Woodland Burial Area in the City of London Cemetery (Photo by By Acabashi – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91073911)

Dear Readers, my dear friend’s mother died last week, and she had very definite thoughts on what she wanted for her funeral. There was to be no church service, but she wanted music and poetry. Most of all, she wanted a woodland burial, in a wicker coffin. She yearned for simplicity, and for a ceremony that celebrated her as a human being. And so, I’m sure that’s what she’s going to have, and I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that the weather is kind, and that the peace of the beautiful trees will help to calm the grieving souls who stand beneath them.

And so, my thoughts turned to what I would want when I die. I believe that it’s never too early to start thinking about these things (though of course I hope that any planning won’t come to fruition for quite a while yet). I’ve been to rather more funerals/memorial services/internments than I’d have liked over the past few years, but they have given me a bit of an idea of what I’d like.

Mum wanted to be cremated because she didn’t like the idea of the ‘creepy crawlies’, and so that’s what she got. As Bug Woman, however, I am very happy to feed the creepy crawlies, though an important thing to note is that one shouldn’t be embalmed – the chemicals are terrible for the soil and for the very creatures that do the work of decomposition. Plus, I have heard of too many people terrorised by the sight of a embalmed loved one in an open coffin, completely changed from how they looked in life. I do respect that in other traditions this is an important part of the ceremony (in fact, take everything written here as purely personal, and not a judgement on what anybody else wants), but I wouldn’t want a long lying-in in state. I’m not Lenin, after all.

Cremation is also very energy-intensive, as you can imagine – some forward-looking crematoria are aiming to power their cremators by renewable energy, but even so I can’t help thinking that there must be at least some air pollution from the whole process. Plus I can’t get past that James Bond film where he wakes up in a coffin being fed into a cremator and has to kick his way out with flames all around him. No thank you!

If one is being buried, however, it’s important to think of what you’re being buried in. In some woodland burial sites, you can be buried in a simple cotton shroud, or a wicker or cardboard coffin. I always fancied one of those Ghanaian coffins, which are designed to represent the interests of the person who has died, though I’m not sure that they’re that eco-friendly. Maybe we could get a cardboard one, and someone could paint it with a few burial beetles so they’ll get the idea of what’s expected of them.

Ghanaian Coffin in the shape of a lobster…(Photo by Yanajin33, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons)

A Selection of Ghanaian Coffins (Photo by Walt Jabsco at https://www.flickr.com/photos/waltjabsco/263248255)

Cocoa pod coffin (cocoa was one of Ghana’s main exports) Photo Christina B Castro at https://www.flickr.com/photos/cbcastro/1393532104

In a lot of woodland burial sites, there are no headstones and no memorials, though you can often plant an appropriate tree. Personally I don’t mind this – I don’t believe that I’ll be there, except as a recycled earthworm or lesser celandine or, if I’m lucky, a robin. I believe that you live on in the minds and hearts of those who knew you, or came across your writing or art or whatever you left behind, and that feels like enough. I think it might have been different if I’d had children – I certainly get a lot of comfort from visiting Mum and Dad’s grave, but I think that’s more because of the whole village and my memories of it, rather than any thoughts that Mum and Dad are actually there. They’re with me in my heart, always, in my DNA and in the way I cook a roast dinner (Mum) or plant out my seedlings (Dad),

There are some new burial methods coming up as well. One is known as water cremation, and it seems to basically involve the same technique that murderers have used to get rid of  bodies after their dastardly crimes. Technically known as alkaline hydrolysis, the body is basically dissolved in boiling potassium hydroxide and water, before the remains are reduced to a small amount of ash. Apparently it’s becoming more popular in the UK, and it certainly has a much lower carbon footprint than cremation, though for totally illogical reasons it makes me feel a bit sick in a way that cremation doesn’t.

And then there’s composting – the body is placed in a stainless steel container with wood  chips, alfalfa and straw, and after about two months everything has literally been turned to compost. Alas, this isn’t available in the UK yet, but it’s becoming popular in the US, so I imagine it will become an option here soon. You can use the compost for trees and plants (though I have no idea if you can be ‘spread’ on your own vegetable garden).

All in all, I think I fancy the idea of a woodland burial, but with this caveat: I think that the ceremonies that we have after death are really for those left behind. So while there is comfort in doing things according to a loved-one’s wishes, I think there’s a lot to be said for also reassuring those that you love that, in the end, it was what happened while you were alive that mattered, and if your wishes can’t be followed it doesn’t matter. I think of the torture that people went through during lockdown when they couldn’t have the ceremonies that they would have liked to remember their loved ones, and what an additional burden of grief and guilt this put on people who were already suffering. And  so, preferences are just that – preferences. If they can’t be fulfilled, it’s not important. And no one should punish themselves for things that turned out not to be possible.

Over to you, Readers! Preferences for burial, cremation, something else? I am not forgetting that Hunter S. Thompson asked for his ashes to be fired out of a cannon, and I have heard several people express a preference for a Tibetan-style Sky Burial, where your bones are carried off by vultures (though you’d wait a long time for a vulture in East Finchley). Is it something you think about, or something you’d rather not dwell upon? Have you been to a funeral or ceremony that seemed to hit all the right/wrong notes?

And we haven’t even gotten started on funeral music yet. The man being buried just before my Dad had chosen ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’, which was nothing if not dramatic. But that’s maybe something for another post.