Disability, Death, and the Sacred Art of Slowness

July is Disability Pride Month.

And here, in this space where we talk about death, grief, rest, and reverence — we must also talk about disability.

Because disability, too, reshapes how we relate to time.

To loss.

To the body.

To what it means to live fully — even (and especially) when life doesn’t look how we imagined.

Many of us who are disabled, chronically ill, or neurodivergent have danced with death long before we were ready to name it.

We’ve felt our bodies unravel.

We’ve lost versions of ourselves we once clung to.

We’ve been asked to grieve in silence.

To perform wellness.

To keep up.

But disability teaches a different rhythm.

It invites us into slowness — not as punishment, but as initiation.

It teaches us to listen to the body, to respect its cycles, to honor its limits as holy.

It calls us to grief work long before we meet the grave.

Disability pride, in the context of deathcare, is revolutionary.

Because it refuses to measure worth by productivity, pace, or performance.

It says: you are not a machine.

You do not have to earn your place in this world through output.

You do not have to transcend your body to be sacred.

This month, and always, I honor disabled bodies as sacred sites.

I honor pain as teacher.

I honor grief as companion.

And I honor the wisdom we carry — wisdom born from living on the threshold of systems that were never built for us.

To be disabled is to live with one foot in the liminal.

To navigate constant endings and beginnings.

To know the fragility of life in your bones.

To adapt again and again.

There is deep death wisdom in that.

And so we slow down.

We rest.

We stop performing.

We root ourselves in the truth that all bodies — disabled, ill, neurodivergent, aging, ailing, dying — are worthy of tenderness, dignity, and care.

Disability Pride Month is not about pretending it’s all beautiful.

It’s about knowing you’re worthy even when it’s not.

It’s about honoring the quiet revolution of being here, exactly as you are.

Soft. Sacred. Still breathing.

—Kat

Founder, Deathcraft