What happens to you if no one claims your body?

They are plain, chipboard boxes. No glossy varnish, no comfy lining. Only the distinctive narrowing from shoulders to feet gives you a clue about what they are. These anonymous coffins are buried four deep, by strangers in white. Each grave is filled in by a digger and there is little time for more than a brief prayer, before the dry, red earth covers them up, and their numbers are put in place.

This is the final end met by the hundreds of people around the country who have lain, unclaimed, in mortuaries for more than seven days. While that may not sound like long enough, the backlog of identification builds up every day. The longer they go without being identified, the more difficult it becomes, and the slimmer their chances of being released to loved ones.

Sadly, the markers of our identities like our faces, fingerprints, and DNA, are vulnerable after the body dies. Recording them for later identification can become impossible if the process of decomposition has progressed too far, so that seven-day period is crucial. Our DNA can start to degrade, the fingerprints can become distorted and even our usually animated faces change significantly within a few minutes of the stillness of death, making it painful and difficult for our families to recognise us.

These records are taken as soon as the body arrives at the morgue, to ensure that the best possible accuracy is achieved. But after seven days, if no identity can be found and no one can be notified, these nameless dead will be given a pauper’s burial by the strangers in plain white protective gear, and their last mark on this earth will be a numbered stake in the ground. The brief, generic prayer the only company on their journey.

Few of us think about our own funerals until great age or terminal illness makes it a reality. We hope our loved ones will be there. Maybe somewhere peaceful. That our cultural rites will be carried out. That it will give our families the closure they need to be able to say goodbye, to close the book on the stories of our lives. We hope that the food will be good.

We don’t think about what might happen if we die far from home. Or without any form of ID. We don’t think about the photographs of our scars and our tattoos that the police and our forensic services will have to use to try and find our names, if our faces are unrecognisable.

We never think of what will happen if our loved ones find us but cannot afford the burial that they need for us. This is the reality of many of those chipboard coffins. They are not all pauper’s burials. Some of them have been identified, but they are given an Indigent or Destitute burial because the family cannot afford to say goodbye.

We cannot prepare for every eventuality. Short of getting your ID number on a tag around your neck or tattooed on your foot, you can’t ensure that you are identified after you die. However, you can save your family from the guilt and despair that comes with not being able to give you the last rites that they need you to have.

Our funeral plans can pay out within 24 hours of us receiving all the required documents, directly to the nominated beneficiary for use at their discretion, in this time of grief.

Contact us today to find the plan for you.

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