The scene: my birthday party

The theme: “Fed, Fete’d, Fetid”

Pals were all asked to bring a food that they’d want as one of their last meals. We wrote out pages for a little recipe zine, we yukked it up about death + dying, and just generally had a very decadent time of it.

Many, many moons ago — think 10 years worth — I accidentally stumbled into a live-in caregiving job with someone who became a very, very dear friend, in what turned out to be the single most profound stretch of time of my life (even still, to this day). I’ve done a lot of things in those intervening years, but my little heart has stayed with that family. In their home, death was always in the air (that’s why I was there, of course) — but there was also so, so much life. And it became so clear to me, so quickly, that these things don’t actually live in opposition to each other. I’ve long thought about what life could look like in a death-literate culture, and how I could become a part of that.

There’s this fellow whose work I love — an activist, teacher, and author in the palliative care space by the name of Stephen Jenkinson — who tells us that seeing the end of one’s life is the birth of one’s ability to love being alive. I think for most of us, this could be true.

I know it is for me. ✨