Celebrating life by embracing death

People thought we were crazy. Absolutely nuts for building a service that would enable people to create their own memorial sites. To do that, people would have to admit they are one day going to die... and who wants to do that? We were told we were insane, morbid, out of our minds. But build it we did.

Now www.bcelebrated.com exists and even though some people raise an eyebrow when we describe it, those who use it describe it as profound, soothing, inspiring. The service also allows users to create private password-protected messages for loved ones. They can also prepare a notification system for when they pass away, so loved ones won't have to go searching for their contacts.

The site does many more things, but mostly it's the experience of writing about their life as they are living, and creating messages for those they love that has users telling us how sacred an experience this has been for them. This was our highest dream for the project. It's not going to appeal to everyone. It's not going to appeal to most, but even some of our more reluctant users have found meaning in the experience.

Jungian psychologist, Marion Woodman, said: "Because death is an essential part of life, to be fully alive is to be prepared for it". It's our hope that helping people prepare for their own death will indeed inspire them to live more fully. I wonder how life might change for all of us if we could embrace death as a part of life.