Sunday, June 05, 2005

Funerals at home

Like the hospice movement, which since the 1960s has helped the terminally ill die peacefully at home, the home funeral movement aims to protect what it calls individuals' 'right' to care for their own at death. At its most abstract, promoters say, it hopes to dispel the fear and denial that accompany an institutionalized approach to death, and return life's final act to its historical position as a natural, profound and private event.LINK

We recently had a baptism at home for our newest grandchild, but it never occurred to me to have a funeral at home. At first blush I don't find a problem. After all, the funeral industry was not an industry until what we like to think of as "modern" times. Washing and preparing a body for burial was at one time as ordinary as childbirth. I have to think about this one for a while.

Tip Jarvis

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