Urns R Us

Wow. I just went to costco.com to order some photos of Emmy for Mom, and I discovered a category of merchandise I hadn’t noticed before: Funeral. There are flowers, memorial knickknacks, caskets and urns (for the two- and four-legged, both). For $949.99 you can get the “In God’s Care Casket,” which is rated five stars. I seriously don’t want to know the basis on which it has achieved this stellar ranking, but as a journalist I am compelled, for the public good.

Oh dear. Oh, dear dear. One satisfied customer (not the one who calls the casket ‘home’) writes from (appropriately) Los Angeles, “The moment my siblings and I saw this casket we knew it was the one for our Papa.”

Deathy-death-death. Let’s talk more about it. MF bought me a book by Norman Maclean: Young Men &  Fire, about the legendary-to-smokejumpers Mann Gulch fire in which many young men died. MF was a smokejumper. Those are the ones who parachute into forest fires carrying 110-pound packs. The memory of those times is sacred to those who went through it in their youth — which is the only time to go through it, at the peak of fitness and fearlessness. Maclean (who was also a smokejumper) writes about how former colleagues remember those days. “… when they are far away and far up the professional ladder, they get a remote look in their eyes when they talk about the tap on the calf on the left leg telling them it’s only a step to the sky.” I can confirm the truth of that: that look in the eye. MF said that if he felt that tap even now, he might jump. I asked him to show me the exact spot they got tapped. Just in case I need that info someday.

Anyhow, the book is magically written and fascinating. Even the introduction is profound:

“As I get considerably beyond the biblical allotment of three score years and ten, I feel with increasing intensity that I can express my gratitude for still being around on the oxygen-side of the earth’s crust only by not standing pat on what I have hitherto known and loved. While the oxygen lasts, there are still new things to love, especially if compassion is a form of love.”

Also:

“The problem of self-identity is not just a problem for the young. It is a problem all the time. Perhaps the problem. It should haunt old age, and when it no longer does it should tell you that you are dead.”