Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

September 9, 2012

Will you choose to be cremated?

Thanks to low costs and greater flexibility, the answer is 'yes' for an increasing number of Mainers on the leading edge of a national trend to embrace the nontraditional.

By Eric Russell erussell@pressherald.com
Staff Writer

Karin Anderson still has her husband's cremated remains stashed in a box at her condo in downtown Portland. Steve Fisk, a math professor at Bowdoin College, died two and a half years ago after a decade-long fight with leukemia.

As Fisk lived out his remaining days in hospice care, the couple talked about what he wanted. First, his body would be donated to the University of New England's medical school for research. Then, he would be cremated.

"Neither of us thought it was important to preserve the body," said Anderson, 56. Next weekend, she and her daughter plan to scatter his remains.

Mainers are cremating their loved ones at an extraordinary rate, and the numbers keep going up. In 2000, 44 percent of deceased Maine residents were cremated. In 2010, the rate was 64 percent -- well above the national rate of 41 percent.

The cremation rate here is the sixth highest in the country and the highest in the eastern half of the United States. The Cremation Association of North America projects that more than half of Americans -- and three-quarters of Mainers -- will choose cremation within 10 years.

There is no one reason that explains the growing rate. There are a variety of factors: the lower cost of cremation, relaxed religious views and increased environmental awareness. Cremation also offers flexibility that traditional burial does not and fits into today's transient lifestyle. People do any number of things with their loved ones' remains, from burying them in the backyard to scattering them in woods or at sea.

Peter Neal, a funeral director in Piscataquis County and a board member for the state's funeral directors association, said the trend toward cremation has mirrored a broader societal shift.

"Fifty years ago, everyone went to church, everyone had a big wedding, no one moved in before marriage, and no one got divorced," he said. "Now, all those traditions have eroded a little. Funerals are no different."

Funerals are rarely solemn, black-clothing-and-dark-sunglasses occasions anymore. People don't always want caskets or religious services. And more and more they don't want to be buried beneath the ground.

For Anderson and Fisk, the decision had nothing to do with cost or religion. Cremation was a practical option that suited his lifestyle. They never talked about what to do with his remains. It took her a month to pick them up because she dreaded the finality of having them in her possession. She has hung on to them ever since, waiting for the right time to dispose of them.

"My daughter and I are going to sprinkle some at a few special places -- there is a spot where we had our first date that comes to mind," she said. "And I suspect we'll get a little silly, too. He was a silly man sometimes."

Besides, she likes the thought of knowing that there won't be just one place where she can go visit her husband. There could be dozens.

COST IS THE BIGGEST DRIVER

Six years ago, there were only five crematories in Maine. Now, there are 12, ranging in size from the Lighthouse Crematory in Freeport, which logged 122 cremations last year, to Gracelawn Memorial Park in Auburn, where 2,391 cremations were performed.

From the road, you can't see the Lighthouse Crematory. It's set back in the woods, shielded by Burr Cemetery and its rows of gravestones, many blackened with age. The markers evoke a time when returning a body to the earth whole was a time-honored custom.

(Continued on page 2)

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