Woodworker
Chuck Lakin makes caskets that double as furniture, before their
final use
By
Taryn Plumb
GLOBE
CORRESPONDENT
OCTOBER
26, 2011
If
you happen to visit Gini Landry’s home in Waterville, Maine, you’ll
meet a vivacious, almost-octogenarian with an acute wit and a
decades-long dedication to quilting.
And
if you’re curious, she’ll show you some of her needle-and-thread
creations, 20 or 30 of them, folded up and displayed in a roughly
5-foot-tall rack in her guest bedroom.
And
if you’re even more curious, she’ll point out that that very case
has a double purpose: When the final hour comes, it will convert into
her coffin.
“I’m
4-foot-11-inches tall, and shrinking,’’ the 79-year-old said with
a wry grin. “It’s made to fit me.’’
That’s
right: Every day, Landry is confronted, quite explicitly, with her
own mortality, with a custom-made coffin now serving as a quilt rack
and situated conveniently in her home for that fateful day that comes
for all of us.
Coffins
don’t have to be lined with velvet and propped open vacantly and
ominously on funeral parlor sales floors - they can have life before
death, at least when crafted by Waterville-based woodworker Chuck
Lakin.
The
65-year-old builds simple wood caskets for the not-quite-dearly
departed that easily modify into bookcases, entertainment centers,
storage chests, wine racks, even coffee tables.
“I
don’t think coffins have to be serious, formal things,’’ said
Lakin, a retired Colby College librarian.
His
morbidly multipurpose creations (www.lastthings.net), starting at a
base price of $800 to $900, arose out of his dedication to home
funerals, a growing movement in which family members prepare a loved
one’s body for burial, rather than having the process handled by a
funeral parlor.
Having
a coffin available simplifies that process, and also, in a time of
grieving, makes decisions easier for the family.
And
in the meantime, why not build them so they have multiple uses?
So
far, Lakin’s built about 40, typically for friends, but also for
Hospice and the Jewish Funeral Home in Portland, Maine.
With
hinged sections that fold into each other, shelves that create
interlocking lids, or sectional “quick coffin’’ varieties, each
pine box can be customized, with those who will (eventually)
eternally sleep in them required to lie down and measure their width
and height. Lakin also does personalized carvings and engravings,
and, upon request, builds the boxes out of different types of wood,
such as poplar or walnut.
Seem
macabre? If so, it’s only because our culture is so avoidant of
death, says Lakin, who describes home burials as personal, moving,
meaningful, and spiritual.
“There
are people who don’t want to talk about death, or even consider
that they’re going to die,’’ agreed Landry, a retired
psychiatric nurse. “But death is a natural part of living.’’
She
paused and mused, “it may be the best part.’’
In
her case, once she “got past the 75 mark,’’ she started to
think about her last wishes. She recoiled from the thought of a
conventional casket and an elaborate funeral. She prefers her easy
quilt-rack-turned-pine-box, in which she intends to be cremated,
followed by a simple church service, and finally a burial at a local
cemetery.
Still,
though she has her final resting place quite handy, she’s certainly
in no rush to use it. “I’m trying to stay out of that box,’’
she said with a chuckle.
Original story link.
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