Greener Ways to the Great Beyond

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In addition to providing grave sites, the Wikersons make simple coffins from native woods, using an on-farm sawmill, and have gathered a selection of flat indigenous stones, which a local stonemason has agreed to engrave.

John says he and Bill handled their own parents' burials, including making the coffins—pine for Dad; poplar for Mom—and digging the graves. Their father died in 1996 and their mother, who wanted her funeral and burial to be a simple affair, "and never missed a chance to remind us of that," died in 2000. The couple is buried in a little church cemetery that lies adjacent to the farm, on land they donated earlier to the church. Digging those graves was "a very powerful thing to do," John says. "It really facilitated the grieving process."

Dr. Campbell, who is on the Glendale Preserve's board of directors but not involved financially in the project, has attended meetings between the Wilkersons and Florida state officials to help explain the memorial preserve idea. He says he thinks Florida's financial requirements are "oppressive" and notes an Ohio group also trying to establish a memorial preserve is dealing with a similar situation. Such fees are designed to help ensure perpetual care" lot grave site', in a new cemetery. .says Carlson, but in a green cemetery, traditional maintenance practices, like large-.5c-.ilu lawn mowing, do not occur.

The rules at both Ramsey Creek and Glendale Preserves are simple: No embalming no casket unless it is biodegradable, no vault and no stone that that can be pushed over. Kimberley Campbell says they advocate natural burial as the best choice and cremation as the second best because cremation uses energy and re leases toxins into the environment. Natural burial really isn't a new idea, she adds. "It's thousands of years old, and the reason is, its a very natural effective way to dispose of a person's remains. And wouldn't it be wonderful to visit a loved one's grave a site atom, a beautiful prune trail, in a towering England forest or other quiet place of natural beauty?

HOME FUNERALS

Your mother is dying. You want to care for her yourself, at home, when death finally arrives, rather than hiring a mortuary. She feels the same. Together, while there is still time, you decide to plan her service and burial. How do you begin?

Three books are especially helpful: Caring for the Dead: Your Final Act of Love, by Lisa Carlson; Guidebook for Creating Home Funerals by Jerri Lyons; and Dealing Creatively with Death, A Manual of Death Education and Simple Burial by Ernest Morgan.

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