In honour of Porter Wagoner (1927-2007). He will be missed.
While I was at work yesterday, surfing the web of course, I came across an interesting article about the new trend in "green" funerals. You can read it here.
Now, after reading through it, what struck me is that there's nothing really new about it at all. People were burying their dead this way for a long time before the funeral industry came about. Most Amish communities still lay their dead out in the parlor and bury them in plain pine boxes without embalming. And I like the idea. I mean, you'd need some dry ice for me if I kicked off in the summer, of course. And you couldn't leave me out for more than a couple of days. But then, I don't really want a bunch of people looking at me after I'm dead, anyhow.
Of course, laying me out in my own house would never work. The way things are here, if you laid me out horizontally on a couple of saw horses, I'd be covered with junk mail, a briefcase, a couple jackets and a cat or two within a day or so. You wouldn't be able to find me under all the clutter.
Ray's Paw-Paw (that's a Grandpa to all you northern folks, his maternal grandfather) actually worked as a mortician. But Ray's mom also notes that right up until Ray was a boy, there were still families who laid their dead out in their homes. She told me about going to viewings when she was a girl, and that it was the norm back then to keep your family members at home until a graveside service. Ray's Paw-Paw would often just help deliver the bodies home rather than to a funeral chapel.
I think I might like best to be cremated. Partly it's because it's cheap. The average funeral now runs something like ten thousand dollars. I figure if someone's going to spend that much on my death, it better be for a kick-ass party. Why spend all that money on a silk pillow and a vacuum-sealed casket that I'm not going to appreciate anyway? Nah, cremate me, scatter my ashes in a few different places that people might want to visit, and throw a huge party. The other reason I'd like to be cremated, is that I don't want anyone digging me up. Having been trained in archaeology, and walked down rows and rows of bones stored up in boxes for study, I've decided I really don't want to be on someone's shelf or used in a demonstration three hundred years from now in a classroom. That's just me.
Of course, there's a new method of body disposal that the Swedes have come up with. Apparently cremating people with certain kinds of dental fillings causes mercury emissions (who knew?). So, what they do here, is dip you in liquid nitrogen, and then shake the body until it crumbles into dust. Then they just sift out anything non-organic, like fillings or other prosthetics, using a magnetic field. Kind of ingenious really. But I don't have any fillings, so I'm not that worried about it.
I suppose I've never been really comfortable at traditional funerals, especially viewings. I know sometimes you need to say goodbye, but I think I'd rather remember someone as they were alive, rather than drained, painted and waxed in a box. I'd never even been to an open casket funeral until we moved to the US. My boyfriend at the time asked me to go with him to the viewing of his grandmother. It was an odd affair. A lot of time was spent discussing how nice it was that she was laid out in her favourite wig, but one of his aunts was not happy with how it was styled. So she got out a comb and a little bottle of hair spray and fixed it. Someone else had taken issue with her lipstick. It was the wrong shade. So, they got out a tube of their own and fixed it, right there. Then they all started talking about how this lovely woman wanted to be buried wearing pants. But how would we know? The bottom half of the casket was closed. Well, there was only one way to fix that. They popped open the casket to make sure she was wearing her favourite pair of black pants. Thankfully she was. I'm not sure what they would have done if she'd been there in her bloomers.
While I was at work yesterday, surfing the web of course, I came across an interesting article about the new trend in "green" funerals. You can read it here.
Now, after reading through it, what struck me is that there's nothing really new about it at all. People were burying their dead this way for a long time before the funeral industry came about. Most Amish communities still lay their dead out in the parlor and bury them in plain pine boxes without embalming. And I like the idea. I mean, you'd need some dry ice for me if I kicked off in the summer, of course. And you couldn't leave me out for more than a couple of days. But then, I don't really want a bunch of people looking at me after I'm dead, anyhow.
Of course, laying me out in my own house would never work. The way things are here, if you laid me out horizontally on a couple of saw horses, I'd be covered with junk mail, a briefcase, a couple jackets and a cat or two within a day or so. You wouldn't be able to find me under all the clutter.
Ray's Paw-Paw (that's a Grandpa to all you northern folks, his maternal grandfather) actually worked as a mortician. But Ray's mom also notes that right up until Ray was a boy, there were still families who laid their dead out in their homes. She told me about going to viewings when she was a girl, and that it was the norm back then to keep your family members at home until a graveside service. Ray's Paw-Paw would often just help deliver the bodies home rather than to a funeral chapel.
I think I might like best to be cremated. Partly it's because it's cheap. The average funeral now runs something like ten thousand dollars. I figure if someone's going to spend that much on my death, it better be for a kick-ass party. Why spend all that money on a silk pillow and a vacuum-sealed casket that I'm not going to appreciate anyway? Nah, cremate me, scatter my ashes in a few different places that people might want to visit, and throw a huge party. The other reason I'd like to be cremated, is that I don't want anyone digging me up. Having been trained in archaeology, and walked down rows and rows of bones stored up in boxes for study, I've decided I really don't want to be on someone's shelf or used in a demonstration three hundred years from now in a classroom. That's just me.
Of course, there's a new method of body disposal that the Swedes have come up with. Apparently cremating people with certain kinds of dental fillings causes mercury emissions (who knew?). So, what they do here, is dip you in liquid nitrogen, and then shake the body until it crumbles into dust. Then they just sift out anything non-organic, like fillings or other prosthetics, using a magnetic field. Kind of ingenious really. But I don't have any fillings, so I'm not that worried about it.
I suppose I've never been really comfortable at traditional funerals, especially viewings. I know sometimes you need to say goodbye, but I think I'd rather remember someone as they were alive, rather than drained, painted and waxed in a box. I'd never even been to an open casket funeral until we moved to the US. My boyfriend at the time asked me to go with him to the viewing of his grandmother. It was an odd affair. A lot of time was spent discussing how nice it was that she was laid out in her favourite wig, but one of his aunts was not happy with how it was styled. So she got out a comb and a little bottle of hair spray and fixed it. Someone else had taken issue with her lipstick. It was the wrong shade. So, they got out a tube of their own and fixed it, right there. Then they all started talking about how this lovely woman wanted to be buried wearing pants. But how would we know? The bottom half of the casket was closed. Well, there was only one way to fix that. They popped open the casket to make sure she was wearing her favourite pair of black pants. Thankfully she was. I'm not sure what they would have done if she'd been there in her bloomers.
