For more information about “home funerals” and “caring for your own dead,” please see the After Death Home Care video on YouTube. This video is 18 minutes long and provides an excellent introduction to Home Funeral and Green Burial for family members and friends of those choosing these options, or a conversation starter for a presentation. It contains:
An interview with Laura Bailey and Beth Barbeau, who had a home funeral for their mother;
An interview with licensed funeral director Mike Mitchell, who has assisted many families who chose home funeral and/or green burial, and who’s funeral home carries some green burial products;
An interview with a friend planning her own funeral;
An interview with William Burr, director of The Preserve at All Saints Cemetery in Waterford, MI, which has a large, natural burial section incorporating many green practices.
Order your copy now!
Other home funeral websites and resources:
National Home Funeral Alliance
Threshold Care Circle (They have an excellent planning booklet and step-by-step guide to caring for the body)
A Sacred Moment
Crossings
Final Passages
Undertaken with Love
Natural Undertaking
Caring Connections, for information about state specific Advance Directives
Peaceful Crossings An enlightened and proactive alternative to conventional funeral planning
Kincaraco Green Burial Shrouds
The following links contain personal stories of those who have cared for their own dead at home after death:
Death can be a moment that connects us, even as it parts us
by Anne O’Connor Minnesota Public Radio News
My Stillborn Child’s Life After Death
This is a very emotional story of my cousin’s newborn loss. I caution you not to read the comments if you are grieving, however, because most are very insensitive.
NY Times article, July 20, 2009
Joanne Macy’s story
A Final Cocoon, NY Times Nov. 10, 2010
Chicago Tribune article about a Home Funeral Guide in Illinois
Seattle Times, 2008 article about “death midwife” Jerrigrace Lyons
Also available at some libraries is the following PBS special about caring for your own dead: