Cremation is now America's leading form of final 'disposition,' as the funeral industry calls it - a preference that shows no sign of abating.
In his half-century in the death business, Richard Moylan has never experienced years like these.
So many ashes to ashes, so much dust to dust. Cremation is now America's leading form of final "disposition," as the funeral industry calls it - a preference that shows no sign of abating. Other countries have been quicker to embrace the practice, like Japan, with a rate of almost 100%, in part because of its high density and paucity of burial grounds. Cremation is central to Hindu and Buddhist funeral practices, releasing the soul from the body. But Judaism, Catholicism and Islam resisted it, because of views about the sanctity of body and spirit in death. Though the United States' first crematory opened in 1876 in Washington, Pa., Americans were slow to acceptance.
CANA estimates that 20 to 40% of cremated remains are interred in a cemetery - placed in the ground or a columbarium, a storage area for urns - while 60 to 80% are buried in another location, scattered or kept at home, on the mantel or stashed in a closet. Some families bypass any ritual, be it saying goodbye to the body at the crematory, holding a funeral or establishing a permanent memorial. There's resonance in a body that forces families to deal with death.
In the 19th century, "rural" cemeteries at the edge of growing cities, like Mount Auburn in Cambridge, Mass. , Laurel Hill in Philadelphia and Green-Wood , were welcomed as parks. Americans also started to recognize the convenience of cremation and its lower cost. Comparisons are challenging because of the many options, but the median price of a funeral with burial and viewing is $7,848, according to the NFDA, while the median cost of direct cremation is a third of the price at $2,550. Cremation with viewing and funeral is comparable to traditional burial, with a median cost of $6,970.
"The cremation rates are telling us something. They're screaming at us that people are not happy with what is available," she says. "Cremation is more a rejection of the traditional funeral industry than an acceptance of cremation." She craves innovation and meaning: "We need safe, beautiful ways to engage with death."
Some who have lost a loved one revel in defying convention and remaining joyful. Families uncomfortable with the solemnity of traditional funerals have replaced them with birthday-like celebrations of life. "If there's anything that is going to slow down or reverse the cremation rate in the United States, it is green burials," says Kemmis, the CANA executive director. "People are looking to the greenest final disposition so that our deaths will reflect our lives."
Pets are another matter. West Laurel Hill Cemetery in suburban Philadelphia is home to the state's first alkaline hydrolysis machine, which resembles an oversize fish poacher. In four years, 90 pets have been reduced to a fine white powder similar to baking soda, beginning with a five-foot-long alligator named Sheldon.
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