Have You Made Your Arrangements?

At a certain point you’re going to plan that gathering which you won’t be able to attend. You’re going to make your final arrangements. How will you be laid to rest? Will you be buried in casket? A coffin is tantamount to a casket but according to the Nosek- McCreery Funeral, Cremation and Green Services on-line infomercial, coffins, which have six sides, are no longer in; “Coffins are what you have seen in old movies,” the site explains. Will you have a casket cover and how much are you willing to have your estate, already hit hard by taxes, shell out? Will you go for the kind of simple pine box that can be found on Potter’s Field or do you want a stately mahogany affair representing you on the bier? Dying intestate means there's no will, but if you don’t declare in your will what will be done with your remains then the responsibility will remain with someone else. If you decide not to be buried in a casket, you may be cremated for considerably less money. According to NBC (“Cremation is the Hottest Trend in the Funeral Industry,” 1/22/13), cremation is about one third the $6500 to be buried in a casket. If you’re someone who enjoys getting in the last word, you may want to write your own good-bye or have it said by someone you think is going to get it right. By the time you’re ready to die, your going to have been to a number of funerals and you’ll have a good idea of your likes and dislikes when it comes to eulogies. Generally funeral services have to end early enough so that the entourage can get to the cemetery before it closes. You’ve always hated those funerals which start at 9 A.M., which means you have to get up early to get to the gym by 6:30. But what’s even worse is the guilt inducing succession of activities which mourners are asked to attend--though some would say guilt goes with the territory. For instance the burial might be at 2, but the family won’t be accepting visits from friends of the deceased until 6 so there is gong to be time to kill. Here is your big chance to right the wrongs of the past. You don’t want to find yourself people pleasing from the grave, but you can make your send off memorable by caring for the needs of the living. Once you’re dead you’re dead and there’s no need to hammer a nail into the casket by insisting that those who are living have to suffer through an overly drawn out send-off. And while making your arrangements you may want to pick up The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford and The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh--essential reading for anyone planning to die.

Vietnam Journal V: the Afterlife

                         

Watercolor of ornament from tomb of Khai Dinh by Hallie Cohen

Khai Dinh was the second to last emperor of Vietnam. Born in 1885, he assumed the throne in l916 and only ruled for nine years. Like his father, he began work on his own tomb while he was still alive. Khai Dinh’s tomb, Thien Dinh Palace, a majestic brooding structure, which looks like it’s covered in black soot and requires 127 steps to ascend is now a tourist attraction. According to custom the tomb could have been used as a summer residence, if it were completed in a king’s lifetime. But the construction on Dinh’s tomb which started in 1920 was only completed in 1931, when he was already dead. However, the idea of employing a residence for the afterlife in the here and now is something which the western morticians should entertain. Considering the vagaries of both the housing and financial markets, it’s an idea whose time has come. An affluent person could make his funeral arrangements while acquiring a second home in one fell swoop. Americans tend to have a built-in skepticism about mausoleums and tombs, seeing that the funerary business has become so profitable and that many funeral homes are owned by conglomerates. It’s fun to visit Hatshepsut’s tomb or that of Khai Dinh if you are visiting Vietnam, but as Jessica Mitford pointed out in her classic The American Way of Death, a certain amount of financial skullduggery goes with the territory. In Vietnam the afterlife is a big business, but it’s not a business and the ubiquitousness of temples where offerings to the dead are made, to increase their comfort in the hereafter, is a testament to the fact that the desire to remember and be remembered speak to a human drive, that transcends the profit motive.