A Path Home
What is a home funeral? How can I have a green burial? Do I have to hire a Funeral Director? On this podcast we’ll be focusing on reclaiming our innate right to care for our own loved ones at death in natural, and often, environmentally friendly ways. We’ll demystify the tasks related to after death care through hearing stories from people who have ventured into culturally unfamiliar territory and cared for their own deceased loved ones at home, chose a natural burial or both. Hearing what’s possible and how lives have been transformed by engaging in this final act of love is one path towards changing our culture and our relationship to death. A Path Home is a production of the National Home Funeral Alliance.
- Update frequency
- every 13 days
- Average duration
- 40 minutes
- Episodes
- 79
- Years Active
- 2019 - 2024
Holding Hands
Today I have a conversation with Karry Sawatsky. She shares with us the story of her grandfather’s death and how she supported her grandmother throughout the process. Karry is a full-time death doula…
Caring for a Baby Brother, Decades Later.
Today I have a conversation with Karen van Vuuren, founder of the educational non-profit, Natural Transitions, a founding member of the NHFA, and co-founder of The Natural Funeral in Lafayette, Color…
Jen's Last Ceremony
Today I have a conversation with Darshan Stevens on Cortes Island in British Columbia. Darshan and her mother, Jennifer, lived on the same property when Jen was diagnosed with cancer. For two years t…
Bound by the Ropes of Love
In early December, 2021, Adrienne Parker discovered that her oldest child, Brandyn, had died in his car. Brandyn's life had been caught in a cycle of mental illness and incarceration, resulting in h…
Arizona Community Death Care
Today we hear from two members of the Arizona Community Death Care collective, Dani LaVoire and Jade Sherer. This is another episode that will be of interest to those listeners who are either already…
Crossroads Community DeathCare
Sarah is joined by Angela and Michael Franklin, founders of Crossroads Community DeathCare, for an in-depth conversation on how engaging in community led death care has the potential to shift the cul…
Healing Through Participation
Tim Johnson shares the story of choosing to care for his dad at home, and his journey getting there through the stories of two other significant deaths in the family.
To see Debbie Wagner's art work …
Bringing A Homeless Son Home
On this episode Sarah has a conversation with three members of a community led death care group in Canada. They share the touching story of bringing Gypsy's son, Andrew, home to the island to care fo…
Lola in the Garden
Sarah has a conversation with North Carolina based singer songwriter Laurelyn Dossett who shares the story of the burial she and her brothers provided for their mother in a hand crafted wooden box in…
A Green Burial for a Green Builder
Today I have a conversation with Kelly Parker. Kelly’s husband Rick Robson died in late January and was buried at Heart Land Prairie Cemetery earlier this month. Rick had determined that he wanted to…
Threshold Care Circle
Today I have a conversation with four members of the Threshold Care Circle in Viroqua, Wisconsin; Charlene Elderkin, Susan Nesbitt, Kelly Whited-Ford, and Tracy Mangold. Threshold Care Circle began a…
Colorado Burial Preserve
Emily Miller shares her experience of opening Colorado's first dedicated green burial ground, Colorado Burial Preserve.
https://www.coloradoburialpreserve.com/
https://www.greenburialcouncil.org/so_yo…
Scout Flies Home
Today Sarah is joined by Deborah Thornton and Angela Franklin. Deborah's daughter, Scout, died in a car accident in the summer of 2019. With the help of Angela and her husband, Michael, both death mi…
Thoughts on Grief
Today Sarah reposts an episode from our first season in 2019 called Grief and the Holidays with a couple of changes. Several people have asked about the song at the beginning and end of A Path Home. …
In the Cabin and On the Hill, Andy's at Home
On this episode we hear from Jonel Kiesau, who shares the tender, sorrowful, yet somehow joyful experience of caring for her beloved husband, Andy, at home along with their two young daughters, famil…
Home Funeral Without the Home
Today Susan Mackey shares her creative solution for providing after-death care when a home funeral wasn't possible, home funeral care just not in a home. To learn more about Sue and her work see her …
A Place in the Prairie
On today's episode I speak with three members of the Pomerantz family, sisters Jennifer and Katie and their father, Sanford. It was almost exactly one year ago, November 13th, 2020, that I met the f…
From Taharah to Aquamation
Bonni Goldberg shares the story of reckoning a complicated relationship with her mother by caring for her at the end of her life and after her death. The women in Bonni's family performed the taharah…
A Conversation with Maggie Jones
Writer Maggie Jones shares with Sarah the after death care her family provided for both of her parents some 18 years apart. The experience of remaining with her father's body for a full night after h…
Accompanying Kelly
Diana Lindsay and her friend, home funeral guide Lucinda Herring, share the story of Kelly Lindsay's dying process and the family who gathered to accompany him on his final journey with brain cancer.…