The Good Funeral Guide

Pic

Some reflections here by Guardian commenter StoPeriyali on the way we do cremation in the UK:

Having been to several (far too many) crematorium services, I have always felt the moment when the curtain closes and they start to hoosh you all out ready for the next one, is utterly dismal, flat, anti-climactic, unsatisfying. You have to leave knowing the box is still just right there, behind a bit off curtain, and it feels like you’re abandoning the person right at the last bitter moment, and doesn’t feel any kind of closure, unlike if you could see the white heat and the coffin ignite.

When it’s me I would like to be put in old family dinghy with all my favourite treats and sentimentally valued stuff, set alight with something spectacularly flammable, and pushed off with sails set towards the Western horizon at sunset.”

This dismal process was what was putting me off cremating one of my late cats. Belize, a splendid Siamese, was the cat of my prime but she finally died during weather like the present and I couldn’t face digging a grave in the slushy mud. I took her to pets’ crematorium and the experience was quite the opposite from the standard human crematorium. I got to lay her out as if she were asleep – all curled up – and surrounded her with flowers. Then she was placed on a sheet of metal and slid into the cremation area (not so much an oven, more open). And then – by now H and S kicked in and this was being seen on a screen – she was seen to burst into flames. It was magnificent and I thought of Patroclus’ funeral pyre in the Iliad. She went to glory!

The kindness of the crematorium staff towards the owners of the pets was exemplary and the day which started out so sadly ended with the feeling I’d done the right thing by a well-loved pet. I think we probably need to actually see flames consuming the coffin to achieve the sense of closure (can’t think of a better expression but appreciate it’s become hackneyed )

Source

The Natural Death Handbook, Fifth Edition

A thoroughly updated and revised edition of the Natural Death Centre‘s celebrated handbook. Now presented alongside a new collection of essays on death, dying and funeral practices by doctors, historians, authors, poets, theologians and artists including Richard Barnett, David Jay Brown, Dr Sheila Cassidy, Charles Cowling, Bill Drummond, Stephen Grasso, Maggi Hambling, Graham Harvey, Gary Lachman, Nick Reynolds, and Dignity in Dying.

It’s out in May 2012!

Two interesting crematorium stories for you.

The Sydney Morning Herald, in a story colourfully titled Crematoriums add corpse power to electricity grid, reports that Durham (Eng) crematorium is planning to “use the heat generated during cremation to provide enough electricity to power 1500 televisions. A third burner is to be used to heat the site’s chapel and offices.” How the Grid sorts exclusive use for tellies is not described. But it’s an eminently pragmatic re-use of energy and we can only hope the commonsensical, channel-hopping folk of Durham go with it. Intriguing, isn’t it, how cremation is closing the gap on its greener competitors, Resomation and Promession?

Meanwhile, in the Midlands, there’s a naming tussle going on concerning the new crem being built midway between Stourport and Kidderminster. Wyre Forest District Council wants to call it Wyre Forest crematorium but, in a heartwringing plea, the burghers of Stourport have begged for it to be named after their town. Civic pride is involved, and the izzat of Stourport. Councillor Gary Talbot has issued this (rather foot-stamping?) entreaty: “It is in Stourport so I think it should be named after Stourport. The town deserves more recognition and respect. We get hit time and time again. If it was in Kidderminster, I don’t think it would be named after Wyre Forest.”

We had no idea that civic pride involves having a facility for incinerating the dead named after you. 

Source 1  Source 2

Did you know that earlier today, in the Indian state of Assam, a funeral was held that was expected to be the one of the largest the world has seen in recent years?

Yesterday the Times of Assam reported that:

Unofficial sources have claimed that the number has already crossed the number of attendees who paid the last respect to Late Princess Diana, Pope John Paul II, US president John F Kennedy, etc.

The subject of this grief and devotion is Bhupen Hazarika, the bard of Brahmaputra, who died earlier this week at the age of 86. The service had already been delayed by a day because of the large numbers attending and the Times of India reports that today:

Heartrending scenes were witnessed at the Gauhati University campus, close to the banks of the great Asian river Brahmaputra. As the funeral pyre was lit at 10.26 a.m., chants of ‘Bhupen Hazarika amar raho’ rent the air and people broke down, with some crying loudly and others barely managing to hold back their tears.

An overwhelmed Tej pleaded with the surging crowd to control themselves and maintain calm even as Hazarika’s companion of 40 years, Kalpana Lajmi, cried inconsolably, unable to check her emotions.

“I am speechless with the overwhelming response and love for my father,” an emotional Tej told IANS after performing the last rites of the 85-year-old legend.

An estimated 100,000 people were present at the funeral site, some atop trees, and others trying witness the last rites from every possible vantage point available in the area.

A 21-gun salute was offered by the Assam Police with doctors and forensic experts taking the foot impressions of the man for posterity.

Some vidoe footage of the ceremony can be found here:

I was struck by the way in which the family were close to Dr Hazarika’s body thoughout. In this brief video, the intimacy is very touching:

For the pyre enthusiasts amongst you the Assam tribune reports that:

The GU authorities too have arranged for about 60 to 70 kgs of sandal wood to prepare the pyre of the great artiste in keeping with his stature. The wood has been collected from the University Botanical Garden, said GU Vice Chancellor Prof Okhil Kumar Medhi.

But the best way to pay our tribute to him is through his music. It’s not the best recording but well worth a listen – and it does give you a sense of why his passing is so much mourned:

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

First, may I thank this blog’s host for encouraging me to think about my own expectations of funerals as a Catholic. One readily assumes theists and atheists approach funerals differently, just as we part ways on the subject of the soul’s life after the body’s death. Some non-believers might find following the (Requiem) Mass somewhat lacking in individuality, along with general obedience to rules/doctrine dictated by the traditions of organised religions. Conversely, some believers might look disapprovingly on the more unconventional civil funerals.

But there is consensus on either side of the faith fence that diversity is necessary to reflect the wishes of the deceased and their loved ones: angry atheists and theists who shout either ‘mumbo-jumbo’ or ‘sacrilege’ (Drs Richard Dawkins and Ian Paisley spring to mind) at their intellectual foe both border on fundamentalism of a kind, while the civilised approach is liberal in the true sense of the word – generous and broad-minded to others regardless of personal concepts of orthodoxy.

When such acceptance is a given in the context of funerals, we can dwell on the common ground of grieving for the deceased, and celebrating their life. However, just because one is not a meddler in the affairs of others doesn’t preclude holding firm views relating to oneself. When the Pope talks about ‘moral relativism’, he refers to the existential blurring of good and evil in society, not the fact that cultural differences result in a rich variety of beliefs and practices among decent, law-abiding folk.

What unites people of faith is the funeral as sacred rite, to be conducted with dignity because the body retains its sanctity as the holder of holy human life. For atheists, the profound significance of a life ending when a body ceases to function is keenly felt, too: they may not describe human life as ‘holy’ or believe in the eternity of the soul, but the physical and emotional loss remains, and the uniqueness of the deceased lives on in memory.

Divisions between devotees of civil and sacred funerals stem not from imposing their rules on others but the outmoded perception that this is the case. Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism mandate cremation, as destruction of the body is said to induce a feeling of detachment into the spirit, encouraging it to pass into the ‘other world’. Islam only allows burial. Burial is upheld by traditional Jews and Catholics, although the more modern members of these religions often choose cremation, with co-operation from their rabbis and priests – it’s not against the laws of church authorities.

I don’t hold that cremation is somehow less respectful of the body’s sanctity as the vessel of the soul. I also understand the pragmatic reasons why many Christians and non-Christians prefer cremation — immediacy over slow decomposition, ecology, upkeep of graves, shortage of burial space, and especially cost.

However, it certainly appeals to a Catholic sense of harmony that any cremation follows the funeral mass, not the other way round, so the body, not the ashes, is present for blessing and prayers. The body that received the Holy Spirit through baptism far better symbolises the ‘sleeping’ person awaiting resurrection.

The Church also requests ashes be buried in an urn within a consecrated grave, although some modern Catholics, in line with their peers in secular society, might see the beauty of throwing cremains to the wind in a natural setting cherished by the deceased.

As with resistance to modern trends in other areas of life, the Church’s rules have been formed over centuries, which is not to say they don’t evolve. There have been times in history when the Church used power, as well as intellectual evangelisation, to convert pagans – who could have practised anything from cremation to mummification. And in more recent post-Enlightenment times the Church sometimes perceived cremation as a ‘masonic’ plot to deny bodily resurrection and defame Christian teaching.

Nowadays, few Catholics see funeral diversity as spiritually misguided or a personal threat. But, as a member of a church one listens to that church’s teaching. There’s certainly no harm in opting for burial in consecrated ground.

That Brits are born with an acute and possibly pathological sensitivity to absurdity is well known. The Great American Funeral has engendered great and gloriously funny books by Jessica Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, neither of which had more than minimal success in laughing Americans out of their (perceived) absurdity.

There is method in the funerary lunacies of the GAF, of course: they come at a cost to the client. The recent rise in the cremation rate has filled most US undertakers with helpless economic terror, and it is interesting that they have taken no lessons in adapting to this from Brit undertakers, who have been making a tidy living out of burial deniers for as long as anyone can remember.

The GAF has, it seems, some capability to evolve. Burning necessity has begotten ingenious adaptation of the hearse, conserving it as the only fit and proper vehicle not only for the reverent transportation of cosmetised corpses but also the burned and reduced version, cremains. No glove compartment or passenger seat of the family car for them; only the full hush and awe will suffice. And it’s billable!

My thanks to Sarah Murray, author of Making an Exit, for bringing these hearses, more correctly termed urn enclaves, to my attention. She adds: ‘It was explained to me that urn enclaves have “adjustable bier pins” accommodating different sizes and shapes. They flip up from the floor of the hearse and are cleverly stowed again when the vehicle needs to carry a coffin. One brochure tells me that if you don’t want to buy a new hearse or go to the expense or trouble or getting yours refitted, “portable urn enclaves are also available for funeral directors who wish to extend the service of their existing coaches.”‘ Coaches, forsooth!!

Find another YouTube clip (unembeddable) here.

William Price on his deathbed

Good piece here on William Price, the father of cremation. If ever there was a more colourful life… The title of this post quotes his last words

It was a deepseated thing, this duty we felt we owed our dead. A sacred duty – literally. It goes back to the beginning of time. Throughout human history the dead body has always been treated in accordance with sacred diktat, its valedictory hullabaloos performed by shaman or sorcerer, soothsayer or priest. For the full extent of human memory the bodies of the dead have been disposed of in places held sacred – demarcated patches of ground, rivers.

We’re getting much too evolved for all that rannygazoo and mystery-making juju now. Too sensible, too pragmatic. Oh yes, we can see a dead body for what it is. A dead body. A waste disposal matter after it’s had its corneas and other useful stuff taken out. The growth of cremation may well have hastened this thinking. Brutal. Rapid. Get your head around that and you’ll get your head around anything.

Well, that’s one way of looking at it. It’s the way of unemployed librarian and blogger Amy Campbell in the US.

It set me thinking. We don’t yet dispose of our dead by direct cremation as they increasingly do in the States. But what of our secular rituals, the ones performed by those possessed of no shamanic attributes – everyday unsanctified civvies like our own dear Gloriamundi? Are these ceremonies mere sentimental vestiges ripe for replacement by less formal, body-free celebrations of memory in restaurants, at tea parties, on picnics, over a couple of beers?

I wonder where we’re going. Take away the sacred and… Does that make all the difference?

Here’s some nasty journalistic furystirring from the Daily Mail under the headline Councils to stockpile bodies to cut the costs of cremation

Bodies will be stockpiled for cremation under new rules to cut costs and carbon emissions.

Rather than being cremated straight after a funeral, corpses will be stored for days in coffins or body bags in local authority buildings so they can be incinerated in one go.

Council bosses claim the decision to use cremators during one period rather than after every service will cut down on energy bills and reduce their carbon footprint.

This is a reference to the practice of holding over, discussed in this blog in September. The Mail wails on:

The policy will leave families having to return up to a week later to the crematorium to collect the ashes, causing unnecessary additional stress … It is not the first time that councils have been accused of trying to profit from funeral services.

You get the picture? Stockpiles of corpses, like at Buchenwald. In back rooms at the town hall. Held there for a week.

A Conservative MP called Philip Davies has obliged with a ludicrous quote: ‘Councils have lost sight of what they were set up to do in the first place – serve the people and not obsess about climate change.’

A serious subject turned into horror fodder. Read the whole story here. Read as many of the comments you can bear.

The prospect of Promession, the brainchild of Susanne Wiighe-Masak, has been around for a few years now. It offers an extremely attractive alternative to cremation. It is clean. It is gentle. Above all, it enables us to return to the earth in an environmentally useful way. If you want to remind yourself how it works, go here.

The method of preparing a body for disposal by freeze drying it was invented in the US by Philip Backman. He patented it in 1978, and that patent has now expired. Backman’s proposed method of reducing the body to particles left a little to be desired (I have emphasised the key passage in bold):

“A further step entails subjecting the intact, frozen body to fractionalizing means reducing same to a particulate state. This step may be termed surface enhancement i.e., an increase in surface area of the remains is provided. Existing mechanical means such as that used in the reduction of organic or inorganic substances may be utilized in this step. By way of example, a hammer mill may be utilized.”

Promessa’s breakthrough was to develop a process whereby the body can be reduced to particles by means not of  hammer mill but vibration.

At the end of last year or the beginning of this (I can’t remember) I cast doubt on whether Promessa had, actually, managed to perfect this most important stage of the process. This earned me a letter from Promessa’s lawyers. I withdrew the blog post and stood back.

Yesterday I was able to go and hear Susanne Wiighe-Masak speak at the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management (ICCM) annual conference. For this I am indebted to the kindness of Julie Dunk, Technical Services and Events Manager at the ICCM. It was my chance to apologise to Susanne in person, and also to listen also to the presentation by Richard Maclean, Business Development Director of Cryomation Ltd, a UK firm which has developed its own, rival freeze-drying technology.

Susanne spoke with a passion born of idealism and showed us the short film above describing the promession process. Richard Maclean spoke with the detachment of a technocrat. He outlined the development history of the Cryomation process and described briefly how it reduces the body to a ‘safe and sterile powder’ using heat and compression. He told us that Cryomation Ltd had tried to reduce a frozen body to particles by means of vibration but had failed.

Both processes have attracted interest in countries around the world. Each developer will bring their Promator and Cryomator, respectively, to market imminently.