I'm stunned by the practice of preserving dead bodies. That is morbid. Do people really have such a hard time letting go that they need this empty, useless cadaver around to remind them of their past family member?
In my family we have agreed that we use time and money on the living, we don't keep dead bodies lying around, they get burned. We don't even keep graves or gravestones. When I'm gone, I don't want twenty thousand bucks used on keeping my empty vessel around, I want that money going to the clothing and education of the young ones in the family. (Won't somebody please think of the children!?)
Update:
I'd made a bit fun of the funeral director's grammar, and I received this comment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_English
Basically, in this country, there are many African American people who have been affected by both the way Americans have treated them (very poorly) as well as their ancestory. Things like poverty; no role models; poor role models in that many *fathers* of children never stayed, once they found out they were to be fathers.
Lack of education. Being raised in single-parent families...by their mothers; aunts and uncles; or grandparents, mainly. Living in *projects* which, basically, are low-income or government-funded housing where it is ROUGH! I can't think of a movie right now where the atmosphere is depicted but...I have been to one and...I hope to never have to go ever again. It is sad and depressing and not an environment that anyone would want to raise their kids.
*Gang-bangers* live there; drug dealers and drug addicts; prostitutues...among the general population, all looking for a way to survive and make ends meet.
And that is this generation.
The last generation or two dealt with this:
Sadly, education was not something that was easily available to African Americans, just a few short decades ago. There are, unbelievably, still many illiterate Americans, in our country. I am afraid that...that is what his language tells us.
Many don't have the time nor the money to get the education that they should have had, when they were children. And...now...they are struggling to make a living as best as they can. They have worked hard all their lives and...they will have to keep doing so, until their last breath. We are all just doing the best that we can do and...honestly...that funeral director would be considered pretty sucessful in his family, I'm sure. He has his own business...I believe. At least...he has a job and he has the willingness to work.
This generation and possibly the last of the African American community had the attitude of "why should I bother trying to find work when I can make more dealing drugs?" They knew that they would not get what they wanted (cars; phones; boom boxes; girls...things, in general) if they went about it the usual way (they had no higher education. No one could afford to send them to school) so...they decided to deal drugs. And...basically, no one raised them but themselves. Their mothers worked; their fathers weren't around; their grandparents also needed to work because no one made enough to save for retirement.
Two very different times but...the underlying thread of both, I believe, was...the failure of their fathers to either be there for them or to provide moral support for them and some even had money but didn't see the importance of helping their kids get an education. Kids do a LOT of STUPID things...trying to gain the love of someone. Very sad but true...
13 comments:
I think when I die my survivors should have a big barbecue. A couple months later, everyone could be informed that I was the main course.
That or cremate me and mix me into a big cake or something.
Or, as a last resort if no one goes for the better ideas, just toss my corpse into a ditch somewhere so that someone can find my skull someday and put it on a shelf in their home as a conversation piece.
I don't want to be found, if I die. Not for years. I'm thinkin, if I'm that sick, I'll walk into the desert and never be seen again.
No funeral, no service, just a whole mess of questions. :)
Totally with you on the burning. Don't understand keeping the body around.
When I die I want by skeleton covered in diamonds and thenposed in a very dramatic "giving the finger pose". Im then going to donate it to a museum and call it "Screw you Hirst, even dead I win!"
That funeral home clown has to be the most illiterate idiot on the planet. His English is purely ghetto, and his style is almost criminal. Someone like dat don't be deserving no air to breeth, see what I'm saying?
Burning's not for me, thank you.
First, let the maximum possible number of spare parts be taken from a body I no longer need, and try to help those in need of a healthy organ. My components are still in excellent condition, and the lucky bastard who might inherit my manhood will have nothing to complain about. (Except that it's already been used quite a bit! But it's good as new, purring like a kitten.)
As for the remains... I'd rather not add the CO2 from my combustion to the planet's problems, that would be polluting. Do you have any idea how much propane is used in an incineration? When there are so many baby maggots starving in Ethiopia and Kivu right as we speak!
Okay, more seriously, all my substance comes from Mother Earth (except for a wee bit of dental work), so I'd readily restitute it all after I'm done painting the planet red and generally fooling around having a good time. Seldom have I heard such nonsense as today's recent fads: get your carbon turned into a diamond for some morbid bimbo, or have your ashes farted into orbit for all eternity. (Which would be around 12 years, then some poor sap in Groenland will have the privilege of receptioning my heavy remains on his not-so-robust cranium. I pity the judge who'll have to decide whether you can be an assassin a decade after you bit the dust.)
A man's worth is in his life, his actions, his effect during his fleeting stay in this realm. A woman's worth... well, I have a few ideas, but let's not get raunchy, so I'll consider the same goes for the sweet gender. ;-)
Kent,
I once read about a real-life countess, who got a big liposuction, and to celebrate invited all her former lovers to a banquet. One of the main dishes: spinach with lots of lipids. It was far too late after their completed digestion to "compromise" it, when they found out why the lady herself hadn't touched the main course... She didn't want to gain it all back so soon, LITERALLY SPEAKING!
As for your cake idea, well, let's just say I hope you are a man of taste. Otherwise, it might be disappointing for the discerning palate. :-)
For our anatomy classes, we each got a genuine human skull. I'm telling you, when I had to clean it up at home, I almost got lynched by my so-called "tuff" brothers! And there was precious little to clean up, mostly some soil inside. Or perhaps some former flesh turned to soil...
A girl in my class was less fortunate: hers was filled with ants, and she went all "EEK!" when she found out. All authentic. :-D
For some odd reason, that skull never quite became a popular conversation piece in MY home. Go figure.
Anonymous doesn't want to be found.
I think we have a big Columbo fan here. :-)
"Who killed Dr Black? Was Dr Black even killed at all? Is he even dead??? Who knows? Who cares?"
Paul Kierstead :
"Don't understand keeping the body around."
Maybe to provide a bigger conversation piece? How else to brag at the neighbors?
I imagine the kvelling of a sumo wrestler's widow. "Ha! Top THAT, ladies!"
Leviathud,
That's an absolutely charming idea, dear. My, you're fucckin' damn refined! (^_^)
Any ideas for topping the famous Shit in a Can... apart from making it genuine? (Hey, how about my aunt's liverwurst in a can, after a month under the sun and rain?)
Putting it in a can and selling it as art: now THAT's what I call thinking of the children! :-)))
Maybe I'd like my skeleton to star in the next Pirates of the Caribbeans movie, and be duly mentioned in the end credits. And don't you fuckin' get the spelling wrong, or I'll come back to haunt you. Better yet, one of my bones will come back to haunt your wife! Word life, yo.
I mean, word DEATH. Sho'nuff!
Pascal, you're such a card! You crack me up! Can't stop laughing at your never-ending silliness! lol! :0)
Hey, don't encourage him, I'm paying for this blog by the word! :-)
"eolake said...
Hey, don't encourage him, I'm paying for this blog by the word! :-)"
LOL! I can't imagine Pascal getting out of hand w/the words! lol! I once thought he had posted a book on here! lmao! ;-)
Pascal,
you're really missing some serious money making opportunities if you come back as a ghost simply to haunt people. You could get a job in the movies, or at Walt Diney's Haunted Mansion or go into buiness with me and we'll bilk millions out of rich people by bringing back spiritualism. "Yes' I can cantact your great aunt Cordellia. Um.. she likes to be called Pascal. Dont ask."
Any ideas for topping the famous Shit in a Can.
Well, I was going to release a limited edition of "Can in a can"
verififaction: mustery
How about holding your own pre-recorded speech on Your Day??
Mp3 works wonders.
I'm refining the text of the speech.
:-)))))
PS/ OOOps, update: MP4.
Don't misunderstand me: I have high respect and admiration of the miracle that our wonderful bodies are.
And I do respect people's methods of undertaking.
Sometimes you need a place of which you know that the loved one is still around, in some way. And be it in the form of a withering body a few feet down under....
Pre-recorded speech, I dunno. But yesterday, it suddenly dawned to me I knew exactly what I'd like to be my last words before making the Great Leap into the Unknown:
"GERONIMO!!!"
Not leaving like a whining sobbing wuss, I'm not. Especially since I kind of know it'll be way after I'm 80.
Problem is, I might need an MP3 still. Knowing myself, I'm such a dormouse I'll probably die in my sleep, without even noticing. And the wifey will know better than to wake me up when I'm sleeping so well (for ever, in fact!).
In one of my earliest threads on this blog, I recall already stating that I'd keep joking even when I'm on my death bed.
Heck, others are constitutionally free to pull a long face when they're dying. But freedom implies that you also have the choice NOT to.
8-p
"you're really missing some serious money making opportunities if you come back as a ghost simply to haunt people."
I did say I'd come back as a bone to haunt the wives. Money isn't everything, you know. Even when you're a stiff.
What am I saying? ESPECIALLY when you're stiff!
"Um.. she likes to be called Pascal. Dont ask."
Only if I die with early Alzheimer's and can't remember how to pretend, that is. :-)
"many *fathers* of children never stayed, once they found out they were to be fathers."
At the risk of sounding mean, being uneducated is not an excuse for that. Two of my grandparents were completely illiterate. My mother never got to finish high school. But none of them would've ever been such a spineless coward.
Some of the Black Man's plight is his own doing. And I've seen plenty enough Whi... "caucasians" on Jerry Springer's show as well. No Monopoly (™ Parker Bros) on stupidity.
I pity da fools, cos' they're everywhere. To quote some nigger with a lot of gray stuff between his ears.
I seem to recall, in fact, that Mister T invested a lot of effort into educating black youths and helping them acquire some common life sense. I like that guy. Yo!
Lack of education definitely correlates with a greater frequency of messed-up lives. Same for living in a lousy environment. But I see this everywhere as well: those who have the will to become somebody, and to do something decent with their lives, will never be deterred. Such is the indomitable human spirit.
So I guess education affects those with a relative amount of sense. You can't straighten a fool, and you can't warp a good person.
Both fools and good persons are found in all "races", anyway. To state the obvious. That financial crisis wasn't caused by embezzlements from gangsta rappers, sho' 'nuff!
I agree with ??? about that funeral parlor guy: anybody who has the will to work an honest job has my respect, even if "they don't talk no good".
I see the same in France, from the news that I follow closely. There's an equivalent situation of social misery, with poverty, lacking education, criminality, and vanishing male genitors among some population categories. And yet, some sink, while others rise and soar. For instance, oh, say, one Zinedine Zidane... Actor Sami Naceri in the Taxi series. Jamel Debbouze in Asterix-Mission Cleopatra. (I *love* this wild little guy!)
The bottom lesson is: anybody, in any sort of tough life, can potentially find courage. Some will need more than others, but that's the lottery of life.
Says the guy whose childhood was the Lebanon war. And still is.
The war, I mean. The childhood is over.
At least SOME things cannot last forever! :-\
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