In this conversation with Amy Sagar. We talk about her personal story that started with Amy joining the funeral industry at the age of 16 and what personally lead Amy to join the not for profit organisation Tender Funerals as their first Funeral Director. This was a really juicy conversation where we talk about death as community care and how meaningful and transformational it can be to involve community at all levels of the death and grieving process. We talk about rituals and ceremonies that can be held to honor and revere our loved ones who have died.
You’ll hear us discuss:
- Amy’s personal story about how she joined the funeral industry at age 16
- How caring for the dead can be transformational
- Rituals for grieving and saying goodbye
- Different options for caring for our family members body
- How rituals after our family member has passed can create a gentler bereavement
- The impact community death care is creating
- Death literacy starting with our children and how to navigate talking about death
Provide care for that person, which means washing and dressing their body. It's a ceremonial last act of caring for someone's body. When we have the funeral ceremony, that's the final thing that happens before the disposal of the body, We can hopefully get to a point at the end where we can say goodbye, let go of that person so that their body can be cremated or buried. But if we're only saying hello to their body for the first time in that ceremony, it's harder to say goodbye.
MEET AMY SAGAR
Amy Sagar is a Funeral Director and has spent 15 years supporting families and communities in caring for their dead and creating meaningful funeral ceremonies. Amy was the founding funeral director of the not-for-profit funeral home Tender Funerals which recently featured on ABC’s Australian Story.
It's absolutely different for everyone. Part of grief is joy, bliss and laughter. They are all within the spectrum of grief, if we let our children see the full range, then that also normalizes that for grief. You don't have to always be sad.
