What we talk about, or not, when talking about death

Death is a guarantee for everyone, so why do people shy away from talking about it and using words like death and dying?

The Gentle Passage Doula Collective is an organization that supports and trains death doulas across the Puget Sound region who provide end-of-life care to individuals and families. As a death doula and grief coach, co-founder Kathleen Putnam hopes that providing care to those who are grieving can help change the language surrounding death.

“We have a culture that shuts down when you talk about death and dying,” Putnam said. “I mean, people really make faces when they find out I’m a death doula.”

Putnam explains that in present society, people want to avoid grief and pain. With medical advancements and industries and marketing systems focusing on keeping people alive, the rhetoric surrounding dying has become negative. Putnam also pointed out that instead of using phrases like “they died” or “they’re dying,” other phrases like “pass away” and “they went to sleep” have become popular when talking about a loss.

Changing the attitude about death will take more than changing the phrases — it will also take conversations with those who have experienced loss. Pine Lake Covenant Ministry in Sammamish and Timberlake Church in Redmond are organizations that have made steps in the direction of being spaces where death and loss can be talked about.

Pine Lake Covenant Ministry has been partnered with Stephen Ministry since 2002. Stephen Ministry provides one-on-one care for individuals in the community who need to talk about loss. Whether the loss is a job or a loved one, Stephen Ministry provides emotional and spiritual support to someone regardless of their faith background.

“I think it’s not OK to admit we’re struggling with the loss sometimes,” said Debbie Butler, part of the leadership team for Stephen Ministry at the church. “It needs to be talked about in the open.”

Timberlake Church’s leadership gave death a literal space at their Empty Chair Service this last December. The holidays can be a difficult time when one is grieving, so Pastor Dave Nelson wanted to create a gathering where people can acknowledge their loss in a space of love and compassion. It was the first time the church provided the Empty Chair Service, but will not be the last.

According to Care Pastor Kevin Vander Weide, more than 220 people attended the service. When people RSVP’d, not only were people able to reserve an empty chair for their loved ones, but they were also able to submit a photo of the one they lost.

“It was really healing for people,” Vander Weide said. “It was for the living, but it honored those who had passed.”

Human composting and more

When people think about disposing of human remains, typical options that come to mind are cremation and conventional burial.

The reality is that there are a variety of options that people can learn about — only if they are talked about. Brian Flowers of Wildflower Funeral Concepts in Ferndale believes that people care about what happens to their body more than they wish to let on.

“I’ve heard people say on many occasions, ‘I don’t care what you do with my body after I die, I’m dead. I don’t care,’” Flowers said. “I think we do care. I think we care deeply.”

Flowers’ business not only provides cremation, but also aquamation and terramation services, which are more eco-friendly than cremation and conventional burial, and commonly referred to as human composting. Seeing the way that the human body can contribute to the health of the planet through human composting, Flowers hopes that it can bring people “a huge sense of peace knowing that what happens to their body is going to be in line with their values.”

“Death and dying are often shunned or considered sensitive topics in our culture in my opinion because as a society, we tend to focus on youth, productivity and longevity, which can make conversations about mortality feel like an interruption to those ideals,” said Nicole Streinberg, director of outreach at Return Home, a green funeral home in Auburn focused on human composting.

According to Streinberg, “terramation directly contributes to the cycle of life by transforming human remains into nutrient-rich soil, which can be used to support new plant growth and restore ecosystems. Cremation results in carbon emissions and offers no restorative benefit, where traditional burial often uses land and resources without offering anything back.”

For the soil that families do not wish to spread elsewhere, Return Home places the soil in The Woodland, which is in Kent along the Soos Creek Trail. A memorial bench overlooks the area that reads, “In honor of those who have returned home.”

Families are encouraged to walk the trail and see the natural beauty that the soil has helped provide. Streinberg hopes that by fostering compassionate and open conversations about death, they can “bring light to the end-of-life process and show that death is a natural part of life.”