I picked up the book Grave Matters: A Journey through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural way of Burial from the library because I’ve always been interested in funerals and the funeral industry.
Grave Matters by Mark Harris is an excellent, excellent book. In a straight-forward, unbiased way, he starts off with a family’s typical experience if they go for what is now our “traditional” funeral experience–embalming, a burial vault, a casket–and then discusses several alternatives to this. Home funerals, burials at sea, cremation. These seven more “green” alternatives to pumping a body full of chemicals are not touted as “better.” Instead, Harris trusts the reader to draw their own conclusions and their own opinions as to how they want their body to be handled after their death.
Not only was this a look into funerals, it was also an examination of how families handle grief. It completely changed my opinion as to what I want to have happen to me after I die.
While it’s not the most pleasant experience to think about, this is an important book and a fascinating one at that.
September 26, 2007 at 2:54 pm
If you liked this, you might want to try Stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers by Mary Roach. (Note: do not, not, NOT read the chapter on decomposition during dinner. SERIOUSLY.) Thanks for the review, though. I’ll check this one out.
(This is the moobabe Jess, BTW. Just a different e-mail address.)
September 28, 2007 at 2:14 am
This is interesting and I will probably now read the book. My father died this time last year. I was suprised my my reaction as to how his body was handled. He was cremated. I thought I would be cremated too. Now I don’t know. I felt really protective of his body. Like I should stay with it until it was safe and “disposed” of. I didn’t like the idea of his body being in a warehouse waiting to be burned. It wasn’t an association with him still being him, per se. If you know what I mean. It felt more primal. It’s hard to describe, but I felt like I was a member of a tribe and this body was important and needed to be protected until it was properly taken care of. That’s the only way I can explain it. And then the idea of the heat required. I just didn’t like that idea at all! I mean, I could see if we built a fire and placed the body on it and watched the smoke, etc. That I could deal with. But the tempature they use … it just really, really got to me. So I decided I won’t be cremated. However, I don’t want to hand out in the ground forever either. I want to natually decompose into the earth … like I believe I’m suppose to. So thanks for sharing this review.