A Family Undertaking: One Man's Story

Note: This entry, except for this note, is by Rodger Ericson of Cedar Park, Texas, who contributed 14 wonderful images from the January 2007 family-directed funeral of his mother, Harriet Ericson. You must visit our Flickr site to see them! -- Holly Stevens

Mom was 93 and would have been 94 in three months. She was on hospice during her last months under the term "failure to thrive." She was losing weight, losing interest in things and yet alert to the very end. She yearned to die, as she was the last living relative of her era and wondered why she could not die. She simply died of "old age." We had lots of fun together in life and had a wonderful celebration and time of giving and loving at the end of her life and during the days that followed her death.

She was one of six surviving children Five sibling infants preceded her in death in the early 1900s. The five siblings literally had home funerals. They had died in the home and were in the parlor for viewing, and the funeral service was held there. Mom remembered that, and we often talked about the beauty of those events. Just before she died, she talked a lot about her mother and and one infant brother whom she had held at his death. That story prompted me to tell mom what we had done: I told her about making the hope chest and that I thought that this time death was probably near and that she would soon see her little brother in a new way.

Mom was a one-room school teacher for many years, married a plumber and owner of a hardware store, and had two sons. She was active in her church and in community activities--always giving to others and thinking of their interests before her own. She had her stubborn quirks and ways, but she was gracious and kind far beyond the average person.

My dad died in 1981, and she grieved greatly over that for maybe 15 years before she really accepted it. She loved life but was not afraid of death. She taught me much and I cherish being able to give back to her the kind of infantile care that she first gave to me when I was born. I found it strange to find the roles reversed--of me being the care giver in such a similar way to what she had done for me when I was born. She lived most of her live in Minnesota but we asked her to move close to us two years before she died, because she needed more help than could be expected of distant relatives and close friends. She lived in her own independent living apartment in Round Rock, Texas, up until three weeks before she died.

When I knew mom's death was imminent, I told my brother that I wanted to make a casket for my mom. We called it a hope chest, because that changed the image for myself and my grandchildren. As the grandsons said, ghosts and vampires are in coffins. The name also reflected our Christian faith of a final resurrection of the dead. After we made it, I told my mom and she immediately said, "Can I see it?" "Certainly," I said, and I lifted her out of the bed and put her in a wheelchair so she could see it. Her comment: "That's wonderful."

With my experience as a pastor in a parish, and helped by hospice experiences and learning of some of the family actions in preparing the body for burial, I came to realize that we could do most of the work ourselves, and learned from others of the blessings they received from doing some of this. What we did is what I would call family directed death care. We took charge and followed our own wishes, with the help of our home church and home pastor.

Over the years mom and I had discussed the excessive costs and our objections to the funeral home practices of making people look like they were "sleeping," by using heavy makeup. Mom never used heavy make-up and we never liked that artificial look. Mom looked dead, and yet natural and beautiful, when we placed her in the hope chest. Donna Belk of Crossings Care Circle had helped us to know a technique for closing her eyes and keeping her jaw closed by using towels.

We used a foam pad that had been under mom and dad's bed mattress as a loving base for her body and used a bedspread that they had used until my father died, to wrap my mom for her final resting place. We learned how to dress a body, cutting open the back side of the dress. It was so obvious, but unknown to me before this. Washing and then anointing the body, with a few words on each part of the body, was a powerful and precious ritual. I especially loved Donna's phrase about Mom's hip: that it had been the first saddle for her children.

Traveling to Minnesota in our truck with her body was time consuming, and I wish that we would have had more time, but we wanted to have the service on a Saturday, when family members could more easily attend, and that was my only regret--we felt rushed. It was humorous when we stopped for the night at a hotel, and I asked to have the truck parked by the front door, so nothing would happen to the treasure in the back of the truck. I told them that mom was in the hope chest. My daughter said, "Dad, you don't have to tell them everything." It didn't feel strange to transport her body in our truck. In fact, it helped us to accept the reality and to know we were enabling what she had wanted to happen, to be buried in the home cemetery next to my father.

I did not know of anyone who did everything as we did with a body burial. We wanted to give our final gift to mom--in service and love and thoughtfulness rather than throwing money at the event. I would not recommend people to take on a family funeral for the purpose of saving money, but as a result of what we did, the costs were low--under $200 plus cemetery costs and gifts to the church. The benefits, on the other hand, were high. We experienced healing. I felt it was good therapy. My children and grandchildren learned some facts and to not be afraid of death. My grandchildren now talk rather openly about how someday I will die. It is not a morbid conversation; neither are they scared by the thought. We sometimes are amazed at how beneficial the family funeral of mom was for them.

The most common comment we got from others was, "You can do that?" And the second most common comment was, "That was really nice. It was so personal."

I would strongly urge family members to prepare long in advance for a family funeral. Last minute decision making seldom results in a family undertaking.