The death care system in the New York City metropolitan area is overwhelmed. In this episode, we speak with Phil Tassi, President of the New York State Association of Cemeteries (NYSAC), and David Fleming, legislative director of NYSAC, to better understand the challenges facing cemeteries and crematories in the state.

Recorded on April 18, 2020, Brooklyn funeral director Amy Cunningham explains how death care is being handled in New York City a month into the COVID-19 pandemic.

Estate planning should include planning for periods of incapacity prior to death. In this episode, Wake Forest Law students Jonah Bamel and Greg Volk discuss health care powers of attorney, living wills, and durable powers of attorney, and the needs that each document serves.

On this week’s episode, I am happy to share with you a conversation that I recently had with Barbara Kemmis, the Executive Director of the Cremation Association of North America, or CANA.

Jodi Hildebran Lee and Jordan Crosby Lee are the Couldn't Be Happiers. Check them out at www.couldbehappiers.com. On this episode, they play murder ballads The Long Black Veil and a feminist re-imagining of Pretty Polly, plus their original song Jackson Square (which may or may not be about reincarnation).

The Protestant Reformation of the early 16th century changed countless aspects of everyday life for every kind of person across Europe. One of the things most profoundly affected was the popular conception of death. On this episode, I will be speaking with third year Wake Forest University Law School student Jordan Artrip about how the theology of the Reformation caused a paradigm shift for how death and the dead were viewed by society, as well as the practical effects of that shift on life and religious practice.

In this episode, Tanya and Tim Mossberger explore how The Avett Brothers address grief and death in their lyrics.

In the first episode produced with students from Funeral & Cemetery Law class at Wake Forest University, third year law student Tyler Cunningham discusses death related holidays including Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, Famadihana, and Chuseok.

This hybrid episode combines Cemetery Tourism in Philadelphia and the music of recording artist Dan Zlotnick. In Part I, I discuss the history and some of the notable burials in Spruce Street Cemetery, the Old Pine Street Church churchyard, Christ Church churchyard and burial ground, the potter’s field in Washington Square, and Laurel Hill Cemetery. In Part II, singer-songwriter Dan Zlotnick shares two original songs, “Day 2 for Dina,” and “The Man Who Died Here Saved Me,” as well as his covers of The Avett Brothers’ “The Greatest Sum” and the folk song “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me.”

This is Tanya Marsh and you’re listening to Death, et seq. My guest this week is Sarah Crews, the director of Heart Land Prairie Cemetery in Salina, Kansas, the first all natural burial ground in Kansas, and the President of the National Home Funeral Alliance. Sarah also has a background in hospice and music.