C’mon Baby, Light My Pyre…
Reading Jessica Mitford’s classic The American Way of Death back in the late 60s solidified my previously held notion into a conviction: When I croak I want to be cremated.
The major natural disasters of the past few weeks have resulted in countless thousands of our fellow humans being whisked out of this life. In the cases of typhoons, hurricanes, tidal waves and landslides, many of the dead are not to be found, buried naturally by the forces that took them. For many thousands more, the bodies are found, identified, and buried or otherwise disposed of in accord with local cultural customs. Most are buried after the customary preparation. This got me thinking about land use, particularly in high-density population areas. The normal annual death toll in a place like New York City must consume many acres of valuable land-space. Where do they put them? Imagine the additional burden that would be imposed by a major disaster, natural or not… What self-respecting New Yorker wants to get planted in Jersey?
Before I found the statistics or finished my research on that (maybe another day), something else jumped off the screen and found me. Ecological Funerals…
Having never heard the term, it teased my curiosity and pulled me in. With a bit of help from Wikipedia I learned that in 1999 a Swedish biologist Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak invented and patented the process of promession, which is promoted as the Ecological Funeral. Her company, Promessa Organic AB, is continuing the development and promotion of the process.
Promession is a method for allowing the body of the deceased to decompose in an environmentally and ethically acceptable way. The first facility for Ecological Funerals, known as a promatorium, should be ready by late 2005 in Jönköping, Sweden. More can be read on this innovative concept at the Wikipedia article or at Promessa’s website.
As interesting and in some ways appealing as it is, I think I’ll stick with my desire for cremation. Having thin Southern blood, I am much more adaptable to hot than to cold…of course who would know anyway. But there is one thing I will know…I have given instructions/last wishes that my ashes be scattered by dumping into the Tennessee River where it passes by UT’s Neyland Stadium. Believe me, I will come back to haunt anyone who violates that wish!
5 Comments so far
I’m with you, it is cremation and ashes scattered for me.
For years I have wanted to be buried in Zimbabwe, next to my father. I’ll have to think about that piece some more. After all, it would cost everyone a small fortune, wouldn’t it? Plus, taking up all that space. Instead, I shall start thinking about which wind where should have the pleasure of my ashes.
I chose cremation for one primary reason: cost.
Cremation: +/- $500 plus a jar that can be as high as $200
Tradtional: + $4000 which usually includes a pretty box that is then put into the ground, which is also paid for. And, if you buy the land on payments, you’ll get dug up if your family fails to finish paying for it.
It’s a shame they won’t just bury your ass. I feel like I’d be cheating the worms of food if I get creamted. But, they can’t eat you when you’re all pumped full of freaky chemicals.
Promession? “allowing the body of the deceased to decompose in an environmentally and ethically acceptable way”?
Yikes!
Don’t the Zoroastrians hang the bodies of their dead on trees until the flesh has been picked clean by birds and the bones have been bleached by the sun?
Dry Bones