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October 27, 2006
Burying the past BY JOY LANZENDORFER
Every few months, it seems like a new innovation in the funeral industry is making the news. Marin County is no exception. Last year, the eco-friendly funerals of Mill Valley’s Forever Fernwood Cemetery got major media attention after the HBO show Six Feet Under featured the idea in some of its episodes. Marin County residents do tend to approach death differently than in other areas. For one thing, the cremation rate is higher here—roughly 80 percent of funerals in Marin are cremations, versus 25 percent in the rest of the U.S. Marin folks are also more likely to forgo things like embalming, the process where all the fluids in the body are replaced by chemicals to help preserve it for viewing. But despite being open to alternatives, locals don’t seem to be rushing to get their relatives converted into a diamond pendant quite yet. “I haven’t gotten requests for any of those products,” says Leah Frost, a funeral arranger at Keaton Mortuaries in San Rafael. “Everything we do here has to be run through the state and we have to get permits for each thing, so I don’t know if we would do a request like that if we got one.” That isn’t to say, though, that new innovations aren’t changing funerals. They just happen to be a little lower tech than spaceships. With the new ease of digital editing on home computers, video presentations are becoming commonplace at memorial services, ranging from photomontages to fully produced movies about the deceased’s life. Similarly, people are purchasing online memorials, Web sites honoring a loved one’s life. Diaro Images in San Rafael has done around 20 online memorials in the past year. Diane Balmer started making the sites professionally after seeing the positive reactions she got from the Web site she built honoring the memory of her mother. Now that families are scattered all over the country, a memorial Web site comforts people who can’t make it to the actual funeral. “It really does bond families,” she says. “When I put up my mother’s site, I got e-mails from family members who hadn’t contacted me in years, and now we’re e-mailing every day. So they can renew connections between families.” Gravestones have also undergone a technological transformation. Gone are the days of hand-chiseled stones. Laser-assisted etching has made it possible to perfectly reproduce a photograph down to someone’s wrinkles or hair texture. In some graveyards, life-sized images of the deceased are now looming over the graves. But that’s nothing compared to Vidstones, a new technology that may start showing up in Marin cemeteries soon. Created by a Michigan company called FuneralOne, the Vidstone is an LCD panel that can be put into any headstone. With the push of a button, mourners can watch an eight-minute slideshow of the buried person, all while listening to music through headphones. The solar-paneled product comes with a 15-year warranty and has some protection against vandals. It starts at $1,000. Other memorial services are offering delivery—in other words, they’ll bring the funeral to you. (Unlike pizza, however, the funeral’s not free if they take more than an hour.) This type of service can be especially valuable for Jewish families who adhere to the belief that a funeral must take place within two days of passing. Mandel Funeral Services of Northern California, based in Vallejo, does just this, while promising to make “funerals something personal” by reflecting the passions of the deceased. For instance, if a loved one was fond of golf, they can set up a funeral at a golf course. We’re not sure what they do when the deceased is fond of monster truck rallies. Funerals are expensive. Mortuaries can charge thousands for the casket alone. At Keaton Mortuaries, for example, caskets can range from $995 for the basic box to $15,000 for their top-of-the-line hand-carved mahogany casket. But rules have changed in the last few decades, and people can no longer be required to buy their caskets from the mortuaries alone. As a result, a niche industry has sprung up to sell caskets directly to individuals. Marin doesn’t seem to have its own casket store, but there are plenty of options nearby. For example, at A Plain Pine Box in Sebastopol carpenter Kate Broderson will sell you a hand-made pine box for $600. Broderson, who uses her coffin as her coffee table, says she regularly sells caskets to people who live in Marin. Or, you can order online from sites like Casket Furniture, where, in addition to regular caskets, you can get a coffin that can be used as furniture until the big day arrives. Options range from a coffin pool table to bookshelves to an uncomfortable-looking sofa. Even weirder, Costco is now selling caskets. They range between $1,000 to $3,000 and often have overnight delivery. In Marin, you will have to order online if you’re interested, since the Novato Costco doesn’t carry the casket models in house. Or just drive over to the nearby Rohnert Park Costco, which has some caskets in stock. (We know what you’re thinking—do I have to buy in bulk to get the discount?) The mortuary business has seen a change since the rise of the casket retailer, but it is a small one, according to Jack Jensen, spokesperson for the California Funeral Association. “We’re not seeing a lot of impact from them,” he says. “A lot of casket retailers come into and go out of business. Their margins are very thin. Now, having a huge retailer like Costco come in and do it may be different because they have a different level of stability.” Despite the changes, funeral directors are also seeing a movement to rediscover some of the traditions that have started to fade in the last few decades, particularly in the case of Generation X. “People in Generation X actually have an appreciation for some tradition and want to learn why these traditions existed,” says Jensen. “We have gone through the Baby Boomer generation that trashed tradition and threw it away, and now some people are realizing that some traditions existed because they did something. They helped us. They made us feel better.” But Captain Todd Magaline from Marin Memorial Service in Sausalito, which takes parties out into the San Francisco Bay to scatter ashes of loved ones, has a simpler answer to why some of these new changes may not be catching on. “I don’t think the majority of people want to make a statement with their ashes,” he says. “Hunter S. Thompson had his ashes shot out of a cannon. Some people are just more splashy than others.”
PHOTOS: CASKET FURNITURE COURTESY OF CASKETFURNITURE, VIDEO SCREEN COURTESY OF FUNREALONE THE DEATH ISSUE: |
 Appointment with death Hi Grandpa. How are you? I am fine. How’s the weather beyond the grave? Movies to die for Nothing sends chills down your spine like a good old-fashioned film about death |
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When it comes to death these days, the options have moved way past traditional burials. Forget scattering ashes over the San Francisco Bay—how about having your ashes launched into space? Timothy Leary did it, and now a company in Texas will do it for you, too. Or, if floating beneath the sea sounds like a peaceful way to rest, Eternal Reefs in Georgia will turn your ashes into “reef balls,” cement spheres used in simulated reefs off the coasts of Florida and South Carolina. If neither of those sound appealing, you can always have the carbon in your body compressed into a diamond, which your relatives can then have mounted into jewelry. Talk about a family heirloom.  |
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