Celebrate your death the way you want to.
By Jaymie Hooper
It might be a topic you’d rather avoid but, as a growing number of Australians are discovering, organising your last goodbye can be an empowering experience. Not only can you ensure your funeral is a true celebration of your life, but you can also help to ease the grieving process for the ones you leave behind. Here’s how to make your final farewell one to remember.
When Ves Pineda attended the funeral of her friend earlier this year, she expected it to be a sombre occasion. To her surprise, and despite the gravity of her grief, Pineda found herself laughing and drinking with her pals during the wake, as they reminisced about all of the adventures they had shared with their late friend.
Instead of wallowing in an atmosphere of pervasive sadness, Pineda felt joy. She decided, then and there, that when she passes, she would like her loved ones to feel the same.
“I thought to myself, this is how I want to be remembered,” Pineda, who lives in Sydney, tells Body+Soul. “Of course, when you lose someone it’s sad, but I want my funeral to celebrate who I was, and I’m not a sad person.”
To ensure her final goodbye will be one that she would have wanted, Pineda, 62, quickly set about planning her own funeral. And while it may sound morbid, making such early arrangements is a trend that’s quickly picking up steam.
According to Carrie Siipola-Fortunaso, a pre-planning consultant for funeral service provider Guardian Plan, since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, “People have told me that planning their own funerals has become more important to them.”
As well as realising that they would rather spare their family the financial and emotional burden of planning a funeral, many people began to think about their own mortality and how they would like to be remembered, Siipola-Fortunaso says. “People started to move away from the thinking that funerals involve walking into a chapel, having a service and sharing stories about their loved ones,” she adds.“With a bit of planning, your funeral can be anything you want it to be.”
For Pineda, her funeral planning process began with a simple conversation. “I sat down with my husband and daughter and we talked about the things that I love, everything that makes me ‘me’ and how we could weave those into the service,”she explains. “The more I thought about it, the more it made sense to put down on paper the ways I want my friends and family to come together and remember me when the time comes.”
Planning your own funeral, while ensuring that you receive the send-off you’ve always wanted, can also alleviate some of the strain placed on your loved ones in the aftermath of your death. “It definitely takes the pressure off family and friends who often feel rushed to make important decisions while grieving,” Allison Barrett, owner of event-planning business My PerfectParty, tells Body+Soul.
By formalising your ideas now, you lower the risk of future confrontations arising between your loved ones after you’ve passed. “The more we know about each other’s wishes, the easier it can be to make decisions when we are freshly grieving,” clinical psychologist Jo Lamble tells Body+Soul.
But try to keep things flexible because being too rigid may also incite arguments. “Some negative emotions can arise when the person planning their own funeral makes decisions that will be difficult to carry out, such as forbidding certain people from attending,” Lamble explains. “Leave a little scope for others to celebrate your life in their own way – it makes it easier for those left behind to grieve.”
So, do you need to wait until you’re dying to begin planning your funeral? Absolutely not, assures Barrett, who has told her own family that she would like guests to nibble on party pies and dance to ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’ at what she calls her “party wake”.
“Unfortunately, many people don’t plan anything, but many funeral homes would like you to plan in advance,” she advises.“You don’t need to pre-pay, but you can pre-plan and leave your funeral plan with a preferred funeral home.”
Siipola-Fortunaso agrees, adding that if you do decide to pre-pay now, it can help you lock in a price without having to worry about inflation. While it may not be something you ever wanted to do, planning your own farewell can ultimately prove to be an act of empowerment that allows both you and your loved ones to feel a sense of peace around your eventual passing.
“As the saying goes, we can be hit by the proverbial bus at any time, so it’s worth having some general chats about what you’d like at your funeral, whenever that may be,” Lamble adds.
For Pineda, the fact that there is now a degree of certainty around her final goodbye has given her immense relief. “It brings me a lot of comfort to think that when I leave this Earth, the people I love most will be together,” she says, “hopefully sitting in the sunshine on a clear morning, drinking rosé and listening to mellow ’80s hits – the stuff I used to dance to in my 20s.”
3 ways to turn your service into a celebration
Allison Barrett, owner of My Perfect Party event-planning business, shares her advice for arranging a funeral your guests can smile about.
1. Stick to what you know
Serve your favourite food and drinks, ask guests to wear your favourite colours (or bright colours), and play the music you love most. You might consider live music, or asking a family member to sing (if they can).
2. Bring the laughs
Ask family members and friends to make short speeches and let them tell funny stories about you.
3. Make it personal
Put together a photo presentation of your life and choose your favourite songs to accompany it – this has been done for years and is still really popular. And there are now coffins that can be personalised with your favourite footy team colours, or with notes from funeral guests.
How to start preparing for your final goodbye
Carrie Siipola-Fortunaso, pre-planning consultant for Guardian Plan funerals, says there are two key things you need to know.
1. What you want
First, think about the most basic question – do you want to be cremated or buried? Then start thinking about what your final party will look like. When helping someone plan their funeral, I try to find out how they grew up, what their hobbies are and what they enjoy in life. I use this to come up with a funeral plan that is reflective of who they are.
2. The admin
A copy of your funeral plan contract should be provided to your next of kin and the executor of your will. You can also provide a copy to your solicitor and other family members so that all are aware of your wishes. I suggest my clients email a copy of their plan to their family for easy access.
You should also print out a hardcopy to be retained with all estate-planning documents. It is a good idea to include it in your will – although we often find that the will is not read until after the funeral has taken place.
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The funeral industry turns people into toxic waste.
— California needs green burial options
By Amelia Gallegos
For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by death. As a child, it inspired my curiosity about the life cycle. As an adult, it inspired my career. As a funeral director who specializes in environmentally-friendly funeral services, I meet many Californians who reach out wanting to find the most sustainable deathcare option.
That Californians would want sustainable alternatives to traditional burial and cremation makes sense. California has long been a leader when it comes to environmental protections. But there’s no reason those protections can’t extend through a person’s entire life cycle.
Traditional burial and cremation practices are disastrous for the environment. Traditional burial puts over 800,000 gallons of formaldehyde (a known carcinogen), 104,000 tons of steel, 1.6 million tons of reinforced concrete, and 30 million board feet of hardwood in the ground across the United States every year. For perspective, that is more steel than was used in the construction of the Golden Gate bridge. Every year.
Cremation presents its own issues. The average cremation emits an estimated 534.6 pounds of CO2. With 300,000 people dying in California in 2020, and 65% of Californians choosing to be cremated, our state released well over 100 million pounds of CO2 in cremations that year alone. During the pandemic, air quality standards in Los Angeles had to be suspended to allow for the backlog of cremations.
Californians and the planet deserve better.
“Human composting,” or natural organic reduction (NOR) is a regenerative, sustainable alternative to traditional burial or cremation that gently transforms the body into a cubic-yard of nutrient rich soil. In NOR, a body is placed in a steel vessel on a bed of wood chips and other biodegradable materials that allow it to naturally decompose. Once the decomposition process has fully converted the remains into soil—a process that typically takes around 30 days—the soil is then returned to the family. From there, families can decide to scatter or plant with the soil or to donate it to be used for land conservation and restoration.
Ranging in cost from $5,500 to $7,000, NOR is cheaper than traditional burial in California—which costs on average $7,225—and is comparable in cost to cremation in the state—which has an average price tag of $6,028. But unlike traditional burial and cremation, NOR actually supports the environment.
In 2019, Washington became the first state to legalize NOR, followed by Colorado, Oregon and Vermont. Environmentally conscious Californians I meet that are planning to have their body transported out of state in order to access NOR tell me they’re doing so because they want their last act to mirror how they lived their lives. They want their passing to have a positive environmental impact.
Fortunately, Californians seeking NOR may soon no longer have to travel out of state. Earlier this year, Assemblymembers Cristina Garcia and Robert Rivas introduced AB 351. The bill, which passed in the state legislature with strong bipartisan support, would legalize NOR in California—making ours the fifth state in the nation to approve soil transformation deathcare. The bill is currently awaiting approval from Governor Newsom.
True, Californians already have some green alternatives to traditional burial and cremation. Green burials, in which a body is buried in a shroud and water cremation, first legalized in 2017, are both options. But having some eco-friendlier alternatives doesn’t preclude the state from providing its residents with another—especially when that option offers significant savings in carbon emissions, water, and land usage.
Nothing is more clear and natural in death than returning to the earth itself. By signing AB 351 into law, the governor can ensure that every Californian has the option to choose the most sustainable option in deathcare.
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I’m Having My Body Turned to Compost After I Die
Turning in your grave is the newest alternative to burial or cremation.
By Becky Garrison
As a child of an Episcopal priest, I grew up hearing the phrase “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” at more Ash Wednesday services and funerals than I care to count. I was too busy either squirming out of boredom or trying to wipe ashes from my forehead to give the implications behind this phrase much thought.
Before my hippie parents died from their addictions in the late 1970s, they explained to me how they intended to put the spiritual concept of “ashes to ashes” into practice by choosing cremation. My teenage mind envisioned all kinds of bizarre scenarios of what I could do with their ashes, my gallows brand of humor predating Weekend at Bernies by well over a decade.
Their choice of cremation proved to be one of their few sound lifestyle choices. They made this decision because they believed this practice was more in line with their earth ethics than a commercial traditional burial. According to the Green Burial Council, annually traditional burials in the United States use approximately:
- 4.3 million gallons embalming fluid, 827,060 gallons of which is formaldehyde, methanol, and benzene
- 20 million board feet of hardwoods, including rainforest woods
- 1.6 million tons of concrete
- 17,000 tons of copper and bronze
- 64,500 tons of steel
- Caskets and vaults leaching iron, copper, lead, zinc, and cobalt
While modern traditional cremation may be less toxic, experts say the energy and emissions are equal to two tanks of gas in an average car. Simply put, that’s too much noxious residue to suit my soul. This is one road trip I’d prefer to avoid—and I decided to go a step further than my parents by giving my body back to the earth in a more natural manner.
The question was how exactly I could do that. When I turned the big 4-0, I found myself drawn to the concept of a green burial as a way to leave no trace behind when I depart. But eco-friendly burials were a service only available in select locations, and any burial expenses cost more than what I could afford to set aside. So I deferred any decisions regarding what would happen to my body after I died. After all, I was young and so far had avoided overindulging in those vices that destroyed much of my extended family.
Then COVID hit, along with wildfires impacting Portland, Oregon, where I live—not to mention the arrival of my 60th birthday. The uptick in mailings from AARP and others marketing to the “silver hairs” (sounds more upscale, I suppose, than old farts) told me I needed to make some key life decisions, including what would happen to my body upon my demise.
So I began researching natural burial options, and soon learned I am among the majority of Americans intrigued by this option. According to the National Funeral Directors Association’s (NFDA) 2022 Consumer Awareness and Preferences Report, 60.5 percent of respondents would be interested in exploring “green” funeral options because of potential environmental benefits, cost savings, or some other reason, up from 55.7 percent in 2021.
While the association supports eco-friendly burials, as NFDA spokesperson and funeral director Stephen Kemp explained, state and federal laws limit the options they can provide to families. For example, he finds the Hindu method of natural burial—where families do the cremation themselves—to be a wonderful process. “I wish we could do it like they do in India but some of the EPA rules forbid that here in the United States,” he said.
According to Kemp, the most popular request he receives from families looking for a greener burial is a natural burial in a green cemetery. I already ruled this option out as my estranged family has no communal plot where I could rest permanently. I figured no one would bother to visit, let alone ensure my grave doesn’t get overrun with weeds, varmints, and too-horny Goth kids.
In looking over the other greener choices, the water lover in me felt drawn to alkaline hydrolysis. Practitioners say this water-based process of cremation results in over 90 percent energy savings compared to flame-based cremation. But I wondered what would then happen to my remains. Did I want them turned into stones, placed in a water-soluble urn such as a papier-mâché turtle that would be sent out to sea, or used to help create an artificial reef formation? These options looked pretty on paper but were either too impractical or way out of my price range.
As an avid hiker, fly-fisher, cyclist, and gardener, I felt a strong tug to go back into the earth as living soil. So I found myself attracted to human composting, a method of accelerated human decomposition known scientifically as Natural Organic Reduction (NOR). After this process is completed, my remains could be placed in a plantable urn or converted into soil that could be returned directly back into the earth.
When I mentioned the process of human composting to a few friends, the responses I got ranged from morbid curiosity to outright disgust, with a smattering of jokes about how my soil would provide the perfect growing conditions for cannabis plants. Undaunted, I continued my research and learned that NOR was legalized in Oregon, Washington State and Colorado, with laws under consideration in New York and California.
After weeding out some for-profit human composting centers that came off as too commercialized and cold for my spiritual sensibilities, I discovered Herland Forest, a non-profit natural cemetery located on the eastern edge of the Cascadian wilderness. For starters, their price of $3,000 was at least half of what the other outfits charged.
In my phone conversation with Senior Steward Walt Patrick, I found their philosophy towards nature in sync with my soul. He describes the difference between traditional burial practices and their practice: “Commercial death care does what it can to keep the decedent from returning to the natural world and reentering the cycle of life. In contrast, we do what we can to help the decedent become a dynamic part of the cycle of life. NOR offers a way to transition from the path one walked in life to becoming part of the larger circle of life.”
Patrick detailed the process to turn a body into soil:
An insulated coffin configured as a cradle is prepared with a layer of 80 gallons of moist wood chips, and the body is then laid in the cradle on top of the wood chips and covered with another layer of wood chips. The cradle lid is put in place and bolted down, and every few days, the cradle is rolled back and forth.
Herland Forest
The temperature inside the cradle is monitored. As decomposition gets underway the internal temperature will climb to above 130 degrees Fahrenheit. and then slowly come down. When the internal temp falls to below 80 degrees, the initial process is complete. The cradle is then opened and the composted remains are removed, processed, and stored in 55 gallon drums.
The resulting soil is either picked up for distribution on private property or added to Herland’s living sanctuary filled with native pine, fir, and oak trees, along with non-native varieties such as chestnut, walnut, gingko, cherry, apple, and hazelnut. So I have the option of either letting a buddy grow buds with my remains so they can smoke my spirits or having hikers walk all over me now that I’m part of the PNW landscape.
This venture represents an outgrowth of the Windward Education and Research Center, which for decades has utilized forest products to transform the remains of large farm animals into nutrient-rich compost. After Washington State legalized NOR, they continued composting the remains of the animals they work with in their sustainability research. But as Patrick noted, “the change in the law just allowed us to apply the skills we’d been developing for two decades to the disposition of human remains.”
Herland Forest
After the decomposition process is completed, the compost is the property of the family, and they can do whatever they wish with it. The photos on their website of their permaculture forest told me I’d be at home in their living sanctuary—helping to feed the native trees.
Having made the decision to participate in Herland Forest’s program, I’m filled with a sense of peace knowing I will leave behind a living and lasting legacy. More importantly, as I emerge from an extended period of isolation as a result of this global pandemic, I’m filled with an intense burning desire to connect with nature. Right now, I am ready but not eager for that time when I will become a part of the Pacific Northwest wilderness.
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How to Avoid Being Overcharged for a Funeral
For the funeral industry, the COVID-19 pandemic has meant flush times. Revenues have surged at Service Corporation International, the largest such chain in the U.S., with more than 1,500 funeral homes and 400 cemeteries. And “COVID impact,” according to a recent investor fact sheet, helped SCI more than double its earnings per share between 2019 and 2021.
Prices for funerals have always been steep. Funeral homes charged a median of $7,848 for a viewing and burial last year, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, and $6,970 for a cremation. Those costs don’t include the charges from cemeteries, which can add thousands more. ProPublica recently investigated one cemetery whose charges could run into the tens of thousands of dollars.
The federal government has done little to regulate the industry. Thirty-eight years ago, the Federal Trade Commission tiptoed into this realm, mandating that funeral homes disclose their prices. But cemeteries, some of which are overseen by states, were exempted from those rules. For two years now, the FTC has been conducting a rare review of its rules and examining a wide series of proposals, including extending its rules to cemeteries, requiring that prices be posted online, and disclosing that embalming is not legally required. Presented with a series of questions about the status and timing of the process, an FTC spokesperson would say only “the review is ongoing.”
Joshua Slocum, executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, the only national consumer organization that monitors the funeral industry, has been advocating for changes to the FTC’s Funeral Rule for decades. Regardless of what the agency decides, Slocum wants consumers to know their rights, as well as have a few tips at their disposal when preparing to put a loved one to rest.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Many people might be surprised to know that at least part of the death industry is regulated. What is regulated and what isn’t?
Let’s talk about the federal [rules] because that’s most important to the basics of what people need to know. There’s something called the Funeral Rule, a regulation from the Federal Trade Commission, which gives consumers particular rights, and they would be very wise to exercise these rights.
One, they have a right to get price quotes by phone.
Number two, when they go to a funeral home in person to talk about a funeral arrangement, they have a right to a printed, itemized price list — think of it just like a menu at a restaurant.
Number three, they have a right to pick and choose item by item. Funeral homes are not allowed to offer you only a package. They will try to offer you a package and they will often say, “You save money if you buy everything together in a bundle.” But just like all bundles, you have to take a look and see, is this actually something I would have spent money on, on its own? Am I really saving money? Or am I just getting a bunch of things that I wouldn’t have picked anyway?
What are the first steps to take after a loved one’s death?
Number one, remember that death is not an emergency. When death occurs, by definition, that means the emergency is now over. The worst thing that can happen has already happened. The person isn’t going to get any deader, to put it plainly.
Get on the phone and call at least five different funeral homes within a 20- to 30-mile radius of where the dead person is. Get price quotes. Take the time to at least look it over and compare some of the prices before you commit to having the funeral home remove the body. If the person dies at a hospital, which is more common, you have more options. Ask the hospital if the body can stay in the morgue for a couple of days while you make a considered decision about which funeral home to call.
Two, take stock of your budget. You need to know that figure. Decide ahead of time what you can comfortably afford. And for God’s sake, please don’t do this: “Oh, money is no object. It’s my mother. She deserves the best,” and then three months from now, you’ve got a $15,000 bill that you can’t pay.
What happens when you comparison shop?
Anytime you pick five or six funeral homes, all within the same city or region, and you canvass them, you will find that there’s a price difference of thousands of dollars for exactly the same service all within a service area available to you. And you will not know this because the vast majority of people will say, “Oh, well, we just use our family’s funeral home.” And I will ask them, “Why is that the one you always go to?”
The bottom line is nobody has a family car dealer, nobody has a family utility company, nobody has a family anything else. They compare prices and services. The problem here is that because this is the death transaction, and it’s a transaction we’re only going to sign a check for on average once in our lives, we don’t have practice with it. And because it is the most emotional business transaction we will ever encounter, many make the mistake of thinking of the funeral home in the same emotional category that their church lives in. That’s a mistake. Your funeral home is not your minister. Your undertaker is not your counselor. Your undertaker is your car dealer for death. And I do not mean that in an insulting way. I mean it in a straightforward business way.
How did it come to be that funeral homes are governed by some federal regulation, but cemeteries aren’t?
The cemetery regulation is so poor that I consider it an unregulated industry, even if it is technically regulated under state law.
Cemeteries before the 20th century were never considered a capitalistic, profit-making venture. They were, either by law or by community consensus, conceived of as doing a public good, something closer to what the church does. So they were seen as nonprofit community service entities that weren’t subject to regular business regulation. That changed in the 20th century when it did become possible in many parts of the country to run a for-profit cemetery.
But the regulations never caught up. The same kinds of deceptive practices that were documented that led to the Funeral Rule have always been going on at cemeteries.
I think there’s very little chance that the FTC is going to bring cemeteries under the funeral rule this time around. We’ve tried many times. There are complicated reasons for it. One of the reasons is that many cemeteries in many states are organized under nonprofit corporation law. The FTC does not have jurisdiction over that, which is an actual genuine, systemic problem.
What kind of deceptive cemetery practices are you referring to?
The same things as what funeral homes did before the law changed. The FTC rule doesn’t apply to cemeteries, so they don’t have to give out a printed price list. They don’t have to let you pick a la carte. Many cemeteries get up to nonsense games, like if you don’t want to buy that cemetery’s headstone, they get sore that they’re not getting that profit out of you. So if you go to a third-party monument dealer, the cemetery will tack on what they will call an “inspection fee” that just happens to be the exact difference in cost that they lost if you didn’t buy their stone.
What has changed now for the FTC to consider amending the Funeral Rule and what needs to happen for some of these proposals to be implemented?
Well, the FTC needs to act. It’s been two years since the FTC announced that they were reviewing the rule, and a review means considering changes. I don’t have a lot of inside knowledge, but what I can say is in communicating with the staff, I believe that they are taking this issue seriously. I believe that they are seriously considering updating the rule to mandate online pricing for funeral homes.
The current federal regulations entitle you to a paper price list if you show up in person at the funeral home. We believe that funeral homes should have to post their prices on their website. But until they do, you are probably going to have to telephone shop.
Do many funeral homes post their prices online, even though it’s not legally required at this point?
We, the Funeral Consumers Alliance and our partner organization, Consumer Federation of America, have done two surveys on the rate of online price posting. We did one in 2018, sampling 25 cities. We found only 16% of funeral homes posted their price lists online. We just did a new version of the survey, which was greatly expanded to a sample size of 1,046 funeral homes in 35 different states, and we only found 18% of them posting their prices. So no, most funeral homes hide their prices online.
Do you think the industry’s profits from COVID-19 will affect the FTC’s decision?
I think our perception and reaction to COVID has played roles in most things. One of the things that was really unfortunate for funeral consumers is that COVID was exactly the period when an online price list would have been most helpful to grieving families and we didn’t have it. People were afraid to go into businesses in person, or there were actually state-based restrictions about transacting business in person. So a lot of people were making arrangements over the phone or in some long-distance way.
The big corporations, which own hundreds of funeral homes and cemeteries across the country, are opposing changes to the rule — what’s their stated reason? What’s your take?
Things like, “We believe that this is a very personal transaction, and we believe it’s most appropriate for the price discussion to be had in the traditional manner, and consumers aren’t shopping for price anyway, so there’s no need for this.” That’s what they say. It’s not complicated. It’s simply that they don’t want to be regulated. From my point of view, they have a very weak case. First of all, requiring online posting of price lists literally costs the funeral industry $0. Do you know what it costs them? It costs them the time it takes to click that button that says “upload PDF.”
ProPublica asked SCI to comment on the FTC’s rules and Slocum’s characterizations of the company’s position. In a statement, an SCI spokesperson acknowledged that “we oppose additional federal regulations.” The company asserted that “the Funeral Rule has worked well at the federal level” and that “our industry is primarily regulated at the state level, and additional regulation at the federal level is unnecessary.” It emphasized the importance of “having a personal conversation with a licensed funeral director, who acts as the consumer advocate” and said that its research shows consumers believe “price is the least important consideration when comparing service quality, reputation, convenience of location and price.” It also stated that SCI’s pricing is “competitive and reasonable.”
Asked about its profits, SCI said, “As the largest provider of funeral, cemetery and cremation services in North America, we served many families who lost loved ones in the pandemic. The growth was driven by elevated COVID-19 mortality, which resulted in an increase in both funeral services performed and burials in our cemeteries.” The statement added that “we had to scale to serve our communities, often when other funeral homes were overwhelmed and simply could not do so.”
More broadly, how have multibillion-dollar conglomerates like SCI changed the funeral industry?
Here’s the reality: They still only have about 12% of the funeral homes in this country. And that’s been pretty steady over 20 to 30 years. In some cities, places like Seattle, many cities in Florida, where there’s a heavy concentration of elderly people, then SCI has a much greater percentage of the market share. That is true. In those places, SCI particularly tends to be the highest-priced funeral home in any market. So if it matters to you, find out who owns your local funeral home. Just because it still says McGillicuddy on the sign doesn’t mean Mr. McGillicuddy still owns it.
Are there practical things that consumers can do to bring the cost of a funeral down?
The most cost-effective thing is to choose a funeral home that already has reasonable prices. Your choice of funeral home is the No. 1 driver of cost. Once you choose a funeral home, look carefully at their offerings and see how much of it you can afford that’s within your budget. Remember that you can shop a la carte. So if your budget says $2,000, you need to face reality. $2,000 is not going to buy you a traditional funeral with embalming, public viewing of the body, metal casket, graveyard burial. You are not going to get that for $2,000 anywhere in the United States. That means your choice is going to be something like simple cremation, even if that’s not your favorite. People have to be realistic.
Is price negotiation ever an option? How would that work?
Yes, just the same way you would do it with any other business that you were negotiating with. They don’t have to haggle with you, but you have the right to do so. We get people who are like, “Well, the funeral home has already picked up the body and we do like this funeral home, but they’re more expensive than another one we found in town, we simply can’t afford it.” And my suggestion is talk to the funeral director and say, “Listen, you’ve taken good care of us before, we appreciate that you came to pick our grandmother up, but we literally cannot afford your price on this direct burial. We would love to give you our business. Can you meet your competitor’s price? We realize you don’t have to lower your prices. But we would like to do business with you. If you can’t lower your prices, we’ll have to have her body removed to a different place.”
And that’s OK to do?
Well, why wouldn’t it be OK? Here’s what I hear underneath this, and I think you’re channeling it correctly from people: What people are doing is asking for permission. But you’re not breaking a social rule. You’re not being cheap. I know what people are thinking: “I don’t want to do that. It’s gauche. It means I don’t care about my mother.” Stop that. That’s nonsense talk. If you showed how much you loved your mother by how much you spent on her funeral, you’d go bankrupt. Love cannot be expressed by money.
Lastly, what are some of the biggest misconceptions about navigating this process?
Most of what people think they are required to purchase is not true. For example, many people think embalming is legally required if you’re going to view the body. That is not true in any U.S. state. It’s also not true that embalming is required as a condition of being buried in the ground. These are in-house funeral home policies, not laws. So there’s very little that you are legally required to purchase. Basically, the only thing that has to happen, when a person dies, in order to satisfy the laws, there has to be a death certificate signed by a doctor, the body has to be buried, cremated or donated to anatomical science within a certain period of time, and that’s literally all that is required. Everything else is optional.
Go into this transaction knowing that although it’s emotional, you are a consumer, you get to decide what you put in your cart. You’re not obliged to buy these things. These are choices and you should make choices that fit your family’s budget and your family’s emotional preferences.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
The logistics of death can be overwhelming.
— New apps can offer help.
Creators of the services say their goal of providing easily accessible and organized help for people in distress has never been more necessary
By Sophia Laurenzi
What do you do after someone dies? Most people expect to deal with intense grief, but they might not realize how many logistical details arise after a death. Those tasks can feel overwhelming: deciding who to call, learning where to get death certificates, planning memorials and navigating finances.
“It’s so daunting … to figure out where to even start,” grief therapist and author Claire Bidwell Smith says. Bidwell Smith’s mother died when she was 18, and her father when she was 25.
Shortly before his death, he helped her make a checklist of all the things she would have to do: call the mortuary, Social Security and the bank; order this many death certificates; plan for what to do with his things. “I sat there with tears dripping down, being like, I don’t want to do this,” Bidwell Smith says. “But the minute he died, I was so grateful to have that list.”< Now, new apps and websites with names such as Cake, Lantern and Empathy exist to help people navigate the tumult and confusion after a loss, offering tools that range from organized checklists for the early days of funeral planning to resources for later concerns such as closing a deceased person’s credit card account or finding a home for the deceased person’s pet.
The creators of these apps and websites say their goal of providing easily accessible and organized help for people in distress has never been more necessary. “The pandemic has increased people’s understanding of why this is important, as well as the actual need” for services, says Suelin Chen, who co-founded Cake in 2017.
Cake, which says 40 million people a year visit its website, provides a list of what tasks people need help with and then creates a checklist, along with offering guides to tasks like making an online memorial page for a loved one. The website hosts a library of thousands of articles related to death, including how to express condolences to a friend and how to plan an eco-friendly burial service. Cake, which is free to users, also provides help with other end-of-life needs, such as advice for talking to elderly parents or how to create a will.
The website Lantern, founded in 2018, and Empathy, founded in 2021, likewise provide guides on what tasks must be tackled after a death, with information about options at each step and timing.
Lantern, whose co-founder Liz Eddy was inspired to create the website after her grandmother died and ended up Googling what to do next, aims to be a one-stop resources for mourners. Among other things, it provides information about how to write a eulogy and “do an ash scattering ceremony,” and offers a list of “best funeral songs,” with traditional/religious, somber and joyful possibilities. Empathy’s “Obituary Writer” function, meanwhile, promises it “can craft a publication-ready tribute based on your answers to a few questions.” For a fee, it also offers one-on-one support from a professional after-loss consultant who essentially acts as a concierge for after-loss tasks.
“We connect people with services and give them tools, but a lot of it is really an education platform,” Eddy says.
Other companies are working to move beyond just providing information to creating tools that will handle some of the post-death logistical burden.
Kat Reed founded EstateGrid after she published a workbook called “Begin Here: Helping Survivors Manage” to help her father manage the death of her mother.
EstateGrid is working on building a service that will automate much of the bureaucratic aftermath of death. It starts with automated discovery of assets, liabilities and accounts, using the deceased person’s identity and death certificate to generate a list of what needs to be done. The platform will offer tiered levels of services, such as free tools and paid options, for the automation processes.
“Every life leaves a mess,” the website says, which also offers help in selling a house, finding investment accounts, appraising valuables and finding a new home for a pet.
The mobile app Empathy, which also features an easy-to-navigate checklist, offers premium services such as an obituary writer that promises to create a polished obituary based on the mourner answering a few questions. The paid option, which costs $8.99 for one month or $64.99 for a year, also includes tools that automate closing the deceased person’s accounts, memberships and subscriptions. The app uses software to pre-fill forms and streamline processes that usually take dozens of separate phone calls.
The companies are not just about logistics, however. They also include grief resources as part of their tools.
Experts say that makes sense. It’s hard to separate out logistics following a death and the grief people must deal with. The logistics “can be so overwhelming and terrifying, and actually sometimes get in the way of the grieving process,” psychologist Jordana Jacobs says. When the tasks that follow a death take up so much time and energy, it can shift focus away from grief, at least temporarily. As psychotherapist Megan Devine says, “Logistical support doesn’t change grief, but it reduces suffering.”
>Empathy provides grief meditations, journaling and chat support (which is another premium feature). Empathy co-founder Ron Gura says his company has focused on helping people dealing with both issues. “We don’t think you can decouple them,” he says.
The text-based company Grief Coach focuses on the emotions that follow a death, using advice from grief experts to send personalized texts to your phone. These messages — which range from describing breathing techniques to use when feeling overwhelmed to reminders that grief is not a linear process — are designed to provide extra help that family and friends often want to but don’t know how to give.
Founder Emma Payne created Grief Coach after her husband died by suicide and she stopped hearing from many friends and families. Ten years later, she went to a friend’s funeral and learned how devastated many of her people were to have lost touch: They just didn’t know what to say. Grief Coach costs $99 a year, which includes adding up to four friends and family members who also receive texts with suggestions on how they can support the grieving person, such as reminders of the deceased’s birthday.
Grief Coach does not replace human support; instead, it teaches grievers how to find and ask for support and helps their loved ones show up in meaningful ways. Experts say that logistical support from technology can be helpful as a stand-alone, but that digital grief support is best used as a supplement to personal support or therapy that is often needed to process and move forward from profound loss.
“My hesitation around technology is that we just have to make sure we don’t lose the intimacy inherent in what is healing about connection through grief,” Jacobs says. “We have to make sure we still make these technological products very human, because it is through that humanity … that we actually heal the most from loss.
Bidwell Smith, whose father made her that critical checklist, says she believes that even though technology cannot replace those healing connections, it can enable people to connect with each other.
“Grief is so lonely, and it can be very isolating,” she says, but she is encouraged to see people with similar experiences find each other in online communities like social media and new after-loss websites and apps. “I think anything where someone can feel more connected and less alone in what they’re going through is a good thing.”
There is no easy way to deal with what happens when a loved one dies. But by helping demystify essential tasks and offering resources for both logistics and grief, these digital services leaders say they hope they can help lift some of the burden off mourners, giving them a little more space to heal and connect with the support they need.
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When and why did humans start using tombstones?
by CORDIS
As grave markers, tombstones offer a focus for mourning and commemoration. Typically made of stone and usually engraved with the deceased’s name, date of birth and death, they also often carry inscribed tributes. They’ve been around a long time, across a wide variety of cultures.
“Numerous Neolithic stone statues called stelae, associated with Kurgan culture burials about 5,000 years old, were found in Ukraine and Moldova,” reveals Čaval. “We also have Bronze Age stone and wooden markers on mounds. The Greeks buried commoners and elites in marked graves. There’s the pre-Roman Vulci in Italy, followed by the abundant Roman tombstones, with statues, reliefs and inscriptions telling stories,” she adds.
Why deaths are written in stone
As Čaval explains, the first epitaphs as we now know them, especially the formula “Here lies…”, comes from the Greek tradition. Adopted by the Romans, thanks to the spread and influence of their empire, this became the standard in the West.
More than just words, the aesthetics of tombstones also tell us about the beliefs of their creators. “The specifics tell us something unique about the times in which they are made—about communities, their identity, values and beliefs, about both life and the afterlife,” says Čaval.
Most obviously, a tomb’s location can reflect the deceased’s personal attachment to a specific location, while craftmanship and materials can reflect social status, especially if rare. Inscriptions are indications of literacy, while decorative motifs can suggest religious affiliations.
“Even without decoration or inscription, the tombstone’s shape, position within a cemetery, type of cemetery, all help build a picture of what a society values and how individuals fit into these values,” adds Čaval.
The stećci enigma
Čaval’s expertise and interest in understanding the past through burial practices and their material culture, were sparked by the Western Balkans’ little known stećci, gigantic stone monuments found at gravesites.
Decreed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016, the stećci are medieval tombstones, preserved across the landscapes of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia.
“Remarkably, these are not attributed to any ethnic or religious group and so have always been considered enigmatic. But their numbers, with over 70,000 preserved, alongside their monolithic character reflect their importance, many centuries ago,” says Čaval.
Some tombstones have inscriptions written in Glagolitic and Bosnian Cyrillic scripts, both extinct today. This speaks to local ethnic and religious diversity, substantiated by prehistory decorations mingling with Roman Christian or Islamic elements.
“We’re using modern digital techniques like satellite imagery to explore this phenomenon and I’m proud to help publicize them,” reflects Čaval.
Are the cracks showing in tombstones?
The simplest reason for tombstones’ success is that they are fit for purpose. Suitable stone has been relatively easy to find and transport to gravesites. It can be decorated. Stone is hard-wearing, enduring extreme weather and the passage of time—ensuring a lasting tribute. Which also explains why other grave markers, whatever they might have been, are lost to time.
With the rise of humanist funerals and with cemeteries facing overcrowding, accompanied with increasing sustainability concerns—are tombstones falling out of favor? “There is definitely a trend for alternatives but I think there will always be a place for tombstones. Their reassuring solidity literally represents a life, keeping it present and so relevant,” concludes Čaval.
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‘A Last Act of Intimate Kindness’
I had barely seen my brother in decades, but when time was short, he let me in.
By Michelle Friedman
The message I had dreaded for years appeared on my phone: “Looking to find the sister of my patient, Jay Friedman.”
My ensuing phone conversation with the doctor brought ominous news. My 65-year-old brother, Jay, had advanced pancreatic cancer. He and I grew up together in Divine Corners, N.Y., a hamlet in the Catskills, raised by secular Holocaust survivor parents who stumbled into raising chickens. Their histories, coupled with the isolation and poverty of the farm, rendered my father brutal, especially to his only son.
I am the only family member with whom Jay maintained contact for the last three decades. Over that time, we communicated exclusively through email and cards I sent to a post office box. Despite working a quarter century in I.T. for the local school system, my brother did not own a cellphone. His doctor found my number via Google.
Jay was admitted to a fancy Seattle hospital where I called him via the landline next to his bed. His voice sounded weak, plaintive.
“Jay, I’ll come,” I said. “Let me be with you.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “My house is a mess.”
“I can stay in a hotel.”
“I’ll let you know.”
I panicked. I knew the prognosis was dire, but my brother’s lonely life cast an even darker shadow.
The hospital discharged Jay with a bag hanging from his chest to drain bile from his tumor-blocked liver. A few days later the doctor called again. Jay wanted my help.
I caught a flight to Seattle, picked up a rental car and drove around Puget Sound to a town in Kitsap County. Before entering Jay’s house, I muttered an ad hoc prayer for strength. Following the sounds of his weak voice through the maze of papers, boxes and computer parts, I found my brother lying on the couch. The disease had consumed him, leaving his body whittled, skeletal. Only Jay’s voice sounded familiar, a gravelly baritone.
“Thank you for coming,” he said. “I’m sorry I was snappy over the phone.”
The blanket wrapping my brother was full of holes. A brown crust covered his kitchen floor and counters. Jay drank tea with lemon in the one glass he possessed. Not owning a kettle, he boiled water in an old pot.
I brewed tea and baked a piece of chicken. After a few sips of liquid and child-size bites of food, Jay felt full. He slowly climbed the stairs to the single bed in his bedroom. The sheets hadn’t been changed in months. All I found in the closet was a cotton duvet cover that I recognized from the farm where we grew up. The faint smell of the detergent and crisp lines from our mother’s iron told me Jay had never used it.
Retreating to a Best Western hotel two miles away gave me guilty relief. It was no palace, but it was clean and orderly.
In the morning, the doctor outlined my brother’s stark medical options. Surgery was out. Jay could pursue radiation or chemotherapy, but neither was likely to yield much in terms of quantity or quality of life.
Jay made his choice in seconds — no aggressive medical intervention. The focus shifted to palliative care at home.
He didn’t have much time, weeks. How was I to start a conversation with him about his death? I knew he took pride in his money management and had saved a lot (though I had no idea then how surprisingly much), so that’s where I started.
“Jay, have you thought about what you want to do with your money?”
“Yes, I’ve thought about this a lot. I want to give it to Planned Parenthood.”
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
His calm answer startled and pleased me. Throughout our decades of sparse contact, Jay stayed vague when it came to his personal opinions.
“Jay, that’s amazing! How did you come to this decision?”
“There are too many people in the world, and I believe that people should have autonomy over their own bodies.”
I sat in silence thinking about my brother’s autonomy, the little boy overwhelmed by our rageful father, the awkward teenager who wanted to join the Navy to get away but lacked nerve. My practical mind kicked in. “Jay, do you know a lawyer?”
Once again, he surprised me. “Yeah. One of the teachers I know went to law school at night. He’s a good guy.”
Jay had no contact information for the lawyer, but I found him through the school. He answered my text within minutes and got to work preparing the necessary papers.
By the next day, Jay could no longer crawl up and down the stairs and spent most of his time in his bedroom. We moved the mattress to the floor in case he rolled off during the night. I pleaded with hospice to fast-track Jay onto their service, and soon a nurse arrived and taught me how to dose the medication: morphine for pain, Haldol for nausea and Lorazepam for anxiety. Each floated in a medicine-dropper-topped bottle so that liquid relief could be applied to the inside of the patient’s cheek.
Jay’s condition deteriorated quickly, and I no longer retreated to the Best Western. My first night in Jay’s house, I slept downstairs on the sofa. The next night, I worried that I wouldn’t hear his whimpers, so I moved to the floor next to his mattress. My younger brother’s vulnerability pierced me; he was the innocent little boy on the farm who trusted me. I cried, silently.
When he no longer ate or drank, I repurposed a medicine dropper to drip orange juice and seltzer onto his parched lips.
The lawyer met privately with Jay and later told me of his firm wish to be cremated.
A clutch grabbed my heart. Jewish law, which I follow, prohibits cremation. “Can I at least get Jay’s ashes so that I can bury them according to our faith?”
“Yes. I think that will be OK.”
“We haven’t talked about this, but I’m wondering if you are part of a religious tradition?”
“I am. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
His answer bolstered me, given what I was about to request.
“Can I ask you one more favor?”
“Sure.”
“When the time comes, I want to do a Jewish ritual washing for Jay. It’s called a tahara. It means purification. I’ll need help; it’s too hard to do alone.”
“Of course. Call me when you need me.”
The days passed in a kind of waking dream. Jay talked on and off, disclosing struggles of all kinds. He liked hearing stories about Divine Corners, how we played in the snow and explored the brook behind the coops. I emptied his drainage bag and changed his adult diapers.
“This is disgusting,” he said.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m here for you. There’s nothing else I want to do.”
As our mother did when we had fevers as children, I gave Jay a sponge bath and changed his worn pajamas to a clean set.
Jay quietly slipped away. He told me that his dream was to buy a house on a lake with a few acres of land.
“That’s such a nice idea, Jay,” I said. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
And then I made a plea I knew people have uttered for millenniums. “Send me a sign, Jay. Please send me a sign from the other side.”
Early Thursday morning I woke up inches from my brother to find him gone. No labored breathing, no death rattle. His skin had cooled, his limbs stiffened.
When the sky was fully lit, I called his friend, and we performed the tahara. We removed Jay’s pajamas, removed the drain and bag, all the while using a clean sheet to keep his frame covered and dignified. I repurposed the battered teapot to pour water over his body, starting with his head and moving to his feet. We toweled him dry, dressed him in long underwear and wrapped him in the duvet cover from our childhood farm. The work felt tender, holy, a last act of intimate kindness.
The mortuary people came and removed Jay’s body. At 6 o’clock I boarded the van for the airport. Only one other person got on, a white-haired woman in a sweater set. I saw that she bid a sorrowful farewell to the man seeing her off. She sat a few rows behind me. Drizzle and traffic caused delays, but our elfin driver navigated the trip and asked us which terminals we needed.
“American,” she said, turning mournfully in my direction. “It’s a sad trip. My brother is dying of brain cancer in Florida.”
“United,” I said, and to her: “I just left after taking care of my brother, who died this morning. I hope you get there in time.”
We reached across the aisle and held hands. Jay had made good on his sign.
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