The Good Funeral Guide

We’ve not spent enough time on this blog talking about the value of psychoactive and psychedelic drugs in the treatment of the dying. Let’s start putting that right. We’re talking cannabis, here, and also LSD, MDMA (ecstacy, on the street), and  psilocybin, the fun ingredient in magic mushrooms. 

If you find yourself deeply sceptical and utterly disinclined, here are two tasters. 

Above is a talk by Marilyn Howell on how psychedelic therapy helped ease her daughter’s suffering at the end of her life.

Below is an extract from an article in the 420 Times about how a “60 something year old tea party type, a 2nd Amendment advocate, conservative, anti everything governmental, a war supporter” came around to feeding his dying wife cannabis-enhanced cookies.

If you want to delve deeper into academic research under way, go to the MAPS site. Highly recommended. Here. 

One day, this stuff may help you.  

I listened some months ago to Bob quietly lament his wife’s cancer to Ed in my office. While staring at the floor he sort of rambled unconnected ideas, randomly covering what he was thinking. “Can’t eat”, “always vomiting”, “losing weight”, “doctors know nothing”, “drugs don’t help”. He knew the end was coming and he just wanted her as comfortable as he could make her. It was one of those awkward moments where I saw in Bob a man who just needed to share his feelings and his fears. He wasn’t looking for an answer; he knew there aren’t any. It was one of those special moments when you know the man is letting you in for just a minute. Live long enough and you might be privileged to a few of these moments.

When Bob paused, Ed suggested she try marijuana. I instantly bristled. In a few words Ed espoused what benefits it might offer. Bob gave the look he always does when Ed says something he thinks is completely off the wall. I sort of
agreed with Ed’s reasoning and thought, “It couldn’t hurt”. Bob said she would never be able to smoke it. “Cookies, I’ll make her cookies,” Ed countered. “What kind does she like?”

“Toll House Chocolate Chip are her favorite” Bob said.

“I’ll make her a dozen tonight and bring them over. Where do you live?”

And so was born a 6 month long drug connection where dozens of marijuana laced cookies and brownies were purchased and delivered as part of an illicit NY drug trade between the most unlikely of partners. Every couple of weeks they would meet in the parking lot and I would watch the deal go down. It had none of the hurried nature of a typical street deal. To the uninformed all you would see is two older men greet with big grins and a hearty handshake. There was always some small talk before a few bills were held out and an oversized box of cookies under plastic wrap was handed over. Two men giving and taking and both being better for it. It was so natural.

Bob swore by them, “It’s all she will eat, I’ve had a few myself”, he said one afternoon with a cheshire grin. “It never completely eliminated the pain, it seemed to soften it”, he would later say. He did note her nausea all but stopped and she was able to maintain her weight till the end. His most telling comment was she stopped talking about her illness and impending demise. “The cookies relaxed her. She let it go and just let it come”, Bob said. “That was the biggest
blessing. It let us talk of other things; important things”.

Read the whole article here. 

Dog Funeral Celebrant as well as memorials tend to be fairly typical nowadays, as numerous individuals deal with their own domestic pets because members of the family, as well as because surrogate kids. Dog Funerals could be kept in exactly the same style because human being Funerals, such as the customer’s reminiscences from the dog, photo taking shows, dog poetry as well as dog hopes.

Even though it might appear just like a dark profession route, those who are in this particular business usually have satisfying as well as fulfilling work. Dog funerals are usually little matters, using the pet’s proprietor as well as members of the family and perhaps a few good friends existing.

The celebrant will often go the actual customers house to have an intro … The customer is actually after that permitted to spend some time using their dog prior to it’s come to their own office or even crematorium.

It is important for any Dog Funeral celebrant to get at understand a few background from the departed dog as well as regarding the kind of dog these were, as well as that they created a direct effect on the customer’s existence. The actual pet’s proprietor as well as loved ones will be able to supply these details. 

More bloggerel here. 

Here’s the beginning of a brilliant post by an American doctor, Jordan Grumet, who blogs over at  In My Humble Opinion. Do follow the link at the end and read the rest. 

Two weeks ago I told a man that he was dying. We sat together in the mid afternoon haze. Puffs of snow meandered by the hospital window and wended their way down to the ground. The sun was lost behind winter’s never ending clouds.

The tempo of my voice was steady, lacking variation in tenor and pitch. I clung to my lab coat as if I was floating outside the window and being blasted by the inclement conditions.

I waited coldly for a response. At first, he stared at me quizzically. His eyes asked so many questions but his lips remained still. He shook his head and sighed. I glanced above him at the ticking clock.

You’re wrong. It’s not my time yet!

Read the rest here. 

Pic source

From yesterday’s Independent:

The Church of England is asking its followers to give feedback on funerals and christenings in a drive to make services more popular.

A MUSIC-loving funeral director could soon be playing a key role in a national songwriting competition.

Distinguished figures like Sir Terry Wogan, ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris and Johnnie Walker may be casting a critical ear over a song penned for charity by Neil Brunton – if he can secure enough online votes.

Neil’s song, ‘Jacob Street’, is among 50 which struck a chord with Oldie Composers – “a UK-wide songwriting competition, open to the older generation, to showcase their talent and raise money for Barnardo’s”.

‘Jacob Street’ was loosely inspired by an episode at Kirkcaldy bus station, where he saw a man and a woman busking.

A couple of years later, Neil saw the man there again but the woman had gone.

“I started wondering what became of her,” he explained.

“Had she gone on to bigger and better things, while he was left at Kirkcaldy bus station?”

The 50 melodies are all up for public vote and the 20 which gather the most hits by January 7 will be judged by a panel of Radio 2 personalities.

After that, the leading four will be recorded in London by professional musicians and released on i-Tunes to benefit the charity.

Here at the GFG-Batesville Tower the toiling cadres have been listening to Neil’s song and offering their opinions, for what little they’re worth. They like its air of elegiac melancholy, reinforced by repetitive cadences. Said one, “Just the job for two o’clock in the morning after your relationship has broken down and you’ve drunk too much whisky.” Most agreed they like it very much indeed.

Other songs in the final 50 are Eyes Wide Open, Heaven’s Not So Far Away, Cry, House of Tears, Getting Away, Losing the Light and Heartbreak. It is our belief that these songs were not composed by undertakers. 

Vote for Neil now. There’s no more to it than a click. Hear his song first. Here.

Read the entire article in Fife Today here. 

From the team here at the GFG, a very happy Christmas to you!

Thank you for reading us. Thank you for telling us what you think. Thank you for helping us bring death to life. 

Have a great holiday. 

A woman shows her tattoo of La Santa Muerte (The Saint of Death), a cult figure often depicted as a skeletal grim reaper, near her altar in Tepito in Mexico City.

Source

Meet Nigel ‘The Undertaker’ Heydon, master-dartist, the one the big boys dread meeting in the first round. Why ‘Undertaker’? Because when he’s not at the oche he’s, yes,  out burying the dead. He was formerly known as ‘The Butcher’ because before he became an undertaker he was, you guessed it, a butcher. Clearly it would not have been appropriate for him to have carried this epithet forward into his new profession. 

Which other undertakers, we wonder, have achieved eminence in sport? Do let us know if you can think of any. 

Last Thursday Nigel was at it on the telly, almost causing one of his upsets:

Defending champion Adrian Lewis was given a huge scare before beating world number 46 Nigel Heydon 3-2 in the first round of the PDC World Championship.

Heydon played some superb darts to lead 2-0 in the best-of-five-sets match.

The second seed struggled to find his range but somehow got himself back into the game and scrambled to victory. [Source]

Source: Postsecret

Crowds mourning the death of Kim Jong Il in North Korea this morning. According to the Korean Central News Agency:

People from all walks of life are visiting statues of President Kim Il Sung in different parts of Pyongyang including Kim Il Sung University to express their greatest sorrow over the demise of Kim Jong Il, the father of the nation.

Tears are streaming down the cheeks of the grief-stricken people. “We can never believe that leader Kim Jong Il passed away as even shortly ago he conducted energetic activities day and night for prosperity and development of the country and the happier life of the people.

“Have we ever thought of the country without Kim Jong Il, the Korean revolution without his leadership and our life without his loving care.”

At this moment of greatest sorrow and grief, people feel as if the sky were falling down. The hearts of all of them are now filled with stronger faith in victory, optimism and solemn pledge.