PO Box 1238, Crestone, CO 81131 | informedfinalchoices@gmail.com
While there are numerous books and videos on the subject of end-of-life issues, IFC volunteers have compiled a list of those they find particularly useful. This list, ordered by topic area, will build over time.
Advance Directives | Aging | Cancer, Living and Dying with | Caregiving |Children, and Death | Covid-19 | Cremation | Deathbed Dreams and Visions | Deathbed Weddings | Death Planning | Dementia | Doulas (End of Life Midwifery) | Funerals |Film and Video | Green Alternatives | Grief | Home Death | Hospice | Life Transitions | Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) | Medical Workers and Death | Nature| Poetry |Positive Death Movement | Protracted Dying | Race and Grief | Spirituality | Terminal Lucidity | Timing One’s Own Death | Veterans
Advance Directives
The Postmortem Password Problem
‘Death Doulas’ Provide Aid at the End of Life
The Postmortem Password Problem
When Patients Choose to End Their Lives
Stay in Control of Your Life and Care During a Dementia Diagnosis
National POLST honoring patients’ treatment preferences using a portable medical order.
End of Life Choices NY
Aggressive Advance Directive Permits Halting Food and Water in Severe Dementia
Your Right to Make Healthcare Decisions at www.ColoradoAdvanceDirectives.com.
A book: A Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America
Aging
When Life Throws You Curveballs
Vietnam Veterans Age
Cancer, Living and Dying with
A Psychedelics Pioneer Takes the Ultimate Trip (NYT Article on Roland Griffiths’ stage 4 cancer diagnosis
Surviving Cancer or just Survivors. First Descents marks 20th year of healing with outdoor adventure
Death Comes: An Oncology Nurse Finds Solace in Mary Oliver
My Father’s Passport
Cancer Treatment at End of Life
When Opposites Attract, for Life
What to Say When You Meet the Angel of Death at a Party
What I Learned Photographing Death
Dying: A Memoir, by Cory Taylor.
When Breath Becomes Air
Mortality: by Christopher Hitchens. Funny.
Lady Ganga: Nilza’s Story
Caregiving
Nothing Could Prepare Me for Watching My Wife Slip Away
How to be a Caregiver
A Guide to Understanding and Coping with Compassion Fatigue
When Opposites Attract, for Life
The Prisoners who care for the Dying and Get another chance at life
Children and Death
Talking to Your Kids About Grief Is Painful. And You Have to Do It.
Parenting Through Terminal Illness
What I Learned Photographing Death
I Could Face My Own Mortality, but My Son’s Was Another Story
Cry, Heart, But Never Break: A Remarkable Illustrated Meditation on Loss and Life, Glen Ringtved (author), Charlotte Pardi (illustrator) Published in February 2016, this is a great children’s book about making sense of death.
The Japanese Art of Grieving a Miscarriage by Angela Elson.
The Modern Love Podcast: Sterling K. Brown reads ‘My First Son, a Pure Memory’
Dying in Your Mother’s Arms
Covid and Death
A Doctor’s Advice
Thanking COVID workers
There Is No Vaccine for Grief, But there are ways to prepare to face it.
What Is Death? How the pandemic is changing our understanding of mortality
How to Hold a Virtual Memorial Service
I’m A Doctor In A COVID-19 Unit. Here’s One Vital Step I Wish Everyone Would Take.
Mourning in Place, by Edwidge Danticat
Naming the Lost Memorials
The Particular Pain of Pandemic Grief
Feeling Stuck? Five Tips for Managing Life Transitions.
Revised COVID Restrictions Affect CEOLP Cremation Ceremonies
We, Will, Need New Ways to Grieve
‘We’re Going to See What Else the Word Funeral Can Mean’ – The New York Times
My Grandmother’s Last Days Were in Our Living Room
Boom Time for Death Planning
Do Not Resuscitate
Do You Want to Die in an I.C.U.? – The New York Times
Crestone Covid-19 from the May issue of the Crestone Eagle.
Covid or No Covid, It’s Important to Plan – The New York Times
Cremation
The stunning rise of cremation reveals America’s changing idea of death
Burning Out: What Really Happens Inside a Crematorium
An Alternative to Burial and Cremation Gains Popularity
Open Air, a documentary on the Crestone End of Life Projects open-air cremation site by Adam Sekular
Deathbed Dreams and Visions
It Exists – A message from Har-I
A New Vision for Dreams of the Dying
At The End Of Her Life, My Mother Started Seeing Ghosts, And It Freaked Me Out
Deathbed Weddings
Making a Judgment on Love: When the deathbed and wedding day are one and the same, a judge with a heart makes a call for love.
Death Planning
The Postmortem Password Problem
Boom Time for Death Planning
Do Not Resuscitate
Do You Want to Die in an I.C.U.? – The New York Times
Covid or No Covid, It’s Important to Plan – The New York Times
‘I was completely unprepared
I’m Going to Die. I May as Well Be Cheerful About It.
Diagnosed with dementia, she documented her wishes for the end. Then her retirement home said no.
What happens to your online accounts when you die?
Preparing for a Good End of Life
To Live and Die in Paris
A Dress Rehearsal for Our Deaths: Yom Kippur asks us to look at our mortality in the face.
Write Your Own Obit
Swedish death cleaning is the new decluttering trend
Hoyahey, Today is a Good Day by Aliyah Alexander, a Crestone, Colorado resident.
Why millennials are the “death positive” generation
Speaking of Dying: A film About Compassionate Dying
My Brother Died and Reminded Me of These Life Lessons
Dementia
Photographing the Beauty of My Mother’s Decline – The New York Times
Diagnosed with dementia
Out of Time: The un-becoming of self
Doulas (End of Life Midwifery)
How do you want to die? Society doesn’t often talk about dying, but an end-of-life doula in Durango says we should. By Reuben Schafir Durango Herald Staff Writer
A Conversation About “A Good Death” (Here’s the replay),(“Many members of Sayin’ It Louder panel have teamed back up to create an online course”)
‘Death Doulas’ Provide Aid at the End of Life
End-of-life doulas: the professionals who guide the dying
The Positive Death Movement Comes to Life
A beautiful 8-minute video about death doula Alua Arthur, who helps people prepare for death physically, mentally, and spiritually./
Film, Video, and Podcast
Zen Hospice documentary.
A moving documentary on Palliative Care teams serving terminal patients and their families at UC San Francisco Hospital and the Zen Hospice, under the active direction of BJ Miller.
The First Thing to do When Someone DiesRhiannon Giddens performs “Calling Me Home” with Francesco Turrisi, from their album ‘They’re Calling Me Home,’ due April 9 on Nonesuch Records
It Exists – A message from Har-I
CEOLP and End of Life Issues Featured in New HBO Films In mid-August, two films related to end-of-life issues, directed and produced by Perri Peltz and Matthew O’Neill (of HBO’s “Axios”), were released by HBO Documentaries. The Crestone End of Life Project and the late Aliyah Alexander are the subject of the short (13-minute) documentary, Funeral Pyre, an on-demand release for subscribers Alternate Endings (1 hr. 8 min.) can be streamed on demand for subscribers until Sept. 18, 2019 from HBO’s website. It will be aired on television on these dates: Fri. Sep 13 at 12:45 am (Mountain Time) on HBO2; Fri., Sep 27 at 1:22 am MT on HBO LATINO; and Fri., Sep 27 at 1:25 am MT on HBO.
A beautiful 8-minute video about death doula Alua Arthur, who helps people prepare for death physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Open Air, a film by Adam Sekuler about a CEOLP cremation.
At the only open-air cremation site in the United States, encircled by mountains, a torch is lit at the altar surrounded by ninety people, a family lights the fire that consumes their loved one’s body, sending billows of smoke into the blue sky of dawn. This twenty-minute video depicts Crestone’s open air cremations. Click to Purchase Open Air
PHOTOGRAPHS AND SLIDESHOW OF CEOLP CREMATION CEREMONIES
Available from Rodney Volkmar, rvolkmar@gmail.com.
Crestone resident Rodney Volkmar has created a moving series of photographs that portray the cremation ceremonies of two close friends.
Please contact Rodney for more information or authorized permission to use these images.
Slideshow of open-air Cremation in Crestone Colorado 2014 by Rodney Volkmar
The Transition, 2002 passing and open-air cremation of Laverne Howell by Rodney Volkmar
Funerals
How ‘Big Funeral’ Made the Afterlife So Expensive
How to Hold a Virtual Memorial Service
The funeral as we know it is becoming a relic — just in time for a death boom
What Do We Do with Our Dead?
Caring for the Dead: Your Final Act of Love
Feeling bereaved and on a tight schedule? Drive-Thru Funerals Are Now a Thing in Japan
As Funeral Crowdfunding Grows, So Do the Risks
‘We’re Going to See What Else the Word Funeral Can Mean’
A Family Undertaking, a documentary of a family-directed home funeral.
Green Alternatives
Dying to be green: Are mushroom coffins the secret to an eco-friendly death? CNN Article from November 21, 2021
Colorado’s first conservation cemetery, Colorado Burial Preserve, is being established in Florence, Colorado. The opening ceremony will be held March 20, 2022. Visit their website for more information.
Protecting, Conserving, and Enhancing the Unique Kansas Landscape.
Heart Land Prairie Cemetery
What is green burial? (And why it matters.)Renewing Burial Traditions CRESTONE 020922
‘Green burials’ can change our relationship with death — and help the Earth
Leave the earth, better: Your final resting place can be a private tree in a beautiful, protected memorial forest.
Be a Tree; the Natural Burial Guide for Turning Yourself into a Forest
How ‘Big Funeral’ Made the Afterlife So Expensive, The elegant science of turning cadavers into compost
Recompose, the first human-composting funeral home in the U.S., is now open for business
The Environmental Toll of Cremating the Dead
Choosing Cremation, Rest Me in a Pine Box and Let the Fiddle Play
Natural Path Sanctuary Visit www.naturalpathsanctuary.org for information about the natural burial grounds/green cemetery located in the nature preserve.
Tennessee Natural Burial Ground Will Offer a Simpler Farewell through the Nature Conservancy.
Green Burials: At the End of Life, Thinking Outside the Coffin
Grave Matters
Washington becomes first state to make human composting legal
Woven coffins and not-for-profit funerals: Breathing new life into the death trade
A biodegradable burial pod turns your body into a tree
From flat-pack coffins to water cremation: How to have an eco-friendly death
Grief
What if There’s No Such Thing as Closure?
Speaking Grief validates the experience of grievers and guides those wishing to support them.
Refuge in Grief: Grief Support That Doesn’t Suck – Megan Devine
Where Do the Dead Go in Our Imaginations? My friend was gone. I needed to do something to honor the person she was.
There Is No Vaccine for Grief, But there are ways to prepare to face it.
The Particular Pain of Pandemic Grief
We Will Need New Ways to Grieve
Mourning in Place, by Edwidge Danticat
There Are No Five Stages of Grief
How to Speak Grief
The Year of Magical Thinking: by Joan Didion.
The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief: by Francis Weller.
Grief Walker documents the work of Stephen Jenkinson with the dying.
Home Death
A Beautiful Death By Rosie Eastman
A palliative care physician struggles with the complex realities of dying at home.
Most people want to die at home, but many land in hospitals getting unwanted care.
One Last Visit to See My Patient.
My Grandmother’s Last Days Were in Our Living Room.
Kristina’s Goodbye a YouTube video
Hospice
The Role of Nurses when Patients Decide to their Lives
A palliative care physician struggles with the complex realities of dying at home.
When Opposites Attract, for Life
In Life’s Last Moments, Open a Window
Most people want to die at home, but many land in hospitals getting unwanted care
One Man’s Quest to Change the Way We Die About B.J. Miller, The New York Times
Life Transitions
Rhiannon Giddens performs “Calling Me Home” with Francesco Turrisi, from their album ‘They’re Calling Me Home,’ due April 9 on Nonesuch Records
When Death Comes: An Oncology Nurse Finds Solace in Mary Oliver
What Is Death? How the pandemic is changing our understanding of mortality
Feeling Stuck? Five Tips for Managing Life Transitions
My Grandmother’s Last Days Were in Our Living Room
My Father’s Passport
Medical Aid in Dying (MAID)
A Long Road to Relief. Aid in dying to become an end-of-life option for many, but not all.
Where Do the Dead Go in Our Imaginations? My friend was gone. I needed to do something to honor the person she was.
The State of the Medical Aid-in-Dying Debate Diane Rehm updates us in her new book, ‘When My Time Comes’
The Role of Nurses when Patients Decide to their Lives
Die like a dog: Why do we give dogs a better death than we give ourselves
Hoyahey, Today is a Good Day: A blog post by Aliyah Alexander, a Crestone, Colorado resident.
Medical Workers and Death
As a Doctor, I Know Being Ready to Die Is an Illusion (NYT Article by Dr. Sunita Puri)
When Death Comes: An Oncology Nurse Finds Solace in Mary Oliver
Being Mortal a book by Atul Gawande.
One Last Visit to See My Patient
When Breath Becomes Air
Lady Ganga: Nilza’s Story, a documentary.
What Really Matters at the End of Life.
A palliative care physician struggles with the complex realities of dying at home, and the unintended consequences of making it a societal priority.
Dr. Kathryn Mannix, a palliative care consultant and author of With The End in Mind, explains why we should all talk about dying. (a very clear, straightforward, 4-minute video.)
Nature
Burial Places Can Boost Biodiversity, Restore Ecosystems
In Life’s Last Moments, Open a Window: People often imagine hospices to be dark and dismal places where there is nothing left to experience but dying. But what dominates my work
Poetry
ANTIDOTES TO FEAR OF DEATH by Rebecca Elson
The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing and Book Of Hours
**See also the Poetry and Photography link at the bottom of the home page.
Positive Death Movement
Philip Incao’s cremation and CEOLP
The Movement to Bring Death Closer
Meet the Nun Who Wants You to Remember You Will Die
The Positive Death Movement Comes to Life
Outing Death: WeCroak
Five Invitations: What Death Can Teach About Living, by Frank Ostaseski
One Man’s Quest to Change the Way We Die: about B.J. Miller, The New York Times
Why millennials are the “death positive” generation
From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: And Other Tales from the Crematory
Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul: by Stephen Jenkinson.
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
What Really Matters at the End of Life.
A Conversation About “A Good Death” in a Racist Society.
Protracted Dying
The Symptoms of Protracted Dying
Race and Grief
My Brother Died and Reminded Me of These Life Lessons
Spirituality
Meet the Nun Who Wants You to Remember You Will Die
It Exists – A message from Har-I
Eckhart Tolle, Death and the Eternal
Terminal Lucidity
The Mystery of End-of-Life Rallies
Timing One’s Own Death
A Long Road to Relief. Aid in dying to become an end-of-life option for many, but not all.
Kristina’s Goodbye; a YouTube video