Nobody teaches you how to plan a funeral.

Hi, I'm Rachel

Nobody teaches you how to plan a funeral. Which is a little ridiculous, considering almost all of us will eventually have to do it. I’m Rachel, a licensed funeral director and embalmer. For more than a decade, I sat across the table from families trying to make very permanent decisions during very overwhelming days. And I learned something: the families who struggled most weren’t the ones who loved their person less. They were usually the ones who didn’t know what their options were, didn’t know what their person wanted, or suddenly discovered that family relationships and legal authority are not always the same thing.

That’s why I created Fond Farewells. I want you to learn this stuff before you're sitting in a funeral home trying to understand it while your head is spinning. Especially if you're LGBTQ+, part of a chosen family, estranged from biological relatives, unmarried, or living a life that doesn't fit neatly into the assumptions our death-care systems were built around. My job here isn't to tell you what kind of funeral you should have. It’s to make sure you understand your choices well enough to make one that actually feels like you.