Funerals: Know Before You Go

Three times in my life I’ve shopped  for a casket and all the accessories that come with a funeral . Each occasion was out of need, which isn’t always the best time to make well-thought out decisions.  I must’ve been more discombobulated than I thought because I didn’t journal anything about the experiences at the time.

(I did jot a few notes about  Uncle Mert getting bent out of shape because he was left out of the loop . He felt he should’ve been consulted about funeral decisions [casket, flowers, etc] now that he’d inherited the role of the oldest  person in the extended family. No. He wasn’t paying for anything. He just wanted to weigh in on everything.  Note to self: People get a bit bonky when family dynamics change.)

So I started  research for my third book.  (I don’t advertise my books here, if you want to know about them email me, and I’ll help you find my pen name. )

My rather eccentric characters are dealing with end of life and  old age shenanigans.  Unfortunately, out of all of my real-life see-ya-in-heaven-send-offs that we had for the wingdings in my family…my recollections are fuzzy on details.

So…back to the funeral home for research.

I have to say…it’s a bit more interesting to shop for a casket, when I don’t have anyone to wear it. I thought I’d pass along a few discoveries that may help you if you’re ever funeral shopping or conversation stalls out over coffee meetings.

Your only choices aren’t  in the mortuary’s showroom.
You can order your caskets  and urns from Costco, Wal-Mart, or direct from the manufacturer.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Sometimes they even have sales and discounts.  They try to ship within 24 hours. Usually shipping fees are included in the price.  The Federal Trade Commission’s  Funeral Rule prohibits the mortuary from rejecting the shipment.

Not available at retailers, this custom-crafted coffin/coffee table by Charles Constantine is functional and elegantly styled.

Can you take home delivery?  Why, yes you can.  If you’re not planning on using it for a few years, storage is up to you.

BUT WAIT!  Don’t get all excited and start spending the money you’ll save on your funeral while you’re still alive.  Costco only delivers to 37 states.  WalMart delivers to even fewer, and not all zip codes.   You may need to move to a different part of the country before you exit this earth in order to get a good deal.

I Think I’ll Just Rent

For a reduced fee, you can get a specially made Rental casket: a fancy box around a simple inner container.  Think of it like an apartment. The walls stay, but the tenants keep changing. It’s suitable for viewing. It should please even Uncle Mert (in case you didn’t get his opinion about the coffin beforehand.)

They Aren’t Just Ashes Anymore

For about $3K, ashes can be compressed into gemstones of different colors (image not included)

I was discussing the subject of death and burials at a recent gathering and a friend confessed that her Granddad’s cremains had been in a desk drawer for the last 10 years.  They just hadn’t gotten around to scattering him yet.  Which opened the door to numerous true confessions. A lot of ashes hadn’t ended up where they were intended.

Now there can be a Man in the Moon AND a WOMAN in the moon!

Now, in the 21^st Century, ashes can be put to good use besides fertilizer and mantle decor. They can be pressured into a diamond.  Added to an underwater reef.  Or they can be shot by satellite into Earth orbit, or the lunar surface, or deep space.  The next launch is June 21^st…so hurry and get your ticket.  The literature says you can “help make the dream of spaceflight a reality”  (Nevermind, the dream actually ended when the person stopped dreaming and died.)

Which brings us to the last piece of interesting advice…

Ignore anyone at the mortuary  (or your Uncle Mert) who Tells You… “This is the last thing you can do for your loved one.”

I had to think about this for a moment and finally realized:

What Can I Really Do For The Deceased?

They’re gone.  They don’t know if I built a monument or if I divvied up the ashes among all family member so everyone could finally have a piece of them.  If I’m really honest, I’m doing it for me.  If I’m actually going to do something for the dead…

I Need to Do It While They’re Still Living.

That kind of puts it all in perspective, doesn’t it?  All the blogging, writing, gardening, eating, traveling….

All the little pieces—some jagged, some smooth—that make life (not death) shouldn’t be put off.

The Rev. Brian Bergin holds the fireworks shell that contains his father’s (Rev. George Bergin) ashes.

So, excuse me. I’m going over to spend time with Uncle Mert.  I want to tell him about a Lutheran pastor who loved fireworks so much, he asked his son to load his cremains into one.

According to USA Today “the burst should be a trail of sparks and at the end of each comet trail, there will be a little cross-shaped burst.”

WaaaHoo!

The Gift for Someone Who Doesn’t Need Anything

Many of the readers of Before Morning Breaks are folks who’ve tromped the by-ways and vine-littered trails of life. The souvenirs they’ve picked up along their illustrious and rock-an-a-hard-place journeys are gemstones of stories and wisdom.

So when you ask this sort of folk: “What would you like for…..(Valentines, Christmas, birthday, whatever)

They say….“Nothing. I don’t want a thing.”

I asked for this $260,000 Sport Yacht Cruiser…but Mr. Dallas Cowboy fan only laughed.

A few really, really brave souls will tell you, “Just a bit of time with you.”

But the truth is:

There’s something we all can use.

 A laugh.

A delicious, wonderful laugh that has no spaces in it for second guesses.

You feel it instantly when a friend has blanketed you with one of these laughs. There’s nothing about it that’s rueful or spider-webbed with cynicism.

It’s a gift, given with grace and ease. A gift that confirms you as a traveling partner. You may be stumbling toward different goals, but for that precious moment, you’re both on the same road.

So, I’m suggesting when you need to gift the person who has everything:

• listen to each other’s stories
• trade tea, hardtimes, and good books
• plot the overthrow of small minds
• commiserate about the head-scratching mysteries of love, life and death.
• And most of all….LAUGH…deep from the belly without any thought that you sound like a coyote in heat, or look like a Jello jiggler.

Let ’er rip…..laugh.

Many of you have certainly made me guffaw and snort. It’s unfortunate we can’t hear each other’s laughs over the internet. We’ve added “LOL” and Happy faces until their edges have become worn and faded—like much-used Welcome Mats.

And yet…I thank you for your comments and your blogs about your mistakes and stories of how “human” you are. Thanks for making me and so many others laugh.

I’m wondering who you like to laugh with….and why?

Change: The Race Car of Marketing Techniques

Hello My Friends,

It’s been a while.

I’ve whiffled away the days: celebrating holidays, assaying my life like a prospector

My Assistants, Mr. Turkey Vulture, Mr Hip Pastry Flour, and Lambie prefer to make their own game pieces.

looking for gems, and writing the final chapters of another book. The holidays are over. The editors have the manuscript, (hooray), and I discovered I had some interesting attitudes about change…the one constant in our lives.

My bloggy staff and I were having our annual strategic planning session. We played games as we threw around ideas and wrestled with the new direction this blog should twist.

• Plan A: Only post once a month. Use the extra time to eat, drink and rabble rouse

• Plan B: Get new assistants

• Plan C:  Well….we were working on Plan C when we received the news.

Hasbro Will Axe One of the Monopoly pieces

Is nothing sacred? Was Scottie dog chewing the Shoe? Was the Top hat politically incorrect?  NO!

“Why then why the change??”

Is it fair that future generations will loose that sweet childhood memory of giving your brother a bloody nose while fighting over who gets the race car?

This inexplicable change has occurred for the same reason that:

• M & Ms messed with the colors (Good-bye violet)

• Kellogg overhauled cornflakes. (Same flake, but now they’re “Special” and a weight loss aid)

• Pepsi brought back a 1970s retro can touting “real sugar” not corn syrup.

Change Sells sells stuff.

Sigh….If you want to help Hasbro sell more stuff, you can go to their website and vote on which game piece will be given the pink slip and collect unemployment. (I’m not giving you the link. I’m in a snarly mood about it. Go look it up yourself. [Odds are running 2:1 the wheelbarrow will be the big loser, in case you want to call your bookie.])

Then I realized: whichever icon lost the game piece war, would become extinct and ebay saleable, right? If stuff is going to change…it might as well profit me.

I dug through our closet booby-trapped with obsolete games. (Just like you’ll probably do after you finish reading this blog) I hauled out our stained, broken-box, Monopoly set that hasn’t seen action for 15 years. Only three of the original five game pieces remain. I’m pretty sure the button isn’t an original piece.

Turns out the thimble is a real one that I’ve been missing for 15 years.

The dog,  top hat, and shoe icons have survived.

And the race car?  I bet it’s hiding, forgotten in a childhood treasure box in my brother’s bottom drawer…along with sweet justice for a bloody nose.

     Some things don’t change.

It’s the Worry that Gets You, Not the Lack of Sleep

As the holidays approach, you may find yourself awake in the thin hours of the morning:

Gimme a broom. Gimme a blog. Gimme something to do so I can get to sleep.

Worry:
1) to harass by tearing, biting or snapping, especially at the throat.
2)  to touch or disturb something repeatedly.(Merriam-Webster)

Action
Dale Carnegie said, “If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.”

There’s a similar mantra in outdoor survival classes: “Try to keep making your situation a little better.”

On a backpacking trip some years ago, my son and I got to test this advice.

We’d hiked 10 miles only to find the trail ahead of us was blocked (read: fallen into the valley below). There wasn’t time to bushwhack through the fallen trees with nightfall and a storm bearing down on us.

That’s when my son announced he was out of water. And sick to his stomach. And it started to rain.

We backtracked, about a half mile, where we found a semi-flat spot in the trail (we were on the side of a mountain), set up tent and a tiny tarp shelter. That’s when I found out my son hadn’t packed any rain gear and mostly cotton clothes.

He was young. He was tired—we both were. I should have checked with the Forest Service before starting. I should’ve checked my son’s gear. I had a lot of “shoulda’s” until some spark of preservation goaded me.

Hope grew when we were able to start a fire; a tiny one, but it threw out a circle of light in the pouring rain. We built a water collector; an ugly jury-rigged contraption that any survival manual would laugh at. Never mind. Each action, even the ones that failed (like the collector collapsing) gave us a grip on a world we didn’t control. It kept us focused on the present.

Obviously…we made it. That kid has grown up. He now carries most of the load on our hiking trips. And the lessons we learned about worry on that trip….I’ve carried into life.

So when sleep doesn’t come, I kick off the bed covers to write, pray, or look for phone numbers that I can call as soon as the clock strikes 8 a.m. (Those lucky people).

And that kid…now turned adult….????

Sometimes in the thin hours of the morning, I get an e-mail that says:
“Hi Mom, You still up? Can we talk?”

Worries will come this season
*Auntie Sue will insist her little yapper dog MUST sit on her lap during Christmas dinner.
* Two relatives will announce they’ve turned vegan and won’t sit at a table that has anything that’s ever come from a live animal.
* Your mother-in-law will suggest a NEW, even more convoluted way to do the traditional gift exchange. And family warfare will break out when you shout: “Don’t anyone get me a damn Snuggie!!”

This holiday season…may you have hours of restful slumber…and if you don’t….
Get up. Work on making the present a little bit better.

Morning will come. Hope comes with it.

May your have no worries for Christmas.

Well, Excuse Me, If I Wear White.

Speaking of change….

Do you know where I parked my horse? or my lion?

I have the fashion sense of ranchers on a three-day ride to the circus.  I’m not quite sure what that means, but it conjures up some interesting images of attire.

I recently wore white to a social function AFTER LABOR DAY.  Now, I don’t usually wear white at all because too many of my body parts are turning white (hair, eye brows, elbows). Zombies seem to have more color than me anymore. So the only reason I wore white to this fa-la-la affair was…all of my more colorful costumes were dirty.

The fashion police gave me the ol’ up and down look, accompanied by the knowing smirk we’ve come to recognize since junior high. And these were my friends. I shudder to think what others were saying.  Well…actually I didn’t give a damn. If I had—I would’ve followed the rules.  But that got me thinking….

Who Made the Stupid No Wearing White After Labor Day Rule???

No one’s sure, but they think it had to do with snobbery.

After the Civil War it was hard to tell the difference between the Old-Money Rich and those Yankee-Carpetbagger-Upstart-Vulgar Rich.

So, in the 1880s, the women of old money, and even older family name, created complex social rules for the “knowing.”  If a lady showed up at the ball in a gown that had the wrong sleeve length, the other fine ladies could shun her and her new money in a seemingly gracious, but truly smirky manner.

Not wearing white for fall galas seems to be one of these rules. When Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894, it became the official cut-off for summer, thus the unspoken end of white clothing. So this snooty rule trickled down to the rest of us middle class cretins, aided by women’s magazines which made it dogma.

I bet I can create a perfume that’ll be a best seller for over 90 years.

By the 2000s, the rules have thankfully relaxed, due to  a woman’s best friend, Coco Chanel. She made her own rules for which we ranching/circus/fashion-challenged are thankful

She wore white year-round. 

and gave us….

• The “Little Black Dress. (1926)
  • Tweed Suits (1920s)
  • Bell bottoms (1954)

She also felt, “Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it’s not luxury.”

Now there’s a woman who knows fashion. And I bet she could smirk, too.

What fashion rules do you follow (or break) ?

Finally!! Something We Can’t Change.

As two-legged brainiacs, mouth whipping each other with political rhetoric and thumping our chests, we bask at the top of the food chain.

Cattle, fish, soybeans?….All for our enjoyment.

Trees, water, beer cans?…Fodder for our convenience. Never mind that a swollen sense of entitlement for 7-billion+  means polar bears will be moving into my backyard. Hopefully, they’ll keep the neighbor’s dog from using my lawn as an outhouse.

The good news is there’s something we humans can’t mess with.

It seems a benevolent Creator hid it at the fringes of our atmosphere.  And here’s what it sounds like:

What is it? It’s the song from the protective magnetic field wrapped around our little blue planet. Like bullets bouncing off of Superman’s chest, the Magnetosphere deflects charged-particle-blasts from the sun. “Without it, that solar wind would basically blow away much of our atmosphere,” says Peter Tomson, environmental editor at The World.

Ham radio operators have heard fuzzy renditions for years, but NASA satellites captured the radio wave with digital clarity (and you thought the Space Program just delivered Dr. Pepper to the International Space Station).

They’ve named the sound, “Chorus.” And as long as the globe keeps spinning, it’ll keep protecting us. Somehow there’s hope in the thought there are things in the world we can’t change.

And that may be why the planet sings its song.

Car-B-Que

You know how I love change, (cough, cough).  The Exhaust Burger Dinner will change every busy man or woman’s life.  And just in time for that office-party-gift-exchange you must participate in or else be branded the proverbial “doglog” in the punchbowl.

I just wear this damn hat to fool them. I really cooked the burgers while driving home from the casino.

With this handy-dandy device….There’s No more rushing home from

• Work
• Committee Meetings
• Choir
• Gym

to cook dinner. A home-cooked meal is just a drive around the block, a few times with the …..

Exhaust Burger

Add the burger in the handy-dandy pocket. It’s not cooked by the fumes, but by the heat generated by those fumes as you drive your car.

Sorry, only one burger at a time, but if traffic is bad…you can hop out while I-5 looks like a parking lot and change those patties. (Hint: Keep a foil pouch in the back seat and toss the cooked burgers in.)

Featured in Design Boom in 2008, I’m just not sure why it doesn’t come standard with a new car purchase.

You know you want one…or two if you have a dually.

Making life easier through change!!

Photos: Wikipedia, Design Boom, Cruzine Vintage Ads