The Daily Beast
Feb 5, 2013
Preparing a body for burial is a ritual that is both ageless and tribal. Here’s what it’s like.
This is the first time I am so close. There is a body bag on the table, waiting to be opened. Our best friends’ 22-year-old son’s body is inside. His mother and father are across from me, brothers beside, with several women gathered to form the circle around the table. These women will become my sisters in the next five hours, as we prepare the body together.
They are Heather, the home-funeral advocate who had helped the family arrange for the body to come home instead of the funeral parlor; Betty, a Rolfer and powerful healer and longtime caregiver of the family; Julie, a yoga teacher, friend of the mother and Joan, a lifelong family friend who had also lovingly assisted at this boy’s birth. It was Jane, the boy’s mother, who had gotten the call in the middle of the night that their son Wes had been in a bad car accident. She and her husband John had rushed to the hospital to be greeted with the words, “Your son is deceased.”
Read the full article at The Daily Beast
Thanks to The Good Funeral Guide Blog for alerting us to this article.
