What are Home Funerals? An Interview with Ann-Ellice Parker

Ann-Ellice Parker is the wonderfully insightful “death midwife” who runs Seasons of Change home funeral and end-of-life practice in Berkeley, CA.  Join SevenPonds for an extra in-depth interview about death and dying, home funerals, aid in dying, and more…

Ann-Ellice Parker

Aurora: Why do you do this work?

Ann-Ellice: I started as a death midwife and home funeral is a logical extension of that.  My job is to empower and re-empower families around end of life and death and dying issues.  So often, death takes place behind closed doors, either in nursing homes or hospitals, very divorced from the normal routine of life.  I really believe that death and dying is a sacred time — as sacred as birth, and truly can be as liberating and beautiful and life-changing an experience as a birth — but people have to open themselves up to the possibility of transformation.

When people die, we want to compartmentalize the experience and get it out of way. Corporations give three days bereavement leave.  And then you’re supposed to get back to life as it was prior to your death experience… if I could think of one unrealistic expectation of modern life, that would be it.  You can’t integrate a death experience into your ongoing life in three days!  If you’re lucky, you’ll have the body at home on ice for three days so you can sit with it and grieve with it; and tell your family stories and say goodbye.

I’m really looking to affect a shift in the way people look at end of life and death and dying, from something to be avoided to something to be welcomed as a life-enhancing experience.  I feel strongly that it’s about families, and people taking back control of how they grieve and mourn and heal.

Aurora: Really cool. Do you have an especially memorable experience with home funerals or death and dying you would like to share?

Ann-Ellice: I recently midwifed a 13-year old Chinese American girl, Emily, my first child client.  She died of lymphoma in March.  It was really an interesting experience because she was completely unafraid of death and a very typical teenager — fun-loving and in the moment.  I was just so moved.  She didn’t have 50 years of being told how terrible death is, and to fear death.  She was fearless and charming.  She made me understand how this experience can be transformative, and doesn’t have to be the weight and agony that most people associate with death and dying.  She just really went in with open eyes.  In the end, she developed a tumor in her lungs that compromised her breathing.  She was fully awake until she went into that last unconscious place, 48 hours in the act of dying with her two teenage brothers playing video games in the room with her.

It was an amazing experience that taught me a lot about how people come to this place.  She taught me that death can really be embraced; it doesn’t have to be a surrender or leaning into.  Sitting vigil to Emily was a great privilege.

Aurora: Can you tell us a little about Seasons of Change?  Is it primarily a home practice, or do you have a funeral home storefront or funeral parlor?

Ann-Ellice: Yes, it is primarily a home practice, which I feel gives my clients a sense of empowerment.  We are a brand new business, still in the process of having our website designed.  I offer everything from death midwifery to advance directives guidance to home funerals to officiating and/or helping someone plan a graveside service.  I always explain what green burial means, and what it means to be eco-friendly, as well as the traditional options.  I will never tell a client what to do, but I’m strongly in favor of ecologically conscious decisions.  However, if someone wants to go the traditional route and wants me to officiate at their funeral, I’m happy to do that.

I really offer a transition service more than anything else, because I don’t stress home funerals any more than advance directives.  In some organ donation cases, it is not even possible for a client to die at home — they must die in a hospital so those organs can be harvested.  What’s important to me is that my clients deal with death and dying on their own terms.  In traditional death care, families often will not come together until death is imminent.

So this idea that death is something distanced from the life experience is one I’m trying to combat.  Instead, I feel death is really integral to living a full and present experience.  Death is a natural and expected part of life — and even though only 10% of us will die unexpectedly, we should all be prepared to die at any time.  I feel that is the piece missing from even the most enlightened hospice programs, which don’t demand a conversation about death and dying until six months from death.  But I think we should talk about it from birth.

It is important to understand that life is a gift, given and taken; most of us don’t have the opportunity to decide when we’re going to take that last breath.  Some of us do, and that’s another choice, just like any other, not to be denigrated or shamed.  Suicide is a very challenging experience, but it’s another life choice, not any worse than not choosing suicide.

Aurora: How do you feel about aid in dying, Ann-Ellice?

Ann-Ellice: I feel like it’s just another choice.  I think that people who want to make an exit with everything in place, as a conscious choice, should be supported.  Oregon and Washington are ahead, and hopefully other states will think about changing legislation to make aid in dying possible for residents.  You shouldn’t have to move to Oregon because you know you’re going to die, and I’ve heard of people doing that.

Again, it’s a frontier.  A lot of my work is doing the education and advocacy piece around that all choices in terms of life and death should be supported.  I hate it when people feel like they have to hang themselves in the closet or shoot themselves through the mouth.  That seems very extreme and inhumane.  Those don’t seem like appropriate or reasonable experiences, but for someone to decide to end their life is just as reasonable as deciding to wake up.

Aurora: Do you have any advice for SevenPonds readers facing an end-of-life experience?

Ann-Ellice: I think reaching out is really important and in this age, we have the internet — the work you guys are doing with your blog is fabulous.  We’re dealing with the baby boomer generation.  There are many people now, 48 and older, who have aging parents — and options are as varied as individuals, so it doesn’t have to be the isolated, grief-inducing, guilt-producing experience it has been in the past.  People can use these life transitions to inform and enhance the rest of their life experience.  Reach out to do creative expressions, consider home funerals, consider the ecological impact of death.  That’s the advice I’m gonna give.  I’m gonna say, do it your way.

Aurora: Thank you so much, Ann-Ellice!

Ann-Ellice Parker can be reached at 510-356-4782 and seasons.parker@gmail.com.

Related articles

• Home funerals making a comeback (nj.com)
• Being ‘mindful’ can neutralize fears of death and dying (sciencedaily.com)