It’s Your Choice

There are millions of choices we make as we go about living. Some are smart, some are dumb, and some are just rolling the dice and taking a chance.

The way I make decisions would cause crippling anxiety in most, but I have a high tolerance for risk, and am confident in my ability to weather a poor choice. Do I judge others for the decisions they make or don't make in life? Absolutely. Should I? No, because it's not nice to judge people, but more importantly because everyone is on their own journey with their own lessons.

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I am, however, very open when it comes to how people choose to die. I aspire to be as open to how they live.

Unless you get to have a sudden death, you're more likely to deal with doctors and procedures and medication and treatments. These are all choices not mandates. I have witnessed deaths of people who chose no intervention, those who chose experimental options, those who want second and third options after the one prior has failed, and those who have chosen to fight with nutrition and a shaman. With each one, they always faced judgment and well-meaning opinions of friends and family. Know that this is the least helpful thing you can do for someone who is making these decisions.

I find these choices fascinating and find it rather easy to get behind a person, no matter what their choice is. That's a gift I was born with—and one I wish others would work to get better at.

Everyone will die. Doctors and the medical profession teach and operate with the idea that saving a life is success and dying is failure. They are free to do that, but it doesn't make it automatically true for every person they treat. We all have the choice to treat or not treat.

Right now as a healthy person, I don't wish to pursue treatment for cancer should I get it but I also know I could change my mind if I were actually facing it. That's realistic. If I lose consciousness and slip into a coma, I don't want to be kept alive. I don't want to live without independence. What is it for you? What's that line? Think about it. Share it with your important people.

It's not a choice forever, it's just a choice for today. You can make a new choice tomorrow. That's something I remind myself, when I'm facing complex decisions. For me, it removes a lot of pressure.

How Much Does a Funeral Cost?

I was shocked to learn that most funeral homes are owned by handful of corporations. It seems that's happened in every industry and line of business, so I don't know why I was surprised. I just figured that some things might have managed to remain sacred. I was wrong.

Privately-owned funeral homes are getting bought out left and right. Like how Walmart picked off the Mom and Pops and Amazon picked off everyone else.

With these corporate-owned guys, your body will have at least eight touch points: the pick-up people, casket/urn people, flowers people, makeup people, service people, etc. And they all have quotas. Like car salesmen, but for dead people.

You’ll sit down and they have you imagine the greatest sendoff you could give your mom, and by the time you're done in imaginary land you've created a $50,000 funeral. So you start to scale back, but with guilt, because you imagined a Rolls-Royce but realistically you have the budget for a gently-used Buick. It's awful because you're also in deep grief.

This is a major purchase and a very big decision. You wouldn't purchase a car or house in this emotional state. But here, you’re supposed to. If you decide to go this route, I think it’s smart to bring someone along who is unattached, and can keep you grounded.

Doulas can guide you through this part, but we aren’t licensed funeral directors, and we aren’t morticians. We can listen to what you want, and point you to the right people to make that happen.

You know what though? It's also not a race. The person has already died. You can slow down. You can take your time. Doulas can help with this part, too. It helps if these things have been thought out before, but most times they haven't. That's okay.

There are so many options when it comes to body disposition (what to do with the body), casket/urn/container, body/organ donation, service/celebration of life/party. And none of it needs to break the bank to be beautiful.

As of 2024 in Austin a direct cremation can be anywhere from $595-$4210, depending on which funeral home you use. In the end, you still receive ashes.

I continue to educate myself in this area to be as helpful as I can to any person facing the end of their life or any family or friends who are navigating the aftermath. If I don't know the answer to a question, I will find it. There are funeral homes and morticians I can personally vouch for in Central Texas. We don't pay each other referral fees—it comes from a pure place of only wishing to deal with the most ethical people in this business.

Ask me questions, y'all. What do you want to know more about? If you've been in the position of handling the affairs of someone you loved, who died, what do you wish you had known?

The Space Where Truth Lives

I'd become increasingly discontent with my work in the creative field, but "What the hell else am I going to do?" loomed large. There was nothing else I felt drawn to as a career, and going back to school was out of the question. Because it would cost money and because any other fields of study seemed to require actual studying, class attendance, taking tests, and writing papers. I can possibly do those things exactly once if a gun were put to my head. But my ADHD would rather not.

One weekday in January of 2023, I was scrolling through Facebook, and I read a post from a high school classmate that stopped me and stood me still. His sister, who was only a year older than us, had written a post saying that she had just been diagnosed with a rare and brutal stomach cancer, Stage 4, and that she wouldn't be doing any treatment.

There was no cure and she didn't want to spend the rest of her life undergoing what horrible options were available. She mentioned spending her time learning about art and how to make a charcuterie plate, and she asked that people respect her decision and that nobody reach out to her about any alternative therapies or methods that would allegedly prolong her life. You could pray for her if you wanted, but that was it. She had decided to accept death and to go on her terms.

Badass.

That's all I could think. Badass. I'd never read or heard anything quite like that. My second thought was I should reach out and go paint with her, but then my third thought was "That's dumb. Am I supposed to be like, 'Hey, remember when we were in biology together in high school? Do you want to paint with me as you're dying?'" So I didn't. I just kept thinking about it.

When I finally got up the guts to ask, I first asked her brother if he thought she'd be down to paint, but it was too late. "That's so sweet of you Sarah, but she's near to Jesus now." She had slipped into unconsciousness the day before, and died a couple of days later.

Damn.

Never question those ideas that come into your mind, no matter how dumb they sound. If you're coming from a sincere place, the worst thing that can happen is that they say, "No thanks" and there's nothing harmful about "No thanks."

I didn't flog myself for this missed opportunity. That, too, is a waste. Instead I applied to be a volunteer with Hospice Austin and went through training a few months later. Out of a room of maybe 20 volunteers, most were there to give back because Hospice Austin had provided such incredible service to their family member. There were probably only a couple of us who were there because we genuinely loved being with people who were sick or dying. I don't just love it, it actually makes me feel happy and wide-open and alive. I know that people like us are incredibly rare.

All while growing up and continuing into adulthood, I have gravitated toward nursing homes and hospitals and funerals. The conversations I've had in those spaces have been deeply impactful – very raw and very vulnerable. It's the space where truth lives. I know visits are so important to people in those places but I feel equally rewarded. If you're pursuing treatment or not pursuing treatment, if you believe in a God or don't, if you were kind of an asshole in middle school when I didn't even know you or you weren't – none of that matters to me. Your life matters, you are an interesting person, and you have a story to tell.

This is how I'm using my creativity now. To help people navigate the end of this life in a way that empowers them and honors their wishes and helps them tie up loose ends, so that they may be able to go peacefully.