How Long Island families are moving away from traditional funerals and burials

Frank McQuade grew up Catholic, became a priest and always envisioned a traditional send-off when he died — a funeral home wake, a funeral Mass at a church and a cemetery burial.

But McQuade, 71, a lawyer in Long Beach who left the priesthood decades ago and married, now sees cremation as a practical option. It’s more affordable, has a lower environmental impact than burial, is more "socially responsible" and doesn’t conflict with his belief in resurrection, he said.

"My own feelings on cremation changed,” he said. “I think it is probably going to be the norm before terribly long, and that’s OK."

On Long Island, where funeral costs are among the highest in the country and traditions hold strong, others are also rethinking how they say goodbye to loved ones.

Cremation rates are rising, while church or funeral home services are being replaced by increasingly popular “celebrations of life” or memorial events that can take place anywhere from a favorite beach to a restaurant to a boat. Sometimes they happen weeks or months after the death.

And around the country, including in New York, other approaches are also getting attention such as "green burials," human composting and even space burials where cremated remains are launched into outer space.

Cremation on the rise

Cremation has been growing in popularity for years, especially among baby boomers, according to Long Island funeral home directors and experts who study the topic.

“Their attitude toward funerals and cremations and celebrations of life is very different than their parents,” said F. Daniel Moloney Jr., owner of Moloney Funeral Homes. "Things are changing.”

Moloney, whose funeral homes are in seven locations including Lake Ronkonkoma, said cremations now account for about half of the services his business provides, up from 38% three decades ago. At Michael J. Grant Funeral Homes, based in Brentwood and Coram, the number has jumped over the last 20 years from about 10% to 35-40%, said owner Michael J. Grant.

Nationally, the percentage of deceased who were cremated rose from just 3.56% in 1960 to 61% in 2023, according to the Cremation Association of North America. By 2045, that figure is expected to reach 82%. 

“It is a dramatic change. The number of cremations has gone up enormously,” said Professor David Charles Sloan, chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Spatial Analysis at the University of Southern California and author of “Is the Cemetery Dead?”

His book explores in part how the existence or continued growth of traditional cemeteries may be at risk with the rise in cremations. 

Several factors are driving this shift. Cost is one.

A traditional funeral — including embalming, viewing, and service—averages $10,762 in Nassau and Suffolk counties. That is the highest of any region in the United States and above the national average of $8,590, according to Funeralocity.com, a consumer advocacy website. 

The cost on Long Island has gone up about $1,000 in the last four years, the group states. Funeral directors said costs are rising because of inflation, and note that Long Island in general is one of the most expensive places in the nation. 

Beyond the funeral, burial in a cemetery costs thousands more. Buying a plot can cost $3,000 to $5,000 or more, opening the grave can run between $1,000 and $2,200, and purchasing a headstone can start at $2,500, just to cite some of the costs, Moloney said.

Cremation, on the other hand, averages $7,943 for a full-service option or just $2,694 for a direct cremation with no service, Funeralocity.com found.

Grant said that a lack of planning contributes to people deciding to opt for cremation, as families make decisions under immense financial and emotional pressure "in a rushed atmosphere." When people find out the cemetery costs more than they thought, they often “opt for cremation," he said.

Beyond cost, shifting lifestyles and values also play a role.

Families are more dispersed across the country than in previous generations and don’t want a traditional family cemetery plot in hometowns that they left years ago, said Richard D’Andrea, owner of the Raynor & D’Andrea Funeral Homes in West Sayville and Bayport. 

“Years ago, when I was a kid, we had the family plot and we all went to church on Sundays, and we were the third generation in the area here, so we would visit the grave after church,” D'Andrea said. “That just doesn’t happen anymore."

Many families are also drawn to the flexibility of cremation, which allows remains to be stored in urns, scattered in meaningful locations or even incorporated into jewelry or keepsakes.

Environmental concerns have also nudged some toward cremation, which avoids embalming chemicals and the land use required for burial. 

McQuade, who has three adult children, said he is interested in cremation because he believes it is better for the environment. It avoids burying in the earth embalmed bodies injected with chemicals for preservation or covered with cosmetics, for instance. His wife, though, a native of Ecuador, prefers traditional body burial, he added.

Dean Fisher, former director of UCLA's Donated Bodies Program, where people donate their bodies for scientific research, said flame cremation is better for the environment than traditional body burial, but still comes with a cost since it burns gas. The best option is alkaline hydrolysis, or "water cremation," which uses water, alkaline chemicals and heat to decompose the body, he said.

For Michelle Malvagno-Carucci, 46, of Bohemia, cost, environmental concerns and the flexibility of having ashes rather than a traditional body burial all make cremation the way to go.

“I don’t want to be buried. Definitely cremation is at this point … the choice,” she said.

She is particularly intrigued by the idea of comingling her ashes with those of loved ones and even her pets. Ashes can be stored in jewelry such as necklaces and rings and given to children and other relatives so they can literally carry their loved ones with them permanently, she said.

“In my experience you have family that is buried all over the country, and when do you actually get to visit that grave site?” she said. “I’d rather be with my family than just laid somewhere to rest.”

A cultural and religious shift

Long Island’s cremation rates, however, still lag behind the national average. In 2022, 43.7% of Nassau County deaths resulted in cremation, compared to 46.6% in Suffolk.

While the rate continues to grow, it may be doing so more slowly than other regions partly because Long Island is still more “traditional” in its approach, with a large Catholic population, along with many Jews and Muslims whose faith generally prohibits cremation, directors said.

The Roman Catholic Church still teaches that bodily burial is preferable to cremation, since “like Christ in His Resurrection, there will be a resurrection of our bodies at the end of time,” the Diocese of Rockville Centre said in a statement, citing a theological consultant for the diocese.

Centuries ago, the Roman Empire would burn the bodies of Christian martyrs, "with the idea that this would make bodily resurrection impossible. Of course, the burning of a body does not hinder God’s plan,” the diocese said.

Today, cremation is “permitted as long as the remains are buried reverently and one does not do so for reasons of denying the teachings of the Faith.” The church approved this partly because of growing interest in cremation among the faithful, the diocese said.

The scattering of ashes is prohibited, though, since it does not show proper reverence, the church states.

Islam and most Jewish denominations prohibit cremation. Instead, they bury the dead as quickly as possible, preferably within 24 hours, and without embalming. The dead typically are buried in a simple pine box. Muslim and Jewish leaders argue that this is not only the most environmentally compatible method but also gives family and friends the chance to fully grieve at graveside.

“We don’t cremate because this body is an amazing, incredible, beautiful invention of God, and it has been the host for our soul, for our life, for our love, for our journey during these years that we are living, and it deserves a burial. It deserves to be treated with respect,” said Rabbi Tuvia Teldon, head of the Chabad movement on Long Island.

“There is nothing more organic … than the body just returning to the earth,” he added.

That approach has parallels to the new "green burial" movement in which bodies are buried without embalming; only biodegradable caskets, containers or shrouds are used; and herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers for the grass are avoided.

Another method gaining attention is "human composting," in which decomposing bodies are kept in above-ground containers filled with wood chips and other biodegradable materials for about a month. The result is a cubic yard of nutrient-rich soil that can be used to grow trees or plants. New York State legalized the practice in December 2022, though there are no human composting facilities yet on Long Island.

Moloney believes cremation has become increasingly popular on Long Island, especially among Catholics, in part because of the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. in a plane crash in 1999. Kennedy, a member of one of America’s leading Catholic families, was cremated.

“The Kennedys were always looked at, especially in the Northeast, as icons of the Catholic Church,” Moloney said. “If it was good enough for the Kennedys it was good enough for the rest of society.”

He said he saw an additional increase in cremation rates after that. He also attributes the rise on Long Island to a growing population of Hindus and Sikhs from India whose faith instructs them to cremate their dead. 

'You don’t need the big chapel, you don’t need the cathedral'

Beyond cremation, many families are moving away from traditional funeral services altogether.

Of cremations performed in 2023 in the U.S., 49% were direct cremations with no service, according to the latest data from the National Funeral Directors Association. Another 31% had a memorial service after cremation, and 19% had a casketed adult funeral with a viewing, followed by cremation. 

“Direct cremation is about as close to a commodified service you can get,” said Ed Michael Reggie, CEO of Funeralocity.com. “You don’t need the big chapel, you don’t need the cathedral, the big funeral parlor.”

But the trend has the potential to financially harm funeral homes, as people could largely bypass them or opt for reduced services, local funeral directors said.

Nationally, revenue for funeral homes is expected to grow little over the next few years, remaining relatively stable for the industry at about $20.2 billion a year through 2029, according to the National Funeral Directors Association.

D'Andrea said his funeral homes have not been hard hit financially yet by the growing number of cremations, but "if that trend truly does take off and there are fewer services, which is a trend that we are definitely seeing, that would definitely impact the funeral home and the funeral industry. If they are not using my facility at all, that hurts.”

D’Andrea said his hope is that even people who are cremated would have a service at a funeral home to give family and friends a chance to grieve at the time of death.

“Personally, I see value in some type of a memorial or a service that marks the end of a life,” he said. “The trend that scares us more is having an immediate cremation or burial without any service.”

Having a service weeks or months later can leave families feeling empty, he said.

“People get frustrated with that lag,” he added. “There is all that time in between so it’s not as meaningful. .”

Malvagno-Carucci, the Bohemia resident, said she still plans to have a wake and funeral service, even though she plans to get cremated.

“I think there is a lot of confusion that is surrounded by it and [people] don’t understand,” that they can get cremated but still have services — either before or after cremation, she said.

Some funeral homes are adapting to the increase in cremations by creating memorial gardens where families can hold celebrations of life long after a loved one dies.

Debra O’Neil, 60, a real estate agent from Ronkonkoma, said she helped arrange such an event at Moloney’s last summer weeks after her close childhood friend, Kim Thomas, 61, died in Las Vegas. Thomas was cremated and her ashes were brought to New York.

“It was just very warm and exactly what she would have wanted, being outside, by the waterfalls, with the trees, and the birds chirping," said O'Neil, who is considering cremation for herself. "It was a great experience. It just gave you this tranquil feeling.”

After the event, O’Neil kept an urn with some of Thomas' ashes.

Now, “she’s always with me,” O’Neil said. “I brought her home and she’s home for good.”