FAMILY
UNDERTAKING
HUFFINGTON
03.03.13
COURTESY OF ALISON KIRK
Caroline and
her father
Doug, four
years before
her death.
Could next to her daughter. Doug
put in a small, leather keychain
shaped like a vintage ink jar that
he had used since college (“It was a continuity of presence,” he says. “I pretty
much had it on me or nearby for 26 years
... It was irreplaceable even though it
meant nothing to anyone else but me”).
He rode in the hearse with his daughter,
and before the body was lowered into the
ground, the hospice chaplain read “The
Circle of Days,” an adaptation of a prayer
by Saint Francis of Assisi that honors
God’s creation of the elements, animals
and the heavens. Doug sang Caroline’s favorite song, one that would always soothe
her in times of pain: “Big Rock Candy
Mountain.” It tells the story of a
hobo’s idea of paradise.
Afterwards, there was a memorial service at Vanderbilt University,
where both parents first met. Religion in
any formal sense was absent.
“We wanted a simple funeral because
her life was simple,” says Alison. “It was
short and simple.”
She also considers it one of the best
decisions she has ever made.
It’s not always as easy as the Kirks
found it to be.
Richard Bentley, a 70-year-old retiree
who lives in Tupper Lake in upstate New
York, has tried twice to take care of his