*Included with your
Productivity and Grace: Management and Labor at a Denver ManufacturerSteve Hill and Jim Howey's leadership style is unusual in an industry known for top-down hierarchies.
Chris Horst
There's a simple reason why manual laborers are called &blue-collar&: The color blue, it turns out, hides dirt better than the white seen in office buildings. But &blue collar& defines more than work apparel, of course. It defines industry, even a way of life. And its stereotypes are often unflattering.
But a metal products manufacturer in Colorado is working to undermine those stereotypes, right on the shop floor.
Sandwiched between rail lines and a tire depot, the Blender Products factory hides in a quiet neighborhood in Denver. The nondescript warehouse looks from the outside as nondescript as most warehouses do. But the way Steve Hill and Jim Howey lead inside the building is unusual in an industry known for top-down hierarchies of management.
&The metal fabrication business is extremely cutthroat,& says Hill. &Workers are given a singular task, and maximum output is demanded. They're simply a factor of production. As a general rule, they have no access to management. There is very little crossover between guys on the floor and guys in the offices.&
Hill and Howey aim to subvert the us-versus-them mentality. Many days they walk the shop floor, engaging their workers as peers. Employees on the floor are treated as importantly as the managers, undermining the adversarial culture simmering in many manufacturing businesses.
&The company has tried to abide by a simple philosophy concerning our employees,& Steve said. &Pay them well, provide great benefits, and invest in lives. . . . The guys in our shop . . . know that I'm a human too. I have many of the same struggles they do. Showing humanness to people is key to disarming those stereotypes.&
Extraordinary moments of God's grace abound. One longstanding Blender employee endured a season of family crisis. In that moment, he turned to those closest to him for support, prayer, and care. For him, those people were his colleagues. He openly shared his pain and his managers prayed for him and helped him find his footing. Baptized soon thereafter, the employee's tragedy has been redeemed, forever changing the trajectory of his life.
When I learned that kids in my city couldn't swim, I started to rethink how much I'd invested in overseas missions.
Doug Banister
For Harrison Higgins, building beautiful furniture is not simply a steady job but a sacrament unto God.
Nathan Clarke
Detroit's list of maladies is long. But some Christians' commitment to its renewal is longer.
Katelyn Beaty
How I answered the question would prove crucial to addressing racial divides in our D.C. neighborhood.
Peter Chin
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Not necessarily in that order
Resources on illness, death and dying, loss, grief, and positive aging
End-of-life decision making
Retirement funding
Enjoying the golden years
Autism, Asperger's syndrome, Savant Syndrome
(and donating your body or body parts)
Depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and other forms of mental illness
Including suicide and assisted suicide
Plus memorials and requiems
End-of-life care
(stories about specific diseases, conditions, syndromes)
Narrative medicine (or medical narrative)
Memoirs of illness, crisis, disability, differentness, and survival
Assisted living, nursing homes, cohousing, or living in place (with or without caregivers)
Making best use of the system
What you need to know
Federal law requires that funeral homes provide prices over the phone.
If a funeral business offers you a package price, ask for a detailed breakdown--there may be services you will want to refuse. See
(Federal Trade Commission)
(Funeral Consumers Alliance)
(make copies of this page and check with several funeral homes to compare costs, recommends the Federal Trade Commission. This is part of
(Consumer information, FTC).
(Thomas Lynch, Aeon, 1-25-13), an extract from
by Thomas G Long and Thomas Lynch. "?Grief work?, as Geoffrey Gorer called it years ago, is not so much the brain?s to do as the body?s.
Long, criticizing Jessica Mitford for being uneasy about having the body present for a farewell service, and identifies four elements essential to a good funeral: 1) the presence of the dead, 2) people to whom the death matters,
3) "some narrative, some effort towards an answer, however provisional, of those signature human questions about what death means for both the one who has died and those to whom it matters,"
and 4) "it must accomplish the disposition of the dead...getting the dead where they need to go."
(ElderLaw Answers,
(National Care Planning Council, 9-24-09)
(Barry Yeoman, in a piece that ran in AARP Magazine in 2008, on funeral-industry scandal that's fleecing thousands of Americans.
Read this before buying any "pre-need funerals"--that is, pre-need contracts for funerals)
(Federal Trade Commission)
Good advice about what you can do to be helpful to your survivors and where not to leave your instructions,
but be wary about pre-paying for the funeral, for several reasons.
(Josh Slocum, Federal Consumers Alliance)
(Funeral Consumers Alliance, state laws on personal preferences)
(simple one-page worksheet, Caring Connections)
(Michelle Crouch, slideshow from Reader's Digest Magazine, June/​July 2011). The first of many excellent money-saving secrets provided:
Don't pre- the firm can go out of business. Keep your money in a pay-on-death account at your bank.
Another tip:
Many funeral homes don't offer a refrigerated holding room because they want you to pay for the more expensive option: embalming.
(NY State Department of Health)\
(protecting a consumer's right to choose a meaningful, dignified, affordable funeral--this nonprofit is not connected with the funeral industry). Learn state laws.
Order Before I Go Funeral Planning Kit.
Keep up to date on the FCA
by Joshua Slocum and Lisa Carlson.
(an update on Jessica Mitford's classic, funny, unforgiving book about the funeral industry)
(transcript of Morning Edition show, NPR,
(Funeral Consumers Alliance)
? . What are your rights as a consumer, and under what circumstances does it make sense? (ICCFA, from the funeral industry).
You need it only if you have a public viewing of the body or plan to ship the body across state lines.
? , transcript of a session of NPR's Morning Edition, The End of Life: Exploring Death in America (reporter Jacki Lyden interviewing George Foy, father of a deceased infant, Lisa Carlson, president of Funeral and Memorial Societies of America, Jan Berman, daughter of a woman who died of AIDS, Thomas Lynch, mortician, poet, and author)
This is an important and often enjoyable (because nostalgic) part of funeral planning.
Here are recommended selections, with links to music samples.
(UK-based)
(Sheryl Harris, The Plain Dealer, 9-8-12).
Undercover investigators for the Federal Trade Commission found violations in twelve Cleveland-area funeral homes, but issued its fines in secrecy. Why protect funeral homes instead of the public?
(International Cemetery, Cremation, and Funeral Association)
? , Michael Kearl's Guide to Thanatology, the Sociology of Death and Dying. Part of . Pretty academic stuff.
(Caroline Mayer, Next Avenue, 9-24-12). To avoid being pressured into unnecessary purchases, follow these steps
(Kavod v' Nichum)
(Gail Rubin's site, 'funeral planning for those who don't plan to die')
(full text online of consumer guide to end-of-life care by Joanne Lynn and Joan Harrold)
by John S. DeMott (AARP Bulletin). There are lower-cost options, and ways to resist sales pressure.
(Catherine Saint Louis, NY Times, 9-19-12).
New attitudes toward children and funerals--and grief camps, too.
by Stuart Matlins
by John S. DeMott (AARP, reprinted in Funeral Alternativess). There are lower-cost options, and ways to resist sales pressure.
(Michael Washburn, Univ. of Chicago Magazine, in Utne Reader, July/​Aug 2013). Mortician Caitlin Doughty, host of a popular YouTube channel called ?Ask a Mortician,? is trying to help us to not be afraid of death and dying.
(Gail Rubin, A Good Goodbye, 7-7-10)
(IslamiCity)
? , compiled by Luisa Moncada.
on this website.
The following sources vary in clarity, level of detail, and user-friendliness,
so check them all and let me know if you recommend something better.
(Funeral home Money & King's useful page: Who is eligible? How do you apply? Reimbursement of burial expenses. Burial Flags. Burial in national VA cemeteries. Headstones and markers. Presidential memorial certificates.)
(Department of Veterans Affairs)
(U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs) and a page to lead you to info particularly for
? . Many state veterans cemeteries provide free burial for veterans and often for veterans' spouses.
? . Click on links for Military Funerals, Veteran Headstones or Marker, Presidential Memorial Certificate, and so on.
(click on button for whether service member died in service or after)
(U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs)
(U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs)
"Honoring Those Who Served"
and answers to
(U.S. Army)
(Kelly McEvers, Morning Edition, NPR News Investigations, 3-31-04)
Listen to story or read transcript.
(Kelly McEvers, NPR, and Megan McCloskey, ProPublica, on NPR 3-6-14). The U.S. military's effort to recover and bring home the remains of its service members who were missing in action
is slow, inefficient, and stymied by outdated methods.
? Take Me Out to the Ballgame. "This week I attended the funeral of a man I did not know well but had worked with and admired. It was the funeral we all would like to have, a tribute to a long life well lived and well loved. The speakers were his four children, each with wonderful stories of his and her own particular and individual relationship with him. The last daughter said that he sang her to sleep every night with "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and that his favorite food was chocolate chip cookies and milk. So at the end of the service we all sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and then as we left there were platters of chocolate chip cookies for each of us to enjoy in his memory." ~Nell Minow, on Facebook, Jnne 2014 (reprinted by permission)
(Susan Soper,
blog, 7-23-12).
And here's a Huffington Post story (with photos) about
by Nancy Manahan and Becky Bohan (how Diane Manahan chose to live life fully at the end and die at home)
(Corey Kilgannon, New York Times, 10-21-08, writing about a memorial service that "was a sophisticated, poignant and kick-up-your-heels affair, almost like something out of a Cole Porter song")
(Joe Hakes, Newsweek, My Turn, 11/​10/​07)
When it was time to scatter her ashes, I was able to remember her all over again.
? . "Helpful Hands on Life's Last Segregated Journey" by Kim Severson (NY Times, 6-23-12).
Severson interviews Charles Menendez on the art of embalming and the art of handling different types of grief.
"If Sunday remains the most segregated day in the South, funerals remain the most segregated business," writes Severson.
"In the same way that generations of tradition dictate the churches people attend, the races tend to bury their own."
(Nita Lelyveld, Los Angeles Times 6-2-14).
Look at that photo. "Cars stopped. A crowd gathered. All the neighbors came out. The man who died had not been rich, but who would know?"
(Marine Lieutenant Colonel Strobl's simple and moving account of escorting the remains of Lance Corporal Chance Phelps home from Dover Air Force Base). You can watch HBO's film based on the story, , starring Kevin Bacon. Or check out the .
(Nathan Rabin,
A.V. Club, 4-15-13) "Death has a way of washing away sins and transforming people into paper saints. But the joyous memorial for Roger Ebert at the Chicago Theatre last Thursday night was a celebration of an unabashed sinner, a man of rapacious appetites and a lust for life that carried him through years of intense trauma."
(Alan Feuer, NY Times, 1-2-03) The most artful undertaker in Harlem is a sweet-natured, God-fearing, gospel-singing man named the Rev. Isaiah Owens, whose funeral home on Lenox Avenue and 121st Street boasts the slogan, ''Where beauty softens your grief.''
(PBS Frontline program featuring Thomas Lynch, funeral director in a small Michigan town, documenting funeral arrangements and families' reactions to grief), watch online,
buy the DVD, or . You can also read the
(Washington Post, 10-31-07)
? By federal law, funeral homes must allow you to provide your own casket and may not charge fees for doing so. You can buy caskets or coffins from the funeral home, or you can buy them directly
from the manufacturer or from discount stores such as
(enter "casket" in the search window on their website, for more choices).
You can get advice and a price sheet for various casket models from wholesalers and at least the
four following
online direct sellers:
--- (call 1-888-474-5061)
--- (call 1-800-300-1655)
--- (call 1-888-222-5955)
--- (call 1-800-833-4551)
Most high-end funeral homes have huge mark-ups (300 to 500 percent and more of wholesale price, according to Washington Consumer Checkbook.
If a lower-cost casket is not on display in the funeral home showroom, ask to see one.
You can also rent a casket for the funeral, to house a less expensive container that is used for burial or cremation.
? Do not pay extra for a "protective" casket with rubber gaskets. (, from
Crouch, Reader's Digest, 6-2011)
? . According to Norayne L. McCreery, they're used for the same purpose, but a coffin is constructed with six sides and a top and bottom, and a casket is four-sided, with a top and bottom. (The illustration makes it clear.)
Caskets are fairly standard at U.S. funerals.
(Funeral Help, a site with many helpful pages of consumer advice on how to shop for funeral services and products, including a cemetery plot)
(by gravedigger Paul G. Huffman, Funeral Consumers Alliance 11-26-07).
Cemeteries (not state or federal law) require burial container to protect the casket but mostly to prevent collapsing caskets and cemetery lawn.
Choices include burial liners, lawn crypts and vaults.
(Everplans). "Burial vaults and grave liners are used to support the soil around the casket and ensure that the soil above and around the casket will not collapse, which ultimately serves to minimize cemetery maintenance and keep the cemetery grounds looking nice." Includes practical tips.
(Lisa Carlson, FAMSA, posted by Funeral Consumers Alliance).
This "study merely verified what any cemeterian and most funeral directors already know: Embalmed or not, dead bodies decompose to one degree or another. And a sealed casket creates a smelly stew."
from the oddly named Outhouse Charlie's Tradin' Post (. Check out also . The , also from MHP; . Some of these are designer for pre-need use--for example, as a storage box or a coffee table. Can someone who has actually built their own casket or coffin tell me about the experience, and where you got your plans, kit, etc., and if you recommend the process and the source?
(the first biodegradable urn designed to convert you into a tree after you die).
(eco-friendly caskets, biodegradable urns, burial shrouds)
( beautiful handcrafted containers for ashes)
? , simple pine caskets,
biodegradable, designed for natural green burials and cremations and for Orthodox Jewish burials
? , in its
offers a range of products that may make you smile, from bamboo pet coffins and dog-bone urns to shrouds and an interesting array of human coffins
(Final Footprint)
(Green Burial Council, listing various sources of biodegradable caskets and urns)
? . Handmade caskets and urns, from the monks of New Melleray
(urns handcrafted from redwood, by a woodworker in Fort Bragg, California)
in many styles (hover cursor over Urns to see choices), including urns for humans and
(Nordmark Jacobsen)
SOME ALTERNATIVES:
(creates diamonds from locks of hair or cremated remains)
(replaces cremation urns and ash scattering with a permanent environmental living legacy)
(International Cemetery, Cremation, and Funeral Association, ICCFA)
(Annie Groer, First Person, Washingtonian, July 2013). "My father bought graves for the family, but now his kids have other plans. It?s up to me to deal with the 'interment rights'?and the memories."
(Headstone Guide, UK)
Types of headstones: Upright, flat, kerbed (UK); materials (granite, limestone, bronze),
finishes, designs, contours and moulding, inscriptions).
(Brigid Schulte, Washington Post, 8-18-09)
(and you can scroll down and see variations on the theme)
(Dan Crowley, Gazettenet, 3-28-15)
When Northampton native Paul W. Swift died in March 2009, his ashes were held in safe-keeping by the former Pease and Gay Funeral Home to be interred along with his wife?s in a Northampton cemetery when she died. After learning that the funeral home was sold last fall, Swift?s children discovered that their father?s remains had been buried in a vault with other unclaimed ashes. A cautionary tale.
(Mental Floss) I
like what's on Rodney Dangerfield's:
"There goes the neighborhood."
(Anne Marie Chaker, WSJ, 9-24-09). In 2009, when the economy was down, cemetery plot real estate brokers were busy family plots, some of which had been in the families for years.
(Everplans)
? Internet sites that advertise and broker re-sales of cemetery plots and sites include , ,
(Susan Gilmore, Seattle Times 7-31-11).A Seattle monument maker affixes a small QR or "quick-response" code (like a bar code, but square) to the tombstone. A smartphone with the right application lets visitors read the person's life history online.
? . They use QR codes to link to photos and videos of the dearly departed. (Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribute, 7-14-12)
(a collaborative project of the Andy Warhol Museum and EarthCam: Figment, a live feed of Warhol?s gravesite)
(Bellamy Pailthorp, NPR's All Things Considered, 5-30-11--listen or read). A Seattle company is adding "quick-read" codes to gravestones, allowing cemetery visitors to connect with the dead's life stories.
National Public Radio visits strange, funny, historic and notable gravesites and cemeteries across America in this quirky series you can listen to online.
(Linton Weeks, NPR, 2-9-10). Some parents in deep grief are creating memorials that celebrate the child's spirit in meaningful ways.
(blog posts on DigitalDying website)
As I understand it, a customized, scannable code is placed on a tomb, urn, or monument, which people can scan with a smartphone to call up material on an online memorial site for the deceased.
(create a free online memorial)
(Qeeping Memories Alive)
(Vietnam Veterans Memorial)
(Susan Gilmore, Seattle Times 7-31-11).A Seattle monument maker affixes a small QR or "quick-response" code (like a bar code, but square) to the tombstone. A smartphone with the right application lets visitors read the person's life history online.
? . They use QR codes to link to photos and videos of the dearly departed. (Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribute, 7-14-12)
(Bellamy Pailthorp, NPR's All Things Considered, 5-30-11--listen or read). A Seattle company is adding "quick-read" codes to gravestones, allowing cemetery visitors to connect with the dead's life stories.
(International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association, ICCFA, an industry group)
(Funeral Consumers Alliance, a consumers advocacy group)
(U.S. Funerals Online)
by Caitlin Doughty. A young mortician take us behind the scenes in a crematorium.
(Gail Rubin, A Good Goodbye, 6-15-15)
(download free ebook by Gail Rubin)
(and other interesting links)
(Len Finegold,Funeral Consumers Alliance of Greater Philadelphia).
Report on an informal information-sharing tour.
(Funeral Consumers Alliance)
(Wikipedia, on views in various religions)
(Gail Rubin, A Good Goodbye, 5-21-15)
Did you know the U.S. Postal Service ( USPS Priority Mail Express(R) Service) offers the only legal method of shipping cremated remains domestically or internationally? FedEx won?t do it, nor will the United Parcel Service.
(links to resources)
? , which offers excellent
(transcript, Jon Kalish, All Things Considered, NPR, 1998. Kalish reports on Jewish burial societies known as Chevra Kadisha which perform ritual purification for observant Jews who have died.
(Jewish Genealogical Society)
(Catholic Burial Society)
(Wayback Machine, chapter from a book of history)
(PBS documentary, an up-close look at the rarely seen world of undertaking in the black community)
(A Family Undertaking, POV, scheduled for August 3, 2004)
(Hayley Campbell, Vice, 10-28-14)
(Funeralwise blog and website) with both serious articles and
(funeral humor)
(POV, in association with A Family Undertaking)
Imagine what you could make possible.
(MedlinePlus, NIH and National Library of Medicine)
(Organdonor.gov, U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services).
This site is full of answers to common questions.
(Organdonor.gov)
(Organdonor.gov, U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services)
(Mayo Clinic Staff)
Unsure about donating organs for transplant? Don't let misinformation keep you from saving lives.
? .As her world diminished, Elizabeth Uyehara signed her body over to researchers to help unravel the mystery of Lou Gehrig's disease. (Thomas Curwen, Los Angeles Times, 8-28-10, on the course of Uyehara's ALS and on what happens when organs are donated for science)
(Lisa Carlson, Final Rights)
(Lisa Carlson, Final Rights).
Out of ignorance, sounds like.
(New York Organ Donor Network).
See especially
Veterans death and survivor benefits. The following sources vary in clarity, level of detail, user-friendliness, so check them all and let me know if you find something better:
(Funeral home Money & King's useful page: Who is eligible? How do you apply? Reimbursement of burial expenses. Burial Flags. Burial in national VA cemeteries. Headstones and markers. Presidential memorial certificates.)
(U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs) and a page to lead you to info particularly for
Many state veterans cemeteries provide free burial for veterans and often for veterans' spouses.
? . Click on links for Military Funerals, Veteran Headstones or Marker, Presidential Memorial Certificate, and so on.
(click on button for whether service member died in service or after)
(Department of Veterans Affairs)
"There are about 20 'green' cemeteries in America right now, essentially open fields," writes John S. DeMott, in
(AARP Bulletin). "Markers are made from local rock, and some families dispense with them in favor of GPS coordinates. "Joshua Slocum of the Funeral Consumers Alliance says there?s nothing really new about 'green' funerals except calling them that. 'It?s the oldest, most traditional form of burial,' he says. 'A simple burial in a simple wood box without chemicals or a concrete vault. Jews and Muslims have practiced it for thousands of years.'"
(Ann Kreilkamp's interview with Jerrigrace Lyons, founder and director of , whose aim is "to re-introduce home and family-directed funerals as a part of family life and as a way to de-institutionalize death, by educating and assisting dignified and compassionate alternatives to conventional funeral practices."
(Nell Minow, Huffington Post, 8-28-14). Nell reviews the award-winning documentary,
by Mark Harris.
"By the time Nate Fisher was laid to rest in a woodland grave sans coffin in the final season of Six Feet Under, Americans all across the country were starting to look outside the box when death came calling."
(Midwest Green Burial Society)
How to clean, prepare, wrap, and move the body.
(Marina Kamenev, Time Science, 9-28-10, on an approach being tried in Australia)
(locate a natural burial site, operating or in development)
(learn about and find , ,
(by state),
(eco-friendly caskets, biodegradable urns, burial shrouds.
(Susan J. Tweit, Audobon Magazine on Green Funerals)
(sources of shrouds and caskets for green funerals, Midwest Green Burial Society)
Green Burial Society)
(Reader's Digest)
(Frank Nelson,
Pacific Standard, 5-14-09).
"The numbers are still small and even proponents admit to a whiff of fad, but backers of green burials see their way of death as the wave of the future." Every year the death care industry
"buries millions of tons of valuable resources ? wood and metal coffins, and concrete grave liners ? along with embalmed bodies containing countless gallons of toxic formaldehyde."
But "cremation, with its discharge of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and other airborne pollutants, including a few nasty ones like mercury vapor from teeth fillings, is not especially kind to the environment either."
(a nonprofit resource center providing education about
conscious, holistic, and green approaches to end of life, including family-directed after-death care)
(Newsweek, The Daily Beast,
More Americans are choosing to decompose directly into the earth.
(People's Memorial).
" The Industrial Revolution brought us formaldehyde-based embalming and the rise of the modern funeral industry with a plethora of manufactured merchandise?caskets made of painted steel, precious concrete burial vaults and granite cemetery markers. . . In most cultures, what we now call green burial was standard practice."
(stats on environmental damage done through current funeral practices, in terms of trees used for timber, concrete used for vaults,
embalming fluid containing carcinogen formaldehyde)
(green cemeteries--see its )
(natural burial funeral and cemetery associations)
"For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?"
~Kahlil Gibran
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."
~ The Book of Common Prayer
Organizations important to home funerals
(see its ).
(Australia)
(Campbell Robertson, NY Times,
10-22-13, from Stevenson, Ala., Journal).
James Davis buried his wife in the front yard to fulfill her dying wish. "Let Patsy rest in peace" says a sign near the road.
(Jaweed Kaleem, Huffington Post 1-25-13).
A moving article.
(Memorials of Distinction site UK)
by Stephanie West Allen
She gives a great list of reasons why.
(Ann Kreilkamp's interview with Jerrigrace Lyons of Final Passages (("I call myself a death midwife," birthing death) in Crone Chronicles). Or go directly to , Lyons' website.
Mike Sugarman, CBS5, interviews Jerrigrace Lyons of Final Passages ("I call myself a death midwife"), a video that shows the dignity of the home viewing, or . There's a more detailed interview,
(Ann Kreilkamp's interview with Jerrigrace Lyons in Crone Chronicles).Or go directly to , Lyons' website.
(an Elizabeth Westrate film, POV, PBS, 2004) This video explores the growing home funeral movement by following several families in their most intimate moments as they reclaim the end of life, forgoing a typical (expensive) mortuary funeral to care for their loved ones at home. Far from being a radical innovation, keeping funeral rites in the family or among friends is exactly how death was handled for most of pre-20th century America.
(Wikipedia), a gathering
centered around someone who will soon die. Also called a pre-funeral or, in Japan, a Seizenso.
(many grieving families are opting to bypass the funeral industry), story by Rachel Cox for the Washington Post 2-5-05
(personally decorated caskets shown in videos of home funerals, Sacred Crossings)
? . Tenderness. Trust. Mortician Caitlin Doughty closes with a luminous photo essay on home care (Fortnight, 3-5-12). A series of photos shot in Topanga, CA, showing Caitlin help a family wash, dress, and shroud the dead, then take her to a grave and put her directly into the ground to let her body decompose naturally. Photos by Darren Blackburn.
? , transcript of a session of NPR's Morning Edition, The End of Life: Exploring Death in America (reporter Jacki Lyden interviewing George Foy, father of a deceased infant, Lisa Carlson, president of Funeral and Memorial Societies of America, Jan Berman, daughter of a woman who died of AIDS, Thomas Lynch, mortician, poet, and author)
(Nancy Rommelman, for Los Angeles Times Magazine, 2-6-05)
(FAQs, many helpful articles from Funeral Consumers Alliance)
(Katie Zezima, NY Times, 7-20-90)
(Funeral Consumers Alliance)
(resources for home funerals or family-directed funerals, by state)
If you purchase anything after clicking on
link below, we get a small commission, which helps support the costs of maintaining this site.
, a Washington Post story by Rachel Cos, suggests sources of more information on family-directed funerals.
, Upper Access, 1998, by Lisa Carlson. A complete guide for those making funeral arrangements with or without a funeral director. Covers funeral law state by state. $29.95 from the Funeral Consumers Alliance or $18.87 . Available at many libraries.
by Faith Moore (foreword by Letitia
by Jane Wynne Wilson, a handbook geared to humanist ceremonies in Great Britain, where they are more common.
by Joshua Slocum and Lisa Carlson
by environmental columnist Mark Harris (a well-written and informative survey of the costs, processes, and effects of various burial options (from traditional funeral with embalming to cremation to various eco-friendly green-funeral options, including burial at sea or on one?s own land), with graphic descriptions of embalming, rotting, etc.
, 2002, by Nancy Jewel Poer. $23 from crossings.net or
by R. Brian Burkhardt
Crossings publishes a resource guide containing ?educational, inspirational, and practical tools? needed to plan a home funeral. Available for $55 at .
Planning for a Funeral
(Advice from the Federal Trade Commission)
1. Shop around in advance. Compare prices from at least two funeral homes. Remember that you can supply your own casket or urn.
2. Ask for a price list. The law requires funeral homes to give you written price lists for products and services.
3. Resist pressure to buy goods and services you don't really want or need.
4. Avoid emotional overspending. It's not necessary to have the fanciest casket or the most elaborate funeral to properly honor a loved one.
5. Recognize your rights. Laws regarding funerals and burials vary from state to state. It's a smart move to know which goods or services the law requires you to purchase and which are optional.
6. Apply the same smart shopping techniques you use for other major purchases. You can cut costs by limiting the viewing to one day or one hour before the funeral, and by dressing your loved one in a favorite outfit instead of costly burial clothing.
7. Plan ahead. It allows you to comparison shop without time constraints, creates an opportunity for family discussion, and lifts some of the burden from your family.
If you purchase anything after clicking on
link below, we get a small commission, which helps support the costs of maintaining this site. You can also rent the movies from Netflix, among other options (for example, many libraries have good video collections)
? . "Romantic and funny, this deeply felt ode to love is a roller-coaster ride of emotions," wrote Variety, and I agree. As a bonus, the hero of this lovable Swedish film is played by Michael Nyqvist, co-star of the movies based on the .
? . A Japanese film about a very tender way to say goodbye.
? . A romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant and Kristin Scott Thomas.
(Sally Field won an Oscar for her performance as a widow in a Depression-era small town. You can see how differently and more directly families dealt with death then.)
? , HBO's gem of a film, starring Kevin Bacon.
Based on Marine Lieutenant Colonel Strobl's simple and moving account of escorting the remains of Lance Corporal Chance Phelps home from Dover Air Force Base. Shows the dignified way marines, airmen, and sailors are escorted home to their families and loved ones.
? , with Jack Lemmon and Hank Azaria, based on Mitch Albom's nonfiction bestseller. See also the movie based on Albom's
(in the days between whatever killed them and the moment they're buried, characters in this movie are no longer alive but can still move and communicate -- only with the character played by Liam Neeson). This film got mixed reviews.
(Gail Rubin's piece on the subject, on her A Good Goodbye site)
'Dying is nothing to be afraid of. For a start you can't fail at it, and secondly you get a certificate." ~ Dr. Joanne Duran (posted on Natural Death Care Centre site)
This is an important and often enjoyable (because nostalgic) part of funeral planning.
Here are recommended selections, with links to music samples.
"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." ~ Isaac Asimov
'Dying is nothing to be afraid of. For a start you can't fail at it, and secondly you get a certificate." ~ Dr. Joanne Duran (posted on Natural Death Care Centre site)
?I'm I just don't want to be there when it happens.? ~ Woody Allen
What's the difference between a casket and a coffin?
Green Funerals Are Nothing New
"There are about 20 'green' cemeteries in America right now, essentially open fields," writes John S. DeMott, in
(AARP Bulletin). "Markers are made from local rock, and some families dispense with them in favor of GPS coordinates.
"Joshua Slocum of the Funeral Consumers Alliance says there?s nothing really new about 'green' funerals except calling them that. 'It?s the oldest, most traditional form of burial,' he says. 'A simple burial in a simple wood box without chemicals or a concrete vault. Jews and Muslims have practiced it for thousands of years.'"
Tell all my mourners
To mourn in red --
Cause there ain't no sense
In my bein' dead.
~ Langston Hughes, "Wake"
"Green burial provides us with a way of getting in sync with the natural process of death, decay, and regeneration, rather than having to stave it off, as conventional deathcare demands."~ Joe Sehee, Founder/​Executive Director, Green Burial Council
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority."
~ E.B. White
"When I die don?t bury me
In a box in a cemetery
Out in the garden would be much better
I could be pushin? up homegrown tomatoes."
~ Guy Clark,