The Death Machine — Outside/In

When Ryan and Sinehan Lessard first started dating, they discovered they have something strange in common: after they die, they both want to “become a tree”. This is the story about a growing number of people who want to forgo standard funeral practices like embalming, caskets and big granite monuments in favor of a more natural burial - and why that’s easier said than done.

This is one of those stories that sort of left us with just as many questions as it did answers, and if you’re in the same boat, send your funeral queries to outsidein@nhpr.org. We’ll see if we can’t track down an answer and get back to you.

Outside/In was produced this week by:

Taylor Quimby, Sam Evans-Brown and Maureen McMurray, with help from Molly Donahue, Jimmy Gutierrez, and Logan Shannon.

Special thanks to Kelsey Eriksson, who hosts a podcast called Deathcast - she passed along the idea of doing a green burial story to us, but if you want to hear more about the gross details of embalming and other aspects of the funeral industry - check it out.

Also, thanks to Lee Webster, who is on the board of the National Home Funeral Alliance, and came by to answer some of our weirdest death questions.

If you’ve got a question for our Ask Sam hotline, give us a call! We’re always looking for rabbit holes to dive down into. Leave us a voicemail at: 1-603-223-2448. Don’t forget to leave a number so we can call you back.

Music this week from Podington Bear and Blue Dot Sessions.Check out the Free Music Archive for more tracks from these artists.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.