What is the benefit of a memento more walk? Here I share a little insight into one of my favourite ways to connect with nature.

Image credit: Esther Hall

Interested to learn about options for recording your family’s stories? Here’s eight ways to capture the memories of those we love beyond just photographs.

Image credit: Esther’s personal family archives

Many of us don't live within the traditional image of a married couple with children and nearby relatives who naturally step into caring roles. We may be single, divorced, widowed, estranged from family, child-free, living alone, part of a blended family, in a long-distance relationship, practising various forms of non-monogamy, or simply have friends who know us more deeply than some of our biological relatives ever could. Families and support networks come in countless forms.

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We spend years building digital lives; storing photographs in the cloud, running businesses through email and websites, managing finances online, documenting memories on social media, and collecting subscriptions, files, passwords, and conversations across dozens of platforms. Yet very few people make a plan for what should happen to those accounts when they die.

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Long before it had a name, people have been supporting one another through life’s most profound transitions; birth, death and everything in between. These roles were held within communities: by family members, neighbours, elders and those who, through lived experience, became skilled in offering care, presence and guidance at the end of life. This wasn’t seen as specialised work. It was simply part of being human.

Over time, much of this care shifted out of the home and into institutions. Death, like birth before it, became increasingly medicalised and professionalised. What was once held collectively was gradually handed over to hospitals, care systems and the funeral industry.

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