Coming to Rest: A Guide to Caring for Our Own Dead, an Alternative to the Commercial Funeral

Rating:
Summary: Environmentally sound
Review: An excellent book for anyone wanting helpful information about how to prepare yourself and your loved one for both death as well as handling the home made funeral. The American Way Of Death by Jessica Mitford exposed the big business of the funeral industry and this book Coming to Rest : A Guide to Caring for Our Own Dead, an Alternative to the Commercial Funeral by Julie Wiskind, Richard Spiegel does a great service to those interested in bring dignity as well as common sense to burial and cremation. It helps dispell the myth that you have to "hire out" and that only "Store bought" is legal.

I encourage a few brave souls to get the book and invite a few open minded friends over and start a local support group that will provide the information needed to help people do at least some of the funeral and body preparations themself.

Travel overseas and if you are smart in where you go you will discover that in Africa India South and Central America an progressive regions of Europe that people take care of their own dead a lot. That the American funeral is NOT the norm, and it shouldnt be!

Rating:
Summary: This book is long overdue!
Review: In 1978, I lost my oldest brother to MS. Now I am caring for my youngest brother as he too is about to succumb to MS. Reading this book has provided so many better ways for our family to handle his death than we had with my oldest brother, whose funeral was alienating, cold and impersonal and felt totally out of our control. Thank you, thank you for writing it!

Rating:
Summary: What a blessing!
Review: This book made it possible for me to fulfill my fondest wish. I started a hospice and trained volunteers, and I have seen many people through the process of dying, including several of my own family members. But this was the first time that I felt totally right about the experience of dying, from beginning to end. I am deeply grateful to the authors of this book, and their willingness to share their experience.