US undertakers are on to a good thing with custom-made monuments to the dearly departed
D URING World War 1, when the Allied soldiers were surviving in mud-filled trenches on the battlefield, they often sang, presumably because they needed to get some kind of camaraderie going. Most of the ditties were down-and-dirty but some carried a note of defiance. This is one of the most wellknown songs and singing it out loud was like throwing a dare to the enemy. It went:
The bells of hell ring ting-aling-a-ling For you, but not for me. Death where is your sting-aling-a-ling Where grave your victory? The bells of hell ring ting-aling-a-ling For you, but not for me. Those words popped up from the cluttered maze of memories in my head because I had been reading a recent edition of Time magazine. On the cover was a group of “whistle-blowers” or, as the editor of Time calls them, “hacktivists”, and it was a good read.
In the same edition, however, I saw a feature that I found compelling. The headline was “The New American Way of Death” and it was all about the multimillion-dollar industry of dealing with corpses.
It really made sense for me when I thought about the huge tracts of land that cemeteries occupy. On my drive home I pass the West Park Cemetery, which is vast — if you look beyond the border of pines you can see the graves climbing up the koppie like an army of polished stone, with carved angels and engraved heartfelt messages of love that have been sent to people who will never see or read them.
Now, however, the Yanks are making a radical switch. It’s no longer about ornate coffins draped with carpets of flowers. They have moved beyond coffins to memorial urns and that has created some very strange choices.
Part of it is economical. The figures that Time quotes show that cremation will cost about $3 000 as opposed to a casket, which will cost $8 000.
But the undertakers have also created a different way of making money. They are offering custom-made containers for the ashes of loved ones. The traditional urn, usually in the Greek or Roman style, has fallen from grace and a new style of “remembrance” is evolving.
His ashes were enclosed in a box decorated with graphics of the
band Kiss
In one case, the “dearly departed” was a guy who loved the music of the American hard-rock band Kiss. His ashes were enclosed in a box decorated with vivid graphics of the musicians, with a few famous lines from their songs in the design.
His family and friends enjoyed that sense that he was back at home and if they wanted to remember him they just had to look at the brightly coloured poster of Kiss sitting in a corner of the sitting room.
In a different style, a basketball fan had his ashes enclosed in a receptacle that looks like a bright orange ball in honour of his favourite sport.
There’s even a cowboy urn. The base is a coil of rope on which perches a pair of grand cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. It’s beautifully modelled and if you want to have your family and friends remember you at your best, the sculpture embodied him perfectly.
American undertakers are even expanding their imaginative ingenuity into the ocean. Susan Thompson and her husband, Big Al, loved fishing. When he died, she asked the funeral director to create an interesting container in which his ashes could be placed.
She asked them to create a beautiful shell, containing Big Al’s ashes, to be placed in the living reef where her husband loved to fish. When the shell was ready, they placed his ashes in it and sealed it with carefully placed fronds of coral. On the shell she asked the company to engrave the words “I’m just here for the shrimp.”
I think that is witty but also affectionate and thoughtful. Why would she plant her husband in a sombre grave in a cemetery? Now she thinks of him swimming in the coral, along with the fish, and recalls the happy times they spent on the beach together. That’s what I call a good exit.
Nature itself has created the cycle of life after death and I prefer a natural garden to a stone garden of remembrance in a cemetery, no matter how well it is kept.