Composted Dads and a Cuppa Cremains | 4M #26

Welcome to the twenty-sixth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!

Dying with a double entendre 

A columnist with the San Diego Union-Tribune recently covered the growing trend of app-driven direct cremation, and the full post is an excellent read. In the piece, writer Neil Senturia debates the humanity of services like Eirene, Tulip, and Solace, which, in his words, “democratize death by providing direct-to-consumer cremation.” We love to read stories about deathcare that are written by non-deathcare professionals, and this one is especially thoughtful. In addition to comparing this service to intangibles like NFTs and cryptocurrency, Senturia’s article includes these gems:

• On the name Eirene: “… a reminder of the famous song by Lead Belly, ‘Goodnight, Irene.’ The words of the song include, ‘I’ll see you in my dreams.’ Dying made easy with a double entendre.”
• On apps being direct-to-consumer: “It is more direct to your brother-in-law who never liked you in the first place.” 
• On your Gen X, Y, or Z disposition decision-makers: “knowing where the closest funeral home is less than knowing where the closest Starbucks is.”
• On eliminating the middleman: “your dad, who was hoping you might say a few words before you spread his ashes in the backyard compost pit.”

Senturia closes with these thoughts: “I am going to argue for some tears and some moments of reflection. I know I am out of step, but ruthless efficiency is not always the answer.” Hmmm.

This week’s roll of dishonor

Like DeathTok superstars, stories about bad doings in deathcare just keep showing up in our newsfeed. Here’s the most recent roster:

• James Roy of New Hampshire’s Roy Funeral Home has been charged with several counts, including operating an unlicensed funeral home, making funeral arrangements without a license, failure to transmit a death record, transporting a dead body without a burial permit, and more. Roy, who has operated his facility since 1973, let his licenses expire in 2021, but kept on keepin’ on with business as usual.
• Conneely Family Cremation & Funeral Services in California has been accused of storing unembalmed bodies for more than 24 hours without refrigeration and at an unapproved location, along with other charges. The mortuary’s attorney says they vehemently deny the allegations. 
• Detroit’s Wayne County Morgue has been the subject of several investigative reports by a local TV news station, and funeral directors are speaking out about issues at the morgue, like delayed paperwork and poor treatment by staff, and how these issues are impacting families. These brave funeral directors turned to the station to expose these problems even though they feared retaliation from the morgue if they voiced their complaints. Kudos to these brave folks!

It’s not like asking for a cup of sugar

Houston artist Wayne Gilbert was upset when his family wouldn’t give him some of his uncle’s cremains to use in an art project. After all, Gilbert said, 13 pounds of cremains — what he estimates was left after his uncle was cremated — “is a lot. I was just asking for a cupful.” Not one to be deterred, Gilbert found a funeral home contact with an art degree who sympathized with his plight, and provided Gilbert with “an ample supply.” Gilbert now has plenty to mix “with a resin and the occasional slur of pigment to create a granular material that can be applied to a canvas.” 

FAKE NEWS!!!!!

Fake news, misinformation, opposing viewpoints, call it whatever you want- it’s everywhere! In fact, we’ve even heard people say, “live streaming funeral services is so difficult!”

Well well well, Get some mustard and a little bit of bread, cause that’s bologna!

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