Our values in life can be our values in death

Many of my clients place a high value on environmental stewardship and sustainability. Before we even meet, some clients have a solid vision of how they want to be remembered and memorialized, and how they want their bodies to be handled after death. Other clients are especially curious about options that might be more in line with their values. I strive to always meet my clients where they are, and I of course support their choices without regard to whether those choices would be ones I would make for myself or my own loved ones.

I hope you will enjoy this article recently published by the Smithsonian’s Folklife Magazine, titled “The Potential of Our Decay: Cemeteries That Save the American Landscape.” It includes a conversation with Amy Henricksen, the project coordinator and cemetery steward of the Kokosing Nature Preserve, a conservation burial ground in Gambier, Ohio. It sits on land that became dear to my heart in my younger days at Kenyon College, where my friends and I would wade and hike along the river banks on account of having to create our own “nightlife” in a college town with a population of 2000.

When my clients share with me their wishes for final arrangements, my goal is to be able to share information about all available options so that my client feels confident they’re choosing what’s best for them. It is important to me that I connect them with a funeral director or home funeral guide who will strive to meet their individual needs. I’m thrilled that green burial has become an accessible option for my clients in Columbus and all of Central Ohio! Below is a snippet from the article. More here.

People who choose to be buried here are often committed to conservation, environmentalism, or are attached to this particular landscape, Henricksen told us, but there’s no “typical” service. One man felt ready to move on surreptitiously, without a headstone, convinced that no one would visit him. Another man’s grandchildren serenaded him with kazoos, humming the lullabies he once sang them. Other families throw big parties, drink bourbon, sing John Prine songs, and string prayer flags between the trees. Like each person, each burial is unique.

Families often tell Henricksen how the land helps them grieve. “Those who return to visit are moved by the sense that they can feel their loved one’s presence,” she explained. “It’s in the flowers, the trees, the birds, the butterflies, and the dragonflies.” When I die, this is the kind of place I want my body to go. The kind of place I want to be alive for those I love.

A picture I took at the Kokosing Nature Preserve in 2019.