Dignity in death
By Thom, Ad Dominum Blog
This isn’t something that people like to think about often, but it’s something that we all need to deal with, at least at some point … Death. There’s no escaping it. It’s going to happen.
Since there have been humans, people have found various ways to deal with death, and they almost always involve some sort of ritual action to mark the passing of the person and to express the family’s grief. Some rituals are more solemn than others, and some, to modern Americans, would be taboo.
For whatever reason, I have spent quite a lot of time thinking about what I would like to be done with my body when I die. I want a funeral Mass. Not so people can stand around and talk about me, or as some sort of tear-jerker ceremony, but because I believe that it’s appropriate. (After all, if the Mass gives us life (grace) while we’re living, why should it stop for us or for others when we die?) I do not want to be embalmed. I don’t want to be placed in a coffin. I want to be buried in a cotton or linen non-dyed shroud, and buried in the earth. Not in a cemetery, but in the wilderness. With nothing more for a monument than maybe, maybe a wooden cross.
I don’t want my legacy to be a $15,000 funeral bill. Or a lump in the ground that refuses to decay and make room for everything that’s still alive. Or a toxic mess of chemicals and alloy metals that leach into the soil for millenia.
Those kinds of things are selfish, and unnecessary, in my opinion. I don’t want to be remembered as a carved rock, or a name on a headstone.
If I can’t do things while I’m alive that make people remember me, all of the monuments in the world won’t change that.
My philosophy is: rein-in the funeral industry. Say “no” to the wiles of materialistic consumerism. Help your friends and family grieve more naturally, and restore some human dignity to the circle of life.
Some links to some sites that deal with issues like this: