I'm not scared of dying
And I don't really care
If it's peace you find in dying
Well, then let the time be near
Blood, Sweat, and Tears 1977
Death was never far away as a child. Not like in a “It is the plague, bring out your dead” kind of way, just that it was there. I remember older relatives dying, and then in later years it was just something that happened. I remember feeling kind of ambivalent about it, but I could not have explained it back then. I am still ambivalent, but I now know why.
I have my reasons, but you do not want to hear them.
Dad died first. He had gone in for a serious, but routine surgery and his body had just had enough. The surgical team tried for hours and nothing they tried could save him. I think mom knew when they went in for the surgery, but did not say anything. I can still remember the look on her face as she talked with him just prior to his funeral services. She expressed so much love and compassion for him. Dad did not care what happened to him after he died, but mom had a fear of being buried alive. They had already discussed things, and she expressed her desire to be cremated. As dad did not have a preference, he was cremated after he died.
We joked with mom that after she was cremated, we would combine their ashes and place them in shaker bottles and give each of us kids one with their ashes so that whenever we were cooking one of their recipes, we could shake a little bit of them in the food in remembrance. It was a little morbid, but mom laughed out loud with the humor of it.
My sister Sam died next. It was a brutal death, a homicide. She did not deserve to die the way she did. She was always so caring and giving, and ultimately that is what brought about her death. Sam died on the anniversary of dad’s death, and I always wondered about the significance of that. I believe he was there for her to help her across. Sam, too, was cremated. I do not know whether she had any great desires for what happened to her after she died.
My sister Chris died after many, many years of alcohol and drug abuse. The consumption of all that alcohol caught up with her and her body just started shutting down. She had problems with her heart, her liver, and her kidneys. She was another one that really was very creative and caring, as long as she was not under the influence of alcohol. Chris was also cremated, and I wonder whether she was following Sam’s example, or if it was representative of the transient life she had led.
Mom died in 2009. She was just weeks away from her 81st birthday. Mom had lived with an aortic aneurysm for a long time. And then she died from it. It was a sudden death, as deaths go, but she still fought it in the end. Mom had always been told that if/when the aneurysm ruptured, she would feel a warm rush in her chest and would be dead within minutes. She managed to survive for the ambulance ride to the helipad for the air ambulance which transported her to the hospital. There were attempts at surgery to try and save her, and she still did not die for a few days, but in the end, she succumbed.
I have other distant family who have passed that I am unaware of what their choices were for their final rest, and still others who are living, but none of them like me enough to share their preferences either. They have closer family ties than me. They do not owe me. Truth be told, I doubt that they ever even think of me.
I guess I might be next here. I am not planning on it any time soon, but then again, none of the rest of my family was either. Between the car crashes and motorcycle accidents and various close calls, I am sometimes surprised that I am still alive. Maybe God has just forgotten about me and left me behind.
I believe I take after dad with my desires in that I do not care what happens to me after I die. I am partly driven by my wallet in that I do not want the expensive and expansive coffin and services. Save your money. I do not even want to be embalmed, but that feeling stems from the years that I have had to put so many chemicals in my body to stay alive. I joke (only partly) that I think I will make my own coffin out of plywood, nicely enough finished, to save the cost of a coffin. I do not care whether, or even if, I am buried. In actuality, I would love nothing more than to be left on a mountain, in my mountains, under a tree, and left to go back to the earth. My body will be empty of me, but the thought of being able to watch mountain sunrises for eternity brings me peace.
