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Resources

Please find resources to help you learn and understand end-of-life options available.

Information Regarding Advance Directives

Questions and Answers About Health Care Directives - MN Dept. of Health

Advance Directives / Minnesota Board on Aging (MBA)

https://www.ag.state.mn.us/consumer/handbooks/probate/HealtCareDir.pdf

Educational Materials - Light The Legacy (Honoring Choices)

Minnesota Health Care Directive Planning Toolkit | UMN Extension

POLST and Advance Care Planning (ACP) - POLST

FAQs - POLST

POLST | Minnesota Medical Association

The Conversation Project - Have You Had The Conversation?

The Conversation Project - National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD) — April 16

Wakes, Funerals, Disposition

NATIONAL HOME FUNERAL ALLIANCE - Home

Aquamation or Resomation: A ‘Green’ Alternative to the traditional Funeral - US Funerals Online

Directory of Aquamation Providers in the U.S. - US Funerals Online

Green Burial Directory - US Funerals Online

In Minnesota, you have several options for green burial:

Urns for Ashes | Tree Burial & Cremation Urns — The Living Urn

Let Your Love Grow | Memorial Plants

St. Croix Valley Memorial Forest Better Place Forests

Legacy Projects

Home | My Wind Phone

24 Questions You Should Ask Your Parents, While You Can | HuffPost Life

Genealogy: 150 questions to ask family members about their lives – Deseret News

Caregiver Resources

FREE Resource Center for Family Caregivers | Doulagivers Institute - Doulagivers

Free Resource Page - Doulagivers

Find an End-of-Life Doula or Doula House

End of Life Doula Directory - Doulagivers

Member Directory — Minnesota Death Collaborative

The Upper Room

Books

  • The Good Death

    • By Suzanne O’Brien

    • https://thegooddeathbook.com/

    • Summary: In The Good Death, Suzanne O’Brien, RN, founder and CEO of Doulagivers Institute, offers a compassionate and clear guide to helping loved ones through the profound transition of end of life. This book provides the tools, understanding, and emotional support needed to navigate this sacred time with grace, empathy, and peace

  • Cruising through Caregiving: Reducing the stress of Caring for Your Loved One

  • Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

    • By Atul Gawande

    • https://atulgawande.com/book/being-mortal/

    • Summary: Being Mortal is a book by Atul Gawande that explores how people can better live with age-related frailty, serious illness, and approaching death. Gawande calls for a change in the way medical professionals treat patients approaching the end of life.

  • Holding Space: On Loving, Dying, and Letting Go

    • By Amy Wright Glenn

    • https://birthbreathanddeath.com/

    • Summary: A look at the spiritual, emotional, and philosophical implications of end-of-life care by an elegant and literary writer who is a hospital chaplain.

  • Love and Fear: Stories from a Hospice Chaplain

    • By Renshin Bunce

    • https://www.facebook.com/people/Love-and-Fear-Stories-from-a-hospice-chaplain/100064169104572/

    • Summary: The author is a Zen Buddhist Priest who works as a hospice chaplain. Her book is a series of stories about people she has met as she learns that every death is different and there are no universal rules or easy answers in hospice care. These stories show what's possible, allowing the reader to learn along with her as she continues to ask, What am I supposed to do? What is help? What is it to be human?

  • Greening Death: Reclaiming Burial Practices and Restoring Our Tie to the Earth

  • The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments

    • By Hadley Vlahos, R.N.

    • The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments by Hadley Vlahos | Goodreads

    • Summary: In The In-Between, Vlahos recounts the most impactful experiences she’s had with the people she’s worked with—from the woman who never once questioned her faith until she was close to death, to the older man seeing visions of his late daughter, to the young patient who laments that she spent too much of her short life worrying about what others thought of her—while also sharing her own fascinating journey.

  • Nothing to Fear: Demystifying Death to Live More Fully