Things To Do With Bodies When They're Dead

An old room mate of mine and I would have some weird conversations. Lots of "would you rather?", and various drunken rambles at two in the morning.

On a particular night he asked me to do a something for him when he dies.

I was to get his body somehow (he was telling me to do this without his wife at the time knowing), most likely I would have to body-nap him. 

Hopefully he would be well preserved. 

Once I had him I was to position him in a casket you could see into, glass or plastic. The casket would have a light display set up either behind it or inside at the back. I would then put J in the casket and fill it with some sort of gelatine, blue or green jello or something similar. Something opaque but with the light shinning through it J would be visible. Once that was all done and the jello, or gelatine, was set J was to be put in a corner and a massive party would be thrown in his honour. I immediately said yes. When his then wife found out she was less than enthused. I would like to say that when he dies I'm definitely going to  do this but I'm not sure its going to be that easy and I'm a bit lazy. I like to tell myself it is still going to happen though.

It reminds me of Gram Parsons friends stealing his body to bury him out in the desert.

also makes me think of this. Fast forward to about 1:30:

I don't want anything that elaborate for my funeral or burial.

I feel the simpler the better.

I would like a "green" burial. No preserving of the body. No crazy ceremony. I am a fairly simple guy and would just like to return back to the ecosystem that created and sustained me. Throw me in the woods for animals and plants to feed on my nutritious body, if I haven't already ruined it with all the crappy chemicals I've ingested.
There is even a a cemetery in victoria that will provide this.
http://www.robp.ca/our-services/natural-green-burial/
Simple and elegant.    

     

The Body.

  This last October my wife's grandmother, Helen, passed. She was very old and was suffering from Alzheimer's, so, while it was sad it wasn't wholly unexpected. While my wife's immediate family aren't particularly religious Helen was devoutly Jewish.  In accordance to her wishes, Helen was buried according to that tradition.

  My family is/was Anglican. When my grandparents passed we all headed down to the church, sat through a service, and then had a little get together to remember them. No body, and other than memories there was no real presence of the deceased. Until Helen passed that had been my experience with death and how people engage with mourning.

  Helen was in extended care at Oak Bay Lodge. The day she passed Emily (my wife) met with her parents who were keeping Helen company there until the funeral home could come and pick her up. This practice of keeping the body company is part of the tradition. The deceased can't be alone until they are buried.

  I joined them once I had finished work.

  I got to Helens room knocked on the closed door and entered.  

  There she was. Thin, gaunt (a complexion hard to describe), mouth refusing to stay closed, relaxed and tense all at the same time. The room had a faint smell that I didn't notice until we left. Emily and her parents were listening to a tape of old answering machine messages, birthday wishes, and speeches from various functions someone had recorded for Helen. The room was not as oppressively somber as I thought it was going to be. 

  Helen was flown to Toronto to be buried next to her husband. 

  My first Jewish funeral. The service itself wasn't that much different than the Anglican ones I had already been to. Less pomp but very similar. I was pressed into service, willingly, as a pall-bearer, which was an honour. We all joined the procession to the graveyard where the last few rites were performed and Helen was lowered into the ground next to her husband.

  Then, every single person who attended the funeral helped to fill the grave. I found this hugely cathartic. Emily's dad and uncle did the majority of shovelling, but our nephew (who is 4) was enthusiastically "playing" along with his own tiny shovel. While he didn't have the emotional capability to understand what was happening, I believe he was aware of the part he was playing, and later in life will remember it as important.

  Much scotch was drunk that night. I didn't get to know Helen that well, by the time Emily and I got together she was already quite sick. The times we visited her though she greeted me with love and could tell I was important to Emily which meant I was important to her. Being involved in honouring Helen's life by taking part in her funeral made me feel closer to Emily and her family. Hearing other people talk about her life gave me an appreciation for a person who I didn't truly get to meet, but was very important to the person I love more than anything. I don't think I would have gained this perspective any other way than through being involved in her funeral. While her passing is sad and she will be missed, Helen managed to bring her family closer together.
  On the flight home, and a few times later that week, Emily and I talked about sitting with the body and how that helped her with her grief. The anthropologist part of my brain was constantly intrigued by the ceremony of the whole day and what many of the little behaviours and traditions meant, like leaving little stones on grave markers to say you had been there. I haven't learned all the answers to those questions yet.
  It was an oddly good day.

  

     

Me, Myself, and I

gotta love that oxford comma.

My name is Pete. I've been living in Victoria now for about 15 years. Ever since getting a phone call from some friends who were moving into their first house here and had an extra bedroom. I am married to an amazing woman, who has been super supportive in me deciding to turn my life sideways and return to school to train for something radically different than being a chef.

I have been interested in people since I was a kid. I watched TLC (before it became "reality" show based) documentaries constantly and the history channel, and of course the Indiana Jones movies

(i Know...). 

This is my second semester at uVic after transferring over from Camosun. While there I took part in the Archaeology Field Assistant class which was working on mapping grave features in Uplands park. Which is why when I saw Archaeology of Death offered I was immediately interested. It was a lot of fun and I am looking foreword to taking part in another field school. I took the Anth of Sound class last semester and really enjoyed it, archaeoacoustics is fascinating, and I would like to explore it more.

My goal, for now, is to continue past BA and onto some post grad studies. I'm interested in eventually working in a museum and have the idea of doing a museum sciences masters floating around the back of my skull.

Testing...testing...

my first blog post ever.

not counting facebook, google+, mySpace, or any of the other social networks I have joined.

the reasons are fairly boring, must get good grades. 

school sanctioned blog.

who am I?  

anthropology major in his mid thirties. music lover. comic book nerd. pop culture buff. 

mostly just fascinated by humans, anything and everything about them.

this blog will explore that.

so, yeah, short, sweet and mostly just filling this space until the true posts begin.