In the Slender Margin: The Intimate Strangeness of Death and Dying
After the loss of her brother in her youth and 20 years working in a hospice, Eve Joseph writes lyrical essays on death, dying and living. http://evejoseph.com/
admin
The Mourner’s Dance: What We Do When People Die
“Like many Westerners at the turn of the 21st century, my family and I had not had much to do with death,” says author Katherine Ashenburg. “In their 20s, my daughters had four living grandparents. Hannah had been to only two funerals in her life. This was our first experience with sudden death at a … Read more
StoryCorps
StoryCorps—the organization that encourages us to “help create an archive of the wisdom of humanity”—now has an app available through Google Play and the App Store. Go to: https://storycorps.me/ One man recorded an interview he did with himself in hospital after being diagnosed and initially treated for an illness that could kill him: https://storycorps.me/interviews/excerpt-there-are-so-many-moments-i-wish-i… A young … Read more
A Will for the Woods
A Will for the Woods, which charts the story of Clark Wang, who was dying of lymphoma and wanted to organize his own green burial. http://www.awillforthewoods.com/#home
Crossings: A home funeral and green burial resource center.
“What is the single most prevalent fear for humans? Death. And what is the single most healing act available to humans? Love. In caring for the dead, we love. As an act of love, we are able to transform our overwhelming fear into something that fills us with awe.” http://www.crossings.net/index.html
A Family Undertaking
A movement in support of home burials in North America has gradually gained momentum over the past decade. Here’s one film that got the ball rolling, A Family Undertaking (2004), available on Netflix: http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/A-Family-Undertaking-POV/70038982 Also available here (a link through crossings.net) http://www.fanlight.com/catalog/films/374_afu.php
Tender Funerals: A Community Undertaking
A home-burial movement is getting started in Australia, too. This documentary profiles the work of those trying to reclaim the care of their dead from large funeral businesses who monopolize the industry across the country: Tender Funerals: A Community Undertaking
Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death
Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death by Joshua Slocum and Lisa Carlson (2011)—Slocum—once an investigative reporter who was shocked to learn how difficult it is to apprehend information the funeral industry routinely keeps from the public it serves—is now the executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance. Carlson is the executive director of … Read more
Grave Matters
Grave Matters: A Journey Through the American Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial by Mark Harris (2008)—Environmental journalist Harris follows families who opted out of chemical embalming and fancy caskets, elaborate and costly funerals, and who embraced instead a range of natural options. In Harris’s preface he says that green burials are “just … Read more
The American Way of Death
The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford (1964)—the classic exposé that reveals the inner workings of the American funeral industry with humour and insight. Robert Gottlieb says in his editor’s note in the edition of Mitford’s book published 36 years after the original (in 2000), “Unfortunately, the corrective is as necessary today as it … Read more
