FAMILY
UNDERTAKING
HUFFINGTON
03.03.13
COURTESY OF ALISON KIRK
Alison
Kirk with
Caroline in
2007, the
year before
she died.
Alison and Doug carried Caroline upstairs to the bathtub,
where they washed her skin and
hair, dried her limp, 45-pound body with
a towel and placed her head on a pillow on the bed in her old room. Alison
slipped a white communion dress on
Caroline, turned up the air-conditioning and put ice packs by her daughter’s
sides. She put pink lipstick on the child’s
paling lips, and covered up Caroline’s
toes and fingers, which were turning
blue at the nails, with the family quilt.
Caroline stayed in her bedroom for
36 hours for her final goodbyes.
There was no traditional funeral
home service, and no coroner or
medical examiner was on hand. Caroline’s
death was largely a home affair, with a
short cemetery burial that followed.
“We had taken care of Caroline her
whole life,” recalls Alison, whose other
daughter, Kate, has the same disease
and will also have a home funeral.
“Why would we give her to someone
else once she died?”
Each year, 2.5 million Americans
die. For the majority, about 70 percent,