Gift or garbage?
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust?
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust?
You have an intense relationship with your body. Clad and looking its best it is the embodiment of all that you are, an essential element of your public personality and your personal identity. By it others know you. It is you made manifest. You can drive around in a different car and you wouldn’t kid anyone that that's not you inside. Drive around in a different body, even your best friend wouldn’t know you. For all that you deplore the less comely or successful bits, it is precious to you.
The same goes for the bodies of those you love. They are more than vehicles. And they are precious.
These feelings alter as bodies age and become deplorable.
But it’s death that makes all the difference.
How precious is a body then, when it’s dead? What honour is due to it? What celebration? “It’s only a shell,” people say, for all that they don’t really believe that, for all that a shell is hard and a body is not, it’s nothing like a shell.
Old habits die hard. Most of us reckon it a duty to cherish dead bodies, though we know well enough that dissolution awaits. We blather about shells and empty vessels even as we sentimentally hand over the carrier bag of clothes to the undertaker. We still want our dead to look their best.
A person’s personality is very evidently absent from their corpse. So their corpse is clearly not them any more. Which causes us to wonder, some of us, about the soul, the spirit, where that's gone, if anywhere, and what is the relationship between body and spirit, are they one or are they separate? Do we get to be resurrected in our earthly body? Does our spirit live on in some undefined way? Or is that all wishful tosh?
Does a corpse merit a funeral? Does a funeral need a corpse? If you want to commemorate the life and celebrate the spirit and all the stuff that lives on, what the heck’s that dead body doing there? When Arthur Miller was asked if he was going to the funeral of his ex-wife, Marilyn Monroe, he answered, “Why should I go? She won’t be there.” When John Lennon died, Yoko Ono made sure there’d be no focus on his bullet-ridden dead body by having it cremated unceremoniously, unwitnessed. She held a memorial ceremony instead, to take place everywhere and anywhere. “Pray for his soul from wherever you are,” she said. And we did.
It takes some intellectual rigour to see the corpse in this way, see it for what it is if that’s how you see things, and then get rid of it of as you would a dead car. What’ll the neighbours say?
And it is for this reason, and out of cultural habit, that we have never, in the UK, gone in for having the bodies of our dead towed away and scrapped. They do in the US. It’s quite big over there (and it gives the undertakers sleepless nights). Direct cremation*, they call it. Cheap as chips. Bake and shake. Ruthless, in its way.
I never thought it would jump the Atlantic, but it has. We now have our first direct cremation service over here and it’s busy. Simplicity Cremations, it’s called. Done and dusty for just over a grand. Its creator, Nick Gandon, is a fan of this blog, so he’s clearly a good thing.
I think this marks a significant cultural shift.
There are three sides to direct cremation, just as there are to everything.
It fosters denial in those who will not face and engage with the terrifying reality.
It’s the quickest, cheapest way to get a body scrapped.
It’s a great way to prepare a body for disposal. It makes it portable, durable, divisible. For people who think this way, expense may not be an issue. They can spend their money after disposal, not before, on a memorial event of their own devising.
It’s not for me. But I bet Nick has some interesting clients.
* The body is taken directly from the place of death and cremated in a simple container. There is no funeral service.
Labels: direct cremation
posted by Charles Cowling at
16:01
5 Comments:
How terribly sad.
Am cocking an eyebrow at your comparison with scrapping cars. I myself recognise the 'spirit' in machines, and have live relationships with those particularly precious to me: my car and my laptop. Eventually scrapping my old car, acquired from the estate of my dead father, was a really difficult move!
I think the interesting question this service invites us to revisit is 'What is a funeral?'. I tend to think of the answer as having three parts:
1. The responsible disposal of a body (as opposed to dumping it in a ditch)
2. Storytelling to mark the life of the dead one
3. Gathering in community for connection and comfort.
This very functional service is an interesting challenge to the emphases we allocate in the current rather sausage-factory tendencies, especially in urban contexts. Perhaps it could be liberating in its provocation to focus on the essence of the gathering?
KE
This is sad, but in some cases understandable.
A while ago I conducted a ceremony for a young man who had taken his own life. The family were planning a memorial service for a month or two later, which was partly to give them time to get over the initial shock.
For the funeral itself, very few words were said. The last thing the family wanted was me standing up at the podium talking about this man - it was all too raw for them.
However, such circumstances are (thankfully) rare and although many people (usually mature gentlemen, in my experience) don't want fuss or ceremony, the family usually need some kind of ritual to allow them to say goodbye, even if they are planning a celebration of the life later.
But whatever we may think for our own loved ones, ultimately, it's all about choice and if this is what people want, then I'm glad that there is someone around to provide it.
X.piry I disagree. Shouldn't it be less about what People want, and more about what they need? And yes, I know that sounds provocative and subjective, but there is a tyranny in choice that enslaves. It defines us as consumers, rather than citizens. What people 'want' is for someone to make it all go away. It is our job, yours and mine, to gently hold them while we face the truth together.
I am sure Mr Gandon does a professional, caring and efficient service, and am equally sure that he will never be short of work, but I think we should be doing the opposite. Instead of disposing of our dead unattended in an industrial setting, we should be following the coffins of strangers up onto hillsides and burning their bodies on pyres under moonlight.
But that might just be me..
Rupert,
Just to perhaps correct your image of an 'industrial' setting for our cremation process. We in fact utilize several carefully chosen public crematoria, where the coffin is received into the chapel, placed onto the catafalque, and from there into the committal room - just as would happen at any other public, attended service.
Whilst the facilities we provide may be more functional, they are provided with exactly the same (if not more) respect and care that you would expect from a quality "high street" funeral director.
Thanks to all for your thoughtful comments.
Best regards,
Nick Gandon
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