by thosecreativetypes | Jun 17, 2024 | funerals, Grief, motherhood
My mum died on 15 March 2024. Here is what I wrote for my mum. Mum’s mum, Tan Siu Eng, met the tall and strapping quantity surveyor, Yuan Chee Fong, known as Shanghai (because that was his hometown), and they married and started a family. Mum was born in Singapore on...
by thosecreativetypes | Nov 18, 2022 | funerals
CONTENT WARNING: This blog post mentions suicide. Please exercise caution if you are in a sensitive place right now, and contact your mental health professional or Lifeline if this post brings up issues for you. This week I conducted a memorial service for a young...
by thosecreativetypes | Nov 3, 2022 | funerals, Grief, Uncategorized
I found out my former colleague had died when I looked him up on Facebook and his page reported, ‘deceased.’ What? The shock was like a gulp of cold water through my chest. We had not been close, but I don’t know. I had felt like we were kindred...
by thosecreativetypes | Mar 14, 2022 | funerals
Jackie holding the advance reader copy of her book, ‘The Eulogy,’ coming out in June 2022 My debut autofiction novel ‘The Eulogy’ is coming out in June 2022, and today I received an advance copy of the book. The book is structured around a...
by thosecreativetypes | Oct 5, 2021 | funerals
The NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) has recently released its final report about costs and pricing in the funeral industry. IPART found that: about two-thirds of funeral customers did not get a quote before choosing a funeral provider 83% of...
by thosecreativetypes | Sep 29, 2021 | funerals
Organising a funeral can feel overwhelming. Many of us are in such a vulnerable and emotional state of mind when the time comes to make all the necessary arrangements. Often, the person organising the funeral has already been losing sleep for some time, as a carer for...
by thosecreativetypes | Sep 28, 2021 | funerals
I meet with families to discuss the funeral service and one of the first things people ask me is, ‘What do we do?’ As I break down the steps and elements of a funeral service, I can almost see the shoulders drop, the deep breath inhaled, and people...
by thosecreativetypes | Sep 24, 2021 | Uncategorized
People tend to be scared of talking about death. The Parting podcast is a series of discussions and stories, made and hosted by a group of brave, smart, funny and daring young people of Wollongong. I got to participate in one of the discussions and I learned a lot....
by thosecreativetypes | Sep 23, 2021 | Uncategorized
I recently had the pleasure of joining the Radio National God Forbid show, talking with host Jonathan Carleton and Dr Anna Halaloff, Associate Professor in Sociology at Deakin University. We had a fun and far-ranging discussion about the collision of conspiracy...
by thosecreativetypes | Jun 7, 2021 | funerals
A recently released statutory review calls for a shake-up of the funeral industry in NSW. The report calls for significant changes to the funeral industry (note that the report is dated Aug 2020 but was withheld until recently). SMH published an article on the report,...
