Aside from a coffin-shaped coffee table and standing shelf, no Etsy seller has yet to offer the real deal. But it might not be long before some entrepreneur with good carpentry skills comes along and sets up a funeral parlour on the popular handmade marketplace.
An article in the Smithsonian magazine tells of the author’s experience of playing funeral director when his father-in-law died. The after-death rituals that are normally part of a funeral director’s services were taken up by the family members. They washed the body, anointed it with aromatic oils and later rested it in a coffin made by the author and his young son using materials purchased at Home Depot. They even drove the body to the crematorium themselves. The only thing they did not do themselves was the cremation.
Along with natural burials which often come up in the media nowadays, this new practice of handling the deceased is perhaps another one of the latest trends that point to people’s wish to simplify their life.
You never know, one of these days Etsy might even modify its current vision to read: Buy, Sell, Live, and Die Handmade.
Laura Roberts
June 9, 2009
I just read an article in the front of the latest issue of The Walrus on “composting” dead bodies, which I thought might interest you. It’s called “Decomposting Bodies.”