Venantius J Pinto wrote: >Mervyn's option for himself is no less strange. The idea of being creamted >and then having the ashes thrown in the Niagara. I mean just leave them. >That just about gels in with the idea of unrest. Basically, damn your >ashes. Thats moving on if that is at all a concern. > >At least the other folks created a space for their guy. It is as much for >them as it is for their idea of him. The sentiments are hardly strange at >least to my "discalced" mind. > >Being buried or cremated is the norm, Earlier hardly anyone had their >mortal remains cremated. Its only after that optioned was sanctioned that >people choose cremation. Of course we are talking of RCs. But all this >leads to the part about what and what is not strange. Usually the strange >bit comes from anyone not used to a deviation, or a deviation that does not >get with their way of seeing or accepting someone/ choices.
VJP, Till this very day, if you are Catholic and you conk off in Toronto and nobody comes to claim your body, Catholic Charities will bury you for free - with all the last rites. I am not sure if the cremation approval started when they started running out of space at paupers graveyards in Europe, but that is my guess. Catholic Charities here have a whole set of lawyers and they will even bury family members together when requested. This leads me to the story of a lawyer named Thomas Strange who was shopping for a tombstone. After he had made his selection, the stone-cutter asked him what inscription he would like on it. "Here lies Thomas Strange, an honest man and a lawyer," responded our lawyer. "Sorry, but I can't do that," replied the stone-cutter. "In this province, it's against the law to bury two people in the same grave, and the authorities would be confused. However, I could put 'Here lies an honest lawyer.'" "But that won't let people know who it is" protested the lawyer. "Sure they will," replied the stone-cutter. "Everyone who reads it will think, 'That's Strange!'" -x- The request that conformed into my idea of strange, however, was when I attended a ceremony where the ashes of someone and his mother-in-law were dropped into the same tidal pool. As for cremation, during the process the water component of the body gets vaporized. This condenses and can later fall as rain on someone who is riding his motor-bike home. In my mind, the only better farewell scenario is to have a brass band, with happy musicians, swinging you slowly down the streets of New Orleans. This, I agree, is the height of pretentiousness. Niagara Falls is far more cheaper for my last dispatch. I am also assured that some of the participants will next go to one of the casino's there to enjoy those living moments. Mervyn PS. Gabe, rest assured that it is perfectly legal to scatter ashes into the Niagara Falls.