In Janice Perkins’ final days of life, she let her family know her last wishes: cremation, no viewing; a celebration and sharing of memories; and most surprising to her family, a little prayer.
Perkins wasn’t very religious and neither is her extended family.
Her son Raymond Robinson recalls occasionally going to church as a child, but said he told his mother he was no longer interested around age 11 or 12. “So I stopped going to church after that. But she also stopped going,” he said.
So what to make of that prayer? The family speculates that Janice was trying to offer comfort to her loved ones within the framework of the traditional funerals she herself had attended.
“It was more of, like, ‘I want to do something that’s caring for the people that are sad, and this might be of help to them,’” said her daughter-in-law Danielle Graham Robinson.
Perkins’ family is one of many Pittsburgh households wrestling with the intersection of evolving spiritual beliefs and death care. According to a 2021 survey by Pew Research, 3 in 10 American adults are religiously unaffiliated. Data compiled by Pew Research about the Pittsburgh metro region found that 50% of adults in the region describe religion as “very important” and nearly 20% consider themselves not religious.
Shifts in faith and worship mean families as well as businesses related to death and dying have had to alter their approaches.
Perkins died from cancer on Christmas Eve of 2023. She was 72.
In lieu of a funeral, the family is planning a celebration of life in late March. Perkins just wanted her loved ones to spend time together and to receive glass orbs containing her ashes. Her family also discovered that Perkins kept every single funeral card she received throughout her life, so they incorporated a take-home keepsake into her memorial service. Her most popular recipe — a corn casserole that became a staple at family events — has been printed on a dish towel. Friends and family will also enjoy “Janice-inspired activities,” like doing puzzles as they eat and share memories.
“It was a rough passing,” said Robinson. “I’d rather the last images and thoughts be about these positive aspects of her life. … So whether it’s funny, meaningful, powerful, whatever it is, [it’s] an opportunity for people to hear about my mom.”
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‘More like a spa?’
At Pittsburgh Cremation and Funeral Care in McMurray, Carrie Majumder works in preneed, which means she walks individuals through planning their own funeral and burial.
Majumder and her colleagues have seen a drastic change in funeral planning over the last several years. Notably, people opt to have their service at the funeral home instead of a house of worship.
“It’s more of a celebration of life,” said Majumder. “We have a lot of people who choose to have a nondenominational clergy or they just have somebody who is part of the family and might read a passage from the Bible or say some prayers,” but religion isn’t as central as it used to be. Crystals and other metaphysical objects have become more commonplace.
People are no longer interested in somber, dark experiences and the classic caricature of an undertaker. Their funeral home, woman-owned and operated, has intentionally created a space that is bright and welcoming.
“I’ve had people come in and say, ‘Oh, this is more like a spa,’” said Majumder. “We don’t have the old velvet curtains, old flowers and things like that. It’s more a casual atmosphere — caring, calming, we accommodate for a family’s needs.”
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Majumder said they’ve also seen a sharp rise in cremations. Data from the North American Cremation Association shows the rate of cremation has nearly doubled in the past two decades. Cost is one factor fueling that shift, but so is decreasing religiosity. People just aren’t as concerned about what will happen to their physical body once they are gone.
“Personally, I’m like, toss me in the ground,” she said. “Let me be worm food.”
Burial in a forest
When Mike Cuccaro, of Brighton Heights, began planning for his death several years ago, he found himself pushing against conventional tradition, too. He and his wife, Jessica Manack, wanted an environmentally conscious, or “green” burial, but he worried it would be at odds with Catholicism, the religion in which he was raised and to which he returned in his 40s.
In the close-knit community on Long Island in which he grew up, anything other than conventional burial in the family plot might spark controversy. But to his relief, his priest told him he could choose to be buried anywhere he wished. “I was like, ‘Oh, great. Now I can fulfill both of my ideas.’”
Penn Forest Natural Burial Park in Penn Hills – the first and only exclusively green cemetery in Pennsylvania certified by the Green Burial Council as a Natural Burial Ground – puts an emphasis on sustainability in burials and in maintaining the forest, including planting native species of grass (top left) and maintaining a flower picking garden (center and bottom right). MaryPat Acquaviva, bottom left, talks to the goats she raises at the park’s adjoining Returning Home Farm. The animals have become part of the experience for families visiting loved ones at the park, says Acquaviva. (Photos by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)
Manack, who described herself as less religious than her husband, is more focused on the environmental impact of their burial than any spiritual aspect of it. The couple purchased plots at Penn Forest Natural Burial Park in Verona, which does not use embalming fluids or burial vaults— and they hope to encourage others to think beyond timeworn family traditions that may not serve them any longer.
Death, said Manack, is “a fact of life.” And green burial, she added, is “the ultimate tying yourself to a tree.”
That tension between tradition and current beliefs is familiar to Tanisha Bowman, a palliative care social worker for Butler Memorial Hospital. While she holds a slew of professional certifications, Bowman is first and foremost a death walker — walking alongside individuals as they prepare to die and helping them cement their final wishes.
“My purpose as a palliative care social worker has kind of morphed into, ‘How do I help you live your best death? … How do we reduce the trauma of what is going to be traumatic?’”
Sometimes that means a dying person goes along with their family’s plan — even though it may cause them distress — because they need to feel whole. It can be a “battle of wills,” Bowman said. Or, “they say, ‘I don’t want this, but once I’m gone I don’t care because I’m not going to be there to see it. So they can have whatever they want.”
Bowman connects with the many modalities she uses as a death walker in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Herman and at her office at Butler Health System, where she works as a palliative care social worker. At bottom left, she demonstrates using a “wind phone” – an unconnected phone for people to use as a way to have one-way conversations with loved ones who have passed. (Photos by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)
At the Pittsburgh School of Mortuary Science, instructors educate students on navigating these interpersonal tensions around death and dying and the evolving presence of religion.
Cecilia Obermeier, a licensed funeral director and admission advisor for the school, said that traditionally, families have had longstanding connections to certain ministers or priests to provide guidance and perform services. It’s not as common anymore, though, and final wishes are becoming much more varied. ”There’s definitely been a huge push towards personalization,” she said. “And that’s something that we greatly encourage.”
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For students at the mortuary school — the next generation of Pittsburgh’s death care professionals — the ethics of funeral services is a crucial topic. “I think a lot of students, especially in this day and age where we are more open to talking about mental health, do come in with the mindset of, ‘I want to bring family peace on the worst day of their life.’”
It’s a job that requires a lot of compassion, Obermeier said — a bit like directing a play. “I recognize that nothing I do here is going to make everything OK, but if I can lighten that burden by one molecule, then I’ve more than done my job.”
Meg St-Esprit is a freelance journalist based in Bellevue. She can be reached at megstesprit@gmail.com or on Instagram and Twitter.
This story was fact-checked by Christine Graziano.
The Jewish Healthcare Foundation has contributed funding to PublicSource’s healthcare reporting.
