By McKensie Allen
No one ever prepared me for having to make the decision about whether to bury my children or have them cremated. Deciding funeral arrangements for your child(ren) goes against nature. From a young age we are taught that we are born, grow up, have children of our own, have our parents die in our lifetime, and then die ourselves. Nowhere in this circle of life is it spelled out that we will lose our children before they lose us. Before I had my twins, I never thought that I would experience losing a child-let alone two. Yet here I am.
From 2018 to 2021 I worked for the Utah Lions Eye Bank (ULEB) facilitating cornea donation and doing intakes for organ & tissue donations. While facilitating cornea donation, part of the process was to work with the chosen funeral home to either hold off on picking up the individual or working with them to perform the donation at their facility. Not even one hour after my twins had died, my nurse handed me a clipboard of funeral homes to select from. There were two columns of between five and ten funeral homes. The name of the facility and the free or discounted services they offered to bereaved parents were listed. As I looked at the clipboard I filtered through what funeral homes I had pleasant interactions with while working at ULEB. It came down to two funeral homes. Ultimately I decided to go with Russon Brothers Mortuary in Bountiful, UT.
After I told the nurse what funeral home we had selected, I remember looking at my mom and telling her, “If I was just a normal parent who hadn’t had the working experience I had, I would have looked at this clipboard and thought ‘Does it really matter what one I choose?’” Most of the funeral homes offered the same free and/or discounted services. On paper, it didn’t appear that one was better than the other. I kept thinking about what it would be like to be the average parent and have no prior experience with funeral homes. I would have felt completely lost. If the nurse would have handed the clipboard to my husband and asked him to decide what funeral home our children should go to, he would have no idea what to do. He probably would have asked them to choose one for him.
Deciding on a funeral home that your sweet baby or babies go to seems like a small decision in passing, but it is one of the very few big decisions you get to make for them. This decision holds a lot of weight. The funeral home you select is who is going to look after your child(ren) from the moment you let them out of your physical care and presence. In my personal experience, I knew my twins were in good hands at Russon Brothers. I handed them over to a wonderful, new funeral director named Colin on a Friday evening. My husband and I got to go to the funeral home the next day at 3PM to see our babies one last time and discuss funeral arrangements. There is nothing in this world that breaks your soul more than knowing you can never see your child(ren) physically again. It is what I would truly call a living hell.
As Colin led us through the necessary paperwork I remember scanning the room for an adult to come to my rescue and handle these legalities. But then I remembered I was the adult. No one was going to come and save me. We managed to make it through giving the information for each child’s death certificate. Then we needed to talk about if we wanted to do burials or cremation. My husband and I were unanimously in agreement for cremation. We knew what we wanted for our children because we have talked about what funeral arrangements we want for ourselves. This was another moment that I thought, “If I didn’t have the working experience I had, would we have known and agreed upon the funeral arrangements for our twins?” To be honest I am not sure.
I can honestly say that if I never would have worked at ULEB and never worked with funeral homes or known the options, I would have probably chosen to do a burial. Strictly because all of the funerals I have attended in my lifetime have been burials. It was the “normal” thing to do in my eyes. I have since learned that there is no normal in death. The chosen arrangement reflects what fits the needs and beliefs of the family best.
I would like to share some of the pros of cremation vs a burial for parents of infant and child loss. The biggest benefit of choosing cremation for my children is that I get to have them with me and in my home every single day. I can touch and hold their urns as often as I would like. I get to kiss them good morning and goodnight. If they were buried at a cemetery, I wouldn’t get to be with them every day. Yes I could drive to the cemetery every single day for the rest of my life, but it didn’t sound sustainable or feasible for the long term. I love that my home feels “complete.” It obviously will never be complete without my twins alive in our home, but it is complete as it will ever be.
Another benefit of cremation is that it is more cost effective than a burial. Any funeral home that offers free and discounted services to parents who lose a child are actual saints. However, even with free or discounted services of embalming and a facility for the funeral, the casket, plot, and headstone are not covered. The only cost associated with cremation is the urn. It was much more cost effective than having to come up with several thousands of dollars unexpectedly.
Finally, in choosing cremation for my children I was able to hold off on a gathering in their memory until I was ready. When doing a burial, if you are doing a service where a viewing is taking place it needs to occur typically within the week of the individual dying. This holds a lot of weight and pressure on the parents who have just had their whole life broken ten ways to Sunday. To be completely honest, I know I wouldn’t have been able to see immediate and distant family members, co-workers, and friends within a week of my children dying. Because we chose cremation and our children had lived for one-hundred and seven and sixty-six minutes, we did a celebration of life memorial. I originally thought of doing it the Saturday after we were discharged from the hospital. About ten days after our twins were born. However, my husband and I decided that we didn’t need to rush anything.
We chose to do our twins’ celebration of life memorial on November 11th since both twins measured eleven inches long. 11/11 or 1111, an angel number. This date had significance for us and felt like the best way to honor our children. The date was about three weeks after they had died. In this time, I was able to create several shadow boxes of their outfits, blankets, and other memorabilia that was given to us by Share Parents of Utah. I was also able to have and display their face, hand, and feet molds that were taken in the hospital. We displayed several photos and even created a slideshow of all the pictures we had taken during their birth, in the hospital, and at the funeral home. Because there wasn’t a rush to have the service shortly following their death, I was able to envision and execute a service with so much memorabilia for babies that only were able to live one-hundred and seven and sixty-six minutes. I could have waited three months, six months, one year, etc. for whenever I was ready and able to have the service. There is such beauty in waiting until you are in a place capable enough to honor your child(ren).
Again, there is no right or wrong when it comes to making the decision of funeral arrangements for your child(ren). Actually making the decision feels like cruel and unusual punishment. This was never something you were supposed to do in your lifetime. It is never something any parent in this world should have to do. But if you have had to do it, I know with great certainty that you made the best choice of funeral arrangement for your child(ren) that fit your needs and beliefs. As members of the “club” we entered in when we lost our child(ren), I strongly believe that we can be allies to other parents who are experiencing the profound loss of their child(ren). We can share our experiences and knowledge around funeral arrangements to best help them make their decision for their sweet angel(s).