Lucinda Herring has over 20 years of experience as a licensed funeral director and a home funeral guide. Her book, “Reimagining Death: Stories and Practical Wisdom for Home Funerals and Green Burials,” is a must-read for anyone considering alternative death care options or someone who is simply curious about the green funeral movement. In this episode, Lucinda gently debunks common myths about having a funeral at home. We also talk about our culture of unprocessed grief and how taking care of a loved one’s body after death can help us see death as a natural part of life.
You can find additional resources for home funerals, Lucinda’s book and more about her work here:
The National Home Funeral Alliance: https://www.homefuneralalliance.org/
Transcript:
Sarah Cavanaugh:
Hi, I am Sarah Cavanaugh and this is Peaceful Exit. Every episode we explore death, dying, and grief through stories by authors familiar with the topic. Writers are our translators. They take what is inexpressible, impossible to explain, and they translate it into words on a page. Today's guest is Lucinda Herring. Her book is Re-imagining Death, Stories & Practical Wisdom for Home Funerals and Green Burials. Lucinda has been a home funeral advocate for more than 20 years. Families call her when they are curious or interested in a home funeral or burial experience that's outside the mainstream. After my conversation with Barbara Asher, I was so struck by the sweet human gestures she did to take care of her husband after he died.
If you remember, Barbara told us how she intuitively kept Bob's body at home for a few days. She played his favorite music, insisted that his body wasn't put in a bag. Instead, she draped him with a cozy blanket, put his favorite hat on his head. Those thoughtful gestures really stuck with me. I wanted to know more, what else was possible, what else could we do differently? Are we missing out on opportunities to better take care of our loved ones? So naturally I called Lucinda. She is a wealth of information and resources and I can't wait to talk with her. Hi, Lucinda. It's great to meet you.
Lucinda Herring:
You too. Sarah. I've heard a lot about you.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
How did you get into this work?
Lucinda Herring:
I got into the work when a dear friend on Whidbey, was dying of breast cancer in 1997, and she looked at us and said, "I just don't want to go to a funeral home. Can you please care for me yourselves?" And we didn't have any idea that we could do that, but we began researching what was possible. We discovered that families can indeed care for their own dead, and then we figured out we could do it legally, and that we actually didn't even need the funeral home. And so we taught ourselves how to do it. And then we had this remarkable experience with Judy. And we were so transformed by the experience that we decided most of us wanted that kind of care rather than a funeral home. And so we just made vows to each other that we would do that if at all possible. And then we realized, I particularly realized, that we needed to interface with the funeral industry and not just be doing this home care in the woods on Whidbey kind of fringe movement.
And so I did a lot of home funeral training to know how to do everything, particularly the paperwork and the actual care of the body. And then I was lucky to know a woman, Char Barrett, who was starting a green funeral home in Everett, Washington. And that was in 2010. So that was quite a number of years later. But she invited me to come and get my funeral director's license. So I was very blessed to be able to do that because I was able to get my license in an alternative green funeral home from the beginning. And we were one of the first funeral homes in the country to empower families to be more engaged and work more creatively with after death care.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
And what's the name of the green funeral home?
Lucinda Herring:
It's called A Sacred Moment. Still there. Char is the director of that.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
Mentioned not being a fringe on Whidbey Island. When did you learn that this care for the body is not a fringe thing? It actually is what used to happen years and years ago prior to the funeral industry being formed, that women would come and take care of their dead.
Lucinda Herring:
Oh, well, we knew that from the beginning. I had studied death and dying for a long time as a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner, but also as a Waldorf trained teacher, which I did in an earlier life. And the philosophical community always has these three day vigils. And then just to know that we were reclaiming this sacred task of caring for our loved ones instead of giving that task away to strangers, it was just deeply affirming of what we were choosing. And interestingly, looking back, so this was 1997, it was just beginning mostly, interestingly amongst women in many different places around the country at the same time. And I've always loved knowing that we were just in our little way, part of this larger emergence.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
I love so many stories in your book. The woman who told the story about her husband's three days at home and the first day she was emotional, the second day she started to accept it, and by the third day she was ready to let it go. And that ability to take the time, where it's so rare to take the time to grieve,
Lucinda Herring:
That was Lori Repe. She and her husband, Julian, they were my dear friends from long ago. And I had lost touch with them. And when Julian knew he was dying eventually of cancer, he wanted to do death with dignity. And he was a vital, very alive man. And it was shocking to a lot of us just to get behind his choice. I mean, not for me, because I was working in the funeral home and I was really grateful that I could be of help, but I did go to their house and work with a large group of friends to come to an acceptance of his choice. And he was the leader in that. It was an incredible experience.
He was extraordinary in saying, "This is what I'm going to do and I've chosen it and Lori and I are together in it, and my children are together with me in it." We were all meeting in this living room, and it was such a powerful experience to see a human being embrace his own death so consciously and so beautifully. But it was hard. It was very hard. And so Lori and Julian and I knew that we were going to need at least three days to come to terms with this decision of his and have enough time again to just be with the process and to be with the process in a safe place, their home, in a place where Lori and the children and all the friends could grieve openly, whenever they needed times to laugh, times to tell stories, times to sing.
And Julian really held court in a way. I mean, he had died, but his spirit was so present and it was the very thing that everyone needed was that extra time. And that was particularly true because of the death with dignity choice. But it's been true in so many other situations. I had a friend who died suddenly of a tragic accident last April on Whidbey, and that was a much more difficult endeavor to bring her home to her farm on Whidbey, but I managed to do it with Char's help from A Sacred Moment. And again, because it was such a sudden and shocking death, everyone needed a lot of time, especially her children and grandchildren, to come to terms with the fact that this had happened. And that was another example for me of how helpful and healing it can be to give ourselves that extra time, if we can.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
I'd love to talk a little bit about how art and poetry play into the death experience because I will say, I've been through sort traditional, the funeral home comes, takes the body, you might view the body, you might have a funeral, but what really intrigues me is the idea of this either pine box or cardboard box that you can decorate and involve the children with art and poetry. And your book has poetry in it.
Lucinda Herring:
Well, I'm thinking again of Julian because he was a wonderful poet and he had a little class in his neighborhood with children and he helped them write poetry. They wrote poetry together. So when he died and we had this vigil, one, we invited all the children to come and do art on his cardboard casket. He was cremated, so we had a cardboard container for him, which is a good thing because you can do wonderful art on that. You can also do art on a pine coffin as well. We've done that before. This was a cardboard one, and we set it up in the hallway outside where he was lying in state and the children and all the parents as well could come and make his little boat, we called it.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
So was he in the cardboard box?
Lucinda Herring:
He was not in it at the time. No. It was just there with art supplies and room for people to get around it. But the most beautiful thing was that the children who had worked with him in his poetry class all wrote poems for him, and they put those poems in the container to go with him, to accompany him to the crematorium. And then when we were bringing him out, before we brought him out, several of the children stood and recited their poetry, which was just so beautiful and meaningful. And again, there they were being present with Julian who was not alive and now dead, but they were still in the field of his holding of them as budding poets. So that was a wonderful opportunity.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
One of the things we talk about in Peaceful Exit is creating your own circle around this subject matter. And as you said, people need to be willing. And so being very gracious in asking if you are willing to take on a certain job at the end of my life. In fact, we had our annual meeting with a dear friend of mine and who's in her late seventies and has created this pod around her. And because of my cold, I was actually on a speakerphone versus in the room and everyone else was in the room. And I said, "So have you all considered keeping Anne's body at home for us to have a vigil?" There was a pause, and of course I can't see the people, so I'm like, "I wonder what they're... Are we comfortable with that?" Because these are not blood relatives, they're friends of hers. It was really an interesting moment.
Lucinda Herring:
A telling moment.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
Yes.
Lucinda Herring:
But it strikes me, the pause of the silence is appropriate.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
Yes.
Lucinda Herring:
Right, because they have not had that experience, so they can't even say if they're willing.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
That's right.
Lucinda Herring:
Yeah. I mean, I've met with families where the person who's dying wants this and the family doesn't really know that they want it. And so it's really important to meet beforehand and have such a gathering with questions like you were asking. One thing I always stress or I ask deeply of each person there who might be being asked to be the team to take care of someone who's dying, first, I ask them, "How does this sit with you in your body? How do you feel?" So I help people imagine it. So I would tell a story about another home vigil experience that I've had so that they can begin to imagine it and to experience in their bodies whether they feel resistance, whether they feel, "Oh my goodness, I'd love to do that."
I mean, in my own family, there was such a difference in my sisters and brother and my father when my mother was dying about did they want to do that or not? And what we'll always find in a group of people is that some really will not want to, and others will be drawn to it and they'll know that they want to. So finding that out beforehand is extremely helpful because often in the face of death, the experience we have is feeling helpless and powerless and we don't know what to do and we don't know what to say, and it just is awkward rather than supportive and open. So in that gathering, we would help like, "Who would like to drive? If we can get a permit to bring the body ourselves to the cemetery, who would like to be that person who drives, who would like to be the ones who carry the body, who would like to be the ones who sacredly wash the body and prepare it?"
It's wonderful to see people know in a way, and in some ways you don't know because you've never experienced it. I mean, what is true for all of us is this is a threshold of experience that we do not have in our lives and bodies. And you have to go through that threshold, and once you've gone through it, you are really a different person in relationship to death. That's definitely been my experience.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
So what kinds of questions do people ask you when they're considering a family directed funeral for the first time?
Lucinda Herring:
So one of the ones that always comes up is how do we care for somebody who's died and will they smell? That's the one that always comes up.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
I'm sure.
Lucinda Herring:
And will it be messy? Will it be dangerous? Or a health hazard, which is absolutely not true at all.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
I know there's several stories in your books about transporting bodies and that it's legal for you to do so, but you need a special permit. Are there any other pieces of practical wisdom you'd like to share about family directed funerals?
Lucinda Herring:
Yes. The practical wisdom that is essential is that families and communities need to do these kinds of things within the law because if we start doing them and don't do it within the law, then the opportunity is going to be taken away from us. So it's very important to particularly know how to do the paperwork. Another challenge is that each state is different. There's an organization that we helped form, the women in this movement early on, called the National Home Funeral Alliance, NHFA, and it has enormous resources for helping families navigate these paperwork challenges.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
You mentioned an Advanced After Death Care Directive. That's not something we often hear about. It's not a legal document, you say it's an ethical document.
Lucinda Herring:
Right.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
Could you define that and why is that important for us to each have.
Lucinda Herring:
Basically, we made this up. Women in the movement, we knew that there's really three parts of the threshold of death. There's the dying, there's the moment of death, and then there's the after death care, and we do these advanced healthcare directives and living wills and get our power of attorney in place and all that. But then there's a whole other need, which is the after death directive. And so many of us don't do that. So when we began doing this kind of work and this movement emerged, a lot of us realized that there needed to be the third completion of paperwork. I mean, different people call it different things. I called it Advanced After Death Care Directive because I wanted it to be linked with advanced healthcare directive. Particularly if one is wanting these more alternative choices like family directed funerals, doing one's own paperwork, having the vigil, finding your team, choosing a green burial, which is becoming more and more accepted, but still is in many ways a minority choice.
It's really important to have something like the Advanced After Death Care Directive because it basically faces directly the fact that you're making these alternative choices. And in order to make them, you are trying the best you can to support those left behind, to fulfill those wishes for you. You're more likely to have those wishes fulfilled if you've created such a directive. And if people who are going to be around you when you die, know your wishes and have, like we talked about earlier, signed on to be a team, if at all possible. You're less likely to have it happen if there's no paperwork in place and no directive that tells others, particularly your adult children and close relatives who, again, may not have ever heard of what you're wanting, to have them read your directive before you die and have discussions about it and really feel from the person dying how much they want it, right?
Because I've experienced that in family groups where the person dying says, "This is what I really want, are you willing to help me?" And some of the willingness comes from the fact that you love that person and you want them to have what they wish for. And then for someone who helps facilitate this kind of care, it is so helpful.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
It's so helpful.
Lucinda Herring:
It's so helpful to me to have that directive in place and to be able to go back to that directive and say to the family, "Well, this is what this person really wanted. How can we try to make this happen?"
Sarah Cavanaugh:
Yeah. That's beautiful. Oh, that's fantastic. So I'd love to read this paragraph from your book and just see what comes up for you.
Lucinda Herring:
Oh, wonderful. Yeah.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
We have seen how crafting a home funeral vigil together for someone or sharing the job of filling in a grave, can forge lasting bonds of connection and intimacy among people. Shared artistic and living responses at the time of death, casket building, rituals, prayers, poetry, singing, or whatever feels right to those gathered, can be the very means by which we are able to handle or bear what is happening to us. It is this sense of community where we are not alone, but are being carried by the love and support of others that can make all the difference in our journey of loss and mourning.
Lucinda Herring:
Yeah. Well, interesting. What it brings up are these different stories and experiences where I've been there in the room and watched what could have been just a terrible experience, be held in this field of blessing and love. I mean, I'm thinking particularly of my friend who died in the tragic death last April on Whidbey, and just the extraordinary response from our community. And I couldn't have done it, taken care of her without the community behind me. And the team of women who came and washed our friend, Josette's body after she had been brought home from the medical examiner, and she was deeply harmed. It was not an easy task, but we did it together. We bore it together.
Elders of our community held her children, her three adult children and her five grandchildren, and we were able to create a vigil where they were completely part of knowing that their grandmother had died, being with her, bringing compost and flowers from her farm and decorating the shroud and then carrying her to the car. And the children were completely involved. And I watched as the shock in the family was softened and eased. The community was holding each other, and in holding each other, we were holding them particularly. I mean, the shock was still there. The grief and the rawness of it was still there. It didn't make it go away. It just eased it and made it bearable.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
I've spoken to a few authors about the importance of grieving in community. How can we learn to grieve in community the way you're describing?
Lucinda Herring:
I think we do it one death at a time. I mean, starting with Judy in 1997, that was the first that we learned that we could do this together, and it helped so much. And then that was so transformative that then the next time someone died, we did it again. And the common denominator in that was there was a group of us who were saying, "We will help." And I was one who was saying, "Not only will I help, but I'll go and get licensing and I'll get credentials to be able to make this possible." So there is legwork to be done and study and a learning curve to know how to do this. And it is clear that people need to say, "I want to do this. I don't want to just call the funeral home. I do want to be involved in helping make this happen where I live."
So there's a process that needs to be put in place, but the more we do it, the more we can do it and the easier it gets. So I think it's something that happened like it did with Josette was such a tragic death. We had been preparing for years to do that. And of course, we are an island and it's easier on an island, but these kind of communities can be formed anywhere. In the cities, I know of these kind of communities forming. And the more it's done, the more you feel a part of the community and you feel able to do it.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
So you've talked about your friend Josette dying unexpectedly on Whidbey Island, but what if someone dies in a hospital and how can you still have the vigil or the after death care?
Lucinda Herring:
It's more difficult to have a vigil just because you're interfacing with an institution, with a hospital. And they're not laws, but policies, of course they do. They have to have policies about how they run the hospital. So it depends on the type of death. I mean, when Josette died, she was in ICU and we had to take her off life support. Really, it was my presence that allowed that whole effort to bring her home happened. Mine and working with Char at A Sacred Moment. Char did the paperwork for us because it's much more complicated if the medical examiner is involved with an accident. But if someone were dying in the hospital of say, cancer, and so many people do die in the hospital. So it's very important this question. There can be a lot of preparation and proactive questioning and working with hospital staff before that person dies if there's time, for the family to let the staff know.
Sometimes it's a social worker, sometimes it can be someone who's in charge of taking bodies away from the hospital once they die. So the family can interface with that staff and say what their wishes are, that they would actually like to have their loved one leave the hospital and come back to the home. And different hospitals will have different policies, different staff members are open to this or not. There's often, in our experience, a level of absolutely not, that is not done, but it has a level of fear around it, really fear that they don't actually know whether it can be done or not, right?
Sarah Cavanaugh:
Right.
Lucinda Herring:
Because nobody's ever asked. So I always encourage families to be as proactive as possible, and sometimes I've acted as an interface and saying that I'm a licensed funeral director, and that immediately calms staff people down because that's who they normally release a body to, is a licensed funeral director, not the family. But then there's an education piece needed where either the family or someone like me can educate the staff that it indeed is legal for a family if they have the burial transit permit to actually have the body released to them. It's a challenge. And sometimes families just do not have the wherewithal or the energy or the perseverance to keep going. So often I will recommend in that case that they work with a funeral director who is open to bringing a loved one home instead of a morgue at a funeral home. Char and I did this a lot at A Sacred Moment, we would interface with the hospital and help bring that person home.
So I'd love to say one more thing about hospital deaths, because I've had wonderful experiences of families letting go of the need to bring someone who's died home, asking the nurses and the staff if there's a room where that person can be taken for a few hours, so they're not just rushed to the morgue, which is the normal procedure, but that there's a room set aside where the person can lie in vigil state for a few hours, and then the family can gather, friends can gather, they can do a mini version of a vigil in the hospital room. And there's been some beautiful experiences just supporting families to do that. I've been in a room where everyone was singing and children running in and out, and it was a hospital version of the home vigil, but it was just as sacred, just as incredible, in fact, in some ways, more so because it was that kind of richness of soul and sacred care was just filling the hospital room, which is often we feel as sterile and harsh. The softening that happened from that family doing that was incredibly moving to me.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
What does a peaceful exit mean to you?
Lucinda Herring:
A peaceful exit would be where I could be in relationship to nature, where I could feel supported by the natural world to help me leave my human body in a way that is as relaxed and as without stress and tension as possible. I think I would want silence because I'm a meditator, and the depths of silence for me are a world to explore. And I'm exploring that in life, and it just gets more and more spacious. And so I would want that kind of depth and spaciousness of silence to be around me as I died, maybe with the bird song within it. Maybe open the window. Yeah, open the window, have the natural world be present. Not maybe, I would love that. That would be part of the silence, the field of silence.
And I think I would want, and of course this is hard to ask of others, but I would want there to be those present who are accepting that this is happening and can hold that space for me because I think I'd be okay to die alone because I lived alone for so long, and it's just, I'm good at it, but I don't necessarily want to die alone. I would just want the people who were there to understand my wishes and to hold sacred space for that to happen, if at all possible. I mean, in the Tibetan tradition, the teachings say that if someone's there who is wailing and crying and not wanting you to leave, it makes it much more difficult for a consciousness to leave. And I think that's probably true because you're being distracted back into this world when really all of one's focus and intention can help, I think, you leave the body in a more peaceful way.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
Well, thank you so much for your time today. It was really interesting, and I've learned a great deal reading the book.
Lucinda Herring:
Thank you, Sarah. Yeah, thank you so much for this opportunity to share a great passion of mine, really.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
Yes, absolutely.
Lucinda Herring:
I could talk all day.
Sarah Cavanaugh:
I love that. Thank you for listening to Peaceful Exit. You can learn more about this podcast and my online course at my website, peacefulexit.net. If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know. You can rate and review this show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This episode was produced by Larj Media. You can find them at larjmedia.com. Special thanks to Ricardo Russell for the original music throughout this podcast. More of his music can be found on Bandcamp. As always, thanks for listening. I'm Sarah Cavanaugh, and this is Peaceful Exit.
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