Talking about death before it happens

Yvette Shields was shooting pool with a friend at a bar in Tooele, Utah, in 2016 when she met Larry.

“I asked him if he ever shot pool,” Shields said. “He said, ‘I’ve tampered a little bit,’” Shields softly laughed before continuing, “He kicked my butt.”

They started dating and eventually married.

Shields said they did everything together. Even when Larry was working as a maintenance manager at Tate Mortuary, he welcomed her company because she knew the tools he’d need.

“I only had 7 ½ years with him, but it felt like a lifetime,” she told Deseret News. In May, he died unexpectedly in a gun incident.

Three years before, the pair had talked about what they wanted to happen to their bodies if they died.

“Well, when I die, I just want to be cremated,” she’d told him. “Take me for a ride on your Harley. Let my ashes go for my last ride,”

He said he wanted to be cremated, too. But when his death came unexpectedly, Tate Mortuary owner and close family friend Cole Houghton told Yvette he couldn’t do it.

“He told me, ‘I cannot cremate Larry. That would be like me burning my dad because he was like a father to me,’” she said.

Financial costs of saying goodbye

Two months before he died, Larry told his wife about a casket he liked. But cremation was the most affordable option and the one they’d chosen.

At the end of life, cost matters.

The average cost of a cremation in the United States is between $2,000 and $5,000, but a direct cremation can cost as little as $800, according to Lincoln Heritage Funeral Advantage . The prices fluctuate based on the state you live in as well as the funeral home’s costs and packages.

In Utah, the World Population Review reported these 2024 statistics:

• Average funeral costs: $7,536
• Average end-of-life costs: $13,470
• Average total costs: $21,005

Because cost drove her discussion with her husband, “when Cole told me he couldn’t do it, I said, ‘OK,’” Shields said.

“Cole helped me out, took care of things, and I got with a couple of (Larry’s) boys and some of his sisters, and we came up with a plan for the service and stuff,” she added, noting that Larry never asked for anything, but “he was a very well-liked person in the community, and he would have done anything for everybody. So I felt like I owed it to my husband to have something for him.

“It’s just kind of an emotional thing. When you’re trying to get things organized, especially when it happens unexpectedly, you just kind of work with family and friends and people that knew him and kind of knew what he liked.”

The memorial had an open casket, his beloved Harley Davidson right next to it, wheeled in by a longtime riding friend.

Looking back, Shields advises others to have an end-of-life discussion in case something happens unexpectedly. “You never know, right? And the one thing Larry always told me was, ‘When it’s my time, the good Lord will take me.’”

She also suggests mending fences or building bridges to people who should be important if you’ve lost touch. “For those people that don’t reach out to family or keep in contact with them through the years, don’t just say it works both ways. If you don’t hear from somebody, contact that person. Always try to reach out.”

She said her husband was “always there to help out when someone needed a helping hand. But other than that, he never reached out to anybody. Life’s too short to have that perspective.”

Confronting mortality

Thanatophobia, or fear of death, is a common phobia among Americans. In a study done by Chapman University on America’s biggest fears, 20.3% said they most feared death.

But perhaps every phobia — whether irrational or not — has an underlying fear of dying. Fear that you’ll die from suffocation in a tight space, fear that you’ll fall to your death overlooking the view, or the spider will bite you, poisoning your bloodstream, ultimately killing you.

Still, death is not a typical dinner table discussion — unless your family is in the death business.

Houghton said that his kids have a unique perspective on death because their dad owns and operates a funeral home for a living. “We’re not afraid to talk about death,” he said.

“They’re around the funeral home,” Houghton added. “So they know two sides of it: We take care of people, and, you know, we stress the importance of respecting the dead. And we try to do our very best so that families can have as good of an experience as possible. When somebody passes away, my kids are kind of there.”

Lance Larkin, fourth-generation president of Larkin Mortuary and its other companies, said that even though it’s not a conversation people look forward to having, the earlier you plan, the better. “At least express your desires or your wishes to your family members, so they know what you would prefer to have happen to you” because “death and dying never goes away. It’s 24/7, 365.”

When COVID killed

Following the CVOID-19 pandemic, mortuary staff workers said that at the height of the pandemic, body trays were lined up along the hallways and rooms, waiting to be cremated because the freezer was filled to capacity. Those in the business became overwhelmed by the influx of bodies they received in such a short period.

“When COVID-19 hit, we went through the roof. Really busy. I mean, super busy,” Larkin said.

Millions of people lost a loved one unexpectedly in the pandemic. Only recently have researchers understood just how many lives were lost to the outbreak. Earlier this year, Boston University’s School of Public Health and the University of Pennsylvania published a study in the journal PNAS with the most substantial evidence indicating that the increase in mortality rates from chronic diseases and other natural causes was linked to more COVID-19 infections than initially expected.

“Our findings show that many COVID-19 deaths went uncounted during the pandemic,” said study corresponding author Andrew Stokes, associate professor of global health at Boston University, per the university’s School of Public Health . “We observed peaks in non-COVID-19 excess deaths in the same or prior month as COVID-19 deaths, a pattern consistent with these being unrecognized COVID-19 deaths that were missed due to low community awareness and a lack of COVID-19 testing.”

The researchers estimated 1.2 million additional deaths from natural causes occurred in 3,127 U.S. counties studied from March 2020 to August 2022, with around 163,000 of these deaths not citing COVID-19 on the death certificates. They concluded spikes in deaths from chronic illnesses coincided with increases in reported COVID-19 deaths, but were underreported in official counts.

Larkin emphasized how difficult it is for people in the mortuary business to handle unexpected deaths, especially those that are tragic in nature. A friend of his managed the mortuary that took care of most of the children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012.

“It was extremely difficult on their entire staff, and two or three of their staff members literally had to get out of the profession because it was so traumatic,” Larkin said. “People don’t realize how emotional and how tough it can be to guide them through the grieving process.”

“We have multiple tools to help them through that. We have tools to help them close out an estate. People have no idea how to go about closing out someone’s estate,” he added. “There’s so much more than just going to the church, going to the crematory or going to the cemetery to help our clients out.”

Body burial vs. cremation

Cremation has seen an upward trend in the last few decades. The National Funeral Directors Association 2023 report expected a cremation rate of 60.5% and a burial rate of 34.5%. In 2045, the association expects cremation rates to hit 80%.

International trends vary due to cultural, religious and demographic influences. Japan has the highest rate of cremation at 99.97%, whereas Greece had the lowest rate at just .63%, per the World Population Review . Islam is arguably the world religion most opposed to cremation, considering it an “unclean practice.”

“This disapproval is based on beliefs that the body after death should be treated with the same respect as it was in life, the belief that some part of the body may be necessary for resurrection, and the belief that the body is required for mourning as a reminder that death comes to all,” according to the Neptune Society . The society noted other world religions, including Catholicism, Judaism and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have historically been against cremation but have become more accepting over time, even if it’s not preferred.

A study by the National Funeral Directors Association published in July found that younger generations were more in favor of a full funeral service than older ones.

“Sixty-eight percent of Gen Z strongly agree it is important to commemorate the life of a loved one with a funeral or memorial service compared to 44% of baby boomers,” said Dutch Nie, association president, in a news release. “We know Gen Z is both community-minded and interested in breaking cultural norms.”

Looking at new generational preferences regarding choices surrounding death, the researchers emphasized the importance for all generations to find constructive ways to talk about death and share their plans with loved ones.

“I think it’s critically important that if people do cremate, they honor and remember the life through some type of a ceremony or celebration, and I think it’s critically important that they have some type of a final resting place for the ashes,” Larkin advised.

A few years back, he was in a study of “dumpster ashes. That refers to the type of situation where a great-grandchild receives the ashes of a family member they never knew and “they don’t want those ashes hanging around their house, so they’ve actually sometimes thrown them away, and that’s really sad.”

Instead, “I think it’s critically important that the ashes are taken care of and actually get a final resting place.”