I'm making less money now than I used to - ceremonial work is tricky to price and I'm spending much of my time as an unpaid organizer of PDX Death Cafe and Death:OK. But that doesn't make me any less inclined to support important, innovative projects that inspire me. 

I've written before about former zookeeper Kristin Zabawa's beautiful photos of people and their animal kin. Now I'm proud to support her IndieGoGo campaign to bring these "Soul Sessions" to anyone whose pet is dying, free of charge.

Equally heartfelt is Alison Perry's drive to create a hospice for veterans in Central Oregon on a working ranch that also provides skills and community for younger vets who are struggling. I've donated in honor of Vietnam Vet Tom Norton, who has done so much for so many in our community, including other vets.

Alongside these human-scale projects that offer solace through personal connection is a more ambitious enterprise that seeks to change the way we die in our cities. The Urban Death Project is creating a model facility that allows us to compost our bodies. I love that they view death as "momentous, miraculous, and mysterious," that they recognize that "the cycles of nature help us grieve and heal," and that they uphold the vision that "our bodies are full of life-giving potential". All that, and they've placed ceremony at the heart of their design.

Please check out these great projects, and consider supporting them and sharing with others. Click on each image to learn more.

I'm pleased to share this excellent account The Oregonian's Jamie Hale wrote of his experience attending a PDX Death Cafe. 

Let's talk about death: PDX Death Café wants to change the conversation around dying
by Jamie Hale, April 6, 2015

I can vaguely remember the church where his body lay, hidden away in a casket by the altar. I don't remember it being a big ceremony, just a gathering of people who knew him, some standing stoically, others wiping tears from their cheeks. My grandfather was 79 when he died of lung cancer. I was 7.

I hardly knew the man. He lived in Texas and we lived in Oregon. I met him maybe twice in my life, but still his death hit me hard. He was gone. Forever. I never really met him and I never really would. It was all so devastatingly permanent. My childhood mind could hardly comprehend it, but I mourned just the same, a hollow sorrow boring into my chest.

That's the power death holds. It slips the deceased swiftly away, leaving a cruel chill over the survivors, rightly robbing us of our sense of immortality. It's a reminder that one day, perhaps without warning, we too will be lifeless in that casket, and our grandchildren, who we may hardly know, will sob uncontrollably at the back of the room too.

We don't like to talk about the end of our lives, for fear that it might stop us from actually living them. But there's a growing movement in the country that sees it another way, a group that finds a sort of freedom in the acceptance of finality. Here, in Portland, they gather for tea and conversation, gatherings they call the PDX Death Café.

Let's Talk About Death

I decided to attend the most recent café on the Saturday before Easter, and despite the holiday weekend, a crowd of more than 35 showed up, including nearly a dozen people to facilitate the conversations. We didn't meet in an actual café (although organizers told me they often do) instead congregating at The Dougy Center in southeast Portland, a community organization that helps kids and families grieve.

But these events aren't meant to be grief counseling, Death Café organizer Holly Pruett told me before it began. They're an opportunity to talk openly about death without stigma, ideology or conflict, gaining fresh perspectives and growing in the process. Everyone agrees to be respectful and pledges confidentiality -- what happens in the group stays in the group.

That last part put me, a journalist covering the event, in an uncomfortable spot. Before I go on, I'd like to note that everybody in my group of seven gave permission to share our experience, so long as I don't use names or obvious descriptors. It's not like there were any secrets being told, but as it turns out, a discussion about death can get very personal very fast.

Our facilitator, a kind woman with a calm demeanor, asked us each to share a death that was particularly meaningful. As we went around the table we heard stories of friends, mothers, fathers, brothers, husbands and spiritual leaders. The stories of the deaths were powerful, but they were just jumping off points, meant to take us into uncharted waters within ourselves and with each other.

One older woman explained the feeling she had after her brother died. It was like a dark hole in her chest, she said, but in a moment she felt a sense of freedom for her brother, and in turn freedom for herself.

Across the table a mother of four explained how the loss of her husband tore her apart. Her family suffered greatly, but the real shock came when her extended family and friends turned away, she said. They didn't know what to say, and quite frankly, all the grieving made them uncomfortable.

There's a stigma around death, a man in the group suggested. There's this notion that dying is a failure.

But, of course, we all die, another piped up. We all fail eventually. Why not re-frame our thinking to see death as inevitable, and actually prepare ourselves and our families for the big day?

Fighting the Fear of Dying

It's a tricky subject. As our group discussed, not everybody wants to talk about death. One woman said she tried to talk to her father about it as he was sick in the hospital, but he refused. He just wasn't ready, he told her. He didn't want to think about it.

You have to respect that decision, but these Death Cafés (nearly 2,000 have taken place, all around the world) were founded with the goal of creating a less "death phobic world," Pruett told me.

"People just find it so useful, (hearing) what's on other people's minds about death and hearing other perspectives," she said. "We should bring discussion about death into the public square."

Two years ago she and her fellow organizers did just that, bringing the international Death Café model to Portland, immediately attracting big crowds. At the very first event 100 people showed up, a number that has remained more or less consistent ever since.

The attraction has left them hopeful that people are ready to be open about death, and can be vulnerable with each other about such a sensitive subject. Still, Pruett said there's a long way to go before discussion about death and grief is normalized in our larger society.

It's strange that something so common can seem so uncomfortable. Death is an experience we all share, yet we're hesitant to talk to even our own parents about it. Many in our group admitted that it was easier talking with strangers than with our families. It's understandably a sad subject, but what if talking about it freed us from the sadness?

I asked Pruett the maddeningly simple question, the one that stops us from having these kinds of conversations all the time: Why is it important that we talk about death? She smiled, and replied without missing a beat. "Because generally we don't."

The PDX Death Cafés are open to all who are interested. The next events will be on June 7 and June 16. Go to the group's Facebook page or email [email protected] for more information.

Last month, on March 7th, my old friend Mark Petteys would have turned 53. We share the same birth vintage: 1962. But Mark died in his sleep five months shy of turning 50. His death was unexpected, but his health hadn't been good. 

Mark had often told his beloved wife Phyllis, "If I die, pack me on ice and take me to the Petteys pioneer cemetery in Ione, Oregon." 

As Phyllis says, "It turns out it's more complicated than that." But with the help of friends, she made it happen. This is their story.

*          *          *

I met Mark at Reed College. A few years later Phyllis arrived on the scene. I'm pretty sure it was love at first sight for the two of them. Mark had been something of a child prodigy bluegrass banjo player; he was on a first name basis with the greats like Bill Monroe. Mark's talent was matched by a formidable mind. Their son Guthrie was born in Boise in 1991 while Mark was getting his Master’s in Geophysics. As Phyllis recalled in his death announcement: 

"Mark was fascinated with science— he studied physics, math, chemistry, geology, geophysics, hydrogeology—and was always sharing his insights with us. He was also a serious fisherman and fearless whitewater rafter. He was an incredible father, playing chess with Guthrie instead of Candyland, and taking him rock hounding, fishing and rafting at an early age. And of course, Mark was a creative banjo and guitar player who thought about music constantly. As I write this I’m listening to Guthrie play Ruby My Dear on the piano, and I know that this love and curiosity lives on in his son."

When Phyllis awoke that dreadful morning to find that Mark had taken his last breath in the night, there was one thing she knew for sure. She wasn't going to let the funeral home rush him away. He laid on their bed most of the day - "a little weird" Phyllis knows some might think, but "believe it or not, I found helpful, even as I look back."

I got a call from a mutual friend and started phoning around for dry ice - not easy to find during a prime Halloween haunted house weekend. (I've since acquired some Techni ice to have on hand.) Fortunately, other friends located a funeral home willing to do the bare minimum for the family. The funeral home eventually moved Mark into their refrigeration unit, provided a simple wooden tray for Mark's body to lie on in transit, and even suggested that he could be shrouded in a sheet signed by all his friends.

In the meantime, Phyllis was making arrangements with the manager of the pioneer cemetery that bears Mark's family name, in the eastern Oregon town of Ione. Despite the fact that the original occupants of the cemetery were surely buried unembalmed, without a concrete burial vault, the concept of a green burial was by now against cemetery policy. Phyllis told them, "Too bad, that's what we're doing."

Four days after Mark's death, Phyllis and friends loaded him into "Pete," a 1962 Chevy Suburban that had taken them on many a camping excursion over the prior 28 years. It was, Phyllis says, "a perfect hearse for Mark's last ride."

Many carloads of friends and family joined the procession down the Gorge and through Eastern Oregon. They gathered around Mark at the cemetery, on top of a hill over looking wheat fields. Friends offered remembrances. Phyllis reports, "Joey McKenzie, Peter Schwimmer and Brian Oberlin shredded several tunes—including How High the Moon (which Mark often puzzled over) as Mark was lowered into a 6 foot hole. Friends and family placed thunder eggs and obsidian, or other mementos. My brother-in-law, Vern, sang Brokedown Palace with Peter on banjo as friends filled the hole. Towards the end we were able to laugh and tell each other Mark stories."

Since his burial, Phyllis has visited Mark's gravesite a number of times. "We spent the night in the cemetery with Mark a few weeks ago on the way to Weiser," Phyllis wrote me when she shared this great photo. 

That's Phyllis on the right; in the background, "Re-Pete," the replacement for the original Suburban, crushed in a windstorm just months after Mark's death. On Mark's headstone, the lyrics:

Somewhere there’s music
How faint the tune
Somewhere there’s heaven
How high the moon.