Your Stories

The Ultimate Journey“Death is the ultimate journey,” my mother used to say. While my mother was terminally ill we discussed at length how she wanted her funeral arrangements handled. Her instructions were quite simple: “Don’t involve a funeral director. Just make sure you do it all yourself.”

Her reasons for this were due to our unpleasant experiences of using a funeral director when my father had died. My father had left strict instructions his body wasn’t to be embalmed because of his bad experiences during the Second World War. The funeral director had informed us that he had to be embalmed as he couldn’t keep his body for three days until the date of the funeral, otherwise it would be a health risk.

Trusting a professional, who we thought knew more about death and burial, we reluctantly gave permission for the embalming and then watched my father being lifted onto a trolley, zipped into a black bag, and taken away to the funeral directors.

It was only some months later, that we found out through reading Lynda Hannah’s book “Living Legacies – a family funeral handbook for an evergreen world”, that embalming, according to the Health (Burial) Regulations 1946, is only legally required in the case of an infectious disease. My father had had cancer. It wasn’t infectious. The funeral director had misinformed us.

In addition to this, the funeral costs were exorbitant and we didn’t have the money. The church and WINZ both helped financially, but my mother still had to sell the car and Dad’s expensive watch, while I used up all my savings.

Three years later, my mother was diagnosed with end stage heart failure. With the invaluable help from the hospice nurse I looked after her closely for several months. During this time my mother and I re-read Lynda’s book, Living Legacies. My mother and I liked what she had to say. “Communities that have lost the skills and values needed to lay out the dead, and contemplate the broader issues of living and dying.” She also wrote that funeral homes have taken even more responsibility from us to our detriment.

We also learned exactly what the embalmer does to the body. The veins are filled with formaldehyde, a steriliser and preservative that is a powerful poison.

My mother and I looked back on our experiences of my father’s funeral. We felt we’d failed him because we hadn’t known our rights and were pressured into having him embalmed due to us both being in shock at the time. She made me promise that we would handle her funeral arrangements without a funeral director.

When my mother deteriorated, I sat by her bedside, watching her spirit getting ready to leave her body. She was about to undertake that ultimate journey she and I had so often talked about. On Saturday evening she died at my home. The image that came into my mind at the exact time of her passing was of a rose bursting into bloom. Sadness overwhelmed me and I cried. My husband phoned the hospice to see what the next step was. After all, I was now in charge of a dead body. The hospice nurse asked if we could pull out the syringe driver needle from my mother’s chest and the other needle in her arm. My husband and teenage son offered to do this. I liked the idea of them being involved in caring for her body. My husband also laid her out so as to ensure she fitted into the cardboard coffin the following day.

When Sunday arrived, my emotions were put on hold, even though I wanted to grieve. I had work to do. A promise to fulfill. I had to ensure my mother’s body was taken to the crematorium and arrange the celebration of life. We had decided we would have the cremation first, then the celebration of life in four days’ time. Many people usually have things the other way around, but we thought it made more sense to do it this way so we could take our time planning the celebration of life, and besides it would give us time to recover from the initial shock of losing her.

Many thoughts went through my mind. How would we lift mum into the cardboard coffin? She was 5ft 1” and weighed 74 kilos. The bedroom was too small to bring in the coffin. We’d have to carry her through to the dining room where we’d placed the coffin on trestles. The hospice nurse suggested asking the local firemen as they were strong and would be open to help us. We agreed.
The hospice nurse dressed mum and applied her make-up so she’d look presentable for visitors. My mother was beautiful. She’d lost twenty years and looked like a woman in her sixties. I placed a pink flower in her hair. Shortly afterwards, friends and family arrived.
The duty doctor was contacted as we couldn’t proceed with the cremation until he issued the death certificate. Unfortunately, he wasn’t comfortable about certifying my mother’s death since he didn’t know her and wasn’t her GP. However, when we called our family GP, he wasn’t available as it was Sunday. What was I to do? We’d already booked the crematorium for 3.30pm. After another phone call. It turned out the duty doctor had actually seen my mother a few months ago, so finally he agreed to attend and issue a death certificate. There was no pulse taking, no examining the body, no questions. He merely touched her eyelid. One hour later he dropped off the necessary paperwork saying he’d phoned the coroner just to make sure it was alright for him to certify the death.
Shortly afterwards, six burly firemen in their red engine arrived. Mum would have loved this, I thought, as they lifted her gently into the cardboard coffin. She was the type of person to like something unusual. She’d always been a great believer in the supernatural. During her illness she also had an amazing psychic experience which strengthened both of our beliefs in the spirit world.
Once we arrived at the crematorium, my husband backed the vehicle up to the entrance normally reserved for the funeral directors. It’s not pleasant. The ovens are in full view. The paperwork was handed over but to our dismay we were informed we didn’t have the essential Permission to Cremate form signed by the Medical Referee. The Council had failed to inform us previously that we needed this document, only issuing us the form Application to Cremate which I needed to fill in. (The Certification of Causes of Death and Certificate of Medical Practitioner forms were issued by the attending doctor.) Four documents in total were needed.

There was no alternative but to leave mum in the crematorium overnight and rebook for the next day. On Monday morning we met with the Medical Referee who normally does work for the funeral directors. He seemed quite suspicious about our intentions to do things ourselves. He studied our paperwork but refused permission for cremation because the duty doctor had recorded the wrong date of death and had made three minor mistakes on the death certificate without initialing them. He said sternly, “I’d prefer your family GP to do the certification, not the duty doctor.” So he sent us away to the GP who rewrote the death certificate, but couldn’t redo the Certificate of Medical Practitioner, as seemingly the requirement was he’d have to view the body. So the duty doctor had to amend that form.

We met with the Medical Referee again three hours later. But now he wouldn’t accept the two forms because they were written out by different doctors! However, eventually he consented if we ensured the duty doctor rewrote the certificates.

With the paperwork, we headed to the crematorium, twenty four hours after our original booking. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I felt a great sense of relief my task was nearly completed. That I had done everything my mother wanted.

In spite of the paperwork difficulties, handling the funeral arrangements ourselves felt right. The practical aspects helped me work through the grieving process. Now I understood completely what Lynda had conveyed in her book about “having a family focused, personal and holistic approach to death without fear, high costs or superficiality.”

Four days later, we had the celebration of life with Lynda Hannah as the celebrant. Her quiet and warm manner put everyone at ease. The ceremony went perfectly. Candles were lit, speeches were made, and a piper played a Scottish lament. On the table stood a carved wooden box containing my mother’s ashes. Looking back I’d recommend any family to take the death and burial process into their own hands like we did. There was something very satisfying about seeing to your loved one’s funeral instead of being a passive observer. If I was to change anything we did though, it would be to ask Lynda to assist us with the paperwork rather than trying to see to it ourselves. But that is the only thing I would have done differently.

I have a feeling that my mother and my father would have been very pleased at how things had turned out.
Loren Teague

Sadly Loren herself died at the age of 51, only 4 years after her Mum and Living Legacies also helped with her funeral. Rest in peace, Loren.