Family Night (Waking Xerma)
Apr. 8th, 2003 11:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueMax and Patrick hold shovels above a freshly dug grave. Max's pants are striped red, Max's t-shirt is black, and Max's skin is green, as is Patrick's hair. It is dark. Shadows of trees stripe the side yard and the mint-colored concrete of the garage. Scarlett, in black with a red-striped purse, wails as Uncle Rex, also in black, holds her. Stretch, her t-shirt the same white as Death's, swallows rice as she softly chants next to Romie of the red-striped belt and mint green shirt, Romie with a Viking burial charm. Romie is crying.
A word about funerals: They're primarily rehearsal. The rest is reminders and shock tactics. Inevitably this leads to melodrama, which in turn creates a cult of death. Predictably, my family embraces this sort of thing, which leads to my cousin throwing herself on the grave of a ferret as she weeps uncontrollably with perfectly genuine emotion.
I could rant for hours on the current funerary establishment; I could launch fleet after fleet of pointed attacks on Restland, the Dallas-based cemetary that pioneered many of the modern approaches. Suffice it to say, I believe the decision to rob death of its power by setting it in a peaceful cheery park where nobody ever goes is a cripplingly negative one. I fail to understand how anyone can receive a sense of closure by standing in Sunday best on a manicured lawn, politely listening to one person's eulogy lecture. Polite, dignified social funerals are crap. Placing dirt on a grave with your bare hands is animal sacrifice.
I hate the false removal of death from everyday life. If I were to think about it, I'd get upset that my grandmother wasn't buried beneath my driveway. This may be the reason we assume her ghost still lives at Clinton House with half a dozen others - we know how to remember.
An interesting thing about white American culture: we don't draw power from our dead. There's a lot of talk about "souls" and "those who came before us," but we have a weird reluctance to call on the strength of our ancestors. Because we bury in dirt, we think of death as dirty.
This is not actually normal, nor is it particularly healthy.
Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Nor can energy, not really - just transformed and moved.
I don't know about you, but I now have a ferret spirit to help me.
A word about funerals: They're primarily rehearsal. The rest is reminders and shock tactics. Inevitably this leads to melodrama, which in turn creates a cult of death. Predictably, my family embraces this sort of thing, which leads to my cousin throwing herself on the grave of a ferret as she weeps uncontrollably with perfectly genuine emotion.
I could rant for hours on the current funerary establishment; I could launch fleet after fleet of pointed attacks on Restland, the Dallas-based cemetary that pioneered many of the modern approaches. Suffice it to say, I believe the decision to rob death of its power by setting it in a peaceful cheery park where nobody ever goes is a cripplingly negative one. I fail to understand how anyone can receive a sense of closure by standing in Sunday best on a manicured lawn, politely listening to one person's eulogy lecture. Polite, dignified social funerals are crap. Placing dirt on a grave with your bare hands is animal sacrifice.
I hate the false removal of death from everyday life. If I were to think about it, I'd get upset that my grandmother wasn't buried beneath my driveway. This may be the reason we assume her ghost still lives at Clinton House with half a dozen others - we know how to remember.
An interesting thing about white American culture: we don't draw power from our dead. There's a lot of talk about "souls" and "those who came before us," but we have a weird reluctance to call on the strength of our ancestors. Because we bury in dirt, we think of death as dirty.
This is not actually normal, nor is it particularly healthy.
Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Nor can energy, not really - just transformed and moved.
I don't know about you, but I now have a ferret spirit to help me.
