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The Sunday Read: 'The Movement to Bring Death Closer'

“If death practices reveal a culture’s values,” writes Maggie Jones, the author of today’s Sunday Read, “we choose convenience, outsourcing, an aversion to knowing or seeing too much.” Enter home-funeral guides, practitioners who believe families can benefit from tending to — and spending time with — the bodies of the deceased. On today’s Sunday Read, listen to Ms. Jones’s story about the home-funeral movement and the changing nature of America’s funeral practices. This story was written by Maggie Jones and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.
Duration
1h 10m
Broadcast on
20 Dec 2020
Audio Format
other

“If death practices reveal a culture’s values,” writes Maggie Jones, the author of today’s Sunday Read, “we choose convenience, outsourcing, an aversion to knowing or seeing too much.”

Enter home-funeral guides, practitioners who believe families can benefit from tending to — and spending time with — the bodies of the deceased.

On today’s Sunday Read, listen to Ms. Jones’s story about the home-funeral movement and the changing nature of America’s funeral practices.

This story was written by Maggie Jones and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.


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This podcast is supported by TikTok. Sometimes the most interesting discoveries are the ones you weren't looking for. That happens every day on TikTok. A science experiment can spark a whole new interest. A recipe you stumble upon can become a meal you make for the people you love. And a restaurant you've never heard of might become your new favorite spot. That's the thing about TikTok. Follow your curiosity and see where it leads. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Hi, my name is Maggie Jones. I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times magazine and I teach writing at the University of Pittsburgh. I wrote a story about a year ago about a group of people who call themselves home funeral guides. And their mission is to help us be less afraid and more in touch with death. You might think that the story about home funerals is incredibly depressing. And I get that. It's a story about death and loss. But in the course of my reporting about it, I actually found this process to be incredibly life-affirming and even beautiful. Usually in this country, as soon as somebody dies, the ambulance or the funeral home comes almost right away. It can be within minutes. And that may be the last time you see the body. It gets whisked away and that's it. In the home funeral movement, the idea is instead that after your loved one dies, you might spend several hours with them or you might spend up to three days. The home funeral guides are there to let the families have as much control over the process as they want. That may mean that they want to dress and bathe the body, comb their hair. They may want to put lots of flowers around the room and play music and like candles. And the key is it's what the family wants. Death is, you know, it's out of our control. There's nothing we can do. We don't get to decide when loved ones die when we die. But the power of this movement is that it returns a bit of that control to families and that can be profoundly comforting. I think for me, the message is that we don't have to rush death. And in fact, sitting with it can make the process a little easier. So here's my story, the movement to bring death closer,

Transcription truncated.

“If death practices reveal a culture’s values,” writes Maggie Jones, the author of today’s Sunday Read, “we choose convenience, outsourcing, an aversion to knowing or seeing too much.” Enter home-funeral guides, practitioners who believe families can benefit from tending to — and spending time with — the bodies of the deceased. On today’s Sunday Read, listen to Ms. Jones’s story about the home-funeral movement and the changing nature of America’s funeral practices. This story was written by Maggie Jones and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.