First of all, it’s nice to know that our listening helps. {{{{{Skald}}}}}<- to be used when you need one, the cool thing about these hugs is that they keep well, the uncool is that there’s no actual arms involved.
Re: the circle of life. My family’s grave is usually cleaned once a year by my aunt, which is kind of funny, since she’ll be buried with her husband’s family, but of course being the daughter it’s her responsability to care for the frail or elderly of the family even when they’re deceased. Two years ago my brothers did it; this year I’ve done it, but all I did was give the big slab a good brooming; I’ve also started repainting some names where the paint has been eaten away or which had never been painted (they’re all carved).
Anyway, I get a call from my uncle. He’s uncle #2; uncle #1 died this year and dad was #3, he died in 2000; the crazy brother is #4 and aunt is #5. All the brothers went to the jesuit seminar/boarding school and are ordained as deacons.
Uncle tells me that he went to the cementery and saw that someone had cleaned away the pine needles and brought plants, and aunt had told him it was me, but I should have bleached away the moss.
Me: “I see… well, you remember those lines about ‘whitened sepulchres’ and ‘dust to dust’? Your brothers’ carbon atoms are in that moss. I’m not killing it, period.”
He: “uh… hell! If you’re going to put it like that…”
Me: “yes, I am”
He: “uh, all right then, I guess.”
Me (laser-beam-bright): “oh nice!”
I’ll never understand the point of killing the life that happens naturally and then bringing potted plants and silk roses…
I was wondering how the funeral went. Thanks for having the strength to provide an update.
One thing though, about the vault, it may not have been a religious thing but a civil requirement. I know that in many places, especially in cemeteries in cities, they are required, but I don’t know the exact reason. Now, the place I’ll go, a small cemetery out in the country, does not but it’s not a big business “corporate” cemetery.
I know that it’s offtime a civil requirement; the justification tends to be something akin to concerns about the water table. I tend to think that it is due to pressure from the funeral industry, along with requirements for embalming. Such things represent a cynical attempt to exploit our fears of death and decay to the enrichment of others. I’ll post more about that some other time. I didn’t sleep well, which is why I was up posting so early, and when I went back to sleep for a little while I had a dream about mother that was a long way from comforting. I was in my old bedroom in my parents’ house and I awoke to see her working at the computer. I tried to go to her but she wouldn’t or couldn’t respond, then I was in my car driving towards the elementary school I attended, where she worked long after I was gone, but I could scarcely drive and I turned off into the road, which became a black void. Then I got out of the car and ran and found myself at the school, though when I’d turned earlier i had turned the wrong way, and I saw the bag I carry everywhere (as it carries my notebooks and whatever manuscript I’m working on) sitting there, while people milled about oblivious to it. Her laptop computer was in it, I grabbed it and ran. Several times in the dream I tried to wake up and thought I had, but I was wrong.