The last page of this chapter could truly drain a highlighter of ink.

I LOVE the note that "the main players in the recomposition project are women." Across fields from science to anthropology to law to architecture, it is being driven by "educated women, who have the privilege to devote their efforts to righting a wrong."

Because wow, the way that effort in revolutionizing deathcare is tied to the (mis)treatment of women while they're alive??

"humans are so focused on preventing aging and decay—it's become an obsession. And for those who have been socialized female, that pressure is relentless. So decomposition becomes a radical act. It's a way to say 'I love and accept myself.'" [...] There is a freedom found in decomposition, a body rendered messy, chaotic, and wild. I relish this image when visualizing what will become of my future corpse.

And as if that isn't itself enough, then adding the final reflection that deathcare has shifted from care performed by women to a profession for well-paid men. So it isn't just women now claiming it for themselves, but REclaiming it.

"Maybe a process like recomposition is our attempt to reclaim our corpses. Maybe we wish to become soil for a willow tree, a rosebush, a pine - destined in death to both rot and nourish on our own terms."

How does one not sob?