An ongoing discussion

One of our readers, Edie Thomas, sent this thoughtful response to comments made by Thomas Friese.

I happened to come across a comment from Thomas Friese on your website regarding an article on March 8th called Crossings: Caring for our own at death. The comment was not too inappropriate, however, there are some comments that he made that I do not agree with and feel should not be on your site.

One comment is regarding land consumption and that green burials utilize too much valuable land space. He also discusses at length his issue with not marking the burial sites with any type of marker. He then states that determining a resolution to the land use and marker issue is something that needs to be addressed promptly. He includes his website address, which is to a website where you have to put in your personal information before you can even see any of his resolutions to the issues he brings up.

I understand his concern with these issues, but how he states that environmentalists are addressing the lands needs before the individual is a little critical and unnecessary. My opinion has always been that with the rate of growth we are seeing, there will be no green space left except graveyards and golf courses. With green burials, the graveyard has created a new image where people will want to go, and you do not necessarily have to go a "marker" that "belongs" to your family member. Just being in a natural setting will remind you of what your family member felt was important and help bring you closer to their memory.

I understand that some individuals will have a difficult time coming to terms with a newer way of thinking in regards to burial traditions. I also understand that green burials will grow and evolve with future needs. I don't understand how green burials that create open space are any different in terms of land use then graveyards with granite markers. Is he proposing that we utilize some form of the Tibetan sky burial for our future burial needs?

. . . I was mostly upset with the fact that he put (in) his website (address) and then when you look it up, you cannot find any information that he wants to discuss until you sign up. I actually did sign up and I still have not gotten my password sent to me. I understand that I should probably be directing my frustration at him. I just wanted to make you aware of his comments.

Sincerely,
Edie Thomas

Thank you, Ms. Thomas for granting permission to post your comments.

A Family Undertaking

What is old is often new again. Elizabeth Westrate's "A Family Undertaking" uncovers a growing social trend: the home funeral movement. More often, Americans are choosing to do it themselves when it comes to burying loved ones and easing their own grief. Far from being a radical innovation, however, keeping funeral rites in the family or among friends is exactly how death was handled for most of pre-twentieth century America.

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The Surprising Satisfactions of a Home Funeral

When his father and father-in-law died within days of each other, author Max Alexander learned much about the funeral industry

By Max Alexander, Smithsonian Magazine, March 2009

Two funerals, two days apart, two grandfathers of my two sons. When my father and father-in-law died in the space of 17 days in late 2007, there wasn't a lot of time to ruminate on the meaning of it all. My wife, Sarah, and I were pretty busy booking churches, consulting priests, filing newspaper notices, writing eulogies, hiring musicians, arranging military honor guards and sorting reams of paperwork (bureaucracy outlives us all), to say nothing of having to wrangle last-minute plane tickets a week before Christmas. But all that was a sideshow. Mostly we had to deal with a couple of cold bodies.

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Lakin's "do-it-yourself" funerals

Funeral Options

Funeral planning is less stressful and can cost less if planned ahead. Many people do not know they can plan a funeral or burial that is out of the ordinary or alternative to more familiar services or arrangements. For those reasons this information has been prepared for Consumers. This is not an endorsement of any one approach over the other but simply an offering of information that illustrates choice since we believe it is everyone's choice to live as one chooses until one dies. Why not have choices with one's funeral and burial planning as well? This tool may help you accomplish those goals that are within your power. For more information

Funerals: A Consumer's Guide

Conversion Coffins

After his father's death, Chuck Lakin, a reference librarian at Miller, wondered if there was a way a family might play a bigger part in a loved one's funeral. "My father was at home for the last six weeks of his life, we were all touching him when he died. Then the funeral director walks in, takes over, and four days later, we had a box of ashes," Lakin recalled. Dissatisfied with the mechanical nature of modern-day funerals, Lakin decided to help people make them more personal. "There are only two states that require a funeral director," he explained. "In Maine, you can keep the body at home, and deliver it to the cemetery yourself." For more information

Author: Neha Sud '05