TDo-it-yourself deathcare isn't for everyone. Bodies leak and turn waxy. Pacemakers must be removed before cremation. Death certificates and permits to move bodies must be filled according to rigid specifications and filed on strict deadlines. These constraints seem lenient compared to the 24-hour period in which a corpse must be disposed of if it hasn't been embalmed or refrigerated. More expensive than body donation and not much cheaper than going through a memorial society, the low cost advantage of being an amateur undertaker doesn't seem worth the trouble.

For some, however, doing all jobs associated with body disposal and commemoration offers an exceptionally effective way to cope with death. According to Lisa Carlson, "There's a dramatic difference in healing when people take responsibility for their own funeral arrangements." Apart from her role as executive director of FAMSA, Carlson is the author of an indispensable guide to hands-on deathcare.

Late this year a new edition of her Caring for Your Own Dead will be released by Upper Access Publishers, P.O. Box 457, Hinesburg, VT 05461. The Seattle library has one copy of the out-of-print 1987 book on the reserve shelf and two others in circulation.

"It's going to explode," Carlson says of the incipient trend of caring for your own dead. "This is the crunchy granola generation that took back the birthing experience."

Lisa Carlson can be reached at FAMSA, P.O. Box 10, Hinesburg, VT 05461.

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Contents this page were published in the March/April, 1998 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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