Practical Support
A sense of calling . . .
I have been drawn to this work for most of my life.
As a teenager, I skipped school and took a train into Cambridge to hear Elisabeth Kübler-Ross speak about death at Harvard University. Inspired by that experience, I trained as a hospice volunteer in my early twenties, beginning a lifelong engagement with death care. Since then, I have studied with Final Passages: Conscious Dying, the Home Funeral Guide Institute, and The Living/Dying Project. My studies with Martin Prechtel and as a scholar at Stephen Jenkinson’s Orphan Wisdom School have further shaped my work, particularly my understanding of cultural capacities for death and grieving.
I went on to apprentice for five years with Home Funeral Guide Peg Lorenz through Peaceful Passage at Home, and co-founded the New England-based group Threshold Care with Deana Darby.
But honestly, nothing was as instructive as being caregiver to my parents. For four years, it was my honor to be their companion during their process of living with and treating a terminal diagnosis.
Then, in 2014, my mother, father, grandmother, and uncle
all died within five months of each other.
It was like an initiation of sorts.
There were times when I didn't know the way through.
Yet their gifts to me during this time
were the most utterly beautiful
and transformative of my life.
.
As a culture, we are generally not prepared for death
Not emotionally, not spiritually, and not practically. We are afraid.
We do have a sense that we will someday die, yes. But we don't seem to know it in our bones. Many of us have yet to witness the slow act of dying in someone we love, the loving and attentive care of our dead, or family-led funerary customs in the same way that our great grandparents might have performed them, and generations before. And so we leave the preparations for death to some other day, some other time in the future, down the road.... which is of course when we also intend to die.
The reality is, death can happen anytime and almost always too soon. The trouble with not taking time to contemplate it now, to actively imagining how we'd like it to go, to integrating into our minds and hearts that it is indeed a reality - is that when death does come we are ill-prepared, to say the least. We are often in a state of shock.
We aren't familiar with what is happening to the body, so that scares us. We don't know what our options are, both during our time of dying and for the honoring of our deaths afterward.
And what happens when we are ill-prepared, when we are in shock, when we are heartbroken and still we need to make decisions? We put it into the hands of someone else. And we risk missing one of the most sacred, mysterious, and deeply instructive parts of being human.
My intention, my calling, is to help take some of the fear and unknowns out of the dying process and to encourage an acceptance of death in our everyday lives... so that when we meet it, we are more able to be fully present.
A deep and curious presence with the time of dying enables us:
~ To be better caregivers to our loved ones
~ To approach our own deaths with less fear
~ And to be more open to the incredible, unexpected teachings that death offers.
My mother, Leslie, and me. A week before her death.
The more we confront our fears of death, the more vibrant our experience of life.
May this site be a source of inspiration, education, and comfort.
I would love to hear from you and invite you to reach out with questions, comments, or to work with me.
All love,
Kristen
Kristen Fumarola
Home Funeral Guide, Death Midwife,
Green Burial Advocate, Caregiver Coach