Unlike most of you and other squeamish, sanitized and contemporaries, there will be no fire for me. Brimstone more like it.
Yes, I shall be buried. Come maggot and worm. OH MY GOD. I can see it now. Particularly my eye sockets. Never mind. Whilst aesthetically not pleasing I shall stick with earth to earth. Ashes go with the wind. Earth is solid.
In one of the more wonderous moments of my life, a few days ago I found the cemetery cum graveyard I would like to be buried in. If push comes to shove I’ll move into its vicinity to ensure a place. It’s pure magic. Absolute magic. Acres and acres, largely not yet populated. Proper graves. Can’t wait.
Urns (and their ashes), by comparison, measly. Measly. Meagre. Mean. Cheek by jowl. Reminds me of some two years ago when the Angel and I visited Minstead’s graveyard where Arthur Canon Doyle (think Sherlock Holmes) and his wife are buried. The Angel remarked that it’s so much nicer to be able to visit a grave (and, naturally, to the Angel’s horror, I managed to stand on it) rather than being restricted to, well, a measly, teensy, weensy spot with an urn of which there are quite a few on Minstead’s cemetery too, even if blessed with a “view” over rolling country side.
I am not particularly tall though some people think me so. There is something to be said to be buried stretched to your full length rather than reduced to your volume in ashes. I am sure that’s what Archimedes thought when displacing water, resulting in his joyous “Eureka”.
U
Bitch on the Blog 
I’ve met several lovely cemeteries in my life. Maybe a dozen, even, or more. But, I want thrown to the edges of the earth. If anyone will do it. No one in my family visits old graves, and I know they won’t start with mine.
Comment by Joanne Noragon — September 30, 2017 @ 22:39 |
So happy that you too appreciate burial grounds. Wherever I go I seek out cemeteries and graveyards. As I do churches. Not because I adhere to a religion. I don’t other than that I acknowledge that – to some extent – we are shaped by the culture we grow up in. All I see when visiting graves is humanity. You will never know who that person, down there, truly was in real life. Death the great leveller. Having said that, some cemeteries do segregate, no doubt for good reason. Which is? Never mind. So, say, orthodox Jews will have their own “area” within a municipal (British) cemetery.
When the Angel (my son) was very young we lived just round the corner of a vast cemetery. I’d take him there with me meandering among the graves, reading (or trying to decipher the really old) engravings, him riding his little trike. “The dead will be glad of the company”, the chaplain once said to me when we happened upon him. No “mustn’t disturb the peace” for him.
Naturally, and I dare say the same goes for most people, I remember the first time I stood beside an open grave. I was eight years old and the woman (my maternal grandmother) who’d brought me up the first few years of my life was lowered down. I stood between my grandfather and my mother. It was one of those burnt into your mind’s memory forever moments. I was frozen. Not because it was February and it was freezing. I was frozen with uncomprehending horror, numb and motionless till my mother guided my hand to pick up some soil. How reluctant I was to drop that soil onto the top of her coffin. The sound of it ringing in my ears to this day. Maybe that’s when my affinity to graveyards started. Who knows. Neither does the reason matter.
U
Comment by bitchontheblog — October 1, 2017 @ 12:30 |
I adore cemeteries but truly want to throw my body into a research facility and have them bear the cost of ashing my dismemberment and Daughter tossing me into the wild Atlantic eventually.
XO
WWW
Comment by wisewebwoman — October 1, 2017 @ 02:50 |
Yes, WWW, I thought of “gifting” my mortal shell to research as well. After all, there was a time when medical students had to dig up corpses, under cover of the night, to do their learning. Not long ago I read that University hospitals are actually turning away corpses on offer as there are too many. Supply and demand – who’d have sunk it? Mind you, my body should be of interest just in terms of how much it can withstand. But maybe that’s more to do with genes than anything else.
“The wild Atlantic”, is it, WWW? How romantic. Leaving my fear of deep waters aside I think water a benign element to die in (unless it’s a shark that pulls you down). It’s why I’d never shoot myself (not that I would) but do a Virginia Woolf. A few rocks in my pockets (in case I change my mind half way through) and you have none of the vomit mess of pills and booze; no one needs to cut you down; all you do is bloat (after a few days in water). But then I understand that you do that anyway. Which is why it must be one hell of a job to tidy up after the long dead and exploded body (have forgotten the job title this minute).
Hope all is going well with your move. Exciting times ahead after the exciting times behind. Keep knitting. If all else fails you can always drop a stitch, unravel and start again.
Hug,
U
Comment by bitchontheblog — October 1, 2017 @ 12:27 |
I witnessed an aunt being buried at Fort Rosecrans cemetery some years ago. It is definitely the most scenic cemetery in the world, with the best weather. The last burial was for my brother-in-law who was urned at the Singapore Mandai Columbaria. Can’t imagine being packed in with so many other Singaporeans, especially given how they always talk too much and too fast and are too pushy. My dilemma is that I want to be somewhere alone and exotic, but I also want to be buried next to my wife, and I don’t want her to be in the same place when the something that terminates me happens.
But do enjoy the shopping. Shopping is always much more enjoyable than owning.
Comment by Looney — October 1, 2017 @ 03:31 |
From what I have googled Fort Rosecrans is too orderly, too symmetrical for my liking. By the English definition, and they do make a distinction between the two, it’s not a graveyard, it’s a cemetery. Though San Diego’s weather is undisputedly, so I hear, the best. Don’t worry about spending eternity among Singaporeans. Even those who “always talk too much and too fast and are too pushy” will be forced to give it a rest once dead.
Oh, Looney, you would have loved that place which can only be described as a park. It was perfect. Late morning, sun filtering through the foliage of many an old and majestic tree; and the smell. That smell you get in the woods when the earth is damp. The atmosphere was so calm, so heartening. I felt happy, really really happy in that “in the moment” type happiness. I couldn’t have been in better company. I hope all those “remains” in their graves agree.
As to your last observation: Yes, Looney, sometimes anticipation is the icing before you get to the cake. Having said that, I don’t like icing – and few cakes. You’ll know what I mean. To put it another way: The chase often more invigorating than the cull.
U
Comment by bitchontheblog — October 1, 2017 @ 12:32 |
Now I am anxious to see this place.
Comment by Looney — October 1, 2017 @ 13:01 |
I used to have preferences about my funeral and subsequent disposal but having talked about funerals with a couple of people recently and realising that the most basic is probably $10-$12 thousand dollars cheaper than something more traditional, I have decided that the people I leave behind should do the cheapest thing possible. If they have $10 000 at their disposal it would be better spent on a million other things than my funeral.
Comment by Kylie — October 1, 2017 @ 10:34 |
I agree, Kylie. As far as I am concerned put me (unpreserved) in a shroud (no coffin needed), dig a hole, dump, cover hole. Water with a tear or two.
There are many alternatives (which you have to arrange before you find yourself dead) to the “traditional”. Burial is a business like any other. The more you can squeeze (!) out of the bereaved the better (for the undertaker). Let’s cut the crap and stick with basics. The dead won’t give a toss.
U
Comment by bitchontheblog — October 1, 2017 @ 12:28 |
In the mid sixties of the last century, for two years, I was in a town where meeting places for young couple in some privacy was difficult, I discovered an old British cemetery and my girl friend and I would spend hours there on the river bank under trees and very quiet environment. I however would not like to be buried whether as a full copse or as ash in an urn. I would like to be cremated and the ashes floated down the river to eventually reach the sea.
Comment by rummuser — October 1, 2017 @ 13:51 |
I agree with Kylie. Why spend thousands of pounds on disposing of me? Just burn me and keep a few momentos. Why give custom to some funeral parlour that doesn’t even know who I am and just wants a fat fee? I quite like looking round graveyards though.
Comment by nick — October 2, 2017 @ 13:00 |