The Business of Death

What happens if a person wants to be buried toe-to-toe with a best friend?  There are many historical examples of individuals specifying how to treat their bodies upon death. For example, Timothy Leary, famous for his LSD studies, had his ashes shot into space.  However, it is a relatively new trend to use your corpse to reflect individuality.    

Funeral director and writer Caitlin Doughty has extensive knowledge of “The Death Industry,” and seeks to understand individuals’ relationship with death.  She explains the “black curtain” separating people in the death industry from the rest of society.  Ms. Doughty said she believes we have become too removed from death in our daily lives.  She referenced “Denial of Death,” by Ernest Becker, when pointing out that much of everyday life is an “attempt to fight an underlying awareness of our own mortality.”

See Casey Schwartz, What’s That? You Want to be Buried How?, The New York Times, Apr. 3, 2015.

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.