A different way to say goodbye: That’s what Jamie Kramer, formerly the District 1 representative on the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners, wants to create through her business. The company, called Earthly After, encourages people to think more sustainably about the final resting places they choose for themselves or their loved ones. A recent stint in a Michigan State University accelerator program and a substantial infusion of cash could help Kramer and her partners achieve big goals for the business, which include establishing a national reach within the next five years.

Two months ago, Kramer resigned her seat on the county commission, citing – among other reasons – Earthly After’s growth.

“Earthly After, my company has been expanding rapidly,” Kramer wrote in her resignation letter. “Our mission is to integrate grief support with sustainable practices by offering memorialization services in natural settings… This work is deeply meaningful to me and requires my full attention and commitment at this time.”

Kramer got the idea for Earthly After years ago while volunteering for Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, a Copemish-based nonprofit that works to clone the world’s oldest trees so they can be replanted and perpetuated. Kramer, who had gone through a string of losses at the time, wondered if she could combine the work Archangel was doing with her burgeoning desire to take grieving out of the traditional cemetery and into nature.

“I wanted to create a way that capitalism could perpetuate conservation,” Kramer tells the Leelanau Ticker. “They have forests in Germany which are essentially cremation forests, where you put the remains of a loved one under a tree. I wanted to do that here.”

Globally, Kramer says, there is a growing debate about whether cemeteries are a responsible use of land. “The world is running out of burial space,” BBC News proclaimed all the way back in 2015, citing concern that burying loved ones together might become impossible due to cemeteries hitting capacity. There are also questions about the negative environmental impacts of burying human remains and about whether land set aside for cemeteries could be better used for other purposes. In Berlin, graveyards are even being converted into new uses, like parks, playgrounds, or housing.

Long-term, Kramer’s vision is for Earthly After to have its own conservation forests, which would essentially function as natural cemeteries. Families could purchase the rights to a “family tree” on the land and then bury the cremated remains of multiple loved ones beneath that tree. The forests would be protected by conservation easements and therefore preserved in perpetuity as natural spaces. Such an approach, Kramer says, would both provide a meaningful space for people to grieve their loved ones and offer a more environmentally beneficial use of land than traditional graveyards.

For now, the dream of dedicated Earthly After forests remains just that. Though Kramer’s lifetime goal is to preserve 1 million acres of forestland, the company so far has zero. Still, Kramer is proud of the foothold her business has gained in other realms – particularly a partnership with the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that allows Earthly After to organize memorial services and scatter ashes in the park. Those memorial services can take on a variety of forms, depending on the person being honored.

“It could be a butterfly release; it could be that everyone wears a specific color because it was the person’s favorite color; it could be that everyone goes for a bike ride because the person was a big cyclist,” Kramer explains. “Our goal is to learn all those little intimate details about your loved one so that we can craft a meaningful memorial. It's a complete experience, and we want you to immerse yourself in the memory of your loved one.”

Earthly After recently participated in Michigan State University’s Conquer Accelerator, a 10-week program that connects startups with “the resources, mentorship, and network [they] need to rapidly scale and conquer in a competitive marketplace.” Thanks to the accelerator, the company secured $80,000 in new resources, including a $20,000 cash investment from MSU’s Red Cedar Ventures. Kramer says the money will help Earthly After move into the “next phase” of growth, including – hopefully – a broader partnership with the National Park Service. The three-year goal is to be operating throughout the Midwest, while the five-year goal is a nationwide reach.

One thing Kramer feels could drive a lot of that growth is the company’s recent expansion into memorial services for pets.

“We studied pet loss and found that a lot of people were suffering some really complex grief after the loss of a pet, and that space was completely unattended too,” Kramer explains. “We decided that it would be a really great space for us to be in.”

To introduce that service to the local region, Earthly After is teaming up with Riley’s Candles – a local startup with a pet-inspired origin story – for a Pet Memorial Sunset Cruise aboard the Discovery.

“It’s challenging to conceive of something that doesn't exist,” Kramer says. “We all have pre-existing ideas of what a memorial looks like, but maybe no idea at all of what a pet memorial looks like. But more pets are being cremated than ever, and more millennials are deciding to have pets. The statistics are off of the charts, as far as pet ownership and our relationships to our pets goes. Those losses are profound, and we want to craft something that matches what people are feeling and that is really healing. This cruise is an example of what that can look like.”

Pictured: Kramer pitches Earthly After at TCNewTech