This is the Sea

Mary Ann, Grandpa and Grandma

OK this, THIS, is how claustrophobic I am — when I die I’d rather have my smelly, moldering, fat arsed nekkid corpse set out with the trash (and recyclables of course) on Monday morning than be put into a coffin and buried.**shudder**

 OK so I have a touch or so of taphophobia. I suspect this comes from reading far too many Edgar Allen Poe stories — The Premature Burial,  The Cask of Amontillado, The Tell-Tale Heart — as a child. N'est-ce pas??

Though, really now, I honestly don’t understand why anyone would want to be interred. I really don’t get it. Given the delicacy of the topic I’ve not done exhaustive Q&As of all my family and friends. Incredibly. even I know enough not to ask a recent widow(er) ‘why’d ya spend all that dough on the formaldehyde infusions for Rita, the fancy casket and then bury it where you’ll never see your investment again?’

Cemeteries have always seemed like a big, fat waste to me — acre upon acre of plastic flowers, granite monuments and unfarmable earth. And the funeral biz — OY!

From an Ask Leo&Lucy column in the Guardian UK:

'Environmental pressures (not least 7 billion people on the planet) make the issue of death very alive. Each year millions of tonnes of steel, reinforced concrete, copper, brass, plastic and thousands of tonnes of embalming fluid containing formaldehyde are used to cope with 60 million-plus deaths. We use arable land to bury the dead and cut down trees (50m per year in India) for pyres.'

I always figured I'd be cremated (yeah, face it — it's always been ALL about the cool urns for me)  but an article in Mother Jones, that came out just after Osama bin Laden took the final swim, got me thinking beyond cremation to burial at sea.

For cremation though, there are private ash scattering cruises — New England Burials At Sea being one of the folks in the biz. Hey, if we can make it one of those party boat type events, I can insure that I have an Irish style wake AND burial all at once! I'd hate to shuffle off without a grand spanking party.

But then there’s the concept of becoming fish food — a full body burial at sea.

“People who choose to be buried at sea, he says, "typically have a love for the ocean, do not want to be cremated, and prefer 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust.' They want to become part of the Earth again via our oceans."

"The natural burial shroud is a traditional, dignified and more environmentally friendly way to commit a loved one’s remain to the majestic ocean. It is also an affordable means of conveyance when compared with wooden or steel caskets."

"Flowers and wreaths consisting of materials that are readily decomposable in the marine environment may be placed at the burial site.

Mary Ann Maderer

~ Brad White, a 52-year-old licensed ship captain who has been depositing bodies in the Atlantic since 2005. His company, New England Burials at Sea, based in Scituate Harbor, Massachusetts

“Besides honoring nautical tradition, White says, a shrouded body has less impact than a corpse inside a coffin—the standard for the Navy, which offers full-body burials for veterans, provided the bodies are embalmed and sealed inside a metal casket with a few holes drilled in it. White prefers not to handle embalmed bodies. "We're into clean waters and clean oceans," he says. His system is designed to be as biodegradable as possible. Grommets in the shroud "help the body sink because air comes out. And when a body decomposes, body gases come out. It also allows sea life to go in and do what sea life does. What's left after everything degrades are the cannonballs, and they make their own reef." ~ Brad White

Why is this on my mind? Hard year. My beloved Aunt Mary Ann left this wondrous plain, Oni’s father died of cancer far too goddamned young, (if you ask me!) and my parents are in precarious health.

And, oh yeah, I’ve always had a bit of a morbid streak. If I’d been born 15 years later I’d have been one of those pretentious goth types. OK a happy, peppy, pretentious goth type.

Sheesh!

Waterboys -- This is the Sea