Sublime

We’d probably pay more attention if no one died all year, and then on December 31 the entire population of Chicago suddenly dropped dead. Or Houston. Or Las Vegas and Detroit put together. Instead, unless a celebrity or public figure dies, we tend to overlook the necro demographic as they slip away into history.

in trade magazines like The Shroud, The Western Undertaker, and The Sunnyside.

We don’t need to stop at green or natural burial. “Burial” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word birgan, “to conceal.” Not everyone wants to be concealed under the earth. I don't want to be concealed.

we do not believe in embalming. It is not a ritual that brings us comfort; it is an additional $900 charge on our funeral bills.

In writing The American Way of Death, Jessica Mitford wasn’t trying to improve our relationship with death, she was trying to improve our relationship with the price point. That is where she went wrong. It was death that the public was being cheated out of by the funeral industry, not money. The realistic interaction with death and the chance to