Growing up our family were the only kids at funerals.  My father regretted not going to his own father’s funeral. He didn’t know how to act, afraid to embarrass and there was shame with suicide. The family worries, “What could we have done.”

My own son told me that, “It’s as if Grandpa were already dead,” when his paternal grandpa was in a nursing home an extended time. I took my kids to a friend’s funeral to show them the concept.  They said the deceased “smelled like pumpkins.”  When l felt my grandkids were old enough I would point to the dead squirrel on the ground and say, “No more squirrel!”

My father said the gravediggers took gold from dead people’s teeth; that it was a mistake to eulogize.  “What do you say when it’s the town drunk?”  I heard a man eulogize his wife in four words.  “She liked to shop.”  The preacher talked about Jesus that day, not about her.

When I worked in the E.R. (Emergency Room) an illustrated annual magazine was sent nationwide with the request, “Can you ID this unidentified person?”  Diane Arbus photographed New York City people with a toe tag when no one claimed the body from the morgue.  The anonymous and indigent are rotated among funeral homes and cemeteries to fairly and evenly distribute the expense.  There were benevolent burial societies and associations to fund funerals that my uncle belonged to.

When I worked in the Emergency Room I saw the M.E. (Medical Examiner) as a ghoul.  He rushed to “harvest,” to convince the family to autopsy the deceased. Medical Examiner Janis Amatuzio is not ghoulish, neither shaman nor quack. Her professional reputation is at stake, still Dr. Amituzio collects the stories people told her like the little boy who said, “Grandpa came to see me last night.  He sat on my bed.”  His astonished parents told him, “Grandpa died last night.”

I used to be afraid of cremation after watching The World at War television series where people were burned in ovens. In Japan cremation is mandatory. [M.M. Mockett]  When I asked my son would he witness my cremation (Mortician Thomas Lynch suggests) he said, “I couldn’t handle that.” When I suggested to the man on duty that the arrow on the exit sign of his cremation building should point up he did not smile. When I tried to pre-pay my cremation to save my kids the hassle and expense the Post Office returned my check not once, but twice. I figured I was either going to fall into a volcano or fall out of an airplane making cremation a moot point. Cheech and Chong, as irreverent of convention and as cynical of hypocrisy and polite society as they are, would’ve delighted in dubbing cremation Up in Smoke.

“No time to scrimp.  Nothing but the best for dad! Oak casket!”  Like, spanking, phone booths and water fountains, someday a child will ask Mommy? What’s a Casket?  Mark Twain said that snakes stay near their deceased mate. Author Jim Rogers claimed that even when cemeteries are neglected, we need a ‘place.’ A cemetery provides a clean, quiet pass-by place, a reminder.

A woman I knew believed that a penny on the pavement was her deceased mother saying hello.  Her mother never knew me so what could that penny or a dime or a nickel signal to me? A family reunion perhaps? One day, in a church in Sofia, Bulgaria, I was drawing.  I didn’t even realize there was a coffin in the front of the church it was so skinny. A woman I knew would sit with families experiencing a sudden death as a First Call responder/volunteer.

It is somehow immoral to die.  We spend extensive amounts for expensive cancer treatment. I read that medical costs are the number one cause of bankruptcy. Cancer treatment buys time; it’s a lottery you don’t win. Atul Gawande, M.D.  wrote, “We can’t give you back, [health] we try to keep you during decline.” A watershed moment or event asks you to examine your life.  Old age is loss, going from peak and prime to just maintaining. Assisted living is assisted decaying.

When I requested DNR/DNI/NO CODE the doctor refused. “You’re too young, and too healthy. “  Marilyn Monroe once told Truman Capote, “I hate funerals. At least I won’t have to go to my own.” Lynch believes the past 50 year move toward 60% cremation is “disappearance” of body. He considers the recent “Green” trend a fad. With Green, embalming and cement vaults aren’t required. With no funeral, no visitation death then, Lynch said, “means nothing. You don’t even get to go to your own funeral.” Where to put deceased ashes. A widower told me he wanted to plant a tree with them, afraid the tree might die. A decorative urn could end up in a garage sale. Dead bodies are now portable. Scatter the ashes? Maybe we’re ‘scattered’ too. Lynch asks us to witness, to look, to see, to deal with. A body in an open casket provides closure, makes death real.

Rev. Dr. Thos. Long of Atlanta, agrees that, “memorials are detached from the brute reality. They do not create, but interpret meaning.” The Celebrant should guide, walk you through help you. Send-off is necessary with or without religion. The deceased family used to build the coffin, dig the hole, and wash the body themselves laid out in the front room on the cooling board. Recall the coin on the eyes, in the mouth, the “Hair” necklace keepsake traditions.  “Rituals rest on the human necessity to interpret event.” [Long.}

Soul release is among the Animism-Hmong belief as sitting Shiva is for the Jewish. Suttee—widow immolation on her husband’s bier—is now outlawed in India.  In New Orleans where soil was too wet, caskets would slide away. Lynch asks us to do the heavy work, escort the deceased as they go to ground. Grieve with the body present.  First comes sorrow, then stability when we “manage” our grief. As mourners we are entitled to sadness, to care; yes, but complete the story, the narrative of this person’s life. Focus on the deceased’s contribution, e.g., mother, teacher, wife et al since there are fewer small villages where everyone knew everyone. 

With death there are family conflicts, “Death is not a time to teach. [Lynch]  Rise to the occasion.”  Promise to remember. Pledge your duty, “I will take care of you after.” Be present at the funeral, the wake to fill the distance, go for the chance to talk to bereaved, stay to complete the process of leave-going this life. People want something to do, busy hands, let them help.

We all have the fear of being, of left alone, being forgotten. Death is about us—to be human, to make sense, to mourn loss, to acknowledge, endure, and reconcile meaning; “missing a chair in the play,” the empty hole. To let go, ameliorate.  “Go to the deeper end of the pool.” [Lynch] Grief is not for voyeurs. Author Raymond Moody gets letters from families like the two mothers I knew who visited their son’s grave every day, who couldn’t clean out their sons’ room. People approach Moody aching for contact with the deceased. He advised entering an altered state to address the deceased. I did as he asked and my friend Ronnie who died in childhood told me, “Don’t worry. “

Works Cited

Amatuzio, Janis Dr.  Medical Examiner.  Beyond Knowing, New World Library, Novato, CA, 2006. 

Arbus,  Diane. Photographer.

Gawande, Atul M.D. Being Mortal, Henry Holt, N.Y., 2014.

Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth. Death and Dying.

Long, Rev. Dr. Thos. of Atlanta, GA.

Lynch, Thomas. The Undertaking, W.W. Norton, N.Y., 1997.

Moody, Raymond.  Life After Life, The Light Beyond, Bantam Books, N.Y., 1988.

– Elizabeth Wadsworth Ellis