Bucket lists give us the opportunity to imagine all the things we want to accomplish or experience on earth.  These lists can help focus our lives and set goals to achieve them.  Some of us deeply desire to go to Paris or see the Grand Canyon or go to Russia.  We might want to go white water rafting or skydiving.  When we craft these bucket lists, our imagination can run wild as we envision what things we want to do with our time on earth.  Some items on our list might need a great deal of planning.  We might need to set money aside for a particular adventure.  Sometimes things on our list might not cost a dime and might just be things we need just give ourselves permission to do now. 

Foundations are formed to give dying people both children and adults a final wish in their last days.  When we are faced with death, our true desires come into focus.  What we truly wish to experience and accomplish might be easier to envision then.  We hear of children wanting to go to Disney World as a final wish.  If we are older perhaps we might most desire is to have our family gathered around us one last time so that we can share stories and laugh while we can.   Maybe that trip to Paris with someone dear to us is our true desire.  Each one of us is different, so what one person might most desire would not at all be what another would ever dream of wanting.  That’s the beauty of being human.

Bucket lists can be an on going list we keep in our minds or written down.  Bucket lists can be wonderful tools.  They can help us understand ourselves better.  Bucket lists, when they become more of the focus of our lives, may become less of a tool and more an escape from reality.  As we go along in life, we need to stop and look for the day-to-day goodness we have.  I know that sometimes seeing the good can be almost impossible, but I think if we are open to this, we can see the beauty around us. 

At my first green burial booth, I met a man who remarked that a funeral was like a bad wedding.  In lots of ways I think he was right.  In both cases, families and friends meet for an important life event. Wedding and funeral rites differ among ethnic groups in the US.  Even while following traditions, we might just add something to make the event our own.  Americans are always innovating and individualizing all sorts of things.  Why not our life events?  Weddings and funerals both use flowers.  They both usually have some sort of meal associated with them.  Not all funerals have dancing, but then not all weddings do either.  Both denote a passage or radical change in life.  I could go on with the list of how weddings and funerals are alike, but I think I have made my point. 

A local funeral home’s page states, “When compared to other major life cycle events, like births and weddings, funerals are not expensive.” There is some truth to this.  According to the Knot, the average cost of a wedding is over $29,000. The average cost of both funeral and burial according to the National Funeral Directors Association in 2012 was $16,323 nation wide. Weddings on average cost about twice as much as a funeral and burial.  Some couples wait to save money just so that they can have the wedding of their dreams.  When someone dies, you can’t wait too long, so if the person has not been saving or his family hasn’t, the cost of the funeral could be devastating for a family.

Besides the basic difference in weddings and funerals – one is joyous and one is basically somber, the difference in the market place marks the largest difference. In most states, a couple can go down to the courthouse, apply for a marriage license for a modest fee and get married.  They can then go to any person licensed to marry people. That fee is also modest.  This is a far cry from the $29,000 of an average US wedding.  No one insists that wedding be preformed by high cost licensed individuals. No one insists that couples rent high cost venues and purchase extravagant gowns and tuxedos.  No one makes a couple purchase flowers or wedding favors.  People spend money or do not spend money according to their ability or plan for their wedding.  This is not so with all funerals across the US.  Residents in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Louisiana, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Nebraska are required to hire a funeral director to obtain forms at the time of someone’s death.  Federal law requires that we pay a basic fee when hiring a funeral home.  This fee is a catch all for the funeral industry.  Among the things covered in this fee is basic overhead.  This fee cannot be negotiated and is the base line for the bill to which is added goods and services from the funeral home.  This basic fee can be low, although I have not seen one under $900, and can be as high as $3,000.  I think that’s a little too much for paperwork.  Can you imagine the outcry if all couples were required to rent a high price venue for every wedding? It astounds me that more people do not find the situation in these eight states so totally beyond any reason.

Why can’t families choose how to acknowledge these occasions how they see fit, providing they follow the law and obtain the proper documentation?  We have been caring for our dead for centuries.  I don’t know why we must hire a for-profit business when we might not want them orchestrating our funeral.  We can choose in all other aspects of our life events, but in these eight states, we have lost the right to choose who has a right over our bodies in death.  While the average cost of weddings far exceeds the average cost of a funeral and burial, the high cost of a funeral is far more onerous because we have lost the basic right of choice.  I see no reason why we cannot obtain a death certificate, a permit to transport a body and burial permits on our own.  Maybe we do not wish to have a home funeral, but we should at least be allowed to choose who we want to prepare our bodies and those of our loved ones.  As we choose to care for our bodies in our lives, we should also have the same right to choose how to care for our bodies in death.

This post does not mean to imply that those who work in the death care industry do so only to make money and prey on vulnerable people.  I very well know that many of those who work in the industry do so to serve those who need their services.  I know that there are those out there who want to work with families on the toughest days of their life and make it manageable.  This post addresses the way the industry as a whole uses fear.  I know for certain that there are those out there who use people’s fear of death to make money for themselves.  I have heard the sales pitch many times.  I will demonstrate how the industry as a whole uses the fear of death to sell products and services. 

Let us first look at the sales pitch.  Here are two frequently used pitches: “plan now so that your family won’t have to worry” and “prices are always going up, buy now”.  The problem with these two approaches is that in some ways they contain truths.  If you preplan and prepay for the funeral and burial, you have taken some amount anxiety off your family, but he fact remains that at the time of your death your family will be in grief no matter what you do. If you pre-pay, your family won’t have to pay much or anything at all at your time of death and the prices are always lower today than tomorrow.  Every year the industry increases their prices like clockwork.  If you know you will pay less today than tomorrow, why wouldn’t you pay today?  First, when you prepay, the industry gets your money, and it no longer works for you and your family.  I suggest setting up an account that upon your death your heirs can access the money needed to pay for your final expenses.  Pay yourself and not the industry.  Second, in today’s world, we move around a lot.  How can we know where we will be living when we die?  Many people have purchased funeral and burial plans and have moved away from the area.   In many cases parts of their plans are not easily transferred or in some cases not at all.  I suggest only prepaying if you know death is imminent because otherwise you might change your mind on what you want for your funeral and burial.

Next, let us look closer at the products sold in the industry marketed to alleviate our fears. Coffins renamed “caskets” - treasure boxes-  to make us feel better about placing our treasured loved ones in them at the time of death.  Not only has the industry changed the name to make us feel better about them, but also they sell them as a means of protection.  Some “caskets” are more “protective” than others.  The sealing caskets are meant to make us feel that we are keeping the elements from reaching the bodies of those we love, when this is precisely what is supposed to happen after death. Why are we trying to stop nature?  I have never understood why the industry wants us to stop this natural process.  These sealer coffins make the natural process of death fairly gruesome.  In nature, the ground acts as a natural filter after death.  These coffins do not allow for the natural decomposition that takes place.  If the caskets were not bad enough, we are sold “vaults”.  These “vaults” keep our treasure and act as a second layer of “protection” from the natural elements.  Vaults are nothing more than grave liners and underground tombs. Vaults have no guarantee that they won’t break during use, and the elements will eventually reach the “treasure” you have placed there.  Vaults, like flush grave markers, make it easier for the cemetery to mow their lawn by helping keep the ground level.  Sometimes the plots are so close together; they help distinguish one plot from anther. Once you understand the true use of the vault, you will know that they are there more for the cemetery than to help protect the bodies of our loved ones.

If you can set aside our fears and look directly at our death, you can help your family through their grief.  If we can plan and talk about what we want as a memorial for us at death, we can help our family know what to do.  Take the time today to start looking at the options around you and write down some thoughts.  Those left behind to take care of your wishes should know what you would want.  The uncertainty in the minds of those sitting in the offices of the death care industry makes for an easier sale for the industry.  Your life means more than some easy sale.  Make sure you do your best to fight against the fear of death in your own life and family.   These conversations are not fun.   I do know mean to imply that planning your funeral and death is a walk in the park.  I know it’s not.  I know that sometimes these plans and ideas change, so you might need to tweak it from time to time.  Through the process of research and planning, you start to unveil the mystery and fear that the industry would rather that you don’t.  You start to see things simply.  This lack of fear in the face of death will alleviate some of the stress in the grieving process for your loved ones and make it harder for the industry to use fear as a way to make a sale.