When MaddyChristine Hope Brokopp received a terminal cancer diagnosis in her 50s, she knew she wanted to make her own casket. An online search led her to Mary Lauren Fraser, a Massachusetts artisan who has woven caskets and burial trays for more than a decade — and who was willing to guide Brokopp and a group of friends through the process.
On Valentine’s Day, while winter still clung to the Pioneer Valley, Brokopp and friends drove from Pennsylvania and beyond, parking on packed snow outside Fraser’s workshop. Fraser greeted them with peppermint tea and a tour of the space where they would spend two days weaving an object meant to hold their friend. The group included people from different stages of Brokopp’s life; one of her oldest friends, Cynthia Siegers, flew in from the Netherlands. The day was also Siegers’ birthday — “the strangest birthday she’ll ever have,” Brokopp quipped.
Fraser’s workshop reflects her craft: a bookshelf split between basketry manuals and books about death, and finished woven pieces — trays, baskets, bassinets, and a few caskets — leaning by the windows. Fraser attaches woven sides and lids to pine boards; she makes both closed caskets and open “burial trays” with woven backs and no lids. Brokopp chose a tray. Fraser had already prepared five pine ribs for the tray’s base and penciled a line to size it for Brokopp’s height.
They began with the easy, foundational work: placing wet willow branches between the ribs. Brokopp volunteered to go first. She admitted before the weekend she wasn’t sure how she would feel about working on her own casket. “I like the material,” she said, pressing her hand to the willow. “It’s cool, and it’s wet.” Emotion, she added, was muted. The invitation was never only about death; it was a chance to bring friends together. “I just wanted to have a fun time doing this,” she said. “I don’t need to be crying here doing this.”
Across the two days, the mood resembled an ordinary weekend: chocolate, stories about the drive and their families, jokes, and the steady rhythm of hands weaving. “It just seems like a team-building exercise that we’re doing together,” observed David D’Amico as he worked. There was also a surreal edge. Friends struggled to imagine the moment when they’d lay Brokopp on the finished tray. Sitting beside her, Nita Landis took Brokopp’s hand and said, “I don’t think any of us can.”
Fraser’s process is exacting. She soaks willow, wraps it in wool, and sometimes even freezes it to maintain pliability. Weaving demands technical braids — waling, randing, and other techniques to create patterns that are both beautiful and structurally sound. Fraser guided the group, giving them manageable tasks while fixing mistakes and gently undoing miswoven sections. Friends laughed, blamed one another in jest, and kept at it under Fraser’s watchful eye.
On the second morning the tray sat at the center of the workshop with tall strips of willow standing like grass. Unlike the first day, everyone could weave at once, each taking a section. Brokopp, tired from the previous day’s work, watched from the couch and mostly observed. Fraser shaped the long strands into a sloped hood over the head of the tray, trimmed excess, stitched on a white cotton rope that became six handles, and fitted the final details.
When Fraser asked if Brokopp wanted to try the tray on, Brokopp declined. “I thought about it,” she said, “and I think that I do not want to try it on.” Her friends agreed; “It’s not time yet,” Landis said.
With the tray finished — light browns, oranges, and greens woven into a long basket with a hooded headrest — the friends lifted it together and carried it into the snow. For Brokopp, the act was about more than a container. “It is my wish that we all talk about death a little bit more easily, because we all face it,” she said. She acknowledged that some friends had to push past discomfort to come, and called their presence a gift. She hoped she had given them one in return: a chance to confront mortality together, simply and humanly, while making something by hand for someone they love.