How Dare You Die Now!

Acknowledging the anger or pain of an earlier-than-expected death
Posted on April 3, 2025 by Tani Bahti (Blog Writer, SevenPonds)

“I’m so angry — I can’t forgive him for dying and leaving me,” whispered Amy. “Does that make me a bad person?”

Sweethearts since high school, Amy and Don had been inseparable, and married at age 20. Now, the future they had been constructing was quickly crumbling. Diagnosed with lung cancer just two years prior, Don was now close to death at the age of 32.

“He did this to us. I told him not to smoke and now he’s dying. We were supposed to grow old together, and now he’s leaving me alone.“ As her daughters, ages 7 and 9, entered the room, Amy turned her head away to muffle her cries and hide her tears in her newly folded stack of clean clothes.

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Posted in Dying Well | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Debating Medical Aid in Dying

How news of Daniel Kahneman’s death is reopening discussion
Posted on April 2, 2025 by Ginny Gaylor (Blog Writer, SevenPonds)
Hospital bed with medication bottles

The debate about medical aid in dying is ongoing.

Since 1994, when Oregon became the first U.S. state to legalize medical aid in dying to terminally ill people, the number of states where it is an option has grown to 10, plus the District of Columbia. But it remains a struggle of conscience for many: Only a year after his death has it become publicly known that Daniel Kahneman, Israeli-American Nobel Prize winner, chose to end his life in Switzerland. As the Wall Street Journal reported in March 2025, Kahneman wrote to friends before his March 2024 death: “I am not embarrassed by my choice, but I am also not interested in making it a public statement.” Continue reading →

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What Happens to Metal in a Body After Cremation?

Funeral homes keep tons of metal out of landfills by recycling
Posted on April 1, 2025 by Michelle Raybeck (Blog Writer) SevenPonds

The metal parts are sorted once they are received at Cremation Recycling’s processing center.
Credit: cremationrecycling.com

Kevin McKay is the manager of the cremation division of Cremation Recycling, a part of Mid-States Recycling & Refining that specializes in precious metal refinery services for funeral homes throughout the United States. Involved in the precious metals recycling industry since 2001, McKay has been with Mid-States, located just outside Chicago, since 2016. We spoke with McKay about the process and the benefits of recycling metal from cremated bodies.

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“Help Me, Helen”

My dying husband's sickness revealed the true strength of our love
Posted on March 30, 2025 by Aurora Wells (Blog Writer, SevenPonds)
A lake in yosemite where a man drowned

A favorite spot of Don and Helen’s along a trail from one of their many vacations to Yosemite
Credit: Unsplash

This is Helen’s story, as told to writer Aurora Wells. Our “Opening Our Hearts” stories are based on people’s real-life experiences with grief and loss. By sharing these experiences, we hope to help our readers feel less alone in their grief and ultimately aid them in their healing process. In this post, we tell the story of a woman who has lost her husband to bladder cancer.

The hospice workers told me death would carry him off in his sleep. Like a moonlit wave from God’s gentle sea, quietly collecting his soul at high tide. But it wasn’t like that.

My husband drowned.

He asked for a calendar. And when I saw Don trace the days with a quivering finger, brow furrowed in concentration, I knew he was holding the final page of his life.
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Posted in Opening our Hearts | 2 Comments

Fourteen Quotes About Spirituality and Death

Posted on March 27, 2025 by JamieAGold

A glowing, golden photo of a sunset over water with large rock formations in the foreground.

Credit: Ray Bilcliff via Pexels

Nature is just one way for us to see the beauty around us that transcends our daily lives and thus provides greater perspective about death.
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Recovering Cremation Remains After the Los Angeles Fires

Alta Heritage Foundation’s unique method helps retrieve loved ones
Posted on March 27, 2025 by Mitch Lobrovich (Blog Writer) SevenPonds
Two archaeologists in white protective clothing sort through debris on the foundation of a home destroyed by fire.

Archaeologists working with Alta Heritage Foundation
search for cremains in the debris of a home destroyed by fire.
Credit: Alta Heritage Foundation

Losing a home in a fire is bad enough, but losing the cremains of a loved one in the ruins adds an extra measure of anguish. Hundreds of families may be in that situation following the massive fires in Los Angeles last January. Now a nonprofit that does not charge for its services is working to bring relief to those families, recovering cremation remains through a highly specialized process: disaster archaeology.
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