This is somewhat subtle, but at the same time visceral. Looking in on a private moment that has doubtlessly happened in real life myriad times.
I want to be cremated or donate my body after I die. I see no sense in being done up like a pickled wax mannequin afterwards to be looked at, with idiotic comments & equally idiotic pious platitudes.
I enjoyed. Greatly. Respects to Daniel, but the myriad repetitions of the rite of burial do nothing to diminish its significance to those bidding farewell.
When my dad was dispatched, we had no eulogy and 20 minutes to clear off out of the place. The small crowd were invited to speak spontaneously and Ray, whose "son" I was in childhood, and played with his daughter only child, stood and said some very ordinary Yorkshire words that, from start to end could have been a prepared speech by an orator. He spoke of friendship and readiness to be a part of a communal experience, of devotion to duty and being there. I spoke about my dad getting drunk at Ray's place on Christmas mornings and pleading for "Temptation" (either the song, or something else, I never really knew). None of it was pious and all of it was a fitting farewell to someone who'd actually already gone. It's a bit like waving off the Thames-Clyde express 10 minutes after it's left Leeds City.
This is somewhat subtle, but at the same time visceral. Looking in on a private moment that has doubtlessly happened in real life myriad times.
I want to be cremated or donate my body after I die. I see no sense in being done up like a pickled wax mannequin afterwards to be looked at, with idiotic comments & equally idiotic pious platitudes.
I enjoyed. Greatly. Respects to Daniel, but the myriad repetitions of the rite of burial do nothing to diminish its significance to those bidding farewell.
When my dad was dispatched, we had no eulogy and 20 minutes to clear off out of the place. The small crowd were invited to speak spontaneously and Ray, whose "son" I was in childhood, and played with his daughter only child, stood and said some very ordinary Yorkshire words that, from start to end could have been a prepared speech by an orator. He spoke of friendship and readiness to be a part of a communal experience, of devotion to duty and being there. I spoke about my dad getting drunk at Ray's place on Christmas mornings and pleading for "Temptation" (either the song, or something else, I never really knew). None of it was pious and all of it was a fitting farewell to someone who'd actually already gone. It's a bit like waving off the Thames-Clyde express 10 minutes after it's left Leeds City.