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THE ARCHIVED 

I was feeling jaded, then I spent the last 5 years learning how to support the dead, dying, and surviving.

I was warned, and then encouraged, early on to perservere through the trials I would face as a young female in a male dominant industry that often carries a chauvenistic air to it.

As I navigated through the last five years of death care and the education required, I learned how to write proper send off in the form of obituaries and eulogies, I would often spend days transfering loved ones from hospital to funeral home, graveside services, church services, embalming, and meeting with families. Although now, my day to day is mostly spent chasing paperwork, filling out paperwork, and other tedious tasks, I can recognize, that at the end of the day, when i’ve met with a family, worked on their funeral service or even just provided someone knowledge they didn’t have before- I know I have made a difference in their grieving process. We can say the funeral service, or the celebration of life, is for the dead, but truly, it is a key part in the healing process for those who have to carry on living with a loss.

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Although a dream to work in death care, I suffered my own losses motivating me more than ever to prepare and establish myself as a professional and compassionate funeral director. While I always reach to be the most compassionate director at work, my passion for death care grew into so much more than that. I have seen enough in my career already to identify that we are seriously lacking when it comes to end of life and death education. I believe end of life and death education is still viewed as a taboo topic among many regions. I encourage you to read about, to educate yourself, and change the way you look at death, dying, and grief as it could be passed on to help someone else sometime, and one day, it will be knowledge you need. 

After getting into my exploration of self through my career choice I found myself exhausted, irritable and ready to give up on the taxing career choice I had picked from a young age. I managed my poor mental health by throwing myself into an unhealthy amount of work just to occupy the space and time inside my head. While I absolutely love the experience I have gained at such a young age, I can recognize all work and no play led to my loss of passion briefly, and I begrudgingly just carried on for the sake of my mentor and family who had also invested so much energy into my education.

Recently, I’ve rediscovered my love for all things creative. Film photography, digital art, digital collage and poetry work, creating physical art pieces out of canvas or wood, upcycling projects have been another creative outlet for me. Ultimately, I didn’t create this blog for the sole purpose of affecting others with my art, but rather to keep an online portfolio and watch my growth as I move throughout my career, as my artistic skills develop and to see how i’ve learned to approach and handle my mental health challenges. I do believe however, that it is important for me to share and bring into light how *real* life is. We experience losses and challenges that feel immmeasurable, or as if nobody will understand us during our hard times. These moments when we are down and out can feel agonizing when not cared for properly. This is why i believe accessibility to resources and education is imperitive to our recovery from grief whether triggered by loss or other life circumstance. I strive to bring an awareness to how damaging lack of knowledge can be when supporting someone through grief, or mental health. Whether grief be anticipatory or ambiguous, our mental health can be altered due to these events. I believe our know-how and understanding is one of the most powerful tools we have against grief and isolation.

 

 Love, J.Doe