Crossings: Helping Families Care for the Dead

Who Owns the Dead? | The New Republic

The days Alison spent at home before the cremation were both “tragic and beautiful,” Knox said. “It was such a comfort.” And slowly, in the years following Alison’s death, her parents found renewed mission. Sanders, who was released from the psychiatric hospital after about two weeks, left his job in commercial litigation, and began offering his services to other families involved in airbag lawsuits. He began, also, to lobby the government to force automakers to install safer airbags and to require them to place warning labels in cars telling parents not to allow their kids to ride in the front seat.

Knox underwent a transformation as well: She founded a nonprofit called Crossings, and became one of the first people in the country dedicated to helping the families and friends of the deceased work through the emotionally taxing, logistically tricky, and sometimes unpleasant process of caring for a dead body at home. She read everything she could, reached out to others involved in the nascent cause, and began offering her services as a kind of consultant—advising both on consumer funeral rights and on a new (really, ancient) kind of grieving. Caring for the dead, Knox said, requires a “fierce determination” and a willingness to follow your loved one to a place where few modern Americans dare to go.