When family members die, their items are divided and distributed to family and friends.  Sometimes this process is fraught with struggle.  Once the dust settles, and we begin to go about our daily lives, we might find that the small items we receive hold a special memory or makes us feel closer to those we have lost.  Today I want to talk about my grandmother’s potato masher and spatula.

Born in 1905, my grandma, Mae Rinkle Lynch lived through many dramatic changes in her 91 years, born in a world where she had no hope of having the right to vote and before the Model-T. Her father died just before she planned to go off to teacher’s college.  The family’s loss of income forced her instead to go to business school to become a secretary.  She received an education beyond High School in a time when for women that was mostly unheard of.   Grandma went off to school in Washington DC where she learned short hand and typing skills.  She was a young career woman of the 1920s.  In 1926, Granddad sent his sweetheart an engagement ring and these two who had been friends on the playground were married.  Granddad and she moved to Detroit and he set up his practice while she worked as a secretary.  I understand that she worked outside the home until she gave birth to my father in 1936.  This in no way means that she ever stopped working.

Between the time she was married and she became a mother, the great depression hit.  Mae opened her home and her table to anyone in need.  My grandparents took in family members and at all times and my grandma fed anyone she knew needed food.  This did not just last throughout the depression years, this continued throughout her life.  If someone in the neighborhood needed food, she would make sure they had food.  Kids would roll up to the house and she would feed them.  It was not just the food, but the safety and love she provided to those who were in need. I know this only through stories of those who received her hospitality and family members who witnessed her generosity. My strongest memories are of her by the stove cooking up a storm for her family and friends.  She was the one who taught me to cook eggs and mash potatoes. She could command all the elements of the kitchen to perform to her will.  I see her standing by the stove with the spatula in her hand, talking as she cooked. 

Grandma was a force of nature, and the kitchen was her domain.   How hard it is to imagine a force of nature going silent.   Those who are such powerhouses of energy, leave such a hole in our lives when they die.  When you are so used to the wind swirling and it goes still, it can be quite unnerving. My favourite things of hers are her potato masher and metal spatula.  When my sister is hosting a family occasion, she asks me to bring the potato masher so we can have proper mashed potatoes.  My husband asked me once years ago when I was going to get rid of that old spatula, and I said I was never going to get rid of it.  No one makes them like this anymore, and even though the handle is broken I will keep fixing it.  When I cook with her things, I often feel like I am using arcane magic wands to make food for the family.  I think she would love that they are still being used to nurture her family even now, eighteen years today, since her death.  She remains to me a great example of hospitality, teaching me that whoever comes my way in life, give them an open heart and home

I have always loved nature.  I have fond memories spending long hours with the neighborhood children running and playing in the woods.  I have always felt a strong love of the woods.  The majesty of the trees and the delicate undergrowth has always made me feel at home and at peace.  As children, my sister and I were taught to respect nature in life and in death.  We were taught that we were stewards of the earth and if we did not use it properly we would lose it. We discussed cremation as the best way to return the body back to nature.  We did not realize at the time that cremation was not so green. I came to the notion of green burial very naturally.  What is green burial?  The simplest definition is - burial with a natural body, in an eco-friendly container (shroud or coffin) no vault.  This definition is simple, but does not give the depth to what green burial is about. 

First, green burial advocates for the use of resources in a proper way.  This means keeping the earth free from poisons of conventional embalming fluids, adhesives and other material used in conventional burial.  Green burial is also about keeping our natural resources for future generations by not putting them in the ground.  Let us look at burial vaults. Why do we need vaults and why do we need vaults lined in precious metals?  We don’t. The conventional industry tells us that vaults keep the ground level in cemeteries.  If buried properly in a shrouded or in an eco-friendly coffin and the ground mounded up, the grave should be just fine.  

Green burial also allows us to take up the traditions of the past, and move forward into the future in a gentle way.  We take up the simple, traditional, and loving process of our ancestors who bathed and dressed their loved ones at the time of death.  How much more simple it is to follow the greener and traditional path in burial than it is to follow the conventional means with their embalmed bodies, fancy caskets and vaults for us to keep our precious treasure in.  Our treasure lives in our hearts and in the stories we tell our children, not in the tombs of our loved ones. We need to be honest with ourselves, we are organic beings and at death we return back to the earth.

Finally, green burial is about preserving the land for generations to come.  In a conservation burial, the cemetery lies juxtaposed to a certified conservation land.  Other certified green burials are not situated in this way, but are no less dedicated to preserving the land.  They take the stand that in this place, we take care of our loved ones and preserve this land, natural and free for the generations to come.  It’s kind of like squatting rights.  As long as it is a cemetery, the land remains free from development.  In death, we can preserve the land one person and one patch of land at a time.  

Last week I stood under the canopy of an oak savanna and felt the timelessness of the sounds and wind around me.  Here, I thought I would love to remain until the end of time.  Here, I would love to be buried beneath these strong boughs and here, I would love to nurture this ancient and timeless place.  Alas, there are no such places yet in Illinois where people can be buried on conservation land.   With time and effort, we hope this will change.

I like to go on field trips to photograph images for the blog and seminars for Midwest Green Burial Society. Recently, I took a trip to a local mausoleum to snap a few pictures.  I had never been inside this particular mausoleum, and was curios.   When I worked as a family service counselor we took a trip to a mausoleum that doubled as the cemetery’s offices.  That mausoleum did not have an odor, but we were all told not to bring in coffee because of the crypt flies. When I wandered into that local mausoleum recently, I did not necessarily expect an odor.  At first I thought it was nice small mausoleum with good light.  I noticed right away that the ventilation system was on and it was very breezy.  As I walked deeper into the room, I began to notice a pungent and unpleasant odor.  It was not until I walked back through, that I noticed the variety and the number of air fresheners stashed throughout the mausoleum.  They were tucked everywhere and some just out in the open.

Discussing the burial spectrum is one of our favourite topics we cover in our seminars.  Some practices are greener than others: ideal green burial on one end and a mausoleum entombment on the other.  When you consider the amount of natural resources used to build and maintain a mausoleum, it easily takes the honors as the least green option.  If a mausoleum is not engineered properly and the requirements for caskets do not aid in dehydrating the body, then a mausoleum might just start to smell.  People imagine that if they are embalmed, their bodies will remain intact forever like the pharaohs of old.  In the first place, Egypt is a dry and arid land.   In the second place, even the ancient Egyptian preservation process used salts to dry the body before it was entombed.  We do not live in Egypt and our embalming is not like the ancient Egyptians.  We live in a relatively humid climate with our Great Lakes, and farmland requiring a good amount of precipitation each year.  A mausoleum here does not make good sense.

This mausoleum is particularly sad, not just because of the environmental impact it makes, but because a mausoleum is the most expensive form of disposition at a cemetery.  People have put a great deal of personal resources into this kind of burial plan, and if someone were to go visit their tomb, it would not be a pleasant experience.   I wonder, if people who choose this as their final wishes understand all the implication a mausoleum has.  I wonder if they really understand just what embalming and entombing means for their remains.  I wonder if we as a society, could only accept the fact that we are organic beings created from the stuff of this earth and that our physical bodies return to nurture that same earth when we die.  We could cease building these large monuments to our existence, and start to live our lives in such a way that our words and actions live on instead.

A while ago, someone I know very causally had to make plans for a sudden death.  As it turned out, she made plans for a green burial.  The funeral director informed her that a green burial would mean burial within twenty-four hours and a small graveside service.  In fact, the state in which this took place; burial of a natural body can occur for some time following a death, providing the body is refrigerated or otherwise cared for.  When I heard about her choice I did not ask too many questions.  I knew this was not an easy death, and I did not want in any way make her feel like her choices were wrong.  I, who have so much education on this topic sometimes, have felt a little insecure when facing funeral director; I can imagine the trouble people have when they meet with a funeral director at the time of death. It is not an easy thing to do.  When you have few resources to draw upon, you might feel compelled to rely on the professional across the desk that tells you what he or she thinks is green burial.

From my secret shopping days I know that the industry resists natural bodies in open caskets.  Part of their formal education and the culture in which they work glorifies embalming.  Some in the conventional industry might truly wish to have green burial on their service lists, but might not know how to go about this.  Be aware of any services listed as green if the body must be buried immediately. If you are looking for an open casket funeral with a natural body, I recommend picking a green certified provider from the Green Burial Council.  Remember a body can be refrigerated for some time before a funeral.  I had a funeral director tell me a body could be refrigerated for 10 days before burial.  I think that sounds reasonable.  As another choice, a home funeral guide also knows how to maintain the body in the home before the funeral.  We have more options than we think.  Direct burial can be a green option, but only if the family wishes a swift burial.  For those who want a full funeral and burial, they and should be able to get what they want.

When we started Midwest Green Burial Society, we knew would have our hands full.  I look out at the industry and the amount of education that remains and I know this is the work I want to do.  I love opening people’s minds to the possibilities they thought were closed to them.   On the other hand we stand against nearly a hundred years of an industry doing what it pleases as it reeducated people into fearing the dead, and believing that embalming our beloved family members, placing them in an elaborate tomb best demonstrates our love for them.  I admit this is a difficult task, changing the tide and speaking plainly about death and simple burial options, but it is a task I readily take up. Someday we hope that attitudes will change and people will be free to celebrate and mourn the lives of those they love in simple ways of their choosing