I made my first trip down to Denver, in nearly a year and a half, to attend the Departure Ceremony for the Army Guard unit with which my youngest daughter is deploying to Afghanistan. I went a day early so that I could spend time with my other two daughters and see former friends. I had every intention of posting Friday’s blog before leaving, but I ran out of time. I am fully committed to writing this blog consistently, but sometimes life gets in the way of our best intentions.
The purpose of my short trip was twofold. My mother had passed away last April at the age of 94. We did not hold a service since she had been slowly deteriorating from dementia, in a nursing home for several years, and nearly all of her friends and relatives had already passed. On Friday, I went with my oldest daughter to see the gravesite. She had been buried on top of my stepfather, so one side of the stone was dedicated to her, and the other side to her late husband. A few sections over, my biological father was buried, as well. I was amazed at how peaceful it was there. Although it was nearing dark and we had trudged through snow to find the headstones, a part of me did not want to leave.
This got me rethinking what I had affirmed for years. I have always impressed upon my daughters that I wanted to be cremated, but having had experiences with being badly burned, I am hesitant. Also, I am questioning the methods by which cremation is carried out. Do those large ovens require fossil fuels to burn? Do the fumes add to are already polluted air? These are only some of the questions that I am now asking myself. My biggest fear about being buried is the fear of being buried alive, since I am prone to being claustrophobic. A few years ago, I had seen that someone had developed a special burial pod that would allow for a body to decompose naturally. It could be buried in the ground and a tree planted on top of it to nourish the soil and thereby, the tree. Since I am an avid, organic and sustainable gardener, I love this idea. I do need to research this concept more, to find out where it is legally allowed. My parents are buried in a national cemetery where they have strict regulations about flowers and planting real flowers or shrubs is strictly prohibited. It is illegal to bury a person on private property, but I want to be placed in a garden among endless flowers. One of the solutions to sequestering the carbon in our atmosphere is to plant trees. Could we not bury our dead and reforest the earth at the same time? Our planet is already overpopulated with human beings. Cemeteries continue to grow larger to make room for all of the dead bodies. Isn’t it time to bring sustainability to all of our human activities, including the means by which we discard our dead? They are only bodies after all, completely devoid of the souls that once inhabited them. When I am finished with my body, I want it to contribute to the life of something else, whether it is fish in the ocean, organisms in the soil, or scavengers that recycle remains. With global warming accelerating, should we not be re-evaluating all of our human traditions – including our human death?
