Wings of a Bird

Standard funeral not sole option - Seattle P-I
Want to stay home for a while after you're gone? That's what a small but growing number of people are choosing to do through home funerals.
Propped up on the hospital bed where she spends most of her time, Doris Jean Powers eyes a wooden box about the size of a refrigerator a few feet away.
Messages written in bright markers are slowly covering the pale yellow wood. She reads the notes, or has them read to her. She likes to hear what people have to say.
"It's looking more and more like a steamer trunk every day," Phyllis Powers said from her mother-in-law's bedside.
"Well, it's going to be quite a trip," Doris Jean joked.
When the box arrived at the modest blue duplex she shares with her family, Powers wasn't so sure she'd like having her casket so close. Doris Jean, 85, is dying. A heart condition she's had since birth is expected to take her life.
When she goes -- and she's in no rush -- she said she doesn't want to be hauled to a funeral home. With help from a funeral director, she wants her family to take care of her remains at their Renton home. ...