Stay (death) positive
“Becky,” some of you have asked, “how do you have the time/wherewithal/emotional capability to create this website when both of your parents have recently died?”
That’s a great question with several answers—many of which I suspect I’m not even aware of. I know my parents would have been proud of me for doing this. I know that I’m more comfortable with change than other people. In fact, I often throw myself into change—I thrive on it. Sure, I’ll travel around Southeast Asia alone for 2 months. Sure, I’ll move to Louisville on a whim. Obviously, the loss of my parents is a miserable change—but I’ve had so much practice with change, I’m less likely to lose my footing.
Another answer is that I was already following the death positive movement before either of my parents died.
What is death positivity? It doesn’t mean you have to be a ray of sunshine when your loved ones die, or that you have to be thrilled about your own future demise. Rather, it’s an effort to remove the taboo around death and dying. We should all be able to have open, honest discussions about the inevitable end of life so that we can better honor each other’s wishes and advocate for better deaths all around.
Want to know more? Here are some organizations and individuals leading the death positive movement:
The Order of the Good Death - Founded in 2011 by funeral director Caitlin Doughty and others in the field, the Order is one of the original—and easily most famous—leaders of the death positive movement. They offer tons of resources about end-of-life planning, death anxiety, green burial and more. They support legislative efforts for funeral industry reform and offer fellowships and endowments for innovators in the field. Plus, they have great merch.
Cole Imperi - A triple-certified thanatologist (which is an actual thing you can be!), Cole is an important advocate for death positivity, working to help our society better come to terms with death, dying, and grief. In 2020 she founded the School of American Thanatology, where anyone—even you—can take courses on deathwork and more. Including thanobotany!! Which is the study of the role plants play in death and bereavement!! So cool.
TalkDeath - What started as a humble blog eventually became a website publishing articles about all things death positive, from grief resources, to the intersection of politics and death, to the changing world of deathcare, and more. They also have a web series—and once again, excellent merch.
Deathwives - The death wives in question are Lauren Carroll and Erin Merelli, two death workers who built a platform of courses and talks designed to educate people about death work and the death positivity movement. Need a class on how to plan your own funeral? They’ve got you covered. They even offer Deathschool—a 6-week, in-depth course to train death workers.
The Grave Woman - The Grave Woman is Joél Simone Maldonado, who I first heard on an episode of The Order of The Good Death’s podcast. In addition to offering courses for aspiring death workers and services to people grieving, she also advocates for cultural competency in death work—for instance, morticians should probably be taught to how to style Black folks’ hair! Just a thought!!
There are so many others out there—search “death positivity” on Instagram or TikTok or Google and see what comes up. In the meantime, I’ll add all these to the Resources page of this site.