People watch as a convoy of truckers and other vehicles travel in front of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in support of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc people after the remains of 215 children were discovered buried near the facility, in Kamloops, Canada, on June 5, 2021. – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on June 4 urged the Catholic Church to “take responsibility” and release records on indigenous residential schools under its direction, after the discovery of remains of 215 children in unmarked graves. (Photo by Cole Burston / AFP) (Photo by COLE BURSTON/AFP via Getty Images)
For more information on The Eastland and the tragedy that befell it’s crew and passengers, please visit The Eastland Disaster Historical Society and share it’s story so that the loss that occurred on the Chicago River may never be forgotten.
This poem was inspired by Caitlin Doughty and her coverage of The Eastland at her Youtube channel here, at Ask A Mortician. Please enjoy her other content as well! She is a treasure and a real leader in the death positivity moment, a group aiming to change the way we view, explore, and experience death as a culture and society.
Asar, Lord of the Duat, take him into your shining fields.
Anpu, Protector of the Dead, guide him through the winding dark paths and places.
Setekh, Warrior of the Way, protect him as his spirit finds its way.
Nebet-Het, Mother of Mourners, be with us as we grieve.
Aset, Lady of Life, give his spirit breath again into his next life.
Hewet-Her, Comforter of Comforters, hold him fast as he travels into the lands of the West.
Tehuti, Writer of All Wisdom, give me the knowledge and strength to comfort and give guidance to my family in this time of loss.
Today, after a painful battle with a rare form of cancer, we buried my grandfather. I ended up at home alone after the wake and found myself with a terrible problem. No matter what I did or tried, no matter how much I wanted it, I could not make my brain focus on anything. I wasn’t overcome with sadness, nor were constantly shifting thoughts stealing my attention. There was no depression and all I thought about the wake itself was that I hated to leave my grandmother Ruby to go home alone. I didn’t want her to have to go back to an empty house that would never feel like a home again.
National Novel Writing Month was in full swing but the words wouldn’t come. What was wrong with me? Maybe it was the headache that was working itself out. Maybe it was fatigue. Grief? All I had in me was busy just processing the day, trying to let go of all of the hundred conversations and people. The casket, the coffee. The bowl of mints, the director’s nametag and my mother’s tears.
I found myself writing out, instead of my poor NaNo novel, just an unpunctuated, long single stream of thought with no rhyme or reason. Then, my hopes and prayers for my granddaddy as his spirit passes on. It gave me a sense of…peace. Something like happiness but less than joy. Like he was standing there watching the proceedings and seeing how there wasn’t just tears but there were smiles and humor too. Seeing how the family shored together despite differences and even, in some cases, not even knowing one another. There’s support there and there’s love. I could see him there. He’d probably be wearing navy and looking kind of sheepish with his hands in the pockets of his slacks, his watch on and his chin scruff and he’d be smiling because I think he’d be happy with what he saw.
Afterwards, I still felt like I’d been hit by a truck but on the inside, it felt like finding peace.
My grandaddy, Lehman Franks. I will see you again someday. When we walk the Field of Reeds together, our family will be whole once again.
My dad is going through radiation treatment for Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma right now. He just started to lose his hair and it’s been a really hard road for him this year. We’re Tennessee natives and it would really mean a lot for our community to show up for the good for him right now. Our family is very close and so my parents don’t have many wants so instead of raising money for them directly, I’d like to do this fundraiser my birthday this year. If you would like to donate to them directly for his treatments or needs, however, Venmo to @CMcRey. Thank you to everyone for your consideration and please be your most well. ♥️
This applies, and is so so important, for anyone. Not just straight, cis people. Not just LGBTQ+. Everyone needs to know what your end of life plan is. The specifics. Not just the pretty pretty “Oh! Sprinkle me on the ocean at sunset!” stuff but the legal stuff. Who is in charge of your body? Is it your next of kin or is it a trusted person like a life partner? Make your plan. Make sure your trusted person is able to get into necessary accounts and such after you’re gone. Get it in writing, make it legal. Doing this will spare your loved ones so much pain, confusion, and grief. Thanks to Caitlin Doughty at her YouTube channel Ask A Mortician for making it her mission to bring awareness to death issues like this!
In all of the turmoil, fear, and uncertainty, we are all facing some of our darkest days. Information is rampant and widespread, much of it helpful and some of it, unfortunately, not.
However, that’s actually not what I want to talk about today. Today, I don’t want to talk about what we need to do to keep ourselves safe and healthy no matter what the circumstance comes to. I want to talk about what we can do for each other. Obviously, I’m not saying going door-to-door. What I mean is, what we can do for each other here in this online space.
Something I hadn’t heard of yet was a support group for those not just affected by the COVID/Corona virus but for everyone. Everyone who’s dealing with this fear and uncertainty about what tomorrow might bring. I want to establish a place where anyone and everyone is free to go and talk about what their experience is. What they’re afraid of, what they’re dealing with and also a place that we can go to share this time with others and share support with our fellow human beings.
No matter where you’re from, what borders exist between us, or other lines that we may draw between people and places.
So, here on Little Journeys Everywhere, it’s my mission to create a place where all of this can come together. Where all of us can come together. Because right now, the situation is such that we need each other now more than ever before. We need to support, understand, and share with each other more than ever before, possibly in our history.
It’s my prayer that this sort of support group will help many of us, my own family included, get through the heartache, loneliness, depression, and isolation that can come from illness, distance, and quarantine. So we are going to be launching a social media network support system just for you so that we can all come to the other side of this together.
There is another side to this and we will get there.
Have no doubt about that.
Come join us as we launch the Before The Dawn: A Corona Virus Support Group and leave your stories, testimonials, or words of hope, comfort, and support. It will also be a place where we can put resources and stories of hope for those who need them. Before the Dawn is a community that will be open to all, unmonetized, free of politics, fingerpointing, or bullying. It will be a place that, despite quarantines or borders, everyone can come together no matter your level of affectedness.
I implore those of you who have counseling training or experience to reach out and offer your aid whether it is in Before the Dawn or anywhere else!
Before the Dawn will be on Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram, and will be linked on our Little Journeys pages. Look for those in the next 24 to 48 hours. The Facebook page can already be found here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/539367610029409/ .
Here on the blog main, I will also be posting ways for you and your families (especially our poor kids) to get through times of quarantine as well as other resources to offer all of us hope and just a little bit of security until we can reach that other side.
It’s taken me a long time before I felt ready to talk about this, but I think I’m finally at a point that I can get it down.
About a month ago, maybe a little more, I had an allergy attack. I don’t even know what triggered it.
I was in the bathroom and I started coughing. I didn’t think anything of it. It’s cold and allergy season, you know? But then the coughing wouldn’t stop. My lungs felt…itchy almost. My chest was getting tight, as if I didn’t have enough room to pull in a full breath.
Or even a half breath.
The coughing got worse. My throat hurt with how rough they were coming.
I couldn’t breathe.
There was this sudden thought that it might be a really good idea to sit. I’d been holding on to the side of the shower and just slid down to the floor right there.
I took the fast acting allergy tablets my Allergist instructed. I’d even taken benadryl just in case. The coughs, the shortness of breath, came still, unimpeded.
Daddy Maxwell finally ran to get my EpiPen. It was the first time I would need to use it and I debated if I was just thinking of it too seriously. Maybe…Maybe I was just being dramatic?
Every breath I managed came out wheezing, grasped desperately between hacking coughs. I gagged on it, nothing but spittle falling onto the bath mat.
The sting of the needle piercing my upper thigh rang through the haze. My head spun with dizziness when I turned to look back at him in the doorway.
He thought it was a panic attack but I knew better. I’d had panic attacks before and never like this. Never one that made me afraid like this.
Because I was. I was afraid.
I was f**king terrified.
Reminders of falling oxygen levels and how it can take only a short time of too little air to the brain to cause permanent damage.
My airways began to open again. Breathing came easier and easier. The coughing slowed. It didn’t feel like I had lungs filled with tar anymore. With easier breaths came thought and reasoning back to the fore. The fear began to set in. My Allergist’s instruction to always seek immediate emergency care after an Epi use danced with newfound anxiousness within me.
‘Should I go to the hospital?‘ I wondered.
Maybe Daddy Maxwell was right though. Maybe it was just panic and I would have been totally fine. What if I was just being silly? Making too big a deal out of it. Maybe it would be fine.
Maybe I would be…be fine.
I raised my arms to have him help me up.
‘Bed, please…‘ I just wanted to lay down somewhere dark and quiet. Somewhere safe.
My whole body was shaking. My shoulder twitched with the Epi rush to my muscles.
The tightness in my chest had eased but still remained a pressure on my lungs. The coughing still came every minute or so.
Maybe it was stupid not to go to the hospital. My best friend, Rae, would be furious with me. No doubt my therapist would be angry too. But maybe it was okay! Maybe it would all be fine!
Maybe it wouldn’t be.
I was so tired. So, so bone-deep exhausted. My head throbbed and all I could imagine doing was laying down. Letting myself drift into sleep for a little while.
Stronger than the exhaustion, though…was the fear.
My hands started shaking, but not because of the injection. Tears started to fall before I could even try to control them.
‘What’s wrong?’
A grinding cough before…
‘I don’t want to die this way…’
I began to sob and Daddy Maxwell came back to my side. He stood so awkwardly as if unsure what he should do or where his place should be. My tears did not help the weight on my chest but gently, he helped ease me to lying down before I could start wheezing again.
I remember when Little ran in. I was afraid for her to see me like that, to see me struggling…clawing for breath in a fight against my own body. Yet, in that moment, all I wanted to do was hug her. To kiss her.
What if not going to the hospital was the wrong thing? What if I went to sleep and didn’t wake back up? What if I started coughing again and we didn’t make it to the hospital in time?
I gave her a hug and a kiss, told her I loved her, and Daddy Maxwell sent her from the bedroom in a hushed whisper.
‘You aren’t going to die.’
How could he know? How could he be certain?
We agreed that if I started coughing again we would go. He let me lay down in the cool quiet of the bedroom. The anxiety, unfortunately, did not go.
I was petrified to fall asleep. Terrified that my airways would close again and I would choke on my own vomit or something similarly horrifying. I’d never been afraid of death before. To me, it had simply been a transition to a new form rather than a goodbye. A metamorphosis rather than a loss.
When standing down the very real fear of your own, though…it’s a little more difficult to face it with such peace.
‘Embrace it‘ came a voice suddenly from within me, compassionate and silky.
Sweet and smooth like some exotic chocolate.
Why this didn’t alarm me, I couldn’t say, but in that moment, I didn’t think to question it. Even now, sitting here and typing this, the thought just doesn’t feel important.
Strangely, a warm calm spread over my mind in that instant. It reminded me of dipping your head beneath water, how all of the sound smooths out and dims.
I drifted quickly into sleep and woke two hours later, alive if not somewhat pensive about the experience.
As a chronic illness patient, I made my advanced directive ages ago as a preparation for that final event, whenever it should occur. This experience made me rethink the plans that I had made then.
Where would Little Maxwell’s place be in the events of my death? Would she even have a place? What would help her heal the best after I was gone?
Have you ever considered what your final wishes are? What do you picture your ideal, ‘good death’ looking like? What role would you want your loved ones to play?
It’s a difficult thing to think about but in the event that you begin to transition into death, an advanced directive can make a world of difference to your family and friends. Would your spouse or partner be able to access the funds they would need to live on and pay for your funeral? What funeral would you like to have?
The stress of providing and paying for a funeral and burial that they feel is respectful and worthy of you can be a massive, massive weight on your loved ones.
These aren’t easy things to think about let alone talk about with your partner or family but we have to. It is so important to have these things in order when you go. Wouldn’t it be easier to go to your final rest, knowing that your wishes are understood and your family is taken care of? It’s something to think about. After all, you never know when you could get into an accident or even just start choking for seemingly no freaking reason.
I’m not bitter or annoyed at all.
Nope. Not a bit.
That was my terrifying experience with anaphylaxis recently. For more on advanced directives, the Ask A Mortician YouTube channel has a great set of videos on practical death advice such as low cost funeral options, how to talk to your loved ones about death, etc. that I will link below! I hope none of you ever have to experience anything similar to what I did but if you do, the ass-chewing I got afterward can confirm: Go to the f**king hospital.
My God-daughter was born last night (as of writing this) on February 21st! She is so little and beautiful and, like her mother, is not afraid to say, “Hey, I know that I wasn’t suppose to come for another two buuuttttt deal with it.”
It made me think back to the small leather book sitting in the nightstand by my bed. It was a Father’s Day gift I had given Daddy Maxwell in 2016. When I was pregnant, I started to write in one of those little pocket sized leather-bound notebooks. I wrote a letter to him almost everyday all the way up until I gave it to him when Little Maxwell was just over a month old.
I’ve been contemplating doing the same for Little Maxwell for a while now, writing to her as she grows up about all of her likes and dreams and aspirations. Maybe I’ll start that here. Digital writing can often be better preserved, after all, assuming you keep up with passwords and advances in technology.
Now I want to do one for my precious God-daughter too.
I started writing those notebooks because…Well, we’re not going to be around forever. With all of my health issues, adding the new asthma on top of it, chances are that I probably won’t live to a ripe old age. These notebooks, these letters, are something real, something tangible that I leave behind for them after I’m gone. Something they can touch, something that’s just for them.
They are the truest and deepest writings of my heart, the fullest expressions of love that I can express. With this new addition to my heart, I look forward to writing these letters of love for many years to come.
Welcome to the world, sweet Little Wren.
You make it all the sweeter now that you are in it, here with us.
At the Deathbed (1895) by Edvard Munch; photo by A.Davey
Let’s get one thing out of the way before we start. Everyone will die and no one likes talking about it. I get it. From king to street sweeper and all that. By the way, that’s a reference to the final words of executed murderer Robert Alton Harris.
‘From King to street sweeper, everyone dances with the grim reaper.’
Cheery, ain’t it?
Now that we’ve gotten started off with death and executions, today we’re talking about your advanced directive! That’s right my dearlings, it’s death talk day!
So what is an advanced directive? Some of you may not be familiar with the term and some of you, like me, who frequent hospitals and doctors offices may be sick of hearing about it.
Merriam-Webster defines an advanced directive as ‘a legal document (such as a living will) signed by a competent person to provide guidance for medical and health-care decisions (such as the termination of life support or organ donation) in the event the person becomes incompetent to make such decisions’. However, that is a very bare-bones definition of what an AD is in this modern age. Today’s ADs can and often do include things such as your preferred funeral plan, what you would like to be done as far as your wake, and what you want done with your meat sack once you’ve shuffled off of the proverbial coil.
Do you want to donate your body to a body farm? Put it in your advanced directive.
Want a Super Mario themed funeral? It’s possible! Put it in your advanced directive!
Do you want to leave your hot tub to John Oliver but everything else to your one-eyes doggo Beevis? You know, no judgements but, uh… Leave it in your AD because I’m not sure your sister doesn’t have her eye on that antique chinaware.
Don’t want your jerkoff cousin, Donald Dickwad, going and douching up your final goodbye? Stick it to him in your advanced directive!
Anything and everything you want your loved ones to know to do or be done to you goes in there. You’ll want to put social media passwords, locations of important documents, as well as about information too so your loved ones can close it any accounts like bank accounts, insurance, etc. You don’t want them to keep getting fees and such after your dead. Unless, you know… You do. In which case, maybe you should seek some family counseling before your timely demise, yeah?
Aside from giving directions on what to do with your body, an advanced directive can be worth thousands and thousands of dollars to your loved ones and that is no joke. Your AD is also where you can put information about if you already have payments made towards funeral costs, any sort of life insurance policies, etc. In their time of grief, the last thing we want our families to have to deal with is not just if they are honoring our wishes in death but how they can ever afford to do so. On that note, life insurance or one of those pay-ahead funeral plans can be such an incredible blessing during those times. I know that it was for my family when my grandmother passed away.
Do I have you convinced? Great! So let’s get started!
There are many websites out there that you can create your advanced directive on. The one that I use myself is called MyDirectives and it is very comprehensive. It even gives you the opportunity to leave messages behind for your loved ones to be given after you’ve gone in a special place at the end. It’s free and very secure! There is a share feature that enables you to send a copy to anyone that you may wish, including your doctors. In all honesty though, most doctors are going to prefer a hard copy to put in your records. You’ll want to print that sucker out for each specialist you have, just in case your cause of death pertains to your treatment or conditions that they oversee.
Finally, print out another copy to keep in an easy-to-find place in your home and label it so that it’s easy to see what it is on the outside. The best way to do this is to place it in a folder along with any other relevant death documents and then drop the whole folder into a sealed ziploc bag. The bundle goes into your freezer. Yep, the freezer. Why? Because it isn’t in the violent primordial chaos that is the back of your closet. It’s easily accessible to anyone who may need to get to it quickly.
Your advanced directive is likely going to take some time and some tears. It is a lot of information to put down, after all, and if you’re filling one out then it is time to have the death conversation with your loved ones about what your final wishes are exactly. So grab a bottle of wine or two, a box of tissues, and a whole playlist of happy cat videos because you’re in for a roller coaster of emotion.
It’s difficult. Don’t get me wrong. It is absolutely, one-hundred and ten percent, undeniably hard to have to think about what your family and friends are going to have to deal with after your death. In a weird, cathartic way, though, it’s sort of comforting to have a plan. To know that should you choke tomorrow on that tomatillo or trip over a chihuahua named Larry on the stairs, that your family will be taken care of. That makes it just a little easier in the end.
The Ask a Mortician Youtube channel and associated website The Order of the Good Death have amazing content on preparing your death plan, death doulas, and advanced directives to help you on your death-awareness journey so check them out!
Can I just start by pointing out what a rad name Snickers McMuffin is for a cat?
I’ve been a long time fan of Caitlin Doughty’s YouTube channel Ask a Mortician. So, this being my first book of hers that I’ve read, I expected to enjoy ‘Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?’ just as much as I’ve enjoyed her channel.
Let me tell you, I was not disappointed.
First though, a bit about the author.
Caitlin Doughty is a mortician and owner at Undertaking L.A., a green funeral home who’s goal, according to orderofthegooddeath.com, “is placing the dying person and their family back in control of the dying process, the death itself, and the subsequent care of the dead body”. Caitlin is also the creator of The Order of the Good Death, a movement to change the dialogue and thoughts of modern day people in regards to death, dying, and death services. She hosts her Youtube channel, mentioned above, as well as a podcast called Death In The Afternoon. Both are, in my humble opinion, the bee’s-headbanging-death positive-knees-in-skinny-jeans. They’re witty but classy, funny but respectful, tasteful but quirky! Seeing either of these in my inbox is sure to make for a hilarious yet educational start to my day.
Much like her other work that I avidly enjoy and sincerely recommend, ‘Did My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?’ Is a piece filled with amusing insights, not only into how we as a culture view death but how children take that viewpoint in. Caitlin takes real-life questions from very much real-life, squirming children and answers them from the perspective of a death industry insider.
Questions like the titular “Will my cat eat my eyeballs” to “Can I be buried in the same grave as my hamster” are answered at length. These questions find an amusing friend in the illustrations by Dianné Ruz. My favorite question had to be “Will I poop when I die” though the most interesting to me had to be “Do conjoined twins always die at the same time”. You’ll just have to read the book to find out the answers!
All in all, I recommend giving it a read. Go check it out from your local library, pick up an audiobook on Audible (with Caitlin’s code ‘mortician’!), or grab it from your nearest and dearest bookstore! Also please check out the Ask A Mortician Youtube channel and Death in the Afternoon! You can even go to the Order of the Good Death’s website to join the movement! I know, after diving deeper into what the death positivity movement is all about, I did! I may do a piece on the Order itself and their tenets, so if that’s something you would be interested in, let me know down below in the comments!
Little Journeys Everywhere 