“the most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths.”
– ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS –
RESOURCES
As a resource list is dynamic, this one represents only some of the many available providers and may change from time to time. Resources are listed in no particular order and their inclusion does not represent a recommendation.
Many of those represented here are Canadian and local (Vancouver Island and BC) resources, however the list is ever expanding and will grow to include services and providers in other locations.
CANADIAN RESOURCES INCLUDING VANCOUVER ISLAND AND GULF ISLANDS
CEMETERIES AND FUNERAL & CREMATION SERVICES
Gulf Islands
St. Mary Magdalene Church and Cemetery, Mayne Island
Vancouver Island Memorial Society
Veteran’s Cemetery
PLANNING
By My Own Heart & Hands Home Funerals and “Last Wishes”
CircleSpace End-of-Life Planning
Community Deathcare Canada
Earth’s Option Cremation and Burial Services
End of Life Doula Association of Canada
Home Funeral Practicum
Kate Irving -Death Doula
Moving Ceremonies
Sarah Kerr – Soul Passages
Victoria Holistic Death Care Community
Victoria Hospice
Willow EOL
GRIEF SUPPORT SERVICES
BC Bereavement Hotline
BC Victims of Homicide
Canadian Virtual Hospice
Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association
Center for Loss
Citizen’s Counselling
Compassionate Friends of Canada
Human Nature Counselling
Learning Through Loss – Empowering Youth
Mind-Body Practices for Managing Stress and Trauma
Need 2 Suicide Support
Online Grief Support Resources
Sacred Grief Consulting
Teens and Death
The Dog Psychic – Pet Loss: Grieving GracefullyThe Grief Toolbox
The Vancouver Island Crisis Line
Trauma Healing
Victoria Hospice
Victim Services
What’s Your Grief
Youth Empowerment Society
READING & VIEWING RESOURCES
The world of Death and Dying is full of wonderful and meaningful resources,
here are a few in each category that you may find most helpful.
A Broken Heart Still Beats: After Your Child Dies
Anne McCracken & Mary Semel
The Loss of a Child
A Good Death: Making the Most of Our Final Choices.
Sandra Martin
Physician Assisted Death
A Will for the Woods (Documentary)
Clark Wang
Natural Death & Green Burial
After I Go, You Should Know
Funeral Consumers Alliance
Planning & Advanced Directives
After I'm Gone: Thoughts, Wishes, Memories & Secrets to Share with Those I Love
Susan Davies
Planning & Advanced Directives
Alison’s Gift: The Sound of a Hundred Hearts Opening
Pat Hogan
The Loss of a Child
At the End of Life
Lee Gutkind
The Dying Process
Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End
Atul Gawande
Medical Side of Death
Being with the Dying, Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death
Joan Halifax
Buddhist Teachings
Changing Landscape:Exploring the Growth of Ethical, Compassionate, & Environmentally Sustainable Green Funeral Service
Lee Webster
Green Burial & Natural Death
Crossings: Caring for Our Own Death - Resource Guide
Beth Knox
Home Funerals
Dealing Creatively with Death: A Manual of Death Education & Simple Burial
Ernest Morgan
Planning & Advanced Directives
Exit Strategy: Thinking Outside the Box
Michelle Cromer
Creative Endings
From The Ashes: My Story of Being Metis
Jesse Thistle
Hope & Resilience
Going Out Green
Bob Butz
Green Death
Greening Death
Suzanne Kelly
Green Burial and Natural Death
Home Funeral Ceremonies: A Primer to Honour the Dying and the Dead with Reverance, Ligh-heartedness, and Grace
Donna Belk and Kateyanne Unullisi
Home Funerals
It Didn't Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle
Mark Wolyn
Transforming Traumatic Legacies
It's OK to Die
Dr. Monica Williams-Murphy and Kristian Murphy
The Dying Process
Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives
Michael Newton
Transitional Navigation
Laughing in the Waterfall: A Mother’s Memoir
Marianne Dietzel
The Loss of a Child
Last Wishes: A Funeral Planning Manual and Survivors Guide
Malcolm James & Victoria Lynn
Planning & Advanced Directives
Lessons from the Dying
Rodney Smith
Exploring Death
Lifetimes: The beautiful way to explain death to children
Bryan Mellonie & Robert Ingpen
Children – Understanding Death
Living Consciously, Dying Gracefully Nancy Manahan & Becky Bohan
Nancy Manahan & Becky Bohan
Conscious Dying
Mourning and Mitzvah: A Guided Journal for Walking the Mourner’s Path Through Grief to Healing
Rabbi Anne Brener
Jewish Mourning
Moving Beyond Loss
Russell Friedman and John W. James
Grief and Loss
My Good Grief
Cindyanne Kershaw
Grief
No One Has to Die Alone: Preparing for a Meaningful Death
Lani Leary and Jean Watson
Caring for the Dying
On Death and Dying
Elisabeth Kubler Ross
Seminal Works
Parting Ways: New Rituals and Celebrations of Life’s Passing
Denise Carson
Celebrations and Rituals
Remember Me: A Lively Tour of the New American Way of Death
Lisa Takeuchi Cullen
Creative Endings
Ritual: Power, Healing & Community
Malidoma Patrice Some
Ritual
Rituals for Living and Dying: How We Can Turn Loss and the Fear of Death into an Affirmation of Life
David Fernstein and Peg Elliott Mayo
Rituals and Ceremony
Sacred Dying: Creating Rituals for Embracing the End of Life
Megory Anderson & Thomas Moore
Celebrations and Rituals
Sacred Passage: How to Provide Fearless, Compassionate Care for the Dying
Margaret Coberly
Being Present with the Dying
Sign Posts of Dying: What You Need to Know
Martha Jo Atkins
Language of Dying
Someone I Love is Dying
Jeanne Sedun
Transitional Navigation
Soul Rescuers: A 21st Century Guide to the Spirit World
Terry O’Sullivan and Natalia O’Sullivan
Transitional Navigation
Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death
Irvin D. Yalom
Exploring Death
Straight Talk about Death for Teenagers
Earl Grollman
Children – Understanding Death
Talking About Death
Virginia Morris
Being Present with the Dying
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook
Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz
Children & Trauma
The Final Crossing, Learning to Die in Order to Live
Dr. Scott Eberle
Exploring Death
The Four Things That Matter Most
Ira Byock
Conscious Dying
The Needs of the Dying
Michelle Cromer
Creative Endings
The Pagan Book of Living and Dying
Starhawk & M. Macha Nightmare
Celebrations and Rituals
The Fall of Freddie the Leaf
Leo Buscaglia
Children – Understanding Death
The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully
Frank Ostraseski
Living Fully
The Green Burial Guidebook
Elizabeth Fournier
Natural Death & Green Burial
The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise
Martin Prechlel
Grief
When Breath Becomes Air
Paul Kalanithi and Abraham Verghese
Cancer – Memoir
Who Dies? An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying
Stephen Levine and Ondrea Levine
Living Fully
Your Digital Undertaker-Exploring Death in the Digital Age in Canada
Sharon Hartung
Digital Estate Planning
Is there a valuable resource that you think would enhance this list?
Fabulous event planner!!! She is professional, organized, detail oriented, creative, calm and positive. She brings her extensive experience to bear in the form of suggestions and ideas during planning as well as seamlessly handling whatever situations arise during the event. Linda is an absolute pleasure to work with, she has my highest recommendation.
– Barbara –