Divorce Deeds & Deflated Mortuaries | 4M #66
Welcome to the sixty-sixth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #66, 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!
Pick a plot, any plot
A New York woman and her 92-year-old husband are in the midst of a bitter divorce, and as is often the case in such situations, innocent people are caught in the crossfire. This time, instead of children, it’s the owners of 5,000 deeds to plots in three Bukharian Jewish cemeteries in Queens and Long Island. It seems that Roman Nektalov, the agent in charge of organizing burials in these properties within 24 hours of death, became so overwhelmed during COVID that he moved the physical deeds from the offices of the United Bukharian Congregation (UBC) to his home office/garage for faster access. Unfortunately, Nektalov’s wife has accused him of domestic violence and forbidden him from entering the home; additionally, the deeds have become marital property to be fought over in the divorce proceedings. Without access to these records, loved ones are having to rely on their memories of their decedent’s plot location or burying them in random locations in these cemeteries. We can only hope that the UBC reclaims custody of the deeds, or is at least granted visitation rights.
The grieving tree
For the last 35 years a Virginia hospital has erected an unusual, but exquisitely touching, Christmas tree — one that honors and remembers a child who has died with each ornament. Pat Kennedy and her husband put up the first bereavement tree at Sentara RMH medical center in 1987 after their son was stillborn. Since then, families who have experienced the loss of a child attend a memorial service each year during the holidays; they add their ornaments to those that have been rehung every year and know they’re not alone in their grief.
Who’s the greenest?
Choice Mutual Insurance Agency recently released its second annual “Greenest States to Die In” survey, and the results might surprise you. Think the very greenest is Washington or Oregon? Nope. According to this study, which looked at emissions impact and “the accessibility of sustainable burial options by the 65+ per capita,” Utah is the greenest of the green when it comes to emissions, and Vermont is most accessible. When the two rankings are combined, the overall winners are #1: Utah, #2: Colorado, #3: Washington, #4: Vermont, and #5: Oregon. Rounding out the bottom five are Missouri, Michigan, Montana, West Virginia, and New Hampshire.
A different kind of inflatable
In Ireland, the Health Service Executive (HSE) provides public health and personal social services to every citizen, which put them on the front lines in responding to COVID emergencies in 2020. One of the items the HSE put into use was an inflatable mortuary, which looks a lot less like a Halloween bouncy house than the name implies. Now the HSE is suing the manufacturer of the tent-like structure for “alleged negligence, misrepresentation, and breach of contract and duty in its sale and supply of the allegedly defective ‘flexmort mortuary,’” which deflated and collapsed a little over a month after it was inflated because it came with “multiple holes.”
You go, girl
UK high school student Ellie Scott, 17, says she “just didn’t get school,” so she left. But this dropout didn’t retire to her parents’ basement to play video games. Instead, she interviewed with local funeral directors, who were so impressed with her “pragmatism and maturity” that one created a special temporary position for her. After a week, they offered her a permanent job, making Ellie one of the youngest undertakers in the country. “Ellie has demonstrated to her colleagues and to me that, when given the opportunity, the proper support, and an encouraging word, it’s not always about the experience a candidate has, but their attitude,” her new employer says.
Japan is easing up
Japan’s health authorities are considering easing transportation and disposition guidelines they set in July 2020 in the midst of the COVID pandemic. The revision, which was proposed last week, would no longer recommend using transparent body bags for transporting those who died of COVID. The rules would also allow wakes and funerals to be held “in ordinary ways,” meaning that families can once again gather at funeral homes and crematories to say goodbye in person — as long as they sanitize their hands if they come in contact with the body.
The secret’s out
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