Thinking About Life and Death: Are You Ready?
The past few days has been kind of a wake up call for me. I lost my Grandfather. This has been the first death I have experienced since I was a child, still living with my parents, and it got me thinking about life and death. My Grandfather lived a long and fruitful life. He died the way a person is supposed to die: of old age.
Sitting there watching the funeral service brought some things to my mind. The first thing was that when they closed that casket, I was never going to see my grandfather again (in his earthly body at least). He was going into the ground, never to be exhumed. This was a sad thought for me. I guess that is what most people are upset about when they have a loved one pass away. I am going to miss him.
Seeing the casket and the grave-site and everything else that goes along with a funeral brought many more thoughts into my mind. Things like, “What about hundreds of years from now when they decide that they need to move the graveyard.” They are going to exhume all the bodies in whatever is left of the caskets, then probably move them to a site where they will most likely be buried on top of one another. Who knows, burying bodies may be a thing of the past. They may burn and pulverise the bodies instead and bury the ashes all together.
This also made me think about how I want to be treated when I die. I don’t think I want to be buried. It cost so much to buy a casket and that big metal box that they put the casket in before thy bury it. I told my wife if it wasn’t against the law they should just throw me out with the trash, like some people do with pets. She just laughed. I do think I want to be cremated. I told her that it would be cool to have my ashed mixed with gardening soil and a vegetable or victory garden should be grown in my honor. Then when people eat the vegetables from the garden I will become part of all of them. I guess that could be creepy for some people. It is interesting to think about though.
