Many topics were covered at a symposium on dying last weekend at the Mountain View Cemetery, but the magnet for most attendees was home funerals.
We’re at the cusp of a resurgence in home death care. Home funerals are estimated to be, today, where home births were 30 years ago. It’s believed that the Baby Boomers will lead the trend toward dying at home in the future. In a Globe and Mail article, a reader quipped: “I have a feeling Boomers will reject the retirement home business as well. Place your bets accordingly.”
One might think the motivator to be financial (North American funeral costs are estimated to be double that of Europe and England), or the assume adherents to be from the “green” movement, but that is rarely the case. The documentary film “A Family Undertaking” (shown at the event) contained a mix of families who offered their own beliefs:
- “no one can treat them as tenderly as someone who loved them”
- “a funeral home does not lend itself to intimacy”
- “natural vs. industrial approach”
- “everyone can take as long as they want to say goodbye”
- “there’s an amazing silence and beauty that begins to enter the room”
- “families walk through the doorway of fear”
- you can see eventually that the person you love is no longer there – it’s easier to let go”.
Some families choose to decorate hand-made caskets with messages and art. Others opt for handmade shrouds. When you are ready, the body can be buried, often in a natural setting (more on that in a future post) or transported to a crematorium.
Or can you?
The most natural way to die seems to be mired in red tape by the BC government, which has, apparently, the most regulations in the country. Simple procedures like transporting bodies are not user-friendly. And while the USA has six groups that train midwives to guide families through the physical, emotional, and logistical process, in BC, death midwives are legally restricted from accepting fees for services. Licensed funeral directors, however, are allowed.
Perhaps that’s why the story feature in the Globe and Mail article was from safe and legal Washington state.
That’s not to say that it isn’t being done. One participant at the event brought laughter from the audience as s/he described a recent home funeral that included a final cruise around the beloved neighbourhood, casket in the back of a pick-up truck.
But don’t tell the government about that…:)
