(Untitled)

[vena_cava]

On Friday night I slept in the bed that my grandmother had died in a few days prior. My mother missed her calling as a mortuary beautician; at every fucking funeral, she insists on redoing the corpse’s hair, because the morticians “got it all wrong”. The funeral director could see her trying to comb my grandmother’s body’s hair with her fingers

Comments

Re: cemetary plots

[vena_cava]

Way to vanquish their patriarchal inclinations. Nice job.

[allisondacia]

sorry about your grandma.

i was in arlington/cambridge on friday as well. my dad's aunt died and i went to support him at the funeral.

[vena_cava]

Didn't know that...would have been pleasantly surprised/shocked if I'd run into you at the airport or something.

[akki]

I've been behind on the lj thang...

I've always been fascinated with funeral rites and different culture's ways of performing them. I can relate with your mom and her wishes. I, for one, want my favorite records melted into an urn for my ashes. I am dead serious (no pun intended). Music is very important to me in life and will remain so in death.

May you be among the hoitiest and toitiest in the afterlife! :)

[vena_cava]

Having your body incinerated along with copies of all of your favorite records so your ashes can be mixed with theirs has got to be one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard. Awesome.

Funerary rites are so fascinating. I wish I knew how that old Lithuanian custom came into being. I remember mentioning it to a friend when I was a kid and she gave me this horrified look as if to say “you and your people are so morbid it’s appalling”. The process of death is pretty fascinating too…I was following one of the death books that the hospice gave us and comparing the processes listed to what my grandmother was going through…this is when her limbs will begin to turn a bluish color because the heart is only pumping blood toward the most vital organs at this late stage; this is when she’ll have a brief resurgence of energy before laying to rest for the last time, etc.

Thank you for the hoity-toity wishes. I wish the same for you!

too early for me to explain why but

[hairywine]

great update!!

glad it appealed to you!

[vena_cava]

Thank you. When it gets later, you’ll have to explain why!

I neglected to mention that my mother requested that the family dog’s ashes be blown over the ocean along with hers and my father’s. And that a couple of hours after my grandmother died, when the guys from the funeral home came to take her body away, the family dog jumped onto the bed and kissed her body on the mouth.

The list of odd/funny/morbid happenings surrounding the event of her death never ends, it seems. I’m sure I’ve got at least a couple more LJ entries (entries’?) worth in me.