Floating Downstream

Well, I'll tell you 'bout the casket, my good friends
It would-a made your poor eyes pop
It was sterling silver all around and a real Formica top.

Well, I'll tell you 'bout the widow, my good friends,
The widow was in navy blue
With a gown designed by Balenciaga, I supplied that too.
--A Dying Business, Chad Mitchell Trio

Taunting us with visions
Afflicting us with fear
Predicting war for millions
In the hope that one appears

Terror, death, destruction
Pour from the eastern sands
But the truth of all predictions
Is always in your hands
--Die With your Boots On, Iron Maiden (1985)
___________

It's time we start doing things that make sense. The following goes under environmentalism, not morbidity; it is about eco-friendly caskets (Going Out the Natural Way). Death is a part of life, and since this site deals tangentially with death, why not talk of the ways in which it can be faced rationally.

"Cynthia Beal wants to be an Oregon cherry tree after she dies. She has everything to make it happen: a body, a burial site and a biodegradable coffin.

"'It is composting at its best,' said Beal, owner of The Natural Burial Co., which will sell a variety of eco-friendly burial products when it opens in January, including the Ecopod, a kayak-shaped coffin made out of recycled newspapers.

"Biodegradable coffins are part of a larger trend toward "natural" burials, which require no formaldehyde embalming, concrete vaults, chemical lawn treatments or laminated caskets."

"Options range from natural-fiber shrouds to fair-trade bamboo caskets lined with unbleached cotton." Prices start at $100 for your basic cardboard box. If you really wanted to be in the recycling spirit, I s'pose you could rifle through the rubbish bin behind your local Ross and find a suitably sized shipping receptacle.

My father brought the article to my attention. When the time comes, he will donate his body to a medical school. We all thought this might be for economic considerations, but it costs as much to make those arrangements as it does for a typical funeral. He just wants to do the right thing.

That is one great thing about my wacky parents -- they eschew materialism. Mother rails against lavish and showy bridal parties, "An egotistical waste of tens of thousands of dollars, gone in a day. Donate that money to building a children's playground." She has never seen Kurosawa's Ikiru, but she has arrived independently at that salarimen's end-of-life knowledge.

There is little as disgusting and extravagantly wasteful as titanium, satin-lined caskets in which bodies decompose, and which nobody ever really visits. Whatever happened to "ashes-to-ashes"? It becomes some rote part of the liturgy, but it sure isn't implemented. The pitch of the casket salesmen seems aimed to tap into some sense of guilt over obligations unfulfilled.

As mother says, she won't be around to see the satin and flowers, so don't waste time and money on it. If you have something to say to someone, better do it now, because they won't see your gestures then.

Why is it that the folks who claim a rock-hard theology and a belief in the afterlife and a reward therein, are often the ones wailing the loudest at the point of their own imminent demise, or those of their loved ones? Is it fear? Is it greed and possessiveness?

--Lisa