Ashes in the mail: COVID-19 changes the logistics of death
Eulogies over Zoom, memorials months late the new routine
Lately, nine or 10 times a month, Jason Oszczakiewicz, a Pennsylvania funeral home director known as “Oz,” walks into his local post office. Each time, he carries the same special package: the ashes of someone who has just died.
“I seem to be mailing a lot to Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, New York,” Oz said, after sending “a gentleman, a son, to his mother in Florida.”
The pandemic that has changed the rhythms and rituals of life is doing that in death, too.
Eulogies are delivered over Zoom. Memorial services are often held months late, if at all. More people are opting for cremation, accelerating the shift from burying bodies. And, with out-of-state relatives unable to travel to pick up the cremated remains because of health risks, the U.S. Postal Service is increasingly delivering ashes to doorsteps.
“You can only send them Priority Express Mail, and they require a signature,” explained Lori Cash, who works in a small post office outside Buffalo. “Obviously, it would be horrible to come home and find cremated remains waiting for you.”
The USPS is struggling to keep up with the demand for its Label 139, a bright orange sticker it requires on these packages that reads “CREMATED REMAINS.” The Postal Service also offers a kit for human ashes that comes with a sealable plastic bag, bubble wrap and cardboard box. The
USPS website warns of delays “due to high order volume.”
The fact that the remains of someone’s parent or child are crisscrossing the country in postal vehicles is seen by many as practical, a sobering reality in these isolating times. Others can’t fathom it.
“I don’t want to send someone I knew all my life through the mail,” said Stan Reese. The Huntsville, Ala., resident is starting a business to personally collect ashes for others and then hand-carry them to sce
nic places, where they will be scattered - on video if requested. He knows that relatives are not always physically able to fly or drive long distances to get a loved one’s ashes, and that quarantine guidelines and potential exposure to covid makes others reluctant. He said his service will help families avoid having “the last time they see their loved one be when they put a stamp on them.”
His inspiration for Eternal Alaska was hearing about how people are handling death in new ways. Before covid 19, he never heard of the post office delivering ashes. The covid death toll - now over 500,000 people - means millions have mourned the loss someone close over the past year, and as they see news of the latest tally on their phones or TV screens, it has made many ponder their own mortality.
Reese is 56 and has given thought “about when I pass hopefully not anytime soon.” His Baptist parents were given a traditional burial, but he wants his ashes scattered in Alaska’s Denali National Park, a place so beautiful it made his heart stop when he saw it. “I could see
eternity there. I don’t want people visiting my grave in the cold ground.”
The steady shift from burying bodies to cremating them has been accelerated by the pandemic, according to funeral directors and industry surveys. Cremation once was taboo. In 1960, only 4 percent of Americans were cremated. By 2005, 1 in 3 were. Today, more than half are.
Money is a key factor: Cremation is cheaper. People are less affiliated with organized religions that continue to favor body burials. The Catholic Church once did not permit cremation but now allows it, emphasizing that it is one’s soul, not physical body, that is immortal. Still, Catholic guidelines say ashes
should be kept in a “sacred place” like a church cemetery and not scattered outdoors or kept on the living room mantle.
During the pandemic, as many have lost their jobs and are struggling economically, the several thousand dollars a casket and cemetery plot can run are prohibitive. Quarantine rules and restricted international flights make it harder for family and friends to gather right after a death, and ashes can be held until whenever a memorial is held. “Cremation is simpler,” said Barbara Kemmis, executive director of the Cremation Association of North America. “One decision is required immediately, and permanent placement and services can happen in the future.”