My parents were moderately wealthy. They both specifically requested no funerals. They wanted to be disposed of in the cheapest manner so that the money would go to us and not the funeral industry. Any government legislation like this is rent seeking on the part of that industry. Anything subsidized will be used more.
So, who has the biggest, most expensive funerals? Mafia dons and politicians and probably movie stars. Who has the cheapest? The black funeral home in Tallahassee was started by a white man and his family, which, by the way was half black, profited hugely. Black income in the early twentieth century was a tiny fraction of whites, but they had the most elaborate funerals they could afford. Not saying the white funeral homes were hurting, but the social need for large funerals has greatly reduced over even my lifetime. I recall attending a few fairly small services in the sixties, but since then I have been to no funerals at all.
From my parents on down, we all agreed that cremation is the way to go. Dust to dust.
I was stationed with the son of a very large funeral interest down south and after the service he was going to go back to it. He explained everything to us which was basically - keep it simple because every item above the base level of code is just buff and polish... and it all does the same thing equally well (code). It alls boils down to the cost for the fluff. Which is massive.
Wife and I have made same explicit request to our children to minimize cost once we are finished with our bodies here in this life.
MIL died from covid in December. We already had a plot, and stone already paid for. Cost 15k to bury her with nothing at funeral home and a small grave site funeral. Absurd. Cost more than the 1st funeral we paid for when we had to also buy the plot and marker 10 -12 years ago.
Another side to this is that many funeral homes didn’t provide a homegoing (or home-going) service. This service is an African-American Christian funeral tradition marking the going home of the deceased to the Lord or to heaven. It is a celebration that has become a vibrant part of African American history and culture and is still being offered by some today. But not all just like some funeral homes do not offer cremation.
My wife and I opted to do cremation and we are going through a company specific for that service as that is what they do, period. So not always is money or skin color part of the equation for racial segregation. In a lot of cases, especially in the south, homegoing is the preferred service and they only want that so they are choosing their own path. Just like shopping for anything. And you generally can’t find a new Cadillac Escalade on a Subaru dealership lot.
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