Perspectives on Death and Burial

Telling the story of the lives of others has always felt important to John Davis. His experience with dementia in his family made this feeling concrete. He has spent the last decade volunteering with hospices in Pittsburgh to help record the stories of those who are in the last stages of life. In addition, he has conducted video and audio interviews and combined them with digitized photos and home videos to produce unique memorials.  Now in his position as general manager of Penn Forest Natural Burial Park, he is finding that the rituals we enact when we bury our dead are a form of experimental or magical theater, that tell us and others who we were and how we understood the world. He is convinced that stories don’t tell themselves and that it is essential for each of us tell our own. To read his story, click here.