Notes from The Field, Issue 3

This month's Notes From The Field is a special edition from NHFA president, Sarah Crews. We hope you enjoy this special longer essay write-up, and we hope it inspires you to reach out and forge your own community. connections.

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Late on a Sunday evening I received a message from my husband that someone by the name of Andy had left a message on our phone interested in learning about home funerals. He said his father had Stage 4 cancer and he was hoping to handle most of the funeral arrangements himself. Andy was calling from Wichita, Kansas. Although I live close by, I happened to be away in Michigan at the time helping take care of my father in the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Sensing the urgency in Andy’s message, I called him back immediately.

Andy’s father had requested that he be buried in a plain pine box at the cemetery in Burlington, Kansas where his parents were laid to rest.  Andy had found plans on how to make a coffin on the website of Piedmont Coffins, the company in North Carolina, founded by Donald Byrne. Don and his wife, are long time members and supporters of the NHFA. When Don realized that Andy was contacting him from Kansas he gave him my name and contact number. Don told Andy that I could tell him more about home funerals and what was possible beyond making the burial box.

Andy told me that his father was currently in the hospital but would be coming home on hospice care. We discussed the differences in access to the body if his father were to die in the hospital. I informed him of his rights to custody and how hospital release policy may conflict with that right. I told him about how the main legal requirement that must be completed at the time of death is filing the death certificate and that it was possible to do so himself. I filled him in on after-death care basics and encouraged him to make arrangements directly with the cemetery. Most importantly, I relayed the message that there was no need to rush after his father died. I asked him to talk with the hospital about taking the time they needed to be with him after his death and whether it would be possible to move him to another room if the bed he was in was needed for another patient.

Upon hanging up we figured we’d have a few days to work out the details. When I woke up the following morning there was a text message from Andy saying that his father had died in the middle of the night. I called Andy immediately. As it was, the family, especially Andy’s mother was not prepared to bring his body home and care for him there. They had been present at the bedside and took time to simply sit and be present. The hospital had a morgue with refrigeration and were willing to hold him for 24 hours, at which time, they told Andy, he would have to have a funeral director pick up the body as was their policy. 

By mid-morning Andy and his brother had purchased the wood and were making their father’s burial box in Andy’s garage. He contacted the cemetery who were willing to receive the body directly from the family (transporting the deceased is legal in Kansas without a transit permit) but they did require the purchase of a burial vault. The grave would be ready in two days, but not before the 24 hours that the hospital had said they could keep the body. He had a conversation with an administrator at the hospital in the Risk Management division who was uncertain about Andy’s insistence that they did not want to be forced to use a Funeral Director and were handling the funeral arrangements themselves. Although I had given Andy the statute number that guarantees funeral rights to the next of kin, he was feeling a little out of his depth on this one, so I agreed to talk to the representative. 

I introduced myself as the president of the board of the NHFA and assured him that what Andy was asking to do was entirely legal, that the legal requirement of filing the death certificate had already been set in motion and arranged by my contact in the office of Vital Statistics in Topeka, and gave him her name and number. I said that it would be very helpful if the hospital agreed to keep the body for one more day so that Andy could pick his father up on the morning of the funeral and drive him up to Burlington for the burial. He kindly agreed to all of it. 

As the public is often unaware of what is legal and possible when a loved one dies, so too are many people working in administrative positions in hospitals, nursing facilities, and hospice. As advocates we must be prepared to step in with knowledge of the law, compassion for the families of the deceased and the confidence to communicate with authority without being confrontational. Sometimes it’s as simple as communicating respectfully about the rights of the family and finding the ways we can work together to help.

I thought about Andy all day on Wednesday, the day of the burial, knowing that he was returning to the hospital, that he and his family would be placing his father in the coffin he had built as was his father’s wish, and driving it up to the cemetery.
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The next day Andy sent me a photo of him standing with his wife next to the beautiful handmade coffin that rested on the lowering device above the grave. He wrote, “It went really well. There were about 20 people there. I was beaming with pride.” 

I share this story to emphasize the variable ways a home funeral can take place and the role of the home funeral guide. Tending to the after-death care of a loved one can take many forms. As guides means we need to drop our own ideas of what we might do in a similar situation and meet the needs of the people who call on us.  Andy and his family chose not to wrangle with the hospital over bringing his body home and caring for him there. However, they felt strongly about not using a funeral home and needed to have clear communications with the hospital regarding storing the body after they had taken the time they needed to sit with him after he took his last breath.  All of the guidance I provided to Andy took place over the phone. 

Until the very night his father died, Andy had no idea that he would be able to make, not only the coffin, but all the funeral arrangements himself. With a little help from an informed advocate, within about 48 hours, he had filed the death certificate, made all the burial plans the cemetery, got the hospital to agree to hold his father’s body until he could pick it up, and transported his father to the cemetery in his own vehicle. You bet he was beaming with pride! Andy not only honored his father’s wishes by making the plain pine box he requested, but gained strength and healing in taking care of every detail in laying him to rest. 

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Sarah Crews is the founder and director of Heart Land Prairie Cemetery, the first all-natural burial ground in Kansas. The cemetery is also a prairie restoration project. Sarah has been a member of the NHFA since 2010 and has served on the board since 2013. Sarah has also been a hospice volunteer, volunteer coordinator, bereavement counselor, and arts instructor for people living with dementia and other conditions that limit expressive capacity. She believes deeply that tending to the sacred task of after-death care is transformative and healing for families and society as a whole. Sarah can think of no better way to be part of that transformation than serving the mission of the NHFA, educating, providing guidance to and advocating for those who choose to care for their own loved ones at death.Sarah@homefuneralalliance.org

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