Have you taken the time to think about what you want done with your ‘remains’ when you pass from this planet to the next plane? Well I have and I think I’ve got some great ideas!

When I was younger the thought of death and finality was a bit terrifying, to say the least. Like most people I pulled a Scarlet O’Hara, “of fiddledeedee, I’ll think about that tomorrow”! Well all those tomorrows do add up and one day you wake up and someone very close to you and maybe even younger than you passes away! All of a sudden you are face to face with your own mortality! So you go through the rituals of making sure you have enough life insurance to guarantee any small children you have will be cared for in your absence, and perhaps even provide them a little more for the future. You pay the lawyers to write that Last Will and Testament, though at times the concept of sound mind and body has eluded you, but you smile gratuitously and sign on the dotted lines! Yep, you’re a responsible person, you’ve provided for everyone in the event you exit quicker than anticipated! But have you taken the time to think about what to do with the 96 cents worth of material your bodily remains constitute!

The first thing to consider is how much do you value yourself dead! A lot of dollars go into funerals and the ensuing businesses that octopus out from that, like caterers (mourners, while fulfilling a need get hungry), coffin builders – or not … if you intend to be cremated, don’t choose an expensive coffin that will be burned up along with your penile implant. The funeral home will return the implant because it doesn’t break down, but the beautiful wood of the beautiful tree that was chopped down to provide you with a final resting bed does break down and is forever lost. At your request you can ask the funeral home to remove you from the expensive coffin and place you in a cardboard box for the actual cremation. If you are going to be buried in the ground, that’s a different matter. Perhaps one should consider an arborite or plastic coffin, (recycled material of course) because as we’ve all been told over the last thirty plus years, plastics take forever to break down, thus you are guaranteed a very long time in stasis without much degradation of your parts. This is further complimented by the removal of all the body’s blood and the replacement of same with formaldehyde which is guaranteed to slow down the process even further.

Then there is the matter of the headstone. Do you choose one that is upright, running the risk some bored teenagers will vandalize your final resting home and literally take your front door away or at the very least knock it down and destroy it? Or do you go for the flat to the ground type marker, where, if uncared for, the land actually consumes it by growing over it. If you are cremated, you can be placed in an arboretum where your name and birth and death dates are exhibited on what appears to be a small Safety Deposit Box, that has your ashes encased in it for eternity. An arboretum is like a ‘Wailing Wall’ except instead of prayers being inserted into the little holes in the wall, people are!

Or you could go the way of the late Ted Williams (not related) whose family are still arguing about having him frozen hanging upside down in a tank along with at least 8 to 10 other like minded people, who seem to feel they may have an opportunity to come back here. Why they would want to is beyond me, because by that time the human race may have mutated sufficiently to be able to only do everything on a ‘virtual’ level! It would tick me off if I came back claiming to be ‘the greatest ….. that ever lived’, and there was no one left who even remembered what I was the greatest at! Talk about starting over! Some of these people are also convinced that they only needed to have their heads frozen, if you can believe. Ever see the sitcom, “Third Rock from the Sun”? Ever see the Giant Talking Head leader, played by our very own Canadian, William (he’s dead Jim) Shatner? Gives new meaning to ‘heads will roll’!

The Irish in the times of the Druids, used to cremate their dead and then the family of the deceased took a small amount of the ashes and consumed them, thus guaranteeing that they would carry the deceased relative with them unto their death and as the process was repeated from generation to generation you were guaranteed to practically live forever. I have visions of passing right through some people I know! I think I prefer that concept defined by having children, who carry at least some of my qualities, and their children do too, and so on and so on! I also like to think that as long as there is someone left behind who remembers you, you really aren’t dead!

Okay, now we’re on to what I think would be a really cool place to be after the ‘lights go out’ and that’s to ‘ go out to the lights’. An average funeral today costs between $6,000 and $10,000 approximately) Now if we could do what Gene Rodenberry did and have our ashes encapsulated and shot out into space by one of the many ‘shuttles’ that leave Nassau regularly, I would love the concept of drifting around out there, my DNA just waiting for some ‘alien’ peoples, like the Klingons, to discover it. They could take my DNA, combine it with their own, and poof, I’d be a woof, oops, Warf! Beats the Klingon method of lovemaking. That’s brutal!

But, here’s my favourite. There is a comp[any in Wisconsin whom you can ship the deceased remains to and they have perfected a method of extracting under intense heat and pressure a quantity of carbon from your body sufficient to make a diamond from. The balance of the remains are properly cremated and along with the diamond are retuned to the family. This is at a cost of approximately $10,000 and up to the family. But just think, you get to wear Mom, Dad, Grandma …. Whoever, either on your finger encased in gold (not wood) or all of them around your neck, where they will dazzle the world with their brilliance instead of the bullshit they baffled them with when they were alive!!! Since I love diamonds, it isn’t much of a stretch for me to go that route in my mind. They will even give you a choice of the colour of the diamonds! I can hear it now, “I used to be a sparkle in my daddy’s eye, now my daddy’s a sparkle on my finger”!!!

Of course one could always choose to be cremated and taken back to the place they loved as a child. That is what I have asked my children to do with me. I want most of the money to be left for the living and not paid out for a dead person who doesn’t care anymore. I want them to do the decent but minimal thing for me. Take some of the dollars left over and have a party. Smile and laugh when you remember me. Cry if you must, but don’t cry for me, cry because it is healing! Have a drink on me, …. Heck have a couple of drinks on me! Then take those ashes, put them in a bag with holes in the bottom and walk all over Maggie’s (my Irish Grandmother) hill and the gully where I played as a child and had my most imaginative and favourite times and memories. Let me play forever on that hill where I did not know that people suffered like I know they do now. Let me go back to that place where I was warm, fed, loved and respected and I was sure that everyone had that same wonderful secure life that I was so privileged to have!

I could handle staying there for eternity!

Three smiles to you, J J J

Kathleen Williams

P.S. Have you noticed that we are the only creatures on this planet who take ourselves so seriously as to worry about our dead bodies? I would like to think that that is because we are recyclable, we should be disposed of quickly but with respect!

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About Kathleen Williams:
Kathleen is legally blind, on a Federal Disability Pension, since 1986.

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This page was created/updated on Sept. 2, 2002