Now we gotta get rid of the body

Just a few notes this evening -- went to the funeral of an elderly cousin which was, for some strange reason (at least it's strange here), held in the evening. The deceased was prepared in what appeared to be the usual manner, although my mother commented that she didn't look very good. I wonder - she's dead - she's having a very bad day - I don't require that she look real good. She will be buried at some future time in the cemetery at the no-kidding traditional seat of our family, which is an out-of-the-way Baptist Church on a bucolic ridge with a bucolic name, Harmony Grove. I assume that the deceased (I won't call her Dail - Dail isn't in there, she's just moved out) is full of chemicals which for some very, very strange reason are intended to resist the natural progression of the return to the earth, and that they will use one of those steel vaults that funeral directors (that's what we call undertakers) brag about because they are water-proof, pest-proof and earthquake proof.

What is the point? What do you think should be done with a dead body? (The UK has proposed a policy allowing harvesting of organs unless the deceased specifically opted out. I like that approach, but I understand that it's somewhat controversial.) For myself, I would strongly prefer a cave, such as the early Shawnee in West Virginia used. A real cool old guy I knew found one of those, very cleverly hidden so that you couldn't see the entrance from five feet away (so he said, and I believed him), way, way out in the woods. He said that when it came his time, he wanted to go there and thus rejoin the Great Spirit. (That's not a hackneyed western cliche, that is a translation of the Shawnee word "Wishemaneto.") However, he had a stroke, was paralyzed and aphasic, so not only could he not go to the cave, he couldn't tell anyone where it is. Failing the cave, I would accept a platform so that I can return to the earth through my friends, but that is (1) illegal (not that I would mind, but I suppose I'd need some cooperation by someone corporeally alive) and (2) not really a custom known among the First Americans around here.

I guess I'll settle for cremation. If Bro. Dave outlives me, he's in charge of leading the crowd to some appropriate venue for the scattering thing. (Is it a stretch to think that there will be a crowd? Perhaps it'll be the proverbial one-car-funeral.)

Anyway, no lying preserved in the ground for me.

Reminds me, my Dad often recited the Cremation of Sam McGee. Don't know why that is in my mind tonight.

Oh, the new pastor did the funeral. Young chap, from a big city. He is reluctant to use his own words for things, and I bet he feels a bit like a "stranger in a strange land." I told him privately after the service that although I had never heard the term "homegoing" for a funeral here, now it is in the county lexicon because he brought it here - just as all of our language has been brought from SOMEWHERE at SOME TIME. I really like this guy. It's rather strange dealing with younger people in positions of responsibility and dependability. When I was younger, responsible/respectible meant old. Now, it seems we have children as members of the bar, police officers, physicians, and others. Sometimes I have to consciously remind myself that I can depend on and learn from EVERYONE.

Tomorrow, a case has suddenly gone red, and must be solved in the morning - extremely serious ramifications, and I'm studying on it right hard tonight.

Mizpah. Pippa passes.

R