Another law to protect us from ourselves

In my work as a personal historian, I am blessed to be able to hear people relate stories of the past, for often they involve heroic acts performed by ordinary people. One such story goes a bit like this:

In the midst of a Depression-era blizzard, a young man named Ray faced the tragic death of a beloved brother. The family called their doctor to attend to the sickly young man, but because of the storm, the roads were impassible. Ray hitched his horses to a sleigh and headed out in the storm to fetch the doctor and bring him to their farm. A few hours later, the doctor stood at the sick man’s side concluding there was nothing to be done. “He won’t last much longer,” the doctor said, and then he and Ray headed out into the night air to return the doctor to town.

With the sick man’s demise imminent, the parents wanted all their children gathered at his side to pray a rosary. That meant Ray, who’d just come back from taking the doctor home, had to head out in the blizzard again to collect his oldest sister. Ray donned his Mackinaw and mittens and headed back outside without complaint. The two returned in time to witness their brother’s passing.

The family telephoned the mortician and he ordered a hearse, but again, the roads to the farm were impassible. Once again that night, Ray hitched his horses to the sleigh, and with his dead brother wrapped in a blanket and lain on the hay, Ray braved the storm with his horses to meet the hearse.

Just yesterday, I read in the newspaper that Minnesota has passed a series of new laws addressing how we transport and handle our deceased. Apparently, there’s a movement toward “natural” funerals including more family involvement in death and burial. The new laws were crafted in response to this movement, to make it MORE difficult for families to bypass expensive, intrusive funeral services and procedures and assume those responsibilities themselves.

One of the new laws makes it illegal for anyone but an immediate next of kin to transport a dead body. Furthermore, a corpse must be carried in the same cab as the vehicle driver. That means it would be illegal to transport a dead body in the back of a pickup truck, for instance.

So much for strength of character, Ray. In 2007, the state legislature has decided it’s a criminal act to take your dead brother on a sleigh through a blinding snow to meet a hearse. Funny. I still think it takes a hero.