Podcast Interview with Catherine Ashton of Critical Info
In this episode, I sit down with Bonita Ralph, a death educator, family support practitioner and former Holistic Funeral Director whose work spans home-based death care, infant and child loss, and paediatric palliative care. Bonita's journey began with a simple but profound question on a drive home from holiday: “What if I died? What would happen?” That moment sent her down a rabbit hole into community-led death care, eventually leading her to specialise in extended family-led vigils and the care of babies and children who have died.
Bonita shares what she has learned from working with bereaved parents, siblings and grandparents, including the “concentric circles of support” model for knowing who to lean on, and who not to burden, in grief. We talk candidly about invisible infant loss, the myths that still shape what people believe is or isn't possible in after-death care, and why she pushes back when funeral providers say something “can't be done.” Bonita also explains what home-based death care actually looks like, what a shrouded witness cremation involves, and why she believes death education belongs in schools.
We also explore her work in paediatric palliative care, where she says the first word that comes to mind is joy, and how holding both heartbreak and joy at once has shaped the way she supports families from diagnosis through to bereavement.
Click on image to access episode via Critical Info.
Byron Bay FM radio interview - November 2025 with Emma Beattie on her show Regard.
We talked about grief & loss particularly when an infant or child dies and community responses.
*Earlier in our conversation Emma and I acknowledge that neither of us are bereaved parents. We do talk about my experience walking alongside people in my work as a former Holistic Funeral Director, in community and in current work in a paediatric palliative care hospice.
This conversation references child and infant loss - please take care as you listen. You can access supports via this website here.
Death doulas explain why everyone should have an end-of-life plan
By Nicole Mills
ABC News - 7th August 2018
Life Shroud
Textile Collaboration with weaver Ana Petidis
‘Life Shroud' is a collaborative piece created by Australian weaver Ana Petidis (right) and Bonita Ralph (left), a Family Support professional in Paediatric Palliative care and former funeral director.
Materials: linen, silk, organic cotton, organic baby alpaca, Angelina copper fibre.
This handwoven cloth was born from a collaboration between lifelong friends who grew up to be a weaver and a funeral director. A shared story woven by Ana into cloth to accompany Bonita through life. The cloth may be used as part of Bonita's shroud for her body at death or a keepsake for her children, cut up and shared as part of her legacy.
Inspired by the traditional practices of many cultures and people, this hand woven cloth imagines its utility and meaning across one's life and is imbued with stories from birth to death and life in between. The cloth has to be many things; practical in its aesthetic to not limit its use to purely a thing of beauty; soft and comforting to touch; and strong and able to function under strain. One cloth can be used to aid a woman in labour, a person in need of first aid, to swaddle or carry an infant, to transport objects across distances, as a shield against the elements or unwanted gazes, as a comfort and finally as a death shroud. One, well made cloth. Woven to honour the past, present and future of its custodian, Ana's dear friend Bonita.
The 'Life Shroud' has been exhibited several times but lives its day to day life on the back of Bonita's living room chair in the heart of her home.
Exhibitions:
Creative Rememberence 2024: A global, virtual art exhibition about palliative care and dying, organised by the Creative Toolkit initiative.
Craft Victoria - Warped Perspectives 2020
Ballarat: Craft Lab 2019
Ana’s work can be found on Instagram - @analogcloth