The holiday season for Florentino Santiago and his family is normally a joyful time, with family visits, the exchange of gifts and the sound of laughter echoing throughout their Winslow apartment.
But this year the season is fraught with sorrow.
In the last three months, two of Santiago’s brothers died unexpectedly. Jesus, 55, who lived 22 years with Santiago and his wife, Mary, died Aug. 19. Then Luis, also 55, died Nov. 23 in a local nursing home. The Santiagos and their children were devastated.
“It hasn’t been easy,” said Santiago, 53. “It’s been a journey — a journey I never wanted to experience.”
Santiago now is caring for a third brother, Carlos, 57, who is ill.
The unexpected deaths of Jesus and Luis came with great emotional toll and enormous funeral costs. Santiago has medical problems himself and suffered a lot of stress, traveling back and forth between hospitals in Bangor and Augusta to visit his brothers when they were alive. Later, after they died, he wondered how he would pay for their funeral expenses.
The family’s struggle highlights a common difficulty many face: a lack of planning before a death occurs, and then not enough knowledge of funeral options and associated costs.
Jesus was born with Down syndrome and mental retardation and later developed pulmonary problems and dementia. On Aug. 19, the day he died, Santiago drove to New York City to retrieve Luis from a nursing home to bring him to Maine. Luis, who suffered from kidney failure and cardiac problems, made it to Jesus’ graveside funeral Sept. 3 at St. Francis Cemetery in Waterville. Then Luis died 50 days later.
The funeral home that handled Jesus’ funeral was good to Santiago, he said. He scraped up $6,750 in savings to help toward the $13,500 total cost of funeral and burial expenses, and the funeral home set up a payment schedule, he said. Another funeral home now is handling plans for Luis’ funeral, which has not yet occurred. That funeral home also is great, helping Santiago identify a less costly funeral with cremation, he said.
Dealing with the stress of illness and loss and, later, the costly bills, was overwhelming. Santiago received help from Beacon Hospice, of Augusta, in working through his family’s grief, he said.
During the process, he also made phone calls to every agency he could think of, trying to find financial help with funeral and burial costs, without much success.
Then, a miracle happened.
On Tuesday, Santiago got a phone call from the funeral home that had handled Jesus’ funeral, saying someone who knows and respects Santiago paid the remainder of his bill there.
“I don’t know how it happened or what happened,” he said. “I cried. They said this person who paid it off knew me and talked very highly of me.”
‘GOD IS WORKING WITH ME’
Municipalities sometimes help people with funeral and burial costs, but those needing assistance must go through a process.
In Waterville, for instance, the city’s health and welfare director, Linda Fossa, said the city issued a total of $4,500 last year in assistance.
The state last year reimbursed 50 percent of those costs, but now reimburses 70 percent, she said.
Typically, a funeral home works with a family and then Fossa’s office is contacted if it is determined the family needs assistance, she said. Her office works with family members to determine what they are capable of paying. Her office has eight days to determine eligibility for city assistance.
“It takes an effort on everyone’s part to make this work, because if we don’t have all the information, it makes it hard for us to determine the eligibility,” Fossa said.
Santiago said he received some assistance from the town of Winslow.
After the burial of Santiago’s brother Jesus and the death of his brother Luis, Santiago went to another funeral home, where he was looking at about $13,000 for a full burial for Luis, he said. Recognizing Santiago’s unusual situation, the funeral home reduced his rate to $6,000, but Santiago said he then asked about the cost for cremation, which was $3,500 — still a lot of money, but not as much as a full burial.
Then, Santiago was surprised with the good news. The person who had helped pay the bill for Jesus’ funeral expenses, whose identity Santiago says he does not know, pitched in more money to help with Luis’ funeral expenses. His neighbor also donated some money and the town of Winslow helped out, leaving Santiago with a little left to pay, he said.
“I guess God is working with me — miracles,” he said.
Santiago for three years took classes at Mid-Maine Regional Adult Education in Waterville and graduated with a high school diploma in the spring. He began taking another class this fall to help prepare him for enrollment in Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield, but he had to quit because of illness and death in the family.
Santiago himself has osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia and a cardiac condition. He has had shoulder and hip replacements, as well as knee reconstruction, and needs both knees replaced.
But he says he will return to class next fall to continue his education.
“I’m not going to give it up,” he said.
Santiago, who receives Social Security disability, is focusing on caring for his brother Carlos, who has cardiac and respiratory problems. Santiago and his wife also are supporting their daughters, Crystal, 15, and Carmen, 13, as well as their granddaughter, Niesha, 9, for whom they have legal guardianship. The children, too, grieve the loss of Jesus and Luis.
FUNERAL OPTIONS
Santiago was fortunate in this case, but the specter of large funeral expenses can be daunting for many. A typical funeral, including burial and plot costs, can cost more than $10,000.
Costs vary for funeral home services, burials, coffins, cremation and urns, and typically funeral homes work with clients to help them pay according to what they can afford. But if a person is prepared, the cost of laying a loved one to rest can be much less than $10,000 — or cost practically nothing, especially if one has a designated family cemetery on one’s own property.
Chuck Lakin, of Waterville, who builds handmade coffins in his workshop, teaches classes and advises people about how to have simple, inexpensive funerals.
One can forgo the use of a funeral home altogether and have home visitations, wakes, services and burials the way they were done more than 100 years ago, according to Lakin.
If a death in the home is expected, a family may wash and prepare the body at home, build a coffin out of wood or another sturdy material, hold services at home and take the body to a graveyard — whether it be a conventional graveyard, a “green” cemetery or a designated family cemetery on one’s property. A physician, a nurse practitioner or a physician’s assistant who has knowledge of the deceased must issue a death certificate, and that certificate must be filed with the municipality in which he or she died.
Lakin spells out instructions for how to have such funerals/burials on a website called Last Things: Alternatives at the end of life. Lakin also wrote the website’s instructions for the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine, a nonprofit group that aims to promote “simplicity, dignity and economy in funeral arrangements through advance planning.”
Lakin conducts 30 to 40 presentations a year on affordable funerals and burials. He talks in adult education classes and at public libraries and teaches hospice volunteer training classes.
“Americans are really good at ignoring the fact they’re going to die,” Lakin said. “It’s a gift to your survivors if you have, not necessarily paid for something in advance, but that they know what you want and you have written instructions so they don’t have to make those decisions. Have a serious discussion about it.”
Lakin also builds wooden coffins that he sells for $300 and up. “If somebody called me and wanted me to go to their house and talk, I do that,” he said.
One funeral home director saw Lakin’s class listed in an adult education catalog and called him to ask if he was trying to take business away from funeral homes, Lakin recalled. Lakin went to the funeral home to discuss his class and spoke with officials there for more than an hour.
“We talked, and by the end of the talk, we were both saying the same things. We just came at it from a different way,” Lakin recalled. “They came to my adult ed class and contributed to it.”
The information on the Funeral Consumers and Last Things websites also explain what to do when a loved one dies and they opt to go to a funeral home for services. Lakin said it is important to take a friend to the funeral home who is not emotionally involved in the death because a family member faces potentially costly decisions at a vulnerable time. It also is important, he said, to realize one does not have to buy all the services offered.
“You can say, ‘I want this and this, but not that and that.’ You can save some money right there.”
A funeral home visitation and service can cost $300 to $500, embalming can be $500 to $600, and the average cost of a coffin is $2,300, according to Lakin.
There are two “green” cemeteries in Maine — in Limington and South Orrington — and they are listed on the websites. Green cemeteries do not require embalming or vaults, but do require biodegradable containers be used for bodies. Monuments are prohibited in green cemeteries, but a rock or stone engraved with names and dates is acceptable.
‘PEOPLE ARE JUST AMAZED’
Alison Rector, of Monroe, president of the board of directors of Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine, said her volunteer group receives calls and emails from people struggling to afford funeral expenses. She, too, urges families to do research and preparation ahead of time so they’re not stuck in a difficult situation.
“It’s somewhat of a civil rights issue. People should have access to care,” Rector said. “My sense is most people don’t always know what they’re up for” in funeral costs and options.
In October, the national Funeral Consumers Alliance, based in Washington, D.C., released a report based on a survey highlighting significant price differences for funeral costs. The report found a range of $2,580 to $13,800 for a full-service funeral offering identical services.
Rector said many Mainers may be better off with options that include legally burying on their own land, though many still don’t know they can choose among various options. “Most people go with a package” from a funeral home, she said, though “people don’t realize they don’t have to pick everything. For example, embalming is optional.”
Lakin said that typically after he gives presentations on funeral options, “people are just amazed” because most do not have advanced preparation or know what the costs will be. The Santiago family situation — suddenly facing hardship to pay for funeral expenses — “happens all the time,” he said.
Such circumstances highlight the need to do as much planning in advance as possible, to review options and make decisions before a loved one’s death, he said.
“When you get to the point where the average funeral is probably $12,000, when you take into account cemetery costs — you wouldn’t spend $12,000 without a lot of research and planning,” Lakin said. “So, figure it out, think about it now. It (death) is the one thing we’re sure of here.”
Meanwhile, Florentino Santiago said he wishes more education had been available to him and others about funeral options and costs. Although he’s gone through the experience of the two funerals for his brothers, Santiago said, “I’m still asking questions.”
“I wasn’t fully prepared at all. It wasn’t that easy,” he said. “I still don’t know what the options are.”
Even after the generosity of the anonymous donor, he’s still working on paying off $1,500 in cemetery costs.
With all the Santiago family has gone through, Christmas will be much smaller than usual, and quieter.
“It’s going to be hard,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be able to put a Christmas tree up this year.”
Amy Calder — 861-9247
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
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