You don't have to call a funeral home when someone in your family dies. Minnesota law allows family and friends to care for a dead person in the home.
What is a home funeral? Caring for the dead at home is commonly called a home funeral, or a home vigil. Minnesota law allows family/friends to care for and vigil with the body of one who has died for up to 72 hours without embalming. Some form of cooling, such as dry ice, is used to delay decomposition.
Caring for the dead means washing and dressing (or shrouding) the body, setting facial features by closing the eyes and mouth, applying dry ice or other cooling method, and attending to the body over the hours and/or days it is kept at home by, for example, replacing dry ice, and monitoring changes in the condition of the body.
Vigil with – “keeping watch” – means staying with the body over a fixed period of time during which family, friends, and neighbors may do any of the following:
view, honor and spend time with the body,
console the grieving,
take part in activities to honor, remember and celebrate the one who has died.
Such activities may include:
- sharing stories - viewing photographs or videos - reading a poem, a journal passage, a sacred text, or other writing - listening to live or recorded instrumental or vocal music group singing - family & friends eulogizing the one who has died - taking part in a ceremony that may include a spiritual practice such as prayer, meditation, reverencing the body in some ritualized way (e.g., with incense, anointing, flowers) - allowing family and friends to individually say goodbye, to take leave of the body of their beloved friend or relative
HOME FUNERAL RESOURCES The Minnesota Threshold Network Minnesota Threshold Network (MTN) was formed in 2008 as an informal place to talk, share, and educate about the environmental, emotional and economic benefits of a more natural, less commercial approach to death, including conscious dying, home vigils, family-directed funerals, and natural burials.
In 2010, the Minnesota Threshold Network initiated legislation that gives Minnesotans more choices to care for our own dead. The legislation, co-authored by Representative Carolyn Laine and Senator Sandy Pappas, allows a public viewing of an unembalmed body on private property and other choices. The law went into effect August 1, 2010.
In-home meetings are held monthly except during summer. A larger public forum is held annually in June. Trainings, classes, and film screenings are held periodically. Threshold volunteers educate and support families who choose to care for their loved ones after death. Threshold speakers give presentations in a variety of settings on family-directed after-death care and green burials. (Adapted from the MTN Website)
Anne Murphy - A Thousand Hands Anne Murphy educates, supports and advocates for a more hands on approach to death through family directed after death care and green burials. Anne offers individual/family support, workshops and speaking events in the Twin Cities area. She is a trained Home Funeral Guide and Certified Life Cycle Celebrant. To learn more, visit Anne's website athousandhands.com.
Checklist for Planning a Home Funeral by the National Home Funeral Alliance's Donna Belk and Sandy Booth of Austin Texas, pioneers in the modern day home funeral movement. Donna and Sandy have put together an easy to use,comprehensive resource. They've thought of everything.
Home Funeral and Green Burial is a 49-slide presentation by Donna Belk of the Home Funeral Alliance featuring several home funerals plus an overview of issues related to home funerals and green burial.
ARTICLES For in-home funerals, a 21st-century revival, a Minneapolis Star Tribune article (11/20/2011) about the home funeral of St. Paul pediatrician Dr. Eric Stull who with his wife, Kyoko Katayama, decided on a home funeral prior to his death while he was receiving in-home hospice care.
Think outside the box: Being green at the end of life, a U.S. Catholic magazine article written by Joe Sehee, the executive director of the Green Burial Council. The author challenges Catholic readers to return to a more authentically Catholic - and eco-friendly - approach to American funeral practices.
VIDEOS Home Funeral and Green Burial is CBS news interview which provides a good overview of the home funeral movement.
Care of Deceased Loved Ones is a 9-minute excerpt of a 2012 presentation by Minnesota Threshold Network members Heather Halen and Julie Tinberg.
Sacred Crossings is a photo-montage of a number of home funerals assisted by Sacred Crossings, a non-denominational service without cultural or religious discrimination which offers home funeral assistance.