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jehanetteSo I recently finished a book called From Here to Eternity, about funeral practices around the world. This isn't something I've thought about much, as I'm only twenty-five and keep alternating between being certain I won't die any time soon and knowing that if I should die there will be other people to handle my funeral, people who will actually know what they're doing.
But my parents aren't twenty-five, and while they're still fairly young, my grandparents aren't. One grandmother died about five years back, and the other recently had uterine cancer. She's doing fine now, but she and her husband have already picked out burial plots. (The other grandfather has breathing problems. We don't know how long he has.) It's really weird, going with your grandparents to look at the place they'll be buried, but what was even weirder was looking at the cemetery.
I haven't been to many cemeteries. I haven't even thought about them much, but I still have a rather romanticized vision of them in my head. They're places full of grass and mossy tombstones, with flowers laid on graves and random trees dotted about. The place where my grandparents will be buried has trees, but it's large enough to drive through, and the streets all have names that feel very distant from death.
Part of the argument From Here to Eternity makes is that Americans as a whole are too distanced from death and the dead. We keep ourselves separate from it, and that leads to death anxiety. I don't feel too worried about my own death, perhaps in part because I spent several years nearly suicidal and faced my own death fairly often. I'm not even worried about others' deaths (as long as I'm not confronted with them suddenly but have time to consider them), but I am worried that, when someone I love dies, I'll be handed all the responsibility but won't know what to do.
I don't want my mother, a woman who has encouraged me to follow my conscience as long as I put thought into that following first, to have an ordinary burial. I want to give her something that will connect her to the earth, something that will have meaning for both of us, and not the canned sort of meaning funerals pretend to have. I know I have years to prepare, but a part of me feels like I should be figuring this out now, so that I'm ready in another twenty-five or so years.
More than anything else, I don't want her death to be all about money for the funeral industry. I know she'd hate that.
But my parents aren't twenty-five, and while they're still fairly young, my grandparents aren't. One grandmother died about five years back, and the other recently had uterine cancer. She's doing fine now, but she and her husband have already picked out burial plots. (The other grandfather has breathing problems. We don't know how long he has.) It's really weird, going with your grandparents to look at the place they'll be buried, but what was even weirder was looking at the cemetery.
I haven't been to many cemeteries. I haven't even thought about them much, but I still have a rather romanticized vision of them in my head. They're places full of grass and mossy tombstones, with flowers laid on graves and random trees dotted about. The place where my grandparents will be buried has trees, but it's large enough to drive through, and the streets all have names that feel very distant from death.
Part of the argument From Here to Eternity makes is that Americans as a whole are too distanced from death and the dead. We keep ourselves separate from it, and that leads to death anxiety. I don't feel too worried about my own death, perhaps in part because I spent several years nearly suicidal and faced my own death fairly often. I'm not even worried about others' deaths (as long as I'm not confronted with them suddenly but have time to consider them), but I am worried that, when someone I love dies, I'll be handed all the responsibility but won't know what to do.
I don't want my mother, a woman who has encouraged me to follow my conscience as long as I put thought into that following first, to have an ordinary burial. I want to give her something that will connect her to the earth, something that will have meaning for both of us, and not the canned sort of meaning funerals pretend to have. I know I have years to prepare, but a part of me feels like I should be figuring this out now, so that I'm ready in another twenty-five or so years.
More than anything else, I don't want her death to be all about money for the funeral industry. I know she'd hate that.
Thoughts
Date: 2019-01-02 03:43 am (UTC)Mine invited me to pick the spot. I picked one under a tree. It seemed perfectly reasonable to me. Only later did I really notice that most Americans are phobic about death. But for me it's a happy memory.
>>Part of the argument From Here to Eternity makes is that Americans as a whole are too distanced from death and the dead. We keep ourselves separate from it, and that leads to death anxiety.<<
Nailed it.
>>but I am worried that, when someone I love dies, I'll be handed all the responsibility but won't know what to do.<<
That's a reasonable concern. You can 1) make sure that someone else is in charge of those details, or 2) research how to do it in advance. A good funeral home will have resources on that. A family lawyer can tell you how to execute a will.
>>I don't want my mother, a woman who has encouraged me to follow my conscience as long as I put thought into that following first, to have an ordinary burial.<<
So many people nowadays want customized funerals that it's no longer hard to find that kind of service.
>> I want to give her something that will connect her to the earth, something that will have meaning for both of us, and not the canned sort of meaning funerals pretend to have.<<
You might consider green burial, a forest cemetery where they plant a tree for each person, or making a memorial donation to an environmental group. Our local one, Grand Prairie Friends, has received a bunch of bequests over time -- I went to one dedication ceremony for a little patch of riverfront with some shoulder-high oak saplings that somebody planted about a decade ago.
>> I know I have years to prepare, but a part of me feels like I should be figuring this out now, so that I'm ready in another twenty-five or so years.<<
That is very wise.
>>More than anything else, I don't want her death to be all about money for the funeral industry. I know she'd hate that.<<
You're not obligated to involve them at all. Check laws in your area, or have a family lawyer do so, but the last time I wrote an article on green burial it was still legal to handle the arrangements on your own in all 50 states of America. If you decide to hire professionals, decide in advance what you want them to do and how much is a reasonable price for those services. They can be very useful. They can also cost a year's income if you're not careful.
In particular, if someone wishes to be cremated, it's possible to pay just for that service and then hold the memorial on your own, according to the person's wishes. I'm Pagan, so we usually wind up doing our own after the mainstream service anyhow.