There was a time when the majority of the population chose a
traditional funeral for their loved ones – but that has changed dramatically in
recent years.
In his half-century in the death business, Richard Moylan has never experienced years like these.
As president of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood cemetery, he spends his days managing the historic site where families have spent the past couple years tending to loved ones lost to the pandemic. But the bigger change had been building before then: the choice to routinely cremate over traditional casket burial of years past.
At the height of the pandemic, Green-Wood’s crematory burned constantly,
16 to 18 hours daily. A wall recently collapsed. Maintenance costs spiked. Last
year, 4,500 bodies entered the five chambers, a 35 percent increase over 2019.
So many ashes to ashes, so much dust
to dust. Cremation is now America’s leading form of final “disposition,” as the
funeral industry calls it — a preference that shows no sign of abating.
In 2020, 56 percent of Americans who
died were cremated, more than double the figure of 27 percent two
decades earlier, according to the Cremation Association of North America
(CANA). By 2040, 4 out of 5 Americans are projected to choose
cremation over casket burial, according to both CANA and the National Funeral
Directors Association (NFDA).
This seismic shift represents
potentially severe revenue losses for the funeral industry. It’s
leading innovators to create a growing number of green alternatives and other choices
that depart from traditional casket funerals. And rapidly shifting
views about disposing with bodies have also led to changes in how
we memorialize loved ones — and reflect an increasingly secular, transient and, some argue,
death-phobic nation.
Other countries have been quicker to embrace the practice, like
Japan, with a rate of almost 100 percent, in part because of its high density
and paucity of burial grounds. Cremation is central to Hindu and Buddhist funeral
practices, releasing the soul from the body. But Judaism, Catholicism and Islam
resisted it, because of views about the sanctity of body and spirit in death.
Though the United States’ first crematory
opened in 1876 in Washington, Pa., Americans were slow to acceptance. They
were just queasy about the practice. It took a century or more to evolve.
Cremation finally skyrocketed as America became increasingly secular. Last year, the number of people belonging to a house of worship dropped below 50 percent for the first time since Gallup launched the poll in 1937.
Americans also started to recognize
the convenience of cremation and its lower cost. Comparisons are challenging
because of the many options, but the median price of a funeral with burial and
viewing is $7,848, according to the NFDA, while the median cost of direct
cremation is a third of the price at $2,550. Cremation with viewing and funeral
is comparable to traditional burial, with a median cost of $6,970.
For families scattered across
multiple states, there often seems little point in investing the effort and
expense to bury a loved one in a cemetery no one will visit. Like pet food and
leisure footwear, cremation is now available through direct-to-consumer
websites such as Solace and Tulip.
Cremation is more popular in states that vote
Democratic, include large transient populations or endure brutal winters that make the earth frozen solid. (Canada’s rates
are notably higher than those of the United States.) Cremation rates already
hover near or over 80 percent in Nevada, Washington, Oregon and Maine. They
remain half that in Utah and many Southern states with large religiously
observant populations.
“If there’s anything that is going to
slow down or reverse the cremation rate in the United States, it is green
burials,” says Kemmis, the CANA executive director. “People are looking to the
greenest final disposition so that our deaths will reflect our lives.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/04/18/cremation-death-funeral/
Founded in spring 2019, Recompose in Seattle is the nation’s first company to offer natural organic reduction. The body is laid in a vessel on a bed of wood chips, alfalfa and straw and transformed into soil over 30 days, enough to fill a pickup truck, for a flat fee of $7,000. Some families take some soil for personal use; about half donate it to a forest or farm. Subscribers to Recompose’s newsletter about “the death care journey” have swelled to 25,000. “People are looking for different options,” says Recompose outreach manager Anna Swenson. “Cost is a factor. Cultural beliefs are a factor. Guilt is a factor. The environment is a factor.” Recompose plans to expand to 10 facilities during the next decade.
Other options include being buried in a coral reef off the coast
of Florida, or being turned into mulch. I also know at least one person who had
sprinkled his mate’s ashes into Lake Superior.
The funeral home business is still a big business, with
estimated revenues of $17 billion a year. That’s still a lot of money, but
growth rates are down a lot from what they use to be.
https://bizfluent.com/12081976/are-funeral-homes-profitable
Both of my parents are buried at Ft. Snelling cemetery in St. Paul, Minnesota, and we visited there a few times when we lived in states that were close to Minnesota. The reality, though, is that we now live 1500 miles away, and will likely never visit the cemetery again in our lifetimes.
Although my demise is likely at least a decade in the future,
my final remains (after the hospital obtains the parts it needs from my carcass),
will likely be an urn of some type.
For now, here is one of my favorites:
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81QNfSnLfHL._AC_SX679_.jpg
Baha'is don't cremate. A few have mentioned a green burial. There is a green space in Inver Grove. We explored Denise's ancestry buried at Calvary Cemetery where all the graves face the St. Paul Cathedral. Catholic only. Oakland Cemetery has quite a few Baha'is. That's my preference, though I qualify at Ft. Snelling. Once, I assisted with preparation of the body at a funeral home in Duluth. The women knew what to do. After washing the body, it is wrapped in a silk shroud.
ReplyDeleteRemember Robin Williams in What Dreams May Come? I wonder if we will have any awareness of those we left behind. Or, maybe an assignment to assist individuals, such as guardian angels.
On the negative, I say too often, I have at most 15 more years. Some of my male Carlson cousins have made it to 93 years.
I had recent dreams of my parents having a good time at a magnificent retreat. My mother said, "What are you doing here! It's not your time."