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The DeathWives: How Girls Run the (Funeral) World - Part 1

The Glam Reaper Podcast
The Glam Reaper Podcast

44 plays · Sep 30, 2021

Who says the funeral industry is run only by men?  In this powerful episode with the DeathWives, host Jennifer speaks with the DeathWives—Lauren, a funeral director, and Erin, a death doula, to uncover the stark reality of the funeral world. Part of the Deathwives’ mission is to bring healing to people who seek it. Through various workshops and educational retreats, Lauren and Erin teach people about the history and practices of death work and how to traditionally honor the dead. And not even the COVID-19 pandemic could stop them from empowering and creating a safe space for their community.  Wondering what it takes to become a funeral director or a birth and death doula? Curious about green funerals and water cremation?  Tune in to the first of this two-part conversation to get all the details you need and more! LITTLE NUGGETS OF GOLD: - Getting to know the DeathWives - How to become a funeral director - The different aspects of funerals - The similarities between a Birth and Death Doula - What is a green funeral? - How Deathwives help other people - What is a water cremation? Connect with the Deathwives: Website: https://deathwives.org/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedeathwives/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deathwives/ Connect with Jennifer/The Glam Reaper: Facebook Page - Muldowney Memorials: https://www.facebook.com/MuldowneyMemorials/ Facebook Page - Rainbow Bridge Memorials: https://www.facebook.com/rainbowbridgememorialsdotcom Instagram - @muldowneymemorials [https://www.instagram.com/muldowneymemorials/] & @jennifermuldowney [https://www.instagram.com/jennifermuldowney/] Twitter - @TheGlamReaper [https://twitter.com/TheGlamReaper] Email us here: glamreaperpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

Speaker: Hi and welcome to the Glam Reaper podcast.

Speaker: I'm your host, Jennifer Muldaney, aka the Glam Reaper herself.

Speaker: Today's podcast, I'm joined by two beautiful girls, definitely on the glam side of the death business, and they are called the Death Wives.

Speaker: Let's get into it.

Speaker: Welcome, the Death Wives.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: I love the name.

Speaker: I mean, it goes so well with the Glam Reaper.

Speaker: I can't even express it.

Speaker: Tell me, who are you?

Speaker: Well, I'm Lauren and I am half of Death Wives with Erin.

Speaker: I would say I'm an educator first.

Speaker: No, I guess I'm a mom first.

Speaker: It's like something moms are supposed to say.

Speaker: I love the eye roll, I guess.

Speaker: I was going to yell at them right before I came in here.

Speaker: I was like, don't make a sound for two hours.

Speaker: I'll let you stay up late.

Speaker: Excellent momage there.

Speaker: My mom first.

Speaker: I'm an educator second and I am a funeral director.

Speaker: So I'm a green funeral director.

Speaker: I work at a funeral home that is exclusively green.

Speaker: We don't do embalming.

Speaker: everything that me and Erin preach, we practice as well.

Speaker: So, and I met Erin by teaching one of my early, early workshops on home funerals and she came to it and we just really connected and hit it off and stayed in touch.

Speaker: We're both single moms who work full time.

Speaker: And we were like, we have this passion.

Speaker: We want to do this.

Speaker: And over the years, we just put it together bit by bit by bit.

Speaker: And then last year we kind of officially launched it and

Speaker: been doing what we love since amazing amazing I love the name I really do like death wives it's just so brilliant okay excellent all right and Erin yes thank you we love the name too we felt like it was really easy because you know the concept of death is so large it's such a big conversation but it's easy to say well you know what a midwife is it's like that only at death you know when we walk people through kind of

Speaker: from beginning, middle to end, and all of these different various ways based on their needs and what they want.

Speaker: And primarily it's an advocacy and education position.

Speaker: So that is what Deaf Wives is.

Speaker: I come to it through really just like a vein of deep, deep grief of going through a lot of loss when I was young.

Speaker: And that was so impactful and profound that I didn't see a life beyond it.

Speaker: And that was because, you know, there wasn't, I was going to carry it with me forever in different ways.

Speaker: and meandering and trying to figure out how to create a professional application out of that, even reaching out to Lauren.

Speaker: How long ago do you think I first reached out to you?

Speaker: I was still married.

Speaker: So it was a long time ago now.

Speaker: I know.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Eight years, maybe.

Speaker: I'm all six, seven.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: She was so sweet to me.

Speaker: It was like, I was looking for, you know, a deaf professional deaf community at that time.

Speaker: And there wasn't, wasn't anything.

Speaker: I found like maybe three people on all of Google in Colorado.

Speaker: And I reached out to Lauren and

Speaker: She replied so warmly and so sweetly, like she still does, like just takes the time to be so kind with people because she cares so much about them, like understanding how accessible this information is and how important it is.

Speaker: Yeah, which has become our mission at Deaf Wives.

Speaker: And then I'm also a Deaf Doula and like you, Jennifer, a wedding planner.

Speaker: And so, you know, ceremonies, large life transitions, walking people through these large transitions and event planning as well.

Speaker: which folds so beautifully from both like the, you know, doula portion and the planning portion into doing funerals.

Speaker: It's a short story of it.

Speaker: Amazing.

Speaker: We've had on the Glam Reaper podcast a death doula.

Speaker: She's actually only starting to become one.

Speaker: And what's interesting is I actually met her through my pet cremation jewelry line because she's into pet PR.

Speaker: And so what I loved about her was that she like had nothing to do with the death industry whatsoever when I met her.

Speaker: And now all of a sudden here I am interviewing her about her having just completed a death doula course and

Speaker: you know, introducing that topic to people because what the Glam Reaper podcast is, yes, industry people are going to be tuning into this, but predominantly it's about taking as Joe Public, as I call them, on the journey that all of us death people are.

Speaker: kind of you know because there's so many times over the last 10 years where I'll be talking and I'll realize wow people don't know what I'm talking about this is so interesting that I'm in my own brain because I've been around this so much and if I may ask um Erin are you since you and I are familiar in that sense are you a trained funeral director or and I know the

Speaker: Because again, we're international here.

Speaker: We're over international waters.

Speaker: But I know in America, state by state, the rules are different in every state.

Speaker: I'm obviously in New York state.

Speaker: You guys are in Colorado.

Speaker: You know, it's different state by state.

Speaker: So are you trained?

Speaker: Do you need to be trained?

Speaker: Trained.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: In a traditional sense, I am not trained as a funeral director.

Speaker: In Colorado, you do not have to have a license to be a funeral director.

Speaker: And a lot of what we teach is how to do your own home funerals.

Speaker: And that a funeral director is great and we don't want to discount what they do.

Speaker: But if you would like to do that, you can kind of an idea.

Speaker: So I do have a lot of, you know, knowledge and experience that's not traditional.

Speaker: But yeah, I'm not a traditionally trained.

Speaker: Trained.

Speaker: Yeah, because that's quite similar actually to my home country of Ireland.

Speaker: We have similar to over here, you've got the National Funeral Directors Association.

Speaker: We have the Irish Funeral Directors Association back home.

Speaker: But there's actually no official you could set up a funeral director, you know, funeral home tomorrow in Ireland.

Speaker: And as much you could in, I've only ever been to Denver in Colorado.

Speaker: So I'm going to just pick on Denver because I just thought it was stunning and beautiful.

Speaker: Although the altitude really did get to me for vodkas and I was...

Speaker: away with the fairies it was quite quite insane yeah be careful with that yeah yeah myself and my friend this was about 15 years ago we will never forget Denver for that we were we had four vodkas would have been nothing for us back then and my god it was it was quite the evening but I digress

Speaker: So that's that's really fascinating.

Speaker: And tell us, talk to me more about this.

Speaker: It's hugely topical right now in the media, in just top of people's minds, on the likes of social media, Facebook, Instagram, home burials, home funerals, green burials, green funerals.

Speaker: It's kind of all anybody can talk about when it comes to the funeral industry, if they're not already in.

Speaker: nailing them for being cowboys or chasing people you know ambulance chase you know we don't get negative press we are starting to at least getting positive in terms of the innovations that people are coming up with so talk me through your experience on that maybe Lauren if you want to

Speaker: So I was a funeral director in a corporate setting, which I never thought I would ever do, but I really didn't have that other option.

Speaker: It's still wild to me that there's so many corporately owned funeral homes and you don't know it.

Speaker: And that's a whole other topic.

Speaker: But I came home from a long day and I was drinking a lot of wine and a family undertaking came on on PBS.

Speaker: I don't know if you've seen that documentary.

Speaker: Like, I can still visualize that moment because it changed my life so much.

Speaker: I'm this funeral director watching this, like, magic take place in front of me.

Speaker: I'm like, that's how death's supposed to be.

Speaker: That's how funerals are supposed to be.

Speaker: And it was just like, why are we not doing this?

Speaker: Like, how come I didn't know that we could do this?

Speaker: And I'm a funeral director.

Speaker: Like, I should know this.

Speaker: To say the least, I left six months later.

Speaker: I had a child shortly after that.

Speaker: And then...

Speaker: just started educating and saying, you don't need a funeral director.

Speaker: I'm a funeral director telling you, you don't need a funeral director.

Speaker: Let me show you how to do it because this is how we've always done it.

Speaker: It's never been against the law.

Speaker: I'm here to support you just to kind of remind you how to do it, but you can do it.

Speaker: This is, this is your work.

Speaker: This isn't our work.

Speaker: I don't know your mom.

Speaker: You know, your mom.

Speaker: Let me teach you how to do that.

Speaker: And that's what I did for eight years.

Speaker: I took a very long sabbatical from the funeral industry and just educated on home funerals and tried to dive deeper on different sides too.

Speaker: During that time, I volunteered at hospice just like Aaron does.

Speaker: And it gave me a totally different perspective.

Speaker: I hadn't ever dealt with the dying part.

Speaker: I'd only dealt with the bodies and the families and the grief part.

Speaker: So to be on the other end was just kind of like, sounds cheesy, the icing on the cake, but it was the full package of death.

Speaker: I feel like I was lucky enough to start with the end end and then to be able to go back to the beginning of the end was just like, it all came full circle and I knew that this was it.

Speaker: There was nothing else I'd ever do and I wanted people to

Speaker: to understand it because it makes life so much sweeter.

Speaker: It makes life so much richer when you know what our end is gonna be like, you know, just like birth.

Speaker: And Erin will talk about this part, cause she started off as a birth doula and that's a really common thing that I think we're starting to see, right?

Speaker: Is people do the work from the beginning and the end.

Speaker: Yeah, well, and there's just so much in common.

Speaker: There's so much commonality between the two from how you care, you know, for your patient or for your client

Speaker: to the spiritual aspects of it, even to like the energetics, you know, death is birth in reverse energetically.

Speaker: You're contracting to bring life forward and you're, you know, retracting kind of energetically as you're dying.

Speaker: And there's even a rhythm to it in death like there is in pregnancy and in birth.

Speaker: And then we, you know, I worked in hospice as well, like Lauren said, and hospice is really a wonderful experience.

Speaker: Like 95% of what I have to say about hospice is really good things.

Speaker: So I'm appreciative of hospice, but you know, hospice is often corporate run or owned by a church or has whatever form of red tape that particular hospice has.

Speaker: And so they have limitations around what their volunteers can offer.

Speaker: And a lot of times, you know, for example, if you know, the one that I was working for was Methodist.

Speaker: And so we weren't really allowed to speak about religious or faith based things unless they lined up with that viewpoint.

Speaker: And that's great for the people who that works for, but there are so many people that that doesn't work for.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And so,

Speaker: Having a death doula who can go in and provide that kind of care, but what they do is a custom tailored package based on what that person needs and what their family has communicated to you that they need.

Speaker: It just fills in gaps.

Speaker: It fills in gaps in care that I think is already good, but we get to do it without management.

Speaker: Yeah, deeper and more creative.

Speaker: It's yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker: I worked in a hospice back home in Ireland.

Speaker: And first of all, can I just say I applaud you and I applaud anybody that works in hospice.

Speaker: And then when I was talking to the death doula we had on, I think it's incredible.

Speaker: And I I'm somebody who.

Speaker: I think we all have certain beliefs and certain things, notions we call them in Ireland of what something is about.

Speaker: I definitely believe that people were put on this planet for certain things.

Speaker: I know what I was put on this planet for.

Speaker: I know I would not be able to cope with a hospice environment and the whole death doula thing.

Speaker: I think it's incredible what you do.

Speaker: I know I couldn't.

Speaker: Like I've made a joke before that if you've ever seen the movie Bridesmaids where she's in the car with all the puppies in the back, like that's me.

Speaker: You know what I mean?

Speaker: I couldn't work in an adoption shelter because I'd either have all the kids or the puppies or whatever the adoption center was for and have them all coming home with me.

Speaker: Like I just,

Speaker: Even I remember back years ago in Ireland with my cremation jewelry, I had an actual office where people came in and I actually had to remove it and put it online because I was taking so much grief home with me and it was just destroying me.

Speaker: And I knew it was and everyone around me could see it.

Speaker: And it's interesting because what I do now is mostly memorial planning.

Speaker: I feel like there's a difference though because I maybe take it to completion and again there are different I think you touch on things and you figure out what it is that works for you.

Speaker: Whereas now I love telling people stories through the memorial and that literally makes my heart swell bigger like I can't even express the feeling when I come home after I've done a memorial and it's been amazing.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: I guess it's just different strokes for different folks.

Speaker: And that's what I know you guys promote.

Speaker: And that's 100% what I'm about.

Speaker: Talk me through.

Speaker: And again, it's back to basics, as you've said.

Speaker: Our Irish people in Ireland, we were known for our wakes and very much back to the basics.

Speaker: So that's... But talk me through, because I know there's people listening going, what the hell is a home funeral?

Speaker: What's a green funeral?

Speaker: What...

Speaker: What are they talking about?

Speaker: So maybe walk us through an example of what that looks like for a person today in America.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: So our funeral home actually will help families have home funerals if they still don't feel comfortable to do it on their own, which has really opened the door for this becoming, I think, more normal.

Speaker: I think this is like a side passion project of mine that Erin knows is I want to

Speaker: funeral directors to take our classes.

Speaker: I want funeral directors to start taking this information and using it where it's needed.

Speaker: So using it in their community and saying, Hey, did you know, actually you could have mom at home instead of

Speaker: coming to our funeral home and only having a two hour service, we'll let you have mom at home for two days, like, and we'll make sure she's cared for while she's at home.

Speaker: So with a home funeral, I think the main thing that most people don't realize is you don't have to be embalmed, right?

Speaker: Embalming is very American.

Speaker: And I say this all the time.

Speaker: Embalming is the American flag and apple pie.

Speaker: Like it is very true to us.

Speaker: And it's about making death seem not real.

Speaker: It's about preserving a state

Speaker: that doesn't exist and I'm not bashing on Americans but that's us like we want to preserve something that's not real and we love like to put on a show.

Speaker: We have a hard time with the just the temporary nature of anything here in America and there's a huge death aversion really just generally like it's it's reduced to being something campy right like people can relate to death in terms of Halloween and horror movies and that kind of stuff much more easily than they can relate to it in terms of like

Speaker: somebody who you loved and how to honor them and how to maybe honor the environment while doing so, which is a much more accurate association.

Speaker: What has always been really important to me is not painting a false picture of death because it makes it less, I don't know, digestible.

Speaker: It makes it less real when it isn't real.

Speaker: So that's the first thing I tell everybody is that embalming is never required by law.

Speaker: No matter what state you're in, there is no law that requires embalming.

Speaker: Funeral homes can have their own policies and usually it's just because they're miseducated.

Speaker: And I can say that because I was a funeral director that was miseducated for a long time.

Speaker: So I know that there's a lot of funeral homes out there that just don't know.

Speaker: And I think that they would really benefit if they did know.

Speaker: So wink, wink.

Speaker: Yeah, it's one of those industries that still uses old, outdated, antiquated practices.

Speaker: And they're a little bit resistant as an industry to innovation and

Speaker: into new stuff.

Speaker: And so really, you know, what that's caused is now there's an alternative death care industry rather than there, you know, there could have been innovation from within or, and so now we've kind of got two things going on and they still have the lion's share by far and wide, but we are so grateful for the response people are having to this, you know, death positive kind of movement, if you will, that's happening.

Speaker: Like, and maybe it's just the bubble that we live in.

Speaker: Maybe we just tend to talk to people who are psyched on it, but

Speaker: It seems like every new room we walk into, or community we walk into, of people who either don't interface with death or they interface with it in a limited way, different way than we do, they're always really interested in learning about it.

Speaker: It's the most relatable thing in the world.

Speaker: We always say it, it's so obvious, but it's the only thing we're all going to do for sure.

Speaker: It's like maybe breathe air.

Speaker: Yeah, great equalizer.

Speaker: Great equalizer, yeah.

Speaker: And I think that it has the potential to do a lot for just

Speaker: the collective consciousness, such a buzzword, but you know, for people to really digest that and to understand like death is coming for you.

Speaker: It's certain.

Speaker: Let's talk about how you want it to die.

Speaker: And then like, let's talk about really what constitutes a good death.

Speaker: That's one of the concepts we talk about in our classes, what constitutes a good death in every category?

Speaker: Like what constitutes a good death?

Speaker: First of all, physically, like, do you know, what's your relationship with pain?

Speaker: Like, do you want medication?

Speaker: You know, where do you want to be located physically?

Speaker: Who's allowed there?

Speaker: Who's not allowed?

Speaker: So the basics, then what is your relationship with death?

Speaker: Like, you know, from a fear perspective, emotionally, are you afraid?

Speaker: What are you afraid of?

Speaker: What's it like spiritually?

Speaker: You know, do you have questions about the afterlife?

Speaker: Are you at peace with God?

Speaker: Do you believe in God?

Speaker: Do you feel like you need to come to some conclusions around that before you die?

Speaker: And then the same question in terms of relations, you know, who do you need to talk to so that you can be at peace?

Speaker: Like they're really simple things.

Speaker: It's, it's nothing new.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: going back to the old ways yeah but it's a tip and it's that's why it made me laugh um even with your name death wives it's historically women were the caretakers we were the the death doulas we were the the ones that took care of the body i know back home in ireland we had a

Speaker: we were a huge part of it and then all of a sudden it was men in suits and I'd love to know what are your thoughts on the controversial book the Jessica Mitford book do you agree with her do you agree with her in parts you know what are your thoughts as a funeral director especially Lauren I guess that would probably be in something you read early days I think it's one of those books that I'm like yes I

Speaker: Thank you.

Speaker: Thank you for opening that up because one of the things I teach in our classes, I talk about the funeral trade commissioner, the federal trade commission, 1984.

Speaker: It was because of that book that made them realize, Whoa, what's happened with the funeral work?

Speaker: Like, why is it like this?

Speaker: And so in that 1984 law is when they included that embalming is never required by law.

Speaker: And I think that opened up a door.

Speaker: So what, that's 36 years ago?

Speaker: Not that long ago, but that's opening it up to be like, oh, let's have more conversations about death because, oh, I don't have to pay this much money.

Speaker: Oh, I don't have to be embalmed.

Speaker: Like, oh, I can use different funeral homes.

Speaker: I'm not stuck with this one.

Speaker: So in just 36 years, I think it's starting to shift back into our hands again.

Speaker: And I say our hands, but I mean like the community, the families, the people's hands, not the men in suits who kind of said, oh, we can profit off this, can't we?

Speaker: Let's turn this into a business.

Speaker: I'm a funeral director, so I don't want to bash on embalming necessarily.

Speaker: I don't want to bash on funeral homes because they're needed in our society right now.

Speaker: And there are a lot of amazing ones.

Speaker: There are.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Erin knows this.

Speaker: Like, I'm not a fan of embalming.

Speaker: I personally wouldn't.

Speaker: Me neither.

Speaker: But I do know that there are some amazing restorative artists that give families that closure that they wouldn't be able to have without embalming, without that art.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: mean that's a gift in itself do i think everybody needs to be embalmed no absolutely not we don't do a single embalming at our funeral home and i've never had a single complaint when i was a funeral director doing embalmings i had many complaints i'm not like many you know she doesn't look like this she looks waxy she smells strange

Speaker: You know, if you've been around an embalmed body, most people don't realize the smell that they're smelling is like a chemical.

Speaker: That's not the death smell.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: But they just, they don't know what they're smelling.

Speaker: They don't know that they're smelling this smell.

Speaker: you know, cancer causing chemical.

Speaker: But that's an actually, you know, Aaron, you just named it there is that I'm sure there's many people out there, many people listening to this that would associate that with the death smell because it is even back home in Ireland.

Speaker: It's not, you know, legally, you don't have to get it done.

Speaker: It was one of my first things I mentioned in my book was

Speaker: guys, you know, you don't have to do a lot of these things.

Speaker: Just FYI.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: It's fascinating, actually, that I'd say a lot of people would attribute the smell that they smell from the embalming fluids and things.

Speaker: It's crazy.

Speaker: Now, when you say, because what's interesting to me is I know from being in the industry and stuff that like I would like to probably do a lot with my mom, right, when she goes.

Speaker: But my dad, I'd feel awkward with.

Speaker: I wouldn't be able to sort of wash and dress.

Speaker: I just it would just feel weird and inappropriate.

Speaker: And I just wouldn't be down with that.

Speaker: Do you you've kind of said you guide people to through that.

Speaker: So I'm sure that this obviously is not a shocker.

Speaker: This obviously isn't a, you know, crazy new question.

Speaker: If you are a caretaker for your loved one at the end of their life, if they're on hospice care at home, it's a very easy transition to care for them after they've died.

Speaker: I'm sure.

Speaker: If you haven't been in that situation, honestly, most people that have had a home funeral usually have a caretaker of some sort in the family.

Speaker: I had a woman who was alone and so she needed our help, like just physically to help her move.

Speaker: but 90% of the time the family has it.

Speaker: I did a home funeral right before COVID and I'll never forget this family because I mean, literally a week later we were locked down.

Speaker: And so I went into their home and they wanted to have a day with their dad before we took them to the funeral home.

Speaker: And she was just like, no problem.

Speaker: She was just like, pull down the sheets and he was just laying there naked, but she's blessing his body and stuff.

Speaker: And I'm just thinking, this is beautiful.

Speaker: Like, this is how she's showing her dad.

Speaker: It's a final send off in the way that.

Speaker: See, I'm just like, my dad would kill me.

Speaker: He'd be like, no, no, you didn't.

Speaker: Aaron would probably agree with me.

Speaker: Like I would never want to be in that position with my dad.

Speaker: No, no, no, I wouldn't.

Speaker: But also it's because of the reason Jennifer that you just said, because he wouldn't want it.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Like the central, the heart of a doula isn't necessarily to push what they want, but to honor what the client wants.

Speaker: And so, you know, if your dad really wanted you to wash his dead body and he came to you before he died and asked for that, you'd probably find it within yourself to do it.

Speaker: But he's, you know, it's not going to do something.

Speaker: I would even say the same thing about embalming.

Speaker: I couldn't agree more with Lauren that it's not needed.

Speaker: It's snuck in there in a kind of a sneaky way.

Speaker: Most people, you know, don't even know that it's happening and it creates this big industry that's toxic and kind of erosive of people's grief, exploits them.

Speaker: But having said that, I think there are times where if somebody's had a really bad accident and they need a lot of restorative work and, you know, they're Catholic and they want an open casket funeral,

Speaker: and that's what they want, that's what's going to be the most healing option for them, then like by all means do it, right?

Speaker: So the job isn't like you have to be green all the time.

Speaker: That's a big consideration.

Speaker: I care a lot about the environmental aspect, but really at the end of the day, it's like, how do we honor your loved one?

Speaker: What will bring healing to the people that are alive?

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: again, you're just saying what I believe and promote all the time, which is each to their own.

Speaker: Like it's this there's never ever in this world, I don't think going to be a one fit, one size fits all.

Speaker: I won't fix it fits all like it's just it's never going to happen.

Speaker: We are humans evolving constantly.

Speaker: We're always going to want different things, have different opinions about things.

Speaker: And I mean, absolutely embalming.

Speaker: I mean, for me as an Irish person, I have

Speaker: seen several Irish people shipped home.

Speaker: Repatriation requires embalming to a certain extent because you know it's a long trip.

Speaker: I've just told my mom I'm like if you want to see me and I understand if you do if you want to physically see me if I pass away

Speaker: and you're still alive you need to fly over and you get your closure then and cremate my ass and send me home or whatever the next you know more ecological version is of cremation which hopefully by then there will be tell me about green cremation or the next best thing so the next best thing is well better thing in our opinion is water cremation

Speaker: It's got a lot of other names, but we're going to stick with water cremation for right now.

Speaker: So when you think of flame cremation, you're using the element of fire.

Speaker: With water cremation, we're using the element of water to break down the body.

Speaker: The temperature of the water varies depending on which model of the machine you have, but it's not at a boiling point.

Speaker: It's like between 105 and 145 degrees.

Speaker: And the body is in the machine again for a varying duration, depending on which model of the machine you have.

Speaker: But the fastest ones are like six to eight hours.

Speaker: The slower ones are maybe 10 to 12 hours.

Speaker: And the body is in there with warm water and lye, alkali.

Speaker: And it breaks down first into the soft tissues and all of the skin will break down into this liquid that's really bioavailable that can be used as a fertilizer that we're calling tea tree.

Speaker: And the bones, then the skeleton remain.

Speaker: And so when the process is over, you've got this fertilizing product that the family can have if they want to literally, you know, fertilize their gardens, which is amazing.

Speaker: Talk about reintroducing life, right?

Speaker: Already immediately, continuum.

Speaker: And then they also receive the cremains of the bones.

Speaker: So once the bones dry, then they're still ground up and they get back something that looks similar to cremains or ashes, but it's a more white, a little bit cleaner looking substance, more like sand.

Speaker: Well, what did you think of that episode, guys?

Speaker: I thought it was really interesting.

Speaker: What the girls are doing is fantastic and definitely something that you should all check out and dig a bit further into.

Speaker: They're on Instagram and I love their work on Instagram.

Speaker: So check them out and all the links and stuff are below.

Speaker: And if you want to send us a question in or you have a guest that you think we should absolutely get on the show, please email us at glamreaperpodcast at gmail.com.

Speaker: I'll talk to you soon.

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