Life in the Garden

Matters of Life and Death

urns

Spirit of Giving

Greetings!

Three Beautiful Things:

Fat juicy worms
The gift of life
Tacos and Bloody Marys

The Spring clean up continues, we’ve been yanking shrubs, pulling weeds and marveling at the size of the worms. A decision has been made to nix the vegetable garden this year and consolidate some of the random beds through out the yard. Last year we said No New Projects, just manage what we’ve got. This year, we’re reigning it in.
In a recent post we touched on “the gift of life” and I was reminded of a customer who shared her story of how her husband’s death saved the lives of 59 people. She says,

“Chuck’s life had been a shining star to so many and as a family we wanted his giving spirit to continue. What greater way to honor, pay tribute to, and to memorialize a loved one than to give a future to someone else.”This lady was able to meet the man who received her husband’s liver.”Jim had been waiting on an organ much too long. His first grandchild, a baby girl was due in three weeks, but he was told that he only had about a week to live. He had accepted that he was going to die.”She now lectures throughout Alabama on behalf of the Alabama Organ Center educating the public on the benefits of organ donation and says, “So I am on a mission, a mission to include the stories of donor families as part of the information available.”

Beautiful, carry on!

Lately, I’ve been thinking about a former co-worker and his family, Mr. Mike Lopez (RIP), he died on March 6, 2006 from a wicked brain tumor, the same variety that took my mother-in-law. The dreaded Glioblastoma Multiforme.

As a family….it will rock your world, and not in a good way. If anything good can be said about this tumor, is that it’s swift.

Now, back to Michael. A good man. Crazy about his wife and kids. A guitar talent. Modest. Funny. A word smith, master of trivia and bad puns. We miss you and our heart go out to Donna and the kids.

Sad to hear that Bradley Delp, lead singer of Boston passed. They were planning to tour this summer, and I’ve always regretted that I didn’t go see them in B-town a couple of years ago.

Dirtsister admires the discipline it takes to sit down and write. This is blather, and it’s an effort to crank it out. I admire the tales of writers and journalists who lugged around or rented typewriters back in the day. Can’t relate to today’s writers who still prefer the typewriter.

Today’s tip: Fill out your donor consent form and save some lives.

Winter Whiteout

Greetings and Happy Valentine’s Day!

Here’s a couple of items we’ve learned this week:

Naps can save your life.

When you look into someone’s eyes (the pupils) you can see their brain.

Red, truly is a power color, symbolizing good, evil, and wealth. In China, brides wear red because white is the color of death and mourning. Red is the color of the Catholic church. Satan is known to appear in red. The Spanish Empire had the monopoly on the color red, creating the dye from the a small red producing insect found in South America.

We study color in the garden. Aristotle declared that the colors of the world were created where darkness and light met, and that the simple colors are the colors of the elements: fire, air, water, and earth.

Regarding urns, our research indicates that blue is still America’s favorite color. Many women are fond of purple. And for the naturalists, Wood is Good.

We are happy to report that we were able to assist a family in California and save them several hundred dollars on their urn selection. Same urn at the funeral home was $675.00. Makes me question my prices.

The mortuary actually had this urn in stock. Many of the funeral homes we deal with stock samples or work from catalogs and carry a very limited supply of expensive urns. When asked the question, do your cremation families make an urn purchase at the funeral home? Guess what the answer is.

Today’s tip for better living: Go deep.

Half-Ash Settlement

Greetings!

While we never followed the movements of Anna Nicole Smith when she was alive, somehow we’ve been sucked into the complications swirling around the paternity of her baby girl and 10 year legal battle for her late husband’s 1.6 billion dollar estate.

Dirtsister was unaware that ANS and J. Marshall’s son even fought over who would get Paw-Paw’s remains! The court determined the widow and son would split the ashes.

It’s a busy week in the garden and we’re happy to report that most of the debris from the January ice storm has been removed. Now we are hearing locals complain about tire tracks in their yards and “Where’s my FEMA check?” Please.

During the ice storm we visited with a client in upstate New York who remarked that it’s been an unusually warm winter and was 60 degrees that day. They are reaping the rewards of the warm winter now, buried in five feet of snow.

Here’s your tip for the day: Have a secret hiding place!

February Heart Break Month

Greetings! Today has been a nutty day and February is Heart Month, so let’s get started.
We’ll start with Anna Nicole Smith, 39. Died of a broken heart. We’ll wait for the medical examiner’s report, but trust me….broken heart. Pray for her baby. So many complications in that story, interesting case study for the law students. Not to mention feeding frenzy by the media.
Speaking of babies, the loss of a child is too painful to write about, we talked to a family today that lost a babe due to a freak accident in the home. Heartbreaking.

We love all things Egyptian and overheard a recent visitor to the Tut Exhibit in Chicago describing the some of the death masks on display. Evidently, it was common practice to make masks of infants, including the still born. Heart stopping.
If there is any good news to be found in all of this, the infant mortality rate has plummeted. The numbers have completely shifted.

From funeralwire.com, here’s a quote from Van Pine, president of American Funeral Consultants, New Paltz, N.Y. In the course of human history, most cultures have been made up of parents who buried their children, because most deaths occurred to young people, Pine said. Today’s Baby Boomer funeral directors are really sort of the tail end of…the first generation where children are burying their parents. This is a huge shift.

This change has been little noticed because it has unfolded over generations, as better sanitation and healthcare as well as cures to numerous childhood diseases have gradually reduced the death rate among the nation’s young people. But take a look at this longer view that Pine provided of the average age of Americans at the time of death:

1900: 0-14 53% 65-plus 17%
1950s: 0-14  9% 65-plus 53%
Today: 0-14 2% 65-plus 75%

A century ago, Pine said, his great-grandfather worked as a funeral director and had two livery set-ups: a black hearse with black horses for adults, and a white hearse with white horses for younger folks who had died. They ran the white hearse more than they did the black hearse he said. All the customs that we have were built around burying young people….The needs (of families) began to shift some time in the 30s, 40s and 50s, and we didn’t necessarily recognize it.

Look at those statistics again: A century ago, only one-sixth of funerals were likely to be arranged for a parent 65 years or older; today, more than three-quarters of funerals fit that bill. That means younger and younger people are involved in the funeral arrangement. People are burying and cremating different kinds of people. The relationships are different, Pine adds. The meaning of life and death is different…Many funerals in the past were to recognize that which never could be, because it was the death of a child. And today, we’re recognizing that which was. In other words, today’s funeral arranger is more likely to be an adult child who wants to help create a meaningful, personalized and even celebratory event for a parent who lived a full life.

That’s enough about that. Here’s today’s tip for better living:

No matter your gender: Own some go-go boots.

Generation X Decisions in Death

The February issue of Mortuary Management’s Colleague Wisdom asks funeral directors around the country what the trends are with younger patrons planning funerals.

Generation X’ers are likely to choose cremation for a parent or older adult, but tend to make burial arrangements for a child.

A Colorado funeral home reports that the younger clients associate viewings and funerals with grief, and prefer “celebrations” for remembering over traditional funerals. Service details tend to be more creative, often coordinated by close friends of the family. Visitations include mementos, videos, and photos on display tracing the life of the loved one.

Video tributes tend to by chosen by the younger clients and even though the funeral home may offer that service, often Xrs choose to produce the a video on DVD or Powerpoint presentation themselves. From personal experience, the video tribute is a nice touch and really personalizes the service.

A funeral director in Oregon reports that his younger clients often request an ID viewing of the body before disposition.

Arizona reports that when asked the question, “What do you want for a final tribute?”, the answer is often …they are not sure what they want….but…they DO know what they DON’T want.

We see many of these trends in the Garden, families that come to us a year or two after the passing and decide on an urn and final resting place. It’s not unusual to hear about someone storing their loved one’s ashes in the temporary container on the nightstand beside their bed and then feeling strong enough to make a decision.

Families that choose to scatter the ashes sometimes like to plant a tree or place a memorial stone in the garden. More families are purchasing keepsake items and choosing to keep the ashes in the home as opposed to burial. On a whim, we decided to add a line of jewelry that discreetly holds a tiny amount of ashes or lock of hair and has been hugely popular with families.

It’s a personal choice.

Mr. Urngarden has been instructed to harvest anything of value and pack the rest into a mortar shell for a big fireworks show! Enjoy!

Things to Do Before You Die: Discourage all things that come in gray.