WHAT REMAINS

My father’s ashes still sit on the fireplace. He has tried numerous ways to contact me from beyond.  I’d rather be left alone. I was too unhappy for too long when he was alive. He once told me in a dream that he wanted this house back.

His ashes remain in that plain brown plastic box given to me by the crematorium. I could never decide where to scatter them. However, they are not coming with me!

I’ll probably scatter them in the back yard after I decide my next move. That way, if I’m living on another continent, Dad will still be here. Hopefully, the new owners will maintain this house to his standards.

I thought of burying him back there, but the newbies may put in a pool or some elaborate landscaping. However, I still have a bit of time remaining, before then.

Not long ago, Dear Abby featured a column about cremation. I cut it out for my brother. But I haven’t mailed it. I know he’ll get a kick out of reading it! Jerry is a former mortician, a job for which he was well suited. It was the living who gave him grief. For one thing, it unnerved his fellow undertakers that he’d forgo gloves and stick his bare hands deep into the cadaver when inserting the trocar. My brother insisted he was unable to feel the proper spot wearing gloves!

He often spoke of how peaceful and happy the dead appeared. –Well NOT our parents! Unlike him, I saw their faces directly after death. Both appeared in agony, their heads twisted upward to one side with the mouth open.

We are cremation people, with the exception of my mother who insisted upon being buried. Our Pentecostal relatives on her side of the family are horrified by it.

According to the article, many who choose cremation are claustrophobic. Well this fits me to a T!!! If a carjacker ever tried to force me into a trunk, I’d make him shoot me, first! Of course I’d feel likewise if he tried to set me on fire!

It shouldn’t matter what happens to your remains as long as you’re 100 per cent dead! But for some reason it does. There’s a ditty from my childhood I’ve never forgotten. That little song goes like this:

Did you ever see a hearse go by

And think some day you’re going to die

The worms crawl in

The worms crawl out

In your stomach and out your mouth

It’s the thought of tiny, crawly things feasting on my remains that really gives me the heebie-jeebies! That along with being donated to medical science! I’ve heard of medical students playing tic-tac-toe on the cadavers. – Well NOT mine!

It would also bother me is to end up in a mass grave with a bunch of strangers! I don’t want other people’s bones touching mine! I’ve never been a people person. If over population continues, cemeteries will be dug up and the land put to better use, such as planting food. I’ve blogged about this before.

Many dread the possibility that their bones could be dug up by future archaeologists and put on display. Personally, I’d consider that an honor! Geez, I’d be proud!

Still I’m going the cremation route. I am revising my Will to have my ashes scattered in the new country in which I’ll be residing. And forget any boo hoo funeral! I want only laughter and a celebration of my life!