Death be not proud

Speed Bump tackles the issue of the end of the story as it is told and end of the story including the tying up of loose ends.

Overthinking cartoons is part of the primary mission here, and the fact is that the urn, not the cremation, is the problem here.

(Note: Everything that follows is in excruciatingly bad taste.
That is, if I've done it right.)

I've told my kids that I'm coming home in a coffee can and that, as far as ceremony goes, they can gather in the cemetery at midnight with a post-hole digger for all I care, as long as they don't use a Magic Marker to put my name on the stone.

I'm not particularly sentimental: A place to be and my name on the stone is about the limit of my requirements. I figure 65 bucks ought to just about cover it.

 

Aimee Semple McPherson was reportedly buried with a telephone, just in case, but I come of more pragmatic stock. I suppose it's the phlegmatic cultural tradition that was bundled with that Scandanavian Y-chromosome of mine.

I remember going to the funeral home with my father when his father had died, for the task of picking out a coffin. Although my grandfather's death was long anticipated, my dad was, of course, in deep grief, but still, when the funeral director mentioned the option of an inner-spring mattress, we both knew better than to glance at each other.

 

Perhaps I can explain it with a little story:

A woman walks into a taxidermist's shop and lays two monkeys on the counter. "They were so close in life," she says, "that when little Bonzo died, Daisy's heart broke and she died two days later."

"I see," the taxidermist says. "And you would like to have them mounted?"

"No," she replies. "Just holding hands."

And the more monkeys you have to deal with, the greater the problem.

I think Mad Magazine dealt with the simian disposal issue in a sendup of "King Kong," but, looking around, it wasn't the classic Will Elder version from Mad #6, nor Don Martin's take on the classic.

However, whether it's a giant or a giant monkey (yes, "ape," I know), the bottom line is that somebody is going to have to do something with it.

Not this:

 

Fortunately, while some of us may shrug off the topic of death as a sad but inevitable inconvenience, there are people who are trained to handle things with a great deal more delicacy, sympathy and tact, starting with their professional and sympathetic treatment of the bereaved.

  

 

Comments

[phred]

(N.B.: anyone who has gotten this far has probably realized that good taste has been put aside for the day. Therefore, I make no apologies for what follows.)

After my father drank himself to death, we had him cremated. Took three days to put out the flames. We put him in an urn on the mantlepiece. This was back when people smoked, and unknowing folks used the urn as an ashtray. One day I looked in the urn and said "Good heavens! He's been dead for a year and he's still putting on weight!"

Actually, I dumped his body in the Gulf of Mexico. All right, his ashes. Pedants. My stepmother and I talked for half an hour or so, with each of us putting forth ideas on what to do. Eventually one of us hit upon an idea that we both liked. From what I hear from other people's experiences, it was remarkably drama-free.

Although I'd never try to talk someone out of it, I do find the idea of putting someone in a box and burying them to be kind of strange. I'd like to be eaten by wild animals (after I'm fully dead), but since leaving a dead body out to be eaten is somehow unaccountably frowned upon in our society, I'll settle for having any usable organs harvested (take my lungs, kidneys, sweetbreads, anything you want--I'm not using them anymore), and the rest of me cremated and scattered. And 10% of my ashes thrown in my agent's face.

[Mike Peterson]

If you ever get a chance to watch (hear) Christopher Titus's Love is Evol, the section on discreetly scattering his father's ashes in a Las Vegas casino is not to be missed.

With the previous disclaimers about taste understood.