Expert Advice - How to be Buried in a Forest!

You can view the video version on YouTube here.

In this episode, Mel Bennett, co-founder of Life Forest Cemetery, shares her journey in the death care industry, emphasizing the importance of compassionate care, innovative burial practices, and community support. She shares her expertise in creating Life Forest, a mapped forest cemetery. Mel highlights the significance of cemetery mapping and deeded burials, ensuring families have access to their loved ones' resting places. The conversation also touches on the emotional aspects of death care and the need for resources to support grieving families.

Life Forest's website: https://www.thelifeforest.com/

Video: The inspiration that created Life Forest https://youtu.be/8-J2SPcRVOs?si=ElC0VHz0LIuKyyxZ

Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Transcript

Annalouiza (00:01.57)
Welcome friends. On today's episode, we're so very happy to meet Mel Bennett. Mel is the co-founder of the nonprofit Life Forest Cemetery in Hillsboro, New Hampshire. Life Forest offers deed-recorded cremation burials in a conservation setting. She has presented on establishing conservation forest cemeteries, GIS mapping of burial locations, and offering hybrid services for green burials to the New Hampshire Cemetery Commissions and the Maine Cemetery Association.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (00:38.316)
Wonderful, Mel. We're glad to have you. Mel's also been a guest lecturer on death and dying at Southern New Hampshire University, as well as a presenter for the alternative death care organization, Last Things. Most recently, Mel served as a panelist for the 2024 Death Care Super Conference in Seattle, Washington, and that's where I met her. Mel believes every person deserves a dignified, recorded burial, and a public guardianship burial program is one such offering that meets that objective.

Life Forest Mel (00:39.135)
Thank you.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (01:08.724)
Welcome. Good to have you here.

Annalouiza (01:09.806)
Welcome, welcome.

Life Forest Mel (01:10.963)
Thank you guys.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (01:13.066)
So we want to start, I always like to begin and find out a little more about you and find out when you first became aware of death.

Life Forest Mel (01:20.991)
Oh, you know, I became first aware of death in kindergarten. And I think it's an excellent question you asked, because it's not one that I think I would have thought about if you hadn't asked it. How is how am I speaking? Are you hearing me? OK, everything good? OK. So. When I came home from kindergarten one day,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (01:40.736)
Yep, it's all good. And we have a good editor, by the way.

Life Forest Mel (01:50.171)
my mom had had our parakeet kind of wrapped in a small piece of fabric. Iggy was the parakeet's name. And I'm not sure how Iggy experienced his death, but Iggy died while I was at school that day.

And my mother didn't want me to experience just coming home to an empty bird cage. I think she took that moment as kind of a learning lesson that was direct but soft about death through the death of my pet parakeet. And I don't remember all the things of kindergarten, but I have a very strong image of that.

little bird in my mind and I think I always will because it was the first kind of visual of what death meant and she had lost a child, my little brother, early on and we had talked about it and, you know, counseled about it but I was so young when that happened that I wasn't involved in any of the services or anything like that so

I think the parakeet, even though I had heard of what death was, the parakeet and showing me the parakeet was the first time that I kind of really understood it.

Annalouiza (03:16.834)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (03:16.876)
Yeah, that makes sense. Beautiful.

Annalouiza (03:20.174)
Yeah, I'm grateful for your mom for having taken the time and slowness of it to to let you be with the, you know, the demise of your of Iggy. So that was the first awareness of death. How has death impacted the history of your life? Like, where has it shown up?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (03:30.943)
Mm-hmm.

Life Forest Mel (03:40.637)
Wow, you know, it's quite a bit since the formation of the cemetery because I have the opportunity to be able to kind of experience through so many people, their life and their death experiences and learning to know and love people that I never even met through the burials at the cemetery. And it's given me kind of a

Rev Wakil David Matthews (03:41.813)
Ha.

Life Forest Mel (04:08.255)
much wider knowledge and perspective on death and how it does has such a wide reach to so many people and it affects so many people in different ways.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (04:22.284)
Mm-hmm.

Life Forest Mel (04:23.635)
But I think my mom's death experience was the reason that life forest exists. However, since the inception of life forest, I've realized that the accessibility around death and how you kind of mourn people has...

Rev Wakil David Matthews (04:30.912)
Right.

Life Forest Mel (04:49.245)
become kind of rigid in lot of senses. And I find that the families at Lifeforest really want a say in part of the experience to help kind of move their grief along, but also the approachability we have. Death really follows a lot of sociological events that are going on in our lives right now.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (04:53.258)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (05:17.644)
Mm-hmm.

Life Forest Mel (05:18.939)
In New Hampshire and a lot of places, death by suicide of a certain age group of men, I'm seeing quite a few 30 to 45 year old gentlemen passing away very early, but also addiction disease is taking a lot of people very, very young. So I'm seeing a much wider demographic of young burials.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (05:34.124)
Mm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (05:41.131)
Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (05:48.639)
And how can we alter our approach in how we care for families with death so that the children who are now losing their parents that are still like three to five years old can maybe learn to talk about it in a way and understand it in a way that somebody in their 40s or 50s may have not had the opportunity to. So kind of being part of

Annalouiza (05:48.942)
you

Rev Wakil David Matthews (05:49.182)
Hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (06:04.662)
Well, yeah.

Life Forest Mel (06:18.255)
helping to make it more approachable, less scary, more control has been a lot of my mission since kind of opening Life Force for a selfish reason of commemorating my mother and then really opening my eyes to the bigger picture of what people are experiencing.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (06:30.924)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (06:40.93)
That is really powerful to hear.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (06:42.156)
Wow, such... Yeah, yeah, I just feel like I want to take a breath or two. That's wow. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

Annalouiza (06:48.234)
And I also appreciate that you're exploring how to normalize language for kids, right? Like that is such a deep need as well. that's like stacked issues and tenderness that you need to hold for kids if they have experienced a father who has passed away through suicide or a drug addiction. Like it's so fraught for every aspect, but kids.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (06:56.534)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (07:13.311)
you

Annalouiza (07:18.407)
This was a good chance to let them know that death is okay.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (07:23.232)
Yeah, yeah.

Life Forest Mel (07:23.423)
You know, we, um, I think one of the first burials I experienced at Lifeforest before I had kind of seen the bigger mission and what it would grow into was a gentleman named Justin. He was in his early thirties. He died of addiction disease and he left behind two little boys, five and seven years old. And they came to the service and we were planting Justin's tree and they had little shovels.

And they wanted to take part, like, you know, they wanted to do it. I remember the little five-year-old, he said to his mom, no, I can do it myself, mom. And he was helping kind of shovel the soil over his father's, know, remains, his cremains. And I remember thinking, wow, this is really kind of hard to see.

Annalouiza (08:01.25)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (08:01.43)
haha

Life Forest Mel (08:16.442)
And I remember the kids kind of looking around and it was very obvious, although the setting was slightly different, that it was heavy. It was emotionally very heavy. But as soon as kind of the tree was planted and the marker was placed, the little boy looked up to his mom and said, can we go swimming now? Because we have a swimming area near the property and we kind of say, you know, integrate it into your experience.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (08:36.908)
Hahaha.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (08:45.92)
Wow.

Life Forest Mel (08:47.079)
And that made me realize that that kind of ability to like not just go home after the placement of a headstone and kind of a, you know, municipal cemetery setting and just having the stern moment gave maybe a softer transition, make a comma instead of a period. And they still come, they go fishing, the kids use the phone of the wind. We have a little free library for the kids.

Annalouiza (09:06.2)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (09:07.797)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Life Forest Mel (09:14.899)
but we also just, just published, You Can Always Talk to Possum. And it's a children's book that kind of relates all of the death emotions through little woodland creatures that they meet. And there's a workbook at the end. It was all written by local child impact specialists so that we can give them to children who may experience a death at life forest.

Annalouiza (09:14.989)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (09:20.886)
Hehe.

Annalouiza (09:29.292)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (09:30.469)
how beautiful.

Life Forest Mel (09:41.769)
But it's available to the public and we are offering just to anybody who needs it. The workbook can be downloaded at no cost. And maybe this will help the parents support the children through this.

Annalouiza (09:49.774)
you

Rev Wakil David Matthews (09:54.026)
Wow, beautiful. So good. We'll definitely put, we'll put links. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (09:54.114)
Right.

I think it might, I'm sorry, I was gonna say, it's gonna help the parents too, right? Like sitting down with the workbook is actually a really good exercise for the families, for the adults to like process, even though it's for kids, but.

Life Forest Mel (10:00.447)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (10:09.236)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I love that.

Life Forest Mel (10:12.319)
Yeah, and in two, think because children don't process the things the same, there's education for the parents as well. Something that I didn't realize is sometimes parents feel like the child doesn't like isn't reacting in a way that they expect. And they're like, well, what does this mean? And so it has educational resources for the parents to better understand a child's process through grieving. And so

Rev Wakil David Matthews (10:20.257)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (10:28.598)
Sure.

Life Forest Mel (10:41.907)
I'm very thankful for the authors of the book. You can always talk to Possum. And again, we sponsored it. We paid for it through our little book publishing. But now we have this resource to provide to families. And so we do that. And it makes me feel so much better to have that and hand it to that child.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (11:04.268)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (11:06.594)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (11:07.852)
That's great. We're definitely going to put that in the podcast notes. Also, add it to our resource list that we send out to folks. we have a little grief library here, so I'm going to tell my friend who's running that that we need to get that book in there. So thank you.

Life Forest Mel (11:15.666)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (11:15.79)
Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (11:21.491)
Give me the address, I'll make sure that it's sent to you guys. Yeah. You're welcome.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (11:24.524)
Oh, thank you so much. It's beautiful. Yeah, so I'd like to hear more about the work you're doing. Maybe explain to people what a GIS mapping is, that kind of thing. And really that whole passion you have for having people have that deeded. I haven't heard those words put together necessarily before, so it'd be really good to hear more about that. And kind of maybe day in the life kind of thing.

Life Forest Mel (11:50.847)
Well, it's an interesting thing because when we started Life Forest, because I'm not from death care and because the design didn't really exist, I didn't have any preconceived notions of how it could be. I honestly, I kind of stumbled into it, right? Like I knew that I wanted it to be kind of a state recognized cemetery.

Annalouiza (12:05.249)
You

Rev Wakil David Matthews (12:07.702)
Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (12:17.855)
so that I would need to be decommissioned. knew I understood conservation, but very early on, I would say it was like 2018, we were at a funeral convention and we had our little pamphlets out and a funeral professional came up to me and said, oh, are you one of those like natural burial, green burial places? And I'm

Annalouiza (12:41.728)
Toast.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (12:42.998)
Hahaha.

Life Forest Mel (12:44.401)
Yeah, one of those. I said, well, you know, we don't bury full bodies. So, you know, it's a natural setting, but it's not quite that. But he's like, well, I can tell you that one tried to open. And what a joke. Nobody could find the bodies. And I was like, what do you mean they couldn't find the bodies? And he's like, well, you know, because there's no cemetery map. And in his mind, it was like the Rose and, you know, yada, yada, yada.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (12:46.272)
He

Life Forest Mel (13:15.327)
And I was like, aw. He's like, well, without a grid and without a particular map, and you can't see it in space because there's no marker, then how is somebody going to find it? And while I thought to myself that it was kind of a, maybe a comment that had some sort of resistance to change behind it, I also thought, well, there is a little bit of a reality to that, right? So I have a...

Rev Wakil David Matthews (13:26.582)
Ha

Annalouiza (13:40.834)
Yeah, right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (13:41.674)
Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (13:45.215)
close friend who is a PhD in kind of like all the things that I am not as far as math and math and all of these things. And I posed the question, I said, how come, you know, in cemetery design, how come I can't type in my mother's name and know where she is like in into my phone because I can type in like, want ice cream.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (13:54.421)
Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (14:15.143)
And I can get a list of all the places that are selling ice cream. I can order it. I can pay for it. I can arrive for it. I can learn about company demographics through it. Why, why is it that we can do that for ice cream, but not for our people? And he was like, well, because that cemetery mapping has, isn't designed that way. And I said, well, can we design it that way?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (14:15.711)
You

Annalouiza (14:16.024)
Yeah, yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (14:34.23)
Wow, good point.

Life Forest Mel (14:43.635)
So it's very proud to be the first kind of cemetery that actually did this. And we actually still have, he created for Lifeforest a cemetery mapping software that combines legacy of the land with the legacy of the person through shapefiles that we actually ask permission through USGS mapping. So that point in space,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (14:43.66)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (14:47.288)
So cool.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (15:02.732)
Wow.

Life Forest Mel (15:13.127)
Right? So this has a point in space. This GPS coordinate of this point in space is then said, okay, how far are the wetlands from this space? What is the soil type? What is the topography? How deep is the waterfall? And we can get all of those maps. Then we down, sorry, through public, yeah, we layer it through shape files. And then we created an internal software system.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (15:13.452)
Hm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (15:28.822)
Mm.

Annalouiza (15:34.082)
layer them.

And then it's layered, right?

Life Forest Mel (15:43.069)
which then maps that same point of space with legacy information. Who owns the plot? Who's buried there? What are their vital statistics? Cremation number, what kind of tree did they plant? What is the lifespan of the tree? We keep all that internally in our map, but also you can type in a name, in any name, beneficiary, whatever, into it.

Annalouiza (15:50.094)
So cool.

Life Forest Mel (16:05.937)
and then find their location by walking directions, right? So you can drive in direct to land, walking directions to their burial plot. But the other thing that I realized is that like, well, mapping is great. But when people were asking me, as I was kind of brand new to this, like how with cremains are you going to protect people's rights to space? And I said, well,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (16:10.07)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (16:33.11)
Mm.

Life Forest Mel (16:33.673)
will be a legal cemetery, so you can't just change direction. You have to decommission through the state. Okay, but it's cremains, you know, and I said, well, wait a minute. How come we have to protect rights to space? How come we can't just give rights to space? Like people are paying for it. They want to protect it themselves. They want to know that it's theirs. But deeding actual cemetery plots,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (16:54.134)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (16:56.696)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:00.587)
Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (17:04.189)
was kind of in the 1960s, there were some issues around that as far as tax burden. And then like people might want to build a tower because they had a deed. So I said, well, you know, how come there can be a community that has access to a particular beach? And that beach is accessible.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:22.998)
Mm-hmm.

Life Forest Mel (17:27.167)
through anybody will have it deeded on their property that they can go to that beach and enjoy it with a certain set of parameters. And I said, can we apply that same kind of theory to the cemetery design? So although this glass has a point in space, that doesn't give me a right to drink from it. So what we have done is what we do is we provide deeded access rights.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:34.964)
Mm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:48.534)
Thank

Life Forest Mel (17:55.743)
to the family and whoever they list on as their beneficiaries to the point in space in which they have reserved or buried their loved one. Which means that everybody has rights to get to where their person is and nobody can mess with that without permission of at this point, at least 300 people.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (18:07.692)
Wow.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (18:21.452)
Right, so every time you add somebody.

Annalouiza (18:22.081)
Okay.

Life Forest Mel (18:22.335)
So I think we're good. We're not set in stone. And then we also, because we were the first kind of place to memorialize with a tree planting as a grave marker, because we're a legal cemetery, we worked to ensure that the memorial marker that's protected under cemetery law is described as the tree in the legal documents.

Annalouiza (18:25.325)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (18:47.404)
Hmm.

Life Forest Mel (18:49.765)
So we have an RSA that protects the monument placed for memorialization of a person. And in our documents, the memorialization is done through this particular monument, which is the planting of a tree. So yeah, if you were to mess with anybody's trees, you think you're going to cut a tree and build a house? No, you will go to jail.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (19:08.722)
So beautiful. Yeah.

Annalouiza (19:10.126)
incredible

Rev Wakil David Matthews (19:15.916)
You

Annalouiza (19:17.198)
Yeah. Yeah. so, but I was thinking about this too. A tree has a lifespan depending on who you decide to use as a marker. You could have a, a beach tree. think they live 50, 60 to a hundred years maybe. I think I'm making that up. But at some point, let's imagine like your cemetery fills.

Life Forest Mel (19:18.835)
That is against law.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (19:20.684)
That's great.

Life Forest Mel (19:26.878)
Yes.

Annalouiza (19:45.494)
and it's 100 years down the road, a tree has been toppled from storms or whatnot. Does that right continue for that family or is there like a timeline? Okay.

Life Forest Mel (19:55.421)
Yes. No. So that's what the importance of listing beneficiaries, because a lot of people will list their youngest generation. We have like three to five year olds listed because that child can then re-list and name her children and so forth. And within the rights of the access is the rights to replace the tree.

Annalouiza (20:05.272)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Annalouiza (20:13.602)
Got it.

Life Forest Mel (20:22.437)
with the same type of tree so it doesn't, we have a cross pollination plan so we can't, they can't just be like, well now I want this. You know, yeah, you can't, you have to have the same tree type and it has to be in the same spot and you know, for growth patterns and spacing, but they are allowed to do that in future generations. Yeah. And it's in their legal actions.

Annalouiza (20:27.022)
Mm-hmm. Change it too much? Right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (20:30.251)
haha

Annalouiza (20:44.952)
Okay. All right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (20:46.86)
That's great. That's really good. assume because of your conservation background, I assume it's somehow designed to be native plants that are normal for that area, rather than nobody's planting palm trees or something like that.

Annalouiza (20:49.517)
Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (21:03.231)
Well, we basically received a list from the Department of Agriculture of approved tree types for our zone in our area, as well as approved nurseries that we could kind of get those trees from. And they help us to ensure not only like when we get our soil tested, we'll know

Annalouiza (21:04.01)
Orange blossom trees.

Life Forest Mel (21:32.647)
Like, okay, so somebody can come to Lifeforest and they say, I really love this spot, but I want this particular type of planting. And if it doesn't, if that area is not gonna sustain that plant, then they have to either choose, this is a list of what will work, or you're gonna have to consider a different location, which will support that planting, yeah.

Annalouiza (21:47.864)
can do stuff right.

Annalouiza (21:58.35)
That's really lovely though, because sometimes you just, in a traditional cemetery, you're just allotted a spot, willy-nilly too, and whatever you want to put on there, you can put on there. So this is, I love the intentionality behind all of this.

Life Forest Mel (22:06.355)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:15.402)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Life Forest Mel (22:15.593)
Thank you. I think it was, you know, when you're not coming from that world and you were asked some pretty heavy questions at the beginning, like, how are you going to do X, Y, Z? How are you going to protect people like way after you're dead? And it's just scary. Like, you're like, whoa, how do you do that? You know, and

Annalouiza (22:31.523)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:34.316)
Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (22:39.365)
And so vital record recording is a big part of it, which is a requirement that you be recognized by the state and the municipality as a cemetery. Like you can't, if we wanted to be just a, well, not just, but a scattering area that's not state recognized, we wouldn't be able to record in vital records. And state vital records are very important as far as protection, legacy protection, things like that.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:54.326)
Hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:58.477)
Okay

Hmm.

Annalouiza (23:02.966)
Okay. Wow. So yeah, go ahead. I was going to ask my question, but what do you have?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (23:04.51)
Wow, that's great. Okay. I just thinking about the, this has got to be different, different states and other parts of the world for that matter. So do you ever consult with other people, other places that and work with them to find their own way of doing this?

Life Forest Mel (23:23.003)
Yeah, actually, at the beginning, kind of as we were looking at our growth plan, I realized how blessed I was to kind of make this happen. And, you know, as it progressed, we built it as we went. And we didn't like there was no kind of investment from outside, right? We just kind of worked with families. And as we had the income, we were able to add

Rev Wakil David Matthews (23:37.334)
Mm-hmm.

Life Forest Mel (23:49.117)
these different things in our SOP and our branding and our intellectual, all this stuff that has to do with businesses grew, right? And so what we decided to do was create a life force cemetery management company. And we actually have a life force location in Auburn, Maine. So we have the one in New Hampshire and we will work with either landowners or individuals that are very passionate about opening a cemetery because we have this kind of

Rev Wakil David Matthews (23:55.19)
Mm-hmm.

Life Forest Mel (24:18.493)
vehicle, we can get them all of their legal, all of everything up and going, all of the mapping, which in a normal situation is extremely expensive. And then it kind of narrows down the ability of passionate people to make this happen. So with this, we can make it happen for them, save them that three to five hundred thousand dollars. Right. Like we have it, we own it. And we basically created something where

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:20.054)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:31.403)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:38.102)
Sure.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:43.766)
Hmm.

Life Forest Mel (24:48.657)
anything that can be done through a computer, all the SOPs, all of the Google mapping, all of the paperwork sent out, the answering of the phones, like that massive amount of stuff we can manage and they manage their land. And then we coordinate, we don't like, it has a feel of a franchise. However, we

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:07.392)
Wow, perfect.

Annalouiza (25:08.515)
Wow.

Life Forest Mel (25:15.739)
specifically did not want to do that because I have found that in death, everybody has their passion and their ethos and they're all different. Like I'm very passionate about kids not being frightened on the land. But when we worked with the stewards of Whistle Ridge, Life Force Whistle Ridge, they were very passionate about wildlife preservation. So they do wildlife releases, they do vernal pool events.

Annalouiza (25:27.15)
Love you.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:27.274)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:39.595)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (25:39.854)
Mmm.

Life Forest Mel (25:43.955)
Their ethos, they don't plant trees. They weren't interested in it. They wanted much more of a natural setting and that's okay. And so we really want people to be able to be super passionate about their offerings, which means they have to be able to kind of approach us and meet the passions of who they're trying to serve.

Annalouiza (25:47.938)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:51.2)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:05.056)
That's great. Yeah. I also noticed in the pictures on your website that it seems like a very diverse, ecosphere there where you got a lot of different choices because you're saying, you know, people may need to plant different places. So it sounds like there were, it looks like there's wetlands and there's water and there's higher places. And so that's really great. That's beautiful. And I love that you adapt that to the people who are choosing to do it. That's really wonderful. Wonderful. So you've got the basics, which is really helpful. Great. Wonderful.

Annalouiza (26:05.666)
Yeah, it is.

Life Forest Mel (26:06.345)
Yes.

Life Forest Mel (26:33.287)
And yeah, and we also worked very closely with making sure that we followed the USDA forest guidelines for ADA accessibility so that everybody has access to the areas of the forest and their burial spots in a way that's safe. And so to have the forestry kind of ADA compliancy to reference has been really helpful. So when we set up the

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:43.774)
wonderful. Wow.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:49.324)
Mm.

Annalouiza (26:50.83)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:59.177)
yeah.

Life Forest Mel (27:01.553)
cemeteries, we make sure that they understand this is the pack of the gravel. This is how, where you would have your parking to be required and how much of a distance you need from the street because this road is at 40 miles an hour. All of those things, we do basically everything for them. And it's through our gift economy. So we can make this accessible to the people who want to do it for the right moral reasons. And they don't have to do it to meet a dollar figure.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:15.5)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (27:19.747)
you

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:28.588)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:32.066)
Beautiful. That's so amazing.

Annalouiza (27:32.198)
my gosh, wow.

Life Forest Mel (27:33.789)
Because when you add that equation, the entire process shifts in a way that makes me highly uncomfortable.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:42.764)
Right? Yeah.

Annalouiza (27:42.892)
Yeah. Well, let me stop you there before we go any further because is that one of the challenges that you find like?

Life Forest Mel (27:49.565)
You know, at the beginning, I don't find it a challenge because everything has just kind of rolled out in a way that's so natural and beautiful. And I really believe that it's my mom and all these people that we serve helping us from some other space and place that's helping to build this movement. you know, as I was learning about like, okay, how do I make sure I didn't bury my mother alone in the woods of Hillsborough?

Like, all right, I moved the pile of tires, so we're good with that. But, you know, how do we get other people here? And the idea of like, creating scarcity like you do for real estate, you know, there's one house on the market, so everybody's going to want it. I was like, there's got to be like another way. And Dina Stander, who is a kind of an end of life poet, shared with me this article about

Rev Wakil David Matthews (28:19.816)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (28:21.518)
Annalouiza (28:27.438)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (28:33.686)
Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (28:49.375)
creating abundance through gift economy. And it's called the Service Berry. Robin Val Ilmer, please read. And so I read this and it resonated with me so much that I just said, I'm just going to start giving every single thing that we can. And that approach has created such beautiful momentum that we will never want for anything. And we never have to tell somebody

Rev Wakil David Matthews (28:52.3)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, a favorite book. Beautiful.

Annalouiza (28:57.601)
yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (29:04.394)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (29:14.422)
Mm-hmm.

Life Forest Mel (29:19.903)
Oh, you better get it now because we're going to run out because we'll never run out. And in our, you know, code of conduct. Yeah, you can't you if somebody comes there, you're never going to change their heart and what they want for their loved one or for their own experience. So just bring them to where they need to be. If they come for a tour and really what they're looking for isn't what we have. Bring them to where they need to be and they'll appreciate you for it.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (29:23.052)
Wow, that's so beautiful. I'm so glad.

Annalouiza (29:23.32)
Right, right.

Annalouiza (29:44.344)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Life Forest Mel (29:49.309)
And down the line they say, well, wasn't for me, but Uncle Tom really, you I think he'd like it. Just be a good human being, you know?

Annalouiza (29:54.264)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (29:54.422)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, well, right on,

Life Forest Mel (30:00.627)
Really not that hard. It's not, people are so showing, they show up for it. We have like been so wonderfully received. have been, it's just, it's wonderful. It's touching. I feel very grateful.

Annalouiza (30:02.836)
I know, right?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (30:17.472)
Mm-hmm. Wow. I love it. That's really good. So is there anything that frightened you about the end of life?

Annalouiza (30:20.29)
grateful too. Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (30:27.503)
yeah, I think so. I lost my mother to frontal lobe dementia and she started that in her late forties. I just turned 50 and so death itself doesn't scare me, but a horrific death process that drains the emotions out of my family and myself does frighten me, right? And that's all part of the death process.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (30:49.11)
Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (30:53.159)
And that's why I feel very passionate about kind of the things that they're doing in Vermont with death with dignity and things like that, because seeing what my mother went through.

I just never want to put my children through that. And when you learn about kind of genetics with these things, of course it's scary, you know, but I choose not to focus on it. But what I do do is I focus on planning, making sure people know what I want. If there comes a time when I cannot communicate it and, you know, being open and not being afraid to have those conversations. But, you know.

Annalouiza (31:08.672)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:11.723)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:23.36)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (31:25.55)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:27.809)
Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (31:34.939)
Actual like dying doesn't frighten me too much. Unless I was plummeting from something. I have a fear of heights. I don't think I'd like that. I don't put myself in that situation too often. I don't even wear high heel shoes. So we're good.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:35.329)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (31:37.346)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:38.164)
Yeah, great. Yeah, preparation. that's a one up.

Hahaha!

Yeah, don't go parachuting.

Annalouiza (31:51.31)
that's so, that's great. So how do you keep yourself resourced with this work that you're doing?

Life Forest Mel (32:03.186)
You mean financially? Like how do I?

Annalouiza (32:05.23)
I mean, like, how do you show up every day feeling like you have the energy to be present with people who are making these choices and not get like tired and kind of like, I got to work like.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (32:19.788)
you

Life Forest Mel (32:19.817)
Honestly, I do that through the creation of a very strong and targeted team because I found that I would not be able to show up for it after a while because I was getting, I absorbed so much that I was getting so, I mean, to this day, it's very hard for me to attend a burial and not cry. And you know, that's,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (32:36.073)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (32:46.229)
Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (32:48.783)
I that's it's taxing, right? So what I learned is that early on, there's going to be things that I'm very strong at and there's things that I'm not very strong at. And so the life for us support team, our team of people is incredible. They've been there since day one. They're so loyal to us, but they're all very skilled in their unique service that they offer to life for us families.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (33:17.899)
Thanks

Life Forest Mel (33:18.183)
And so having a very strong SOP, having a very strong training, having strong support for one another, giving each other like, okay, know, Tracy's going through a hard time. So we all, let's all like kind of step up because we know exactly what her roles are and where we can each kind of fill in for her. So the answer is a large support network.

Annalouiza (33:38.958)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Life Forest Mel (33:45.831)
within the Life Force umbrella and very clearly defined roles and responsibilities. And honestly, it's about treating them very well in the way in which they need and deserve to be treated with fairness, flexibility. Bring your kids if you need to to the service, bring your pets. If that's not gonna work for you, like we feed our team in a way with support.

Annalouiza (33:46.285)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (33:50.636)
love it.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:07.232)
Mm-hmm.

Life Forest Mel (34:14.495)
and both financially, physically, any way that we can, we serve them first so that they can be their best selves to serve our families.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:22.155)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:25.994)
That's so great. Yeah, such wonderful discernment about what you can and can't do and everybody working together. I really appreciate that. That's so important. Community is our main thing. That's also what Robin Wall Kimmerer spoke about in Service Berry, the importance of community. Yeah.

Annalouiza (34:26.414)
Yes.

Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (34:40.063)
Hmm. There's no way one person, there is no way one person, no. You would be so drained emotionally. And in the servicing of, you know, a death is so multifaceted. It just takes so many unique skill sets that you have. In my mind, it's the team does it. And I show up and I do what I'm told. Oftentimes it's to clean up the bathroom.

Annalouiza (34:41.507)
Mm.

can do this, the heavy lift.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:46.954)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:56.896)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (35:00.002)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (35:00.012)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (35:05.567)
Good.

Annalouiza (35:06.006)
Okay.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (35:09.831)
That's great.

Life Forest Mel (35:10.095)
You know, whatever it takes, I'm like, guys, I'll take care of the porta potty. You. I'm good at it. Yeah.

Annalouiza (35:12.098)
Yeah. Perfect. Keep moving. I love it. so wise.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (35:17.548)
I love it. love it. Yeah. Well, is there anything you wish we had asked you that we didn't get to or something else you'd like to share?

Life Forest Mel (35:20.617)
So.

Life Forest Mel (35:30.535)
I'd like to share something that happened yesterday, actually Saturday, was at a burial on Saturday. And I'm just so proud of our land services manager, our land manager, Mike. And I don't usually praise him because he happens to be my little brother, you know, he's a little middle-aged man, but he actually is my little brother too. But he's very gentle, kind soul.

Annalouiza (35:54.52)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (35:55.062)
Yeah

Life Forest Mel (36:00.869)
And he is so, he's so thoughtful. And this family kind of his role in at life for us is dig the burial hole, have the tree ready, help to shroud for the family with them. And he decorates it so carefully. But in this particular burial, a very young man passed away. He was only 41. And he left behind a young daughter and a family that is just devastated. But both of his parents,

had accessibility issues to the point where we had to make sure they could be driven up to the burial hole. We had assistance to seat them because neither one of them are mobile. And towards the end of the service, as the burial took place, the gentleman's widow placed his shroud in the ground. And the little girl helped to put a scoop of soil.

And then it was opened up to the greater kind of attendance to be able to take a shovel, say something for their last moment and put a little bit of soil in the ground.

And I watched Mike and I could see him kind of watching and making sure everybody was safe and, you know, handing the shovel to the next person. And then I saw him looking at this gentleman's parents and, know, they were kind of constrained to their chairs and I watched him go to the fresh soil and he took a small shovel, a hand shovel, and he walked up to this gentleman's mother.

got on his knee in front of her with the shovel full of soil and just said to her, would you like to place any intentions? I know that it's difficult for you to be able to take part in scooping it in there, but I can do that part for you. It's about the intention. And I thought, this isn't something that we trained him to do. This isn't something that

Rev Wakil David Matthews (37:46.187)
Hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (38:00.972)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (38:08.206)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (38:08.683)
Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (38:11.903)
he was required to do. He just is a compassionate human. And I could see on that woman's face, I mean, she just like gently ran her hand over the shovel. And you could see it meant so much to her, this small gesture of kindness and action that she couldn't take place. And that's what like, I was so proud of him and not unlike, again, not because he's my brother, but because

Annalouiza (38:24.014)
Mm.

Annalouiza (38:28.814)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Life Forest Mel (38:41.977)
That is what it takes to care for people in such sad moments and allowing for and ensuring that that is innately part of the service team that you have. Every one of them has this soft compassion. So there's a gentle place for these people to land in these small actions.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (38:44.406)
Yeah.

Life Forest Mel (39:08.635)
And doing that in a way that is there's space for is just so important to me within the design, which is why like it could never be for sale, right? I could never say, well, you could, you could pay this amount and open a life forest. Then I can't vet it, right? Like our team can't jury them. And there are many compassionate people that have no financial resources.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:09.345)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:15.606)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:23.948)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (39:26.584)
Right. Right. Right. Right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:30.087)
Mm-hmm.

Life Forest Mel (39:36.339)
but have all of the ability to serve. And I don't want to keep excluding those people from the death care world.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:36.651)
Wow.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:45.324)
Yeah, wow, that's so beautiful. You know, it's funny because I mean, it's not funny, not funny, that's not the right word, but it's remarkable. I, you know, this grew out of the compassion and caring that your mother showed you and that she embodied. And then you can just see that sort of throughout everything that you've done.

And just to see, and then there's all this practical stuff that has to get taken care of, but you go through it, you come at it with this compassion and this desire to be of service. And how could you ask for anything else than that? That's so beautiful. Thank you.

Life Forest Mel (40:14.751)
Thank you.

Life Forest Mel (40:25.427)
Thank you.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (40:26.858)
Yeah. Well, you have a poem. Do you want to read your poem to us?

Life Forest Mel (40:31.739)
I almost forgot. Sure. So again, my mother had frontal lobe dementia, which had her slowly lose a lot of her facilities. And I know we only have a few minutes here or seconds left, right? So this is called Fragments. I miss you, mom, who you were, so strong and stoic.

So smart. You always did see in black and white. You dug your beliefs into the pavement. You were always so soft spoken, so kind. You were my safe place, my unconditional love. You never asked for anything, never expected greatness, only compassion. You redefined success to be perseverance.

I miss you. I look for you in glances or a soft word spoken. You grant me fragments of who you used to be. I hold onto them like tiny treasures and place them gently on pieces of paper. I sketch in the outline of who you once were so I can look at you whole again, feel you around me again, so I can feel safe again.

And I can't show you my pain because I know that you suffer. And you only see a small part of me. There is no mother daughter connection. Our bridge has broken. We say the words I love you, but they may as well be the words I don't know you. Because I can't share my life with you, cannot share myself. I am no longer three dimensional. I am a cardboard cutout.

of a person that you recognize, trying to sell you hope out of an empty briefcase. And when my despair feels so engulfing, my instinct is to run to your door, but I can't find you. All I have is the sketch of you that I drew based on a fragment.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (42:56.032)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (42:59.31)
What a gift.

Life Forest Mel (43:00.829)
that loss can be so difficult.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (43:01.408)
Wow.

Annalouiza (43:03.566)
you

Rev Wakil David Matthews (43:04.15)
Well, this has been such a blessing and we're so happy you could be with us and we've learned a lot and so glad we can share this. There'll be a lot of good stuff in our podcast notes. Yeah, thank you again. Thanks so much for joining us. And we will look for, I'll let you know when it gets published. Let me stop the recording.

Life Forest Mel (43:11.923)
was my honor. I was so proud to be asked. Thank you.

Annalouiza (43:22.316)
Mm-hmm.

Life Forest Mel (43:22.323)
You're welcome.

Life Forest Mel (43:27.079)
Okay.