Hi, welcome to BTS podcast. This is your host Lynn a cook on this particular episode BTS podcast. I am digging into the request made by comedian Jessica Michelle Singleton on episode 3 of the podcast. So if you're familiar with the podcast, you know that at the end of every conversation with a guest I asked them what they would like to hear a future episode on Jessica Michelle Singleton called out the idea of hearing an episode on Funeral Home directors and or assisted suicide.This particular episode is with funeral home director Amy Cunningham. It just so happened that shortly after Jessica and my conversation. I was reading the New Yorker and came across this really great article by Mallory rice the link to it is in the description of this episode talking to Amy about the workshop. She leads on writing condolence letters and sort of her work in the funeral home space this episode definitely warrants a trigger warning we talk obviously a lot about death, but we also talked about just like very sort of unexpected. Affected deaths that she has to deal with which include murder suicide and infant deaths. Those are really difficult for a lot of people and so I just want to give you a heads-up. You'll hear me T up the question about that and feel free to skip past or stop whatever you need to do, but I just felt that you should know that is discussed in this. I'm really excited to share the conversation that Amy and I have it helped me kind of understand a lot of things that I would have never thought of around when somebody is dying in the hospital or in hospice care. And different reasons about the purposes of funerals and also just a lot I didn't know about mortuary school. So I really enjoyed talking to Amy. She's really amazing. I think it's very exciting to talk to people when they have shifted careers later on in life. She was 54 when she left her career as a journalist to pursue her current career, and I think that's just very inspirational. I think a lot of us myself included sometimes at any age. We all just sort of feel like that's all we're doing with our lives and nothing will ever change and that can be scary. And so talking to somebody who has made large changes in her life and his family supported her in that I think is really great. If you'd like to support this podcast, you can go to Anchor dot f m / BTS podcast and become a monthly contributor. You can feel free to vend Mummy at atlin a - cook your contribution to my caffeine have it is greatly appreciated or use any of the promo codes. I plug a few services that I really enjoy. Include hotel tonight, which is exactly what it sounds like. It is for hotel bookings, and I will say that they have a really great selection at totally reasonable prices. You can use codell cook 6-1 to save on hotel tonight. You can also book a massage using Su the Sous will bring a masseuse to your home, which I love you can use code LZ L RZ at checkout to save on that. Thank you so much for listening. Please do subscribe rate and review if you don't want to subscribe feel free to just write your review with that is deeply deeply appreciated. Thanks and enjoy the episode. Hello, this is gonna cook you are listening to BTS podcast. And if you listen to the episode with Jessica Michelle Singleton, you'll know that when she was asked what she would like to hear a future episode on she brought up Funeral Home directors and it just so happened that within a few months. I was reading the New Yorker and I saw this really beautiful article with Amy Cunningham who has agreed to be on the show. Amy is based out of Brooklyn in New York. She is the You know home director. Oh, I'm reading your title right now. Can you actually explain your exact title? Let's start our hi thank you for having me on lynnae. I am a funeral director in New York City and I'm also a funeral home owner. The name of my firm is fitting tribute funeral services, and I specialize in eco-friendly burials cremations at our historic Cemetery, which has a We Natori within it Greenwood in Brooklyn and also home funerals where deceased people are laid out in a position of Honor in their home after their death in the old-fashioned way like an Irish wake interesting. Yeah. I have heard my grandmother's from Colombia and we have discussed when relatives have passed when she was growing up and I guess I guess A reason that I didn't find it particularly odd, but now that you're saying that I'm going like oh, yeah, we would never because I sort of associated it with like oh that was the old way of doing it. And now I'm like I could I just also can't imagine doing that in a modern home and more. So what that is like for attendees, but that is fast more in an apartment in New York City right through that quite quite something its ambitious but also in Incredibly beautiful and I would I grew up a rather Prim Presbyterian with mostly closed caskets. So when I started getting my trainings in the home funeral, I was astonished at what people can do but I've through experience now come to realize my God it's incredible if someone is dying in the care of hospice in an apartment or a home and then when they die there really is no emergency or rush to Lurch for the telephone and have Funeral Directors come and whisk your loved one away that you can light candles tell stories bathe the body shroud or do all kinds of very beautiful things express your love and gratitude in a relaxed way in the setting where you're most comfortable so young funerals are awesome, and it's always a real privilege to help people have them That's beautiful. Yeah that M and we can get into this later. But one thing that I am definitely interested in talking to you about because one thing I find what's fascinating is like on a cultural level of we look at Society over, you know decades and centuries I would venture to say that right now at this point in time. The general public is more removed from Death than ever and so it's just interesting to me because I think you know historically if you look at MO. Is there was a specific person with a function similar to yours in helping someone bring helping bring people into the Afterlife and and manage sort of those Logistics and rituals and what have you at the same time families were also very involved. And so I think now we've sort of we've removed ourselves from just like these very communal things and I you know death is one of them food is other one of them like we don't know where our food comes from or how it gets made into bread. Like if you ask most people how Bread is made no idea right? Our trash is another one like there's all these things that are actual needs that have been so commoditized that we then are very strict of like an understanding of how it works. I think old-fashioned Funeral Directors felt that they should spare the family any sadness or trauma and in essence they were Charging a price for taking the funeral away from you out of kindness. I really don't think it was Sinister but a lot of the old male Funeral Directors wanted to spare family's experiences and they're astonished to find today that know the baby. Boom generation wants to see more do more experience more grieve more and they want death to be less of a cool event and more of a communal experience. Just as you said to bring it back into the family's control and they're entitled to that and I would argue that it helps their bereavement process and that the year following the death of might have memories that are very positive about the death itself and how it was managed and people might heal quite a bit better after experiences that they That they control themselves to some degree. Absolutely. Yeah, I think I've noticed that a generational difference in communication. Like my the way that my grandparents were communicated to by their parents and then thus my parents by their parents and I think one thing that's I don't know if you know who Ali Wentworth is the comedian, but she does a lot of work around depression and suicide awareness and stuff like that and She talks about how she asked her parents like did does depression run in the family? You know, I didn't presumably because she was dealing with this right and her parents were like no. No not at all ha ha and she didn't Alden my grandparents kill themselves and then they died of natural causes. It's like well, yeah, I mean, I guess that is an actress natural causes but then any form of death is a natural cause and like there was this really big disconnect. Like I know I've just seen Ways that like, you know, my parents have been damaged by like a relative passing and then just no one really saying anything and that person just wasn't at the next reunions and people just didn't want to talk about it, you know, or they just pretended that person didn't exist hadn't existed and and just the emotional toll that that's taken on the siblings of that person and and the cousins and whoever because it really yeah it yeah people need something to hold on to its not sparing anybody exact. It's not a Not an emotional gift that you're giving Somebody by letting them it's really cool. You're bringing that up because I feel like radical honesty has a very powerful role at the end of life and we're seeing everyone engage in more honest conversation even in the funeral ceremony itself in the eulogies. People are talking about mental illness and alcoholism very publicly while and openly and wanting to are To as part of their healing process to say this was the cause of death. We're Reckoning with it. We're seeking to understand it. Sometimes suicides are presented as you know, not certainly not a choice but a an example of mental illness stealing someone's life from them. Yeah, and that comes up at the podium in the funeral service itself, and it's very healthy, I think. Yeah, absolutely. I agree. So we have we have some questions to dig into. Yeah. Yeah, and I think what I'm going to do is I'm sort of going to so Amy is one of the few guests that I have discussed questions with ahead of time and I'm really grateful for that because also she added some questions. I would have not known to ask and if you hear clicking around it's because I'm dog sitting right now and I have hardwood floors and this very cute Samoa. Is a curious puppy and probably sad to be missing out of the conversation. So everybody in the talk. Oh, well, thank you. That's very generous. So let's kind of do this a little bit chronologically to start with so you are a writer and you left magazine and online journalism to be a funeral director at 54 and you thought that you wouldn't write for a while. What caused you to launch your blog The Inspired funeral.com in 20? 11 I was in mortuary school learning so much and astonished by what American consumers didn't know that while I thought I wasn't going to write any more or certainly I was looking forward to a break when I really started delving into my education. And what's happening in the funeral today. I felt like holy cow. I was just got to go to the computer and Right blogging about all this because each little story seemed so significant each new kind of casket. I had I was just awakened by daily epiphanies and it felt to me that news stories were out in the streets. And all I had to do is pick them up and so my little blog that quickly noticed and then I realized well, you know, this is It's a good lesson for all of us to tell any young person that if you can write you can kind of catapult yourself into a position of leadership within any field. So that's pretty much what happened and my little blog was quickly a success and every day. I find new stories to tell from bits of funeral music to advise on products to new ways of managing. Ceremony and ceremony structure. So there's a lot to the funeral and I have always been a lover of Rites of Passage. I took my own wedding vows very seriously. My husband's Jewish. I was as I said sort of a progressive Chris check sometimes call myself a Kundalini practicing Buddhist Presbyterian and at the time I started mortuary school. I was also on the board of of our synagogue. So I have a lot of a lot of range in the American religious scene and the spiritual Marketplace and the a lot of people are secular today to or mixing it up. So with that kind of background, I thought I was blogging about Buddhist Meditation and yoga and things like that at the end of my magazine. And internet writing phase of life. So when I got into mortuary school, it wasn't a huge surprise to my closest friends or my husband that funeral service would be a big interest and then an incredible passion. That's beautiful. And what what I love about that is like the sort of steam that you've lost and you were like, well I'm done with that chapter and then really, you know, I think any time you have new stimulation and just new sort of input like the way that I break up my time because I I do freelance work and and Consulting and stuff and so I had needed to bring some structure to my life and shifting gears every day was not the way to do it like Just couldn't go well I'll just do an hour of music and then I'll do you know, two hours of podcasting stuff and then I'll switch gears and write my newsletter. Like it just doesn't work that way. And so what I do is I have input days and output days. It's all right, and I scheduled time or it's like, okay this day is a day where i'm just reading and listening to other podcasts on my run and maybe running some errands and listening to podcast and doing research and then the output day I kind of digest all of that and figure out how to apply it. To what I'm working on but yeah, that is fascinating. What do you mind sharing? What causes you to leave journalism and go into what you're doing now. Yeah, it was really my there's the Deep answer and then there's kind of a superficial answer. The the precipitating event was my 94 year-old father's death in the care of hospice and 2009 down in South Carolina where we worked with the very Southern funeral director that Anybody down there knew and trusted and you know, Southern towns still have kind of a funeral protocol in place that's old fashioned and nice. So we had a very positive experience actually embellishing my father's funeral plan and making the end of life Memorial event even nicer than he ever would have imagined. No, I came back to Brooklyn and said to my husband damn, you know, I'm really sad dad is dead, but we truly aced that funeral. We really did a great job on that. We hit it out of the park. I wonder what it would be like to help other people manage end of life events and Inspire them to have a funeral that terrific the deeper cause is that when I really look at my life and even look at my magazine articles, there's a line of grief running through them some of it though. I wasn't even present. Two because my father's two brothers died in World War Two their pictures were on the wall as I was growing up and then an infant boy a son a brother died at the age of 13 months the year prior to my birth parents were grieving when I came into the household and yeah, that's the Deep reason. I think I know something just it's in my body I grew up around. A lot of loss. And yeah, I think I in my own funny way as well even as a little girl. I was lifting people up for trying to inspire them to get back into life again. Not that I try to make my funerals happy. I try to make my the funerals I help people with transformational and some small or even larger way and help people recognize their own resilience and ability to cope. Is unbearable loss sometimes and that's what I'm devoted to now and it all makes sense. Another just a little side note in the side that is nice for any of your listeners who are struggling right now in their own lives in their careers in their 20s 30s or 40s the when I got into mortuary school, I was 54. My kids were in high school. I was happily married, but it Felt to me like all of a sudden my whole life made sense and that everything that I'd previously considered a failure was coming back to nourish me. And so that was neat. And that's the great thing. Anyone has to look forward to in their 50s and 60s. I'm 64 now and there's a magnificent connection to understanding myself and I feel like I finally hit the road and I'm on it. And it's very fulfilling and exciting time that is definitely very encouraging out of curiosity. Could you have a talk with your kids and I'm presumably you how to talk with your husband before that. But then how did you present this shift in career to your Gap? They were excited and guarded and I think they had already seen me as an individual who is I don't know. I think my kids sometimes find me a bit of a A kook maybe you're an outlier. Are you going to send them this episode we have to yeah. Yeah, they're a very impressed that I have a life on social media and followers and such but my husband was incredibly kind and supportive but he did sit me down before mortuary school started in a bit of a condescending way and said look, I just want to make Sure, you're really serious. You know that this isn't a stiffening or going to try and then reject so that talk actually those productive and helpful to me and I was truly committed then I said yes, I want to do this. I want to move forward. This is it. He didn't he didn't have like I'm just imagining a parody of Beauty School Dropout. Yeah, that is fascinating to me. And I'm sure your kids are impressed. Like I would be yeah, I'm already so proud of my mom for like going out and working after nearly 30 years of not having a job and if she found her stride and especially like was good. If there was a New Yorker article that my mom was like quoted or mentioned, I would lose my mind. I would blow it up and spray it in my house. It would be wheat paste into a wall. Yeah, all that's happened. It's been very good. That's amazing. So, um, okay, so then let's talk a little bit about mortuary school. How hard is it? And did it prepare you properly for doing what you're doing. Now, what you re school is surprisingly tough and in the most bizarre way. It's basically test prep. Pardon me. It requires a lot of rote memorization and I was an English major and someone who'd never been asked to memorize much at all. And that was surprising to me and an incredible brain drain. I was taking supplements to you know be able to remember things. You have to memorize and know every part of the body. bone every muscle the emphasis is on embalming training which I feel is a little less necessary today than it once was I'm happy to have studied it but I was astonished at the emphasis on embalming and then there are some fascinating exciting Parts, but they don't go very deep the history of Funeral Service the history of various religious traditions and the funeral You know how you walk a casket down the church aisle in a Roman Catholic mass. You have to really know and master all those things. So I met some great friends. I was not the oldest to start in my class, but I was the oldest to finish and graduate and I was hanging out with kids in their 20s telling them not to drink so much and I think I even got a little award graduation for being the person who Sort of inspired the class. So that was sweet and it's kind of a necessary thing. But boy if I could only I would love to read be a voice in rethinking Mortuary training. I've been told that the systems so kind of goofed up that it's almost Beyond any healing. It's just something that everyone has to get in order to get to their residency some states. It's more difficult than others. I'm in New York, which is a very difficult system and the but we're all there's just too much to say about it when a in short it's frustrating, but and it's also expensive mortuary school. Can be 24,000 dollars today, I get a lot of letters from young women wanting to know if they should go through it and it's a mixed bag because you're not guaranteed work at the end and sometimes your mortuary school won't even help you very much to find a job afterwards and the residency requirements are tough. You work a long day and often for not very much money that people with young children. Or any kind of drama in the background of their lives really struggle in mortuary school. It is surprising at how much you have to stay on task and very focused. So I don't mean to discourage anyone but you really have to want to be a funeral director to become one I found Well, it sounds a little bit almost like medical school. You know that it's very taxing. It definitely is not if or if you have other things going on in your life and like the financial burden as well as what the type of money you're making afterwards, you know, it sounds it's like it's another part of the education system, especially in higher education. That is Overpriced not Preparing People properly and and really not taking into consideration of it is dumb. It's a yeah, they were a couple of times when the teacher would say, here's the way the board exam wants you to answer this question, but here's actually the right way to do it in embalming and I it's a it's it's own show to talk about Mortuary education, but but I think I hope that will be modernized and updated and that they'll be more about the emotional lives of the people you're serving and more help to yeah, it makes me wonder if similar to the Health Care industry and other Industries. If as as it becomes more common sort of do things on your own and perhaps mortuary school start to feel the financial sort of pain of that of you know. I think as it affects the industry, like I know it used to be that getting a master's was like, you know, you had to be accepted it was this whole thing. And now I'm getting advertisements from all of these like prestigious universities encouraging me to apply and saying I need not take the GRE or like whatever it is that you're supposed to take and I'm I'm going like yeah because you know, I don't actually need a master's like we're past that point now where to be taken seriously in most Industries you Need that higher education, but I imagine that Mortuary schools will be impacted as people start to take things into their own hands and people just go like oh, yeah, maybe I don't need that certification to figure this out or you know money will always eventually change things. Unfortunately. It's not done on the on a moral basis, which kills me. Right? Right. The mortuary school is frustrating and You do do things like put pancake makeup on each other's faces, you model years and and noses out of wax for reconstructive work. If you have someone who's died of a traumatic injury related to an automobile accident while so they're definitely interesting experiences and but again, it just was a frustration. As much as anything else and almost like a hazing sometimes in terms of the difficulty the number of hours you have to put in and how hard you have to focus to pass the tests. Do you have every Most states have a national board and then a state law test and again, I'm not knocking it but it does need to be adapted and updated for sure the whole the whole system. And I hope it is it's just hitting me. The only one I started going to the conference's of the national home funeral Alliance and other Home funerals. Did I really get trained in how to lovingly care for a deceased person how to touch them how to move them. There's all that I had so many realizations about the beauty of the work outside of mortuary school. And that's a bass is it should be you always learn more? Out in real life, but I'm really glad I expose myself to other trainings other sorts of funeral workers or end of Life Care takers and got a really broader scope. I had some savings at the time and that certainly helped me I feel for anyone trying to raise a family and manage Mortuary Education costs and then face the job market, which isn't Always welcoming. I'm sure in journalism. You saw like just sort of that male-dominated field and then it's did you find that the mortuary and like the funeral industry in general is more male dominated and that like was there any sort of gender discrimination there or sexism? Well, it was that's a great question and I'm happy to report that there have been significant changes in the eight years. I've been actively working as a funeral director and I used to complain about barriers to Tree when I started because it did feel like women who weren't interested in a lot of embalming work were not welcomed. However, two things that happened young women who are incredibly gifted and incredibly strong are coming into the industry and they can do it all they're not walking and avoiding embalming practicums and they're great embalmers. So they're full Funeral Directors. That are female today impressing the gentleman who have been running the show and then good also women who are a little older maybe not wanting to embalm but interested in ceremony structure and what makes a good funeral. They're becoming funeral directors and celebrants and their magnificent and real used to a needy industry that won't needs to bring ritual back and mixed Faith ceremony, too. Americans who really want a funeral that is personalized and meaningful so women are coming in from all directions and I'm on a Facebook group. It's fantastic. It's called the feature of funeral directing is female and I do believe it. I think women are flooding into the industry and really changing things and impressing the guys who were previously skeptical and that's I've seen changes in the last six years. Years the men welcoming women in realizing. Yep. We need them and their say that is one theme that has come up again and again on this podcast and probably because I've had a lot of women on but but it's been fascinating to have conversations with people across Industries about how women are really shifting conversations and shifting Norms. Brittany Hicks was on and she spoke about that in terms. Of the supply chain in fashion and operations and sourcing and then another girl Jessica was on speaking about that in terms of like cut and fit in fashion and like just how men didn't understand that women would want something like Rent the Runway like there's just these like big gaps and understanding of like well, why would you want that and I and so yeah it is. It is really fascinating to see the way that just different, you know, it's not even like a one is better than the other it's just everyone respecting their own value proposition and what they value and their own priorities did mortuary school prepare you emotionally at all like to how did they were their conversations around sort of the because this is such a it's not just the behind-the-scenes of before the funeral. It's really also so much like in contact with families and people who are experiencing potentially the worst time of their lives. I think the real emotional training Started during my residency after I graduated from mortuary school. I had a year-long residency in a funeral home and I was trained by a man in his 40s who was very kind and appreciative who I was and told me things that were useful but sometimes things I had to grow with and think about because I'm not sure he was right about everything he used to say now don't get close to people don't get It's too close to people because you know cumulatively a funeral director can't live with that kind of pain because you'll carry it with you for the rest of your life. Then it'll damage the way you serve the next family and I guess that is true sometimes after a funeral I find myself getting lost in the grocery store parking lot in my car or realizing that I'm much more heat up and stressed than I had even realized and that the weight of grief that the Family was experiencing has somehow gone on to my shoulders. So all of that to be in a funeral home as a resident. That's the time you kind of get a grip and figure out how to balance your own life and your own emotional needs and your family's needs with the needs of the families. You're helping in your work. There's an easy answer right answer but there is a if you don't So protect yourself a little bit. You can carry a lot of grief with you when you're doing you know, 4270 funerals in a year. I imagine that it's also an ongoing process to that. It's not something that it's like a closed book on like well, I figured out how to manage emotions around my job and funerals now and that's it. I'm sure it's always shifting and changing. Is there anything that you've done for yourself to help you manage? Those emotions better like give yourself time afterwards or have sort of a rule about like a buffer zone in terms of like when you're done with one maybe, you know spend an hour by yourself or meditate or something. It's definitely a good thing to have a yoga practice or a meditation practice or a way of calming yourself daily. Not only between funerals and yoga is very important for me and also so I like Julia Cameron's idea of in the book The artists way he talks about taking yourself out on artists date. So I still think of myself as an artist and and just going to galleries or walking home a different way or walking the dog into a new neighborhood or certainly you got to take vacations. I actually haven't been doing that quite enough. Writing is important and also increasingly I think speaking to other people in funeral service or end-of-life work or even the birth doulas. I know we just the friendships. I've made through the work I now do have been very intense and very fruitful for me to just decompress and talk to other funeral celebrants funeral directors midwives and people in that kind of Of work also psychotherapists. Yeah, all that is good stuff and then writing about it privately and posting what I can online that is helpful to people. That's beautiful. I love that. Yeah, the the community around that I'm sure is really intense, but also such a necessary part for everybody in you know, sort of having an outlet, but then also finding new ways to manage their own thoughts and emotions and If sharing I call them sort of like mental framework, yes that help each other frame things differently and and just sort of because that is a lot of really heavy things that are also not things most people want to talk about right so that most people a little bit allergic. I don't know if I could have done this as a younger woman because you definitely have to be very forgiving of yourself because inevitably when you're meeting with the family, they had a tragic loss at their NG with Kleenex is on the table there crying as you're speaking to them. It's easy. I've had a little psychoanalytic training. I went to a psychoanalytic Institute when I was pregnant in my 30s and then training comes back to be very helpful to me just but you still when you say something to a grieving person and you feel like you didn't quite hit it, right? If you were just a little off it's very easy to be so hard on yourself and get into the car and say oh man that wasn't exactly the right thing that they needed in that moment and yet realize that sometimes they weren't even listening and they didn't hear it other. Yes that even if they did hear it they've already forgiven you because they know that everyone struggles around language for loss. There and so you really have to bathe yourself into in a sort of I'm doing the best I can Ryan be. Okay. No one's judging me truly and and there are other ways you can if you really didn't miss State something you can redeem yourself and other acts of kindness as the experience continues. Absolutely. Yeah, there was one of my closest friends she and I've been friends since the Grade, and so of course I have been close with her family my whole life and her mom passed a few years ago. And I knew her mom wasn't doing well. So I'd actually flown down to go see spend time with my friend and then also see her mother in the hospital because she was like a second, you know, she was like another parent to me growing up and she passed the I think the day I landed and so then when I was going to go see her and add up that I was going to go see my friend and and her grandmother. And they live in a really hot part of California and I was driving out and I went like oh my gosh, I totally forgot to get flowers. So I stopped at like the nearest grocery store and I got flowers and then when I got back to my car the battery had died and I was like maybe a quarter of a mile from her house and it's also sort of like in the middle in the it's like a suburb of a suburb of suburbs. So it's sort of the middle of nowhere like it would take a significant amount of time for this problem to be solved and And I went to call her and then I panicked because I didn't want to say my battery died. What's what's the language to use? Right? And so I call her and I was like, hey, this is really awkward and I don't mean Philippe be a burden on you at all because you're going through this, but I want to let you know and I was down the street because I didn't plan ahead and I was picking up flowers and I got back to the car. And the first thing that popped in my head is like in the battery is no longer with us and I were like that another. Not right here and I had this like self edit and go and the battery is not going to be working on this car anymore. She went to the battery died and I was like, well, I do want to say it but yes, I'm a writer in the funeral business because language comes up over and over in the words you use and the things you don't say what I found as I I just quit did this long ago. I never say I'm sorry for your loss. All I say is a funeral director over and over and it's a refrain when I get nervous I go back to it. I am here for you. I am here for you. Even if you say it five times their processing it and feeling comforted by that. So right I everybody else can is saying I'm sorry for your loss and my condolences. I don't go into that. It seems insincere because they know I'm saying every day but I am here for you is what they want to hear and what they need to know and I think that's useful for everybody comforting and grieving person, you know, and it's more actionable. Yes it let somebody know that like because I'm sorry or my condolences are sort of sort of like when you're talking to somebody you say have a good day the you know that the last person that's the last time you're going to talk to that person that Right, and I'm here for you leaves a little bit more open. Like I'm not closing the door on this subject or this conversation. Yeah, I'm here for you in and like in an indefinite sort of way and now you must be hurting. You know, I'm here and I want to listen. I'm looking forward to knowing more of her story. Oh, that is good. Good. Material good fodder speaking of live in the New Yorker article which I'll link to in the description of this you've mentioned that you teach classes on writing a good condolence letters essentially and I love that because it is something that is it something I put a lot of thought into over the years where can people learn more about those classes because you do a few different workshops and classes that correct and I study historic letters of condolence to figure out which ones were effective and and useful and helpful to the At the end and which ones failed in one way or another but here's the deal on condolence letters. And here's the Comfort there. They're all going to be failures. No condolence letter or almost no condolence letter will perfectly fit the needs of the reader in that moment. But it's the act of writing them no matter what you say. That's the beauty of the practice. So I think condolence letter writing is just a practice and not to get too stressed out about what can I say that will be of comfort just say that you love them and that you're here for them and keep it simple and the act of writing it on a card or a note by hand is beauty enough, you know, give yourself a break just do it. I love that bringing Nike the Nike slogans because it's really true. It works for a lot of things in a lot of different contexts. I couldn't agree with you more so in looking at some of our other questions here. And this is this is something that feels very odd to ask and I don't there's not really a delicate way to ask it. So I'm just going to go ahead and jump into it. But of sort of like the the really difficult things that we deal with in terms of death, you know murder-suicide and and infant loss which is I don't know which is harder. I mean what is like, what is what's your experience in that and how sort of what are the differences? in them Yeah infant loss is mysterious and how difficult it is because one part of your brain might say, oh the little individual didn't have a life to grieve but that is the nature of the grief itself any loss of all opportunity and the nothingness that seems to remain after an infant's death is very sad. Add and complex and hard to recover from so it's like its own study. There's a woman named Amy, right Glenn who actually trains people just on infant walls and That Rocks the house when a baby is at in a funeral home in the back preparation area everyone in the funeral home is kind of Awakened by how sad that is so it really transforms the energy of a whole Funeral Home suicides are more frequent and so tragic and again, like we said earlier sort of a byproduct of mental illness and the times we live in it does seem like more young people or are dying and dying quickly after you know, the the the it's the suicidal ideation moves very fast for some young people. So the parents and family are just adjusting to the fact that an emotional problem exists. And then this is like takes place before they've even been prepared to contemplate that so that's hard to funerals are powerful and magnificent and would hope to that they'd be able to teach everyone else in it attendance. You know how to comfort someone who might be having a hard time. Time and how to encourage them to get help before it gets really bad. That is something that has been I'm so there was a really interesting brief Ted talk with a psychologist or maybe think. He's a psychologist in Zimbabwe who because of the nature of so many rural areas and it's really hard to get around that there was a patient of his who had attempted suicide and then she was hot Alized and they he told the family when she's out of the hospital. Please bring her here so we can talk and then he didn't hear from them. And then I think maybe a week and a half later she tried again and then and did pass away and when he asked the family, why did you bring her here? They said well, we couldn't, you know, it's like a several hour bus ride to where you are in the city and we couldn't afford the bus fare. And so what he's done is he's started training grandmother's on basic therapy skills and what I I find so fascinating because there is the there's that I camera what it's called, but it is a it's really horrible that there is that effect that when you know, someone who has taken their life that you in fact rather than learning a lesson from that and going like oh I saw how badly it affected everybody that in fact has the opposite effect that it makes people more likely to consider that and to do that and they see it especially In Native communities there was a community studied in Alaska that these have like one of the highest suicide rates and it's this. I wish I could remember the word of it, but it isn't an effect and it makes me wonder sometimes if that's you know, and I was going to say young people like people my age because I've lost I was in fact thinking about it yesterday and realize that in the last year. I've lost about a dozen friends. Oh my God. Yeah. And it really and it does make me wonder if it's that effect in play or like what it is exactly because there's also no way that our that our lives are today than they've ever been historically, you know what I mean? Like it just I just I I grapple with that a lot on not just dealing with the emotions in the aftermath of friends and loved ones who have passed away that way but also like What we can do on a societal level to teach people to be more supportive of each other and and find different way. Like I know for myself I've found different ways over the years of whatever it is to like go like. Oh no, this is why you won't do that right like and found reasons of like, okay and just made my own sort of things of like, okay. Well if if like this group of people who ever like are finding a reason to wake up every day, You can too and that's how I've done it for myself, but that's not for everyone. And that's very dark to go make out with people who have a life sentence in prison can find a reason to keep living. So can you get over it? Like that's I'm like a tough love kind of person and that's not for everybody. And so I think we can find ways to help people help each other and help themselves because I think right now a lot of it is just like like calling a hotline clearly is not helping, you know like that being the path of When people call this hotline that is not that's not catching it early enough for people to not consider that so have you seen because you've been doing this you said I think for eight years now, is that accurate? So you have seen then it sounds like the frequency for young people doing this. Well, it does seem sometimes that suicide is contagious. Well the message that there's help for the suicidal is part of the funeral. Neural today and there's literature on suicide as part of the funeral program or you know messages from the family at the funeral service or the memorial event. You know that this is not okay. You know, where where are we are devastated by this death. There's nothing admirable about it, even though it makes them uncomfortable because you don't want to shame the dead person. But at the same time, I don't want to glamorize the The Gone Too Soon metaphor or the idea of tragedy is Chic. So it's complex and a really important reason why funerals exist. I think, you know, some people today can't go funerals are expensive. They're not that important or my grandfather wasn't religious. So we're not going to have a funeral but funerals are opportunities for everyone in attendance even people who didn't know. The deceased that well to walk out with a new way of being our new way of seeing their Destiny in their own calling in life. Yeah, and in my experience also the really good way to sort of you kind of find comfort when you're there comforting other people and being comforted by other loved ones. And and in that way I go back and forth when it comes to death on how I That social media because I think you know my grandmother who I'm very close with she thinks she'll be 89 this year and when she talks about ex-boyfriends and friends and such she can in her mind if she doesn't hasn't heard otherwise imagine that they're alive and well and doing whatever in ready mean, I think at this point in her life, she's starting to go. Well, who knows where they're at, you know, but with social media, I'm faced all that like I'm not not able to go. Oh, well, I'm sure you know my friend Julio from seventh grade. I'm sure he's doing great because I know that that's not true, you know, and at the same time though, I've found that mutual friends of friends that have passed in the past couple of years that we've connected and formed new friendships and then become actual friends because I've seen that they've posted something and maybe I've heard a good story about them and then I reached out just to go. Hey, you know so-and-so spoke. Highly of you and I just want you to know that and I saw that you're planning something for their services. Like let me know how I can help or like, you know, you're closer to the family. Is there anything like I can't fly out for that, you know, unfortunately, so like what can I do to be supportive to the family since you know, you're in that and I've created bonds. I think it can be really helpful in connecting people and not feeling so alone in there. The only thing yeah, because I remember the first time I lost somebody Buddy, that was like very very close to me. I remember looking around going like what are all you people just having normal days for don't you know that the world is crumbling. Right? Right. And so when you can see in social media posts that other people are dealing with this it does help and one of the things I loved what you quoted somebody in in that mirror article where you talked about grieving as a process and it's not something maybe this is what maybe this next. Wasn't in that article, but it's something that I've talked to someone about since that. It's your always grieving you just you know, it's sort of like the emotional toll on a daily basis is lessened, but I love that you quoted somebody saying that there is a grieving process and that they would write letters, you know, intermittently after someone's debt to reach out and go, you know, it's still on my mind, which I know what you're thinking of is that the poet Emily Dickinson in the 1870s and 80s. I think she died. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think she died in 1886. Anyway, she was a great and gifted condolence letter writer and a lot of her poetry is about death and loss but she would write a condolence letters in a sequence because she was so intimately familiar with the fact that this isn't a one-time grieving and a way of saying hello. I'm connecting with you. This is a practice and a way of continuing connection. And extending a loving hand through correspondence. So yes and the right L people who had a loss and this is relevant. Even if you can't make it to the funeral that the relationship will continue and you can write that deceased person and then burn the letter and send it up or come up with your own ritual to continue our conversations and Express gratitude for their having lived as long as they did doing the Best job that they could and whatever time was allowed and I think I have an ancestor wall in my own home here in Brooklyn right by the front door of the house is there we're just very blessed to have a lot of family photographs and many of them quite old. So I have my great-grandparents and everyone after that on the wall there. I feel like they root for me and I think Our dead are available to us. And basically I like to think of them as cheering us on and yeah to keep the conversations going and it's very rewarding to live that way and I think the beauty of the Day of the Dead in Mexico is something so relevant to us today and pattern that we can have with altars of our loved ones in our homes. And just thanking them for what they taught us over and over and having conversations with them. It's great. It's all good and it be the truth value of whether or not the soul exists. I happen to feel strongly that The Souls of the Dead are around us and available not everyone feels that way and the truth value of the souls existence is irrelevant to me because just knocked That's good enough. I don't I don't I don't really I happen to feel better there. But if you keep if you're not sure go ahead and try it and see what happens. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more on that. Have you have you ever had any experiences that cause you to feel like they do exist. Like is there anything specific you can point to that it makes you go? Yeah, that's I mean have you ever felt comforted by it for months after my own mother's death. I just tuned in to her and her voice came to me so quickly and she said You wouldn't believe how hard they have us working here. And that's just kind of chuckle when she said that but then my brain said to me, oh, you just made that up and then another part of my intelligence spoke and said, I don't think so that sounded really a lot like her and I didn't cognitively have the thought to put those words together. You wouldn't believe how hard they have us working here. And then I said, wow, that's sort of abide by the wonderful Albert Brooks. Looks movie Defending Your Life which I'd recommend to anybody which haven't presented as a place you work out stuff from your past life and get ready for the next one. So I didn't have that plot line in my brain and I love that particular movie. But when my mother said that to me it felt real so who knows I'm content to live with the mystery. I have had brief conversations with some of the people whose funerals I've aged one woman was disappointed in the way. She was dressed for her funeral and in the casket, so I don't know what to make of that but she wasn't mad at me, but she we did sort of discuss it it's the experiences are few and far between and I don't talk about them very much because some people would find me silly, but I'm certainly open to that kind of communication than fascinated and We my own end-of-life plans include conversations with my two sons about here's where to look for me or be aware of. Well, you know, let's try to communicate or see what happens that would make me happy to be dying and to have you having those kinds of conversations with those I was leaving behind. I would venture to say that it's not silly especially seeing as it's something that people have been discussing since like the going back time. Where are they? Well, not only where are they but like people across, you know, eras and around the world have felt Souls of the dead and I I mean, so I don't think it's silly at all. You know, I think it's I think bulk of your listeners will agree. Let's hope if they disagree they can stop this. Well II I serve a lot of atheists on some of the families I help with their funerals are atheists and say we don't want god mentioned in any way and I always say fine that's totally cool with me. But I do sometimes feel like some people protest too much and just to be open to the mystery of life and the Mystery of death and see what it is when the time comes is good enough. Me and happy three of on in that atmosphere. It's interesting. So my my father's atheist and or perhaps agnostic. I'm not sure but he was very adamant about like no talks of God at my grandfather's funeral and then he went up and brought up the idea of the Invisible Hand and my my mom and my other dad and I were all kind of like, huh? So thanks, but um, yeah, it's I have I have a very similar about everything after life related where I kind of feel like whatever I believe and whatever any of us are believe doesn't necessarily impact what actually is so like what's the use in me spending all this time and energy focusing on like what might happen after we pass because whatever I decide on or find or whatever whatever actually happens that happens whether II feel a certain way about it or not. Like I can't think an afterlife into existence. So so I'm kind of like well, I'll just do the best I can on here. Well for those who have left religion in organized religion, there's still a religious structure to Rites of Passage that this definitely worth studying and duplicating in some more secular way. I love Jewish funeral. Protocol because everything is mapped out for the whole grieving Year from the burial which is supposed to be rather Hasty and then the Shiva and the seven days of grieving covering the mirrors and all of those beautiful Customs focusing on stories of the loved one and and then you know on into the year anniversary where you unveil the grave marker or the stone. Or they're nice things in the religious rollout that definitely are are worth studying and copying and and creatively mixing Faith traditions and and also liturgy and language. I'm Shameless and editing biblical Psalms and passages it. I don't think God is going to smite me for changing something. To make it work for a particular family. What kind of things do you change even example? I'm so interesting. I wish I had some some. Well a lot of Psalms have references to enemies and more fair. So I just take all that out and are out, you know, increasingly funeral language for burial can be changed. So instead of committing someone to the ground at a burial you're at a cremation you're committing them to the elements. So lots of these things need to be re-written and updated and you can always take the word God and for family that doesn't want god mentioned. You can just replace the word god with love in the arms of love, you know envelop you and all these nice things. I love very in Judaism. They refer to the source of peace. So someone who is not a god person they do In Peace So there must be a source of peace. So I end a lot of my funerals made the source of peace Grant you peace and Grant peace to all who mourn that's a kind of universal benediction and seems to be comforting to a lot of people who hear me say that as we're about to go back to our cars after a service and are ready to have their meal after the service which is always a nice way to Embrace Life return to food. Yeah, it that's that's a very I love that. That's a really beautiful. I think you dropped a few very good tips in there for people, you know, because this is something that not enough people talk about is what makes a good funeral, you know, and how how do you feel to you like what makes a good funeral? I think one surprise is that any kind of procession or movement is something that too frequently were skipping and missing in our funerals because today increasingly people don't want to rent five limousines and follow a hearse and in a Cortes of automobiles when you look at the great state funerals for John McCain. The first George Bush you see a kind of expensive funeral roll out that we don't have day-to-day anymore. But to not skip over some kind of way of parading or persisting or carrying the weight of our loss by being pallbearers for the at the casket some kind of exotic. Darshan and movement is key to a good funeral I think and nobody's thinking about that anymore. Nobody's thinking nobody has paused to think that well, let's carry it. Let's see if the funeral director will let us lift the casket at some point or carry in certainly showing up at the Crematory and witnessing The Cremation makes it cremation the much better funeral service and a committal. To a kind of grave at the faces of the retorts so you can ask your Crematory can we come to the Crematory chapel and be with the casket prior to cremation in some even if it's a closed casket and we have that moment as a family and then acts of Bravery or courage and eulogies I think are super important speaking and then music is huge and healing and it can be music that. His irreverent and fun at the end of the service you might start a good funeral with more Melancholy music. But by the time you depart whatever event whatever venue you should have sort of a slight smile on your face and a feeling of gratitude as you depart and music can really convey a lot of support and emotion. So that's something that too frequently were we're Thinking about and a good funeral director can help you find the right music and with Spotify and Bose speakers, even if you have a chamber orchestra with you wherever you roam so music is real important to the funeral. I think that's very helpful. Yeah, and that it's also good to know what you can ask for because I think this is something that people deal with so rarely. Hopefully, you know that especially when you're the one in charge of planning a funeral that you don't know what you can ask you don't What the options are and you also don't know I think it's really difficult because funerals can be pricey. And so you don't know when you're being recommended something that is beneficial to the emotional management of a funeral and you don't versus when you're being upsold. Yeah for like yeah, you know my real important thing and a lot of your listeners need to know that when a death occurs in a hospital or in a home in the care of hospice, you know, this doesn't apply if your grandfather collapses while watching the football game over a can of beer then you have to call 9-1-1, but if you have a planned death and a hospice supervising the care of that chronically ill person then when death finally arrives you can take a moment not move the body and here's where I think your listeners could come in because I suspect even if they're not in the leadership role. Within the family about what we're going to do from here, you can be strong and advised the rest of the family to do something at the bedside take the flowers that are dying in bases on the windowsill and put them in the deceased hands. You can wrap the deceased in the sheet that is already on the bed, or you can have a simple king or queen sized clean sheet on hand to swaddle them in. You slide it under just as you're changing the bed sheet get it under them and around them and just as we swaddle infants when they're born. We swaddle are dead at the end so that when the funeral directors do arrive to make the transfer you can say, you know, we combed your hair. We anointed her with oil. We put her favorite perfume on you know, whatever is your custom we wrapped her in a beautiful piece of fabric. She's done, you know, we'll meet you at the Crematory or wherever the Station is from there. And that's very cool. And a lot of families tend to minimize that moment like oh it's happened. Don't touch her. Let's go. Let's call the funeral director and get get her out. Send many families have been there the whole way and they're ready for that separation, but still Have a cup of tea take a breath light a candle get the oxygen oxygen machine this engaged and you know have a have your moment almost like you're in. You know, the Alcott book Little Women go back to the 1800s and sit there and Savor the moment because you don't have moments like this every day. Yeah, thank you for that. That is I think that's really helpful. Yeah, because I Never it would never end. I think that those there are some just sort of moments in life whether whether they be as sort of. You know book ND as as a death or a birth, but also in between moments where I've definitely reflected and gone like well, how come I didn't have my didn't take more time with that? How come when that when I knew somebody was going through something. I didn't take more time to let them speak or hug them longer or whatever it is and it is something that I think those more those moments. We were you feel really vulnerable now. No her emotionally heavy. Sometimes it's really easy to sort of panic and recoil for. Yep. That's the only think of as like you panic and sort of go like well, maybe I'm being too much. Right right. I think a lot of people who are inclined toward Progressive few meth are too frequently being discounted in the family and not acknowledged as leaders in. Well. What do we do now? What can we do? How was your work? Influence your views of the afterlife but and I guess with that question for me is also how has it influenced the way that you deal with death and your personal life. Well, I know I'm going to make a fairly big deal out of the death of my dog. I have a 16 year old Cockapoo. I've already come up with a funeral plan. Although he has kidney disease. He's rebounding and flies up the staircase of our little house here in Brooklyn. Prove to me that he's not dead yet, but I have a little burial shroud for him and wicker casket when the time comes and I plan with family to take him to the pet Crematory in Secaucus, New Jersey where they let you witness his cremation. So, you know end of life experiences of any kind are of great interest to me and I always even long before For I was funeral director parakeet deaths gerbil deaths were always important and those little boxes that banks give you when you get checks are perfect as little caskets for small animals good to know operating the casket, you know Finding finding those kinds of vessels is part of it, too. My own views of the afterlife we kind of discussed right with my mother and and all that. I'm trying to think if I have any other stories on that subject. I do think I don't know about reincarnation. That's just a mystery to me. But I do I do because and it's also confusing to me because I really don't know if you're communicating with someone who has died and they've reincarnated how can 40 years later. You still be in communication to them as you knew them in their ego body there. I like the work of James Van praagh. I think he's Smart and Savvy on these subjects. He says you can continue to communicate with anybody indefinitely. Even if they've been reincarnated and put into New Life Time. I don't quite follow that but we're happy to fly along with that assumption. Well, I guess following that is a bit like to me. It's sort of like an inverse of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit and how they're the idea that they are all this, you know, not separate and And still the same but then also separate. Yeah, it's a little bit like an inverse of that but almost like a parallel universe version of that in communicating with its Beacon communication. One of the things that we talked about was also just in terms of setting up this conversation was the communication with somebody who has a terminal diagnosis and is planning their funeral. What is what is that like to sit down with somebody who is sort of Planning their like the end of their life those are amazing encounters and I'm meeting with dying people with increased frequency, which leads me to believe that the baby boom generation will be interested in meeting with the funeral director prior to their own death in a very intimate way to make sure that their desires are carried out. I've had phenomenal conversations with dying people and you you internally as you're going into them you feel a little fluttery like oh this is stressful. What what if I say the wrong thing but once you ride through that and get over it just being real and again repeating. I'm here for you. I'm going to represent your wishes. I'm going to do everything you're telling me I'm taking this incredibly seriously because I know it's Vitally important and I so deeply respect you for have taking the time to have this conversation with me just last week. I was with someone who's soon to be actively dying and very much wanted to share intimate details about their own final wishes how they wanted their body cared for I've had other conversations where flowers were arranged and requested a single Calla Lily was requested by one woman I was speaking to and when I drifted into saying, oh, I think the florist makes me order them by five or six and she said one Calla Lily. That's all I want just one. So as I click that one calla lily in her hand after her death. We also made her she was a wonderful fashion designer who made garments out of fabric remnants from the Garment District. Everything she created was made out of scrap. So we made her a burial shroud out of linen tablecloth vintage linen tablecloths crap and just as they were, you know, cut or stained. We made them all come in together in a beautiful garment for her and I Revisited her she was already sort of lapsing into a coma but I went back into her room and sat by her bedside and said we've made the Shroud just as you wanted and I'll have the single cow Lily and I'm so glad we met and I never spoke to her in life again, but when the time came, I really felt like I was her best agent and the caretaker she needed me to be those are really sacred uncommonly amazing experiences that I feel very very privileged to have and I hope to have them with increased frequency as folks began to desire. Are more conscious passages more more is they invest more in how they died and dying? Well, that's that's really beautiful. I love math. The sweetness of the work is amazing. You know, I'd come home just spinning. It's almost like I feel like I'm trying to bring ecstasy back the word ecstasy back in a meaningful way to end of life experiences because These are ecstatic most rare moments that are so infused with meaning and power that just on a day-to-day basis be walking through these sacred rooms is is quite incredible work, which is why I think so many men and women want to engage in it today. They really want to have a meaningful experience with their own families their own deaths and then helping Society generally. A manage this important passage for for managing your own emotions and we talked about this a little bit of how it's an ongoing Journey. But do you go to a therapist like G has your did you go to a therapist before starting this job and like if so, how is that relationship changed? Thank you. No one's ever asked me that question. I as a young woman had 10 years of group and individual Psychotherapy back in the days when in Insurance would pay for that. So I feel and then I went to psychoanalytic Psychotherapy training at a psychoanalytic Institute in Washington DC. So I have a lot I have my own experience which was invaluable and helping me as a mother and a someone who started not thinking I'd ever marry or have a happy life and now you know here we are things worked out but Ah, I think therapy is really important. And I also if not therapy then some kind of Buddhist training or Sangha or way of being with others in a local Buddhist group or yoga retreat experience some kind of way of caring for yourself over and over again, that is a practice that you return to and stick with. All that's very important. Absolutely. Yeah, and then have you since you've continued therapy. Have you have you shifted therapist or like I'm have how'd your conversations with therapist shifted? Because I think I need therapy. Now. I have the 10 years and I haven't then my husband did a little touch-up for about what we got. We had therapy before we married we were way out there. So therapy was part of our Dating period so now I'm out and I feel okay occasionally my sister who's a therapist says Amy you need to get back into therapy. How can you process all these deaths? I can you manage but I feel like I'm doing okay, actually, I feel like I'm not as long as I have trusted friends who I can speak to confidentially and a lot of my closest colleagues are funeral celebrants. End-of-life work with hospice volunteers are workers chaplains folks like that. So I surrounded myself with a loving group of people who are supporting me and you know the community element I'm sure is therapeutic in and of itself. Yes having that strong of a community that understands what you're going through. So then that leads us to our last question. What is something you would want to hear a future episode of out great. Let's see. I think you know suicide is a great topic. Have you done anything? I mean some kind of person who's in the front lines helping people and on a hot line, I'd be fascinated by that. It seems like our society is calling for more help. Also anyone working. I guess I'm drawn to the same kind of themes people may be engaged in. Prison work or probation like a probation officer or anyone in drug counseling also softer occupations. I'm very interested in flowers and people who garden and florists. I'd be interested in hearing what that feels like and how you you create things. Anyone engaged in Creative Endeavor who seeks to stay authentic is of interest to me how you don't fall asleep and almost any job is a good it's a good theme but I've always I'm always caught up and folks in the front lines of Crisis management. That's cool. Yeah. Absolutely there my friend Meghan was on and she requested to hear from someone who's at the Forefront of environmental work. And what it's like to be there. Well not doing that. That's a great one because I just recently read that so much of environmentalism is is made toxic today by how much grief there is in it. So, you know be in environmental work and not get depressed about it is what in live and more inspire all of us. Yeah, absolutely. This was this was amazing. Thank you. So maybe where can people find you on social media player. I am a new Instagram. I don't have much traction there. I'm actually very active on Facebook my Facebook. I'm sorry. I know it's not I don't want to love Facebook, but I am on it and active there and then of course Twitter as well. Okay, beautiful. And what's your name? Do I have to website? When a The Inspired funeral.com th e inspired funeral.com and fitting tribute funeral services or fitting tribute funerals.com. I will find me all over and I will link to that in the description of this episode. So awesome. Thank you so much for you're doing awesome work. Thank you. Well, so are you a good Sunday? You too. Thanks. Thank you for listening to another episode of BTS podcast. I really appreciate your time. And I hope you learned a lot from this episode. Feel free to just let me know what you liked. If you want to tweet or share anything out. Please do tag me or BTS podcast. You can find me at atlan a cook and BTS podcast at BTS the podcast across social platforms music on this podcast is by Benjamin. Both are mm if there's something you'd like to hear a future episode on do let me know. I am always taking. Making recommendations and suggestions and do dig into the article in the New Yorker by Mallory rice with Amy Cunningham. It's really great, and there's just some beautiful information and details shared in their about Amy's approach to condolence letters. Thanks again and have a great day.
“I never say ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ All I say, as a funeral home director, is ‘I am here for you.’” Amy Cunningham shares the details surrounding her training and work as a funeral home director in the latest episode of #BTSPodcast, hosted by Lynae Cook. Amy Cunningham is progressive funeral home owner, licensed director and celebrant who collaborates with New York City families to help them create the best funerals and memorial services possible. She specializes in green burials in cemeteries certified by the Green Burial Council, simple burials within the NYC- Metropolitan area, home funerals, cremation services at Green-Wood Cemetery's gorgeous crematory chapels as well as memorial events of all sorts. When not out directing funerals, Amy writes a blog with funeral celebrant Kateyanne Unullisi called "The Inspired Funeral" for consumers, clergy, home funeral guides, celebrants and bereavement therapists working to enrich end-of-life experiences. Find & follow Amy online: Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrooklynFuneral Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fittingtributefunerals/ Fitting Tribute Funerals Website: http://www.fittingtributefunerals.com/ Fitting Tribute Funeral Services Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fittingtribute.nyc/ The Inspired Funeral blog: https://theinspiredfuneral.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Theinspiredfuneralcom/ Melissa Rice's article in the New Yorker, "How to Write a Condolence Letter" http://bit.ly/2KIzTNO   TED Talk “Why I train grandmothers to treat depression” http://bit.ly/2XcLCLj  NPR’s “The Arctic Suicides” piece on the contagion effect on All Things Considered by Rebecca Hersher: https://n.pr/2xhrubv NPR Staff’s follow-up article on “The Arctic Suicides,” https://n.pr/2xl4Hvk   Follow #BTSPodcast and share what you learned and what you’d like to learn: Twitter: https://twitter.com/btsthepodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/btsthepodcast/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/btsthepodcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/19055475/ Subscribe to #askamillennial for content marketing highlights, definitions in pop culture, and internet highlights: bit.ly/askamillennial Follow host Lynae Cook Twitter: https://twitter.com/lynaecook Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/btsthepodcast/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/btsthepodcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/19055475/  ---   Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/btspodcast/support 