Gather Them Home
Finding Dignity and Closure Beyond Direct Cremation
Last year, I read a book entitled The Right Way of Death: Restoring the American Funeral Business to Its True Calling by Eric Layer. To say this book inspired me is a gross understatement. It lit a fire in me to be the best I could be as a funeral director and offer meaningful experiences to families who have lost loved ones. The book explores the changing funeral industry, including how to navigate the shift in family preferences, and how to effectively lead families through the grief process as final viewings and graveside services are gradually eliminated. The rise in cremation nationwide is a large reason for this, but the book gives examples and ideas on how to still create an environment that allows grief to be expressed. One of my favorite quotes is “Humans have almost universally agreed throughout history and across cultures that grieving requires action, community, and ritual.” (pg 52). As a funeral director, I see this every day and do my best to create opportunities for families to have those three things happen.
What we call a “direct cremation” by itself is just the cremation of the body with no services. Families have given me many reasons why they only want a direct cremation - financial, desire to keep things simple, family issues, or “dad just didn’t want anything”. While I will never press a family away from doing a direct cremation, that process itself does not allow proper grieving to take place. What I recommend to those families may be a final private view of their loved one, or if they don’t want a service, I tell them to gather with family and friends for a lunch to share stories and remember the person they have lost together. Closure can be found in many small acts; it does not always require a large and expensive gathering. But the action, community, and ritual, whatever they may be, must be utilized for grief to evolve.
Another aspect of the direct cremation choice that many do not consider is what happens to the cremated remains after cremation. Some are interred in a cemetery, some are placed on the mantel to keep a loved one close, and some may be scattered in a favorite place. But a problem arises for those who keep the cremated remains at home - what happens as generations pass, and those who are left caring for an urn no longer even know who the person was that is in the urn? Will they pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars to inter them in a cemetery? Will they know a favorite place to scatter the ashes? Or will the urn find itself somewhere it doesn’t belong- forgotten in a closet, on a shelf at Goodwill, or even in the landfill? All of these things have happened time and again, and will continue to happen unless a better solution is found.
Eric Layer mentions in The Right Way of Death an event he helped start at a cemetery in New Mexico called Scatter Day. For one day, families with urns they didn’t know what to do with were invited to bring them to the cemetery for free placement or scattering in their scatter garden. While this event could have been considered a bad business practice, the truth of the matter was that it gave people a chance to put their loved ones to rest in a dignified manner, who may not have otherwise had the opportunity to do so.
The moment I read about Scatter Day, I knew I wanted to bring this to our own families. Both legally and in the funeral service industry, we incorrectly identify cremation as “final disposition”. If that were true, we would not find the need to place or scatter the cremated remains reverently. But because of this inaccurate definition, funeral professionals are partly to blame for the lack of follow-through on placement of cremated remains.
In order to bring Scatter Day to our funeral home, I had to get a little creative. In Wisconsin, funeral homes and cemeteries legally must be separate entities, so I needed to find a place to inter the cremated remains. For many years, Holy Cross Cemetery in Milwaukee has offered funeral homes in the area to place their unclaimed cremated remains for free, so I reached out to them to see if they would accept urns from this event. They readily agreed. Because Holy Cross is a Catholic cemetery and remains are meant to be kept whole and together, I renamed our Scatter Day event to Gather Them Home, which was itself a decree from Pope Francis regarding the disposition of cremated remains.
On August 21st, 2024, we held our first memorial service for families who wanted to inter their loved ones’ urns. The memorial service included comforting words and music, followed by food and fellowship at our funeral home. The urns that were brought in were placed on a table together in reverence to be taken to Holy Cross for their All Souls Remembrance and placement on November 1st. In total, we collected 31 urns for placement.
I knew the importance of this event. I knew there was a need for it. What I wasn’t prepared for was the sheer relief we felt from families as they carried in their loved ones’ urns to be laid to rest, finally. One family brought in four urns that had been collecting in their closet. Some of the dates for cremation go back to the 1970s and 1980s. The urns came from all over the country- from Alaska to Maine. It was an incredible representation of how families wanted to care for their loved ones’ remains, but couldn’t or didn’t know how to give them a proper final disposition.
The day after the event, my mind was reeling, and I ultimately focused on one thing- how to reach more people who need this service. I believe that the vast majority of people know that cremated remains don’t belong in the garbage. But whether they don’t have the means or the knowledge to provide otherwise, that’s sometimes what happens. So I will continue to advocate for proper placement of cremains and provide opportunities for families who need it.
Our next Gather Them Home event will take place on Wednesday, October 15th, at 6 PM at Schramka Funeral Home, 13220 W Capitol Dr, Brookfield. Families are invited to a memorial service followed by food and fellowship. If families have an urn or urns they want to be interred but can’t come to the memorial service, they are welcome to bring them to the funeral home any time prior to October 15th.
