![]() ![]() Gosh, you think our society might have a problem dealing with death? In India, they are placed on a pyre and burned.Īnd in America, we pump out the blood, pump in the formaldehyde, stich the mouth shut, shove cotton up the rectum and apply enough makeup to make Tammy Faye Bakker look natural. ![]() She looks dead." But not wanting to offend my saintly aunt, I nodded glumly at the body of the woman who lived her life meaner than a snake and now rested in a satin-lined box.Įvery society has rituals surrounding death. My aunt said, "Doesn't Grandma look nice?" The morticians had dabbed her corpse with rouge, stuck her glasses above eyes that would never see and put her in her nicest dress. I remember when my maternal grandmother died, an aunt led me to her casket. Somehow American society has lost its way when dealing with death. ![]() LeNette Van Haverbeke, a representative of Illinois Cemetery and Funeral Home Association, told lawmakers that many in the field "oppose human composting as lacking the traditional dignity afforded to the dead."Ĭall me a cynic, but could it be that some in the funeral home industry don't like this idea because it limits their ability to upsell grieving loved ones on expensive caskets, vaults and burial plots? Companies that offer this service place a person's remains in a container with wood chips, straw and other organic material and heat it to accelerate the growth of bacteria that breaks down the body. That process turns human remains into soil over the course of a few weeks. But a bill pending before the Illinois General Assembly would add another option: composting. The options for disposing of human remains in Illinois are limited. My then-20-something self wanted to say, "But Mom, you'll be dead. She knew the importance of medical professionals learning anatomy. After all, she was a registered nurse married to a veterinarian. I was a bit surprised by the vehemence she expressed against the idea. That was my mother's reaction to the notion of her body being donated to a medical school for students to dissect. "They'll make fun of me and give me a goofy name." ![]()
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