In the last days of December 2022, there was an accident on one of the main highways going through Greenville, Michigan. It involved a car turning and a semi-truck that did not stop. An elderly couple, with two children, three grandchildren, and a soccer team of great grandchildren, died upon impact.

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It was a great fortune that they had pre-paid for their funeral and made it known what they wanted their kin to do with their bodies as there were more options than the family were prepared for and so many things that had to be dealt with, such as canceling internet policies, finding current life insurance policies, and going through the clothes and belongings. While the children argued about funeral arrangements and whether to display their severely damaged parents or not (ultimately deciding against traumatizing their younger family members and leaving a viewing to be a private family affair for the older generations), the grandchildren started to clean up 70-years’ worth of collections and junk. In America, a country obsessed and terrified of death, there are only a couple of days that a job will allow someone to take off when a loved one dies. As if everything that is involved when someone dies, and the grief, will be wrapped up by the end of the week.

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When did we start to limit the amount of time we give the bereaved to grieve and get used to a new normal? There is not a federal bereavement leave policy, so it is up to the state or company to decide. That means companies do not have to give an employee time off if someone important to them dies, unless they use any paid time off or sick time they might have (which companies might also not offer) (Nova, 2024). There was a time when it was normal to see widows dressed all in black, to take our time when it came to burying our dead. “They used to have this year of mourning. Folks wore armbands, black clothes, and played no music in the house. Black wreathes were hung at the front doors. The damaged were identified. For a full year you were allowed your grief – after a year, you would be back to normal” (Lynch 1998). Now, it is funerals arranged within days (good luck if it is across the country), straight back to work, and better have a smile for the customers. With the amount of people who die each year, maybe it is time America should have a federal bereavement policy.

In 2022, there were 3,279,857 people that died from an entire range of things in the United States (Kochanek, et al.). That is 3,279,857 bodies to take care of and funerals to have. The choices involved when someone dies are constantly evolving and services are constantly raising their prices. There used to be one set price for a funeral, now everything has to be itemized per American law. To be poor means limitations in the options available for a “good” funeral and it may mean choosing the cheapest option regardless of what one might actually wish for or what would bring ultimate comfort to the bereaved.

The Undertaker business is one of importance and will always be relevant. As Thomas Lynch says in his book, The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade, “We are forever dying of failures, of anomalies, of insufficiencies, of dysfunctions, arrests, accidents.” Heart disease is the highest cause of death in America (in 2022) based on the CDC’s studies. Cancer is the second highest, with accidental deaths coming in third. Every second of the day, someone dies from a heart attack, long-term lung cancer, a car accident, or even murder. Sometimes someone can be dying from cancer but then dies in a car accident instead. Death is inevitable and, one has no choice in how or when they die (normally). Those who take the choice out of the hands of fate are usually considered to be sick of mind and condemned or pitied heavily.

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There is more to undertaking than simply throwing an end-of-life party and burying or cremating remains. Mr. Lynch shares a touching story about one of his undertaker friends. There was a girl brutally murdered and her skull beaten in by a bat. Embalming is a procedure to delay the decay of a body and make it presentable for viewing. Lynch’s undertaker friend, Mr. Rice, spent eighteen hours putting this little girl back together, washing the wounds, piecing the skull back together, and dressing her so that a mom could see her baby again. Mr. Rice had done the mother a kindness, reminding everyone that undertakers are here to guide us through the funerary process. They help “serve the living by caring for the dead” (Lynch, 1998).

Just as technology and medicine have evolved, so have the undertakers jobs. What once was simple with a traditional ground burial or cremation has become much more. Mr. Lynch spoke of combining a cemetery with a golf course. Considering the idea that the earth is running out of room for all the bodies that are buried, combining a golf course with a cemetery would be an effective use of land. There are other ideas though, such as Terramation, Aquamation, cryonics, etc. Even cremation and burial have gained innovative ideas.

Terramation is also known as human composting; this process “uses plant matter to help natural decomposition turn the body into soil” (Top 5 cremation alternatives options). This is more ecologically friendly than cremation as it uses less energy, and it removes contaminants instead of adding to them. Aquamation, or alkaline hydrolysis is like cremation but with water instead of fire. “Alkaline hydrolysis is a process that uses water, potassium hydroxide, and heat to reduce the body down to nutrient-rich liquid and bone” (Top 5 cremation alternatives options). Again, this is better for the environment in terms of energy usage, but it does use quite a bit of water in the process. However, the resulting liquid could be safely put into the sewer system or used to fertilize non-edible plants.

 

Cryonics seemed like a crazy sci-fi movie invention, or a rich man’s mad dream of immortality. Cryogenics is the process of freezing the body before death so that, in the future, it could be thawed and potentially come back to life when there is a cure for whatever ails that decedent. This is, however, an exceedingly lengthy process that involves keeping the blood circulation and slowly freezing the body. It also involves long term storage and then the process of thawing and reviving the person. This is something that science has managed to do for organ transplants and IVF therapy but there is no current way of reviving a person after they have been frozen (What is cryonics?). It is still a work in progress and uses multiple resources, making it non-earth friendly.

There are obviously multiple factors that go into the planning of a funeral and the bodies ultimate resting place/disposal. Environmental factors are not commonly part of that decision, but they should be. No one thinks of the damage that cremation or burial can toll. Cremation releases toxic gases, like dioxins, and heavy metals such as mercury into the air (Green et al.). Burial can potentially release multiple pollutants into the environment. There is something termed Necro Slurry and “it can carry several pollutants, from organic ions (e.g. nitrate, nitrate, sulfates), to inorganic ions (e.g. As, Fe, Cu, Cs. Pb, etc.), bacteria, and viruses (e.g. Escherichia coli, Enterobacter, Klebsiella, Citrobacter, Streptococcus faecalis, Clostridium perfringens, Clostridium welchii and Salmonella typhi)” (Franco et al.). These pollutants can affect the soil and the groundwater.

Another factor to consider is the cost of these services. From the potential hospital and medical costs to the funeral to the care of the body, it all has a price tag and due to inflation, the prices just keep going up. Overall, based on 2023 National Funeral Directors Association’s general price list, the cost of cremation is cheaper than burial. Cremation with a viewing and funeral in the United States should cost roughly six-thousand dollars. Burial with a viewing and funeral in the United States should cost around eight-thousand dollars. Cremation has increased by eight percent from 2021, and burial is up about 6 percent (Koth, 2023). Alternatives to burial and cremation are not common enough or legal in all states to be able to give accurate pricing.

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It is the unfortunate fact that the undertakers and funeral directors take the brunt of the criticism when it comes to prices and the problem of inflation. A section of Lynch’s book towards the end has this to say, “And most of the citizenry, stopped on the street, would agree that funeral directors are mainly crooks, “except for mine . . .,” they just as predictably add. ... This tendency to abhor the general class while approving of the particular member is among the great human prerogatives – “You can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them”.” A trustworthy funeral director is an important thing to have. It is also important to remember that death is a business and inflation affects all, even when it is not wanted.

As Mr. Lynch and the beginning story tells, there is a reason there is a focus on death and funerary practices. With so much unknown about death and the potential after, there is an intense fear involved. The use of rituals and ceremonies to care for the dead can be good for the bereaved and the death professionals. “In response to a death, the engagement with the human corpse can be therapeutic as it enables the living to make-meaning and find comfort in the face of loss” (Mathijssen, 2023). It is an unfortunate part of living in a capitalist society that there is a price tag and such environmental concerns attached to something meant to bring comfort to the living after the loss of a loved one.

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“In even the best of caskets, it never all fits – all that we’d like to bury in them: the hurt and forgiveness, the anger and pain, the praise and thanksgiving; the emptiness and exaltations, the untidy feelings when someone dies. So, I conduct this business very carefully because, in the years since I’ve been here, when someone dies, they never call Jessica or the News Hound. They call me” (Lynch, 1998).​