2 posts tagged “death”

An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan

I have just finished reading An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan by Jason Elliot which I heartily recommend.

In it is a story told to the author which just struck a fatalistic chord with me, I don't know why? It just did.

A young follower of a Sufi master is sitting in a cafe in Baghdad when he overhears Death talking about the number of calls he has to make over the next couple of days in the city.

In order to ensure he is not on the list, the young disciple runs off to Samarkand.

A few days later Death visits the Sufi master to enquire about the young disciple's whereabouts. "Oh he's probably in the bazaar" says the Sufi master somewhat distractedly.

"How strange?" replies Death consulting his list. "It says here I'm due to meet with him in Samarkand."

Had the slightly bizarre experience yesterday of going to a funeral of somebody I didn't know, and couldn't even put a face to....I was there in fact to represent an organisation of which I am the vice-chairman and which the deceased had been chairman of in the dim and distant past...

Anyway, as a dispassionate observer it made me realise what a load of rubbish funerals, certainly traditional Church of England-style burials or cremations actually are....A view not helped by my recently confirmed atheism as a result of reading Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion".

Two things of note. The deceased lived his entire life in one place, and was buried in that place which therefore has some significance to his family. In today's highly mobile society where would you be buried? Does it even matter? I've lived in four different places in 34 years - Would one be more significant than another, particularly as nobody I know is still in any of those places either....?!?!

Also, the deceased was a life-long church-goer - only he can know if he was a believer - which is a different thing altogether and so again the religious service had some sort of meaning for his family. What about us atheists? In fact somewhat amusingly we only found out that my grandfather, after a lifetime of non-religiousness had actually been baptised a Roman Catholic, although none of his brothers or sisters had, and so that was the service he had at his cremation!

They say that funerals are for those left behind, but I'm not sure I want to put people to the trouble of turning up, just to watch me be buried, burned, cryogenically frozen or fired off in a rocket....Surely better to just treat the disposal of the body a bit like we do with any other rubbish. Just leave it out on the pavement for the bin men on Monday morning?

By all means have a "wake", if you feel the need, but don't inconvenience yourselves....I shall be long gone and way past caring.....

A friend of mine went to a Viking funeral, coinducted in a boat the deceased had built for the purpose. Another person I know had a Hells Angel funeral, complete with a sidecar hearse. As for me, I 'spose if you have to get rid of the body some how, then a quiet Tibetan sky burial would be the best bet - Environmentally friendly and mountain-based!