painkillersTending Our Dead Ourselves with Joe Orso and Susan Nesbit

Joe Orso talks to death doula Susan Nesbit about the many gifts that come with tending the bodies of our deceased loved ones at home. Their conversation covers home vigils, home burials, home funerals, washing the body after death, and how these practices have historically been done by families and communities, not professionals. They also discuss how death, like birth, has become a highly medicalized experience, in which pain-killers and high costs are the norm. Susan, who doesn't take money for her death doula practice, helped found Threshold Care Circle, an all-volunteer organization in southwest Wisconsin that integrates after-death care into family and community life. She and other volunteers supported Joe's family in doing home-based care after his father's death last winter.

Threshold Care Circle: https://www.thresholdcarecircle.org/

National Home Funeral Alliance: https://www.homefuneralalliance.org/

National End-of-Life Doula Alliance: https://www.nedalliance.org/

The Oar and the Umbrella (where you can find Joe's "Home Burial" essay series): https://oarandumbrella.substack.com/t/home-burial-essays-after-my-fathers