Understanding Muslim funeral practices

By Susan Shelly

Elsayed "Steve" Elmarzouky walks through the area dedicated to Muslims in Laureldale Cemetery.
Elsayed “Steve” Elmarzouky walks through the area dedicated to Muslims in Laureldale Cemetery.

Most people know little about the religious practices of those of other faiths.

Lacking interest, opportunity or sometimes both, we miss out on the significance and beauty of the rituals and ceremonies others use to acknowledge birth, coming of age, marriage, the process of aging and death.Muslims, of which there are about 250 families living in Berks County, have certain beliefs and observe certain practices when a member of their community dies.

Iman Anwar Muhaimin, who travels from Philadelphia to lead prayers at the Islamic Center of Reading each Friday afternoon, along with Elsayad “Steve” Elmarzouky, a Berks County Muslim leader, shared some information about Muslim funeral practices and beliefs regarding death and the afterlife.Understanding that, as with most religions, customs will vary depending on cultural differences, they described what typically occurs after the death of a faithful Muslim.

Preparing a body for burial

When an observant Muslim dies, the body normally is taken to a funeral home to be washed and prepared for burial. Locally, Elmarzouky said, bodies are taken to one of the locations of Bean Funeral Home and Crematory.

Family members or members of the mosque who are trained in the ritual washing of the dead perform that task. Men wash men, and women wash women.Muslims do not cremate the deceased, Muhaimin explained, because they believe that the body should be returned to God in the same state in which it was given.”God gives me the body, so I need to give it back to him,” Muhaimin said. “The idea is that the body is God’s gift to you, so you should give it back to God.”If cremation is necessary due to financial or other circumstances, however, it is permissible.”When we have to do something out of necessity, God understands,” Muhaimin said.

The burial of a Muslim

Once the body is prepared for burial, it is taken in a simple casket to the mosque, where believers can pray over it. A special prayer, called Salatul Janazah, is performed, and the body is taken to the cemetery for burial.

Muslims normally are buried with other Muslims. In Berks County they do not have a cemetery designated exclusively to members of their faith, but use a designated section of Laureldale Cemetery.In cemeteries where caskets are not required for burial, a faithful Muslim would be buried in a simple, white wrapping, Muhaimin explained.”We want to be as close to the way we came into the world as possible,” he said.Believers are called to put the body of a loved one in the ground with their own hands, so shovels often are available at the cemetery.Before the body is placed in the ground there are more prayers, mostly supplications on behalf of the deceased, Elmarzouky explained.”We ask God to forgive sins and grant a happy afterlife,” he said.When the body is placed in the ground, it is positioned so the face is looking to the East, the same direction in which Muslims face while reciting daily prayers.Usually, a Muslim is buried on the same day as the death occurs, or at least within 24 hours of the death.That practice, explained Muhaimin, is so the soul, which has been released from the body, is not looking back.”Once the soul leaves, we no longer have the right to hold it back,” Muhaimin said.

Muslim belief in an afterlife

The span of human life is part of the journey of the soul, Muhaimin said, but not the soul’s home.

“The soul is just passing through when it’s on Earth,” he said. “The purpose of earthly life is to gain enlightenment. It is not the end.”Muslims believe in heaven and hell, and where a person will reside depends on several things, Elmarzouky explained.To arrive in heaven, the deceased must have performed good deeds while alive. His or her relationship with humanity will be examined. And, the fate of the deceased lies largely with the mercy of God.Like many Christians, Muslims believe there will be a day of judgment, during which the righteous are raised up to be with God and the wicked sent to hell.A person who has lived a godly life will be rewarded with heaven, Muhaimin said.”Believers and righteous people who have lived in spiritual covenant with God will be in heaven,” he assured.

Complete Article HERE!

Dying with a plan: Do not go unprepared into that good night

DUST IN THE WIND: The Carolina Memorial Sanctuary is an 11-acre conservation burial ground where bodies are buried in biodegradable vessels. Above, a funeral takes place at CMS, which is also a conservation easement and North Carolina's first conservation burial ground.
DUST IN THE WIND: The Carolina Memorial Sanctuary is an 11-acre conservation burial ground where bodies are buried in biodegradable vessels. Above, a funeral takes place at CMS, which is also a conservation easement and North Carolina’s first conservation burial ground.

by Dan Hesse

Spoiler alert: You’re going to die. You already know that, but how much preparation for the inevitable have you made?

Living in Buncombe County, we can expect to live for 79.2 years, according to the local Health & Human Services Department. In a county with a quarter-million people, about 2,315 pass annually, an average based on 11,579 deaths in the five-year period from 2008–12, per a study by the department. The top three causes of death during those five years was cancer (2,563), heart disease (2,513) and chronic lower respiratory disease (784).

Last year was harder on us, though: 3,564 people died in Buncombe, the deputy registrar reports.

About 19 percent of Buncombe’s residents are 65 or older, according to 2015 U.S. census data — or 48,103 elders among a total population of 253,178. Of course, 65 is by no means the beginning of the end, nor does death target only the aged. In the five-year period covered by the above-cited study, we lost 170 people between the ages of 20 and 39, and 1,356 people between the ages of 40 and 64. And in 2015, we lost 176 people between the ages of 15 and 44 and 648 people between the ages of 45 and 64.

Given the ubiquitous and unavoidable nature of death, it seems that it should be an event we’d all plan for. But is it?

No one can confidently say that he will be living tomorrow — Euripides

Societal attitudes, traditions and responses toward death vary, but death is, well, as old as life. Carol Motley, founder of Bury Me Naturally Coffins and Caskets, says the advent of the Civil War and the resulting new practice of embalming was a catalyst for what American society now recognizes as a traditional funeral. “Before the war, you would dig a hole and put a body in it. During the Civil War, embalming tents became common at battlegrounds. You could get shipped home and not stink. And that was appealing,” she notes wryly.

Josh Slocum, executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, agrees that the so-called traditional funeral is a relatively new concept. “We have a really short historical memory, but when you look back into the 19th century, what we now call a traditional funeral — the chemical embalming; the public display at a commercial place of business; mass-manufactured caskets; the Cadillac hearse to the cemetery — it didn’t come along until the last quarter of the 19th century,” he says. “It was a commercially created tradition.”

The FCA is a national nonprofit focused on raising awareness about consumer and legal rights when dealing with the funeral industry. “Most Americans, your own family, just a short period of time ago, was having a funeral where the body was washed at home, laid out at your home, in a coffin built by a local woodworker or by somebody in the backyard,” Slocum says. “That was the conventional burial. Burial in a sheet or wood box is as old as human history.”

Death is just another path, one that we all must take — J. R. R. Tolkien

While many people aren’t intentional about addressing their death, it’s a topic worth exploring, says Caroline Yongue, executive director of the Center for End of Life Transition. The interfaith organization helps people make decisions and provide instructions regarding what happens to their body after death. “North Carolina law says loved ones can act as funeral directors, so it is possible to bypass the funeral industry completely. But you would need to be prepared for death, to be prepared for what it takes to handle it yourself,” Yongue says. And planning ahead is key. “We’ve defaulted to the funeral industry in the last several decades, so people aren’t aware that they have their own legal rights,” she continues, noting that after a loved one dies, it’s difficult to know what to do if end-of-life decisions aren’t made beforehand.

In many cases the deceased hadn’t been intentional about declaring wishes for their funeral and what they want to happen to their body, according to Yongue. Yet, there’s a comfort in not having to make those tough choices immediately after the last breath is declared: “A nurse or social worker walks in the room and asks, ‘Which funeral home do you want me to call?’ And the funeral home is called because that’s the path of least resistance.”

Motley concurs, saying that even those at the end of their path neglect the inevitable. “I can’t believe how many people are terminally ill, die and then we have to overnight a casket. Most of the time that’s what happens; you’re dealing with everything but the obvious,” she notes. “There’s not a place in our societal life where we address it. You have to make a concerted effort to do it. It’s not part of church, school, anything. And it should be. We should go ahead and fill out our death certificate.” You can get a death certificate in person, online or via mail, from the Buncombe County Register of Deeds.

Juanita Igo, a case manager with the Buncombe County Council on Aging, says she often sees that conversation placed on the back burner because of day-to-day stressors. “We work with people who don’t have enough resources to pay for their rent, their medication. … So sometimes just getting through the day is what they’re working on,” she notes.

Igo recommends using the Five Wishes document provided by the nonprofit Aging With Dignity. The document will help you determine what you want in regard to various aspects of medical and social preferences for the end of your life. “You’re taking people through a conversation that’s more natural to them, about what they want to have happen. Participants do have to get the form notarized, but it gets people thinking about those things and starts the conversation,” she says.

It’s not just the elderly who die, Igo adds. “It might be something that comes up suddenly, so it’s good to start the conversation.”

“Funeral planning has to be a family conversation, the same way we have conversations about where to go to college, how much it will cost and how we will pay for it,” says Slocum. He believes there is a distinctly American fear of death that keeps the subject irrationally inaccessible. “We don’t even like to say the word. If you look at the obituaries, and there’s 10 people in it, I bet you eight of them didn’t even die. They passed away, they went home to Jesus, but, by God, they didn’t die,” says Slocum.

The Rev. Ed Hillman, president of the FCA of Western North Carolina, also sees death as a taboo subject that needs to be brought into the light. “We don’t like to think about our own mortality. I think there’s an innate fear of death in all of us, and we think that somehow by talking about it, it will bring it about — which is not rational,” he says. Hillman points out that it’s everyone’s responsibility to have “the talk,” and that despite its uncomfortable nature, engaging the conversation can save anguish after a death. Unfortunately, “[not having the talk] can put our next of kin in a place where they have to guess what we want and end up spending resources that they might not even have in trying to figure out what a deceased person actually wanted,” he says. “The more detailed the plans, the less the next of kin has to guess about what the deceased person would want.”

Slocum says it also makes financial sense to determine your burial/cremation arrangements ahead of time. He urges people to approach this planning the same way they look for a car: Shop around. “Prices of funeral homes in the same city are wildly different. People don’t expect this. When you shop for a stereo, you’re shopping for a difference of price of about 35 percent; we don’t expect prices on the same model to range from $500 to $2,000. Not true at funeral homes,” he says. “You will find funeral homes, within driving distance of where you’re sitting right now, charging $1,000 for simple cremation and ones charging about $4,000 for that simple cremation.” The FCA of Western North Carolina compiles information about funeral costs in 14 counties. In Buncombe, the cost of cremation ranges from $895 to $4,460; and the cost of burial ranges from $1,495 to $6,940, with varying distances the funeral home will transport the body.

Slocum and Hillman make it clear that the FCA isn’t against the funeral industry. As Hillman notes, “The vast majority of funeral homes are really wonderful services for people, though every once in a while there are things people just do not need.” And Slocum adds that’s why the FCA’s mission is to educate consumers about their rights. “The Federal Trade Commission has the Funeral Rule that gives consumers important rights. You have the right to get quotes over the phone. Every funeral home you visit and talk about funeral arrangements with is required by law to hand you a printed, itemized price list at the beginning of the conversation,” he says. “Funeral homes are allowed to provide packages but they are not allowed to deny you itemized choices, and that’s one of the best ways to control funeral costs.”

Further, “Caskets, no matter what they’re made out of or how well they’re constructed, none of them will ‘protect or preserve your body.’ None of them will keep out air, water and dirt. None of them will keep you from decomposing,” Slocum notes. “There are caskets out there that are marketed as sealed and protective. And people of otherwise good sense can be misled. You’re going to be just as dead in a $10,000 casket as you are in a $2,500 cardboard box.”

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well-lived brings happy death — Leonardo da Vinci

But if a cardboard box is OK with you, there are ways to have a natural burial here in Western North Carolina. Yongue also runs the Carolina Memorial Sanctuary, an 11-acre plot of land that is the state’s first conservation burial ground. CMS has a conservation easement, and its burial techniques incorporate the chemical-free, unembalmed body, inside a biodegradable vessel, into the landscaping. “We all have a body, and it’s got to get recycled somehow. If we are conscientious about it, we can do it in a green way that has the least amount of impact on the planet,” she says. “Because we’ve got a lot of bodies on the planet.”

Yongue also doesn’t have anything bad to say about the funeral home industry. “Somebody’s got to deal with the bodies, but it’s incredibly expensive. And because people aren’t prepared, oftentimes they spend a lot more money than they would have if they had prepared for death,” she says. However, she knows unorthodox methods don’t always resonate. “Home funerals are not for everybody. Our hope is people become more informed about what their options are.”

Ultimately, Yongue believes, it’s about conveying postlife wishes, regardless of what those might be. Otherwise, she says, “It’s like going on a vacation, but you don’t plan for it. It would be like going to Europe, and the day of your trip arrives, you don’t have your passport, your luggage isn’t packed.”

Plus, a direct approach to death can have a positive effect on the living, Yongue posits. “If we walk around with death on our shoulder, we would be kinder, more compassionate, because everybody we see is going to die.”

Complete Article HERE!

Floating cemeteries and space burials: Asia’s futuristic take on death

By

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A floating cemetery in Hong Kong? – Floating cemeteries drifting along Hong Kong’s coastline could be the solution to the country’s lack of land space and aging population.

By 2050, one in every four people in Asia-Pacific will be over 60 years old, according to the United Nations.

At the same time, 188,000 people per day are flocking to urban areas, putting huge pressure on real estate.

With more people dying and less space available, architects and city planners are imagining bold and modern ways to bury the departed, which are both efficient and respectful.

From conveyor-belt columbarium to floating cemeteries and even space burials, the Asian funeral scene is undergoing an exhilarating transformation.

Death might be inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be predictable.

High-tech deaths

Japan has seen perhaps the most dramatic changes to its burial scene.

Since the Edo period (1603-1868), inherited rural graves and, more recently, urban cemetery spots have been passed down through the generations of a family.

But the cost of keeping a burial plot has skyrocketed in recent years. Today, a spot in prestigious Aoyama Cemetery, in Tokyo, costs $100,000, while even locker-style columbarium — called nokotsudo — can fetch $12,000 at a centrally located Buddhist temple.

Furthermore, with single households in Japanese on the rise, reliance on an inherited burial site is less practical.

The Ruriden Byakurengedo columbarium, in Tokyo’s famous shopping district of Shinjuku, is one high-tech alternative updated to suit modern life in Japan.

From the outside, Ruriden looks like a traditional Buddhist burial building with wooden doors and gracefully curving eaves.

But upon swiping an electronic pass card to enter, the doors swish open to unveil a dazzling display of 2,045 LED-lit Buddha statues. The relevant Buddha glows a different color, guiding each visitor to the niche that houses their loved one’s remains.

Not an incense stick or memorial plaque is in sight.

A niche here costs $7,379, including maintenance, and can be used for 30 years before the remains are moved to a communal area under the building, to make way for incoming remains.

For many elderly without children, this removes the worry about maintenance of their niche, or passing it on to the next generation.

“Japan’s population is declining due to a failing birthrate … it is getting difficult to hand over the family grave to the next generation,” Taijun Yajima, head priest of Kokokuji Buddhist Temple in Tokyo, which operates Ruriden, tells CNN.

“But the tradition and sentiment towards the deceased has not changed even we though use high tech solutions. This columbarium just meets the needs of the times.”

The Shinjuku Rurikoin Byakurengedo, in Tokyo, looks like a spaceship and acts like a smart library for ashes.

“The building doesn’t feel anything like a crematorium,” says Hikaru Suzuki, author of “The Price of Death: The Funeral Industry in Contemporary Japan.”

When you swipe the card, a machine automatically fetches the relevant ashes from an underground vault and transports them across a conveyor belt system to the appropriate room.

The compact building holds tens of thousands of urns, and does not require an inheritor or maintenance by a family member.

A sea of ideas

In Hong Kong, there is barely enough land for the living, let alone the dead.

Burial sites, therefore, are impractical and 90% of the population opts for cremation.

But even ashes need a home, and reserving a niche in a public columbarium has become akin to winning the lottery, with thousands of families on waiting lists to secure a tiny square foot of space, according to the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD), which oversees these facilities.

Meanwhile, a private columbarium niche can cost over $100,000.

With about 50,000 deaths a year in Hong Kong — a city of 8 million people — there will be a shortage of 400,000 niches by 2023, according to the FEHD.

The “Floating Eternity” is a sea-faring cemetery aimed at relieving pressure on the city’s burial sites, and designed by local architectural firm Bread Studios.

“In Hong Kong, it’s traditional to visit our ancestors’ graves twice a year — at Ching Ming Festival, in April, and Chung Yeung Festival, in October,” says Paul Mui, design director at Bread Studio.

“It seems like a waste to reserve so much valuable land for places we only visit twice a year.”

The Floating Eternity, if built, would offer enough columbarium space to house the ashes of 370,000 people. The design incorporates cultural details, such as a positive feng shui design and bamboo gardens.

Lingering around the back of Hong Kong Island during off-season, the boat would dock in accessible spots for Ching Ming Festival, allowing relatives onboard to take part in traditional grave-sweeping activities.

Infinity and beyond

The Elysium Space service is taking off-land burials one step further, by launching ashes into orbit.

For $1,990 each, 100 families per rocket launch can send a 1-gram capsule of ashes into space. The satellite containing the capsules typically orbits the Earth for several months before blazing back into the atmosphere, like a shooting star.

“Space is not just about technology, it is a beautiful landscape that can be used to create poetic celebrations,” former NASA space system engineer Thomas Civeit, the founder of Elysium Space, tells CNN.

“Narratives about our souls traveling through the stars after we pass away already exist in Japan,” explains Civeit, adding that about 50% of the US-based company’s customers are Japanese.

The first launch departed from Kauai, Hawaii, in 2015, with another scheduled for this year.

Families can use an app to track the orbiting satellite, and even see it with the naked eye, if wearing binoculars.

“New practices like these don’t come out of the blue,” says Suzuki, also an adviser for Elysium Space

“The space burial is a culmination of technological possibilities and the younger generation’s desire to write a new story about the afterlife journey.”

Complete Article HERE!

The condolences end. Being a widow doesn’t.

The second year without my husband is in some ways harder than the first.

By Lisa Kolb

being-a-widow

On the morning of my third wedding anniversary last Tuesday, or more accurately, the third time I celebrated my first anniversary, I awoke still hugging my husband Erik’s dark green Patagonia fleece. It was his favorite, the one he’s wearing in the photo we used for his memorial service program. I hadn’t needed to sleep with it in a while, but I did that night.

I lay there amid my luxurious new bedding, which, along with my new apartment, was supposed to make his absence feel less acute, since he was never associated with it. I listened to the uncomfortable hum of complete silence, but was too conscious of the day’s significance to go through my normal routine of blasting NPR in the bedroom and the TV in the living room to cut the quiet. I began to cry.

My husband Erik died at age 34 last May, along with five other young men, in a rockfall and avalanche on Mount Rainier. We were married for 19 months.lisa-wedding-228x300

I talked myself through the motions of breakfast and getting dressed. I wrote out an anniversary card with nowhere to send it, and walked to the old apartment building we shared in Woodley Park back when he was getting his MBA. I sat alone in the shabby linoleum foyer, on top of someone’s Amazon Pantry delivery box, and let memories flood in. I cried some more.

The day ended disastrously, despite the spa treatments and nice dinner with my mom that I thought might shore up the day from being wholly awful. I was upset at the server for bumping into my chair. I was upset that my mother was my dinner partner instead of my husband. I was upset that only a few people had acknowledged the day.

Year One of widowhood, the year when the grief is obvious and raw and ugly, gets all the support and attention. But Year Two is just as hard, and in some ways, it is lonelier.

In the first year, people check in constantly. They call, text, bring food, plan girls’ weekends and excuse — even support — the shuffling around in pajamas crying each day as we wait for the black, hollow feeling to lift.

The Year Two widow, however, is comparatively abandoned to the continued reality of a new and unfamiliar life. We are among the “walking wounded,” those largely without outward signs of trauma (weight regained, estate settled, tears more easily stifled) but who are still under equal, if different, strain.

I had an idea that passing the one-year mark meant the hard part was over, like crossing the finish line of a particularly grueling marathon, or getting to the front of the line at Target on a Saturday. But it is not over.

The one-year anniversary of a spouse’s death is not a benchmark for being healed. It’s merely the day after day 364, followed by 366, 367 and so on. For widows, anticipating relief upon the one-year mark is to be lulled, then hoodwinked, by a false target that implies to others, and even us, that we must be out of the woods, and thus less in need of continued support.

Year One is a struggle merely to eat, merely to get dressed in the morning, merely to think straight while confronting a crushing list of knife-twisting administrative to-dos, like car title transfers and insurance claims and endless calls to robotic customer service reps to tell them to cancel your husband’s account/subscription/delivery because he is dead.

By Year Two, those things are largely resolved. No small feat, yet it is all replaced by an equally daunting, though less obvious, list of second year to-dos, like learning to live with a new, solo identity after years of partnership. Like knowing that other people must think you should be functioning and working at a back-to-normal level again, and being ashamed and frustrated that you are just not. Like facing the immutable truth that he is still — still! — gone, always will be, and there is nothing you can do about it.

In other words, if Year One of widowhood is a struggle for survival, Year Two is the equally difficult struggle to begin living life again. It is hard. Our spouses just keep being dead.

Some days I do not care about anything. Some days, I am tired — tired of fighting my way forward, tired of feeling untethered, tired of not knowing how to configure the printer, tired of figuring out all the finances, tired of needing the television on, tired of taking the trash out myself, tired of still having to cancel his mail, tired of everyone else having a spouse, tired of missing Erik. Just tired.

Sometimes I’m ambushed by the sight of someone who looks like Erik.  It happened most recently on a sunny afternoon last month. I was walking down Connecticut Avenue to pick up allergy medicine at CVS, debating a detour into Krispy Kreme, when I caught sight of a man walking across Dupont Circle. He had Erik’s same lanky build, sandy blond hair and preppy style, right down to the tailored, pale pink collared shirt. I could not help myself and began following the man down Connecticut, then left onto N Street, sobbing behind my sunglasses, allowing myself the indulgence of imagining, just for a moment, that it was Erik walking around like everyone else, off to work or maybe his CrossFit class. When the man turned the corner onto 17th Street I let him go, realizing that on balance, it was probably less unhealthy to eat a donut than chase a ghost.

Bedtime alone is still hard. When I awaken in the middle of the night in a lonely panic, I listen to audiobooks or watch Netflix despite my and Erik’s strict no-devices-in-bed policy until my mind drifts to the story and away from my endless loop of “what will I do with the rest of my life … why can’t you be stronger and just go to the bank already to close his account … don’t forget to send Erik’s grandfather his baseball hat …”

It is a common refrain among widows that support tends to fall way off after a year. I wish more friends and family would reach out like they did early on. One friend used to send texts containing nothing more than emoji hearts, but it was enough. Some sent me articles or books they thought might help; others called to take me to lunch or dinner. Eating across from an empty chair — and knowing the reason for the empty chair — is difficult. Always initiating plans is tiring.

I want someone to really ask how I am doing, and say Erik’s name or talk about him freely. It keeps him alive. I know people are trying not to upset me by bringing him up, but I promise, he is already on my mind.

I do not blame my friends for their increased absence. Supporting a grieving friend long term requires time and stamina — intangibles already in short supply. There’s an emotional limit, as friends and family look to return to the safety of equilibrium. There’s also an intellectual limit: How could others understand the breadth of such a loss unless they have gone through it? Spousal grief is like Vegas: One must experience it personally to really understand how huge and overwhelming it is.

Some things are better, though. I regained the 10 pounds I dropped when Erik died and I could not eat. I feel strong enough to take ballet class again, after months of being too weak and sad to exercise. I socialize more readily. I laugh. I still cry, but the tears fall days apart, rather than hours; I no longer feel the need to add tissues to my wallet/keys/phone/lip balm check before I leave the house. I was able to clear out some — though not all — of Erik’s drawers. I have found some peace, and learned to accept the loss.

I am now dating Brodie, a widower. Uncannily, Brodie’s wife’s memorial service was on the same day as Erik’s, so what began as a supportive friendship through a shared timeline of grief has blossomed into something happy and wholly our own. But there are complications. I worry that he, too, could suddenly die young — perhaps an accident or fluke heart attack — and must give myself a pep talk every time he takes a flight, goes mountain biking or does not call or text immediately at an appointed hour.

I initially told no one we were dating. I am still sometimes reluctant to tell people, out of fear that they’ll think I no longer need support. I am afraid of being judged: Maybe it’s too soon, maybe people will think I am “over” Erik, maybe people will stop talking about him. But I will never be “over” Erik. Widowhood is sort of like being an amputee: Over time, the wound heals over, and I will learn to function well without my missing limb, but there will always be a vital part of me missing.

Later this evening, I will eat dinner alone and go to ballet class. I will go not because I am particularly in the mood, but because I know a step forward begins with a step out the door. I will go because Erik would want me to go and I want to be okay again — for him, for me, for Brodie, for my family. I am still rusty after not dancing for such a long time; my pliés are shallow and my pirouettes are off balance. But I am dancing again, and striving to get better every day.

The widow’s journey is a complicated and lengthy one. Awareness of that length — by us and by others — helps make it survivable. By acknowledging the loss’ enormity, we can forgive ourselves for continued stumbles and setbacks. I hope our family and friends can likewise know to be there to help us rise.

As I walk to my car after class, I will look up to the night sky and I will tell him, as I often do, “I am trying my very best, love.”

Complete Article HERE!

Bereavement Practices of Growing U.S. Latino Population Have Been Ignored Too Long, Study Finds

‘The funeral industry wants to serve this community, but it doesn’t know how,’ Baylor researcher says

latino-bereavement-practices
latino-bereavement-practices

By Terry Goodrich

Death research in the United States mostly overlooks bereavement customs of those who are not Anglo-Protestants, says a Baylor University researcher. She hopes to correct that — beginning with a study of Catholic Latino communities, who often hold overnight wakes and present food to the deceased.

Candi K. Cann, Ph.D., who teaches courses on death and dying, took a group of her students in 2015 to a Latino funeral home in a Central Texas city in which nearly 30 percent of the total population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census statistics.

“My students — nearly all Anglo — were fascinated,” said Cann, assistant professor in Baylor Interdisciplinary Core of the Honors College. While the Latino population is burgeoning, “this world was entirely foreign to them. The idea of eating and serving food at a wake was one that my students found not only foreign, but repelling, and they couldn’t imagine eating in the presence of the dead.

“I realized that these practices reflect a central part of Latina/o identity formation, yet seem invisible to many, because the death industry in the United States remains so segregated.”

But change is coming, Cann predicts. Hispanics are the country’s largest minority — approximately 17 percent of the population — and expected to double to 106 million residents in 2050, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Funeral directors are seeing a need to expand their services, she said.

Cann’s study — “Contemporary Death Practices in the Catholic Latina/o Community” — is published in the journal Thanatos. At the request of the Funeral Service Academy, a national education organization for funeral directors and embalmers, she has prepared training modules about Latino grieving and funeral practices.

The hallmark of the Latino funeral is the extended wake, which often lasts overnight, Cann said. Mourners bring their children with them, and it is common for families to set up card tables so that they can play dominoes and other games and exchange stories about the deceased loved one. Flowers and candles are placed near the body when the visitation begins.

“The wake is not a quiet affair, but often loud and emotional,” Cann said. “Generally, from the time the deceased is brought to the funeral home, the person is not left on his or her own.” Family members often help with washing, dressing and applying makeup to the deceased after they are embalmed, she said.

That is in marked contrast to most modern Anglo practices, in which the body is usually taken from the hospital, or much less frequently, the home, and then prepared by the funeral home, not to be seen again until visitation, Cann said.

In her article, Cann cited a researcher’s previous study quoting two Cuban-American women in Florida — a mother and grandmother — about spending the entire night at a Cuban mortuary, setting up recliners and drinking espresso.

“It’s not like (Anglo) Americans . . . Once the body is there, we would stay with that body until it is buried,” one woman said. When mourners were hungry, “we would go in shifts — like Grandma was going anywhere! But we couldn’t leave her alone. Somebody was always there to keep her company.”

While families sit and eat in the presence of their loved ones, even within the Latino segment of the United States population, those practices vary, Cann said.

Catered services for Mexican-American funerals are likely to include enchiladas, burritos, tacos, rice and beans; at Columbian visitations, empanadas and plantains are common. In funeral homes that are not equipped to offer catering, food will be shared as offerings to the deceased, with others gathering for meals at the church after services or at the deceased’s home after burial, Cann said.

Many U.S. Latinos are Roman Catholic, but even among Protestant Latinos, Catholicism has a cultural influence, Cann said. Each Latin American country tends to favor certain saints, martyrs and icons, and immigrants carry those preferences into the United States and to subsequent generations, Cann said.

Statues and prayer cards with the pictures of these saints are often placed in the room of the deceased, as well as at funerals and anniversary Mass. The cards often display picture of the deceased, with birth and death dates, and a written prayer of intercession.

“These cards are portable and meaningful memorials,” Cann said. “They operate as a sort of souvenir — evidence of the relationship between the bereaved and the deceased and an assertion of the right of the bereaved to grieve.”

But everyday items, as well as religious ones, play a role in Latino funerals, she said. Many family members and friends also purchase caskets that come with memory drawers or insert panels to hold photos, letters, jewelry and keepsakes.

“The casket, candles, pictures, making a plate and offering it to the dead and saying a prayer . . . Those things recognize the deceased person’s role in your life and continuing your bond. But they are also a way of saying, ‘We’ll continue without you,’” Cann said.

In her research, Cann found that while the need for ethnic funeral services is growing, many funeral homes are not familiar with other cultures.

“The industry wants to serve this community, but it doesn’t know how,” she said.

Establishment of ethnic funeral homes with bilingual staff is on the rise, and some traditional funeral homes are actively recruiting bilingual staff, Cann said. Some also are making adjustments so that catered food can be served during wakes.

Cann said that her research is “an introduction. There is much more work to be done. Death practices in the contemporary United States are one of the few remaining places in which ethnic identity is emphasized and even solidified.

“I wanted to at least attempt to counter the myth of death in the United States as uniform and analogous,” Cann said.

Candi Cann is the author of “Virtual Afterlives: Grieving the Dead in the Twenty-First Century.” In her book, she explores how mourning the dead in the 21st century has become a virtual phenomenon, with the dead living on through social media profiles, memorial websites and saved voicemails that can be accessed at any time. Those practices make the physical presence of death secondary to the psychological experience of mourning for many, Cann writes.

Complete Article HERE!

Dying Mother’s Lost Letter To Daughter Is Returned 12 Years After Her Death

By

lost-letter

If Blanche DuBois’ words about the kindness of strangers have ever been truly applicable, that time is now.

A letter written to a 4-year-old girl by her dying mother was found by a kind stranger and returned to the grown woman 12 years later.

Gordon Draper – the owner of Bondgate Books in Bishop Auckland, England – found the letter in a stack of secondhand books. He instantly recognized that it was extremely special.

The letter was folded with an old photograph of a woman with short hair and glasses. She had a young girl on her knee, who was undoubtedly her young child.

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“Bethany (my little treasure),” the letter begins. “If your dad is reading this to you, it is because I have died and gone to heaven to live with the angels.”

The letter goes on to explain,

My chest was very poorly, and I had an operation to make it better, but it didn’t work. I will always be in the sky making sure you are alright and watching over you.

The dying mother tells her daughter that it’s OK to grieve, and that she will always be with her.

I will always love you and don’t let anyone tell you it’s wrong to talk about me because it’s not. I hope you don’t forget me because I’ll always be your mam.

“I’ll always be your mam.”

Draper realized the importance of this letter, and decided that he must return it.

lost-letter

Here’s what the letter said in its entirety:

Bethany (My little treasure)
If your dad is reading this to you It is because I have died and gone to heaven to live with the angels. My chest was very poorly and I had an operation to make it better but it didn’t work. I will always be in the sky making sure you are alright and watching over you.
So when you see a bright star like in the nursery rhyme Twinkle Twinkle Little Star that’s me. Be a good girl and live a long happy life your dad and Granda will look after you and take you to school.
I will always love you and don’t let anyone tell you its wrong to talk about me because its not. I hope you dont forget me because I’ll always me your mam. Lots of hugs and kisses.
Goodbye
Mam
PS I’m depending on you to look after Rosie for me now. Don’t forget her will you not.

Draper wrote into the local newspaper, The Northern Echo. They ran the story on their front page last weekend.

Bethany Gash – who is now 21 years old with a child of her own – was sent the article by a friend. The letter had gotten lost five years after the death of her mother, when the family moved house.

Bethany was overwhelmed.

I thought it could never be found. I really can’t describe it because I never thought that the day would come.

When Bethany and Draper got in contact, he realized that they had already met. Draper had met Bethany’s mother when she had come into his shop to buy books for her young child.

“She was really poorly when she came in, but she bought lots of books for the kiddie who was just a little girl,” he said.

Bethany’s mother had been battling cystic fibrosis. She died in 1999, at just 36 years old.

“She really spoiled her with all the ‘Beatrix Potter’ sets and ‘Paddington Bear’ books, and could not have emphasized more that books meant a lot and she wanted to leave her something,” Draper added.

But after the move, Bethany never expected to see the letter ever again. “The length which these two gentlemen have gone to reunite me with it is just amazing,” she said.

To honor the memory of Bethany’s mother, Draper presented Bethany with a set of “Winnie the Pooh” books for her son, Oliver, just as he had done for her mother more than a decade earlier .

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“It’s so lovely seeing her again,” he said. “She looks like the same little girl I saw in her pram when she was in my shop before.”

Complete Article HERE!

Opting for a funeral at home: Challenging cultural norms

BY AMY WRIGHT GLENN

HOME FUNERAL

Originally from East Montpelier, Vermont, writer Lee Webster didn’t foresee leading a national organization that provides how-to guidance on caring for the dead, particularly from the comfort of one’s own home.

While Webster volunteered with hospice for years while writing for educational and conservation organizations, she never questioned standard American funeral practices until the day these interests converged.

What led Lee Webster to question commonly held assumptions about funeral rites? What exactly is a home funeral? And why are a growing number of Americans returning to the practice of caring for their own dead?

In courses I teach on pregnancy and infant loss, I highlight the practice of home funerals as potentially healing and positive rituals that bereaved parents can embrace. I often share this moving story of the home funeral of a 5-month-old baby named Burton and refer people to the work of theNational Home Funeral Alliance.

Since 2012, Webster has served on the board and most recently as president of the NHFA – an organization whose growth represents a paradigmatic shift in how Americans understand death/dying. In this interview, Webster reflects upon the significance of home funerals and articulates a vision of how we can care for the dead in a way that is “intentional, well-informed, responsible, and transformative.”

Let’s start with the basics. What is a home funeral?

Home funerals have to do with family-directed caring for, and honoring of, the deceased in the home after death occurs.

From the beginning of time, deaths were handled by close family members. Also, culturally designated after-death caregivers assisted the family in this work. Religious and community groups were often the first volunteer responders. Usually a birth midwife, or someone else known in the community as a healer, would offer support.

It wasn’t until the U.S. Civil War that the caring for the dead became outsourced and professionalized. This was primarily as a result of arterial embalming – which, incidentally, is the only thing professionals are licensed to do in caring for a body that no one else can legally do.

So, it’s legal for people to care for their own dead?

Absolutely, yes. Home funerals happen when next-of-kin exercise common law right to custody and control of the body. This is a fundamental American right that falls into the constitutional category of family rights, much like the right to care for children in the privacy of our own homes without governmental interference.

There are no legal obstacles to keeping or bringing a loved one home for a vigil period wherein the body may be bathed and dressed. One can have friends and family visit, or host a ceremony if desired, all at home. Also, home funerals don’t preclude standard or traditional observances that can be incorporated into the experience.

It’s important to note that there are unbroken traditions of home and community after-death care in religious communities. For example there are burial groups in the Quaker tradition and in the Jewish faith, the Tahara washing is central. Also, in some places in the U.S., professional funeral service is out of reach, so neighbors and fellow church or civic organization members volunteer to help with laying out the body and burial.

Why is interest in home funerals growing? 

There is no way to determine the statistical growth in home funerals – no office of statistics tracks this. But we do have observations that indicate a strong increase in awareness and favorability of home funerals.

“(Home funerals are) a fundamental American right … much like the right to care for children in the privacy of our own homes without governmental interference.” – Lee Webster, president of NHFA

We are seeing a steady increase in interest of people from every socio-economic and age level searching for more environmentally, culturally, financially, and spiritually satisfying after-death experiences. There is a simultaneous and systemic embracing of death and grief as normative processes in life, not as illnesses to overcome. These shifts are forming the underpinnings of the movement to bring after-death practices back into our own hands – and homes.

You mention the historical role of birth midwives in supporting families through death. Do you see parallels between the home-birth movement and the home-funeral movement?

On the surface, there are certainly similarities. For example, those drawn to home birth and home funerals often desire self-reliant, natural, and empowering life-threshold experiences.

However, I feel it is an inaccurate comparison for several reasons, chief among them the obvious difference in physical, moral, and legal care and responsibility for a newborn life and the life of its mother (compared to that of) a dead body. The education required to know where to place the dry ice on a dead body doesn’t compare with the education required to prevent death or catastrophe for a mother and child.

There is a fundamental legal problem with the analogy as well. Birth midwives were absorbed, for the most part willingly, into the medical model and remain a part of that model today. Home funerals and home-funeral guides are not aligned with the medical community. Once the body dies, it is no longer part of the medical wheel, except when organ or body donation occurs. Instead, home funerals are offering an organic alternative to a licensed funeral profession that has no medico-legal authority over families who choose to go it alone, minus a small minority of states that stipulate a funeral home official sign the death certificate.

How were you drawn to this work? 

My personal path to advocating for home funerals is based upon many years of service as a hospice volunteer, hospice spiritual care coordinator, and active conservationist. These interests converged while listening to a National Public Radio interview with Mark Harris focusing upon his book “Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial.” From there I learned about home funerals, non-invasive ways to care for bodies, and family-directed care.

For me, home funerals became a social justice issue that revolves around fundamental human rights and environmental imperatives, as well as a pragmatic way to solve financial and logistical problems.

Finally, I am a strong believer in the revelatory power of discomfort. I also believe that facing death on our own terms rather than outsourcing it creates opportunities for healthy grieving. Seeing the light go on when people realize there are positive alternatives to expensive, outgrown, and downright dysfunctional methods of caring for our dead and their bodies appeals to me.

Yes, offering meaningful options to people in times of grief is so important.

Choice matters. I have a deep Yankee quality of self-reliance and a disdain for being told what to do or think. I have come to the conclusion that the blind acceptance of our myths around funerals doesn’t serve us.

How do home funerals challenge what we’ve been told to think about the dead?

The first challenge relates to decades of misinformation and false mythology about the dangers of dead bodies. The fear that a dead body becomes instantaneously contagious is so ingrained in our culture that even our TV and movie programming perpetuates it in both subtle and blatant ways. Few know that the World Health Organization, for example, affirms “the widespread belief that corpses pose a major health risk is inaccurate.”

The other cultural assumption that home funerals challenge is the myth of the helpless mourner. Since the invention of the funeral industry, we have bought the storyline that we are necessarily and organically helpless in the face of grief. But it’s not true. Not everyone is devastated, paralyzed, or beyond coping. It doesn’t mean they don’t care. It means they have a plan for coping.

An emerging narrative that some home-funeral family members express is that they want to immerse themselves in the experience purposefully and experience the discomfort of grief as a catalyst for growth and purposeful action. They want to meet death head on. In fact, this is probably the primary reason for why people choose home funerals – to feel useful and connected.

Both cultural norms view us as victims, with the funeral profession as the only savior. While families are encouraged to partner with professionals for anything they wish, the move toward taking more personal responsibility represents a fundamental shift in our relationship not only to death itself but also to those we choose to partner with in meeting our needs.

Are there commercial interests that may be threatened with the growth of home funerals?  

Ostensibly, professional funeral business would appear to be threatened by home funerals, but I believe the opposite is true.

First, not all deaths are easy and tidy, and not all families are candidates for a complete do-it-yourself funeral. Even highly motivated families may find that the timing and logistics are just too much to manage on their own. So professionals can assist families in planning home funerals. After all, serving a bereaved family is the heart of death work whether you are paid for it or not. It’s not about any rigid requisite for the number of days one can keep a loved one at home, what kind of cooling technique is used, or how many hoops the family can jump through to get paperwork done within a mandatory time period. It’s about meeting the family’s expectations and desires for an intimate and authentic experience at home.

Home funerals present an opportunity to serve the family in a myriad of ways that can’t occur if the deceased is whisked away when the family chooses direct cremation or immediate burial to save money. Home funerals slow the pace, allow family to gather, give them time to think through what they want and act on it – all at little to no cost to the family or loss to the professional.

Add the possibility of including home-funeral guides to established practice and you have more growth potential, not less.

What are home-funeral guides?

Home-funeral guides are educators who consult, coach, demonstrate, and provide information that empowers families to care for their own if they are unaware of details of the practice.

Home-funeral guides don’t aspire to be pseudo-funeral directors. They don’t direct anything or anyone. Instead, they act as resources for people who are unfamiliar with the practical skills and possibilities for caring for their own dead at home. The ideal is for families to be prepared as a matter of course with the necessary information and the confidence to do it themselves, but home funeral is not a household word – yet.

What are the main misconceptions about your organization’s work?

The greatest misconceptions are that we are fringe people looking to shock or challenge people’s sensibilities and go up against the established funeral industry. Neither is the case. We are looking to unveil realistic options about a topic that has been mystified for decades to people regardless of their ability to pay or their religious or spiritual leanings. We hope that the industry listens to what the public is demanding by responding with real change from within.

What we mean by “funeral” is changing. No longer do we jump to the assumption that a funeral means a specific service in a religious building, organized by a hired professional. Through the lens of home funerals, we are beginning to envision the entire funeral period, from death to disposition, as a time filled with possibilities for caring for the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of both the deceased and the bereaved.

Any final words of advice?

Well, there are no funeral police, so I encourage people to overcome the fear that they are doing something wrong when exercising their legal rights and responsibilities to care for their dead. Ultimately, it is a privilege to offer this last act of loving care.

How can people learn more about home funerals?

The NHFA website is chock-full of information, including directories of home-funeral guides, teachers and trainings, celebrants and more, plus articles, interviews, videos, how-to guides, and other written materials to get people started. We have an active Facebook page, a monthly newsletter and opportunities to connect with others at our biennial conference and monthly call-in programs. No one need go it alone – there’s plenty of support ready and waiting.

Complete Article HERE!