Sacred Living Sacred Dying understands the importance of being present for a loved one’s dying, as well as being involved after he or she has died.
Photo courtesy of Doorway Into Light and Alana Cini
A HOME FUNERAL GUIDE
A Home Funeral Guide facilitates an in-home funeral that can consist of washing, anointing, and dressing the body with or without the participation of the family. The family may invite friends to join in a ritual/ceremony created by the family or in one created by using the many choices offered by the Home Funeral Guide.
When someone dies, Hawaii Law requires a dead body to be cremated, buried, or refrigerated within thirty hours from death.
WHAT A HOME FUNERAL OFFERS
A home funeral offers the family time to be with their loved one’s body. It allows time for you and your family and friends to grieve for your loved one in the privacy of your own home. You can arrange the body in a ceremonial way with flowers, candles, photos, music, and things special to your loved one’s life journey.
Friends and loved ones can join you in ritual: prayer, singing, lighting candles, sharing precious memories, and being present in honoring the body and the Being who inhabited it—in silence, tears, laughter, and connectedness of oneness.
A home funeral allows the young to witness death and to see it as a part of life. It can open them up to embrace death as part of life’s journey rather than fearing death. It can also open up the conversations that need to take place no matter what age.
If the body will be buried, Doorway Into Light encourages your family and close friends to decorate and personalize a biodegradable casket. Then, those gathered lift the body into the prepared casket and transport it to the crematory or cemetery. Your family and close friends can also participate in the actual disposition, which can include witnessing the cremation, shoveling earth into the grave, or scattering the ashes. Embalming is not necessary.
Caring for your loved one at death promotes the beginning of both closure and the healing process, giving your family and friends the freedom to create your own ritual of farewell. It is a natural way to care for our dead.
To find a Home Funeral Guide in your area, please visit the Home Funeral Directory page.
CBS NEWS INTERVIEW
We invite you to listen to this five minute CBS news interview about home funerals and green burials.
WHAT DOORWAY INTO LIGHT OFFERS
On Maui, Doorway Into Light’s staff, includes Home Funeral Guides, funeral directors, death doulas, trained volunteer caregivers, end-of-life and bereavement counselors, interfaith ministers, assistance in creating a unique memorial/final celebration or funeral, and a bedside notary. They provide services and support to the family and the dying.
Doorway Into Light can arrange the following for you:
- Picking up the body once a person has been pronounced dead
- Refrigerating the body, if need be
- Preparing the body
- Making arrangements for a home funeral
- Assisting with all the necessary legal paperwork
- Making arrangements for a cremation with the local mortuaries
- Making arrangements for a direct burial or ocean body burial (either burial in the cemetery or in the ocean can be arranged so that the body can be transported from the home directly to its final resting place.)
- Doorway Into Light on Maui is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational and charitable organization and operates the only nonprofit funeral home in Hawaii.
To learn more about the services that Doorway Into Light offers, visit DoorwayIntoLight.org.