A Family Undertaking
Kottke posted a link yesterday to photos of people just before and just after they died. It reminded me of a documentary I watched the other night from PBS’ P.O.V. series called A Family Undertaking, about the growing home funeral movement.
After the civil war, American funerals moved out of the home and largely into the hands of undertakers, now a large industrial funeral complex. As a person who’s seen plenty of open casket services, my first thoughts were “Eew.” But I found myself strangely touched by these families, and surprised by the dignity in their home funerals. Gone were the artificial parlors with their ostentatious floral arrangements, plaster columns and faux victorian furnishings. There were no grim undertakers or officiaries lurking about.
Two people are followed before and after death. They seem at peace with death. They help their families make arrangements. The one gentleman, a retired rancher, brands his own casket with his son and grandsons.
The funerals really seemed more like celebration than a somber occasion. Sure there were people crying, but their grief was so much more natural. They had time to say goodbye, no people in white coats had come to rush their loved ones out of the house on the wheels of a clanking gurney. There was no fear. They smiled, and tenderly placed flowers in the hands of the deceased. Their homemade caskets were part scrap book and that cast all your friends signed in third grade. Without garrish funerary makeup the bodies looked peaceful instead of like wax zombies.
The film contrasts these families with a funeral industry conference. It’s reminiscent of a boat show. Shellacked people in suits hawk titanium “business class” urns, candles that burn for 10 years, and industrial strength embalming fluids.
We later see a group of mortuary students poking and prodding a body with strange, violent instruments. They pierce, they puncture, they drain, they sew and they sanitize. There is no love, and certainly no dignity, in this preparation.
While I’m not in any rush to have a home funeral, this film definitely made me question why we throw out our loved ones’ bodies like the Wednesday trash, and trust complete strangers with their care. Years of reliance on the industrial funeral complex has made us afraid of our dead, we forget that birth and death both used to happen in the home and were normal parts of life.
