I loved this article. I wonder what TX laws are. It was different, the funeral director acknowledged, yet not as different as my father-in-laws passage. Home after-death care is not for everyone or every situation, but there is a middle ground. Before my dads church service, the funeral director confided to me that he was exhausted: I got a call at midnight to pick up a body in Holland, a town 30 miles away. That night had brought a major snowstorm. You drove through that storm in the middle of the night to get a body? I asked. He shrugged, explaining that more people these days are dying at home, and when they die, the family wants the body removed immediately. Usually they call 911, he said. It occurred to me that if more Americans spent more time with their dead—at least until the next morning—they would come away with a new respect for life, and possibly a larger view of the world. After Pakistans Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, I saw a clip of her funeral. They had put her in a simple wooden coffin. Hey, I said to my son, we could have built that. Read more: smithsonianmag/arts-culture/the-surprising-satisfactions-of-a-home-funeral-53172008/#ixzz2rcjg8Taj Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12!: bit.ly/1cGUiGv Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 18:12:00 +0000
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