Preparing For A Funeral

[poliphilo]

I never knew John's surname till today. I rang the crematorium to check I'd got the time of the funeral right and had to admit to the person on the desk that I only knew him as John. Times change. In his youth- indeed in my youth which is considerably more recent- we'd have been calling one another Mr S and Mr G.  In fact, being his junior, I could well have been addressing him as "Sir".

I've spent much of the morning plotting a route to the crem- using google maps and street view. We know that part of the world perfectly well, but there's a road closed in the town we have to go through and we feel the need to be absolutely sure we won't get lost. Funerals make one nervous. 

Comments

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

I plan on being cremated. I wish they would burn bodies in public on great wooden pyres like they used to. Everything is so tidy these days.

Sorry for the loss of your friend.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. He was 90 and suffering from Altzheimers so one can't be too sorry.

Cremation makes sense- though I suppose the archaeologists of the future won't thank us for destroying our dead.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I rather like the idea of a Viking ship burial considering how splendid the surviving ones are although I always feel a little uncomfortable when the bones of our ancestors are unceremoniously dug up and placed on display, even as a historian. It just seems somehow lacking in respect.

I hope all goes as well as these things can be expected to.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't object to having my bones placed on display. I'll have no use for them.

It went as well as these things ever do.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I think it was seeing what they'd done to Otzi the 'ice man' in Bolzano that got me thinking about this- stripping him of his clothing and weapons and his personal things somehow undid the monumental dignity of his lonely death and it just felt wrong.

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

They'll still have our trash to rummage through.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And won't there be a lot of it!