What’s the process of DIY funeral? What do the family go through?

CD: You have the body at home for two days, three days, however long it takes for the family to sit with it and for it to feel done. You wash and dress the person yourself, and you observe the little changes in their body. Their eyes start to sink, you can feel them go to room temperature, you can feel the stiffening up and then the loosening, and you just know that the person you love isn’t there anymore. Then you take that shell of the person and you go ideally to a natural burial cemetery, or you go to a crematorium and you actually load the body into the machine.

What kind of feedback have you got from people who’ve done it?

CD: They’re not cool with the death – they’re not like, “Y’know, and then I just grieved over those three days and I never missed Jimmy again.” That’s not what happens. But I’ve never heard someone say, “Yeah, I took care of my own mother and it was really gross and uncomfortable and I wish I hadn’t done it.”

How do you even start to do a DIY funeral?

CD: The death midwife will come to the house and help figure out the logistical things like the best place to keep the body and how you’re going to move the body. They make sure they have all the things they need, like dry ice or diapers. They ask questions like how do they want the eyes and mouth closed — totally naturally, or do they want a little help?

What’s a death midwife?

CD: They’re women who come in, who are not in the funeral industry, and they help you take care of the dead body in your home outside of the funeral industry.

Why is it always women?

CD: It’s a much more interactive-with-the-body kind of funeral work. My personal theory is that it has to do with wanting control of the body, whether it’s control of your sexuality, whether it’s control of childbearing, or control of the dead body, we’ve had control wrested away from us of our own physical selves, and it’s almost like a feminist act to say, “No, I want control of all parts of life and death that have to do with the body,” so that’s where I think it comes from.