On our farm that has been in the family for many years, we have a plot in which a number of us are resting. We hold a simple service right in the farm house the day of death, sing hymns, and tell stories of the life of the departed. And then we bear the simple casket across the field to the family cemetary and lower them down. Over the years, many folks have commented that this is really how a service should be: simple and honest as in the pioneer days, without a parasitical mortician foisting yet another fee upon a grieving family, just so he can buy a bigger Mercedes. Why must predatory capitalism intrude into the last act of a person’s life? Leave us alone! Let us bury our dead humanely and simply.
