Jamie Bachaus, MPH

Program Manager

Jamie has been End in Mind’s Program Manager since 2018 after leading community engagement efforts around this initiative as a committee member and volunteer in Scott County. She has a background in public health, community engagement, program development and evaluation, and volunteer coordination. Jamie is excited to use her expertise in these areas at a local level to help advance End in Mind’s mission.

In her free time, Jamie enjoys spending time with her family, gardening, preparing delicious food, and enjoying the great outdoors with her dog, Schmitty.

What does it mean for you to live with the End in Mind?
Living with the end in mind means living authentically and with integrity embracing life’s ups and downs.

Deathbed Playlist Song Choice:
“Journey of the Featherless” by Cloud Cult and “Into the Great Wide Open” by Tom Petty…and many, many others!

Favorite Bucket List Item:
Whitewater rafting on the Nile and kayaking alongside orca whales in the San Juan Islands that I’ve checked off and many more experiences I look forward to.

What three words would you want people to remember you by?
Curious, Authentic, Advocate.

What habit makes your life worth living?
Spending quality time with the people I love, most notably my siblings and our ever growing family.

Cathy Wurzer

Founder, Board Chair, Executive Producer

Cathy Wurzer is a broadcast journalist with MPR News and Twin Cities PBS, author, documentary filmmaker, artist, horsewoman and wanna-be dancer.

What does it mean for you to live with the End in Mind?
Living with the End in Mind means making friends with my impending death so I can be free to live fearlessly, with purpose and authenticity, until I die.

Deathbed Playlist Song Choice:
What? Only one?!? OK. “Keep Me in Your Heart” by Warren Zevon. Everyone wants to be remembered when they are gone.

Favorite Bucket List Item:
Watching the beautiful, white Lippizan stallions perform their graceful equine ballet in Vienna.

What three words would you want people to remember you by?
Inspired. Dogged. Kind.

If you had one quote on your headstone, what would it be?
Actually, it is a quote from my beloved friend Bruce Kramer, the man who modeled much of what pushes me forward with End in Mind. Bruce wrote, shortly after he was diagnosed with ALS, that he had a choice. He could either shut down and wait to die or continue to live until he couldn’t. He asked himself, “What will you be from here into eternity?” I’d love people, who see my gravestone, ask themselves that same question.

Christy Moe Marek

Board Member since 2018

Christy is a certified End of Life Doula and Anamcara End of Life Practitioner in private practice supporting and guiding the dying and their loved ones to remember they know how to die, and know how to tend their dying. She offers talks and facilitates sessions related to the interplay of creativity, soulfulness, and the dying process. Learn more at www.tendinglife.com

What does it mean for you to live with the End in Mind?
We are, all of us, always both living and dying simultaneously. So for me, living with the End in Mind means walking wholly through life embodying and allowing myself to be informed by that truth.

Deathbed Playlist Song Choice:
There are soooooo many! A few favorites… Carrie Newcomer, “I’ll Go Too.” Cloud Cult, “Come Home.” Jackson Browne, “For a Dancer.” Josh Groban, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” James Taylor, “Secret o’ Life.” Van Morrison, “Into the Mystic.” Frank Sinatra, “My Way.” And on, and on…

Favorite Bucket List Item:
Experienced – riding elephants in the Thai jungle. To be experienced – pilgrimage to Ireland.

What habit makes your life worth living?
Daily contemplative time outdoors cultivating presence and opening to the wonder of mystery and magic in every moment.

If you had one quote on your headstone, what would it be?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? (Mary Oliver, an excerpt from The Summer Day)

Corey Martin, MD

Board Member since 2018

Corey Martin is a Yale-trained family physician, founder of the Bounce Back Project, practicing private group physician, Bush Fellow, and national speaker on clinician burnout. Driven to do this work by the loss of two colleagues and friends, Corey strives to create an environment of opportunity in which all of us can do the deep, heartfelt work of changing the way we show up and interact in each other’s lives.

What does it mean for you to live with the End in Mind?
It means not be afraid to share your feelings, express your love to others and living a life that is true to yourself. One without regrets. It means that at my funeral my kids will be able to say, the one thing that dad taught us was how to be truly happy.

Deathbed Playlist Song Choice:
Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

Favorite Bucket List Item:
Walking the Camino de Santiago.

Write your own epitaph in five words or less.
Dad. Son. Friend. Mentor. Leader.

What habit makes your life worth living?
Traveling with my family and facilitating retreats across the world to help people reawaken their inner teacher and to have the courage to live a life without regrets.

David Abelson, MD

Board Member since the inception of the End In Mind board

David Abelson, MD has had a long and varied career in medicine, health system design, and executive leadership. David trained in general internal medicine and practiced first in private practice and then at Park Nicollet Health Services, a large integrated delivery system in metropolitan Minneapolis.

In 2010 David became the CEO of Park Nicollet Health Services and cultivated a culture of Head+Heart, Together. As CEO, David was passionate about supporting healing experiences for patients and families. He led the direction of Park Nicollet to value-based payment culminating in 2013 with a merger with HealthPartners.

David retired in 2014. Despite retirement, he could not resist the pull of helping organizations collaborate. After retiring, David served as the President of the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI), a collaborative of health plans and care delivery systems dedicated to improving care in the Upper Midwest.

David is the co-editor of “Advancing Relationship-based cultures” which won the American College of Healthcare Executives 2018 book of the year award.

What does it mean for you to live with the End in Mind?
Living with the end in mind means opening to and celebrating this moment as the only moment we have.

Deathbed Playlist Song Choice:
“The Sound of Silence,” Simon and Garfunkel.

Favorite Bucket List Item:
Living with the end in mind means living without a bucket list. A bucket list emphasizes “doing” rather than being and for me promotes the illusion that “doing” will somehow change my situation or life. A bucket list promotes anticipating the future rather than floating in the present.

What’s your fondest memory of living so far?
My children’s heads crowning during birth.

Danielle Braswell

Treasurer, Board Member since 2018

What does it mean for you to live with the End in Mind?
To live with the End in Mind means not sweating the small stuff and the wisdom to know that that most day to day tribulations are small stuff!

Deathbed Playlist Song Choice:
“A Little Warm Death” by Cassandra Wilson

What three words would you want people to remember you by?
Joyful, Generous, Insightful

What habit makes your life worth living?
In the morning, I try to make a habit of just sitting outside to absorb the sunshine. It’s a small window of time before the kids are up for the day; a moment of appreciation and reflection.