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Roger Rabbits with |
Just because I stopped here for 10 years, doesn’t necessarily mean I want to stop here forever, for all eternity. You know, when I expire, when I conk out, when I’m kaput.
When I haven’t been seen for a few days, when there aren’t any fresh complaints in my HR file, and when they break down my door to find me propped up in bed, eyes fixed, Last Will and Testament in one hand, Sky remote in the other, and a cricket test playing out on TV.
Wouldn’t that be awful – popping off just before tea on the final day of a test with the game nicely poised? It would probably be the death of me.
My will won’t be long or complex. I’ll write it on the back of my hand. Cold, hairy and difficult though it might be to read when the time comes.
It’s just the where and how they dispose of me after I become no use to myself, or anyone, after the spirit has fled in one direction or another. Hoping north, expecting south.
What a snip?
There are some nice final resting places around if you look out for them. Waihi Cemetery – 5km east of the township. Goldminers digging in town, and the sexton digging just beyond. It’s groomed to a nicety and the sounds of State Highway 2 flowing nearby. People glad that you’re gone from their lives could still toot and wave when passing. You wouldn’t feel completely abandoned.
Mayor Mahe et al, are very kindly trying to keep me, or my remains, in town, by proposing a discount on my cremation. A special of $777 deal – $202 off the ticket price. What a snip? Damned fine gesture. And a canny bit of marketing – we all like a good deal. Even in death. Get cremated in Tauranga and save, save, save.
I don’t understand the minutiae of crematoria – well, I know what goes in and what comes out. But it seems reasonable – paying $777 to be baked on high, 1150°C, for three hours and then your gritty bits cast to the wind. And it’s the thought – nice that even in death, you still have value. The rates and water bills have stopped but you are still contributing.
Legendary last hurrah
Before the Mayor’s offer I was hoping for a grand finale, a frenzy, a bit of hoop-lah to see me out.
“This is my last hurrah, and once I start,
I ain’t gonna stop ‘til I go too far.”
Bebe Rexha’s great song.
“Farewell tequila, so long Margarita,
And Lady sativa, I hate to leave ya.”
The song could have been written for extraordinary, larrikin, substance abuser Hunter S. Thompson. His “last hurrah” was legendary.
In accordance with his wishes, when he died in 2005, his ashes were fired from a cannon into the atmosphere from a 50 metre tower. The blast was accompanied by red, white, blue and green fireworks. And all the time the world’s greatest troubadour was banging out Mr Tambourine Man. What a show? Thompson could have been forgiven for feeling pissed at missing his own last big show.
Unfortunately the cannon disposal method is not a local option. It seems our council sticks to its knitting of burnings and burials. But imagine a crazy Thompson-type ash canon atop Kaimai Range blasting human remains over the South Pacific. What entertainment? KaBoom! There goes Jimmy Smith into eternity, on an Artemis II-type final voyage. People applauding and hooting. They’d pay to watch.
Trevor the Viking
A friend called Trevor always insisted he wanted a Viking funeral. Apart from the drama, it would save his kids a poultice.
He was happiest sitting on a beach, beer in hand, rollie in the other as the sun went down, gazing on ‘she’ – his one true love. ‘She’ was a 14 foot runabout and they had shared deep, meaningful fishing times. “When the moment comes,” he would say, “put me in my stubbies and singlet, lay me in the boat, set it on a course for the open sea and set fire to it. I want to go down with the ship”. His name should have been Bjørn, or Leif, or Erik.
Never happened, of course. The ocean is dangerous enough without random, flaming, waterborne, Viking-style, funeral pyres. A wonderful romantic notion though and imagine the turnout for a send-off like that. Call in the food trucks, crank up the music, make it an event!
Washed away
One day I was sitting outside a hotel in Kathmandu when there was a tinkling of bells and shuffling of jogging feet. A body in a white shroud was being carried shoulder-high by mourners down main street.
Down on the riverbank, poor ‘Adesh’ was manoeuvred to the top of a pyre and his son lit the fire. If it had been my funeral pyre, they would have been queuing for that honour. For seven or eight hours the late Adesh’s smoke drifted over town before his embers and ashes were respectfully kicked into the river and washed away to eternity.
I loved the informality and simplicity of it all. Probably wouldn’t go well on the banks of the Wairoa…
*Got a notion for your perfect send-off? Email it to: hunter.wells@nzme.co.nz