First post

Not sure what this will turn into, but here goes nothing. This blog will host my random thoughts, musings, and favourite death content du jour. The posts won't be glossy or long - simply so that I ensure I can keep up with an initial practice of providing content. Here goes nothing...

Tomorrow I'll be presenting at a national fundraising conference on the topics of death, dying, and grief. As delegates are seeing my name badge and asking what I am speaking about, my elevator pitch has gone a little something like this "I have realized throughout my career that there is no standard level of comfort for fundraisers and advisors on the topic of death. We are privileged to be brought into the lives of our donors and clients, and yet, we could potentially be doing them a disservice by bringing our own anxiety (about this topic) into conversations. My hope is that by presenting on the topic, it can spark a needed conversation so that we can ensure we don't bring our own baggage into these special interactions with donors.

Death is never comfortable and always sucks. It is big and scary. But we owe it to ourselves and to our donors/clients to TRY to gain some comfort.

At the end of the day, I am passionate about death education for very personal reasons. It scares the crap out of me! I'm an emotional wreck when I think of people I care about dying, and I'm probably the last person who should be tackling the subject. But that is why I am doing it...

It's important. And I've always believed that nothing worth doing is easy. I wholeheartedly believe that society sucks at death and grief. There are starting to be some amazing resources, but most offer tips for friends/loved ones. So how do we retain professionalism while digging deeper... I have absolutely NO idea.