The Movement to Bring Death Closer (Published 2019) (2024)

Heidi Boucher loaded two big straw baskets into her Toyota Highlander. She always kept them packed, ready for death. Inside were a pair of leather work gloves and a hammer, a bunch of bed pads, a few adult diapers (dead bodies sometimes leak), Q-tips for cleaning ears, noses and mouths and for applying lipstick, cotton balls, disinfectant spray, a plastic zip bag of safety pins to help drape silk and other fabrics around a gurney or casket, a small screwdriver to tightly close a casket, latex gloves, a hairbrush and oils infused with rose, lavender and rosemary.

Boucher also had her black attaché case of paperwork on funeral planning, which included a few funeral-home price lists for cremation and other services, as well as the files of 20 or so clients who had already made plans for Boucher to help with their bodies after death. Among them was Susan L’Heureux, a 79-year-old wife, mother, grandmother, reading teacher at a community college, lover of nature, spontaneity and books. L’Heureux had died about an hour earlier in her home in Oakland, Calif., and Boucher was on her way to her.

Over the last few decades, Boucher has helped more than 100 families take care of loved ones’ bodies in the hours and days after death. Some of their deaths were long expected, whether from cancer, multiple sclerosis or another chronic disease. But she also helps families with the sudden, inconceivable loss. The teenager who jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge. The man who shot himself. The children and adults killed in car and motorcycle accidents. The people who died of drug overdoses. They have been atheists, Christians, Buddhists, Jews.

Boucher, who describes herself as a home death-care guide, is in her mid-50s, with an earthy, hip style — dark hair piled loosely atop her head, a stack of gold bangles on her left wrist, silver hoop earrings, chunky black glasses. The oldest daughter of five and a mother of three adult children, she has a maternal warmth and deep-set blue eyes that draw people to share their confidences. For the grieving, Boucher likens death care to walking into a pool, “to avoid the shock of jumping into the cold. Some people like jumping into the cold. But virtually everyone who has had a conventional funeral and later comes to me says that they wish they had more time.”

Susan L’Heureux wanted her children and husband to have time. She had been living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, A.L.S., for a few years. Her legs stopped working. Next, her arms. Then her breathing became more difficult, and she had trouble swallowing.

She knew she wanted to be cremated. And though she typically had strong opinions, she left the funeral details up to her family. When we talked late last year, Susan was in her bedroom overlooking a golf course and a group of trees, including her favorite redwood. “I’m glad I’m not going to be whisked away and waxed up in a funeral home,” she said. Her daughter, Suzanne, an art-history teacher and a gallery owner, had heard about Boucher from someone at her daughter’s school. She had also watched a documentary on home funerals called “In the Parlor: The Final Goodbye,” written, directed and produced by Boucher. (Boucher, who lives in Fair Oaks, Calif., is also an independent TV-and-film and production designer.) She was intrigued. In part it reminded her of home birth, which she experienced with her youngest child. Each seemed about “reclaiming the most fundamental aspects of life,” she said.