A sense of calling . . .
From 2010-2014, I had the privilege of being the primary caregiver for my parents. In this time, it was my honor to be their companion during their process of living with and treating a terminal diagnosis, then eventually dying of it.
People would often talk about what I gave to my parents during those four years, though in my perspective:
Their gifts to me were the most beautiful
and transformative of my life.
In 2014, my mother, father, grandmother, and uncle died
all within five months of each other.
I'd started working as a hospice volunteer 13 years prior, though it was my parents' deaths and the way they lived their lives in the face of it, that has been my greatest teacher and inspiration for this work.
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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 it 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 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 mother, Leslie, and me. A week before her death. .
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.
The more we confront our fears of death,
the more vibrant our experience of life.
My Training:
I have been involved with death care since I first trained as a hospice volunteer more than 20 years ago. In addition to my hospice work, I have studied with Final Passages Conscious Dying and Home Funeral Guide Institute and The Living Dying Project. My studies with Martin Prechtel and as a four-year scholar in Stephen Jenkinson's Orphan Wisdom School have deeply informed my work. For the past five years I have worked alongside Peg Lorenz, home funeral guide, as a member of Peaceful Passage at Home. As a founding member of the conscious dying group, Threshold Care, and as a collaborator at Peaceful Passage at Home, I have the privilege of working alongside some downright amazing women in the realms of death midwifery, home funerals, and green burial.
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.
With love,
Kristen
Kristen Fumarola
Home Funeral Guide, Death Midwife,
Green Burial Advocate, Caregiver Coach