What inspired me to begin this project was
the unexpected death of my friend Carolyn. I had no idea, when
she went to work one morning to take care of an elder in her
eighties, that she herself would be making her own transition.
She began her day feeling great, but after breakfast she started
having trouble breathing. Marie, the elder woman she was looking
after, called 911. The ambulance came, but they couldn’t resuscitate
her.
Carolyn had gone to sit on the porch
and get some air. Marie saw her roll over on the lawn with a
smile on her face, and that was it. She was only fifty-six years
old, and was as alive as we are right now. She was quite an
active and gregarious person, and her death was a shock to her
friends and family. The evening of the day she died, we discovered
that several years earlier she had prepared a set of detailed
instructions about what she wanted at the time of her death.
She had given these instructions to her friend Norma.
When Norma’s husband died, no one knew what he
wanted--burial, cremation, what kind of ceremony. That inspired
Carolyn to get a group of friends together one day to sit down
and write out instructions that included what flowers they wanted,
the music to be played, what they would like on an altar, and
so forth. Carolyn wrote that she did not want to be embalmed,
she did not want an autopsy, and she did not want to be turned
over to a mortuary. She wanted to be brought home by her friends,
to have her body dressed and bathed at home and to be transported
to the crematorium by her friends. She had told Norma, "It’s
a good thing you have a van. You can use it to transport my
body." Norma said, "Don’t be ridiculous. I probably won’t even
own this van when you die." Sure enough, several months later,
Carolyn did die, and Norma’s van was used to transport her body
home from the hospital and to the crematorium.
Carolyn and I had been friends a little under
a year. I worked at Heart to Heart Medical Center in Santa Rosa
as a Trager (neuro-muscular re-education) practitioner
and had been given instruction in first- and second-degree Reiki.
At a health fair, I was drawn to go talk to the people at a
Reiki booth, and they invited me to Carolyn’s weekly Reiki sharing
group. Carolyn was a Reiki master. Within that week, her name
came to me in several different ways. When I get the same message
several times in a short period of time, I think, "Hmm." So
I called her. She was very warm and loving over the phone, and
invited me to drop in on the group. I did go, and I liked it
so much that I went every week after. I only missed about two
weeks during that year. Carolyn and I had an instant friendship--we
felt we had always known one another, perhaps in a past life.
What I didn’t know was that she would become my teacher in other
ways as well. She would be my teacher about after-death care,
about becoming a spiritual or death midwife and a home funeral
guide. These are the terms I have come to embody.
I was profoundly moved by the three
days of personal care given to Carolyn following her death,
including the experience of bringing her body home in a body
bag, and unzipping it to find her looking as beautiful and peaceful
as a baby. In touching her, I was able to get a sense of the
reality of her death. I had not seen her at the hospital, so
touching her body helped me begin to integrate in my own
body, with my own senses, that she really had departed. Her
bathing and dressing was so consciously and conscientiously
done. It felt like a ritual--a very ancient rite of passage.
Four of us women participated in that ceremony and we occasionally
spoke to Carolyn, somehow feeling that she was there and could
hear us.
At these ritual times, you are already in
another state of mind--I call it "time out of time." There is
so much going on, on other energy levels. There is a sense of
spiritual intervention, angelic presence, and a special quality
of heart-opening and bonding. You are doing something very meaningful
and authentic. We had formed a phone tree, so after the preparation
of the body many people came over and visited Carolyn, each
in their own way--some silently, some singing, some chanting,
some reading. Every one entered her house with the same sense
of disbelief, trying to find answers for why this had happened.
Carolyn was lying on a futon in a room that we had prepared
and made sacred to honor her.
In the evening, we had a formal ceremony.
We brought her body into the living room, brightly lit with
candles and filled with flowers and fragrances. We surrounded
her with our love, prayers and meditations. Carolyn’s body was
taken to the crematorium the next day. I hadn’t expected to
stay with the group the whole way through, but I kept feeling
called back. Things that I was supposed to do fell away--in
the synchronistic way that things seem to fall into place during
important times. I was able to continue participating; I helped
take her to the crematorium, and joined in a meal afterwards.
A full spectrum of emotions can follow
a person’s death. I experienced waves of grief from the depths
of my soul. Then, as a group, we would experience a joy and
euphoric celebration. We wondered why we were experiencing such
high feelings, yet we sensed Carolyn’s presence in this very
clearly. I felt as though she were orchestrating the whole thing.
Even her sense of humor came through. When Norma and her friend
Dana were preparing to take Carolyn’s body to the crematorium,
they found a piece of driftwood that fit the shape of her hand
perfectly. Then they found a bird wing and placed it on her
breast and a bowl of cookie fortunes, which they taped on her
body. They asked, "Where should we put this one, Carolyn?" They
read the fortune and said, "Oh, on your knee. Okay!" Then they
taped it on. This was just like Carolyn. She laughed a lot and
had a great sense of humor. That humorous aspect was not left
out.
After her body was cremated, Carolyn’s ashes were
brought to her home. That happened to be our Reiki meeting night.
Instead of doing Reiki, we had a special ceremony with her ashes,
passing them around and placing them in small bags. She loved
to travel, and one of her instructions was to scatter her ashes
all over the world. We each took some in order to take them
to special sacred places around the world.
We continued to meet weekly to plan
Carolyn’s memorial service, which occurred a month later on
her birthday. At those gatherings we discovered that our fear
of death and the unknown had diminished tremendously.
Our experience with Carolyn had taken us through a doorway that
I think most people in this country have not accessed. This
is because most of our society has delegated death to institutions
and industry, instead of taking on the responsibility of caring
for our loved ones.
Carolyn’s personality definitely came through during
this whole event, and it was important to us to include her.
Each segment of this journey was all about her, and each person’s
history with her. Together we designed a meaningful and unique
send-off for our beloved friend.
A year and a half after Carolyn died, I decided that I wanted
to start a project to help other people have a similarly wonderful
experience. On December 10, 1995, I met with a group of friends
who were also interested in this idea. Even though we didn’t
yet have a name or form, that was the birthing of the Natural
Death Care Project.
After another year my friend Janelle, who
had been working for Hospice, lost her aunt. She asked our
project to assist her with the arrangements, and was particularly
impressed by the results of this choice. She knew the loving
care provided by Hospice, but also saw that when a person
died, a funeral home was called and a transportation person
would show up and whisk the body away with no time for family
closure. The body was sometimes wrapped and the face covered
without even asking the family whether that was acceptable.
The body was not always handled with loving respect.
It turned out that Janelle’s aunt
had left her an inheritance, so she left her Hospice work
to volunteer with our project. She became my co-director.
Six months later, we became a program of the nonprofit
Community Network for Appropriate Technologies (CNAT), which
had been running for about twenty years in Sonoma County.
One of its many programs, the Journey Project, includes a
book called Journey to Life’s End. The author, CNAT
director Susan Keller, helps us prepare for a death by including
information about filling out forms, and stories about seniors
she personally cared for.
The Natural Death Care Project has
also created classes and workshops to teach other people this
work. One of our goals is to help other communities begin
service organizations to guide people through home- or family-directed
funerals. We offer in-services, presentations, consultations
and four-hour classes with continuing education credits (CEUs)
for professionals. Our next four-hour class will be held at
the Senior Center in Point Arena on January 8, 2000. Our first
weekend workshop on death, called "Midwifing the Final Journey,"
will take place at Harbin Hot Springs, April 14 through 16.
Its subtitle is "Home Funerals: Caring for Our Own." We tell
people that it’s easy to remember the dates. Just think about
the two things every one can count on--death and taxes.
When the Natural Death Care Project became an educational
program under CNAT, we split off our service work and started
the Home Funeral Ministry to help families create home funerals.
This service includes coaching people through bathing, dressing
and preserving the body, having a wake and ceremony, helping
them complete and file the paperwork, and accompanying them
to the crematorium or cemetery of their choice. The cost is
very reasonable--half to a third of what people generally
pay.
The most basic cost for a standard
institutional cremation (called direct cremation) is about
$1300. This would cover the removal of a body, paperwork and
the cremation. We can help families do this for less than
half that cost. Much of the savings comes from not using a
mortuary or funeral home for arrangements. Mortuaries have
a non-declinable overhead fee. This means that when you walk
in the door, you are charged for staff and overhead. Everything
else is extra. Most often people are in such an emotional
state that they are not likely to make clear and wise choices.
They may not even know what questions to ask, or what other
options might be available. They are confused by a lot of
information and often choose beyond their means. These choices
might include a more expensive casket, embalming, viewing
and preparation of the body, a chapel service, burial or scattering
of ashes--all of which could push the price to several thousand
dollars. The average burial cost in this country is about
$8,000 to $10,000. Most of the families we help can
do this for one-quarter to one-third that cost--depending
on the cost of the casket and the cemetery they choose.
A service like Home Funeral Ministry is
so much needed. We are not just supporting people in physically
getting things done. We support them emotionally and spiritually
as well, and hold the space for them to create what they want.
This kind of reassurance allows a meaningful process to unfold
in a natural way. Some people come into the experience frightened
and nervous. Although we may have ancient memories in our
cells of caring for our ancestors at death, we have no current
pictures in our minds--no references, visual recordings or
positive storytelling from our relatives to give us confidence.
Many families tell me that during
the time surrounding a death, a lot of healing of old wounds
occurs. People’s hearts are so open that armor falls away
and walls come down. This provides an opportunity for healing
on many levels. It also bonds people that never knew each
other. I feel bonded to all the families I have been through
this with, and so far I have walked through about 120 family-directed
funerals. This is very different from a funeral business with
a funeral director who helps people with arrangements but
separates himself from them. We are not working behind the
scenes. We are with the family--like a doula or a midwife
in birthing. We are right there, coaching them or participating
with them in ceremonies. We become part of the family. One
of the things that makes this work so rich is that we get
to experience many different kinds of rituals. We support
all cultures, religions and backgrounds.
Three
major corporations are buying up funeral homes and cemeteries
across the country. This movement is raising costs and giving
people less options. The names of the newly acquired funeral
homes are not changed when this occurs, so most people don’t
realize this is happening. Unlike buying other products, we
have no choice about purchasing funeral arrangements. We can’t
just say, "Gee, honey, could you put off dying? It’s not in
our budget this year." Death comes to all people, and often
comes unexpectedly. If you do not have the money to pay for
arrangements, generally there are no funds to help. The coroner
may need to find anyone, however remotely related, and that
person can be held responsible to pay the minimum charges.
Our culture often equates
love with the amount of money spent. Although we support families
in whatever they want to do, they often produce creative and
less costly alternatives once they are empowered with a choice.
A friend or relative can build or carve a casket that can
be a very meaningful and loving gift.
New businesses are sprouting up all
over the country that provide options to expensive caskets.
Kate Broderson has a business in Forestville called A Plain
Pine Box. She very lovingly builds pine boxes using high-quality
materials. Caskets are also being created using ecological
materials such as straw.
Many people are choosing
to paint and decorate the caskets 
themselves.
You can get a cardboard casket after, or even before, someone
dies, and decorate it in a most beautiful way. We have an
entire slide show and photo album of such caskets. Each one
could be in an art gallery. They are all about the person
who died, and can take any creative direction--with writings,
paintings, glitter, rainbow paper, flowers and so forth.
A box can be padded with batting
or blankets, and covered with special material. Some people
even make pillows to match. One woman, Michele, planning for
her own home funeral, told her story, "A Death Without Fear,"
to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Her friend lined
the casket with beautiful purple satin and painted Egyptian
icons on top and around the inside of the casket. Michele
followed an Egyptian religion, and her elaborate funeral ceremony
in the "enchanted forest" behind their home in Guerneville
included readings from The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
In some cases, people with
a terminal illness decorate their own caskets. They can even
have a living wake, in which they invite all their friends
to a party--a healing celebration where everyone gets to speak
their truth and say wonderful things before you die. I have
attended several of these.
There is so much potential in this work.
I am now learning about the use of essential oils in after-death
care--how to anoint the body with oils to help with spiritual
release and also to calm those who are grieving.
STORIES
The book that Janelle and I are writing will have a lot of
stories about the magical and mysterious things that happen
around death. We want to tell these stories in a heartfelt
way and accompany them with pictures. We hope these pictures
and stories will help create a more positive attitude toward
death in our culture.
One man whose breathing had been
labored and rapid around the time of his death died with his
mouth open. Although his wife tried to close his mouth, she
was unable to do so. The Hospice nurse, who came to help her
bathe and dress him, also tried to close his mouth and couldn’t.
I guess they didn’t know that you could tie a scarf around
the head to help deal with that situation. The wife left the
room to see the Hospice nurse out, and was gone for a very
brief time. When she went back in, her husband’s mouth was
closed and he had a smile on his face. No one had been in
the room. When Janelle and I came by the next day, bringing
dry ice to preserve his body for a wake, we couldn’t believe
it. The color was still in his face and he looked like he
was smiling. We looked at each other and asked, "Gosh, do
you think he’s really dead?" He was.
For children to become acquainted
with death as a part of life is vitally important and can
free them from unknown fears. Many families have approached
us to ask whether we thought it was appropriate to include
children in the ceremony. They were concerned that it might
be too much for them. We tell them that children seem to handle
home funerals very well. They tend to take their cue from
adults. We also see children who are very connected and comfortable
around the person who has died even leading the way for the
adults. In one family, the son and daughter-in-law had a five-year-old
daughter and were very concerned about her being around her
deceased grandfather. The little girl ended up bringing people
into the room, sitting with them quietly, and talking to grandpa--becoming
a model of sensitivity and peace for the distraught grown-ups
around her.
I was once on a spiritual journey
visiting ancient ruins in Mexico. One of our purposes was
to help release souls that we felt were trapped. By doing
ceremonies and chanting, we were helping to send those souls
into the light. At the same time, I was beginning to re-live
a past-life memory with a person who was also on the journey.
There was emotional pain from these memories, so I did a ritual
to help release the pain. My friends buried me in sand, and
I cried and grieved for that old lifetime. Then I swam in
the ocean and came out feeling relieved and at peace. Once
I felt that lifetime was done and complete, I was able to
joyfully embrace the remainder of the trip. One of the purposes
of ritual is to help a person move through an experience of
grief, pain or suffering, and to leave room for something
new and celebratory. That is also why partici-pating in a
family-directed funeral can be so important.
Karen Leonard, a good friend and advisor of NDCP, directs
a nonprofit educational and advocacy group called Redwood
Funeral Society, also in Sebastopol. Home Funeral Ministry
is one of the providers for her members if they want a home
funeral. Janelle and I, along with Karen Leonard and Anne
Tompkins from Redwood Funeral Society, have formed a committee
for another project called JMMP--Jessica Mitford Memorial
Project. The late Jessica Mitford, a witty Englishwoman who
wrote a bestseller called The American Way of Death,
exposed the funeral industry back in the 1960s, writing about
the decadence and unnecessary expense of funerals. Her revised
edition was completed and published last year with the help
of her husband and Karen, who was also Jessica’s research
consultant.
Our vision for JMMP includes a newly
designed crematorium as a place where people can witness a
cremation in a sacred, peaceful setting. The crematorium was
our original focus, primarily because cremation is less expensive
than embalming and burial and is becoming a frequent choice.
In California, over 50 percent of the people who die are cremated.
In addition, a round or octa-gonal memorial theater would
give people a place to perform any kind of living or dying
ceremony or performing arts. Education would be an important
part of the offering.
Our vision also includes a nature-preserve cemetery, where
people can be buried only in shrouds or in a biodegradable
casket. This would be in a forest setting with only indigenous
plants being placed on the graves. There would be trails,
but people wouldn’t recognize it as a cemetery. Although there
would be no headstones or plaques, a visitor’s center with
a computer could be used to locate people.
On the Internet, Karen discovered
a company called MEI (Memorial Ecosystems, Inc.) in South
Carolina. They are interested in creating a nationwide system
of nature-preserve cemeteries. She contacted them, and they
flew out to meet with us. We are now working to see how we
can form an alliance to put forth our common vision. Their
first memorial nature park, Ramsey Creek Preserve, is located
at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Western South Carolina,
in the watershed of the Chauga River. It can be visited online
at www.memorialecosystems.com/
MEI and JMMP are currently looking
for funding to build our site, and we are searching for a
land donor in West Sonoma County for this very worthy cause.
An architecture class at CCAC (California College of Arts
and Crafts) in Oakland is taking up our project, and students
are drawing potential designs for the structures.
There is a trend in our country toward
new burial procedures and do-it-yourself funerals. We were
mentioned in a Life magazine article in March, and
a couple months of ago we were contacted by 20-20,
which was looking to film a home funeral for use in a television
segment. With this mainstream-oriented interest, I know that
a big change is coming. Just like the home- birth movement,
and the creation of birthing rooms in hospitals, I expect
that home funerals and other new options will become normal
options within my lifetime.
Jerri Lyons is founder and co-director of the Natural
Death Care Project and director of Home Funeral Ministry.
She is also a Reiki master, Trager practitioner and non-denominational
minister. Janelle Va Melvin is co-director of the Natural
Death Care Project. She is also a hospice chaplain, ordained
minister and certified massage therapist.
Home Funeral Ministry guides people
through home or family directed funerals. Natural Death Care
Project, P.O. Box 1721, Sebastopol, CA 95473, is a nonprofit
educational organization that offers consultations, education,
in-services trainings, workshops, a videotape and written
materials available for sale to the public. Their binder includes
a pre-planning section with a workbook for planning a home
funeral, a section on caring for the body, and a section on
filling out and filing paperwork. Their website is www.naturaldeathcare.org
NDCP also offers referrals in Sonoma and near-by counties.
They be reached at (707) 824-0268 or by email: at ndcp@softcom.net.
Funeral Facts
Caring for your own dead is legal in most states. (Check with
your local Office of Vital Records or Lisa Carlson’s book,
Caring for the Dead: Your Final Act of Love, Upper
Access, 1987.)
Embalming is not essential. Dry ice works well for preservation
during a three-day home ceremony.
The modern practice of embalming began during the Civil War,
for bodies shipped long distances. By 1920, almost all bodies
in the U.S. were embalmed. The practice is still rare in other
countries.
By 1900, both birth and death had been institutionalized
in the U.S., moved out of the home and into hospitals. In
March 1998, U.S. News and World Report estimated the
average cost of a funeral in the U.S. at $8,000.
Traditional funeral homes mark up the price of a casket by
300 to 500 percent. The rubber gasket on a protective casket
costs $8, but adds up to $800 to the price.
In a "sealed" casket, the body will not dehydrate naturally.
Instead it putrefies in an anaerobic environment. If the casket
is closed too tightly, the gasses can’t get out, and the casket
explodes.
Casket plans for building a homemade wooden casket: $15.95.
For a cardboard cremation casket: $34.95 plus shipping. Contact
NDCP.
Corporate funeral chains are buying up local funeral homes
and cemeteries world-wide. Since there are far more mortuaries
than can be supported by the death rate, the funeral industry
depends on aggressive selling of expensive services.
In California, a family member or Durable Power of Attorney
for Health Care (DPAHC) can 1) act in lieu of a funeral director
to orchestrate all arrangements and carry out all decisions;
2) fill out and file end-of-life documentation; 3) transport
deceased in any vehicle to a home, place of ceremony, crematory
or cemetery.
(from Lisa Carlson’s Caring for the Dead and the NDCP
website)
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