Toward simpler funerals

Periodically I see a fundraiser for a family who’s unexpectedly lost a loved one and needs help with funeral expenses.

This seems like a terrible situation to be in, especially if they’ve lost a wage-earner and the family is now going to be in a worse financial state in general.

I would love to see us move as a society toward options that are less of a financial and logistical burden. There are simpler ways of meeting the needs of grieving family and friends than what the funeral industry provides by default.

Organ donation

Organ donation is great! One of my family members is breathing with a lung from a donor. In the US, you can sign up here. Then proceed with whatever other arrangements.

Donation for medical study

But most people don’t die in a way that allows organ donation. You can sign up for both organ donation and medical study.

Most of my older relatives have donated their bodies to science, which allows better training for doctors and also means the family doesn’t pay transportation and cremation costs.

I think to some people worry this will be creepy or weird, but it’s handled with a lot of attention for what the family will find respectful. There’s typically a ceremony where families can meet the medical students who will be learning from the donated bodies. Some medical schools publish reflections by students on what donors mean to them as they start to study the incredible intricacy of the human body. From a student at the Yale school of medicine:

“Death is for the most part a private thing, and I believe that the willingness to share one’s dead self for didactic purposes is a noble thing. My donor had a lot to say. He told me about the beauty and mystery of the human body, about a miraculous design and the pain that it can bring when things go wrong.”

After the academic year, the cremated remains are returned to families.

If I die in some normal way rather than in a catastrophe, and if there aren’t barriers like contagious disease, I’d like my body to be used this way. The medical schools make it very easy for the family, and the handling of the remains is free. 

Normalize low-cost funerals and memorials

A funeral with a viewing and burial costs around $10,000 (for funeral home services, embalming, casket, cemetery plot, concrete liner so the grave doesn’t cave in, and gravestone). A reception with flowers and catering is additional. It’s easy for families to get upsold on fancier options.

I’d like to see our society move toward simpler ways for people to gather and grieve together. The things I see as key:

• Disposing of the body in some way (which doesn’t necessarily have to be part of a ceremony at all)
• Getting together in person
• Some kind of ceremony or reflection time
• Informal time to talk and remember the person, including the weird and funny memories, and for people who haven’t seen each other in a long time to connect

Aspects I feel we could move away from:

• Open caskets, which involve expensive embalming 
• Caskets in fancy materials
• A lot of flowers
• Graves that are meant to be maintained long-term. I vowed I’d never make anyone do this during a weekend helping clear poison ivy from a Quaker cemetery in Pennsylvania. 

The Federal Trade Commission has advice on avoiding being upsold: “Industry studies show that the average casket shopper buys one of the first three models shown, generally the middle-priced of the three. So it’s in the seller’s best interest to start out by showing you higher-end models. If you haven’t seen some of the lower-priced models on the price list, ask to see them — but don’t be surprised if they’re not prominently displayed, or not on display at all.” Funeral Consumers Alliance and Nerdwallet both provide advice on reducing costs.

Traditional Jewish and Muslim burial practices are on the simpler side, using a biodegradable wooden casket or just a shroud.

For some people it’s meaningful to have a gravesite as a kind of transitional object. But if a family has moved away from the places any of them grew up, visiting such a location is less practical. It seems to me that other items are better suited: photos, clothing, personal items, books. Other mementos are intangible: a song or joke the person loved.

Cremation (or its cousin alkaline hydrolysis) is traditional in many societies, and seems sensible to me. Planting a tree on your loved one’s ashes has appeal, but ashes are salty and not so good for plants, so maybe just use a little if you want the tree to live.

Timing

It’s hard for me to imagine organizing an event in the hours or days just after losing a loved one. For families where it’s not that important to have a service within a set time period, it seems much easier to me to hold an event a little later, framed as a memorial rather than a funeral. One advantage of cremation is that it decouples the timing of the service from the rate of decay of a physical body.

Maybe multiple events are the right combination: a get-together at someone’s house in the immediate aftermath, a larger memorial service a few weeks later, some kind of less formal social gathering with food afterwards.

……

None of this seems worth fighting with family members about. In some cases, the right fit for the family’s needs will be a formal funeral within 24 hours with half the town in attendance.

But in cases where the key people agree that a simpler process will do, the headspace and money can probably be better used to meet the family’s other needs.

Previously:
On grieving timelines
Your wedding doesn’t have to be that great