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“Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard”
Kay Ryan’s “Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard” celebrates the memories we leave behindI’ve been writing this column since August, and yet I’ve never written about a local poet. That changes this week, as I’ve just discovered Kay Ryan, a current resident of Marin County. It’s shocking that I’ve only just come across her, as Ryan served as the United States Poet Laureate from 2008-2010, and was awarded…
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Grace Before Dying
Photography of the end-of-life at Louisiana State PenitentiaryThese photographs, taken at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, make up the collection Grace Before Dying, which looks at how, through hospice, volunteer inmates assert and affirm their humanity in an environment designed to isolate and punish. More than 85% of the 5,100 inmates imprisoned at the Penitentiary are expected to die there. Until this hospice…
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What is a columbarium? (Interview)
How the San Francisco Columbarium captures life and death through the cremation urn nicheEmmitt Watson has been the caretaker of the Neptune Society’s San Francisco Columbarium for over 25 years, and has gathered the stories to match the years. He has seen this unique and historic landmark through a dramatic renovation, from a crumbling relic of a bygone era into the famed destination, cultural icon and center of…
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“On Death and Dying”
The landmark text on grief: Is it still relevant?On Death and Dying remains one of the most influential American psychiatrists of the twentieth century. Her “five stages of grief” model– alternately called the “Kübler-Ross model”– is still widely used, and has gained a good deal of cultural currency. This model was originally laid out in her groundbreaking work, On Death and Dying, written…
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Aging Alone in America
In a new report to the Council on Contemporary Families for Older Americans Month, New York University researchers Eric Klinenberg, Stacy Torres, and Elena Portacolone report on the unprecedented movement of the elderly toward solo living. Here are the facts from the press release: The New News One hundred years ago, 70 percent of widows and widowers moved…
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Two Days of American Commemoration
Yesterday San Francisco celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge and today on Memorial Day, we honor our men and women who died serving the U.S.Fireworks in iPhone were closer than they appear. Yesterday the Bay Area celebrated the 75th birthday of the Golden Gate Bridge with a most spectacular display of fireworks. Typically a foggy time of year, San Francisco was blessed with a lovely clear day for the occasion. Here are a few images of the view I…
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“Funeral Blues”
W.H. Auden’s “Funeral Blues” is despondent, but genuineThough it came out in 1994, I watched Four Weddings and a Funeral for the first time last year. The movie is known for its two Academy Award nominations (Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay), and for launching Hugh Grant’s career; but what stuck with me the most (and perhaps with you, too) was the…
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A Coffin Design that Facilitates a Family’s Right to Say Goodbye
Hungarian designer Adam Miklosi has created a brilliant design that finds the ultimate balance between aesthetics and function. His LR16 Disaster Coffin addresses the need for a mass-production casket that allows for the facilitation of dignified funeral rituals. Traditionally, in the case of multiple deaths caused by something like a natural disaster or armed combat,…
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