HAIKU, Maui » There’s no mistaking what the Rev. Bodhi Be’s shop in the Pauwela Cannery is all about. It’s right there in the name: The Death Store.
And in case you think it might be a hangout for heavy-metal music fans or just a morbid joke, there’s a white hearse parked outside advertising home burials, and inside, wicker caskets and simple wooden coffins with rope handles are on display.
The shock value of the name has a purpose. Be, 61, an ordained interfaith minister, wants to lift the shroud from a topic normally discussed in hushed tones in close company.
"Death is the ‘D’ word in our culture, and we’re just in denial," Be said. "I want to reinvent and revolutionize the whole genre of what a funeral home is and bring it into the mall to stimulate and elevate the cultural conversation on aging, dying and death."
The Death Store is an offshoot of Doorway Into Light, a nonprofit organization started in 2006 by Be, his wife, Leilah, and well-known spiritual teacher and author Ram Dass to advocate for and educate individuals and families facing end-of-life and after-death care.
The store opened in January 2012 as a funeral home and resource center, with Be as its funeral director. Although Be is required to provide a price list of products and services, as are all funeral homes, The Death Store relies on donations to fund its operations.
It has received certification as a "green funeral home" from the national Green Burial Council, but Be seems to be more concerned with changing mainstream attitudes about death than saving the planet.
He said he became interested in grief and end-of-life issues after participating in volunteer training with Hospice Maui.
"I was sitting with dying people and their families and started to learn what was happening and how people were dying and started doing research," he said.
"On the spiritual side, dying is considered, for the most part, a medical event. I realized that dying, of course, it not just a medical event, and all the other areas besides medical were not getting the attention and awareness they deserve."
A former small-business owner, he began looking into what was lacking in the corporate funeral industry and made it his mission to encourage people to consider the traditions of past generations, when a death in the family was a more intimate affair that engaged a support network of relatives and neighbors.
"The Death Store takes it out of the world of big business and back to community-building work rather than leaving it for experts and strangers to do it for us," he said.
Be’s funeral home does not have viewing rooms or a chapel, or facilities to refrigerate or handle bodies. Be is not a licensed embalmer. In fact, he opposes the practice not only because embalming fluid contains formaldehyde, a probable carcinogenic, but because "it doesn’t need to be done. Bodies look like they’re not dead."
Once notified of a death, he will wash and dress the body for viewing at home and, if requested, lead a memorial service or assist in making other arrangements. He also will transport the dead to a cemetery or crematory, or arrange burial at sea.
Without embalming or refrigeration, all this must be done within 30 hours of death.
Be said The Death Store has handled about two dozen funerals in the last two years, including one burial at sea.
Before her husband, Bruce, died at home April 29, Anna Berlin had a chance to talk with Be on several occasions. "He walked me through the options outside the corporate funeral home services. It was a pretty tough time, and he made it really easy," she said.
Bruce Berlin, a cattle roper in his younger days, was a fan of "Tombstone" starring Kurt Russell and had told his wife he wanted to be buried in a simple wooden coffin like those in the Old West movie. Anna Berlin purchased one of the coffins made by Be, and family and church friends painted a picture of her husband walking on the beach with a fishing pole, a favorite pastime, and other scenes on the coffin lid.
Be helped Berlin, 61, and her daughter clean and dress the body for burial. After songs and prayers, a carpenter friend nailed the lid shut, and the coffin was transported to Makawao Veterans Cemetery for burial.
"Bodhi directed everything, so it all went very smoothly," Berlin said.
She paid a total of $3,000, money that came from her husband’s union death benefits.
Berlin’s reason for choosing a green funeral was simple and intensely personal. "We didn’t want his body to get hauled away to some place where we didn’t know who was going to be working on him or what they were going to be doing," she said.
In another case a distraught family in Hana called The Death Store after a relative died on the mainland and they couldn’t afford the $3,500 it would cost for another local mortuary to transport the body from Kahului Airport to the remote East Maui town. Be used his hearse for the task, accepting whatever donation the family could afford.
Be calls The Death Store an experiment. "I don’t know if it’s going to work," he said.
Asked how he would like to be buried when the time comes, he replied, "I’d like to have a tree planted on top of my grave. No embalming or casket."
The Death Store is at 375 W. Kuiaha Road in Haiku, Maui. Call 283-5950 or visit www.thedeathstore.com.
