What’s
a Death Midwife? Inside the Alternative Death Care Movement
From
funeral cooperatives to green burials, there's a kinder, gentler, less
expensive way to die.
Over
the smell of coffee and freshly baked tarts, she was going to advise a client
on how best to host a special event at her home, helping coordinate everything
from the logistics of the ceremony, to how to dress the guest of honor. People
might cry, they might laugh, and all attention would be on the person of the
hour—only that person would never see, hear, or enjoy the festivities, because
they would be dead.
“People
looked at me like I had two heads when I said, ‘Keep the body at home after the
person dies,’” says Barrett, a Seattle-based funeral director and certified
“death midwife.” “For families who want it, they should have the right to do
it.” Barrett has been practicing home funerals in the area since 2006 through
her business, A Sacred Moment. In a home funeral service, the body is either
brought back to the family from the place of death or stays at home if the
person died there. The family then washes the body, in part to prepare it for
viewing and in part as a ritual.
“It’s
really the way we used to do it,” says Barrett. To Barrett and many other
professionals who are offering alternatives to the more status-oriented,
profit-driven funeral industry, it’s time to rethink how we handle death. Read the complete article at -- http://www.yesmagazine.org/inside-the-alternative-death-care-movement-20150807
Comments
Post a Comment