![\"Richard](\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/site\/blog\/icons\/bmjh7648e.jpg\")
Some things divide us fundamentally. Are you male or female, gay or straight, right wing or left wing? Another fundamental division, I suggest, is whether we want to be burnt or buried.<\/p>\nSome things divide us fundamentally. Are you male or female, gay or straight, right wing or left wing? Another fundamental division, I suggest, is whether we want to be burnt or buried.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s important to get this clear with your loved ones. John Lanchester begins his memoir about his parents with the realisation just after his mother\u2019s cremation that she wanted to be buried.<\/p>\n
Somebody who is very close to me but doesn\u2019t like to be written about is adamant that she wants to be cremated. She hates the idea that she might be buried when still alive. That fear was common among Victorians, who developed strategies like phones in coffins. (On reflection, I\u2019m not sure why she is more relaxed about being burnt alive rather than buried alive. I suppose that the discomfort would be shorter, and there\u2019s more chance that your knocking will be heard.)<\/p>\n
Whether we want to be burnt or buried may be something to do with what we feel about the status of the corpse. Is your corpse you or not you?<\/p>\n
I was prompted to reflect on this by two conversations I had recently. One was with a friend who had travelled back to her home town and visited the tree under which her mother\u2019s ashes were scattered. She was disappointed because she felt that her mother \u201cwasn\u2019t there.\u201d But why would she be there I wondered?<\/p>\n
My father was cremated after a funeral that was 30 minutes of non-stop laughter. We didn\u2019t collect \u201chis\u201d ashes. He hadn\u2019t asked for his ashes to be scattered anywhere, and why would he? Another friend felt it dreadful that we hadn\u2019t collected our father\u2019s ashes. We had left \u201chim\u201d in the crematorium. This was neglect. But then it emerged that her husband had left his mother\u2019s ashes in the crematorium.<\/p>\n
In contrast, she and her brother were engaged in a complicated debate about what to do with their father\u2019s ashes. They live at opposite ends of the country, and the worry is that if his ashes are scattered in two different places then his \u201carms and legs will be separated.\u201d His body will be dismembered, a gross abuse.<\/p>\n
This makes no sense to me. I couldn\u2019t feel that my father\u2019s ashes were in any meaningful sense him. He was a wonderfully empathetic, funny, and warm man. How could a handful of ashes be him? And to think that some of the ashes were his eyes and some other bits his legs or heart is for me just ludicrous. But I recognise that for others it is very different.<\/p>\n
I like the thought that because my father was cremated he is in some sense everywhere. If he had a grave in some beautiful churchyard in Dorset it might be lovely to visit the grave and think of him. Perhaps he\u2019d have something witty on his gravestone. But if \u201che\u201d or at least his bones were there, despite my seeming\u00a0 rationality, he might not be on the train with me now.<\/p>\n
I much prefer to a grave to have his memoirs typed out by my son which I can email to anybody anywhere who is interested. (Mind you he left 10 000 very readable words. I\u2019m leaving my children an unmanageable 10 million. It might be best to burn them with me.)<\/p>\n
RS was the editor of the <\/em>BMJ until 2004 and is director of the United Health Group’s chronic disease initiative.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some things divide us fundamentally. Are you male or female, gay or straight, right wing or left wing? Another fundamental division, I suggest, is whether we want to be burnt or buried. It\u2019s important to get this clear with your loved ones. John Lanchester begins his memoir about his parents with the realisation just after […]<\/p>\n