November 3, 1999 - by Mirinda J. Kossoff
The macabre TV footage of wayward caskets sailing away from their earthy berths on the flood-tides of Hurricane Floyd reminded me of an ongoing debate between my mother and me. She's for traditional burial; I favor cremation. Horrified by my choice in corporeal disposal, she shudders and says, "I can't imagine letting myself be burned like that. If you die before I do, I'll see that you have a proper burial."
Logic fails in such discussions with my mother. It would be fruitless, for example, to remind her that she won't feel a thing or that cremation is far more economical. I suspect her Southern Baptist belief in the resurrection of the body is at the bottom of her insistence that she be preserved intact until Gabriel blows. But I just don't see the value of such a practice. Maybe if I passed on at the peak of my physical beauty, I'd want myself preserved for eternity, but if I live to her ripe age and then die, I doubt I'd want to be confronted again with my wrinkled old self. Maybe I'm being too literal here, but that is precisely my point.
The interesting thing about those escaped caskets courtesy of Floyd is that they float. The old wooden coffins of yore probably wouldn't have been so seaworthy. Modern caskets are a marvel of locked-in freshness, or so the funeral mavens would have you believe. And we have John Hillenbrand, who bought the Batesville Coffin Company in 1906, to thank for that. Hillenbrand turned the failing company around when he stumbled onto the marketing concepts of permanence and protection for the dearly departed and shifted production from wooden coffins to metal caskets. Choosing an expensive, airtight casket reflects our love for the deceased, right? My mother would think so. No chestnuts roasting on an open fire for her, no sir.
What consumers don't know when they purchase the more expensive protective-sealer casket over the garden variety model for dear old dad is that such an airtight environment can encourage the growth of anaerobic bacteria. These bacteria will, over time, eat dad into a puddle of putrid goo inside his satin-lined bed-for-eternity. A nice, tidy pile of ashes seems far preferable to me.
The Batesville Company actually engineered the first sealed casket in the 1940s, just in time for the demands that World War II placed on the funeral industry. Of course, earthly burial presumes that natural disasters like Floyd won't come along to rouse the slumbering or that the politics of destruction, like the bombs that fell on Britain during the war, won't disturb one's peaceful plot. We've been mostly lucky in that regard; Batesville still rules the casket market today, followed by York, and the majority of Americans still choose burial over cremation.
But think about it. With land in certain areas at such a premium, do we really need to set aside some of our best real estate for those who aren't paying taxes? And do we really need to shell out upwards of $8,000 - the average cost of a funeral today, including plot and headstone - for our last public appearance on earth? I'd rather use the money to finance a trip for my surviving loved ones to an exotic locale where they can enjoy the scenery and party while they scatter my ashes.
If you go the traditional route, you'll pay a premium for a presentable casket, which typically makes up half the cost of a funeral and can be marked up more than five times its wholesale price. Some states have casket stores, which would allow for comparison shopping and could save a customer a grand or two, but try to find such a store in the Triangle area. Though I was told there are no state statutes preventing casket stores from competing with funeral homes - as long as the stores offer only caskets - there must be some reason why none exist around here.
By far the most disturbing development in the funeral industry, though, is that it's going corporate. Given that Boomers will be shuffling off this mortal coil in record numbers in a few more decades, the funeral business is a growth industry; a fact not lost on the big chains, which are gobbling up local privately-owned funeral parlors. Nationally, three chains - Service Corporation International (SCI), Stewart Enterprises and the Loewen Group - control about 20 percent of America's 22,000 funeral homes. And when the chains come into town, the prices go up. In the past five years, funeral prices have risen three times faster than inflation. In Durham, funeral directors resisted the overtures of SCI and the Loewen Group, but Raleigh's funeral homes caved in to the corporate raiders and most are now chain-owned.
There are alternatives, however. Not to be outdone by more pedestrian thinkers in the end-of-life industry, some creative types have gone to the Web with a new concept: the Final Curtain Memorial Theme Park. Those laid to rest in Final Curtain parks "are memorialized by their own creations, which serve as both tomb and eternal exhibit of their most personally meaningful work," says the blurb on the splash page. Writer Alex Repasky has signed on and proposes that when his time comes, he be cremated and have his ashes mixed with iron filings in a giant Etch-a-Sketch. Park visitors then will be able to sketch designs "with" Alex. Mary Dresser wants her ashes put in an oversized ant farm so she can participate in the ongoing processes of life. Things turn a bit ghoulish with Joseph Sullivan's idea... but visit www.finalcurtain.com and see for yourself.
Obviously, there are more ways than the staid and traditional to mark your final exit.
November 17, 1999 - by Mirinda J. Kossoff
Deb Chenault was a name from my childhood, with emphasis on the first syllable of the last name and usually associated with someone wild-eyed and wild-haired.
"She lived down the road a piece," said my mother. "Some people thought she was a witch. When my stepdaddy drove the horse and wagon to town, he'd have to pass by Deb Chenault's house. He usually carried his lunch with him, and when Deb saw his buggy coming up the road, she'd fly out of her ramshackle old house and run up to him. She always said she was hungry, and he'd give her most of his lunch. He was afraid not to."
Ah, yes. Now I remember. A bad hair day was a Deb Chenault day. And anyone good-hearted was a Mub Pfeiffer, the woman who always had a houseful of kids, several of her own plus any number of strays - including my father - who needed a warm and jolly refuge.
My father has been gone for almost 20 years and my mother will be leaving soon. In September, the doctor told us she only has a few months before the lung disease that was discovered just this summer suffocates her. "Statistically," he said, "people her age at this stage of the disease last from three to six months."
Statistically. To the pulmonologist, my elderly mother is a dot on a graph. He doesn't know that she has a sense of humor or that at 84, she's still a flirt, still proud of her looks and too obstinate to use a walker or a wheelchair. Or that she raised four children and presides over five grandchildren. After the pulmonologist gave us the grim prognosis, I was elected to break the news to our mother. The doctor had counseled me not to tell my mother that she's nearing the end. "I never tell my patients they have a death sentence," he said.
"Then what am I supposed to tell her?" I asked. At this juncture, he had no advice. I was on my own. "What if she wants to know how much time she has left?" my sister asked when we were discussing, out of Mom's earshot, exactly what I should tell her. "Come on," I said. "This is our mother we're talking about. She's not going to ask." Another thing about my mother is that she doesn't ask questions about that which she doesn't want to know. She invented the "don't ask don't tell" policy.
I was right of course. When I told her that her lung disease was very serious and that she would have to remain on oxygen round the clock from now on and did she have any questions, she changed the subject. But then she's been dying for the last 20 years. Every Christmas, she's had her presents wrapped and ready weeks ahead of time, "in case I'm not around by then" she'd say, whenever anyone remarked on how efficient she was. Then she heard a voice in the middle of the night tell her, "one more year." Naturally, this meant she wasn't going to be around for my niece's graduation from high school, so she gave my sister the graduation present to hold for my niece six months in advance. That was two-and-a-half years ago.
Now that the end truly is at hand, she doesn't want to discuss it. With sitters caring for her round the clock, she doesn't have much control left. She tried to fire them several times and found out that it wasn't her decision. My sister is in charge of the caregivers. So in the one area where she can still exert control, she's calling the shots, and she's not talking about death.
A couple of weeks ago a friend drove with me to Virginia to see my mother. As I checked Mom's medications, she turned to my friend and said, "the way she's fluttering around, you'd think I was dying." I coughed. My friend kept a poker face. It used to be that when I left after a visit with my mother, she'd walk out to the front steps to see me off with a hug, a kiss and a "goodbye, drive carefully." Then she'd stand on the porch for as long as my car was in view. I'd always wave as I drove away, watching her slightly baggy, forlorn figure recede in my rearview mirror, feeling each time that I was abandoning her.
Now, the porch is empty when I drive off. My mother is too frail and unsteady to make it outside. Hers is not the Hollywood ending I had envisioned, the one in which she and I would draw closer, share our souls, heal wounds from the past. She remains steadfast in denying the approach of the death she's anticipated for so long. But then I think about her figure on the steps and the stories about Deb Chenault and Mub Pfeiffer, and it's enough.
December 15, 1999 - by Mirinda J. Kossoff
Aside
from some concerns about Y2K bugs, the turning of the year 2000
is no big deal. Or rather, it's only a big deal if you choose to
fall in with the sellers of millennium doodads, champagne and party
hats and fabricate something from nothing.
For a holiday, New Year's eve has always been
a non-starter as far as I'm concerned. People drink too much or
stand out in the cold waiting for some dumb ball to drop. They gin
up good cheer, make resolutions they know they won't keep, and if
they're healthy and lucky, they repeat the same thing next New Year's
eve.
Personally, I enjoyed staying home last New
Year's eve and watching the doomsday shows that aired on a couple
of cable channels, predicting that the year 2000 would bring down
upon the earth everything from nuclear war to fire to a huge asteroid.
Nostradamus was a big favorite for prognosticating - almost 500
years ago - that the year 2000 would usher in an apocalypse. But
if you're concerned about the dire predictions, or that the literalists
heading for Jerusalem for the Second Coming may be on to something,
relax. The turning of a new century depends on who's counting and
what culture or religious tradition you embrace.
For Jews, the new year will be 5760; Muslims
will ring in 1378. For Christians, millennial confusion can be traced
back to a 6th century monk who was asked by Pope Gregory XIII to
straighten out the old Julian calendar, which had gotten a few days
behind, and create the Gregorian calendar we use today. The monk
calculated time from Christ's birth, but he made a couple of mistakes.
If, as the Bible says, Jesus was born during the time of Herod,
then Mary must have given birth at least four years earlier than
the monk calculated, because Herod died in 4 B.C. That would mean
the millennium happened in 1996, and we missed it.
Had you lived in North Carolina in the early
part of the 18th century, you'd have celebrated the new year at
the spring equinox. British Protestants thought the Gregorian calendar
was a papist plot, so they limped along with the Julian calendar
until 1752, when the Gregorian calendar was finally adopted in Britain
and the American colonies, bringing them in line with the rest of
Europe. We also could rightfully celebrate the next millennium in
2001. In addition to miscalculating the date of Christ's birth,
the Gregorian monk also began his time chronology at one instead
of zero, which means that if a century has 100 years, the next century
would begin at 2001, not 2000. At the turn of the last century,
every major newspaper and magazine in the US dated its first issue
of the 20th century from January 1, 1901. But who cares about history
or accuracy?
We will have a millennium whether we've earned
it or not, because there are caps and T-shirts to buy, expensive
millennial celebrations to mount and general anxiety to plunder.
And maybe we need an Event to rattle us into some soul searching.
According to a recent article in the Wall Street
Journal, more Americans than usual are returning to churches and
religious observances for New Year's eve, no doubt dimming the visions
of millennial dollars in the heads of the party purveyors and cruise
line operators. Whether the churchgoers are hedging their bets or
truly have experienced a change of heart remains to be seen. It's
comforting, though, to think that Americans may be starting to look
further down the road than the acquisition of their next Lexus or
High Definition TV. One of the virtues we as a culture seem to have
lost here at the fin de siècle is a commitment to the well-being
of the whole. Self-interest appears to have triumphed along with
Wall Street. We see it in pro sports, in gated communities, in corporate
culture, in advertising, in urban sprawl, in complacency - the list
is endless.
But I'll leave the grand visions for the 21st
century to those better qualified than I. Here's my brief and modest
list of wishes for the year 2000:
Jerry Springer will leave television to become
a parole officer.
Pat Buchanan will leave the country.
All white supremacists will move to Idaho and
secede from the Union.
Pro wrestlers will become paramedics. Hugh
Hefner will be as lonely as the Maytag repairman.
Donald Trump will fall in love with a woman
his own age and set up a charitable foundation.
Teachers will earn more than stock brokers.
Monica who?
Older women will grace the covers of fashion
magazines.
Movie theaters will stop making me pay to watch
Pepsi advertisements.
A new TV show, "Who Wants to Be a Philanthropist?"
will top the ratings.
Little girl beauty pageants will be replaced
by more spelling bees.
Artists will have patrons.
And hopefully, intelligent life in these United
States won't be found only in the circuit boards of our computers.
Tahitians take tip from Triangle on development
December 29, 1999 - by Mirinda J. Kossoff
"Bloody Mary." "Bali Hai." "Younger Than Springtime." These songs were the stuff of my childhood and introduced me to Polynesia, whose islands were as elusive and mysterious as my dreams.
My vision of that far-off paradise was shaped by the 1958 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific. After seeing the movie, I nearly wore holes in the LP my parents bought, endlessly spinning the shiny black disk on my portable record player and emoting along with Rossano Brazzi and Mitzi Gaynor as they sang of love lost and regained.
For a pre-adolescent, this was heady stuff. I fantasized about a handsome young uniformed G.I. (like the one in the movie who was tragically killed in the war) tucking a wild gardenia in my hair and kissing me softly as warm island breezes enveloped us in a cocoon of love.
Decades later - and long since relieved of my childish romantic fantasies - I finally saw French Polynesia first-hand, courtesy of an all-expenses paid press trip earlier this December.
Romance aside, my encounter with paradise did not disappoint. Tahiti and the surrounding Society Islands, now known as French Polynesia, were everything I'd dreamed of, right down to their many-hued lagoons and the papaya and bananas hanging from the trees, ripe for the picking by any passer-by.
The land of Gauguin and Michener has suffered at the hands of missionaries and French colonialists, not to mention tourists, but many of the islands retain their pristine beauty, and the people still reflect Robert Louis Stevenson's designation as "God's best, at least God's sweetest work." The more industrious among the Polynesians might take exception to Stevenson's praise: They refer to their fellow inhabitants as lazy, though I preferred to think of them as laid back. Why get in a sweat when you know you're not going to starve or freeze to death? Nature in that fruitful land has been generous to a fault.
Tahiti and her islands are part of the Polynesian Triangle with Hawaii to the north, New Zealand to the southwest and Easter Island to the southeast - just under an eight-hour plane ride from Los Angeles, but a world away. I was reminded of that fact in tiny Huahine as I watched children feeding the island's sacred blue-eyed eels in the fresh water stream that runs through the village.
Then I heard the approach of a 4x4 bearing a berry-brown boy tooting a conch shell to herald the fresh catch of bonito hanging in glistening rows from a line strung across the back of the little truck. Fish market on wheels. No supermarkets, no frozen fish sticks, no fast food restaurants.
Unfortunately, Papeete, Polynesia's only real city and the capital of Tahiti, has acquired one of the more egregious trappings of civilization: traffic grid-lock and exhaust fumes. For an island with only one main road encircling it, why, I wondered, did Papeete need two vehicles for each inhabitant?
Trying to get just a few miles down the road in Papeete was like negotiating Manhattan traffic during rush hour. Public transport consists of "le truck," an open-air long-bed truck with a cover and hard wooden benches running the length of each side. If you don't choke to death on the diesel exhaust before you reach your destination, you could get calluses on your bum or die from heat stroke.
So I was glad to escape Papeete for the more bucolic island of Moorea, about 14 miles distant. Moorea boasts the famous volcanic peak that Michener dubbed "Bali Hai" -- a fabricated name that bears no resemblance to the peak's real Polynesian name (which I can't remember; such is Michener's hold on my imagination).
Snorkeling in Moorea's coral lagoon was both an exhilarating and saddening experience. Thanks to the warming of the Pacific and the growth of suffocating algae, much of the coral is dead and bleached of its once glorious color. Sea life has dwindled in the fading reefs, leaving the tunnels and valleys of the under-sea domain to a few tropical fish and spiny black sea urchins.
It seems the industrialized world has a long reach. And the French have done their bit to contaminate this Pacific paradise. In 1995, despite strong opposition from the Polynesians, French President Jacques Chirac ordered nuclear testing on Moruroa, an atoll some 600-plus miles from Tahiti.
As a result, Polynesians indulged in the worst rioting ever seen in the South Pacific and tourism dropped precipitously, mostly because of fears of nuclear contamination spread by wind and water. The US and Britain didn't come off looking much better than the French. Both countries had quietly backed French testing, refusing to sign the protocols of the 1985 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. It was only in March 1996 that Britain and the US joined France in signing the treaty, leaving the islands to recover from repeated nuclear assaults.
I think of the glories of Moorea, Raiatea, Huahine and Bora-Bora and compare them to what Los Angeles and its environs must have looked like before cars and over-development turned the area into an asphalt wasteland. While cities like L.A. and New York may feed the intellect and pump up the energy level, it is the sweet natural grace of places like Tahiti that touch the soul. The soul takes its strength from nature. You'd think we'd learn.