Death Midwife
May. 16th, 2011 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mlerulesWow. Just got an e-mail from a Dear Friend (& pseudo-step-sis) who's adding new depth to her career as a hospice nurse with s'more very closely related functions. Here's what she has to say:
"I came to this weekend workshop to become a certified death midwife or home funeral guide. All these terms may sound yucky to others. But to me it is just the way it's supposed to be. We care for people at my work until they die. Then they're swept away by the morticians either never to be seen again or to be seen one last time with makeup on from the chest up. People spend thousands of dollars on funerals and caskets and preparation of the body. The truth is that the mortuary can be bypassed entirely. The body can be brought back home from wherever it is (mortuary, morgue, hospital, hospice facility, nursing home, coroner) and tended to by family and friends for a few hours or a few days. Typical "care" is to wash and dress the body and lay them out lovingly. It's not necessarily for show. It's all in the "doing." We have lost touch literally with the doing of so many things. We're stuck thinking about things. Feeling like professionals are the only ones who can and know how to "handle it". But to do something physically, with our hands, problem-solve, with others, is healing.
I'm not saying any of you has to chose this path. It is not for everyone. But it's good to know. It's good to know that it is legal to go to the hospital and ask for the body back. Not to say it will be easy. And sometimes they won't let you. But know that it is legal. You can drive the person home dead in your car as long as they're covered up. You can file the death certificate and the form for dispensation of the body. YOU DON'T NEED A MORTUARY TO DO IT. You still need the doctor to fill out the death certificate, of course.
I have always felt sad that Grandma [X]'s death was so impersonal. I saw her the night before she died curled up on her side asleep. In the morning I got a call that she had died. And that was it. I think now that the respectful, loving, dignified thing to do would have been to bring her back to my house and tend to her the way she had tended to others...lovingly. Wash her hair, sip tea, pick flowers, put something pretty on her, tell stories, laugh and cry with other people who knew things about her too."
Apparently there's lots of (political) resistance to the movement in Oregon, but luckily she's in California.
I've been around more death and death-related stuff recently than ever before, so this is hitting home even more than it might.
"I came to this weekend workshop to become a certified death midwife or home funeral guide. All these terms may sound yucky to others. But to me it is just the way it's supposed to be. We care for people at my work until they die. Then they're swept away by the morticians either never to be seen again or to be seen one last time with makeup on from the chest up. People spend thousands of dollars on funerals and caskets and preparation of the body. The truth is that the mortuary can be bypassed entirely. The body can be brought back home from wherever it is (mortuary, morgue, hospital, hospice facility, nursing home, coroner) and tended to by family and friends for a few hours or a few days. Typical "care" is to wash and dress the body and lay them out lovingly. It's not necessarily for show. It's all in the "doing." We have lost touch literally with the doing of so many things. We're stuck thinking about things. Feeling like professionals are the only ones who can and know how to "handle it". But to do something physically, with our hands, problem-solve, with others, is healing.
I'm not saying any of you has to chose this path. It is not for everyone. But it's good to know. It's good to know that it is legal to go to the hospital and ask for the body back. Not to say it will be easy. And sometimes they won't let you. But know that it is legal. You can drive the person home dead in your car as long as they're covered up. You can file the death certificate and the form for dispensation of the body. YOU DON'T NEED A MORTUARY TO DO IT. You still need the doctor to fill out the death certificate, of course.
I have always felt sad that Grandma [X]'s death was so impersonal. I saw her the night before she died curled up on her side asleep. In the morning I got a call that she had died. And that was it. I think now that the respectful, loving, dignified thing to do would have been to bring her back to my house and tend to her the way she had tended to others...lovingly. Wash her hair, sip tea, pick flowers, put something pretty on her, tell stories, laugh and cry with other people who knew things about her too."
Apparently there's lots of (political) resistance to the movement in Oregon, but luckily she's in California.
I've been around more death and death-related stuff recently than ever before, so this is hitting home even more than it might.
