Sacred Passage: The Practice of Creating a Personal and Deeply Meaningful Funeral for Your Loved One at Home

If a loved one died tomorrow, would you choose to care for your loved one at home?

Jerrigrace Lyons, who founded Final Passages and pioneered a new field of home funeral guidance, joined with Olivia Bareham, founder of Sacred Crossings, to share information about the spiritual benefits, rituals and legalities of home funerals. The seminar was held at Creative Chakra Spa in Marina Del Rey, California.

Lyons wants families to know that they have a choice to take a hands-on approach with a home funeral.

"Home-based natural death care is something that we used to do and we've forgotten about it," Lyons reminded. "One of the most loving things that we can do for our loved one is to take responsibility for them. It's also very, very healing. A home funeral helps people slowly process their loved one dying. It helps them to integrate the death and what has happened. They're able to get an experience of the death that's meaningful, personal and touches them in ways that gives them continuity of the death. Instead of the body being taken away and leaving an empty space, it keeps the flow of what has happened so the body isn't ripped away. When the body is taken away quickly, it feels as though your heart is ripped out. When the body remains there, then everybody stays connected to the process and is able to move through it gently, gracefully and lovingly."

Over the last 13 years, Lyons has helped more than 300 families with home or family-directed funeral arrangements. She walks side-by-side with the family at home as they take charge of all of the funeral arrangements including filing paperwork, washing the body and decorating a cardboard casket.

"People need to have ritual or ceremony of some kind to process their grief. The decorating of caskets or building of caskets, the decorating of the room where the person's lying in honor, these are rituals that help them feel like they're participating and involved with the death and the right of passage that this person went through. It keeps them connected but also makes them feel like they're participating. That's what brings meaning to it because it's ritual that moves us through," Lyons explained. "Just like a wedding when someone is marrying someone else, people invite the community and the whole community witnesses it. In the same way, the whole community is witnessing this death. It becomes a reality so people aren't carrying such grief because the acceptance is there. They're able to touch them, they get it with all their senses, so there's much more acceptance that the person has really died."

Lyons reminds people that they have the legal right to participate in a home funeral.

"They have the right to care for their loved one at home and to have them laid out in ceremony," Lyons said. "Families have the right to invite a priest, rabbi, celebrant, shaman or someone else to come and perform a ceremony for everybody, but it's in the privacy of their own home. So, they're not limited by time. There's not another funeral coming in right behind them so they have to leave before they're ready. At home, people have all the time they need. They can get up in the middle of the night and sit with their loved one and pray to them, read to them, sing to them, or sit in silent meditation with them. People should have that permission because, who can care for them better than the person who loved them the most? It's like the mother who was required by law to care for her daughter and give her the best care, but when she died, she was expected to give that body away. Why would that be? Why should we give the people we love and care for away when they die? Why not bring dignity and honor to their death in the same way we did to their life. It's really the natural thing to do."

Bareham, who is a graduate of Lyons' Home Funeral Guide certification course, is currently helping families in the Los Angeles area with home funerals through Sacred Crossings.

"Families have to deal with shock, fear, getting to know a dead body and really feeling that he or she is no longer there. It happens in waves. At home, they get a chance to go away, then they can come back into the room and process it on a deeper level," Bareham details. "I've also noticed the way the neighbors, the family and the community come together as a whole, barriers are just sliced through as to what's present. The family needs a guide because it's so new and it's such a big thing that's happening, there's so much going on for them so I just basically hold the space. I ask, what is it you would like? What do you think he would have liked? Let's do that then. I'll start by saying, 'Maybe you have a nice piece of fabric we could put over that.' And they'll say, 'Oh, yes, we have a blanket he really liked.' They want to have the opportunity to do it, but they need someone to ask the right questions."

Bareham helps families release their fears about death.

"The home funeral helps families to begin to embrace death as an organic, even beautiful part of life. It's not a scary thing to withdraw from, but a beautiful thing to move toward lovingly and openly. The fear of this unknown thing happening over there that's going to happen inevitably that we're all going to turn our heads away from, it must affect our day-to-day life on some level. We must be coming from the fear of the unknown, so if we can let go of that, we can run toward death with open arms. In that process, we enjoy life so much more because it's a great place to be," Bareham said. "I want to educate families on their options and their rights. I want them to reclaim what innately they want to do and reclaim their responsibility for a loved one. First they're caring for mom for months and months, suddenly she's dead and a stranger in a black suit comes in and takes over. I want people to know that doesn't have to happen, they can continue the process. Just because her spirit has actually left its vessel doesn't mean it's a horrible, scary thing. It's still mom and I think she deserves to have the honoring and sacred care that she did while she was alive. With home funerals, the body is not embalmed. The families don't want that invasive process to happen. Our way, you don't have to be embalmed and you can still be viewed."

Bareham handled the home funeral service for Mary Melkonian's husband in June 2007.

"It's still magical from beginning to end. I can't describe it any other way. Everything worked out beautifully and I can't praise it enough," Melkonian said. "I'm a founding priestess at the Goddess Temple of Orange County. The founding priestess and director Ava Park did the ceremony. It was earth-based and very personal. It was just family, a few neighbors and some business associates of my husband's. The ceremony was held in our backyard and it was perfect. His body at home with us for three days. He died a little after midnight Friday night and then we had the ceremony Monday. My sons took the body out to the hearse. They placed him in the casket and my grandchildren were all there. He was cremated and then Olivia, our funeral coach, brought his cremains over a few days later. My husband and I talked about it. We both agreed to cremation. I asked him, 'What do you want done with your cremains?' He was a little tearful about his cremains. He said, 'I just want to be where people will go and visit.' And, so both my sons are outdoorsmen. This spring they went up into the Eastern Sierras. They took his ashes up there and distributed them at Mt. Whitney, a place where his sons will be visiting. The whole year has been very interesting. Truly, I honor the work."

For more information about Jerrigrace Lyons and Final Passages, located in Sebastopol, California, visit www.finalpassages.org.

For more information about Olivia Bareham and Sacred Crossings, located in Los Angeles, California, visit www.sacredcrossings.com.

Pictured: Olivia Bareham and Jerrigrace Lyons in Marina Del Rey.

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