The Sacred Willow

A single, enormous weeping willow at the water's edge, between the two ponds. Branches trailing into the surface, a quiet path down from the village.

Most days it's simply a place to sit. Residents bring a book down in the afternoon, families picnic on the grass, and conversations under the branches tend to run long into the evening.

But its central purpose runs deeper. This is where the community's death-positive philosophy takes physical form; a place where residents can spend their final moments surrounded by the land itself, not a hospital room, with family gathered under the canopy for as long as they need.

We didn't want the last thing anyone hears to be a heart monitor. We wanted it to be water, and the people who love them, and enough time to say what needs saying.