all kinds of honouring: how to plan a baby's funeral
We realize there are parents who find Glow from their hospital rooms (Hello, and are we ever sorry you're here reading) searching for information and company. Therefore, today we add a new permanent feature to our cabin library on funeral planning in hopes that it informs your decision, helps you formulate questions, but perhaps most importantly, lets you know that you're not alone in this process and that herein (I pretty much guarantee) you will find at least one person who made the same decisions you did.
Whether cremation or burial, handled by the hospital or a home, a full-blown service or nothing at all, below are some of the actions and thoughts of Glow contributors and readers. This piece is inspired by an old interview I did with Busted Babymaker, who in her haze of grief asked the hospital to take care of the remains of her twins. Months later, when she was ready to confront the business of finding their final resting place, she discovered to her great shock that the remains were "lost" within the county system. She eventually found them, but the ordeal highlighted information that she didn't have -- that she perhaps should have asked, or should have been told without asking; information she felt important enough to share with the babyloss community. The Glow interview with links to the relevant posts on her blog, as well as reader comments, can be found here.
Our intent is not to scare you from having a hospital take care of these things; on the contrary, that may be a seamless and bureaucratically-easy option for you and your family. Instead, we want to present the range of options you have and let you know of any concerns that we -- who have already undergone these actions -- may have had.
We want to prepare you for small waits here and there, and point out that often these options are free and money plays little to no part in the decision making. Surprisingly, given the overwhelming shock and sadness, different parts of the process were remarkably moving and significant for many of us.
As always, although this piece is an amalgam of experiences by Glow contributors, the writing of our readers in the comments gives this discussion it's extra dimension and is where you are likely to find words that make you sit up and say This is me.
~ Tash
In ironic retrospect, there are so many spots on our Excellent NICU/Death Adventure that make me thankful, and grateful, and relieved. One of those things is the strange fact that my husband's uncle happens to be a funeral director in NY state. At the time, it seemed altogether appropriate in its blackness, as if the reaper had cast his cloak over not just the small huddled mass of my immediate family, but all of us, scattered about and perhaps through time. My husband called him from the hospital, and I have no idea what was said, but only that "things would be taken care of." And apparently calls were made, and suddenly a funeral home materialized that would take Maddy's remains.
We did all this before removing life support. Because as drained as we were, we knew after would be far worse, with our skin and souls bunched up in a pile around our shoes.
The hospital where we delivered offered us two choices for dealing with Lucia's remains: to put our baby in mass baby burial grave after a mass baby cremation or arrange through a funeral home to have our child privately buried. We were interested in cremating her and keeping her ashes in our home. The nurses seemed confounded by such a request, seeming to suggest that no one ever had ever asked for ashes, or arranged for private cremation. They had no resources for cremation in their baby death brochures.
I knew that was wrong. I didn't realize that funeral homes arrange these things whether you have a funeral or not. We opted not to have a funeral and to have her cremated. Those were hard phone calls to make, but after the first, I realized it was much easier to deal with people who were used to dealing with death. All those people were appropriately compassionate, but business-like. There was one local funeral home who cremates on-site, and only charges 15 dollars for babies. I was not looking for such a deal, but it was more about what he said at the time, "We choose not to make a profit on these kinds of losses." That felt right to me. Also, the funeral director came to our home each time we needed to deal with him -- to drop off her remains, her death certificate and the urn, rather than have us visit the funeral home. I would have paid him extra for that, but he offered to do that and we took him up on the offer. -- Angie
One of the first people we tried to call after we learned that A died was our rabbi. Rather, I asked my sister to call. She couldn't get through that night, but did early the next morning, while I was still being induced. The rabbi called us and asked if she could come to the hospital to see us. She was there within an hour and a half. She was great -- comfortable in the room with us, comforting without platitudes, unflinching.
After a while we asked what should we do about burying our son -- one of the most bizarre things I've ever had to ask anyone, seeing as he was still inside of me. The rabbi said that she knows just who to call, a funeral director she has worked with before, who is incredibly compassionate and thoroughly on the ball, and if we'd like, she can make the first call herself. Yes, please, we said. We never asked about price or how we would pay -- I think we both just assumed that we will get the bill at the end, pay with a credit card, and deal later. -- Julia
The morning after Maddy's death, my husband bundled up and drove off to "the home." (Isn't it strange, that places we send the elderly are "homes," and places we send dead people are "homes," and the place where my two dogs and two cats and one fish and four humans clutter and scream and laugh and occasionally vomit in inappropriate places is also a "home".)
He returned with a sheaf of papers, and said they didn't charge us anything. I didn't ask, but I assumed it was because the director knew my husband's uncle, or didn't charge for dealing with the tiniest of beings, or both.
The funeral director dealing with Lucy's remains charged us nothing -- not for the cremation or the urn. And cried with us. One of the more touching moments for me is when he told me that Lucy was beautiful. He was one of five people who saw her, so that meant so much to me. (He deserves sainthood.) -- Angie
I am grateful for the compassion, respect, and incredible humanity of the funeral director. The tenderness with which he helped us handle the casket was palpable. The only regret I have about the whole process is that I didn't think to ask whether I could come to the funeral home to help put A's funeral shroud on and get his body ready for the funeral. -- Julia
Children's performed an autopsy on Maddy, so we knew it would be a few days before "the home" would go and collect her. And I wondered how that happened exactly -- there had to be some discreet secret entrance (a tunnel accessed on a side-street, like the bat-cave I imagined) because lord knows, the last thing anyone wants to see is a hearse (or unadorned van -- and we all know what THAT means) driving up to Children's.
They called when they had her, and then said it would be another week or so. We didn't ask why. And on another cold day my husband drove out and collected a small box, wrapped much like a present -- the size of something that might contain 4-6 excellent pieces of chocolate -- enclosed in a plastic baggie. We stared at it, and put it on a shelf.
I was so shell shocked I could hardly speak, and having a service seemed like the last thing either one of us wanted right now given the appalling winter conditions which matched our states of mind. We'll have a memorial service later, when it's nicer out, we thought. But we never did.
Every time I thought about a service, I got to a point about it and broke down unable to envision how that certain point would go: Would we take Bella? (God this made me feel miserable.) What would we read? The book we read again and again in the NICU? (I couldn't fathom making it past page one without sobbing.) Where would this happen? Who on earth would we invite? (We had only lived here six months, would anyone come?) Was it appropriate to invite children and make this sort of "childlike," or was that really macabre and grim? I hated crying, could I stand to cry in front of other people? I wanted this to be private, to be ours, to be mine. There were just too many questions, too many roadblocks, and before we knew it, time had just slipped away. We did nothing.
Angel Mae was very tiny, and we are fairly private people, so we chose cremation and had no services. My sister made calls for us and found a funeral home where the director was very warm and where they do these cremations free of charge, because they can’t bear to charge for them. My only regret about this was that it took almost two weeks to receive her ashes, and I wonder if this is because, as non-paying customers, we were low on the priority list.
Waiting was excruciating for me; I became sort of frozen and could not really process my grief until her ashes came home. It was a huge comfort to receive them. We have kept her ashes with us –- we are not in a permanent home yet and in future may spread her ashes wherever we settle down -– and memorialized her through a special mailing of seed cards on her due date.
I don’t regret not having a public service, but I do regret not taking advantage of the hospital chaplaincy service, even though we are not especially religious, simply because I wish we’d done more to ritualize and create sacred space around the time we did have with her. For the same reason, I wish we had taken more pictures, or been aware of Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, but at the time we were too much in shock to think clearly about any of these things. -- Jenni
I don't regret not having a service per se, although in retrospect I really think some of our relatives could have used the gravity of seeing us as we were, talking about the person that our daughter was, to help them with their attitudes towards us in the whole debacle. (As it was, some apparently thought this was about them, or it really wasn't that big of a deal -- certainly something we should be able to rise above in six months or less.)
Zoey and Gus had a funeral that was, except for the size of the caskets, much like anyone else's. I was glad enough (in a way) because I wanted others to see that these were not just babies who died, not just blank slates, not just two potentials, two futures, or two ideas, but also actual persons. When designing the gravestones, we held true to this ideal. We rejected the softer font some thought was more appropriate for children. We declined to have balloons or teddy bears or other such graphics etched into the stones. We wanted their stones to have the same gravity as those of their neighbors. We wanted people to see that in death, they were the equals of the old. We wanted Zoey and Gus to be seen not as a special class, but as people like other people. At the same time, though, when we visit, we make sure pinwheels are properly staked into the ground by the gravestones.
After all, Gus and Zoey were, and are, our children. -- Eric
At the cemetery, they asked one or both of us to come to the office to sign some paperwork. It turned out that the plot was gifted to us and all funeral expenses were paid by this fund in our city set us especially to pay for the funerals of Jewish babies (or they are donated by the participating funeral homes and the cemetery -- I am not exactly sure of the mechanics, just the outcome). I think because of all the ritual requirements associated with a Jewish burial, the thought behind the fund is to relieve the parents of the need to worry about "doing it right" and/or consider whether they could afford the unexpected considerable expense.
It is also clearly a mitzva (good deed). (It turned out later that some of our friends called the funeral home before the funeral and offered to contribute to the costs, thinking that it was going to be a sizable bill, and wanting to help us with it. They were told that there is nothing to contribute to.) -- Julia
I don't regret cremation one bit, though I do see the (usefulness) in having a place to visit, a place to meditate in, a place to caretake, just a place. We ruminate on a bench here, or distributing her ashes there, but as I type this three-plus years later, her remains still sit in a box in a baggie on my family room shelf.
Perhaps I can't let them go yet, or perhaps this is exactly where they meant to be.
tash
Reader Comments (33)
After the burrials, there were still other things to attend to that drew it out a bit. Waiting for the ground to settle, and then be filled in was unsettling. Choosing a stone was a nightmare, my rock had crumbled at this point and seemed not to care. What to inscribe on it worthy of our babies we never got to know. Waiting for installation, grass, etc. Planting, pruning, fussing over their spot because it was all we could do for them.
I wish someone had encouraged us to take pictures at the hospital. Even if one decides they don't want them later, you can't go back and take them after your little one is gone.
It all just sucks, plain and simple. I still haven't figured out how to navigate this new world I live in without them.
My daughter Eva was born at 40+6, on arrival she had breathing problems and spent her life in the Neonatal Unit before chosing to end her fight suddenly the day after her birth.
I think the first I thought about a funeral was when our Minister came to bless Eva and I heard my Dad ask if there was a possibility of a plot in our church's cemetry. The Minister visited again after Eva had left us to have a post mortem and he said he found in his experience bereaved parents took comfort in having a burial rather than cremation and having someone to visit was healing. I thought this was sensible advice and so we both agreed this seemed right.
My Mum contacted a local Funeral Director in our town and Eva was collected from the hospital at the same time as I left the hospital, I took comfort that she was in my home town.
The Funeral Director and our Minister came to the house to make arrangements which was good as I was unable to face leaving the house. I found the decisions came easily, we knew what we wanted to do. We decided on a service in the church we were married in. I wanted a private service with only people there who had met Eva (our immediate family). I did not want singing, I wanted a white coffin and lots of flowers. I wanted Eva in the house before the funeral for the first and last time. I did not want a hearse, me and my husband travelled to the church in a black funeral car with Eva between us. We then had a graveside service where our families scattered pink rose petals and we threw long stemmed red roses. We took photographs in the church before the service.
I take great comfort that my baby girl didn't get a chance to go to many places but she was in our home and our church.
I have visited the cemetry at least once every day (it is only 5 minutes from home) and I enjoy tending to the grave, creating flower arrangements and buying nice things. I like that my husband and I will join her when it is time.
We did not pay for anything apart from the plot, the casket and flowers. Everything else was free from the church or funeral Director.
My advice to anyone is to do exactly what you feel is right but take advice from others if you find it helpful. It was one of the hardest days of my life but it was a fitting tribute to my brave, beautiful baby girl.
My husband and sister scouted for a plot. The infant graves were "free" as was the burial (though they were going to need a donation for the tent we wanted covering us from the August heat...whatever) They found a spot in the infant grave section in an old Jewish cemetery in a lovely, wooded, expensive section of town across the street from an elementary school. They thought Lucy would hear kids at recess. We joked that only Lucy could afford to live in Ladue.
The casket looked like a Styrofoam cooler and it undid me. My sister went to Saks and got a white gown for her - and a matching pink one for Sydney to have. We put pictures in there in case she got lonely and there she lays.
It rained as the service was ending. A hot August rain in St. Louis followed by a sun shower. She kept us under the tent - together - listening to the rain hit the trees and the gravestones of grandmas and grandpas and other children.
On Mother's Day we went and met the family of her next-door-neighbor. They seemed nice.
This spring I went and noticed that she didn't have the ivy plantings everyone else has. I tracked down the caretaker and said that my daughter needs flowers on her grave. Can I please look at a book? He asked who it was for, I told him, and he said, 'Oh, Lucy! I was just back there the other day and saw that she needed some. No worries. I'll take care of it." And so he did.
We picked a good place for our Lucy.
The hospital gave use one option for burying Jon - the county cemetary with the other babies that had died (called "Babyland"). A coworker who had a son who died also gave me the name of a cemetary that had facilities for burying a baby, and would do it for low cost or free. My mother offered her burial plot. Ultimately I chose the county cemetary, because I didn't want Jon to be alone (the local newspaper had run a story on stillbirth in Memphis just that year, so I had a visual in my head of a row of tiny coffins, and I thought the person who kept the cemetary sounded nice). I've never visited the site, although I have the plot number.
My mother and fiance made most of the arrangements for the memorial service, which was held about 3 weeks after Jon's death. The service was held at a family friend's church, and the repast was held at the same friend's home. My finace, my mother, and I selected the music and the readings. I still can't listen to certain songs that were played at the memorial service without crying.
In hindsight I probably would have had Jon's body cremated, and planted the ashes under a tree in my mother's backyard. It's more fitting with my beliefs. But I'm not unhappy with the choices we made, even if they were while we wre in shock.
Love from Eva's mama.
We were not quite sure how to handle a memorial service, but knew we wanted to do something. We chose to have a service of remembrance for her on her due date. We gathered our closest family and friends and met at a local inn. A Unitarian pastor led a brief service and then we went to our favorite beach and threw flowers on the outgoing tide. Afterwards, we gathered again at the inn to have dinner together. It was lovely, and I am so glad that we did it. The sadness continues, I still cried as I woke up the next morning, but I think that saying a formal goodbye with our community present was very healing, and helped me to move forward. The entire service can be read on my blog:
http://clearbrightstar.blogspot.com/
We did not spread our daughter's ashes. They are in a nice urn that a friend who is a potter made for us. It is beside our bed.
If you are planning your baby's service, I am so, so sorry for your loss. I wish for you the ongoing love and comfort of your community and some sense of peace that I hope will come from saying a formal goodbye to your little one. My heart goes out to you.