I recall a cartoon from the Sixties featuring two angels sitting on a cloud. One stops playing his harp and asks the other, “Why do some clouds have swirls of black dust in them?”
The other replies, “Oh, they’re the people who got cremated.”
Hmm. Well – religion aside – I am still insisting on cremation when MY time comes. Why? CLASS – that’s why.
All of our lives, we are dogged by it. In America, they HAVE no class – so it’s about MONEY. Although some differentiate between what they call OLD money and NEW money (in Britain, we call such people nouveau riche – which is of course French for “new rich”).
And in India, they have the appalling “caste system” – but that’s just them.
In the rest of the World, one’s class and economic status means a life of big cars and houses – or Noddy-cars and garrets.
Which I suppose is fair enough.
I further recall that in my infancy (the Sixties) many things were issued in two forms – there was the standard version for the plebs – and the “deluxe” version for the well-heeled.
However this discrimination died out in the Seventies, as British society headed towards being “classless” – although when it elected the Tories into power, THEY spent the next eighteen-odd years re-establishing the status quo – the gap between rich and poor is greater today than it has been since the Victorian age – a situation which has been echoed by all of The West in general.
And so today, the rich have never been richer – and the poor, poorer. But short of mounting a Revolution, there is little that can be done about it.
Nevertheless, while one may be forced to eat crap in LIFE – one does not care for this to continue after DEATH.
What I mean is, in life, us poor have to endure driving “compact” cars and living in chicken coops – while the monied swan around in Mercs and reside in mansions.
And for those who insist on BURIAL, the discrimination CONTINUES. The rich end up in luxurious tombs – the middle-class get marble headstones – while the rest of us have to settle for granite, or even sandstone.
And the coffins the dead are laid to rest in range from cardboard boxes – to “caskets” that look like Cadillacs.
Thus even in DEATH we remain oppressed.
But not so with CREMATION. Oh sure, a rich person’s ashes can be placed in a solid-gold urn and displayed in a building TRUMP would not mind LIVING in – or even a thousand-foot PYRAMID – but they are still just ASHES.
The process of cremation is CLASSLESS. They stick you in an oven and turn it up to Regulo 11.
After which, the ashes can be placed in a COFFEE TIN. The container matters not – since it is only a temporary vessel. The ashes themselves are what is important.
Once you have those, they can be strewn just about ANYWHERE. A river, a valley – the OCEAN. Anywhere in nature will return the deceased to The Continuum. How much MONEY they had in life will be IRRELEVANT.
Of course – as with a grave – the ex-human’s life-partner or offspring may prefer to KEEP their loved-one’s ashes. If so, instead of paying a fortune to the owners of the local boneyard, they can simply place the urn on their MANTLEPIECE.
Although they might want to CONSIDER that. One last recollection: Once Upon A Time, a young woman called the Police to report her flat had been broken into. They told her to leave everything the way she had found it. She said okay.
When they arrived, they saw a large tin of white powder on the table. It had a label with “Charlie” written on it.
And they noticed a quantity of the powder had been placed on the table and formed into lines – with two straws beside them. The officer looked at the young woman.
She said, “If that WAS what you’re thinking, I would hardly have left it out for YOU to see, would I? Charlie was my DOG – and the morons who broke in here apparently tried to SNORT his remains.”
I rarely comment on my own pieces, but to forestall others from saying so: I realize that cremation was relatively uncommon during the Sixties – hence that cartoon I spoke of.
And that the reason it is more popular today is ECONOMICS. And lack of suitable PROPERTY.
When I was born, the World only had a population of two-point-six-five billion – now it has passed SEVEN. Thus while in bygone days, it was LOGICAL to lay a person to rest in the local churchyard – today things have CHANGED.
The World has far more PEOPLE – and far fewer churches.
Thus CREMATION has now become the logical method of dealing with people’s earthly remains.
But the above piece is intended to point out how cremation, in addition to being expedient, is also a WONDERFUL way of – for once – LEVELLING the socio-economic playing field.
At least in death, it enables us to finally rise ABOVE “status” – hooray!
I love that I have lived in a period where population has zoomed. It is an exciting period in history alright. I understand that the crem give you only a sample of the ashes. We did not ask for any of my mother’s. She was cremated at Efford, in Plymouth. The consolation, for NOT living longer than your three score and ten, is that, in THIS age, fiction has gone wild with Space and Future being the big issues. SF is such fun!
Ah, now – that “sample of the ashes” thing: I too heard this and it may once have been true, SOMEWHERE. The perceived wisdom was that crematoria did bodies in “job lots” as it took a long time to heat up the ovens, then cool them down. Thus the ashes you got were a mixture of your loved one – and a load of other people.
However, this is BOLLOCKS. Multiple-body cremations are ILLEGAL most places (except by special arrangement – like stillborn twins) and are NOT the norm. The story appears to be one of those utterly bogus Urban Myths – like the alligators in the New York sewers.
Of course, a TINY amount of residue from previous cremations is BOUND to be included with the ashes of your loved-one – but they only constitute a TINY percentage of the ashes you receive.
And once you have those ashes in your hands – you can pretty much do what you LIKE with them. I strewed (strew? strewnerated? whatever) my Dad’s ashes in the Arboretum of a certain public park. Illegal – but the law is totally unenforceable, provided you make sure no-one is watching when you do it (and are not stupid enough to ASK anyone).
My Mum’s demise was a little more complicated. By the time she passed, we lived in Thailand. There is an entertaining piece on THAT in the column of Morpheus’ evil twin, Damien. It can be found at…http://damienatloppers.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/damien-on-the-night-my-mum-died/
It has no comments – so by all means, LEAVE one there!
I am glad to know the facts. Thank-you.