Common Ground: Death Midwifery and the Home Funeral Revolution

April 2007

Death Midwifery and the Home Funeral Revolution

Taking the funeral director and the funeral home out of the picture

By Bill Strubbe

The first pioneering step Jerrigrace Lyons took in becoming a home funeral facilitator was in Sebastopol eleven years ago not out of any pre-existing desire or any forward-thinking business plan, but out of an immediate, unforeseen need. It was the sudden death of her Reiki mentor and close friend, Carolyn Whiting, that inspired her to found death midwifery and reinvent the long lost concept of the American home funeral.

Whiting had left explicit instructions: no embalming, no autopsy, no mortuary — loved ones should bathe and dress her, followed by an intimate home memorial. She then wanted her ashes scattered around the world on her friends’ travels.

Jerrigrace’s apprehension of handling a corpse soon dissipated, along, she says, with the fear of the subject of death itself, as she and Carolyn’s other friends and relatives attended to her body. “The privacy of Carolyn’s home lent itself to creating a sacred and intimate atmosphere in which to express all the emotions — grief, pain, love and even joy — that washed like waves over our souls, helping us cope with and accept the death of our precious friend,” says Jerrigrace. That profound experience motivated her to found Final Passages, her home funeral service, so she could offer others what she ended up providing to her deceased friend.

Along with her partner, Mark Hill, she’s helped “midwife” nearly 300 final passages. “It was a life-changing experience and it awakened in me a passion to share with others how empowering and beneficial the home funeral was and the fact that it is completely legal in California.”

In all but a handful of states it’s permissible for a body to remain at home — or be transported there from a hospital or coroners — for a home wake. In California, a Permit for Disposition is required to transport the body across county or state lines and a Certificate of Death must be properly, and precisely, filled out. Contrary to popular notion, embalming, begun during the Civil War when corpses were shipped long distances, is not required in any state. By 1920, embalming in the U.S. became almost universal, adding unnecessary expense. Further, where a mainstream mortuary burial can easily cost $10,000, a home funeral followed by cremation can cost under $1000.

Now, death midwifery — the employ of a person like Jerrigrace to assist with paperwork, facilitate the transport and the care of the body for a home ritual or wake — is a component of the larger, burgeoning green burial movement (also known as the natural burial movement) that leaves the $20 billion-a-year funeral industry out, or at least on the margins, of the equation. It includes the trend toward cremation in order to preserve open space, or alternative to that, green cemetery sites that eschew embalming, cement liners and the interment of mass-produced coffins with their metals and precious woods; for burial in simple pine or cardboard coffins or shrouds that are biodegradable.

Along with bypassing the sticker shock of funeral home care are the emotional benefits of the home funeral. Just ask Becky Thomas, whose brother-in-law took a suicide leap from the Golden Gate Bridge.

When Jerrigrace arrived, Becky and her husband were still in shock and exhausted, but felt a modicum of consolation that a home funeral perfectly suited Don, as he always tried to minimize his ecological footprint. They fixed up the garage at their Santa Rosa home, hung sheets up on walls, laid carpet down, strung twinkle lights, placed photos, and laid Don out on a mattress placed on top of a massage table.

“No one could believe it had happened. We spent a long time washing and touching Don and in doing so were more able to come to grips with the reality of his death. We needed more time than would have been available at a funeral home,” she says.

“Some family members had reservations; concerns about what shape his body might be in and how the children — then three and nine and who were very close to Don — would react. But Jerrigrace explained that children take their cues from adults, and they were totally okay with it,” Becky recalled. “They periodically went out to the garage and would say, ‘Hi, Uncle Don’ and pat him.”

Through the Victorian age, death was a reality that children were not shielded from. As a matter of course, families lovingly cleansed the body of sweat, saliva, tears, and other bodily fluids (the bladder empties at death), dressed the dead, lay them out in the front parlor for a wake — an oftentimes boisterous gathering of eating, drinking, storytelling and emoting, typically lasting several days. By the early 1900s, however, funeral parlors (the term “living room” came into vogue when the editor of a national magazine banned the word “parlor” from its pages for its close association with the dead) came into favor, thus distancing society from death.

One of Jerrigrace’s Final Passages midwife workshop alums is Nora Cedarwind Young, a green burial educator and a hospice chaplain in Chimacum, Washington. “I love creating ceremonies of all kinds, but my heart truly lies in the path of the deathwalker. My belief system, deeply grounded in the cycles of nature, teaches me that death is as sacred and as common as birth. My passion as a priestess and minister is to reclaim traditions that we gave away to the death-for-profit industry.”

Jerrigrace’s workshops cover such practical matters as cleaning the body; anointing with scented waters or oils; the particulars of rigor mortis (initially the body stiffens, then later relaxes again); the proper positioning of dry ice under the organs; and an intimate view of a death midwife’s travel kit, including such practical items as medical gloves, adult diapers, nail clippers, alcohol, dry shampoo, and make-up, along with paraphernalia of a more esoteric nature — music CDs, rattles, feathers, and essential oils. The kit’s most disconcerting items were the X-Acto knife, suturing kit and Krazy Glue; a death midwife might be called upon to close up wounds.

A great admirer of Jerrigrace, Young calls her mentor the “rebirther of the modern death midwife” movement. “People today know more about assembling a stereo or computer than facilitating the death of a loved one. By educating ourselves, we’re more capable to deal with grief and heal and also to educate others about green burial choices.”

Jackie Kramer’s 90-year-old father, Irving, died in late January at home in Sonoma from lung cancer. “He hadn’t requested anything as far as a service,” she recalls, “and until the 11th hour, I was conflicted about what to do. Jerrigrace told me how lovely it would be, but I didn’t really believe her.”

On the evening of his death, Jackie decided to proceed with a home funeral. Irving’s body was bathed with lavender water, dressed in a favorite outfit, his mouth closed. The next morning Jerrigrace arrived with the cardboard casket that family and friends decorated, placing in it items symbolizing his life.

“You think of death as this horrible thing, but his passing and funeral were natural, beautiful, a wonderful time for us,” Jackie recalls. “He’d been in a lot of pain and it was so nice to see how lovely and light-filled his face became after it relaxed. I was never that uptight about death before, but now I’m an advocate of home funerals. It gave me a chance to experience death as a part of life, instead of running away from it. It takes away the fear and the taboo of talking about it, and is such a powerful opportunity for healing and growth.”

Says 59-year-old Jerrigrace, “The baby boomers are seeking personal and meaningful death rituals and ceremonies much like the home wedding, home birth and home schooling movements they spearheaded in the ’60s. Part of the boomers’ legacy is reclaiming sacred rituals; bringing family and community together to participate in one of life’s most important rites-of-passages.”

Bill Strubbe is a freelance writer in Oakland. He took one of Jerrigrace’s four-day seminars three years ago, after the death of his mother.

For more info about Final Passages, home and family funerals, in-home after-death care and classes on becoming a death midwife, visit finalpassages.org

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