Emily Nelson

The existence of Be a Tree can be attributed to two very important women. The first is my mother, Jill, who was my earliest and most significant death.

She passed when I was a little over a year old, leaving me with a lifelong curiosity and fascination with death and eventually, access to the financial means to create something larger than myself. The second is the woman who would eventually marry my father and legally adopt me, my mom, Robin. After a conversation with my mom about the possibilities for our bodies after death, I asked her what she wanted, and she simply told me, “I want to be a tree.”

Through the time I spent working in the corporate death care industry and my experience with branding and marketing, I knew that the best way to honor both my mother and my mom's legacies was to make the possibility of living on through nature a reality with water cremation.

As a Colorado native, I know the importance nature plays in our lives and saw the need to lessen our environmental impact as we leave this life for whatever is next, something that is not the reality with fire cremation and traditional burial.

Now, my team and I are wholly committed to serving our community with greener end-of-life alternatives and a way to live on through nature after death.