• Links to funeral and memorial services
• Planning for a Funeral
ADEC, the Thanatology Association (links to resources)
Alternative Funerals (All Things Considered)
Biogift (whole body donation, for medical research and training)
Caring for your own dead (states that have laws on the subject)
A consumer's guide to arranging a funeral (New York State Dept of Health)
Death and Dying (Hinduism Today)
Funeral Consumers Alliance (learn state laws; order Before I Go You Should Know kit)
FUNERALS: A CONSUMER GUIDE (Federal Trade Commission)--be an informed funeral planner (see excerpt below)
Funeral Rituals (Michael Kearl's Guide to Thanatology, the Sociology of Death and Dying)
Jewish Burial Societies (All Things Considered, 1998)
Releasing the Spirit: A Lesson in Native American Funeral Rituals (The Director)
Origin of the 21-gun salute, explained
Preparation of a Muslim's body for burial
Religious views on cremation (Wikipedia--not good enough for scholarly research, but not a bad place to start)
State laws on personal preferences for funerals, etc. Funeral Consumers Alliance)
The Undertaking (PBS Frontline program featuring Thomas Lynch, funeral director in a small Michigan town, documenting funeral arrangements and families' reactions to grief), watch online or buy the DVD
Veteran burial benefits (Military Connections)
(Advice from the Federal Trade Commission)
1. Shop around in advance. Compare prices from at least two funeral homes. Remember that you can supply your own casket or urn.
2. Ask for a price list. The law requires funeral homes to give you written price lists for products and services.
3. Resist pressure to buy goods and services you don't really want or need.
4. Avoid emotional overspending. It's not necessary to have the fanciest casket or the most elaborate funeral to properly honor a loved one.
5. Recognize your rights. Laws regarding funerals and burials vary from state to state. It's a smart move to know which goods or services the law requires you to purchase and which are optional.
6. Apply the same smart shopping techniques you use for other major purchases. You can cut costs by limiting the viewing to one day or one hour before the funeral, and by dressing your loved one in a favorite outfit instead of costly burial clothing.
7. Plan ahead. It allows you to comparison shop without time constraints, creates an opportunity for family discussion, and lifts some of the burden from your family.
Tract
By William Carlos Williams
I will teach you my townspeople
how to perform a funeral—
for you have it over a troop
of artists—
unless one should scour the world—
you have the ground sense necessary.
See! the hearse leads.
I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ's sake not black—
nor white either—and not polished!
Let it be weathered—like a farm wagon—
with gilt wheels (this could be
applied fresh at small expense)
or no wheels at all:
a rough dray to drag over the ground.
Knock the glass out!
My God—glass, my townspeople!
For what purpose? Is it for the dead
to look out or for us to see
how well he is housed or to see
the flowers or the lack of them—
or what?
To keep the rain and snow from him?
He will have a heavier rain soon:
pebbles and dirt and what not.
Let there be no glass—
and no upholstery, phew!
and no little brass rollers
and small easy wheels on the bottom—
my townspeople what are you thinking of?
A rough plain hearse then
with gilt wheels and no top at all.
On this the coffin lies
by its own weight.
No wreaths please
especially no hot house flowers.
Some common memento is better,
something he prized and is known by:
his old clothes—a few books perhaps—
God knows what! You realize
how we are about these things
my townspeople—
something will be found—anything
even flowers if he had come to that.
So much for the hearse.
For heaven's sake though see to the driver!
Take off the silk hat! In fact
that's no place at all for him—
up there unceremoniously
dragging our friend out to his own dignity!
Bring him down—bring him down!
Low and inconspicuous! I'd not have him ride
on the wagon at all—damn him—
the undertaker's understrapper!
Let him hold the reins
and walk at the side
and inconspicuously too!
Then briefly as to yourselves:
Walk behind—as they do in France,
seventh class, or if you ride
Hell take curtains! Go with some show
of inconvenience; sit openly—
to the weather as to grief.
Or do you think you can shut grief in?
What—from us? We who have perhaps
nothing to lose? Share with us
share with us—it will be money
in your pockets.
Go now
I think you are ready.
