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An ambitious entrepreneur and two funeral directors pioneer a groundbreaking eco-friendly deathcare facility in Washington state, challenging traditional burial practices and transforming end-of-life rituals.
When Washington state became the first in the world to legalize human composting, entrepreneur Micah Truman puts it all on the line to build Return Home, the world’s first large-scale terramation facility. But when the conventional deathcare industry resists, he is forced to pivot and must learn to care for the grieving while transforming his business. Alongside Funeral Directors, Brie Smith, and Katey Houston, he begins to understand the double bottom line is the only way to truly profit. What begins as an ambitious venture becomes personal as they rediscover human connection, ritual, and legacy.
From JJ Gerber, Filmmaker
Exploring my grief through The Life We Leave has been unexpectedly cathartic. I can’t recommend it enough.
My grief journey began when my mother died in 2018. She was only 67—sharp as a tack, though her body was failing her. She wanted to die at home. Instead, she died in a hospital, and I immediately felt that I had failed her. Within a week, we retrieved a box of her ashes from the funeral home. Holding that surprisingly heavy box, I felt numb, like I had just completed a transaction. I give you my mother; you give me hot ash. It didn’t feel like a fair trade. I didn’t feel cared for. And no, I did not want to buy a keychain with her photo on it from the gift shop.
Two years later, my child was born. Looking at this tiny boy, with my mother’s chin, I was struck by all the life that would continue after she was gone. Within the span of two years, I was confronted with death and birth, two profound, perspective-shifting moments that permanently altered how I think about my short time on this planet. And then – I learned about human composting.
What began as a search for families transformed by this new option slowly revealed something else. We found ourselves equally drawn to the people offering this choice. In them, we witnessed a different kind of transformation—not one defined by a single loss, but by the duty of care with our most vulnerable loved ones.
I hope this film can offer a reframing of how we accept mortality, one rooted not in fear, but in care, connection, and continuity. By looking more closely at how we tend to the dead, we are also asked to consider how we care for the living, and the world we leave behind for those who come after us.
If nothing else, this experience has at least settled at least one thing for me: When I die, please compost me.
When Washington state became the first in the world to legalize human composting, entrepreneur Micah Truman puts it all on the line to build Return Home, the world’s first large-scale terramation facility. But when the conventional deathcare industry resists, he is forced to pivot and must learn to care for the grieving while transforming his business. Alongside Funeral Directors, Brie Smith, and Katey Houston, he begins to understand the double bottom line is the only way to truly profit. What begins as an ambitious venture becomes personal as they rediscover human connection, ritual, and legacy.