Our Trusted Advisors

The following people are listed here as a resource for anyone on need of end-of-life planning in Maine. Each of our Advisors has their own expertise and can provide invaluable knowledge on the subject of death and dying. Feel free to reach out to any of them for more information.

Chuck Lakin

I’m a retired librarian, a woodworker and home funeral educator. My father's death was a very personal experience right up to his death; he was in his own bed with his wife and four kids touching him when he died. I wanted to be part of what would happen next but had no idea of what I could do, so we called a funeral director, who whisked Dad away, and four days later we got a box of ashes in the mail. When I learned what I could have done, I started talking about home funerals, not trying to convince anyone but to give those interested the information they would need to have the experience I wanted. Eventually I wrote this website and I continue to share what I have learned about funerals in general and home funerals in particular with anyone willing to listen. As a woodworker, I of course make coffins (there are several free plans on the Coffins page) and I actively assist anyone who wants to create a green cemetery. With my librarian background it's no wonder that I love answering questions: I'm very good on the details, and I know how to find any answer I don't already know. Don't be shy about contacting me – you can't possibly ask too many questions.

Leona Oceania

I have been intrigued by death for as long as I can remember.  The earlier we engage with our mortality, the better our death (and life!) can be. We have many more choices for end-of-life care, funeral, and body disposition than most people are aware of. Death can be not only healing but personal, meaningful, and affordable.

I am a Home Funeral Guide (Certificate: Jerrigrace Lyon's Final Passages), a Death Educator, an End-of-Life Doula (Certificate: Deanna Cochran's School of Accompanying the Dying), a Life Legacy Facilitator (Certificate: Rachael Freed's Life Legacies), hospice volunteer with Hospice of Southern Maine, board member of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine, facilitator of the Portland Death Café and various other death education gatherings & series, and member of the National End-of-Life Doula Alliance. My passion lies in education, preparation, alternative funeral and body disposition options. I love to nap.   

It is possible to die a good death. The key to achieving a good death is preparation and communication. You have options. Quite a few. More than you probably know. I can help. 

Klara Tammany

An active member of Trinity Episcopal Church, Klara is involved there with the music and bereavement ministries. Out of her experiences with the death of her parents including doing a home funeral for her mother, she is committed to teaching others about after death care. In that capacity, Klara provided advisory support through Last Things and has also served on the Board of the Funeral Consumer's Alliance. She especially likes to offer workshops in churches, encouraging them to recapture rather than abdicate their role in after death care.

Klara is the Executive Director of The Center for Wisdom's Women, a drop in center for women in a high risk, low income neighborhood of Lewiston that is an outreach of Trinity Episcopal Church. Re-starting and running this small non-profit is an encore career for her. She has an MEd in Religious Education and Post Master's Certificate in Spirituality from Boston College and worked for 20 years as a religious educator in the Episcopal Church, first at St. Paul's in Brunswick and later as the religious education consultant for the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. Her book Living Water: Baptism as a Way of Life (Church Publishing, 2002), is a reflection about living your faith in everyday life. Klara also dabbles in Biblical storytelling. She lives in Auburn with her cat Oliver and dog Sophie.

kate brown

The death of her brother Kevin in 2008 had a profound impact on Kate Brown’s life. Observing her own grief and sense of loss for her only sibling inspired much self-reflection and has provided a clearer path for her desire to serve. As an Ordained Interfaith Chaplain and hospice volunteer, Kate is grateful for the life stories she is privileged to hear. As a group facilitator for The Center for Grieving Children, Kate has helped to provide space for widows, widowers and families to share the ups and downs of their grief process.      

Kate is a certified Advance Care Planning Facilitator, qualified to help patients and families discuss and document end-of-life decisions. She is inspired to educate and empower individuals and communities about the importance of Advance Care Planning. A trained Home Funeral Guide and Death Midwife, Kate also officiates funerals and weddings. Kate lives in Kennebunk with Rusty and Mike, an irreverent feline and well-trained husband respectively. When not engaged in Last Things, Kate can be found in her kayak, on her yoga mat or tending to her bees.

Nancy McAlley

RiverOfLifeServices.org
I am a retired nurse who spent many years providing end-of-life care. I was grateful to be able to provide some comfort for those who were challenged with an end-of-life diagnosis and learned how important it was to educate about end-of-life issues.

I lost a daughter to murder and a husband to suicide. Thru the work I have done moving through these experiences I have come to a place where I can support others who may travel this road. I am an Ordained Interfaith Minister, a Life-Cycle Celebrant, and currently in training as an End-of-life Doula, Death Doula and Mourning Doula. As an Interfaith minister I offer spiritual or non-spiritual care to all. As a Life-cycle Celebrant I can provide customized ceremonies for funerals, memorial services, and any other events. I also offer help with end-of-life planning and grief support.

Angela Lutzenberger

GoodGroundGreatBeyond.com
Angela lives in Brunswick with her husband Toby, and their very soft and sassy medicine dog, Basho. 

She is a board certified Interfaith Chaplain, MDiv ‘08, Naropa University; BCC, Association of Professional Chaplains, specializing in end of life support and guidance. She started volunteering for Hospice in High School and since 2011 has worked as a Hospice chaplain throughout Western and Southern Maine. Before moving to Maine, she worked with Veteran populations at the Puget Sound VA Hospital in Seattle in the Outpatient PTSD, Women’s trauma and Addictions Treatment clinics. She also supported patients and families in inpatient psychiatry and the ICU. In her 2 years there she facilitated weekly grief, spirituality and women’s support groups. 

Along with her full-time hospice work, Angela trained in home funeral guidance with Jerrigrace Lyons, completed Deathwalker training with Zenith Virago and from 2017 to 2019, was enrolled in mortuary school. As a practicing Buddhist since the mid 90s, she has been a committed student of a tradition where the inner work of taking death to heart and the outer actions of caring for one’s own dead directly, and with the support of community, are understood as fundamental aspects of engaging our life and world as sacred. All of the above continue to motivate her in her efforts to legalize open air cremation as a disposition option in Maine. For more information on open air cremation visit her website: www.goodgroundgreatbeyond.com. 

For several years, born of ongoing inquiry into what helps people heal, Angela has also trained in Somatic Experiencing through SE International and in psychedelic therapies through MAPS, KTC and Naropa University. As of the Fall of 2023 she is also pursuing a second Masters degree at the University of Southern Maine in Social Work. 

Though she maintains a busy schedule she remains available to help individuals navigate the dying process and help folks who are caring for their dying and deceased loved ones. She will always make time to talk..  

AMANDA CARR (1978 - 2019)

If you knew Amanda, you would have been blessed to know an amazing being. She was a brilliant healer, a wild woman, a musician, a teacher, and a wanderlust. A registered nurse who worked in the E.R. and then, moved into hospice to invite all she encountered into new ways of thinking about death and dying. She was the most passionate person who gave her all to change the way we view the end of life, and she offered her patients options for their journey, with her humor and wisdom.

An advocate for the underdog, a listener that heard the subtle details being shared, a writer that showed us alternative paths to contemplate, Amanda taught us all that we have no control, and making plans will help us to find grace in the end. In her words: We must alter the way we view death, as a sudden traumatic event, and begin to view it as a topic of planning, education, and choice, much like other events in our lives. Like birth, there is no golden guarantee that all our finely laid plans can be executed to the tiniest detail, but without planning, without talking about our choices and desires for end-of-life, it is almost a certainty, that our wishes will go unfulfilled.

Amanda died suddenly and unexpectedly in December 2019, from toxic shock syndrome. She was 41. She wrote the following piece a few months before she died. bit.ly/AmandaHereNow