When Imam Abdullah El-Amin’s closest friend died 18 months ago, he ritually bathed his friend’s body, anointed him with oil and fragrant herbs and wrapped him in a simple white burial shroud.
It was not only his religious duty, El-Amin, of Detroit, said, it was an honor.
“We were together all down through the years,” he said. “He was my best friend.”
Throughout history, caring for the dead has been the duty of faith communities and families rather than undertakers. It’s still that way across much of the globe. Even here in Michigan, El-Amin has provided after-death care for hundreds of people as part of his role as imam, or spiritual leader, of the Muslim Center of Detroit.
But what is common practice for El-Amin is unusual. Most Americans relinquish this job to funeral directors.
While many are satisfied with this arrangement, others are not. They desire a more profound way to say goodbye.
From washing the body to creating a personalized funeral ritual, more and more families are taking back care of their dead from the professionals and doing it themselves.
“A person has the right to take care of and support their loved ones the way they see fit,” El- Amin said.
Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann, of Detroit, walked out of Henry Ford Hospital September 2005. She had just learned that the aggressive brain tumors she had been fighting for seven years had, once again, returned.
It was a turning point.
“Take a look back,” daughter Lydia said. “That’s the last time you’re ever going to be in that hospital.”
Joy radiated from Jeanie’s face. The fight was over. They determined to “live as best we could and enjoy this last time, to die the best we could, to be with one another as much as possible,” Lydia, 21, said.
When Jeanie died at home under hospice care on New Year’s Eve, around 60 friends gathered to assist. The men carried Jeanie downstairs where a group of women, including Lydia, washed her body.
“I washed her hair and washed her face … mostly by washing her face with my tears,” Lydia said. “It was just an incredible moment, probably one of the most amazing moments of my life.”
Daughter Lucy, who had just turned 16 at the time, carefully selected her mom’s clothing and jewelry. Over the last few months, Lucy had dressed her mom each morning making it a fun and exciting routine. Serving her, one last time, in this familiar way helped Lucy’s grief.
After Jeanie was dressed, she was placed in a casket made by friends and cooled with dry ice.
Over the two-day home wake, hundreds gathered to sing, pray, tell stories, share meals, mourn and celebrate Jeanie’s life as a community.
There was no urgency to say goodbye.
“It was like she lingered with us and gently helped each one of us move into this completely new time in our life.”
Most people don’t know it’s legal for families to care for their own dead so they never experience what the Wylie-Kellermanns did.
But only seven states, including Michigan, require funeral-director involvement.
“Why any state agency would want to interfere with this private, intimate family ritual is beyond me,” said Josh Slocum, executive director of Funeral Consumers Alliance, a consumer watchdog over the funeral industry.
It is legal for Michiganians to care for their dead, but a funeral director must sign the death certificate and obtain disposition permits.
Home funerals were once a natural part of family life, and adults knew what to do. Now, fear of the unknown causes most people to rely upon professionals.
Those who cared for Jeanie after death loved her. For them, it was a holy act. “It’s not a professional act,” said Bill Wylie- Kellermann, Jeanie’s husband and pastor of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Corktown. “It’s a sacred community-based act.
“I felt like I got a lesson in what sacraments are. A sacrament is something that is very ordinary and necessary like eating bread, which turns out to be the most holy and sacred thing there is.
“It’s a practical necessity to wash the body, and it’s a sacred ritual … at the same time.”
Even now, Jeanie’s home funeral is a source of comfort.
“I can think back to any of those moments when I’m sad or feel like I need to be grieving,” Lydia said. “It’s just so powerful and so beautiful that every moment can make me cry in a really good way.”
Caring for Jeanie’s body at home was not only a death-changing experience, it was a life-changing experience.
“I wrote something for the funeral after that,” Lydia said. “It was a poem that started out, ‘I never knew death to be so horrible,’ because those last couple days when my mom was saying that she was in pain or things like that were just so hard.
“By the end of it, after going through this experience of washing the body, of having people there and the telling stories around her body … the laughter and crying and the singing – just all this grief and celebration and life – by the end of it, the last line of the poem was, ‘I never knew death to be so beautiful.’
“That’s really completely how I felt.”
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By Wendy Lyons, Special to the Michigan Citizen
Wendy Lyons is a recently retired mother of two. Passionate about restoring humanity and common sense to death and dying, Wendy is dedicated to advocating for the do-it-yourself funeral movement. Currently, she is the vice president of the Funeral Consumers Information Society of Greater Detroit. For more information visit www.funeralinformationsociety.org; e-mail: fcis@juno.com; phone: 313-886-0998. Lyons is also available to give a free two-hour communityawareness presentation on the diy funeral movement.
