Passionate broadcast television student in fourth-year journalism at Wilfrid Laurier University. A wide-eyed dreamer and transfer student from Calgary, she’s fallen in love with Brantford’s character and history. After obtaining her post-grad in broadcast videography from Conestoga College last year, Jaclyn is readier than ever to pursuit a television reporting career Outside of class you can find her at Wilkes Gym teaching Zumba, running by the river, and hitting up a hot class at Moksha. Jaclyn’s endeavors will be moving her back to Cowtown in April 2016 to start as the summer student for CTV Calgary.
Jaclyn Brown
MY DYING WISHES
October 31, 2015
Well doesn’t this feel a little unsettling, planning my own funeral at 21?
I figured it would be fitting to write this post on Halloween with the death theme and all. Hopefully I don’t die tonight, because that would be sickeningly ironic. Now I’m scared.
Anyways, as an experiment to see how our own funeral and death perceptions evolve over the course of the year, we’re planning our funerals at the beginning of the project and once again at the end. The contrast will be interesting to witness, especially since even writing about my own funeral turns my stomach. This feels very uncomfortable to plan. It’s not that I’m afraid of dying, but I just haven’t thought about my own funeral and I don’t really think I should have to until I’m at least 30- but hey, we didn’t choose to study death for a year for nothing. So here we go, a detailed explanation of what my funeral looks like at the beginning of our project. Please keep in mind I have never given this serious thought.
I would want my family and friends to gather to celebrate my life. I have no idea what venue since I haven’t really been touring funeral homes in my spare time. I would definitely want to be cremated, there’s something that terrifies me about being locked in a box for the rest of eternity. I think I’ve watched too many shows on people who are six-feet under and suddenly wake up. So just to be safe I would like my body to be cremated. I would probably want some gathering with nice music or have a live song played while there’s a slideshow of my achievements and photos. I have a feeling this project will guide us away from traditional funerals but my mind is stuck in that space for now. I would love to have people gather and look at old photos and memories and then maybe everyone could go back to my parents and pick out some of my things they want to keep in memory of me, as long as my parents and sister get first dibs on their desired items. I guess my family would have to do something with my ashes hey? I think maybe it would be nice if they spread them in the mountain in Alberta because it is truly so beautiful and I love to hike. Grassi Lakes in Canmore, Alberta would be a great spot. I just know it’s a busy tourist place so it’s not that peaceful. I would probably leave it up to my family and just say spread me on a nice mountain with a view, I trust their taste.
I have to be totally honest. This is very difficult to write I have only been to old-people funerals where everyone is in black at a big grand funeral home so that’s kind of the image I have in my head. I just would want people to gather and celebrate my life and share memories too. That’s seriously all I have for now, I’m hoping I’ll get some more creative ideas along the way. I think I want a tombstone too placed by my grandparents. I think we have a family plot somewhere but like I said, I haven’t put a lot of thought into this all. Bear with me friends; this year should be a wild ride.
DEATH BLOG ONE
October 1, 2015
Embarking on a year of surrounding myself in death?
Bring it on.
This topic certainly wasn’t my own idea, but as I sat open-eared among a classroom of aspiring journalists I was immediately enthralled with Taylor’s idea. I think as human beings we all have a healthy curiosity surrounding death but it is the culture of fear that fascinates me immensely. Personally I was terrified of death throughout my childhood, which seems only natural. I would cry late at night and ask my mom will wide eyes was really happens after you die. I had a bizarre fear of tornadoes even though metropolitan Calgary has never been hit. I was scared of what happened to you.
Do you fall asleep and never wake up?
Does it feel like dreaming?
Can I still see my mom and family?
Being raised in a catholic family and school I was always a fairly spiritual person, and after meeting my current boyfriend I’ve renewed my spirituality within Southview Church in Calgary, part of the Christian Missionary Alliance (a branch of conservative Protestantism). Growing up, the concept of heaven and hell didn’t sit right with me. If God so loved all his children, why would he damn them to hell if Jesus died for the sins of humanity? This inquisition alongside the liberal teaching of University of Calgary caused me to depart from organized faith entirely as the professors kindly requested to leave religious affiliations at the door – because there is simply no such thing as God. I continued to entertain a half hearted belief in some sort of an energy exchange after we die, I speculated that the energy we have is only borrowed and must be returned one day. I felt very guilty about my departure from faith and therefore always kept my views about death to myself. I missed God. I prayed daily from about age 10 to 15 and truly believed I had felt God’s presence. I remember physically feeling the Holy Spirit, and longing for that feeling for the rest of my adolescence. I was angry at God for not being real (as much sense as that makes) and I was so enthralled with the beauty and complexity of the natural world that I refused to believe it was all for nothing. So in this regard my departure from faith was still peppered with belief.
My grandfather died in his early seventies from terminal prostate cancer in 2012. This threw my faith and understanding of death for yet another loop. My beloved maternal grandfather Manfred Swan was one of the most intelligent humans I’ve encountered. He spent his life in the bustling oil & gas industry as an engineer and committed his life to knowledge as his love for books inspired many of his experiences. He lived close to 5 years with a terminal diagnosis, so I spent those years writing him letters about my questions about life and my current understandings of the world. I tried to visit between classes at U of C and our relationship was immensely strengthened in his final years. He always badgered us about God as children, asking us why we believe in a God if the world is so full of hatred and demise. I just smiled a giggled because I knew my mother would later ream him out for preaching atheism to his very catholic grandchildren. I just told him God works in mysterious ways and that’s the only answer you’ll need. I later interviewed him for a psychology project and his answers echoe in my head to this day. After his diagnosis, his own believes changed as he sought comfort in the spectacle of the natural world. He would continue to repeatedly say this life is not our own. We must commit our lives to learning as much as possible about this world before we have to leave it. He repeated, I don’t know what is out there but I can guarantee this life we live is not our own – there is something more. I know it.
Of course this made his death a particularly difficult pill to swallow but I have no regrets about the way we spent his final years. I watched my grandfather being wheeled into a hospice as the cancer painfully spread to his bones. I was simply upset that a man with the most incredible breadth of knowledge was going to be gone. He knew so much and I didn’t get the time to know it all. He was the grandfather who taught his grandkids the full names of dinosaurs at age 5. Needless to say my family impressed a lot of preschool teachers. In his final days, he would try to squeeze out all the information he could as the last strings of his cognitive abilities clung to his clouding eyes. He would ask us to go get a notebook and jot down the time periods of coins and fossils he collected. He additionally made my grandmother lists and instructions for all the things he used to do, so she could replace the roof at a reasonable rate without some young guy pinching her for pennies after he died.
It was a beautiful death, and I miss him dearly.
I think that’s when I truly started believing in God again, because I loved my Grandpa so dearly that I knew he would be okay. He had to be. He was too smart and cunning to just disappear into dust. The months following his death I had the most vivid dreams of him. Driving in a car for a road trip somewhere, I told him he looked great (because he did, sporting a dark purple blazer…his hair was thicker too) and he told me he was doing fine with a smile. This was probably the single most influential moment of my life when it came to death because I whole-heartedly believed that death was not the end- but the beginning. I had similar dream when both of my paternal grandparents died when I was 9 and 11.
As it stands I have returned to faith and I strongly believe in the presence of God in my life. I trust in him to the best of my abilities and I am planning on being officially baptized in the coming year. I know what I think about death and I do believe I will meet with God someday and that my actions on earth are to serve him with the talents I’ve been given.
So, here we go. The first official step in our research will be in attending the day of the dead festival at the HarbourFront Centre in Toronto. I’m honestly just excited to learn about how people feel about death and how different cultures foster certain perceptions. It is so obvious that people fear death even though it is the only thing certain in our lives. I want to see how many people have thought about it and what options there are outside of cremation and burial because things are certainly changing in the death industry. I’ve only thought about it on a surface level, and I imagine many people share the small amount time I’ve committed to thinking about death.
DEATH BLOG TWO
November 10, 2016
As a Calgary girl, I am always thrilled with any excuse to embark to the big and boisterous Toronto.
It just so happened that our first official event of research was nestled right in the heart of down town Toronto at the HarbourFront Centre. As you may have seen from the video, I really had no clue what to expect. I’ve heard of the day of the dead here and there, I certainly knew it was associated with Mexico and after travelling there twice I always wondered what all the painted skulls were about. I thought it had something to do with cinqo de mayo but my embarrassing lack of Spanish later understood this was the fifth of may celebration and the skulls had little to do with it.
So, at least I went to the festival with a completely open mind- and in terms of research purposes this was a benefit. We sat bumper to bumper in true Toronto fashion until we pulled into the underground parking at the HarbourFront Centre. The building was set up in a giant square lined with assorted vendors and cultural displays and we happened to arrive right as an elaborate Mexican dance emerged in the hall. The colours, the people, the atmosphere was beaming with celebration and excitement. I had a moment of uncertainty as I pondered if this festival was truly about death. Many of the cultural ambassadors we interviewed were literally excited about their own death. I thought they were joking, but the joke was on me. One of the vendors smiled warmly at me as she said death was the end of stress. She giggled as she explained the turmoil and hectic nature of life on earth, she said it would be nice to finally get a break and get away from it all. The day of the dead is a day of celebration and not of mourning. It is a way for those still living to have an official day to commemorate dead ancestors and family.
The most interesting part for me was talking with people (with or without Mexican descent) and learning how being at the festival made them feel part of something so much bigger. This really was a great place to launch our research because through witnessing the lighthearted attitude of those there, it helped me to realize how much western culture fears death. We can’t even joke about it half the time because we tip toe around the proverbial feelings of others, basking in the uncertainty that our school acquaintances may have lost a mother or a sibling somewhere along the way. Fear of death has been so engrained into western culture that we aren’t even aware of how sensitive we’ve become to it. We censor the conversation so it doesn’t even have the opportunity to come up. Yet in other cultures they promote the conversation, mostly because the day of the dead has been integrated into their culture for nearly 3000 years. In my mind it emphasizes a systematic flaw, a culture built on a foundation of fearing death can only perpetuate conversations rooted in this perception. There isn’t a “Canadian” way to die. There isn’t a holiday that serves as remembrance to pay homage to dead family members, we just swallow it down, and even pretend it never happened. It seems only in the security of our own bedrooms we can leak insecure anxious tears of grief and pain.
Must we continue to suffer in silence? What would it take for Canadian culture to foster such a lighthearted demeanor about our dead loved ones? These questions will continue to simmer within me as the project treks on, I anticipate that our project will extract more trends of death denial as an inherent quality of western culture but we are only in the preliminary phases of research. Some meaningful seeds were planted within me today and I anxiously await their cultivation as we pursue new sources.
DEATH BLOG THREE
February 1, 2016
Green burial is so awesome! Why have I never heard of this before?
Today we made the chilly commute to Waterloo to meet Chaplin and green burial advocate Michele Cadotte and University of Waterloo student studying death perceptions, Emily Jull. This was an exceptionally fascinating interview to listen to as Emily’s eccentric and antique-laden home created an ambient coffee shop feel. We sipped cups of tea and witnessed a very open conversation about death perceptions and dying in Canada. As we asked her about her advocacy, Michele simply explained how green burial is an option emerging out of the green living movement. If we live organic, locally grown and environmentally conscious lives, why should our death be any different? Chatting with Michele and listening to her comments brought me to the abrupt realization that cremation isn’t as green as many people think. The amount of energy that has to go into burning a human body creates a lot of pollution. I never even thought about the mass pollution released from burning a body.
With a smirk, Michele said it’s simply common perception. Green burial sites are starting to pop up across Southern Ontario, especially in the GTA. Green burial simply means that your body decomposes naturally in the ground. You can choose to be put straight in the dirt, or in a cardboard or wood casket, which will also decompose with the body. I find this interesting because it just makes so much sense to return our bodies to the earth. Emily and Michele mentioned how they’ve heard of areas where the chemical composition of human bodies can actually help to revive barren soil. I love the idea of having my body contribute to new life and revitalization. Another topic that emerged mid-tea was the crowding of cemeteries. Although the problem isn’t as prominent, many places in Europe have to dig up bodies to make room for new ones in cemeteries (which is why green burial is catching on there).
When we asked about her own wishes Michele laughed saying she just wants to be thrown in a burlap sack and buried in a garden since she has a passionate green thumb in life. I thought she wasn’t serious, but as long as you’re six feet under and the city knows about it, you’re legally entitled to bury a body wherever the person or family desires.As much as my mother would like to tend her petunias with the thought of her daughter decomposing below, it’s an interesting thought. It’s becoming exceedingly clear in our research that societal views have simply been streamlined through consumerism. We have completely lost sight of our freedom in death, thus lacking the knowledge to weigh options outside of traditional burial and cremation. I didn’t even know about this option and I know with my grandfather’s affinity for the natural world he would have loved this option. It makes so much sense and it alleviates crowding of cemeteries and unnecessary pollution. I sat there listening to the gorgeous conversation around me. Five individuals chatting about death as if we were chatting about the weather, and it all felt so comfortable.
Emily returned to school as a mature student to deconstruct death perceptions as she’s witnessed the impact fear of death is having on society. She explained her interest in green burial and encouraging people to explore alternative options. I loved listening to her stories of witnessing death denial first hand and the pain it causes people when they live in such fear. Emily hopes he research will help to open people’s minds to the reality and sanctity of death. This experience definitely got our feet wet in terms of making some new connections and gathering exciting insights. I truly felt very optimistic and excited leaving Waterloo because it’s a relief to know options like these are out there. It only draws further attention to how important decisions about death are to your life. Perhaps some of the reason behind the fear is people feel left with an ultimatum: cremation or burial. People may fear these options because it has absolutely no connection to who they were as a living person. It’s interesting to speculate that if people knew about more dynamic and original options, they may not feel so fearful because they feel like they get to leave a legacy. Maybe some fear is eradicated when people find an option that reflects their life. It’ll be interesting to follow this trend in the coming months and explore how a variety of options might positively impact these negative perceptions.
As for me, I think I’ve met my dream-death option. Green burial will absolutely be my way to go.
DEATH BLOG FOUR
February 21, 2016
Death midwife ... like a normal midwife, but for death.
Death Midwifery was definitely something that caught my attention while continuing my research and it ended up being SUCH an interesting interview with Rochelle Martin. I was sifting through articles about grief and found an article about an organization in Calgary that sounded so beautiful. A woman who called herself a “death midwife” spent a three days with a family, helping them articulate feelings and wishes to their departing grandfather. She was able to help the family understand what he was going through and was there to ease as much fear as possible.
After some fervent googling, I was lucky enough to come across a death midwife a little closer to town in Hamilton. As a psychiatric nurse, Rochelle Martin really brought some interesting ideas to the table because she obviously has a very strong understanding of how death can impact us mentally. She consistently returned to the point of how it becomes very easy to fear something we know nothing about. I find it so intriguing that the cause of this fear could be attributed to our distance from experiencing the death of other people in a physical and present way.
As we’ve been continuing this project, it’s becoming exceedingly clear that DEATH ISN’T NEW PHENOMENON. Shocking, I know! However, I really believe caps lock was necessary to emphasize the reality of our own mortality, especially considering a lot of the ideas about death we’ve witnessed so far are certainly as old as time itself. People used to take pictures of dead family members and hosting funerals at home was commonplace.
Rochelle was a wonderful reminder of this because she emphasized how the departure from human beings physically experiencing death has impacted our perceptions. We don’t see or touch or experience dead bodies in Canada. The majority of us will die in hospital despite our collective wish to die at home. Hospitals and funeral homes are the first things that come to mind when we hear of a death in the family or community. That’s how you die. That’s where you die. Society is seemingly unaware of other options, and the impact our perceived lack of options has on our attitude towards death. We rarely get the opportunity to see a dead body because parents don’t want their kids to see their dead Grandma. With the increasing popularity of cremation people are also distanced from the realness of death. If people used to have home funerals all the time, what happened? Grandma’s open casket used to sit in the parlor where everyone could see it, and this kind of normality that perhaps fostered acceptance. Now we seemingly go out of our way to shelter ourselves, our children, even our society from viewing and experiencing death. The death midwife movement is trying to reclaim this and I found it very profound. It really is a valiant attempt to re-claim death and put the control back in the hands of families. People used to die all the time at home, and as Rochelle brilliantly articulated, it isn’t rocket science to take care of a dead body (she even showed us some five dollar mail-order ice packs that can keep a body cool for days).
Another parallel that has been emerging is the connection between birth and death, a weird one but a very important one. People prepare for birth in a really beautiful way- from reading stacks of books to classes and shopping, it’s a 9-month process. Death midwives are trying to do just that- but on the flip side. Why don’t we prepare for birth the way we prepare for death? It would certainly help save us grief, regret, stress, and even money. We’ve learned to call up the funeral home and write them a check so we don’t have to deal with it ourselves. I think this trend has been bred more so out of convenience than fear but it draws attention to how we have distanced ourselves from death with this practice. I think the movement is really onto something, even if it’s not considered new. As the saying goes everything eventually comes back into style and for the death industry in Canada, the death midwifery movement could be like the second coming of bell bottom jeans. I look forward to witnessing the emergence and change of the death industry in this regard, not that I myself would want to prepare and was the body of my dead mom or dad, but I certainly respect the values and emotions at the core of this movement.
DEATH BLOG FIVE
March 16, 2016
Infant loss photography… I shuttered at the thought.
Dead babies? Someone out there is photographing dead babies. I couldn’t help but think to myself that this was disturbing and completely unnecessary. It just seemed like a place where no photographer or human should go. I agreed to come along with Taylor for the interview because Mia was unavailable, but I was certainly nervous. I half expected the woman we were about to meet would be eccentric and bizarre. I am happy to report the complete opposite. Taylor mentioned to me that Tonia Lariviere just recently was part of bringing the infant loss photography movement to Canada as part of the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep movement in the states. The Canadian organization is called Heaven Bound and has only recently come to Southern Ontario, but Tonia hopes it will soon spread across Canada. Other than this tidbit of information, I was totally unsure of what to expect at the interview.
We entered the studio attached to her home in Caledonia and after warmly shaking her hand I could feel the most beautiful energy radiate from Tonia. She was so happy and willing to talk about it that I immediately felt at ease in her presence. As the interview begun I took a backseat and listened attentively while filming. I started to forget the camera as I was completely fascinated by the stories Tonia was sharing. I was floored and I felt a little embarrassed about my earlier thoughts. This wasn’t morbid at all, perhaps the farthest thing from it. She beautifully explained how a life is still a life no matter how old, and her mission is largely inspired by this mantra. She explained that when she’s called to the hospital she tries to document every detail of their tiny bodies – the curl of their lip, the tiny fingernails, ten perfect toes, long eyelashes, all the tiny features that are so beautiful and unique.
The passion in her voice was inspiring. I was completely drawn in despite my earlier insecurities because I was realizing how healing this could be for women. There are few people that will actually face the reality of infant loss because we don’t, as a society, entertain that possibility. I find this so interesting because the same chance of dying in life still holds true in the womb. Of course infant loss is a whole different story because it’s a life that never got a proper chance, however I think there is something important to realize within this. Women who experience stillborn infants or miscarriages lack significant support and options. As Tonia highlighted, even if the parents never look at the photos, at least they have documented this tiny life.
They were here.
They existed.
They were loved.
Something as simple as a photo could help to heal the extraordinary pain of being denied the opportunity to see your baby grow up. At the very least you were able to see their tiny bodies and marvel in the glory of their existence. This is truly one of the most profound realizations and experiences I’ve had. I’ve had extended family members experience miscarriages (although none carried to term) and I’ve seen the horrible turmoil and pain it causes expecting moms. Still, I never thought that something like infant loss photography would help bridge the gap between grief and joy, acceptance and understanding, even hopelessness and hope. Tonia hopes to attend maternity shows in the future, and her fear is firmly rooted in the negative perception we’ve spent the year exploring. People don’t want to entertain the possibility of stillbirth, yet it happens everyday. I think it’s a tragedy that people don’t know about this organization because for women to at least know they have options when it comes to stillbirth is so empowering. I can only hope one day we reach a level of acceptance towards death as not just a possibility but a reality. It would save us so much heartbreak. This is not to devalue grief or mourning, but it’s a simple speculation as to how we perpetuate our own pain when we fear death to this extent. I wish every new mom just at least would know, worst-case scenario, there are options. You don’t have to just forget that baby never happened, you don’t have to write off their life as an unfathomable tragedy. I look forward to hearing and witnessing Tonia’s success, although it’s difficult for her to find volunteers with enough emotional and psychological stability to handle such devastating situations. This once again plays into how people view death but I really think Heaven Bound is onto something. I left her studio inspired and dumbfounded, this truly is one of the most beautiful movements I’ve heard about.
MY DYING WISHES
April 1, 2016
Wow, what a year.
I’m happy to say I’m actually kind of excited to tell you about my totally awesome funeral now, because this year has truly alleviated all my fears and insecurities about death. This could be attributed to the fact I’ve spent a whole year talking to people about death, especially considering the people we’ve been talking are completely used to the death conversation. I think the biggest benefit for me personally was just talking about it, I honestly found so much comfort in hearing that everyone is afraid. Being united in the fear of the unknown provides the most amazing feeling of acceptance as I have come to realize everyone will fear it to some extent. We all have questions and concerns about death, but the only way we can stop fearing is to start talking. You come to realize life is truly so short, and despite the cliché it makes you look at death with less stress. It’s all going to happen to all of us eventually, could be tomorrow or could be in 50 years. Probably one of the most important things I’ve learned over the year is that through planning your funeral you leave your family with a lot less worry about obeying and honouring your wishes. If you articulate what you want, your family doesn’t have to stress and ask themselves would she have wanted this? So here we go- my funeral plans at the end of the term.
I want a party and I want a green burial. After learning about natural burial, it just makes so much sense to me. I love that my body is left in its natural state and can return to the earth in its mineral-dense glory. My party will be at the nearest available park outside, and my casket will be cardboard or plain wood (biodegradable) and everyone attending can paint or draw something fun on it. Depending what age I die at, there will be a corresponding number of shot glasses, and everyone there has to go take a shot in my memory. Before you take your shot, you have to go up to the mic and share the funniest moment you had with me. If there are too many shots, then that’s truly a Jaclyn-style party (which is why I want to live to be at least 100). There will be pizza and coffee and chocolate cheesecake and all my favorite foods – not a broccoli in sight. Once everyone is drunk and the kids go home, the adults will go have a karaoke night at a local bar where my photos and favourite things will be on display. I don’t want a tombstone but I want either a bench left with my name or something else more useful than a cemetery plot. When I’m buried on the natural burial site I would want my family and friends to lower me down for the last time and plant a rose on top in my memory.
Sounds epic doesn’t it? I’ve gained such a lighthearted perspective towards death over the year. This isn’t to discount the pain or mourning my family would be going through but I just want it to be done in a fun fashion to reflect my vivacity and love for life. Everyone we talked to this year who works with death on a regular basis has such a beautiful view of it. They just accept it, plan it, joke about it, and live to their fullest in the mean time. I don’t know when I’ll go, but I assure you it’ll be with a big bang and an even bigger party. Even if I’m old I don’t want everyone to gather in a church and cry because that doesn’t reflect the way I lived my life. I try my best to live life to the max and I want my funeral to be a legacy of a fully loved and lived life.