Dust to Dust

Today I am going to continue my Lenten reflection on death to note our surreal trip to the funeral home. This is my first experience with the commercial side of death, and it was an eye-opener, to say the least. I suppose my notions of death were always fuzzy, romantic ones (if death can be said to be romantic) of dying at 105 surrounded by my loving grandchildren and then being buried beneath a rosebush in my garden, or some such crap. Of course, since I do not even yet have children, nor indeed a husband, this fantasy of mine was always open to amendment. My biggest fear has always been either dying surrounded by a bunch of strangers or, worse yet, all alone and having someone discover my body months later. However, after today I realized the worst side of death is the same as the worst side of life: paperwork.

Kathbert and I accompanied Richard Bonomo, who is executor of Mr. Why's estate, mostly because we really wanted to see the body for closure. (After all, if anyone would fake his own death, it would be Mr. Why!) We quickly ascertained that the body was most unfortunately that of Mr. Why, and then we sat down with the guy from the funeral parlor, or maybe the used car showroom, since he was talking about options and specials and "taking care of you." My favorite conversation went something like this:

Undertaker guy: It says here he was born in Hong Kong. Was that before or after the Chinese took it over?

Rich: Before.

Undertaker guy: So was he Chinese?

Me: I guess he would have been born a British citizen.

Undertaker guy: No, what ethnicity was he?

Why didn't he ask that in the first place? I mean, what has the government got to do with ethnicity? Mr. Why was ethnically Chinese before the takeover and he was ethnically Chinese after the takeover.

Me: He always insisted he was Transylvanian.

Anyway, we managed to get out of there without ordering prayer cards or the memorial angel bear (I can just see what Mr. Why would have to say about that!), and his ashes will be sent to the cemetery, although I was fascinated to learn they could be mailed anywhere. When I said, "Mailed! Really?" the undertaker gave a long-winded explanation about why one cannot bring human ashes on an airplane.

"Oh," I said. "I was just thinking that it was good Mr. Why didn't know we could mail him. He probably would have requested that we mail him to the Pope!"

Famous Hat