Funerals - Tree of Life Funerals Batemans Bay to Narooma

02/07/2026

At some point in our lives, we all face the question, "how will I ever get through this?". You know the moments — a sudden loss, a messy break up, an unexpected diagnosis or a career halted…

Do yourself a favour and listen to this podcast, it's for everyone ❤

At some point in our lives, we all face the question, "how will I ever get through this?". You know the moments — a sudden loss, a messy break up, an unexpected diagnosis or a career halted… These questions are close to Lucy Hone's heart, not just because of her work as a resilience researcher, ...

02/07/2026

The wonderful End of Life Doulas at Preparing The Way offer practical advice on "What to say when someone faces end of life".

30/06/2026

Planning is key to limit the environmental impact of your body after death.

Think about the environmental legacy you’d like to leave for future generations and put it into action.

From cardboard coffins and natural burials, Australians are becoming more open to alternative farewells.

To ensure your wishes are followed for what happens to your body after death, the key is to plan, to write it all down and to share this with family and/or the person you’ve chosen as your Enduring Guardian.

People need to make many decisions as they face the end of their life, but what happens to their bodies can make a significant difference to the impact on the environment.

In a natural burial, there is minimal preparation of the body. The deceased is usually buried in a natural-fibre cloth shroud and/or biodegradable coffin at a shallow depth and decomposes into the surrounding soil naturally over time. It results in negligible release of greenhouse gas and returns the body to the earth.

Swapping a lacquered timber or MDF coffin with plastic parts for untreated pine, cardboard or wicker reduces emissions from any burial as well as from cremations.

It’s estimated that a mahogany veneer coffin with plastic handles and linings leads to more than 170kg of emissions if cremated.

By comparison, a natural burial with a cardboard coffin and rope handles emits less than 10kg, and of course, a cremation with a cardboard or eco-friendly coffin is more environmentally friendly too.

The biggest impediment to more sustainable deathcare is a tendency for Australians to leave funeral decisions until after a loved one dies.

Like most things in life, planning is very important when it comes to what type of deathcare you require.

Think about the environmental legacy you’d like to leave for future generations and put it into action.

Lauren Newman, Tree of Life Funerals

23/06/2026

FUNERAL NOTICE: Nick SAVVAS

15/06/2026

FUNERAL NOTICE: Terry Manwaring

14/06/2026

“Green” funerals and planning

The No. 1 trend in funerals is personalisation, which I absolutely love, followed by seeking a more environmentally friendly funeral.

The personalisation of what a person wants for their funeral service is a wonderful thing. Choosing the venue, the type of service, who speaks, the music that’s played, whether they’d like a natural burial, a “standard” burial, or to be cremated and then their ashes scattered or interred brings comfort to people.

In some countries and in a couple of places in Australia, there are also some new offerings for the deceased, such as human composting, vertical burial and water cremation, none of which are available in the Eurobodalla as yet, but natural burial and shrouded burial are available at Walawaani Way Conservation Burial in Bodalla.

It is now legal to have shrouded burials in NSW (with the permission of the Cemetery), as well as shrouded cremations (with the permission of the Crematorium), so the environmental impact is reduced by not having to use a coffin, just a shroud bearer.

I often hear “all I want is a cardboard box and then my body to be returned to nature”.

Great, we can do that, but does your family know your wishes?

Have you prepared all your end of life planning paperwork such as a Will, an Advance Care Directive, your funeral plan, and told the people who matter to you where to find them all? Having to try and find your written wishes after you’ve died, or even worse, finding them only after the funeral has taken place, can be heart breaking for the people who care about you.

Did you know that a few hours of planning could spare the people close to you enormous, avoidable pain, confusion, and heartache?

Did you know that end of life planning isn’t about death at all? It’s about living on your own terms, right up until the very end and then being cared for after death in your preferred manner.

Talking about death often teaches us how to live, it can also ease your mind.

You can contact Tree of Life Funerals https://www.treeoflifefunerals.com.au/ to find out more, or Walawaani Way and go on a guided tour of their beautiful grounds.
https://www.walawaaniway.com/

11/06/2026

Did you know that a few hours of planning could spare the people close to you enormous, avoidable pain, confusion, and heartache? That end of life planning isn’t about death at all? It’s about living on your own terms, right up until the very end and then being cared for after death in your preferred manner.

Contact Tree of Life Funerals to find out more about this in the Eurobodalla.
Email: [email protected]

See the link below for the full article:

Understand your end of life planning options, from advance care directives to wills, and why it matters for you and those close to you.

09/06/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1FmWPt9qYn/

☘️ Only the Irish looked at death and decided the appropriate response was to throw a party. The Irish wake isn't a failure to grieve properly. It's a sophisticated cultural technology for processing loss that the rest of the world is only beginning to understand. You gather everyone who loved the person, you put them in a room together, you tell every story you can remember about the deceased, and you laugh until you cry and cry until you laugh and by morning something has shifted that couldn't have shifted any other way.

The tradition goes back centuries, rooted in a pre-Christian Irish relationship with death that treated the transition between worlds as something to be marked with ceremony, music, storytelling, and community. The body was never left alone. The family was never left alone. The community showed up and stayed, not out of obligation but out of a genuine understanding that grief shared is grief made survivable. That wisdom crossed every ocean the Irish crossed and showed up in Irish-American communities where wakes became legendary for exactly the same reasons.

What gets missed in the outside perception of the Irish wake is the profound respect underneath the laughter. The stories being told aren't trivializing the person who died. They're refusing to let that person be reduced to their absence. Every laugh in that room is an act of love. Drop a comment if your family still does it this way and follow The Irish Remembered for more. 🕯️☘️

04/06/2026

It’s human to want grief to hurry up, be over, or go away.
Of course we want relief from the pain.
But grief does not follow commands or timelines.
We cannot force it to leave before it is ready.
We can only experience it as it moves through us, moment by moment.
And it’s important to remember that wanting the pain to end is normal too.

Have you ever tried to direct your grief instead of allowing yourself to feel it?

04/06/2026

https://griefline.org.au/

Griefline provides free national grief helpline, community forums, and resources to help Australians navigate loss with care and understanding. Call 1300 845 745 for support.