The blog as the living will
By D. MacDonald, Willful Suspension of Disbelief - blog
For as long as I can remember I always had a hard time with the ritual of death. I could not understand the need to pump one’s veins with a fluid that slowed decomposition, put one’s body in a varnished fancy box, and line one’s grave with cement.
My problems here are at least three-fold. One: Why spend on that money on your (frankly) useless corpse when it could go towards the future of a loved one or a great big party where the remembered picks up the tab? Two: Varnish and formaldehyde just can’t be good to let seep into the soil. They just can’t. Three, and most important for me: As you can likely tell or will soon, I feel pretty intensely uncomfortable with death and have for a long time, and the idea of returning to fertilize new life when I am gone is a great comfort. Though I am not religious, the concept of “from dust to dust” was always a lovely thing to be reminded of at funerals and I believed it when I was a kid. I always imagined my body would help bring life to one beautiful flower. (more likely to be shrubs, but the flower is more romantic, no?).
Therefore, cremation, not to speak of its environmental impact, is not a great choice for me either. Burial at sea? I’m much more attached to earth than water… In fact, along with my hatred of death, I ironically have a love of cemeteries. (If I don’t think about the formaldehyde and pesticides). They are appropriate places of refuge and are places of grass and flowers in a sea of cement and vinyl.
Let it be known, therefore, that when I die, I want to be buried in a biodegradable and locally relevant material in a place dedicated to the life-cycle of human beings and untouched by the condominium scourge or strip-mall parking lots for as long as possible.
These types of burials, known as “Natural Burials”, are (in the modern world) very few and very far between. I always thought I’d have to consider England or California as potential resting places, which didn’t leave a very good taste in my mouth. However, I was scrolling through cbc.ca when I came across this nugget of good news: “Later this year, Royal Oak Burial Park in Victoria opens its natural burial site, believed to be the first of its kind in Canada.” And the article — Green to the end — was on the front page! Next time it would be nice to see one without a woman in a pose that makes her look new ageish and kooky, but progress is progress.
This is a reminder for me to get more involved with either the Natural Burial Co-op in Canada or the Natural Burial Association, because I just can’t stand the idea of polluting after I’m dead.
So bury me in a forest! With a rock with my name on it maybe, or a gps coordinate, but more importantly a tree sapling or bluebells growing in the earth I am becoming.
Such is my [D. MacDonald] will on this day, April 28, 2008. I am of sound mind and bla bla…
(oh - and my brother gets the car)