Lent Day 8: Cremation and Distance

(Continued from Lent Day 7, about open casket wakes/visitations)

In discussing with N, my Hindu work colleague (see Lent Prologue), about visitation rituals, he mentioned that after his father had passed away, N had to go back to India for their rituals, one of which was to place his father's bones in the river.  I really didn't get the opportunity to follow up with him what happened before or after that.  He mentioned that part of the ritual because that was the most memorable part of the entire experience, which I imagine was the moment that reality set in.  He also mentioned that the rituals take 12 days, and he believes it takes that much time to forget anything.

In my family, I've had neither experience -- that is, bones in the river or open casket visitation.  All my family members were cremated, and then inurned with a memorial service.  (Well, all but one:  my Uncle Glenn, an Air Force pilot whose jet was shot down during the Vietnam War.  His remains were reclaimed in 1995,  and his teeth are buried in the Punch Bowl (National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific) in Hawaii, and his bones along with those of his co-pilot are in a joint plot at Arlington.)
More often than not, the memorial was weeks after the death, necessitated by the logistics of relatives traveling great distances.  The farewells were all, well, extrapolated. 

The memorials were all beautiful services with many flowers, meditative music and loving recollections shared by family and friends.  And of course the urn, plus a large photo collage.  There's the same mix of respect, silence and awkward small talk.

Because of the large geographic distance, I've never been with a family member who has died.  Nor have I seen their corpse because of the cremations.  The closest I've come is when I helped pick up my grandmother's ashes from the crematorium, and I asked to see them.  I don't really remember touching the ashes, although I did carry them.  I might have even helped transfer them into the final urn.

But it's not the same as seeing them as they leave (or after they left) us.  I don't know what it's like to say goodbye in that way.  My mom has shared with me the final moments with her mother (in 2001) and her youngest sister (in 2008), but again, that's an extrapolated experience.

I know the day will come when I do experience the reality, in the most visceral sense.  I neither look forward to it or fear it;  it is a part of life.

What else I do know is that I remember each of my relatives (and also friends who have passed) with respect, fondness and love.  Part of them is within me -- within my thoughts and psyche.  Their lives have helped form who I am today.

And yet, as my colleague said to me:  "death is the beginning of all religions..."


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