E D Detetcheverrie, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by E D Detetcheverrie
Another funeral. 4/17/2011 6:23:10 PM
Another person I really didn't know, but looked forward to seeing any chance I got. The viewing was so small, I was pretty much obliged to walk up for a look at the body. Got to hear those wonderful standby lines: "He/she looks wonderful! They really did a great job!" Yeah, that's kinda horrific. Thanks loads. It was the most beautiful coffin I have ever seen in person, with embroidery inside the lid and screened images along the sides and at the corners. Pity to have to bury it all. And then there was the uber-disturbing let's take pictures thing. This seems to be de rigueur (mortis? Ha! Bad joke) in some families, and since I've been in Florida I've had people threaten to show me photos of their recently deceased loved ones, and you know what? Dark as I am, sick as I am, as fascinated with death as I am...I find the practice extraordinarily distasteful. Why would you need a reminder that someobody's dead? Did they actually fake their death, and you're just hanging onto the photo in case some insurance fraud agent comes snooping around? WTF? I buy old photos, but I want nothing to do with photos of corpses. Is there anything more intimate than death? Why would you want to share that?
Speaking of buying old photos, an elderly man in town passed away very recently and some of his kin were holding a whole-house sale. That was disturbing. The entire place was littered inside and out with the physical detritus of his life, and I trailed Chris around feeling like the biggest freakin' interloper in the world. It was terrible because I didn't know the guy, so nothing there reminded me of anything except that I was in a house that had once held love and laughter and the scent of family dinners, children greeting holidays with excitement, couples just enjoying their togetherness, hopes and fears and prayers for something better. I refused to paw through the photographs while the family was still there. I always get my photos from estate sales and flea markets and antique stores, so there's a sense of detatchment about them the way you pick up a package of hamburger and not see the cow's big, pretty brown eyes and curious wet nose. I did buy a couple of items; a small suitcase full of mineral specimens and fossils, some colored cut glass crystals for Em, and the deceased's military papers from his service as an officer in the Air Force during WWII. I collect rocks and fossils, so the best specimens will be well preserved. Em has already hung the crystals throughout her garden, and as a big WWII buff, I shall treasure all of those documents, letters and booklets as if they belonged to a relative of my own. They're looking for a home for the cat, by the way, if you're interested in a medium-small grey with huge yellow eyes and a tail like a fancy plume.
...no fancy coffin for me, by the way. I'm an organ donor, so I don't know what'll be left of me to bury anyhow. I've heard of these two places in the US where you're dropped off in a plain pine box in a mass grave and after five years if you're decomposed enough they pretty much just plow you into the ground. If you're not, they just check again later. I recently heard someone say that while cremation is considered inexpensive, you can get charged up to a couple of thousand dollars just to have the remains picked up and dropped off at the crematorium. WTF? What do those people get paid? I'll grab a hearse and do pick ups and drops offs if there's significant buckage involved!
Yeah...I'll keep that in mind if my current self-employment idea doesn't float. Whadda I need, a license or something? Gotta do some reaserch on this idea...hmmm......
