Life in the Garden

Matters of Life and Death

urns

TSA Makes An Ash of Itself

Can’t be too careful I guess. Last week hundreds of travelers were evacuated from the Indianapolis International Airport and had to go through security a second time Friday after an urn with cremated remains was improperly screened, authorities said.

Transportation Security Administration said officials could not locate the passenger to rescreen the urn, so the concourses were evacuated around 6:20 a.m. as a precaution.

The evacuated passengers then went through security screening again and the concourses reopened around 7:35, airport spokeswoman Susan Sullivan said. The incident caused eight flights to be delayed, affecting nearly 700 passengers, but no flights were canceled, she said.

A TSA statement said that passengers may include a crematory container in their carry-on luggage, unless it generates an opaque image during the X-ray that prevents the screener from seeing what is inside. Those urns are not allowed through the checkpoint, the statement said.

Metal urns will generate an opaque image. Materials that can be successfully x-rayed: wood urns, plastic urns, or non-lead lined ceramic cremation urns.

TSA officials are restricted from opening an urn, even at the passenger’s request.

Momma Tree in NYC

fall tree dedication

Fall is a great time to plant a seed or two, and city dwellers, I’m talking to you….YOU too can dedicate a tree, living plant, garden or sacred space in memory of your loved one.

Special thanks to CK, who has publicly shared her journey of the loss of her sweet momma.

Thanks to the boundless grace of many bloggers, my mother is now commemorated and honored in New York City with her own tree (for those new to my blog, my mother died suddenly 8 weeks ago). But it’s more than a tree. It’s a sanctuary. More than that, the tree has been planted in a park in Spanish Harlem which is in a part of the city that is a “BID” (Business Improvement District). So this beautiful act betters a community…which makes a whole lotta sense since the beauty of this community’s moving act betters me.

And if I feel down you know what I’m gonna do? Damn straight, I’m going to see my momma’s tree!

Surprise Judgments

A client in Texas tells us that the funeral director was surprised when she booked a cremation, casket, and chapel for viewing/visitation. “Well, you know he’ll have to be embalmed.” he responded.

She did. That’s what she wanted.

She had her father-in-law’s blue cloisonne urn that she’d bought earlier and wanted the same thing for his son.

Another client selected a keepsake urn for her father-in-law who was Jewish. Even though Jewish law and tradition is to be buried in the ground, he chose cremation to honor his parents who were cremated, (not by choice) in a concentration camp crematorium.

The moral of the story here is just because a family has chosen cremation doesn’t mean that they won’t have a traditional service, and we can’t make judgments based on culture and religion.

Goodbye Joe Part Two

Urn garden greeting

Greetings! Is Mr. Fancy Pants offering up a bowl of cherries? Very symbolic.

Last Sunday was the first funeral I’d been to where no body was present. And I don’t mean “nobody”. Joe Rook’s funeral was big. Over 1200 guests according to the funeral home.

It’s likely that for many of the people there, it was the first time to attend a funeral without a body present. Even though cremation is on the rise here, we’re still pretty traditional in Southwest Missouri.

The main chapel seats 500 and guest spilled over into three other rooms. We watched the service on a giant screen. Although I could hear Joe’s granddaughter singing, I wish I could have seen her. She was off-camera.

This was my first Masonic Service and first time to visit the new facility at Greenlawn Funeral Home East. The new location is gorgeous, modern design, soothing decor and a far cry from their north location, that hasn’t been updated in 40 years.

The family chose to have a one hour visitation before the service and the funeral directors were getting nervous about an obvious time crunch (they had another service scheduled later) and handled the crowd in an orderly fashion.

Impressive.

This post is not intended to be a critique of the service, only an observation of the service and new facility at the largest funeral provider in this market.

I’ve been meditating on Joe’s tag line: “It’s a beautiful day in the Ozarks!” and hope you will too. Have a great week!