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caskets & urns |
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Why Casketmaking?"Someone oughtta build some sensible caskets!"
It helped that each of us was "into wood" in
one way or another. Our father was a master woodworker in postwar Germany
until he brought his lathe and young family to Canada in 1956. It was
he who finally acted on the casketmaking idea. In his retirement he
crafted "his and hers" versions out of reclaimed wood from
a friend's factory and stored them in his garage. The first was used
to bury my mother in 2001. My own love for wood dates back to 1966 when I presented my father with a Christmas gift: a 1x4 scrap with "The Lord iz born" pencilled on it. In high school I built a coffee table which, despite several decent attempts, my young family and I have yet to destroy. Since then I have pursued carpentry as both a career and a hobby but it has often taken a back seat to books and various pursuits aimed at changing the world. Casketmaking combines several of my interests. I enjoy the craft and producing items of quality. But I also consider it a privilege to be allowed, in a small way, into the story of a person or a family as they wrestle with loss. There is honesty and life-giving wisdom to be discovered in those moments. Finally, I want to be part of a gentle movement for change in the way we deal with death. Whenever I mention casketmaking people become animated--they seem keen to act in new (and very old) ways. Type "caskets" into your computer search engine and you will find others who seek and offer alternatives, from purveyors of coffin-shaped phone booths to the spiritually-grounded work of monks in Iowa. My genuine hope is to offer people a chance to be buried, or to bury their loved one, in something that is beautiful, sensible, and built by someone whose name and face they can know, if they choose. I am convinced it is possible to do that in a way that is economical for both the purchaser and the producer. 
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