Inconvenient funeral arrangements unnecessary

I finally have one less reason to worry about dying in another country in the next eight… I finally have one less reason to worry about dying in another country in the next eight months. Thanks to my new International Student Identity Card, someone will take care of my remains.

What a relief.

The basic travel insurance that comes with my card provides for medical evacuation in the case of an emergency, as well as the repatriation of my dead body. I’m excited about the medical evacuation part. I’m not exactly sure how I’d reach medical officials in an emergency-stricken state, considering my plans to travel far out of cell phone reception range in the steppes of Mongolia, but I appreciate the offer.

When it comes to what they do with me if I’m already dead, however, I have a hard time getting excited about anything. If being burned on a funeral pyre in the Gobi Desert is an option, I think I’d prefer that no one worry about sending me back.

The American funeral business reached about $20 billion a year in 1999, according to the Sacramento Bee. We spend thousands of dollars on caskets and hundreds on embalmment, just to keep ourselves preserved and looking good in the ground.

But that’s not enough. Debates about what to do with loved ones’ remains abound in our culture, and the issue has helped a few public figures to continue making news after death. Terri Schiavo’s case rattled on when her parents and husband fought about what to do with her body. Ted Williams is still being preserved in a cryonics lab somewhere in Arizona, after his daughter and son-in-law spent nearly $100,000 and two years trying to get his body removed and cremated, according to a June 17, 2004, issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

America’s not alone, either. Bob Marley’s wife made news in January when she announced her plan to move his remains from his birthplace in Jamaica to his “spiritual resting place,” Ethiopia.

We’re all spending a lot of time and money, just to stress about what we do with the bodies of those we love. As for me, I’d like my family to skip the stressing part, and to put the time and money toward something more enjoyable.

I’ve never understood why people are buried where they would want to spend eternity, instead of where their loved ones would want to visit them. My granddad’s resting place of choice was on top of a mountain deep in West Virginia. I saw his gravesite once, after driving for hours with my family on inadequately marked and even less adequately paved roads. The spot was quite beautiful, for the 10 minutes I spent there, and I will probably never see it again.

Funerals and gravesites exist for the people who are alive, not for the people who have died. If one funeral rite brings more comfort to friends and family than another, it makes perfect sense to follow through with it, however complicated.

But when funeral rites become a hassle or an issue of contention, creating more trouble than comfort, I think families miss the real point of them: remembering the person who died.

If my friends and family choose to remember me by visiting a gravesite, it shouldn’t make a difference whether the ground beneath them contains my body, my ashes or nothing at all. If I die somewhere far away, it doesn’t make sense to worry about bringing my body all the way back home.

Wherever I am when I go, I’d like everything to stay pleasurable. If I’m buried somewhere, it should be a pleasant place to visit — the Outer Banks, perhaps, or maybe somewhere near Kennywood. And if my family has to deal with a body, I hope they can find a fun way to lay me to rest. I’ve always been somewhat partial to the idea of a funeral parade, perhaps with professional mourners taking care of the wailing part while the people I care about sit back and have a good time.

As for the generous offer to bring my remains back into the country, I think I’ll leave it. Unless dragging my body back from Mongolia brings anyone else any comfort, it’s just not worth it. I don’t know much about Mongolian burial laws, but it’s probably simpler there, anyway.

News Editor J. Elizabeth Strohm fully intends to return from Mongolia alive and well. E-mail her good wishes for her health at news@pittnews.com.