At Death's Door....
Miss Judy is a dear neighbor coming over for coffee and to "chew the fat" as she puts it. We discuss the cost of a funeral over decaf...put into the laptop the facts of life.. any illnesses...any savings for that future certainty?
I recall my first experience with death. Grandfather was taken to the hospital when I was around 9, moaning, they were not sure what his issue, he was huge, as was the family custom, and when they operated to find out what was going on, his apendix had ruptured and it was "too late". He was gone in a matter of days. In that era a mistake of a few days was fatal. Dr. Donut( that was how we mispronounced his name) had come to the house, as doctors did at the time, and did his best to figure out the case, but the rush to the hospital came too late. For the funeral I saw my Opa in a dark blue suit for the first time. Before that I had always see him in dark green harem pants and a long white night shirt(he had spent many years in the orient buying and transporting rugs to the west). He wore a goatee, hairy eyebrows and longish white hair.
My dear Grandmother died in California, and I was not able to attend her funeral. I recall Mom brought her urn with her ashes back to Cincinnati, dug up Opa's urn, to be moved to the Adirondacks and be buried next to Oma's ashes . Oma had often come with us to the mountains after Opa had died, but he had never come with us. It was strange that Mom had this determination that her Father should be buried up north, in spite of never having set foot there. "He would have loved it!" She insisted. And that was that. She was always the last word about everything, even in her family where her Father was head of the house...or thought he was.
And then there was my Mother's funeral, there was none. She fell ill in Florida. My brother did a great job of helping her recuperate in a nursing home, take care of her house and car while she was ill, and when she had heart failure, at age 84, he visited her constantly while I was still in Cincinnati with family and children planning a visit at Christmas. I did not see her before or after she died. She had made plans for every step of her cremation and transport to the north and burial so that no one would be "bothered". We only dealt with a house full of her things, but it left us all saddened and empty not to share her "going out" properly.
Miss Judy tells me cremation is not the Jewish way, and viewing the body is for the family that is left behind. I agree. "The family should all kiss the departed one to let them feel the finality of the event." Hummmmm. So all my 10 kids will stand around my coffin, and even those who won't come see me now, won't kiss me now are going to kiss me when I have died? I think I see how this can work for me....I want this in my will for sure... Jim is cameraman: each child of mine has to plant a kiss on my stone cold dead cheek- video taken- to prove they have come to see the finality of the event, and then and only then can they get a Hummel statue from my vast and valued collection of little German whatnots. I have other enticements- a Tea set of china from my childhood with blue designs with which I used to have tea parties; a doll house falling apart, but handmade 60 years ago; knitted moth eatten children's clothes we arrived in from Germany as children; and there may be a little money in my will, but divided by 10 children each will get little...
As for where to be buried, I think 10 children might argue, or they might just NOT care. They live all over the world, from Virginia to California, and I think scattering the ashes would probably have a better chance of reaching just about everyone than trying to presume any one of them would ever want to reach a dead me.
Now let's talk money. I can't pay for the funeral insurance. Maybe if we divide it by the 10 kids we could cough it up. Let's see, if each one pays a month- wait we should just count out the one in jail for the next 7 years(even if I live that long, I won't know if he will want a relationship when he gets out...)so that makes 9- but then haven't really heard from Jeremy- better count him out- Jason going through a d-i-v-o-r just count him out, and John is trying to make it work living with birth-mom hummmmm. Wes and Bri aren't even in high school yet, I shouldn't even mention funeral- they surely will freak out at the thought...
How many kids are left? Of the 4 left we are all struggling. We can't take the funds we earn so mindfully and splurge on some fancy coffin you just use once! If at least we could have double occupancy, and save for the next family member waiting around to go, we could split the cost. I don't know- maybe I better just tell Miss Judy to pass us by. We just aren't at Death's Door, yet.
I recall my first experience with death. Grandfather was taken to the hospital when I was around 9, moaning, they were not sure what his issue, he was huge, as was the family custom, and when they operated to find out what was going on, his apendix had ruptured and it was "too late". He was gone in a matter of days. In that era a mistake of a few days was fatal. Dr. Donut( that was how we mispronounced his name) had come to the house, as doctors did at the time, and did his best to figure out the case, but the rush to the hospital came too late. For the funeral I saw my Opa in a dark blue suit for the first time. Before that I had always see him in dark green harem pants and a long white night shirt(he had spent many years in the orient buying and transporting rugs to the west). He wore a goatee, hairy eyebrows and longish white hair.
My dear Grandmother died in California, and I was not able to attend her funeral. I recall Mom brought her urn with her ashes back to Cincinnati, dug up Opa's urn, to be moved to the Adirondacks and be buried next to Oma's ashes . Oma had often come with us to the mountains after Opa had died, but he had never come with us. It was strange that Mom had this determination that her Father should be buried up north, in spite of never having set foot there. "He would have loved it!" She insisted. And that was that. She was always the last word about everything, even in her family where her Father was head of the house...or thought he was.
And then there was my Mother's funeral, there was none. She fell ill in Florida. My brother did a great job of helping her recuperate in a nursing home, take care of her house and car while she was ill, and when she had heart failure, at age 84, he visited her constantly while I was still in Cincinnati with family and children planning a visit at Christmas. I did not see her before or after she died. She had made plans for every step of her cremation and transport to the north and burial so that no one would be "bothered". We only dealt with a house full of her things, but it left us all saddened and empty not to share her "going out" properly.
Miss Judy tells me cremation is not the Jewish way, and viewing the body is for the family that is left behind. I agree. "The family should all kiss the departed one to let them feel the finality of the event." Hummmmm. So all my 10 kids will stand around my coffin, and even those who won't come see me now, won't kiss me now are going to kiss me when I have died? I think I see how this can work for me....I want this in my will for sure... Jim is cameraman: each child of mine has to plant a kiss on my stone cold dead cheek- video taken- to prove they have come to see the finality of the event, and then and only then can they get a Hummel statue from my vast and valued collection of little German whatnots. I have other enticements- a Tea set of china from my childhood with blue designs with which I used to have tea parties; a doll house falling apart, but handmade 60 years ago; knitted moth eatten children's clothes we arrived in from Germany as children; and there may be a little money in my will, but divided by 10 children each will get little...
As for where to be buried, I think 10 children might argue, or they might just NOT care. They live all over the world, from Virginia to California, and I think scattering the ashes would probably have a better chance of reaching just about everyone than trying to presume any one of them would ever want to reach a dead me.
Now let's talk money. I can't pay for the funeral insurance. Maybe if we divide it by the 10 kids we could cough it up. Let's see, if each one pays a month- wait we should just count out the one in jail for the next 7 years(even if I live that long, I won't know if he will want a relationship when he gets out...)so that makes 9- but then haven't really heard from Jeremy- better count him out- Jason going through a d-i-v-o-r just count him out, and John is trying to make it work living with birth-mom hummmmm. Wes and Bri aren't even in high school yet, I shouldn't even mention funeral- they surely will freak out at the thought...
How many kids are left? Of the 4 left we are all struggling. We can't take the funds we earn so mindfully and splurge on some fancy coffin you just use once! If at least we could have double occupancy, and save for the next family member waiting around to go, we could split the cost. I don't know- maybe I better just tell Miss Judy to pass us by. We just aren't at Death's Door, yet.
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