Letter to my Mother #4

Hi mum,

I arranged your funeral last week.  It felt very odd.  Not sad like I thought it would be, because everything was so matter-of-fact.  You would have had a chuckle, if you'd been there.  If you had been capable of understanding.  I know you're not sick, but you are losing weight so rapidly, your body does not have much resistance against the winter influenza and such.  We'll be away four weeks, and I wanted the arrangements in place.

It was all pretty simple.  You've said for years what you want to happen when you go - a quick cremation, and interment with dad, Wendy and Emilie at the Stoney Creek cemetery.


The Funeral Director was a humourless man, large with thick fingers.  A balding head and a snuffle as he breathed. He seemed nervous, stuttered and kept making mistakes.  Not what I expected - I wondered if my confident stare and curious questions put him off?  I'm not sure he would be a comforting person to guide me through this process if I were a grieving widow.  He showed me a catalogue of urns to choose from.  I smiled at the ridiculous pompousness of them.  You would have too.  Some were huge with sculptured horses and such like attached to metal boxes.  There were even clocks - yes clocks, meaning your time has run out?  (Seems a tasteless joke.)  Apparently you keep the ashes in the back of the clock (on your mantle?)  The prices were outrageous too.  I suppose this is a business like any other.

I asked him questions about the cremation process.  I was curious.  I don't get to talk to Funeral Directors every day. Yes, we do get most of your ashes, but some of the previously cremated body may be inadvertently included.  He was very apologetic about this.  We told him it didn't matter.  Then he warmed to the topic and explained that actually there isn't any ash at all, just shards of bone left, which are then ground up.  That is what is sent to us to bury.  Curious.

We didn't pick out any of the urns in the catalogue, we chose one from a small "selection" he had in the basement.  They were tasteful, and a fraction of the price.  I was instantly drawn to a blue ceramic one with birds in flight on it.  The name of it put me off, "Birds of Heaven", but you'd like it. 

I couldn't resist asking him if he had watched the excellent TV series "Six Feet Under" (about a funeral director and his family who live at the funeral home) he actually smiled at this point and said he had.  Was it realistic, I asked?  Yes, it was, very.

You'd be glad to know it is all taken care of mother, and all paid for ... if the dementia allowed you to understand.