ABOUT T.J. Ford

These “about me” pages are hard. I suppose I could get AI to write it but in fact, I’m an analog girl in a digital world, so I’m writing this all by myself. (It also allows me to put to use my degree in journalism.)

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Why me, and why death?

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For almost 30 years I’ve been a massage therapist and educator focusing on trauma and injury recovery. Working with clients at their most vulnerable gave me an appreciation for how difficult life can be, but also how resilient we are. I felt honored to be welcomed into a client’s self and to facilitate healing at whatever level it could happen. My private practice in Portland, Oregon was financially, intellectually, and emotionally fulfilling.

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As George Eliot writes in Middlemarch, “What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?”

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I knew my work as a trauma therapist was helping people, but eventually I started to feel – not exactly burned out – but stuck. And a little bored. And I had always said to my students that once you start to feel bored, it’s time to get out.

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And while I’m a pretty practical and science-minded person, I am not immune to signs from the universe. It happened that a total solar eclipse, an office lease change, and a bit of relationship trauma all conspired to have me close my practice and travel around the world for about 9 months.

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I combed beaches in New Zealand, ate moules frites in France, visited Soviet monuments in Bulgaria, and nursed flying foxes in Australia. It was liberating, scary, and delightful. I also discovered through a friend in New York the field of bioethics: a combination of medicine, philosophy, law, and ethics that grabbed my interest and wouldn’t let go.

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Two years later, I had a master’s degree in bioethics, an ex-husband, and a new life in New York City. In my master’s program, we talked a lot about the myriad issues around death and dying. Our society is uncomfortable with the whole idea, but it’s the only certainty in life. (Sorry, Benjamin Franklin, but taxes are not certain if you know where to hide your money!) The more I thought about all the issues around death and dying, the more I thought, we need to talk about this!

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Thus DeathReady was born. It’s about the practical aspects of death and dying, yes. But it’s also about the emotional stuff surrounding it. I have the ability to shut up and listen, a curiosity about the way our minds work, and a deep desire to help people address difficult things.

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My goal is to start, and continue, the conversation around what your best death looks like to you. I am not a grief counselor, or a shrink, or a funeral director. I am compassionate, open, and entertaining, and I’d love to talk to you about death. Join one of my workshops, check out my private coaching packages, or give me a call!