Our Funeral Directors

Founder Amy Cunningham is a licensed funeral director and celebrant in Brooklyn who collaborates with New York City families to help them create the best funerals and farewells possible. She specializes in green burials in cemeteries certified by the Green Burial Council, simple burials within the NYC- Metropolitan area, delayed transfers, home funerals, and witnessed cremation services in Green-Wood Cemetery's gorgeous crematory chapels.

Filled with kind advice on how to make funerals more affordable and sustainable, Amy works well with all the New York City hospices, and can help support a family’s tough choice to embrace Medical Aid in Dying (MAID), now legal in New York, and the decision of some dying people to voluntarily stop eating and drinking (VSED) in their endeavor to reduce needless suffering. Amy has been profiled by the New York Times and Tricycle magazine, and named one of nine top funeral innovators by FuneralOne, a leading voice for change in the funeral industry. In February 2018, Women's Health magazine gave Amy the unique moniker "Death Ritual Disrupter," in a piece about how daily death contemplation and awareness can enrich our lives and keep us healthier. She was a reliable resource to news reporters throughout the novel coronavirus crisis, and most recently was named one of the 50 most fascinating people in Brooklyn.

Fortified by her mortuary training from the American Academy McAllister Institute, and a BA in English Literature from the University of Virginia, Amy was trained as a funeral celebrant by Glenda Stansbury and Doug Manning, certified as a home funeral guide by Jerrigrace Lyons and Olivia Bareham, and exposed to Jewish tahara ritual through the teachings of Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips. She then took end-of-life doula training with Henry Fersko-Weiss (twice!) at the NY Open Center where she is now on the faculty of the Integrative Thanatology death education counselor program. 

When not out directing funerals, Amy writes a blog with funeral celebrant Kateyanne Unullisi called "The Inspired Funeral" for consumers, clergy, home funeral guides, celebrants and bereavement therapists working to enrich end-of-life experiences. She has been married to journalist Steven Waldman for thirty-four years. One son is newly married to his University of Wisconsin sweetheart and in his third year of Temple Law School; the other is now a law clerk at Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

Anna Walsh is a licensed funeral director and celebrant specializing in home funerals, green burials, witnessed cremation services and perinatal loss. She received a degree in mortuary science with honors from American Academy McCallister Institute in 2020 and her BA in English Literature from Wheaton College in Norton, MA in 2009. She also has a certificate in Integrative Thanatology from the New York Open Center, where she studied with palliative care doctors, death doulas, psychologists and therapists on grief and the dying process. Anna also was trained in death midwifery by Olivia Bareham.

In addition to death care, Anna has an interest in pregnancy and birth. She trained as a birth doula with Debra Pascali Bonaro and studied pregnancy loss support with Amy Wright Glenn. The midwifery model of care has been foundational to Anna’s approach to work with the dead, the dying and the grieving.

Anna grew up in Rhode Island and moved to New York in 2011. She lives in Kensington, Brooklyn with her husband, Dylan and their two children.