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Scan the graveyard, dead there be
Funerals. I don’t like ‘em.
Now, I know that they aren’t anyone’s favorite thing in the world, but if I never had to go to another one, it would be too soon. I hate wakes. I hate open caskets. I hate church ceremonies. I hate playing nice with family members who never call or stop by, and making empty promises to get together. I hate the flowers. I hate the somberness. Funerals aren’t for the dead. They’re for the living.
Estelle Getty recently died after a long battle with dementia. In the days that followed, the press did their usual disgraceful best and called out the surviving Golden Girls for not attending funeral services. Today, Entertainment Tonight has an exclusive: “Betty White defends the ‘Golden Girls’”. Why in the hell does an octogenarian have to defend herself for not attending the funeral of her friend and former cast mate? What eighty year old wants to attend funerals? As Betty put it, they were with Estelle when it mattered. Damned straight. Take that, ET.
The worst funeral I ever went to was in a Catholic church. The priest went on about how “lucky” they all were to be of their faith. Because, as I remember, “other faiths bury their dead like dogs in the backyard”. I was livid. Livid because that priest pissed me off, and livid because his pissing me off made me feel things I don’t wish to feel in a “house of the Lord”. How dare he assume that there were only Christians there to pay their respects that day? How dare he insult those who weren’t Christian, but who were grieving just as much as anyone else in the church?
The next funeral I went to wasn’t nearly as angering. It was sad. Sad because those who lost their loved one were devastated, and sad because the priest eulogizing that day had nothing to say about the dead. He didn’t know her well, and so he said the most generic things possible. There is nothing comforting about that.
Just like I would never have a big wedding ceremony, I don’t want a big funeral. Y’all can meet up at a diner or in a living room somewhere with a “Diz is Dead” playlist and reminisce about what a freak I was. Hell, make a PowerPoint presentation with goofy pictures of me. Don’t let a complete stranger tell a crowd of people I don’t care about what a wonderful person I was and how happy they should be that I am feasting with saints or something.
Do not huddle around my casket and talk about “what a good job” the mortician did. Don’t get me wrong - morticians have a pretty damned difficult job and I give them props for what they do, but I don’t want anyone to have to look at me in the same state I had to look at my great-grandmother when I was six, or my grandparents when I was older. No one needs to see my corpse once they’ve verified that I bit the big one. That corpse is not the person. It’s a shell.
Not too long ago I was told about the option to have a “green” funeral. We can be buried in biodegradable coffins, our bodies can be free of embalming fluid, and we can wear pure fiber clothes. Eventually, what’s left of our physical presence will go back into the ground. Gives renewed meaning to “ashes to ashes; dust to dust”. I’m kind of interested in this idea. After all, who’s to say your “final” resting place in Shady Acres Cemetery is really final? They’re exhuming Egyptian pharaohs and suspected relatives of Jesus Christ. No one is safe.
So, to sum up, funerals suck and no one should be forced to go to one. And if you ever badmouth me for not attending yours or your loved ones, I will haunt your ass when I am dead and decomposing in an eco-friendly cemetery.
Discussion
8 comments for “Scan the graveyard, dead there be”
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“Do not huddle around my casket and talk about “what a good job” the mortician did.” OMG that is so funny. I just watched Six Feet Under and someone said that.
I have always thought a lot about death. It kind of went into warp speed when I was 19. ; )
I’ve been in a weird mood lately. Please, forgive me. I need to go back to school so my brain doesn’t spin all the time!
Oh and big weddings are such a waste! Especially since like 52% of the population gets divorce. We could probably erase the national debt if we used the money from weddings to put towards fixing our economy.
Well, I can guarantee, if I go before my mama - I’ll get a big funeral. ‘Cuz it’ll kill her to bury one of her kids and all her friends from her church will show up and support her. (<3 that church)
Other than that - I’ve never really thought about what I want. I know funerals are for the living. I’ve been to enough to know that. I find memorial services tend to be the same way.
I do know that I’d rather replay podcasts of MSCR show at a Diz funeral than normal funeral music. XD And a power-point? Awesome. I have towel-brigade pictures. Blackmail. Rock on.
Your funeral will rock, I promise to make sure. It’s just going to be oceans of David Bowie, Otis Redding, and Stevie Wonder music. I’m going to construct a collage, and a paper mache bust of you a la that Lionel Richie “Hello” video. And I’m inviting the Chords, John Krasinski, and the entire male cast of Lost (the “Funeral of Hotties”…woo hoo!!)
Afterwards everyone goes to the beach and drinks Long Island Ice Teas around a bonfire, making pop culture references and mocking everyone. We’ll burn your novel in the bonfire, and throw your ashes into Egg Bagel’s compost yard. Ashes to Ashes indeed!! :)
(I had to check that your blog title was an REM song. Touche!!)
@Jennifer - That line is just so damned cliche. No one knows what to say at funerals, so they comment on the state of the corpse! We could fix the national debt if we stopped tearing down and rebuilding baseball stadiums and concert arenas, too. Northern NJ and NY is seeing every damned venue being torn down, rebuilt, and moved to another city. Leave the buildings alone! Build a homeless shelter or twelve!
@Pandora - See, supporting the grieving is important. It’s the pomp and circumstance that goes with it that I’m not into. Bake a casserole. (I’m so bitchy!) You’re in charge of the PowerPoint, although I can’t believe you have Towel Brigade pics! Gah!
@TLo - Invite Jon Cryer, too, so he can reenact his scene from Pretty in Pink. That sounds like a lovely funeral. No one else will get it, but who cares about them, right?
My father’s funeral was a closed casket because no one wanted to see what cancer had done to him. At the funeral home my older brother, who I dislike because he’s a successful attorney yet can occasionally be witty, remarked “This is like a Sam’s Club for caskets!”
With all respect to Jenn, death is kind of like a business. Especially in a small community where a “proper burial” is expected.
This thread reminds me of my favorite episode of “WKRP in Cincinnati”, where a mortician wants to advertise on radio. It begins with the receptionist (Loni Anderson) announcing “There’s a dead man in the lobby” and results in the funniest radio jingle rarely to be aired in prime time. I can’t even find it on YouTube.
@ Rich it is a business. Like everything else. My husband, as you know is a funeral director. What I have learned is, as with everything, there are some pretty shady people in the business. There’s a place here that runs it like a mill. It’s sickening.
I live in a small community. There’s one funeral home in the area. Someone just opened another one a few towns down the road. This place is HUGE.
The reason my husband has stayed where he is is because his boss REFUSES to treat death like a business transaction. A lot of people he graduated with feel the same. He looks at from the point of view of the family.
Unfortunately, my husband and his boss are a dying breed in this world.
Right on. :)
@Rich - Y’know, I hear you can actually buy caskets at Sam’s Club! Or maybe Costco…
@Jennifer - Huzzah to the dying breed of morticians. May they stick around awhile longer.
@Valerie - Power to the people! (I just wanted to say that so I took this as a good time!)