Mornings and Endings: Anon

Editor's note: The author asked for anonymity, to avoid domestic warfare. He is well known to the editors.

There have been times when a doctor’s prescription has had more effect on the spouse than on the patient him/herself. In our household it certainly happened once.

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Mornings in our household, can be competitive affairs.

My wife arrives downstairs, early, as bright as a burnished brass button and ready to take on the world. This may have something to do with the doctor who prescribed a tripling of her daily steroid dose to offset some distressing symptoms probably caused by the same steroids. I, on the other hand, find surfacing at 8 o’clock a real challenge and would wish that any conversation should be deferred till around 10 o’clock. I really don’t function properly until I am wearing my glasses, my hearing aids are switched on and with my dentures firmly in place as a precursor to putting my mind in gear.

Notwithstanding this, as soon as I appear in the kitchen, she demands to know why she should not be buried in our garden rather than in a traditional graveyard ? “It’s much less expensive !” she says as if this is the only issue relevant to the subject. “Besides”, she says, “it might even be better to have a woodland burial because the Council has approved this place.” She points to the computer screen which has a video of a lovely glade in a purpose-created wood with soothing music going in the background. The only thing missing, it seems to me, is a troupe of Morris dancers under the direction of Getafix, the druid, to send the spirits on their way, but I keep my thoughts to myself as it wouldn’t be safe to voice them.

When she goes for a coffee cup refill, I steal a glance at the website only to find that the wood in question is not even in our county – and I imagine the huge hearse bill to deliver her body to the far side of the next county, because throwing her in a box on to the back of a rental pickup truck – which I could afford - might not be quite the departure which she has in mind. Again, silence is probably advisable.

A bit later when my mind is partially ticking over, I wonder whether burial in our own garden would be a gift our children would want ? After all, if they decide it is essential to sell the property just to cover inheritance taxes, who would want to buy a place with a body in the garden with the risk of a haunted house ? Any potential purchaser might also shy at the legal visiting rights for relatives of the deceased. “Why not consider cremation instead,” I ask, innocently, “then your ashes could be spread in the garden without a note having to be put into the house deeds ?” This suggestion is immediately countered with arguments – apparently gleaned from the woodland burial website – that cremation is not “green”, and is also very expensive.

As my mind is still in neutral, it wanders aimlessly but with a distressing habit of suggesting to me something likely to cause an apoplectic fit, if I speak. Like, we spend three score years and ten or more on this earth occupying space and consuming resources, so why should this life be extended beyond death by occupying potentially productive agricultural land which cannot be used for anything else for centuries ? Is this really a “green” attitude to life ? Wouldn’t one’s ashes (minus the bits that explode under heat, or which won’t burn) be better employed enriching the soil or the sea, which can benefit the living ?

I am reminded about the story of a widow who was given her late husband’s ashes in two parcels. The first was the jar containing the ashes, and the second was the metallic prosthetic hip he had had installed towards the end of his life. Apparently, she found this device useful in the garden which just goes to show that even if she didn’t dig him in life, she dug with him thereafter. Would this comment be appreciated, I wonder ? Probably not, so I continue a blank silence.

My mind wanders some more. If only I could grow and process some marijuana, then I might be able to put some into my wife’s muesli as a means of slowing her down in the morning, and ensuring that she would have a distant smile on her face for part of the day. Add that to my bucket-list.

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Island at the Mouth of the Estuary

The conversation seems focussed on her disposal and curiously doesn’t seem to include me which is probably just as well because I hadn’t contemplated an immediate departure. However, it does bring to mind a suggestion I made to her some years ago when the general subject was raised. I had suggested that if I died before she did, I wanted to be cremated and have my ashes cast into the water close to the Island at the mouth of the Estuary to feed the fish – because I have sailed in the area and loved it. That way, whenever she takes the ferry across the river, she can look out to sea and be able to say, “That Island is beyond my man”.

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