Death in Concord

[Doug Hall]

Last Friday in Concord, New Hampshire, one of the middle-age women among
the 600+ Bhutanese refugee community here died in Concord Hospital
shortly after she suffered a stroke. This was the first death of one of
the Bhutanese refugees in Concord.

According to the refugees, Concord Hospital was very gracious, giving a
waiver of its rules (only 2 visitors in a room, for example), allowing
the large extended family to visit and for some Hindu rites to be
observed immediately after the death.

The local resettlement agency contributed about $1,400 for expenses and
the emerging leadership group within the Bhutanese community sought out
and received another $2,000 in donations from among the Bhutanese
themselves.

A funeral home in Manchester allowed the family complete freedom to
organize its own service in their facility.My wife attended although I
was unable to myself. Some Hindu rites were observed. The body was
cremated, although not in the open at a ghat along a river. The ashes
were given to the family and they took them to the ocean for dispersal.

The refugee community here had no prior experience with New Hampshire
laws regarding death and normal American practices of funeral homes,
etc. They had no idea of the costs involved. They had, however, often
discussed what might happen if someone died and had worried about our
system's ability to accommodate their desires and practices. So far the
woman's sons indicate that they have been quite pleased.

After the 13 day mourning period, I will ask the family more about their
experience and try to identify any problems they may have encountered.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone else about how their
communities have handled any deaths in the Bhutanese refugee community.

Doug Hall



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[Gary Shostak]

Interesting. i will pass this on to the Lynn community.

Gary

[Beth Heiderich]

Thank You for this information and please give the family my condolences . The Bhutanese / Nepali community here in Utica New York have often discussed this with me as well . We will soon face a death in our community as we have an elderly woman with brain cancer .
 
 
God Bless You
 
Beth
 
> Date: Tue, 4 May 2010 10:28:34 -0400
> From: dough...@comcast.net
> To: bhutaneser...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Death in Concord

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The New Busy is not the too busy. Combine all your e-mail accounts with Hotmail. Get busy.

[Ralph]

Sorry to hear bout the passing. We have had 3 deaths , a 16 year old
girl and 2 elders. The Indian community has arrangements with a funeral
home and they have done some discounts as I recall and one of the
Bhutanese groups has also collected funds to assist and agencies help as
well. I am copying Dr. Ravi Sarma and others in the Indian community and
they can respond with counsel and assistance and I believe SEWA can
assist if there is a chapter. The Indian community has assisted
financially as well

Ravi, SK and Skonda
Friends of Nepal is a group of ex peace corp volunteers with an abiding
interest in the Bhutanese.Doug is the one who published the recent
dictionary.