Back Yard Burial

I’m not a lawyer, doctor, politician or funeral director. I am just an average guy. My family and I created a home funeral and burial option right on our family 6 acre farm in Central Texas near Austin.

It was easy, simple, cost effective when compared to more traditional burials, and became a bonding experience for my family. In my opinion, it also serves a greater purpose of bringing the power to the people and undercutting the big business funeral, cemetery and burial industries.

There was no guide, but I found lots of warm people with helpful advice along the way. My goal with this blog is to integrate the advice and valuable resources, along with my family story so you have an understanding of the process and actions that served us best.

Keep in mind though, I am not recommending anything to you. I am simply telling you what I did. You should have legal and financial counsel before you act. If something goes wrong, I and my family assume no responsibility for your actions or intentions. (Sorry for that disclaimer!)

I encourage you to add comments and resources if they come to you. I have enabled your comments on each passage below. I will review them only to ensure they fit the tone and intent of this resource. Please help by sharing your insights, ideas and links.

So, if do-it-yourself is your style, you are in for an adventure. Welcome and read on!

Our Family Situation

My dad took a long pause allowing his nostrals to taste the earthy air, opened his eyes and let them come to rest on the sight of his own grave, freshly dug. Next, I saw his eyes moisten and could almost feel his belly freefall as he allowed his mind to bridge the reality gap between his today and what was to soon be his here-after. He took his eyes off the 3 by 8 foot hole in the ground to look my way.

He smiled.

He smiled because he was doing this his way. Isn’t that what we all hope for in death?

This is the true and real story of my family’s loving attention to my dad’s final wishes. My father is terminally ill. He will die. Soon. He has pulmonary fibrosis—the thing that finally took out that greatest of death-teases, Evil Knievel.

With each sunrise Dad loses ground for control over his breathing, thinking and moving, Yet his determination to express his death his own way continues to grow. Continue to see dad's wishes.

My Dad's Final Wishes. Yours?

Here are Dad's wishes:

Be buried (not cremated)

No fanfare, funeral, or grieving fluff, although a rocking wake was all right with him.

A simple grave marker

Cheapest casket

No one involved except family, if possible

No unnecessary processing of his body after death, but salvage any tissue/organs that can help others

Experience death head-on with awareness; no lingering in the throws of death; a fast exit

No resulting financial burden on the family

His wife and pets be provided for

He leave a meaningful legacy

Before I go on, you should know who we are talking about. My dad is a "lifer" military man. He is stubborn, proud, angry, grumpy and humorous. Recall that he smiled at the sight of his own grave.

Being honest, frank and having a sense of humor would be necessary for your family too. And you might benefit from reading about how it went for us so you will know some of what to expect. If you prefer, you can skip to my resources link and get started on your own funeral and burial adventure right now.

Death Rip-Offs and Waking Up

After Dad’s doctor gave him the diagnosis and we learned that his disease is always terminal and tends to ravage one’s lungs quickly, dad became interested in making sure things were set for the end time. That meant he spent endless hours going through files and paperwork, organizing and making instruction sheets for survivors to follow.

During these months we had many frank conversations about death. So often, the only thing that consoled me after these talks was returning home my four-year-old son. My boy never knew the circle-of-life brand of comfort he gave me those times we sat silently together.

Process.

Dad is not short on opinions and death is no exception. “I don’t want those greedy bastardss to get even one dime out of me when I'm blue and stiff,” and “I want to find a way to beat this funeral business racket!” and “G.D. thieves, these funeral directors and undertakers…” made up much of dad’s death script.

I began to understand his point of view. And my interest in helping Dad come to peace with his own journey grew. If this is your point of view too, you may be interested in some big steps away from big business death.

Step 1: Get Organized

Since he is terminal, he is willing to talk, plan and proceed with a diligence not likely encountered in one of good health. I could see that part of the appeal for my father was taking this bad situation and making it happen on his terms. He seemed pleased with the thought of defying a time-honored and institutionalized system. This was an unforeseen and unexpected pleasure the whole family soon shared. We learned from dad to enjoy this bucking the ranks approach to death too.

My brother, sister and I listened carefully, and then we began our shenanigans--that's the word we used for it our plots and plans about Dad’s death.

First, since Dad was already focused on getting his paperwork in order, I volunteered to be the paperwork guy when he dies. I’m good at that.

My sister agreed to be the medical person. Because of her experience and training as an EMT, it made sense that she would oversee and guide that part of the end.

My brother was to be the coordinator and point person when dad actually dies because he has a cool head. We talked this division of labor over with dad and he agreed to it.

There must be a therapeutic benefit from keeping records and organizing for the end, because the farther along we progressed, the more dad chose to be consumed with these tasks.

I noted that when he was having a good day his sphere of concern was large and encompassed instructions and plans for extended family and even distant friends. But when he was having bad days, which became more frequent as time forced its agenda, how his concern bubble shrunk--no worries about anything beyond his next breath or pain meds. We had to take advantage of the good days and help him struggle through the others.

Our next step was to...

Step 2: Legal Documents

When there were good days, we kids capitalized on it.

I convinced him to execute important legal documents. Hospice supplied many of these for us and we simply filled them in and where needed, gathered witnesses or notary public seals. Clinical and devoid of emotion, these pre-fab forms helped make this part easy.

After his paperwork was completed, we found that we had all picked up on a common language that made it easier to talk about his situation. We also gained a clarity of dad’s vision for his death and aftermath. Most importantly to you, we developed an interest in becoming as educated as we could on death and dying, especially in Texas.

If your parent, partner or other loved one is terminal, having the conversation about documents such as wills, living wills, trusts, medical power of attorney, durable statutory power of attorney, do not resuscitate orders, and protection and conveyance of personal assets among others is a necessity. They are a great place to begin a more depthy extended conversation too.

Insist on actually completing the forms though. I found that I really had to push Dad to execute documents. That is understandable and falls into the very human tendency toward denial. But these docs are important and we eventually, gently prevailed in getting him to sign them.

Whew. What a relief it was to know we had succeeded in this big step toward fulfilling his wishes.

Next we...

Step 3-a: Back Yard Burial

We ran across resources for planning a funeral and began working through the endless choices involved.

For me the most difficult part of thsi step was not knowing how to broach the subject. I told dad about an article I read on creating a family cemetery. He was interested.

Our plan had been to use his military benefit of a grave and marker at a national vet cemetery. But the old cowboy way of burying your dead in the back 40 appealed to him too. “Hell, can’t we just dump me out back and let the coyotes have me?” He loved saying things for shock value, but this game me an idea: Why can’t we?

Turns out, you can!

In my state, Texas, and maybe in yours too, you can legally create a family cemetery on your property. Now there are laws, regulations and subtleties that come into play and no one seems to have all the answers to the many questions we had. I found several encouraging books, articles, and on-line resources on home burials and family cemeteries (see Resources below). They made it sound pretty easy.

When I went back to dad with the news that it looked like we could just toss him in the back yard, so to speak, he became excited.

I did not anticipate that reaction. A tad bit weird, you know. I was encouraged by his enthusiasm and pressed forward on creating a family cemetery on our little family farm in the country.

It was easy but not simple. Figuring out the steps required and how to complete each was challenging. But once we completed the process and looked back, we could see that doing it again would be quite easy now that we know how. I suspect "they" in the biz don't want you to know this because you might choose to do the same once you see how we did it. I hope you do.

Step 3-b: Create a Family Cemetery

Some of the highlights in the process of creating a family cemetery included:

My sister obtained a copy of a land deed that included a family cemetery on it. She used that as a template and fashioned our deed revision after that one.

We modified the official property deed survey to include the location and GPS coordinates for a family cemetery.

The county tax office had us jump through a couple of minor hoops, submit a letter and then accepted the new survey with the family cemetery addition.

Bottom line: we saved huge money on cemetery property and created a legacy in the form of a family cemetery we could love and eventually contribute ourselves to. Recall that a legacy is something Dad wanted. Most important, creating a family cemetery allowed dad to begin to express his own creativity and discretion regarding his great exit.

In fact, the collaboration on details and possibilities might even have been fun were it not for the constant grounding provided by repeatedly grappling with my dad's mortality . Ironically, dad seemed to come alive during this operation.

Dad appreciated our resourcefulness in something like this happen for him. "You kids amaze me. Too bad you picked the one event to apply yourselves to that you know I can't fully enjoy!"

Step 4: Home Funeral

Not long after, I mentioned an article I saw about how expensive caskets are. What a racket it is; oftentimes guilting survivors into buying a Bentley when they wanted a Beetle.

Dad said he wanted to see the article. Once he read it, I asked dad what kind of casket he was interested in. He told me. “Cheaper the better” was his position. “I wish we could just skip the whole casket rip off”

Later, I found a lady in California that would UPS ship a cardboard casket to me at a total cost of less than 100 bucks. This thrilled dad. I began to get it. Dad was enjoying thumbing his nose at the fat cat establishment.

We went through a checklist of similar concerns in a handy funeral checklist, and he repeatedly blasted "No" and "Hell no" to most of the items, now that this was all in his hands.

He was also enjoying how often opportunity presented situations for him to interject his trademark witty sarcasm. For example, I put the casket in storage in the loft of the shed dad had. One day dad asked if he could see it. I pointed and from where he was standing in the shed he could see part of it overhead. “So that’s it, huh? Insert flap A into slot B and slide the old man in. Well I’ll be damned.”

He smiled a long while and then silently retreated to his oxygen generating machine back at the house.

Step 5: Hospice

Soon my dad began to experience pain. He's pretty tough and would not let on much about this. But my sister is very tuned in to his needs and realized that he would benefit from some pain relief beyond tylenol. Since he is terminal, she thought he mignt qualify for Hospice care. She was right.

Convincing dad to meet with hospice was a bit more challenging than other aspects of our journey. He was suspicious of their motives and doubted their collective competence too. "Lisa, Princess," he told my sister, "I don't need any help dying, and I damn sure don't need it from anyone who stands to make a buck on me."

He also resisted the idea of losing any mental clarity that could result from being doped up too. But as his conditon worsened he agreed to allow Lisa to look further into hospice. That is where he found a new partner in his journey.

His hospice nurse met and quickly bonded with the old grump. She was a lovely lady in her latter 20's with a brief history in the Army. She had a soothing way of easing his burdens and calming his angst. It did not take long for the two to become close and trusted friends.

Soon dad explained our plans for the home burial and family cemetery. Nursey-pooh (that was dad’s nickname for her) said she could help us with this. In fact, she explained that she had done a home funeral and family cemetery burial once before. Voila, we had a guide of sorts. She would prove to be dad’s guardian angel of death, to mix two expressions.

When dad caught pneumonia last winter and almost kicked, we all gave some thought to the actual digging of the grave. Since we were not going to use embalming fluid or ice to chill the body (as per dad’s wishes) we would need to get him underground pronto. The law in Texas says you have only 24 hours if you don’t embalm or chill. Don’t know how long it takes to dig a grave, but it would take longer when everyone is crying. Luckily he pulled through so we did not have to find out.

Just the same, after his recovery he could not let go of the need for a better plan for the digging of the grave itself.

Step 6: Grave Diggers

In the weeks following, dad became increasingly agitated with the idea of his grave not being ready. He finally requested that we look into having it dug and prepared in advance of his death, "the sooner, the damn well better." “That’ll be one less F*&$(*%^ thing for you kids to have to deal with when I cash in.”

To locate a grave digger outfit we looked in the telephone directory but did not find any listings. We explored septic tank digging companies and found one that would do the job for $500. Then my sister contacting several cemeteries in the area. It took several calls because the cemeteries were not too eager to help us "do our own thing" at their loss. Lisa finally got a phne number of a crew in the area and called them. 280 bucks bought us a hole in the ground and loads of expert advice on grave location and orientation as well as tips for making it easier to lower the casket and return the earth on top. These guys were not used to dealing directly with the public and seemed to appreciate the interaction emensely, especially whan they found that we had a sense of humor about the whole gig.

When the digging crew was finished, I brought dad out of the house, across the yard and to the family cemetery for inspection and quality control. He insisted that he be allowed to look over their work, citing “I’ll already be having the worst day of my life. I don’t need to discover my grave is 3 feet too shallow because someone bailed early on the job.”

As we approached the grave, I fell back and allowed him to amble just ahead of me. The first time he paused he was about 10 feet out. "Are you sure you want to look?" I asked dad, placing my hands softly on his shoulders. "Yes son. I want to see it. And don't get any bright ideas and push me in early," he chided as he patted my hand. Then he continued forward again, eventually positioning himself at the foot of his grave. I watched him close his eyes, inhale as deeply as he could, and collect himself. When he finally opened his eyes again, he began by looking at the pile of dirt, then let his eyes sweep left and down, slowly down.

We stood there together, father and son. Each proud of the other.

We covered his grave with plywood and tarps and turned the matter over to the daddy long legs that would keep house until we returned.

It Can Get Weird

We all feel good about dad doing this his way. I know dad appreciates the dignity of making his own choices and he loves the drama he can squeeze out of an awkward death related moment.

Once he actually lowered a ladder into his grave and climbed in. Later, when I heard about it and pressed him for the reason, he said “Son, there was a dead animal down there, and I wanted to get him out.” Made no sense to me at all. Wasn’t that the one perfect place for a dead animal to be? Dad was having none of that. It was his hole. He unceremoniously booted the little rabbit out.

Then, I imagine, he stood there, six feet under, and looked up at his creator and creation… And smiled. This has been a weird and wacky journey

Can you imagine seeing your own cemetery plot? Your own casket? The eternal ever-after view afforded from the bottom of YOUR own grave? Me either. But that’s my dad.

Good luck and please share your creative death and burial story on our blog. We can all share, celebrate the life of the lost ones and learn from one another’s experiences too. God bless you and rebels everywhere!

Resources and Links

Here is a list of helpful resources and links. I provide a brief annotation of how they were or could be useful, but you may want to check out each link for yourself. Oh, if you find other resources that should be on the list, let me know. This is still under construction. More soon!