Getting involved
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Let’s face it, we’re mortal. The sooner we accept this fact, death experts argue, the sooner we can get on with fully living. With awareness of our mortality comes a choice: either you take charge of your death and what happens to your body and possessions, or you let others decide. If you don’t take action, government officials may liquidate your stuff for cold cash, dig into your past, and bury you in ways that you may find disgraceful.
-Planning a good death
Conventionally, a good death is seen as a death that respects your religious, spiritual, and medical preferences, is pain-free, comes at the end of a well-lived life, and allows for saying goodbye to loved ones. You may want to create an advance directive or living will that clarifies what types of life-prolonging medical treatment you do or do not want in the event you become terminally ill or injured and are unable to communicate your wishes. You may also want to appoint a healthcare power of attorney to make decisions for you in the event you are mentally unable to make decisions yourself. Excellent advice for planning is available at the Order of the Good Death.
-The things we leave behind
You can’t take your prized possessions with you. So consider making a last will and testament, setting up a living trust, and appointing an executor of your estate. Also decide what you would like to have happen to your digital footprint, and put someone in charge of carrying out your plans.
-Planning your own funeral
Do you want embalming or cremation? A viewing? Would you prefer to be buried in a cemetery plot, a tomb, or have your ashes scattered in a meaningful place? Would you like to opt for a green burial? You can choose an earth-friendly casket, water cremation, body composting, even a mushroom burial shroud. Do you imagine a full service at a funeral home, a grave site, or somewhere else? Who would you like to be there? The cost of a funeral with burial averages $8,300, so it’s perhaps not surprising that more Americans are opting for cremation.
It’s useful to comparison shop. Check out www.funeralocity.com for prices based on location. You can pre-pay for a funeral, but consumer advocates advise most people to put money aside rather than locking in a package. After all, you might change your mind later about cremation or decide to donate your body for research.
After years of studying death and dying, we firmly believe that a funeral does not need to be showy or expensive. It should simply provide an opportunity for relatives and friends to celebrate your life in a way fitting to you. Such rituals not only mark your passing but comfort those who mourn you. They are no longer alone in their grief. It’s a final gift you can extend to those left behind. -
The first step is to reach out. As we show in The Unclaimed, many lonely deaths are the result of social isolation and estrangement. Reaching out to a friend or relative can be a way to help mitigate this isolation, provided it does not cause trauma or harm to either party.
If you’re already in contact, one possible step is to talk to your friend or relative about what they want to have happen to their body when they die. The resources mentioned above can help steer this conversation. -
Some government agencies provide funeral assistance to eligible relatives, including indigent families and relatives of victims of violent crimes.
Here is a list of state and county-based funeral assistance:
Funeralocity.com, a consumer advocate websiteFuneralwise.com, a for-profit service with free information on government burial assistance listed by state
Here are federal programs:
The VA offers burial services to Veterans, their spouses, and dependents (see here)
The U.S. Social Security Administration provides death benefits to a surviving spouse (see here)The Federal Emergency Management Agency provides disaster funeral assistance to families of residents who died in a federally-recognized disaster or emergency (see here)
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Every state, city, or county has one or more teams of government officials that investigate and certify unnatural and unexplained deaths. These professionals can be medical examiners, coroners, justices of the peace, or public administrators. They follow state or county rules for disposing of abandoned bodies. Every jurisdiction has different rules governing how long they will keep bodies, whether they bury or cremate, whether they organize a public ceremony, and whether they individually identify the deceased. Local officials may partner with funeral directors or religious organizations to bury abandoned bodies.
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Across the country, communities are coming together to bury the unclaimed. These ceremonies are an example of what sociologist Ruha Benjamin calls viral justice: small acts of caring, rooted in democratic participation and solidarity, that inspire larger community movements. Benjamin argues that that these acts can spark other forms of social change—and who doesn’t want to see a little more positive change?
There is no universal template for burying the unclaimed. What works in Los Angeles may not work in Grinnell, Iowa, where “Stranger’s Rest,” the local potter’s field, can go for years without receiving a new resident. The goal is to bestow honor in whatever way a local community feels is most appropriate. To organize a funeral, you need to find out who in your community is responsible for unclaimed bodies (coroner, medical examiner, public administrator, justice of the peace). You would need to figure out how long they keep the bodies and how they dispose of them. Then you’d need to find a way to bring people together, partnering with veterans’ organizations, funeral directors, religious organizations, or other nonprofits, and either persuading government officials to hold a ceremony or volunteering to organize the ceremony with their help.
Our hope is that coming together with strangers to bestow dignity to people who have no one else after death can help spur thinking about ways to improve lives. Here are some examples of ceremonies that have inspired us:
Our favorite is Los Angeles’ annual ceremony of the unclaimed dead in Boyle Heights — watch the 2023 livestream here.Washington, DC, the medical examiner organizes a ceremony because, as the D.C. Chief Medical Examiner said as he paraphrased 19th century British politician William Gladstone: “The way a society treats its dead is a reflection on how the society treats its living.”
In Eerie County, Pennsylvania volunteers scatter ashes between the trees at Old Almshouse cemetery (see here).
Unclaimed veterans bring people together across the political spectrum (see here).
In Boston, students at the Roxbury Latin School volunteer as pallbearers to bury unclaimed residents (see here).
The Garden of Innocence (yes, the one in the book) organizes funerals for unclaimed babies and children in San Diego andContact elsewhere (see here).
If you organized a ceremony for unclaimed people in your community, please let us know, so we can add your name to the list. You can reach us on the Contact page.
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The Federal government maintains a national database of missing, unidentified, and unclaimed persons across the United States: NamUS (Note that entering cases in the database is voluntary in most states.)
The FBI maintains VICAP, a database focusing on unidentified victims of violent crimes.
Genealogical volunteer organization helping to identify unidentified remains: Unclaimedpersons.org
Advocacy organizations to locate and identify missing migrants:
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Ultimately, The Unclaimed calls on us to support people in life rather than waiting until they have passed away. We have been struck by how people who lived invisible and isolated lives receive a flurry of government attention to locate their next of kin and dispose of their remains once they have died. If only we could pour these resources into the living! Social isolation is much less likely to lead to people going unclaimed if they are part of communities that stabilize lives and strengthen human connections. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has called for a national strategy to prioritize social connections across local and national policies.
The rise in unclaimed bodies points to a hidden truth about widespread family estrangement in America. While it’s tempting to romanticize the idea of a return to the close-knit, multigenerational family, where siblings, spouses, and children stand shoulder to shoulder in life and death, the rising number of the unclaimed confirm that fewer and fewer people reside in such families. Instead, we need to recognize and foster the deeply meaningful connections of alternative forms of family, such as cohabitation, companionship after divorce, deep friendship, and involvement in religious groups. Often government officials stand in the way of people wanting to claim because friends and other relatives don’t qualify as the legal next of kin. The next of kin should be selected based on the quality of the relationship with the deceased rather than on a legally sanctioned family tie.
Reversing the trend of family disconnection and social isolation will take time. And we will likely always end up with some people going unclaimed. But every unclaimed death is an opportunity to step in where close relatives have declined to show up. Gathering around the gravesite of an unclaimed person reaffirms our common bonds and shared humanity. It is an act of healing—and possibly a way to mend our frayed social fabric.