The Business of Death

I write another blog, CaliforniVacation: SoCal Style, and articles as examiner.com's, L.A. Sightseeing Examiner.  I am happy to have the opportunity to do both.  The examiner gig allows me to be more journalistic while the CaliforniVacation gig allows me to be more loose and conversationalistic.  Still, both are primarily about sharing destinations and events in Southern California (SoCal).

This blog fills my void of writing about stuff that's makes me go "hmmm".  Simply I wonder about this.  Are there answers.  This seems like it might be fun.  No rhyme.  No reason.

I have this friend, also a blogger.  She is a fine photographer and a recent ex-Minnesotan.  She finds cemeteries beautiful.  She enjoys pondering what someones life may have been like to have the headstone which marks their grave represent them.  I'd never really thought of cemeteries in quite this way before.

Truth is I never really thought much about cememteries at all for most of my life.  I'm not sure you can call it luck but very few people in my life seemed to die.  At least very few close enough that I might be included in attending their funeral or their final cemetery resting place.  Now that I live in L.A. that's changed.  My dad, grandma and grandpa (and some great grandparents I don't really even remember) all have their remains residing at the same cemetery, Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.  I know.  How convenient.

My aunt's parents are also resting at Holy Cross as are her aunt, uncle and some celebrities too.  My aunt and uncle are quite dutiful about visiting all of them at least two or three times a year and bringing flowers or whatever. Bless them!  When I first moved back I admit I was a little excited and fascinated about visiting and being included in their ritual.  I was also amazed and most likely will blog about a future trip to the cemetery in about a month or so.

Why?

I guess I didn't actually ever think about it much, but the first time I saw the way Holy Cross gets decorated at Christmas time by those who visit their dearly departed, I found myself a bit in awe and a little amused.

Okay, so I can understand grief.  I can understand mourning.  But they are dead people, people.  What is left is inanimate dust more or less.  In my mind I have a better chance of connecting with my loved ones when I think of them than trekking to a cemetery to visit a slab of stone covering where their lifeless body is buried.

When you drive through the iron gate of Holy Cross Cemetery you are at the entrance of 200 acres of beautifully manicured grounds.  It really is a quiet and peaceful place.

I want to be very clear that I have nothing against Holy Cross Cemetery per se.  As far as places go, I am sort of proud to have my loved ones remains residing in such a beautiful place.

NOW!  Let's visit some of the things that make me go hmmm.....

A place for the dead.  Burying.  Won't we run out of room?

What would aliens from another planet think that we preserve a dead loved one in a coffin and bury them in the ground?  We go through all of this and yet we will never see them again with our physical eyes.  And the part of them we really remember most, isn't there anymore anyway.  Doesn't it seem silly?  And doesn't it make more of a case for simply torching our cold dead bodies to "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" then?  Or put them in an urn, which takes much less room?

About 60,000 people a year die in Los Angeles County.  Wouldn't we soon run out of room to bury them all?  If each dead person needs about 8' by 4' of real estate, how long before all the real estate is consumed by dead bodies?  I'd do the math, but I don't want to?  Might just be very, very depressing.

I also wondered about the business of all of this.  In 2006 it was estimated that the business of death was booming in at about $11 billion dollars.  Yes, that is with a B.  And the average funeral at about $6,500.

All that money.  Yet as I looked around Holy Cross Cemetery grounds I couldn't help thinking of the way they have things set up and how it seems like such a metaphor that whoever you thought you were in life; rich, poor, young, old, etc. death was a great equalizer.  None of all the this and that and crying or joy or fights with others...none of it made a lick of difference to the deceased now 'cuz they are dead.

I personally didn't want any of it and had always just assumed I would want to be creamated with my ashes thrown into the Pacific Ocean that I love so much.  Then through my visits and walks through Holy Cross Cemetery it got me thinking that at least with so much of my family already residing in the same place and with more slated to reside there as their time comes, maybe I could have my cake and eat it too.

I could still be creamated.  And perhaps like Gandhi some of my ashes could be ceremoniously strewn into the ocean and the rest could reside in an urn and placed in one of the urn spots at Holy Cross Cemetery.  I mean as long as a relative is visiting, they could stop by and visit me too.  Right?

I also muse at some of the things we think about.  I know someone who has a shared site with a spouse who is already deceased.  Now that it is over ten years later and she is ten times happier with her new man, she's not so sure she wants to spend eternity in the spot she's already secured.  Then there are those who loved each other so very, very much but the husband just didn't want to be buried in the dirt.  Too dark.  So he is in the masoleum and she is in the ground.

That was the other thing that struck me as I walked around.  How do you decide where on the grounds you would want to be buried assuming you want to be buried?  If you don't want to be buried, how do you decide where in the masoleum you want to spend eternity?  Do you want the stone that is big or do you want the small one.  How much do you want written on the stone?  Which color stone?  Do you want to be by the rest of your family or should you wait?  Would you rather have an urn spot?  Do you want one you can see in or one you can't?

This particular cemetery is catholic-based and opened in 1939.  Back in the day did you have to be catholic or they turned you away?  Did you have to be white?  Have the parameters changed over the years to "get in"? Does it matter now?

And the more I pondered and walked around, the more all of this seemed to make a case for reincarnation and the like.  Is this really all there is?  Is this really where my remains will stay for all eternity?

It seems like some of the things us humans come up with that eventually become acceptable and the norm, why don't we question them more?

And I don't really have any answers for you.  According to the article I found on the Business of Death, it would appear that much of what is driving the $11 billion industry is that individuals want to have lavish and personalized funerals as a sort of last hurrah.  So as silly as it all seems to me, who am I to say what is or is not silly to you.

One of the residents at Holy Cross Cemetery is Bela Lugosi, the original movie Dracula, who was buried in his Dracula cape.  We have to take this on faith 'cuz we can't see into his coffin or tell from his quite plain grave marker whether this is really true or folk legend.  If that is how he wanted to go or if you want to be buried with your golf clubs, who am I to say?

And with that, that is all the BLEEP I wish to blog about today.

Oh yeah!  Happy Halloween.