Eco-Friendly After-Death Care

IFC Episode 10-auphonic (0:02 - 0:12) All right, here we are with Naomi. So great to have you. Maybe start by pronouncing your last name because I don't want to say it wrong. (0:12 - 0:48) I think you should give it a shot. Jorg... Don't fool that way. I'm going to say Jorgen. Is that right? Bjorgen. Bjorgen. Okay. I didn't know... No, the way it took me forever to figure out my last name too. And it was finally like after 20 years of marriage, somebody at the church I was going to went, oh, be organized. I'm like, yeah, exactly. Sorry to be organized. Well, I'm never going to forget with that. Okay, good. So you've been married for 20 years and you have... 22 now. 22. You're a mother to many children. (0:49 - 2:03) Six. Five boys, one girl. And you homeschool these children. Is you homeschool your kids? No, we've done a little of everything. Homeschooled very early in the early years before my midwifery really got off the ground. And then they went to school and then COVID hit and we pulled them out and did the homeschool thing for a while. Well, my poor husband, I don't know how he did it. I was running a busy midwifery practice. He was homeschooling five children and taking care of my mom with dementia at the house all at the same time and managed to still get them on track so that when school started again, they were right where they needed to be. So he's amazing. So yeah, we homeschool for a bit, but my daughter is homeschooling right now. She's 15 and a half. And my older boy who is still home is going to high school. The younger ones are doing an international Spanish immersion charter school. And my two older ones, one's working as a welder and the other one is my marine and I'm very proud of him. (2:04 - 2:20) Wow. So he's doing his training right now. Wow. You have a lot to be proud of and you have a very... You have a creative family. Everybody is immersed in something really, really cool. Hey, Michelle. (2:21 - 2:44) Hey. And so you have a wide variety of services you offer. So I love how your name says baby catching funeral director. You also... I had a birth last night. Oh, you were. Yeah, supervising a student. (2:45 - 3:05) And you also have a tagline first breath to death, which is very cool. And you have a beautiful website and I hope I'm not pronouncing this wrong, but Adamah, is that right? Yeah, it's Hebrew, Adamah Life Memorial. And that's more for the end of life. (3:05 - 3:31) Dula work, of which I have one client right now. And so yeah, Adamah is Hebrew and it means of the earth. And my heart is the green funeral industry. And I get to work with Aqua Terra. And I'm here. So I actually can give you guys a tour today if you're interested in seeing. (3:31 - 3:53) That would be really, really cool. So the next question I have for you is, what is it like to become a funeral director? What made you decide to do that? What did you have to do in order to get your license? Yeah, so I'm in California and Reading. And so I have been a licensed midwife since 2012. (3:55 - 4:37) And it was through meeting people that had gone the green route because they weren't happy with the two options available to them in the community here. There was traditional burial and there was fire cremation. And one particular family, her son was lost during COVID. He had a rare form of cancer. They didn't even find out he had cancer until after he had passed away. He thought it was a really bad cough. She wanted him to get checked and he ended up passing away in his sleep. And he was like 34 years old. She drove his body all the way to Washington for the termination process, which is the natural organic reduction. (4:37 - 6:20) And when she shared that story, I had to learn more about it. I didn't know in that moment that termination was not yet legal in California. But as of 2024, it got voted into law, but it's not actually going to be active until 2027. So that gives people a few years to get the technology going. Let me quickly. So, termination, are you called it the something reduction process? That's the natural organic reduction. So it's literally human composting, where the loved one is laid in a bed of alfalfa wood chips and hay, and lets nature just take its course more more speedily. So within a month, all the soft tissue is broken down to nutrient dense soil. It's an oxygenated vessel. It's rotated once or twice throughout the one month process, then the soil is cured for another month. And then the family can come and take the soil and bring it home. Or the family can donate the soil to land restoration projects, which is what has been happening a lot in Washington. As I was exploring that, though, I learned about water cremation and learned it's basically the same thing but using a water process where it speeds up what would happen in the earth within a matter of hours. It breaks down all the bonds that hold the tissues together, just to the basic building blocks of life, any chemicals, radiation therapies, chemotherapies, even embalming fluid can be broken down in the water cremation process. Embalming cannot be broken down in the termination process. (6:21 - 7:58) But we can take care of them with that here. And what's left behind is called effluent, which is a water substance that is literally amino acids, proteins, salt, sugar, and some soap. And the bone is left in the basket. And the bone is what's then dehydrated and dried out very slowly. And then rather than a chunky charred ash that you would get from a fire cremation with the water cremation process, because the bone becomes so brittle, you end up with a very fine, powdery, khaki-ed off-white-colored ash. It's actually quite lovely to look at. And the family gets about 20% to 30% more of that ash back. So because much more is preserved. We actually just had a case last week, our first infant, that we had to do the water cremation process for. And it was remarkable to see how much we were able to preserve from that little baby. So the family is going to get something back. And it's going to be, and her bone, obviously being a baby was just beautiful white powdery ash. It turned out very well. But yeah, it's a very gentle process. It's water, heat, motion, and just a bit of pressure, and then the body is broken down. Wow. Yeah. Well, I have to admit, before you moved your head where I could see the whole aqua journal sign, I kind of thought you were at the spot. (7:58 - 8:21) And so your office there, I mean, it's very peaceful and clean. And so that is the aura, I guess. I don't really know what the right word is exactly, but that you want to give off, or that you want to invite people in that this is simple and not scary. (8:21 - 9:12) Yeah. And I think psychologically, a lot of people like the idea of putting their loved one through water rather than putting them through fire. And I say as a licensed midwife, I'm catching babies in water. We come from water, and we can go out in water as well. So it just seems like capturing the full circle of the process from start to finish. Well, you do a really good job explaining this. And I'm sure we talked about this a while ago, when you were in the training program, and you shared with me the story. I think maybe one of the things that kind of, you know, highlighted this for you too, was that you knew of a family who had lost a child that did not want the fire process. And it was one of the things that, you know, showed you how important this is. (9:13 - 9:34) Yeah. So they had had a tragic accident. The granddaughter had been hit by the grandfather on accident with a trailer truck, and they lost her. And mom did not want to put the baby through fire. Dad did not want to put baby in the ground. And they had the option of water where they were. (9:34 - 13:07) And so they were able to do that water cremation process with them. Yeah. So I did a little reading before, you know, our talk today. And, you know, people at one of the questions I see people ask is where does the water go? So you giving the ash back to the family, and then the water full of the amino acids and proteins, where does that go? Well, in a perfect world, we're our city is giving us some grief about the water at this point in time. So we have a holding tank right now of, well, I think we're sitting at a good 3000 gallons of water. Right now, our water is more on the alkaline side sitting at about an 11. I think it's 11.4 to be exact. We want to eventually see that water brought down to a pH have it regulated to a neutral pH when we're busy enough to empty the tank more frequently. And the goal would be to have that water used with cemeteries with golf courses with non human consumption crops, because it's nutrient dense organic fertilizer. It's, it's so healthy for the land. Right now, we have to get the water are it also could go into the sewer system, quite frankly, and actually benefit the system because of the healthy bacteria that would populate from it. But the city of Reading is doesn't get it. And they're just kind of waiting it out. So we're in this process of trying to figure out what we're going to do with our water. It's hopefully we have an answer soon because our tank is getting full. So wow, well, this is really, really fascinating. I know people are going to have a lot of questions that I'm already thinking of. But but so cost wise, as compared, I mean, I'm thinking, you know, off the cuff, direct cremation where I live can range from 1200 to 2000. What is the cost of direct fire cremation? What is the cost of water cremation where our direct package right now is at a starting price, but the actual industry standard for it is sitting at 3750. Still less than a burial, significantly less than a burial. But it is, it is more a bit more expensive, a cup about $1,000 or so $2,000 more than a fire cremation. But there's no comparison. The the water process uses 10% of the energy that is required for fire. Nothing is going up into the atmosphere. And it is using and there's, you're not charring. I mean, to put it bluntly, you're not charring your loved one. They're, they're being gently reduced with water and pressure. And a bit of alkaline salt is 95% water to 5% alkaline. And it does the job very, very well. We get like we had a fellow we just brought out this morning. And he I mean, the long bones were all intact. He's dehydrating right now. And I'll be giving his family the ash soon. I love how you how you explain it. It's very well, it's it's you do a you do a really, really good job. So cost wise, you know, some costs a little bit more than fire cremation. (13:07 - 17:14) But if you put all of it in perspective, you know, there's not the cost of a big long casket, I guess that you would put into the ground. What how does the body go into the I don't know what you mean, unit? Yeah, they're, I'll show you. I'll give you guys a tour of the facility. But but it's basically a large vessel that sits long ways. And inside of it is a basket. The basket gets pulled out the top gets listed lifted off and the person goes in they have bio they have bags that are for water cremation. So the person could be in one of those body bags, or they go in in their birthday suit. And then we just close the basket, we put them inside and start the process, the unit tilts up. So actually, when we go back there, you'll see the unit tilted because it is in process right now with somebody. And then when the process is completed, it's about four hours, roughly, gets tilted back down, we open it up, we pull it out, and we just remove the bones, wipe the basket clean, and it's ready for the next case to go inside. Okay, wow. Well, I want to get to my last question so we can go on the tour and everybody can ask their questions because this is really fascinating. And you do a really, really great job at explaining it. So I've seen like a funeral service held at a fire like right next to the, you know, fire cremation. Will you do the same there where like the family can come in and have a service and then the body can go right in just like they would do at a funeral home? So that baby that we had, oh my gosh, this mom, she just, she was so amazing, mom and dad, they took care of that baby. She came in a couple times and did the viewing. They loved her right to the end. They helped, they started the process of helping to get her undressed. Because of the process, we wanted to make sure we could preserve as much of her as possible. So we had her shrouded in a stocking and they stayed with that. Daddy picked her up, he put her in the basket. We closed it up and all four of us pushed that baby inside. One of the things we do here is we asked the family what their loved one really enjoyed listening to for music. And so while this whole process is happening, we have their playlist happening at the same time. So the music's playing in the background. Mom and dad hung out. It was really beautiful to watch because they got full closure from start to finish. It was quite amazing. So a family could, let's say a Christian family, you know, Christian funeral, they could have all of that like you would, you know, and then even with a casket, but not have that body put into the ground and then the body had brought over to Aqua Terra and your process starts from there and they could have viewing there and do as you said, just push all of it in. So we have a few replacement for our funeral. Yeah, so we're a full service funeral home care too. So we have, I'll show you, we have a conference room where we can run pictures of the loved one on the screen. It's more, it's not like a formal sit down funeral memorial service here. More, it's more of a style of a gathering here. It's got, it's got a beautiful charcuterie catered in, beautiful floral display, and the family mingles. They can share stories. We can sit around in a circle and share about the loved one. The first one that we had do a service with us here asked for a priest. Now it was interesting because they were Catholic and they wanted a Catholic priest, but the Catholic priest wouldn't come in because it was cremation. (17:14 - 19:18) That was one of my questions. And we ended up having a pastor come in and he said, I don't care as long as it's somebody religious. So we had a pastor come in and he gave a message to everybody and then everybody took turns sharing stories of remembering this person. And then, yeah, I mean, we can accommodate whatever the family needs. So it, so it may not be for everybody. If someone is not wanting to, if cremation in general is not, I guess cremation would be the alternative to burying someone and the Orthodox church, Catholic church burial is the choice. So it wouldn't be for everybody, but those who are considering cremation as a method of disposition, you know, are really learning a lot today, or will when they watch this video later about another option that is green and clean. And I personally, what you said about water, you know, it's the cleanliness, it's inviting and I don't, you know, intend to be heretical of the faith when I say this, but you know, you think of all the times water is referenced in the scriptures. So interesting, very interesting. So one of my questions was, you know, how my Christians, you know, consider this and I kind of answered it, you answered it by just saying it depends, you know, if, if cremation is off the table, it's not, it's not the right thing. If cremation is something you're thinking about, if it's water cremation, or aquamation, water cremation is available in your state that you should, it's an option to look into. Well, let's do a tour. Okay, tour. And thank you surround, you see our bathrooms here. Okay. So tell me if you guys can see that brought the computer facing away from me right now. This is a very good I've got you full on the screen. So yeah. (19:19 - 19:25) So this is our sitting area. And it's just so full of life. All the plants. (19:26 - 20:06) Yeah, the memorabilia, she actually wants to open a storefront, we call it the graveyard shop and have it be a place where people can come and buy keepsakes and the mentos of their loved one for their loved ones. And this is our conference room, I'm going to turn the light on here. Again, lots of plants, greenery, that's our display of the urns that are carried, we have the the art, this is actually a television, switches out artwork, and where we can also put the photographs of the loved ones during a conference, or during memorial service. (20:07 - 20:16) Um, this is the reception area where I was sitting. I'm going to that just let me know. Yep, you're doing a great job. (20:17 - 21:45) And then we have, you know, bathrooms here, which are not very attractive, I'm going to turn the light on. But normally, this room would have warm lamps and candles, this would be our viewing space. And we would have these curtains drawn. And their family can spend some time with their loved one here for a little bit. So would you lay the body out like on it? I mean, I guess you keep it refrigerated, and then you just bring it you bring it in from in on the gurney, covering with the comforter, we make it look as natural as possible for the family. And then this is the backside, which is presently not the cleanest. We're process we had a computer here, some clean up stuff. This is our journey that receives the basket for the loved one. And this is the usual, this is the viral response, pre nation unit. It's quite the contraption is fully computerized. We enter in the decedent's body weight tells us how much alkaline salt we need to include. Wow. All done right there through that automated process. And it's still it's not right now. So is it? Is it like, I can't hear anything. You don't hear very quiet, very quiet, very quiet. Yeah. And then we have here our body lift. (21:45 - 22:56) This is how we can lift the basket up and down. And this Bernie goes up and down. And then over here, this is our holding tank for the water to cool. So once the water is cooled, it transfers to this other holding tank, this is our 5000 gallon tank that's holding all the water until we can get it right now disposed of. Hopefully the city will cooperate, we can actually just get it going down into the system. And if family wants to get some of the water having that water captured for them through a spout, so we could give them some. This is our transport van. So this is where we do the removals, we use this vehicle. When you say removals, do you mean, like picking up at the hospital morgue or from somebody's home? Yeah, from hospital, hospice or home. This is our dehydrator. So the bone goes in here. The bone is very brittle. And so it crushes quite easily and dehydrates pretty quickly. And then here is our cremulator. This is what actually turns the bone to ash. (22:57 - 23:16) And we recycle all metals, so implants, dental implants, all of that that properly melted down and recycled appropriately, which is another way that this makes a really green option. We never have to worry about pacemakers exploding in our unit. The pacemakers come out brand new. (23:17 - 23:43) Oh, my goodness. So we pulled out the hip implants, bolts, everything, it looks like they've never been used. They're so clean. And then none of those metals, even in a green burial, leach into the soil, because it's all taken out. Same thing with the termination process. Well, when you go through a fire cremation, all those metal toxins are going up the chute into the air, and you get your equipment back pitted and charred. (23:44 - 24:07) Wow. This process. So my last question, and then we'll all invite everyone to turn on their camera. How did you get this job? So you... Well, as you know, I wanted to open something like this many, you know, a few years ago, and they beat me to the punch. So it's run by a family. We're not owned by a major corporation. (24:08 - 24:46) This is literally Shasta County raised family that has a heart to serve this community. The father, he's an estate planner, and it was his vision to make this happen. He'd been estate planning for over 40 years, and he wanted that continuity of care for the clients he was working with. And so he wanted to open this water facility. So he got his son involved. His son is a doctor over at Mercy Hospital. He's a hospitalist there. And his wife, Bryn, is the decorating, marketing visionary of all this. They had a TikTok that went viral. (24:46 - 24:59) If you go to TikTok and look up Aqua Terra, you'll find their viral video on there. But they opened this, and they launched it. Reading was a pain in the butt to work with. (24:59 - 25:13) The city just put roadblock after roadblock. The building that you're seeing here used to be Mechanics Warehouse or Garage Door. It was a garage door company, and it was a disaster. (25:13 - 26:15) They had to gut the whole thing and redo it. They bought the building and redid all this from almost a ground up. It was quite amazing. And I'm glad that they did it. So I ended up running into them. There was a legacy conference. So I was featuring Autumn of Life Memorial for my End of Life Do Love stuff. I knew that these guys were putting this thing together and then saw that they were there. So I went and approached them over there, and I told them I was a licensed funeral director. And they were so excited because they needed a funeral director to be able to run the funeral home side of it. Because it's two entities. It's Valencia Biocreination, and then there's Aqua Terra Funeral Home. So I'm the funeral director that lets him do the aquamation processing as well. So Chris, the doctor, is the crematory operator. It's his manager license up, and I'm the funeral director. My license is up for that. Oh my gosh. Well, this is amazing. (26:15 - 26:34) And so I'm juggling it between... I mean, they're growing. It's not... We've done more cases in this year already, being launched in early January than the very first aquamation facility did in their first year. Wow. (26:34 - 27:13) So it's starting to gain some momentum, which is exciting. And right now, it's good that it's kind of slow because I'm balancing it with my midwifery practice, which is going through a lot of transition as well. I've got midwives leaving because they're pregnant, and another one who's launching with a different program that I partner with, and it's just so much going on. So I do this when I can, and it's working so far. That's great. Well, thank you for everything. Thank you for the tour, especially. That gave us a whole view in, which I've seen some pictures, but that's really cool. That's quite a remarkable process. (27:14 - 28:14) Well, so I'm just going to invite everybody to turn on your camera if you would like to. And I did turn some ones off, so if yours doesn't come on, I want to make sure you get... I can do it for you, but awesome. Absolutely awesome. And you can turn your mic on and ask questions of Naomi. What's the website? So everyone can look up. They're about to launch their new one tomorrow. It's going to be ChooseAquaTerra.com. But right now, it's Aqua-Terra.com. Okay. I'll post it on the... I think both of them direct to it. Awesome. Good stuff. Okay, so go for it. If anybody has questions, you can either raise your hand through using the tools or raise your hand, and I'll look for you or just dive in, ask a question. (28:16 - 28:56) All right, Lisa and then Michelle. Your mute is off, Lisa. Now? Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to hear you. Okay. So first of all, thank you. That was incredible. Amazing. I had no idea. Yeah. My question is with the holding tank situation, do you ever have families that are not comfortable with the fact that their loved one is basically going to be mixed with somebody else's? Well, it's different because there's no DNA in anything there. (28:57 - 29:02) Everything's been removed. It's the water that's left behind from the process. Okay. (29:02 - 29:35) The bone. One of the nice things about this process is the cross-contamination, the co-mingling of remains, is significantly reduced compared to what you get in a fire cremation. When you go into a fire cremation retort, it's near impossible to get every ounce of that ash out. Whereas this basket is a contained unit that is fully accessible and able to be fully cleaned before the next case goes in. So the co-mingling factor is not really there. If it is, it's extremely minimal. (29:35 - 29:37) Right. Okay. Thank you. (29:37 - 30:25) Yeah. I learned, too, that was interesting. The cremulator blades, the ones that break the ash down, because everything is so delicate, I'm wondering if we'll ever really need to change the blades because it's so easy to find any metals that are left. Whereas with the fire process, it could be hard to visualize those metals, and their blades are always like every six months, and dizzy crematory is getting replaced. Ours, it's like talcum powder. It's so fine and gentle. Yeah. Wow. So you mean the bone becomes like talcum powder? Is that what you... Yeah. Yeah. It's a totally different consistency. With the fire process, you can have visible chunks of bone still present. With this process, we don't get any of that. It literally is as fine as baby powder. Wow. (30:25 - 30:40) Wow. It's very delicate. Even when they come out, hopefully, this is in TMI for you guys, but when the bones come out, we had a young guy. He had gotten shot. He was at the corners. He ended up coming in and getting processed with us in this morning. (30:42 - 30:54) They were so brittle, like the femur bone. I could take it, I could twist it, and it would just break the bone out very easily, and then the dehydration process could be sped up that way. Wow. (30:54 - 32:16) It's the craziest thing to think that these hands were at a birth just a few hours before that, and then crushing bone a few hours later. It literally is full circle. I remember that moment when I did it for the first time going, oh my gosh, I'm in this. I'm doing it. Well, that's where you're the baby gashy renal director. Oh, wow. Okay, Michelle, and then Donna, and then if anybody else wants to get in line, let me know. Okay, while you were speaking, Naomi, I went to the internet and go water cremation in Texas, and it said it's illegal. I don't know if it is. I saw a couple articles. One was like a bill was introduced a couple years ago, so maybe that went through, I don't know, number one. Why would it be illegal? And are there states that don't allow it? Nothing in the funeral industry moves quickly, and this is new technology. In California, it became legal in 2017, but the first facility didn't even open up until the very end of 2021, early 2022. So it takes a lot of time, and a lot of these funeral homes are purchased by major corporations. They buy up all these family homes, and they've already got their structures in place. (32:17 - 32:47) It is not cheap to switch up something like this, so unless you have somebody willing to pour the millions of dollars it takes to actually create this from the ground up, it's very difficult to get change. There is another one called Pacific Intermin, and he's in San Francisco area, and he's switching from fire to water. He's been doing fire forever, and is now adding water as one of his options for families as well. (32:48 - 33:13) I think he's actually got two machines. So it is illegal in certain states. It is not yet in law in certain states, yeah. I can't remember offhand how many are legal, and how many are not. I do know it's legal in Oregon, Washington, California, New York, Idaho, and I'm not sure beyond that. Those five, though, I know for sure. (33:14 - 33:36) I can't imagine anything would be wrong with going this route instead of fire. It's not just the red tape bureaucracy. It's got to get voted into law because it all has to go through their legal channels with the funeral bureaus and all of that. (33:39 - 34:50) Yeah, and even with termination here, it's been voted into law, but it's going to take a bit for it to actually happen. Okay, thank you. Do check the chat because Peter just put in a couple links that are good. So people, if you check them because, you know, you might see something you like, you want to click on. Well, when the termination, when you're into that, Naomi, we'll have you back to talk about that too. Yeah, if I can get into that. My son's a welder, so maybe he'll put together the vessels for me. We'll see. That's right. That's a whole other conversation to have. Okay, Donna, and then Ben. Yes. Thank you so much, Naomi. This was very informative. I told so many people I was going to sit in on this, so I was taking notes, and I had a few questions. They're going to come to me, call me after this, and say, would you find out? Everybody's fascinated by it. So from what I understand, I've got a few notes here, California is the only state right now that you know you're kind of leading this. No, it started in Washington, and I think Colorado. (34:51 - 35:30) Oh, okay. As far as they are just fine. Yeah, Peter just put a list there. There's okay. Oh, okay. Great. Now. Thank you. The cost, you mentioned kind of round about 3750 water cremation, approximately. Fire cremation, you said, is about a thousand less. A hundred to a thousand, but you know, at the end of the day, you end up ordering more death certificates. You want to pick up memorabilia. Like with the basic fire, you get, I think you get like a travel urn. I'm not sure exactly with the base urn. It's, it's a plastic box, basically. (35:31 - 39:12) We're providing them with a bamboo urn. Okay. Thank you. And the last, you said the very last phase. I took pictures of your room there. The very last phase is like a cremation where you put the bones in and it does. So that is what they would do from the beginning for regular cremation. Is that correct? It's the same machine. Okay. Exactly the same machine. Thank you so much at the end of the day. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Awesome. Ben. Thank you. Uh, just real briefly, um, really fascinating that you are a doula and I recently I thought about eight months ago, I had a new daughter and I actually put a lot of this work aside because I just kind of, kind of, I felt difficult to balance, you know, thinking of death and end of life and all those sorts of things while simultaneously, like having a newborn baby that's cooling and giggling and, and all those things. But, um, after you, you deal, and this is like a general question for anybody that's already done this work. Um, I sat with my dad about 20 years ago when I was young, very young, uh, when he passed away and a couple other people, um, I've kind of been around and passed away. Um, I imagine even working with a client as well, uh, kind of dealing with that process and that sadness of, you know, that comes with the end of someone's life. So what are some of your strategies to keeping your own heart, uh, healthy and whole through this really difficult, um, process of, you know, loving people, uh, and helping them, uh, to the end of their lives? Well, I haven't done a lot of the sitting with loved ones while they're passing away. I did my training, but I haven't had any actively dying clients at this point. Although I have with my midwifery work dealt with families that had a fetal demise or had a later, later term pregnancy loss. Um, I don't know if it's because midwifery has given me a thicker skin, like even with when we did the removal for the seven week old baby, I had that moment of welling up with tears as I saw mom holding the baby, but it was like, I knew what my job was. I had to do it and I didn't want my emotions to get in the way of their grieving. And, and my job was to be a calm, peaceful presence to help them let their baby go. And that it's like I get into a work mode. Like if I'm at a birth, I'll, uh, I can make, I can make decisions and judgments and, you know, handle the hemorrhage or handle, you know, whatever's going on in the birth at that moment. But you put me in front of the television screen and watch a birth. I'm going to be a ball of tears and ooey, gooey, lovey feelings. Like it, I don't know. It's almost like work mode kicks in for me. So I don't know if I've become, the word isn't jaded, but it's like I've, I've been able to separate myself from, from the circumstances I'm facing with somebody outside and be professional in the way that they need to be. I don't know how that happened. It just has. And I'm very grateful to the Lord for it because otherwise I'd be a hot mess. Yeah. I guess I'll just have to be a hot mess then, huh? Yeah. (39:12 - 39:32) If I could chime in, I'm a hospice, a hospice and palliative care registrar's nurse. I'm also an end of life goa. So I've been there while they are dying, while they're taking their, their last breath. And to try to answer, and I see B. Warner. What's your, is it, may I ask your first name, sir? Ben. Ben Warner. (39:33 - 39:43) Okay. So I want to assume that. So, and congratulations on the, the, the, your, is it your child born or being, I don't want to mix, mix it up, but congratulate. (39:44 - 40:34) Yeah. She's nine months old now, but yeah. Nine months. Okay. So I've been there and I've also had cases where I had a cancer patient ask me while the wife's away, could I give them and basically murder them? So you have a lot of emotions going involved. And what I find is, and I, I'm saying this with caution because I never want to take away what God grants to us. I do, I do believe God gives us in the moment of need at times, but I believe we could build resilience. And to me, resilience has three, three pillars of resilience. And as I talk about this, for any of you who don't follow Christ, I'm not trying to preach to or at you, but for me, it's faith in Christ Jesus. (40:35 - 43:28) It's working on forgiveness, which for 2025 has been a very difficult year for me to work on that. But working through, who do I need to forgive? Cause forgiveness is a gift to me. It's not giving to, it's not a gift to the other person. I'm actually giving a gift to me that I don't have to carry around those rocks anymore. That's been holding me down. And then third, third pillar is what, what am I grateful for? So what I found out over my, my, my years, I'm 62 is if I work on this consistently, like I read my, I take time for my devotions every morning. I'm reading my Bible. I'm going through this. I'm asking myself, is there anyone that am I holding a grudge? Am I, sometimes I thought I forgave somebody and I, and I, I thought I did. And the memory comes back. I guess I didn't let me work on that. God help me. And then what am I grateful for? And what I found that when the storms come, cause we're hit with storms, it doesn't have to be somebody dying. It could be your, your spouse did or didn't do something. It could be something a friend said or didn't say something and it stings. And years ago, it would have been, I would have been literally thinking, why do I exist in doing something probably foolish? I'm being very transparent here, but anymore it's like, okay, I need to pause and share with you how that work is. A couple of Fridays ago, I was going through a very hard time. This is, my doula business is relatively brand new. So hospice and palliative care nurse up in Pennsylvania, I moved to Kentucky, get my nursing license endorsed in Kentucky. And my wife is like, you're going to find the jobs, lippity click, you know, you're going to be the first one getting a job. We're both looking for part-time work. The here in Kentucky, part-time work is 12 hours or more shifts. Day-to-day, what about an eight hour shift? Oh, we're doing 12 hours. And by the way, it's night shift. Okay. So no part-time work to be found. I've been doing a remote doula work for close to two years. Let me get certified. Let me get this off the ground, but it's slow for anything. If you've been doing this, it's not like, oh, you put out your plate and then you got paying customers coming in. So I'm really questioning myself, you know, am I doing the right thing? What should I be doing? And I'm starting to get sad. And the Holy Spirit nudged me. And when I talk about this, I've only had two occasions where I heard God's voice, or I believe I did. This wasn't one of them. When I talk about nudging, it's like ideas in my head. And the nudge was the word joy. Jesus, others, you, joy. And it was like, oh my. Then I'm reflecting on the life of Jesus for what he went through. (43:28 - 43:46) Thirty-some years where he gave, he gave, he gave, and he died a horrible death and yes, resurrected. But all he did was give. There was nothing like, I'm not good at memorizing Bible verses, but where could the son of man rest his head? So he's giving all this. (43:46 - 48:44) And so I was doing a what was me, and then I'm going, well, look at what Jesus did. And I'm going through that. And then I start reading the Bible. I'm getting, I forget where in Romans it says like, we die all day long. So as I'm having these thoughts, the next thing you know, my cell phone rings. I look, it's a number from South Carolina. I get a lot of spam calls. And this is on my personal line, which I get even more than my business line. I answered, I was so tempted not to answer, I answered. So it's a woman's voice. I just said hello because of the spam calls. I don't even say hello, Peter. She goes, this is Peter. And I can hear a motion in her voice. And here, one of my friends gave her my name and number and her husband's dying of cancer. And so here, it's no longer about my story. It's about her. And it was an hour call, just full of emotional grief, venting with the VA healthcare system. And does he go for clinical trials? I had her, like once I helped her go through the anti-sipatory grief and some of the emotional issues, it was like, okay, tell me what your husband's going through. And it sounded like your husband, it sounds like transitioning. It sounds like you have two to three weeks. I really think you have to look at hospice versus, you know, go for the clinical trial, but you can have hospice and then revoke the day before the trial starts. And it's like, she's going, no one shared that with her before. But the moral of the story with dealing with all these emotions is to me, had I not take that nudge, had I not reflected and worked through, I could have hung up on the call, not allowed to be, I couldn't have been present for that. So I know that was a long answer, but that's how for me, for working through, like being able to handle all the emotions. Thank you, Peter. Thank you for your transparency. Thank you for sharing what it's like to be a I am one as well. And I get discouraged myself because, you know, I see the need in my community, but not everybody's willing to have a doula in their home. And the idea of people are still becoming familiar with it. So all of that to say, you know, if anyone steps out to engage, take a training course, think about becoming into my doula, most likely, you're not going to be like bombarded with a lot of clients all at once, you're going to get some experience slowly and be able to take one family. And then later you get in touch with another family. One of the ways I kind of find peace is that the families that need me find me. I have a great website, I go to the, you know, senior center, and I'll do a presentation, the church where I work, my cards are out, you know, in the gathering hall. Everybody that has, like the Lord has lined up the people I've worked for, and they found me and they've just like, I can't believe you are available. And so the Lord is really designs these relationships, I believe. So all of that to say, you know, you don't have to like launch into and phrase and be stressful. I'm not ready to handle all of this, right? I found that the Lord calling me to this, he has set the pace. And even the little deaths that I go through, feeling discouraged in my ministry, prepare me for the next family he's going to have me working for. Like it's amazing. I just hand it over to God. He works this out. And so I think as Christians, we can speak honestly, you know, about this, our frustrations. Well, Lord, you called me to this and, you know, I want a full time work. I need full time work and I'm still working part time over here. And there's a lot going on for me personally with it. But at the same time, I find that he really has orchestrated all of my steps within it. And that's part of what the call is. It's willing to be humble to God, saying to you, I called you to be ready to do this and to go to the families that I've set up with you and your schedule and your location. And so it is God's work. One thing I've started to say recently is death is God's realm. Dulas, nurses, physicians, community members, we are servants within that. And that person who's dying is under God's sovereignty. And I've had clients where they don't listen to a thing I say. (48:45 - 49:06) I'm like, I don't even know why I'm here. He didn't get any of his end of life planning done. I've given him my best and he's not interested. And how does that look like, you know, how does the pastor, what do they think of me? And that man uttered right before he died that like my companionship was what he needed. Right. So, so, you know, God worked that out. (49:06 - 51:35) Last thing I'll say on this, Ben, one of the books that's recommended for my training is called Dying Well. It's by Dr. Ira, I believe you pronounce it, bioc, bioc, bioc, like be ready, be organized, whatever it was, a biock, fantastic book. He is a hospice physician who walked through and Peter put it in the, in the chat. He walks, you know, his readers through many, many case studies of exactly what this family went through. He, the dialogue is excellent. He will give you a taste of what you might see if you go down the doula route and a family asks you to come be a part of their end of life. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, up to this point, majority of the information I've seen out there has been predominantly Buddhist from I'm, I read death nesting. I mean, I consider Buddhism to be more of a brain thing, or at least I try to understand it from, from that perspective. And there seemed to be quite a, a large lack within Christianity. And I'm in a, we can get into that space at some other point, but right now it's, the question is, is like, how do I be every, I'm a, I'm a teacher at this point. I teach high school humanities in psychology. And I taught down in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, down in South America, I was kind of taken back by how different the process of life and death are kind of approached in, in those areas and how honored the elderly are in that system. And, you know, I know that also within the context of the Bible, there is a part and I like, and death is death. I don't know. I am somewhat ignorant to whether it's a violent death or a peaceful going off into whatever. It's still a transition as a skateboarder. I know when we transitioned from one place to another, it is thrilling and exciting. And that's exactly what an adventure is. And it's also terrifying. (51:35 - 55:51) And you can feel your heart just drop right into your stomach. That being said, like, you know, I saw, I know that in the biblical context that people after great wars or experiencing a lot of deaths, there was a death process. And I hear you that it's important for us to show up and be there for the people that we are commanded to love in that way. And I also know working in the nonprofit industry, I almost destroyed my own life by trying to care solely for other people. So, you know, how, how do you continue to restore that love and wholeness in your heart in order to continue to give? I don't believe, I believe that people can give love even if they don't even have any for themselves. And I've experienced that myself, but to, to be able to radically love, it's an variant. That's, you know, is there a process? Well, you know, let me say, and I saw Peter nodding his head and I know I've had conversations with other people on this call about this as well, right? When you do go look out, what's out there for Dula training programs? It's faith-based. This is, this is it that I'm aware of. I haven't seen anything else that's actually Christian faith based. And so this program is, and it's in response to the non-Christian feel of the death positive movement. So death positive movement is where, you know, death doulas are becoming active and helping our culture, you know, take up the discussion of, of death and dying again. And, and in our, you know, modern era, that's from a individualized mindset, which, you know, Christianity is something very, very different. And Christ's death for us on our behalf was, you know, the ultimate service, you know, to, to lay down his life. You know, it wasn't that, that, you know, God, he had a choice, you know, he decided to do that, right? And, and, you know, our, but he did that for us, who's human nature, you know, our will, our will is bound that, you know, we think more of, you know, ourselves. And so what Christ has done for us as our, you know, lives mature spiritually, as a result of God working in our lives, you know, we are more bent towards the other. But that doesn't mean that we don't care for ourselves. So the Bible said, you know, love your neighbor as you love yourself. So I, and then, but I find, you know, in my work through my own losses, it creates a love for the people that are experiencing loss, because I've experienced the power of Christ in that. And so that kind of connects me to their situation, even when I'm like really wholly removed, because I've only known them for a couple weeks or something like that, you know, I don't have to know someone my whole life, like a family member, to really go in and love them. So I'd have to say that love is because of Christ and what he's done for me. And it doesn't mean that we don't get tired, or, you know, have endless amounts to give. And that's definitely not required of us as doulas. You know, I don't, I don't spend, you know, 10 hours a day with a family. I mean, if they wanted that for me, you know, we could make that arrangement if there was, you know, no other person available to, you know, accompany, you know, someone, something like that certainly could be worked out. But typically, I'm a supplement to the rest of the team. You know, there's a hospice team, there's family members, there's church community members, I'm, I'm a supplement to them. And I'm often an advocate, so that all of these team members work together, you know, really well, the family's communication is strong. (55:53 - 59:42) Oftentimes, someone gets sick, people at church are like, Where's, you know, I didn't know they were sick, and then they died. And it's like, Oh, my gosh, the person died, and I never even got to go see them when they were sick, or they never came to church after they got their cancer diagnosis and started chemotherapy. A Christian doula can be a fantastic liaison between the dying person, their family, and the church community. So there's a lot of things that don't wear you out, you know, but, but necessary for, for a family and for a dying person to really feel like they're having a holistic end of life experience. And the Lord gives grace where grace is needed. And it's okay to set healthy boundaries to set that time aside that you know, you need to be focused on your family for a period of time, like you did stepping back to be with your new baby. That was healthy, and okay to do that. It's yeah, I mean, if we went in a complete an emotional basket case with every case that we walked into, we wouldn't be able to do the job we need to do. And you have to pick and choose what the Lord has brought your way with discernment and wisdom to know that you're, you're going to be able to offer what that family needs. Thank you. Allegra, I see your hand up. I always forget how to unmute. I have a question for Naomi and also a quick thought on this conversation that's being had is I just, for me, the biggest comfort I have found and I'm not, I'm in training. I am not a doula yet. I've simply been present for a few deaths in my family. But it is just remembering that I'm not the Lord, I'm not God, and it's, I'm not in charge of saving these people. I've hopefully been put here to comfort and bring something, but that's not, it's really actually not, I'm not in charge. I'm not in control. I'm, I'm a tool or vessel and that, that helps me a lot. I mean, in life in general, but I'm feeling that finding that I've started to find it a bit before I found the Lord, the concept of surrender and not being in charge and not having to rescue people. And it's just been so much deeper and more powerful in my life through finding God and witnessing His power. And so I feel that the, that is going to help me in the doula work quite a bit. But it's a concept more than an experience at the moment. And my question for Naomi is kind of just practical, but I'm wondering how far reaching are you as a, funeral home? I imagine you can't take people in from out of the state. Maybe that's wrong, but certainly from further away in the state, could somebody bring their, their loved ones who Aqua Terra? Well, we can, we can cross state lines. Oh, okay. We're two and a half hours from the Oregon border. Cause we're way on the North side of California. It is possible. I mean, that woman who had her son taken to Washington was from here. She drove across through Oregon and with his body, got the paperwork in order, had a disposition permit and off they went and took him. Yeah. I mean, I know in Escondido, because at the time he was the only funeral home that offered water or cremation facility that offered the water process. (59:43 - 1:00:13) They had people from Hawaii that paid, they saw the value of it, paid the expense of transporting their loved one by plane over to where he was for him to do the cremation. And then the remains were shipped back to the family. Yeah, we can cross state lines. As long as we have all the proper disposition permits in place, then we're good to go. Okay. And so somebody, I just, I'm in California, but I'm in Sonoma County and I know my mom has started considering what she's going to want. (1:00:13 - 1:03:18) And I have a feeling she'll want to know about this. We're serving a family in Sonoma County right now. You're like nine hours away, right? From Reading? From Reading? I don't know. No, I would say about, I think about four. About four. I'm not sure. Yeah, we've worked with Sonoma County. Okay. And so the, it would just be like the family could reach out to you and then you, you guys would talk them through the process of. Yeah, I mean, the transport fee would be greater beyond. Our charge here is basically $6 per mile, per loaded mile. So loaded meaning we have the person in our care over 30 miles. If so, if it's beyond the 30 mile radius, which is kind of standard amongst funeral homes around California, beyond that it's a $6 per loaded mile, but you can save money by bringing the person here yourself. They just have to be, California law requires they be in a rigid container and that could be a crematory box. That could be like the cremation cardboard box, which isn't very, isn't very expensive. One thing with the water process, I said that there were those biodegradable bags that we could put the person in with the, into the unit with. We can also shroud if the family had a shroud that they wanted to put in and the, the unit will process leather because it's organic material and the unit will also process bamboo. So if there was a bamboo or a leather shroud, the family member could place their loved one in that, but that's a real, that's a huge expense for them to have dissolve in the water. So I'm sure most people aren't going that way, but yeah, but I do know for transport, it has to be a rigid container. Right. Okay. But you, like you said, then you would, you would talk say us through that and get it off. Yeah. And actually Brynn, one of the owners, she has recently just found a transport company in the Sacramento area. I don't know how far Sacramento is from Sonoma County. Hour and a half. Four and a half. An hour and a half. Oh, an hour and a half. Yeah. Yeah. So they would be able to do the transport and they're supposedly quite reasonable too. Thank you. Wow. Last question. Kathy, do you have a, yeah, real quick question. I missed how long the process takes. I'm sorry. About four hours. And then it's the after process that takes more time because of the dehydrating of the bone. Okay. And then do you guys have a thing like Neptune Society when someone dies, if they had signed up ahead of time, do they call you when they die and then you transport them like they do the Neptune? How does that work? Yeah. We have the ability to do pre-need arrangements here. We have a trust set up to be able to do that. A lot of people think when they've made pre-need arrangement, they're stuck. They're locked in, they can't, they can't get in. Let me just unlock the door. Oh, she's going to go in the back. (1:03:20 - 1:05:04) But your pre-need arrangement sits in a trust account with whichever funeral home you've made arrangements with. And if you decide that you want to go to a different funeral home, that trust literally just gets transferred over to the other funeral home because the money doesn't get released to anybody until the person is deceased. So there's full flexibility. So even if people think they've made arrangements and they're locked in, they're not locked in. The only thing that would be like they've planned a burial and they feel landlocked because once you've purchased the plot, you can't, you can't get a refund on it. You'd have to actually find somebody else to buy it. But if families put in tens of thousands of dollars into doing a burial and then they realize, oh wait, I could let $7,000 of that money go back to my family and let them use it to benefit the living rather than be put into me being put into a vault in the ground, they can move that trust over and all that extra money gets put back into the hands of the surviving family members. So you're never locked in. Occasionally, if there's like a Medicaid, there are irrevocable trusts, which is basically something to protect the state from getting at your plans if you're under Medicaid coverage or whatever. But that's not very common. So here in Virginia where I live, the church where I work, there is a cemetery and we bury more urns than we do caskets. So somebody could go through the water cremation process at those remains, put into an urn and we don't require a vault for urns. (1:05:06 - 1:05:51) And they just, it just has to be a non-biodegradable container that the, you know, there's a, you know, community where families have been here for a very long time. So there's, they own a lot of plots and then they just call a grape digger and he comes and does a small square and they put the urn down and so it makes it so much more affordable. So then it makes more room because if you've bought the plot surface already, well, now you've got all these extra spaces that can be used for your other family members and it can all be together in one space. Yeah, lots of options. Lots of options. Such a great, such a great conversation. Thank you, Naomi.