Kirthan Aujlay talks death acceptance and green funerals
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Young Women in Business Toronto (YWiB) aims to provide our diverse community of young, self-identified women with genuine career advice, encouragement, and examples of local role models. That's why, for the next few months, we’ll be interviewing both career professionals and entrepreneurs our community can be inspired by and learn from.
Kirthan, it's great to meet you! Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Sure! I have had a strange career trajectory. My educational background is in liberal arts and advertising. I’m doing freelance work full-time, and am a part of the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) community. Before I transitioned to working on this full-time, I was an Uber driver and doing writing on the side. I’m really happy that I’m able to freelance full-time now though, especially with the pandemic.
That Good Night has been a long time coming. It’s a passion project that I’ve been thinking about for over a decade, basically annoying friends and family by turning every conversation to death. I was so interested in death and death proceedings but needed a better outlet.
I didn’t believe in myself before, but I decided to just start it and work with my passions and strengths. Regardless of how people react, I feel confident that it’s an important online educational resource that can encourage people to engage in healthy conversations about death.
People always ask why I didn’t just become a funeral director but I’ve never had an interest in that side. I might consider being a death doula someday, but my current focus is on educating, focusing on the IG account as well as eventually hosting workshops on community death care, green funerals, and death acceptance.
Actually, a CSI Instagram post is where we heard of you first! Sounds like you’ve found a niche you’re passionate about and others aren’t necessarily working within as much yet. What sparked your interest in this area?
That is something I am still trying to figure out myself. It was definitely early in my life as a pre-teen and teenager. I was watching a lot of TV shows about death. From Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to Six Feet Under, to Dead Like Me, Doctor G: Medical Examiner, Pushing Daisies, and even Law & Order. As I was consuming these shows I think I started to realize, “Gee, there are so many different ways to die!”
I guess I began to become interested in death because it's something everyone will experience, but not all the same way. Yet, there seems to be so much denial about dying and death, which I find weird because it’s the only thing that is for sure.
Caitlyn Doughty’s work which inspired me tremendously and helped me realize I am not the only person talking about death all the time!
What is death acceptance?
Death acceptance simply means accepting your own mortality and the fact that someday you will die. Doughty has said that those who work in professions where they are frequently exposed to death care may have less anxiety about their own death.
As well, in cultures where there is more death care and meaningfulness associated with life ending, there is less fear of death. It seems like the more intimate that experience is around death, the general fear is often less. Having customs and important, expected rituals, however, may lead some individuals to think they don’t need to prepare. I am really curious about and am researching how death denial translates across other groups and demographics.
[…] In cultures where there is more death care and meaningfulness associated with life ending, there is less fear of death. […] The more intimate that experience is around death, the general fear is often less.
When I approach educating others about death, I feel that education should be about a conversation, not just someone talking at/to you. It may be easy and common-place for me to discuss death, but I want to help others be able to start honest conversations with their loved ones and friends about preparing for death and dealing with grief.
In my own family I would say we are all at different stages in this life and willingness to talk about death. I’ve started a shared Google doc so we can start to plan a little and know each other's wishes.
Interesting! Your Google doc idea seems like a good way to have indirect conversations with your family. So how do other people seem to react to your That Good Night posts?
Someone previously told me they had to stop following my personal account because they had such a deep-seated fear of death and it was totally freaking them out. So there’s that!
I know my chosen platform is Instagram so that sort of reduces the older demographic’s engagement. I’ve been noticing followers up to age 45. Most of the people I get responses from are also under 40 and I think it’s due to the realities we’re facing. In my experience, millennials and younger seem to be more open to facing concepts of death than other generations.
That Good Night is still fairly new, so most people are choosing to follow me because it is a death-positive account that they’ve actively sought out. I want to help people to accept death and become more comfortable with their mortality. For me it’s a matter of, ‘Would I rather get to the end of my life not having realized my full potential and having regrets, OR, be cognizant of my time on earth as being finite and have lived life to the fullest?’
I really advocate for planning ahead because you can hopefully better deal with your fear of death. If you have your funeral plans down, your power of attorney appointed, and you have clarified your desired quality of life (should something tragic happen like where you may need to be ventilated) you can feel more prepared. Taking control of these things helps people I think to face the reality of death.
We can't account for the unknowns, but you can choose to take control of other areas associated with your death.
Another thing I've started to notice is that when sometimes experiences a loss, in the months following their personal network may not necessarily be around to talk about it anymore. That’s when individuals will reach out to my account or to me personally. Perhaps at that point they feel more open and ready to process their loss, but their social circle has already moved on. That can feel super isolating, but I can be a safe space for people who still need to work through their grief.
Read: YWiB Role Model Interviews: Megan te Boekhorst is 'unapologetically vulnerable' about mental health
Tell us a little bit more about this concept of a ‘green’ funeral?
Our culture is focused on making people just look like they’re sleeping, and conventional in-ground burials are often pretty bad for the environment. Typically, they involve the use of carcinogenic chemicals, wood and/or steel. Embalming fluid is made of several chemicals including formaldehyde, phenol, methyl alcohol, and glycerin (side note: most people don’t know this, but embalming is actually optional in Ontario).
Not only that, a burial vault needs 3,000 pounds of cement. Yet, despite having funeral vaults, these chemicals do eventually leak into the ground. Conversely, in other cultures and countries they may preserve bodies in the cold, without so many chemicals.
What’s more, the amount of wood used in caskets in the US every year is equal to 4 million acres of forest. Shocking, right? It’s not really what we might imagine of just a pine box going into the ground and your body decomposing to nourish the earth. That’s certainly a nice thought, but current practices are usually not sustainable.
Cremation is not that much better. In fact, traditional cremation requires 28 gallons of fuel per body and releases approximately 540 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air.
If you’re passionate about the environment and sustainability, the greenest option to consider is a ‘green burial’ which involves a plain, maybe reclaimed wood casket, or shroud with no chemicals so your body can be broken down like nature intended. Ontario has very few green cemeteries, and British Columbia and Quebec have some but they’re still not that common. Hopefully this will change in the near future.
Has anything surprised you about your work, or the response to it?
I have realized that some things are just not common knowledge, and that there’s a need to bridge the gap with people who haven’t really thought about or needed to research death processes before.
I always include my opinion in my work, and sometimes ask my audience to question whether upholding death-related traditions are actually important for them personally, or, some things are just being done repeatedly because that’s ‘just the way things are.’
I try to give people facts about the environmental impact of conventional funerals and burials. I give my opinion—but without judgement. Death and loss are difficult topics, no question. I want my audience to be equipped with knowledge of their rights, options, and resources.
As a death educator and activist, what does 'success' look like for you? Do you also consider yourself an entrepreneur or a social entrepreneur?
Right now, I want to start more conversations and get more reach through my IG account. It honestly means a lot when people reach out and want to talk about it. It may not be fun to talk about but it’s important and we all need to face death eventually, so they should be aware of their options and what they can control.
I guess I consider myself a social entrepreneur because I want to do more eventually than just my death education IG account. I’ve noticed most of my followers are American, but I’d like to bring this conversation more locally, to Toronto, and in-person (post-COVID).
What is the message you want our community to hear?
It’s not death specific (shocker!) but one of the biggest things that I’ve learned in the last year: Stop doubting yourself and do it! Whatever ‘it’ is, if you wait to be 100% ready to make your dreams come true or pursue a passion, you never will be ready enough and will remain on the sidelines forever. Push yourself and be confident in your passions and what you have to offer.
Connect with Kirthan: Instagram Website
Kirthan Aujlay is a freelance writer based in downtown Toronto. She has been a part of the death acceptance movement for over ten years and uses her instagram account, @that_goodnight, to raise awareness about death issues. She is passionate about green funerals, death acceptance, and empowering people to make a return to community death care.