Wally Weet

Back in early May I mentioned how Edward Abbey, the writer, wanted his body buried in simplicity and I wrote about the work of Billy and Kimberly Campbell who want to protect wilderness by turning a million acres into official burying grounds. Great ideas to counter the capitalism that captured our burial traditions for profit and sent love and celebration into exile.

In the doing they exploit us for our money and make survivors feel like unloving, hateful cheapos if they don’t spend the biggest dollar. And the result? Boring! You never want to go to a funeral do you? No. Why? ‘Cause it is boring! Boring! There is nothing good about it! Boring funerals, boring graveyards, and boring acolytes make us wish we were somewhere else. We are grieving because Grandpop is gone and we have to act grim and boring like these profiteering funeral people. It is plastic. It is unreal.

Have you noticed the plastic flower gardens that have proliferated in graveyards? Bunches of gaudy colored plastic imitating flowers? Hundreds of them stuck in the ground in those big burial places along the highway. “Ok we can forget him now. He’s got plastic flowers. They’re colorful. We don’t have to put real flowers on him. They die and death is not good. And the rain’ll keep the plastic clean. Great! People will think we cared.”

Plastic flower gardens and grass. That’s what the funeral corporat has brought us to. Next step: fire the grounds keepers and put in plastic grass. More profits! You don’t think they’re looking at the possibility? Well, think again, “Faux grass, Missus, we never say ‘plastic”. Faux grass is good. It’s beautiful. No bugs and it’s appropriate. It lends the hope of eternity to us all because faux grass never dies!”

I like the Campbell’s untouched wilderness where grandpop gets recycled into Life as bacteria, worms, oak trees, insects, birds, black berries, young deer! Coyotes! His is a true resurrection. And to give the old boy a really spectacular send off we could mount a parade down to the forest with music to celebrate his life. I’d like jazz. New Orleans style would be nice. Some Miles would be splendid.

And what about packaging? How would you like to package him? At the Campbell’s you can use a poncho. Right! So forget about going to the funeral corporat. The stuff they sell is pure fantasy and max expensive. Think about it. He’s lying there rouged, in a new $600.00 suit, on a satin pillow in a $3500 luxury mahogany box. What is that all about? “And who is this guy lying here? Is that my old man? He never looked like that!”

The Africans have always had a good solution. Just think about that marvelous package the Egyptians put King Tut in. And today? Today we could do what the Ga people of Ghana do. How do they package the corpse? Have you ever seen their solution? Sculpture!

Say the old boy loved Coca Cola. Make a big Coca Cola bottle sculpture for him! A carving! Then paint the wood! Or if he was a taxi driver, sculpt him a copy of his cab. Paint it in high color to match the real thing, ads and all! A beer drinker? Sculpt him a bottle of beer with his favorite label. Cut to fit..

Commission the sculptor well ahead of time. Have a party and show it to Grandpop before he goes, while he’s lying there feeling terrible. It’ll cheer him up! “Here it is, Pop! Your parting gift”. It’ll be unique and cheaper. It’ll be cool too and more celebrative than anything the funeral corporat can offer. And when he goes get a doc to certify the death. Then keep the corpse at home. You don’t have to call in those spooks from the funeral corporat.

Invite in a few friends instead. Play some good music while you get him ready. Wash him down Give him a final caress. Pack him in dry ice. Cover him with gorgeous hand woven blankets. Package him up in his big hand carved Coke bottle, and with it on their shoulders and the band out front, his old friends will dance him on down to the graveyard to drop him in the hole and start the recycle. And afterward everybody will boogie on home and party til midnight and gradually and naturally both sculpture and Grandpop will meld back into the sacred earth together.

And if she starts to cry, every body around will cheer her up! “Yay. She really loved him after all! Bravo! Three cheers for the little lady!” She’ll have to smile and maybe have a couple drinks and kick up her heels thinking about all the good times on a good and memorable day.

So. My point? My point is we’ve gotta think about some new ways to send off our corpses. We gotta take them out of that awful for-profit mode and make death into a creative, artistic, and imaginative celebration.

America needs this, folks. Life has gotten so grim, haunted and lifeless with 24/7; filled with fear of the man next door, of the guy with the tattoo, the Arab, the Muslim, the black boy, the kid with guns, the crooked politician, the greedy executive. We need to start making changes or we’ll all go postal!

So start with the dead.

Let’s put away all those fears that shrink our souls, the disgust with death that yields profits for the corporat. Let’s get in touch with the good death again. It’s not like taking castor oil and it’ll do us good.