Back to Black

Unambiguous language is clearly not for everybody, especially funeral directors.

My first job as a young reporter was at the Upper Hutt Leader, a weekly community newspaper, and it was there that, for the first time, I covered a fatal road accident. The victim happened to be a girl I had known at school. I wrote that she had been killed. Then, thinking that “killed” sounded too brutal for her family to read, I crossed it out and wrote “passed away”, before giving my story to my editor.

He read it, crossed out “passed away” and asked, “What’s wrong with ‘died’? Died is a good word. It’s unambiguous, it’s not a euphemism, say ‘died’.” So I did and have done ever since.

Last Tuesday, my mother died. She had insisted on having no funeral, so on the Wednesday I was arranging for her prompt cremation. The funeral directors were nice and helpful people, except they talked about Mum “passing”, which sounded to me as though she had fainted. Kind of, but permanently.

The following Monday, the funeral director rang. “I’m just letting you know that your mum is back with us,” she said. Momentarily, I was dumbstruck. Mum was back? I had a split-second image of her walking into the funeral home saying it had all been a wretched mistake. Then I thought, “No, she was at the crematorium, there must have been a malfunction. They mean they have the body back.” It was only on thinking about the crematorium that I realised what the funeral director was talking about.

“You mean you have Mum’s ashes back,” I said. “Oh, yes, her ashes,” she corrected herself. Glad we cleared that up, then.

Last week, I went panic-buying. I know it is ridiculous to get caught up by hype, but I also knew that others were competing with me for the same products, and wanting distraction from my mother’s terminal decline the night before she died, I could not help myself. I went online, selected my items and entered my bank details as rapidly as I could, but even then I missed out on something I wanted because the buying frenzy from others was so great.

It was not hand sanitiser in my online basket. I have never owned any and never will. I try to buy as few plastic bottles as I can get away with and I can certainly get away with not buying hand sanitiser. I prefer soap. It works. Nor was I buying bottled water. Why, exactly, in the face of the Covid-19 scare, are some people stockpiling water? I can only presume they think that a coronavirus corrodes water pipes. I do not understand it. Even if the virus spreads,

New Zealand in 2020 will not be reprising the siege of Leningrad.

No, my desperate online purchase had nothing to do with viruses. In fact, it was something that will never be of use to anyone, including, ahem, me. It was a little china hen.

I collect pottery by the English manufacturer Emma Bridgewater, whose business model is more akin to a fashion house than a potter. Last week, Bridgewater released her spring/summer items, including two coddlers shaped like hens. I frantically tried to get the buttercup one and had it in my basket, but before I could check out, up popped a message saying they were sold out. I shifted to the other option, a black-and-white hen, and was successful, though it has not yet arrived. Yes, yes, the air miles, etc, climate change. I know, I know. But at least I will look upon my hen with pleasure for years to come, perhaps unlike those who are panic-buying toilet paper.

“Okay – but some of you are cheering, right?”

Why, exactly, in the face of the Covid-19 scare, are some people stockpiling water?