Agnostic and Death

I am a licensed funeral director/embalmer in a small town in Texas. I am also agnostic, animal lover, artist, hater of politics and somewhat opinionated.

All around the United States, in the theist, agnostic and the atheist community I find so much myth and what I like to call "deathlore" about the funeral industry. These myths include everything from rules and regulations to what can/cannot be done for funerals. Unfortunately, I cannot represent the entire business with this post but I can quote some real rules and regulations that all funeral directors/homes are to follow and few of the ethics that should be followed. I hope to give a new outlook to a group of people that are growing in great numbers, that being atheist, humanist, agnostic, free thinkers. Being an agnostic, I understand how the importance of life AND death should be respected as an individuals choice.

I have hand picked a few myths that I found while reading an essay titled "Dying an Atheist in America" by Chris Morton on the American Atheist website. Let us begin with the myths...

"As an Atheist and a supporter of scientific advancement for the good of my species and the improvement of life, I have bequeathed my body to the medical college. They will use it for one of two things: medical student training or experimental medical procedures. They collect my body at their own expense, and they will dispose of its sliced up, formalin-smelling remains when they are done with it. Hopefully it will have helped science in a small way to further benefit humankind. Apart from providing an inert biological machine for medical science to study and expand our knowledge, I am serving my own purpose through the arrangements I have made. The body disposal industry will not get near my body or my family — they will not pick me up and handle me; I will not be embalmed, which is often done automatically unless funeral directors are told specifically not to do it. This is a pointless practice — it preserves nothing; after "embalming" bodies they turn into bacteriological slime anyway. "

This paragraph has numerous myths enclosed.

1. When donating your body to a medical school/facility, please ask and read the find print on the forms you are signing. Just because you will become their responsibility after death does not mean the "body disposal industry" will not be handling your remains. In small towns and even larger cities that do not have a medical school located in the city, a funeral home will be required to do the removal from place of death and transport you to the facility of choice. Another words...body disposal industry will get near your body and your family if they are still present at hospital (not all hospitals have morgues). Sometimes the medical school even requests that you contact a local funeral home to keep your paperwork on file for easier transport when the time comes.

2. You will be embalmed. What do you think Formalin is? If the medical school has a contract with a mortuary or even a mortuary school...you will be embalmed by someone in the body diposal industry. I attended Commonwealth Institute of Funeral Service (CIFS) located in Houston, Texas. UTMB Galveston and the medical center are one of the largest medical training areas in the country. CIFS had the contract with the medical center for cadavers. The school was specifically trained how the medical school wanted to body to be preserved. We students would practice embalming techniques on the cadavers before they would go to the hospital holding coolers. We were not allowed to perform cavity embalming procedures due to the fact it would damage internal organs. The choosen few of us would volunteer to stay after the embalming lesson to see and help with furthering prepation of the cadavers. Without loosing all ethics and getting into gorey details...the cadaver bodies had more embalming fluid injected in them than four bodies embalmed for funeral services.

3. Embalming is NOT performed automatically unless the funeral director is told otherwise or under special circumstances ie state law requires embalming to be done if body is transported across state lines. Embalming is NOT required by law. Embalming requires authorization by next of kin. Embalming is only required by a funeral home if the family of the deceased wants an open casket viewing for friends and loved ones. We will not show an unembalmed body to the public...it is unsanitary. Even if we have a prearranged service where the embalming has already been requested and paid for, according to my state law...TEXAS we are still required to ask family if they still want embalming performed. We cannot assume that you or your family's wishes are still the same twenty years later. There is a stipulation that if repeated attempts to reach the family for 24 hrs are unsuccessful we may embalm if we do not have better alternative ie no cooler for storage. This really falls into the ethical area. I personally will not embalm without permission from next of kin unless they have a fairly recent prearrangement that already has embalming selected. Luckily, I do not have to make this call often. Most family members or assigned executor are available.

4. Which brings me to a myth that is not in the paragraph above. Personal wills or prearranged funerals after death. Just because you have requested to be cremated or buried in either will or prearranged paid contract does not mean your surviving family members are required to abide to your wishes. This would be decided by your state laws. My state...TEXAS requires that surviving next of kin ie spouse, children, grandchildren, assigned executor etc. must sign the cremation authorization form. This form may only be signed after your death. If you do not have a surviving spouse and your children are left to deal with arrangements...all children must agree to the method of dispostion and sign the authorization form. If you have three children...three children must sign the form. I have seen on numerous occasion where children disagree and either the parent was buried or left in a cooler until decision was made. Six months was the longest so far. I'm sure somewhere someone has been cooling for longer than that. And yes there is a hefty fee for this immature and disrespectful action.

5. The final myth of the above paragraph. Embalming is pointless. Embalming is only pointless to the deceased. I have found that being a woman and an agnostic in a predominatly christian society that I preform a lot of conforming, teeth griting and head banging just to keep peace. I really believe as irriating, boring and pointless as I think most christian rituals are, I find that it is easier to help everyone because I have an open mind to anything. Each church and each denomination has it's own quirks and cliques within themselves. They judge each other and react poorly towards others of different cliques. High school all over again. Embalming is not necessarily a christian ritual. It is easy to place it there since the majority is of christian belief. I have to reaffirm to people every day that a funeral or memorial service is not for the deceased but for the living. They are afraid no one will show up for their service because all of mama's friends are deceased and they will be embarassed. This is supposed to be a time for you to share with friends and loved ones, to celebrate and enjoy memories of the loved one who is MIA now and allow for all of the still living and feeling bodies to say goodbye. This is a time for friends to provide support. Different strokes for different folks with this. Embalming allows the living to see that you really aren't coming back. This is where conforming comes in...just because you are atheist does not mean that all the people that loved you are or that they follow your view of death. They may want to see you in death. They may want to slip that note in with you that says something that they wanted to say to you but never did. These people see this as their way of having one more chance of taking their words with you...whether they are burned or buried. Some small communities become angry when there is no viewing of the body. They take it personally and feel the family is being selfish. We have rental caskets with removable inside liners so that those who wish to be cremated after viewing services may do so at least amount of expense or waste. I hate it when people buy caskets only to burn them.

On to the next paragraph...
"The following things will happen, particularly if Atheists die where nobody knows them, away from their home region. The local body disposal (funeral home) people will whip the body away from the hospital morgue to their refrigerators (remember the costs begin when they leave their funeral parlor) before anyone can do anything — and then, because possession is nine-tenths of the law, they will begin their carefully rehearsed process of undermining any alternatives but their own. They will call distraught relatives and say that they have the loved one's body for safekeeping. The relatives will agree, and in their grief they will forget to tell the mortician not to embalm the body. The body will be embalmed. The costs are now around $4,000.00 and rising. If the Atheist's body has been bequeathed to a medical school, they will no longer accept it because it has been tampered with. So the Atheist's body must now be buried or burned."

1. A funeral home cannot pick up a body without being requested by next of kin or justice of the peace/coroner/medical examiner. We are not allowed to solicite business after death has occured. We must have permission to remove a body. Most hospitals must be given authorization by family to release to funeral homes. If someone is picking your loved one up without your permission and not on direction of a goverment official than you need to file a complaint with your state's funeral commission. When we make a removal for a goverment official we are still not considered the funeral home of choice, usually we transport the body to the medical examiner and the family must tell the government official who the funeral home will be.

2. Yes possession is 9/10ths of the law which also means we are stuck with you and your deceased when you do not pay for services. We still due to ethical and lack of space have to bury or burn your deceased even though we are not paid...the only way we can remove a body from our funeral home is if you ask to use another funeral home. Once we make that removal our hands are tied. And yes...a lot of people do not pay their funeral bills, this is one reason for the rising costs. We can refuse service to you if we have not made the removal though. Unethically, I guess we could refuse to bury/cremate until payment is made.

3. I have already covered embalming authorization above.

Finally, I would like to let other atheists out there know that a funeral or memorial service is not giving into the christians. It is more likely giving into your emotions. Just because you chose to have a service of some type does not require rituals. Play music that the deceased loved..one service I arraganged was a mini Eagles concert that ended with "Hotel California". Provide memories...I arranged another that had surf boards lining the walls instead of flowers, all his surfing buddies brought their boards to show off next to his and we played videos of him singing karoke. You are not required to do this at the funeral home or even have the funeral home arrange the memorial service. Direct cremation is all the funeral home needs to know. If the body is going to be present than the funeral director has to be there. Rent out a night at the deceased favorite restaurant or bar.

When we die we are dead, but the people we loved are not. They have the right to mourn you and miss you in their own way. Hopefully, they will respect your beliefs and not place you in one of those damn boxes out in the weather, with your feet pointed to east waiting for the resurrection to come. I never could understand why if you have a new body in heaven...almost every preacher says something about the beautiful new body in funeral sermon, why do you want your old, fat, aged body to pop up out of the grave. Aren't you supposed to be already united with Jeeezues? Sounds kinda zombie fright nightish to me. But who am I to judge?