Dedicated to End-of-Life Choice

A sermon delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship ofthe New River Valley, 10 June 2001,by Franklyn Moreno, a private consultant in Christiansburg and longtime friend of the Fellowship.

But, first I want to ramble through past memories and experiences and from that to take a direction so please join me on a journey.

I would like you to listen and to ramble with me - but in your cases it will be in your memories and your experiences.So as your ears hear me - let your mind ramble along in the same vein.

I think I was 3 years old, maybe it was four - most likely four - because I think my brother had just been born. I am sitting with my parents in padded folding chairs and there are other people in the room.

Bussha - is laying in a box in front - quiet - not playing cards - not talking with her friends.

We don’t see Bussha after that.

Several years later - we all go to Grandpa and Grandma’s house and something is different - it is not a Sunday - we always go on Sunday for dinner - But the whole family is there - all my aunts and uncles and my cousins - I enjoy being with my cousins - but everyone is so quiet.

And there are a lot of other people there that I do not know. I run from the porch through the kitchen and into the dining room where the cousins usually play cards before dinner - and the sliding doors to the parlor are open - We are not to play in the parlor and the doors are always closed.

There is a light coming into the parlor from the street lamp outside - shining through the stained glass clerestory window - right on Grandpa’s face - he is laying in a box with his hands folded and his eyes are closed.

Grandpa is Dead!

I did not know Bussha too well - but Grandpa I knew - I was his favorite of all the grandchildren - I didn’t know why then - but I was the first born male child that was named after him and I would carry on the family name - He carried me around on his shoulders and took me to visit everyone he knew - I knew Grandpa and now he was Dead!

I grew up Roman Catholic and one of its tenets of good works are the corporal works of mercy - one of which is to "visit" the dead - my Mother believed in that - so there were a fair number of compulsory Wake attendences and some funerals in the Church - but nothing significant until my father’s mother - Grandma - died. Then I was in High School and I went to the Principal’s office to get permission to leave school to go to the funeral.

They began to give me permission for three days off from school - and I said that I needed only tomorrow off - the funeral was tomorrow and the last night of my Grandma’s wake was that evening which I was going to attend - I discovered that while my mother believed, she did not push us to attend all three nights of a Wake.

That night at the Wake - all my cousins where there _ including Grace Ann - who was called ‘slow’ and practically raised by my Grandmother - As Grace Ann entered the funeral parlor she spotted Grandma laying in the coffin in the front - SHE RAN DOWN THE AISLE YELLING "GRANDMA, GRANDMA, GET UP - YOU HAVE COMPANY".

At that point pandemonium set in - in the front row were all my Aunts - Grandma’s daughters and daughters in law - They began screaming - and fainting - and yelling - Uncles, my Father, funeral directors, friends - were running to the front to get Grace Ann out of the coffin - to catch the fainting Aunts - to stop the commotion.

I and all the cousins stood in the back laughing - WHAT A WAY TO SEND GRANDMA OFF!

Later when I told a school friend the story of that night he told me I should read The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh. I think that after reading the book, my ramble became a journey - At that time I knew I wanted to do something different about how I was buried - but I was young and I left things drift along - I read Jessica Mitford’s American Way of Death - I attended funerals and wakes and memorial services - Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Church services, graveside services, Masonic last rites, Fraternal Order last rites - I lived in Carbondale Illinois - which is one of the two American towns to start Decoration Day after the Civil War - now known as Memorial Day - and I began attending the Unitarian Fellowship.

In my curiosity - I attended a Memorial Society meeting held at the Fellowship - what was discussed made sense - Somehow _ I became President of the Memorial Society - and ran the society for a number of years

Most recently Morton Nadler and Isabel Berney asked me to talk to the Fellowship about memorial societies. This date moved for one reason or another a whole year - in the interim Isabel and others began a process to establish a memorial society and I was asked to help.

Much has happened and changed since I was a Memorial Society President - for one - they are now called a FUNERAL CONSUMERS ALLIANCE.The Federal Trade Commission passed the FUNERAL RULE - the consumers’ movement grew and laws were passed - and Bonnie and I got older - so I got involved again.

What are we doing?

We are affiliated with the Funeral Consumers Alliance of the United States headquartered in Hinesburg Vermont - the national clearinghouse - we have been meeting for the past number of months - we will be holding informational meetings throughout the New River Valley - hopefully with the help of the Valley’s senior citizen organizations - in mid-September - and an organizational meeting on October 15th - watch for times and places.

We will be building on the 40+ year work of Ernest Morgan and his small volume Dealing Creatively with Death: A Manual of Death Education and Simple Burial.

We will follow the Consumers Union model in that our members will help us talk with funeral parlors and crematoriums to develop reasonable priced burial and cremation options for our members.

We will expand education of how best to use our bodies to help others after we die - bringing in speakers and current information to members.

We will help our members identify and document their burial wishes - for notifications, for funeral, burial, cremation and memorial services - we will not hold money for members last wishes - but we will be tax exempt and not for profit.

AND most importantly we will encourage our to write down their wishes and request AND to let others know what they want done with ‘the body’ after they are gone.

All of you may not know of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s final request and how after the massive State Funeral his will was found in his private safe and read - and his simple wishes had NOT been followed - Let me paraphrase those wishes -

Roosevelt: That there be no lying in state.

Actual: There was no lying in state.

Roosevelt: That the body not be embalmed.

Actual: Three funeral assistants worked incessantly for five hours to give the President the proper appearance. " He looked like his old self again and much younger".

Roosevelt: That the body not be hermetically sealed.

Actual: The casket was closed and the inner top bolted down ... The other top was sealed with cement.

Roosevelt: That the grave not be lined with brick, cement, or stones.

Actual: The casket was placed in a concrete vault.

Roosevelt: That a gun carriage and not a hearse be used throughout.

Actual: ...the casket was taken in a Sayers and Scoville Cadillac.

And lastly, - we may become a focus for Churches and others to serve as additional repositories of information on last wishes, relatives to notify and where to find "things."

One last ramble - and then I end today’s journey - a year ago - as my Mother was approaching her 90th birthday - my brother and I talked to her about getting her funeral wishes settled.

For years - she had her dress and slippers and rosary and shawl all laid out in the cedar chest and told everyone about them - showed them to anyone expressing interest - she had a cemetery plot next to my Father -- But until we started - I had not experienced the WORK involved to make final arrangements and we were not doing this under terms of grief - three days later - we had a contract with a funeral parlor for a simple wake - paid in full - one that came in less than the cost of her first home - we had settled the question of ownership of the burial plot - which we had tended fro years and years - and paid in full for the grave opening and closing and the concrete waterproof casket box liner - we had finalized a list of who to notify and whom to invite - although most of my mother’s friends have proceeded her - We had arranged her finances, power of attorney, and living will.

My experiences with the Memorial Society helped - But as I leave you on this journey - Plan Ahead - make it easier on your loved ones - consider the Funeral Consumers’ Alliance of the Virginia Blue Ridge as a way to help in this memorial process - Thank You!

UUC Home Page

sermons, articles,etc.