How to Plan a Home Funeral: A Powerful Last Act of Care
Planning a funeral is a profound personal experience. But when professional funeral services enter the picture, a lot of the space to mourn, honor, and celebrate the life of a loved one can be lost.
While funeral homes are helpful, for some their practices and processes come at a cost that goes beyond monetary expense. It can feel like their expedient logistics are taking the control away from you.
Are you looking for information on how to plan a home funeral?
Here are the eight steps you’ll need to cover:
- Legal requirements
- Preparing the body
- Creating a sacred space
- Planning the service
- Engaging loved ones
- Handling logistics
- Seeking professional support
- Attending to aftercare
Our detailed guide will help you navigate everything you need to know to plan a truly personal home funeral for your loved one.
What Is a Home Funeral: Definition and Atmosphere
A century ago, holding a funeral at home wasn’t a choice. It was the only possibility.
It may be hard to imagine. With the plethora of modern funeral services, we’ve never really had this personal experience with death that has been part of the human condition since time immemorial.
It is a deeply meaningful and completely legal way to say goodbye to a loved one. – –
- Instead of handing it over to a funeral home immediately, the body is kept at home for some time.
- The period may be until the actual burial or cremation, or it might simply span over a few hours.
- Regardless of its duration, it is a personal, intimate time for grieving, remembrance, and goodbyes.
- Every home funeral has a unique atmosphere.
Here we’ll share some ideas and guidelines to help you create a space to share grief and a profound sense of closure. Intense yet cathartic emotions often emerge when a funeral happens at home, providing a powerful opportunity for healing and connection.
Legal Requirements for a Home Funeral
Home funerals are entirely legal, but they do follow local regulations. The planning process includes understanding permits, certificates, and body handling rules.
Currently, the home funeral laws in nine states dictate that a funeral director should file the death certificate:
- Alabama
- Connecticut
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Louisiana
- Michigan
- Nebraska
- New Jersey
- New York
This requirement doesn’t mean that the body must be handed to a funeral home immediately.
And even outside those nine states, a funeral director could be very helpful with the paperwork. What’s more, an experienced funeral director could provide advice on other practical aspects like storing the body and its transportation to the burial or cremation site.
But more on that in a bit.
Can Someone Stop Me from Arranging a Home Funeral?
If the death has occurred naturally and doesn’t call for special examinations from the coroner, there aren’t any legal obstacles to holding a home funeral.
As long as the necessary paperwork is filed, you have the right to remember your loved one in a way that feels right to you.
Occasionally, planning a funeral service at home can be met with resistance from medical or funeral professionals. Home funerals still are relatively rare and folk may oppose the idea due to lack of understanding.
It is a perfectly legal option and one of the soundest choices emotionally.
How to Plan a Home Funeral
Planning a home funeral, while involving more work, can provide a deeply healing experience. It may not be everyone’s choice, but its impact cannot be understated. Spending even a few hours with the loved one can bring about a profound sense of closure.
Our home funeral guide will walk you through some of the practical considerations. If it’s too much to take, a death doula can help with practical assistance and spiritual advice.
Consider a Funeral Guide or Death Doula
When planning a home funeral, consider getting the help of a funeral guide or a death doula. These professionals offer grief support in home funerals and much more. They help the dying plan their end of life, deepening their understanding of death and what matters in their last moments on Earth. They can bring peace during such an emotional time and they also can be invaluable in planning a home funeral.
Learn How to Make Arrangements for the Body
Learning about body washing and dressing is an essential step when planning a home funeral. Preparing and dressing the deceased with dignity and respect in one last powerful act of care of closure.
Body preservation should also be considered. Depending on the weather conditions and how long you wish to keep the deceased at home, you may require refrigeration or professional assistance.
Transportation and Storage
Storage of the deceased and the consequent transportation are part of the home funeral planning process.
- This involves securing a suitable vehicle for moving the body, as well as finding an appropriate, respectful place for the body to rest until the funeral or cremation. The logistics can be arranged with a local funeral home.
- Body preservation is naturally easier in colder conditions. The most common method for holding off decay from settling in quickly is dry ice.
- In case you are planning to keep the body at home for a few days so that everyone can pay their respects there, professional embalming may be the best option.
As for transportation, a funeral service can take care of it on the day of interring or cremation.
Communicate with Participants
As far as attendees are concerned, a home funeral isn’t that much different from any other arrangement.
If anything, there is greater flexibility in choosing the date and time for the ceremony, as you don’t depend on the schedule of a funeral home, cemetery, or temple.
The greater ease of access in home funerals allows for greater participant engagement, overall.
Set the hour that works for you and most attendees (it’s impossible to accommodate everyone’s schedule to perfection) and let the people know where to come.
Those close to the deceased can help with the arrangements if they so desire.
A home funeral can truly become a journey of remembrance through a shared sense of healing and unity.
Plan the Order of Events
Planning the order of service you think fits best is another way to create the most fitting memorial for your loved one.
- Arranging the deceased at home goes beyond the washing and dressing of the body.
- It involves the creation of a peaceful space that sets the tone for a heartfelt wake, providing time for reflection and remembrance.
- A space for personal tributes, a small altar, can bring the attendees one step closer to closure, through the act of offering a memorabilia or sympathy gift.
- Home funeral ceremonies aren’t as time-bound as those held at a church or cemetery.
- Plan time for eulogies that will naturally weave into the order of service so that each person can share their unique stories and memories as they come.
Lastly, coordinate the final resting place of the remains, ensuring a respectful farewell.
Document the Event
Keeping memories from a funeral isn’t for everybody, but it could be a part of the healing process.
- Photos or videos are an easily accessible option but may be a bit too obtrusive way for recording home funeral ceremonies.
- But a written account of the emotions you go through can help integrate them and understand them better.
- You’re creating a story of goodbye while forging a memory that will live with you forever.
- Of course, writing during the funeral ceremony itself is rarely feasible. Try to articulate your thoughts and feelings at an opportune moment soon after the event, while the memories and emotions are still fresh.
A pen and white paper are powerful tools for reflection and self-understanding.
Arrange for Post-Funeral Disposition
After the home funeral ceremony ends, it’s crucial to have a well-organized plan for the post-funeral disposition of the body.
Remember when we mentioned how helpful a funeral director could be, even at home funerals? This is the moment a funeral service will help a lot, transporting the body to its final place of rest or crematorium.
What Makes Home Funerals Special
What makes home funerals truly special is that they offer a deeply inclusive and loving way to say goodbye, giving you control over every aspect of the process you deem important.
- Such a level of involvement creates strong bonds as more people from the immediate family and the community at large actively participate.
- The bonding in times of grief also creates a sense of closure and appreciation of life.
- Returning to this age-old tradition is empowering in a quiet and meaningful way, as a personalized home funeral allows us to pay tribute to the one close to heart in the best way we can.
Lastly, a home funeral is very likely to save you money, but the most important benefits extend far beyond financial gains.
Challenges of Home Funerals
While home funerals offer unique benefits, they do come with certain challenges.
The level of planning, knowledge, work, time, and careful attention to logistics outweighs that of a professional funeral service.
It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach and may not be suitable for everyone.
However, these potential difficulties with home funerals are what add a lot of meaning. Getting involved and being present in the difficult circumstances after one’s passing put things in perspective and help instigate the healing process.
And, indeed, the logistics can be scaled up or down. The deceased can be kept at home only for a few hours and even that will allow you to say your goodbyes in the way you see fit.
Conclusion
Our guide touched upon the legal requirements and logistics, the practical arrangements at home, how to create a sacred space, and involve loved ones.
These are general guidelines on how to plan a home funeral, but arranging a ceremony at home should come from you and your understanding of what matters. A death doula or a funeral director can help a lot, too, in creating an empowering and cost-effective ceremony to honor your loved one’s life with a dignified farewell at home.
