Exploring Your Final Options
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A quiet place . . . among the sheltering pines.
As the pandemic rages, the time has come to face some cold, grim facts before a grim, cold slab takes over. It’s time to decide how I want to dispose of my mortal remains. For someone in his golden years and with a compromised immune system to boot, the circumstances cannot be more urgent. Once a person in my condition enters the ICU, chances of coming out alive are not good and the opportunity to make last-minute final decisions is even bleaker. I don’t want to end up in the pits now being dug for mass burials of unclaimed Covid-19 bodies piling up in hospital morgues. It’s time to get our affairs in order.
So, the first thing is, get your final wishes in some sort of written form ASAP. These would include:
(1) an Advanced Health Directive (also called “Living Will”) which spells out whether you wish to be resuscitated should you lapse into a coma, final medical decisions which your loved ones cannot make—just how you want things to end while in the medical facility. Hospitals, in normal times, usually help you fill this out before anything else. But medical facilities are strained to the breaking point these days that this procedure may slip through the cracks.
(2) Your Last Will and Testament (LWT). Take some time to do this. It is the document which will settle your worldly affairs, mainly financial and personal.
For myself, I rewrote my will a few weeks back and had it witnessed (not a requirement in California, but I just wanted to be sure that I had things in proper order). Check the basic LWT and legal legacy directives of your state or jurisdiction so that you can accomplish this task properly, with the least amount of fuss, in order to avoid probate and intestate proceedings. For most of us, we have rather simply structured estates -- but if you use high-powered accountants who file your taxes, then you are most probably in the “hire-an-attorney-to-do-your-will” bracket as well. Otherwise, if you have a basic understanding of legal procedures and legalese, there are the legal self-help sites online such as Nolo, Legalzoom, etc., to guide you.
The LWT is your last chance to list down your final wishes, distribution of your estate, etc., or any choice, last words for the bastard brother or the prodigal child. It is your last chance to exercise your “voice from the grave,”so to speak.
(3) In a separate document, put down explicit instructions on: (a) having Last Rites -- do you want them? (b) the final disposition of your mortal remains: burial, cremation, etc.; who gets your ashes, memorial services, etc., “viewing” sessions (which would require embalming fluids or none at all), etc. (c) Last chance to list all passwords, User IDs, codes, etc. (This document should officially not be part of the LWT because the data could become public if the will goes to probate.) Or, not to list them, if you want to be a curmudgeon and have the last mischievous message to your heirs.
I do not presume to dispense legal advice. Here, I am merely relaying my experience in putting one’s affairs in order, sprinkled with some basic legal “minders,” which I can share having worked for over 20 years in the legal support field in the US. In preparation for the above, do your research and involve yourself now, in the words of the funeral industry, in the Advanced Planning stage(s). This will save a lot of expense, heart/headache and chaos when the Grim Reaper comes a-calling.
Two of the more visited and elaborate graves in the world: Left, Edith Piaf’s tomb at Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris; Right, Eva (“Evita”) Peron in the Duarte Family mausoleum at Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires. Coincidentally, both these ladies are initialed E.P.
Before I outline the final choices available (based on my situation in California), here are some stunning statistics (from Mary Woodsen, Cornell University) in the US “death care” industry to consider in making one’s final decision:
• 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid (includes formaldehyde) used in a given year
• 180,544,000 pounds of steel, in caskets
• 5,400,000 pounds of copper and bronze in caskets
• 30 million board feet of hardwoods in caskets
• 3,272,000,000 pounds of reinforced concrete vaults and 28,000,000 pounds of steel in vaults.
About enough to build another pyramid or an El Escorial.
The final disposition choices are:
Cremation
The cheapest, most uncomplicated option is, of course, cremation. I’ve never been crazy about going out in a “trial by fire.” I realize that factors like overcrowding, loss of land, etc., make this the popular way to go, but I still cannot wrap my head around the idea of a final conflagration. It’s too Wagnerian, too drama queen for me. I know that our body will cease all feeling, but I am not a Roman general or a Viking warrior (at least, not in this life); and visions of what the Nazis did to their victims in their “Final Solution” really vex, disturb and repel me.
In life, I have treated my temporal body, imperfect as it is, with all the reverence and respect I was taught to give it, and then I am just going to chuck it away a lifetime’s worth of effort for one fiery momentary combustion? Fuggedaboutit.
Uh-uh; no Gotterdamerung finale for me.
Thus, I will pass on this option even though the cheapest prepaid cremation plans cost under $1,000. For one’s heirs, however, this is also a most convenient arrangement as one’s ashes can lay “in state” at home as long as your blood line continues.
Sea Burial
For a while, I thought I’d rather “sleep with the fishes” than be burned to a crisp. It’s an equally inexpensive option as a scattering of ashes at sea. This is the way navies around the world do it when a service member dies on board, and they have opted for it, and/or there are no freezers or morgues on board. I don’t know if the Mafia or the yakuza still offers the “cement-boots-by-the-Hudson” option, but this is how the Pentagon gave notorious terrorist Usama bin Laden his final send-off, for very expedient reasons. For us less celebrated landlubbers, the restrictions for initiating such a burial from land have been tightened, and the body can only be slipped into the ocean at specified reefs or beyond the three-mile international border limit last I checked.
Earth Burial Options
Capsula Mundi (CM). Then I also considered the CM “green” option which started in Italy but is not yet available in California. Per the illustration below, the body is fixed into a fetal position in a biodegradable “egg” which then goes into the ground, and a young sapling of a tree of your choice (indigenous to the locale – oak, maple, evergreens, fruit trees, etc.) gets planted over the egg. The corpse will “help” nourish and fertilize new life, i.e., that tree. Joyce Kilmer, poet of “Trees,” I believe would’ve opted for this method.
The CM type of burial is not yet available in the US because I suspect it is being blocked by the US funeral interests, a $15 billion/year industry which has strong political lobbying forces. Not only that, but even search engines like Google have been manipulated so that if you search for “green” or “natural burials,” cremation pops up first.
A major problem with the CM method is the corpse has to be folded into its fetal position before rigor mortis sets in. That starts about three hours after death, so if the mortuary doesn’t get hold of the body within those first few hours, it may require a car-compacting machine to bend it like a pretzel to get it into the egg. I have not yet seen data on what percentage of the Covid casualty rate in Italy, one of the highest in the world, ended up being buried the CM way.
There is a hybrid option to CM being peddled in the US. It steals the feel-good CM idea of “becoming one with nature.” In a “nature preserve” carved out for this sort of internment, your urn will be buried by a tree; but the “green ‘Be a Tree’” option will still hurt a tree as a plaque will be attached to it as your marker. On the surface it feels legit, but it still requires cremation. This scenario reminds me of that other, more harmless Name-a-Star scam wherein you get to “buy” a star for $19.95 and have it named in a certificate for the recipient of your choice. Really a star-struck “idea” but a whimsical gift one only gives under the influence of a full moon.
Then there is the time-honored Traditional Casket Burial (TCB) wherein you go either underground or in a crypt. This method is of course the most expensive of all with burials costing anywhere from a basic $15K (est.) to sky’s-the-limit if you want to exit like an Egyptian pharaoh.
Which brings me to my final choice that I came upon belatedly. The Green/Natural Burial is just starting to find favor with cemeteries and funeral services in the US. A “green burial” is an environmentally friendly internment that aims for as minimal an impact on the earth as possible, i.e., smallest carbon footprint. This helps conserve natural resources, reduces carbon emissions, protects worker health, and restores and/or preserves habitat. Embalmed bodies are not allowed in a green burial, which uses only non-toxic and biodegradable materials, such as very basic wooden or rattan caskets, shrouds and urns.
Back to basics: A green burial using a biodegradable shroud. (Photo c/o Fertig Funeral Home)
A green burial costs somewhere between a cremation and the TCB—so somewhere between $6K and $8.5K—depending primarily on the location of the cemetery or memorial park. The closer to a major metropolitan area, the more expensive it is; the farther away, the cheaper. A burial plot or a niche in a crypt is, like any piece of real estate, subject to the laws of supply and demand. It can be a negotiable asset you could possibly sell at a later time. Similarly, if you are determined on resting in a particular memorial park and there are no available spots when you inquire initially, be persistent because someone else may sell secondary rights to a plot later. One constant cost though of this burial option is the “opening/closing ground fee” (i.e., the gravediggers’ fees) at least standardized in the San Francisco Bay Area at $1,550.
Although a green burial costs slightly more than a cremation, I rationalize that will have saved my finite funds for a rainy day, and hell, this will be my final journey to Asgard. Not only can I give the Boatman his two silver coins, but I can cross that Rainbow Bridge with gold doubloons (that didn’t stay in Vegas!) as tip. I am going to treat myself to as dignified a way out as I can, after all, as Tutankahmen must’ve once told himself, I am worth it.
If you want to check out green/natural burials, visit: www.greenburialcouncil.org or a funeral broker for the local SF Bay Area scene ( I can furnish upon request the name of one who helped me a lot).
In the Name of Science
Last but not least, there is truly the cheapest option of all, one wrapped in the cloak of “. . . contributing to the greater good” (i.e., “will your body to science”). This is most helpful if you have a unique genetic trait that science can learn from. For example, there was a whole order of nuns (the School Sisters of Notre Dame, starting with one convent in Minnesota) that signed on to a comprehensive study of Alzheimer’s, called The Nun Study. It tracked the sisters’ mental health progress from an early age and ended for some sisters who agreed to have their brains dissected and studied after they passed.
When you donate to science (most likely a medical school or a research laboratory), there is absolutely zero cost to the donor. Although, unless it is specified, you will probably have no say in how your corpse is dissected; but no, you won’t be making a “cameo” appearance on the slabs of those CSI or NCIS television shows.
Finally, I selected my final resting place and plot a few weeks back. I picked this, uhmm . . . , rather laid-back memorial park in the gentle rolling hills of western Sonoma county, whose most famous occupant is Charles M. Schulz, creator/father of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy and the whole “Peanuts” gang.
A simple grave marker.
The restful bench near the marker.
Even though I’m not a big “Peanuts” fan, I guess it wouldn’t be too bad having Mr. Schulz as a neighbor to the end of days. It was quieter than Graceland the day we were there.
Planning ahead is like having insurance. If you plan in advance, nothing bad will happen, but if you don’t, you’ll pay the piper. On the other hand, a friend did once remark, You want to make God laugh? Make plans. Mordantly funny, I thought. 😉
SOURCES:
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/07/us/nuns-offer-clues-to-alzheimer-s-and-aging.html
beatree.com
https://www.clarityfunerals.com/funeral-burial-embalming-questions/
Myles A. Garcia
Myles A. Garcia is a Correspondent and regular contributor to www.positivelyfilipino.com. He has written three books: Secrets of the Olympic Ceremonies (latest edition, 2016); Thirty Years Later . . . Catching Up with the Marcos-Era Crimes (© 2016); and his latest, Of Adobe, Apple Pie, and Schnitzel With Noodles—all available in paperback from amazon.com (Australia, USA, Canada, UK and Europe).
Myles is also a member of the International Society of Olympic Historians (ISOH), contributing to their Journal, and pursuing dramatic writing lately. For any enquiries: razor323@gmail.com
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