As I promised, here are further details about the Green Funeral Fair that took place at Grace North Church in Berkeley last November.Jerrigrace Lyons came all the way down from Sebastopol to extol the benefits of home-based funerals. Her organization, Final Passages provides workshops on a very low-cost, hands-on alternative to traditional mortuary services. I met Jerrigrace back in 2001, when I was interviewing for Secrets of Life and Death. Her explanation of the value of touching a loved-one's dead body came back to me when I went with my family to see my brother at the mortuary after he died suddenly and shockingly in May of 2008. She said that when you touch the dead you really get it, in a visceral way, that they are no longer present. So I touched my brother's serene face peaking out of a black body bag (this was not an official viewing). His skin was very cold. My eyes insisted he was only sleeping but my fingers assured me he was gone. And maybe because I touched him, others felt able to do the same. I think it helped. Jerrigrace has been busy training other people in her line of work, and some are even setting up shop in the East Bay.
There were a number of tables selling books about death. One in particular caught my eye called A Graceful Farewell by Maggie Watson. Its a workbook that helps you organize personal, financial, insurance, medical and legal information. A little daunting in it's scope and size. But, I am sure any caregiver and/or executor would be thrilled to have such important information so ready at their finger-tips rather than having to sort through a pile of unorganized files and envelopes.
Other end-of-life support services at the fair included, estate planning (you'll hear more about these unsung heroes in my next blog when I write about the film screening I did for estate planners in San Jose), geriatric care managing to organize the daily needs of aging parents and obituary writing for those who would like more than "born, died and succeeded by."
Of course there were funeral products galore: fully biodegradable Final Footprint eco-caskets by (did you know that cremation uses upward of 4000 megajoules of energy?); Green Burial Products; and high-end Funeria art urns and Memory Markers.Also worth checking out is the Funeral Consumers Alliance which has a nifty little pamphlet on recycling medical equipment including those pricey pacemakers that are such a waste to throw away when they might be of great benefit to some needy person in the third world. Search on their website for "recycle medical" for the link to download a pdf version.
I wish I could tell you more, but I did have to spend some time at my booth.
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