a compassionate local cemetarian to use green burial to save a North Carolina woods from being clear-cut. With poignancy and unexpected humor, A Will for the Woods portrays the last days of a multifaceted advocate – and one community’s role in the genesis of a revolutionary movement. As the film follows Clark’s dream of leaving a legacy in harmony with timeless cycles, environmentalism takes on a profound intimacy.
Links to Relevant Articles
How to Talk About Dying (Ellen Goodman, New York Times)
My Right To Die: Assisted Suicide, My Family, and Me (Mother Jones Magazine)
A Comprehensive Newsletter about the Dying and Grieving Process