READERS: The post below is a part of October’s Synchroblog (details of the Synchroblog are at the bottom of this post). It deals with a sensitive subject matter, namely death and the disposition of the body after life ends. If you have recently lost someone, or are very sensitive, you may not wish to read it.]
The day after my father’s sudden and very unexpected death, I found myself standing in the middle of a “casket showroom”, trying to pick out a suitable receptacle for Dad’s body. (Previous to that day, I hadn’t even known that casket showrooms existed: I’d thought that caskets were chosen from a catalog or brochure.) Despite my crushing grief, I could barely keep from giggling: The place looked like a car dealership, except the new occupants of these “vehicles” wouldn’t be driving them off the lot.
I learned a lot that day: I learned that the Social Security death benefit wouldn’t even cover the cost of a floral arrangement. I learned that wooden caskets are much more expensive than metal (and that a wooden casket could cost more than a whole living room set). I learned that one needed to purchase a separate (and expensive) vault to surround the casket. I learned that extra was extra, nothing was free, nothing was cheap, and that this is considered the proper way to send off one’s dead.
*****************************
Several months later, I happened upon a television expose of shady funeral home practices. Much to my dismay, I learned that the “protective” effects of caskets, vaults, sealing, etc, are an illusion. In fact, as one expert put it, such protection only served to make decomposition much more “slimy”: Instead of the body dehydrating quickly (ashes to ashes, dust to dust), it would rot and fester over a much longer period of time. We spend thousands of dollars to embalm and seal up a body while it is above ground, while never considering the fermenting sludge that we’ve cooked up below.
The irony in trying to prevent the worms from “playing pinochle” in Granny’s snout (resulting in Granny looking like a Dawn of The Dead extra for longer than she ought) is pretty obvious. But there is also another irony: We may abhor the natural process of decomposition most of the time, but then at Halloween we celebrate it. We dress as corpses in varying states of decay and we stand in line at midnight for the premier of the latest Romero remake.
But Halloween ghouls and Hollywood zombies bear neither the stench of decay nor the rotting, but still recognizable, faces of those we love. Our fear and repulsion are real, but we are still in control: We can walk out of the theatre or close the door on the costumed trick-or-treater. We can scrub off the fake gore and put the mask away for another year. Death at Halloween has no hold over us.
Or maybe it does. While reports of children dying from eating poisoned candy (or being sacrificed by Satanists) have been proven false, our dead are still dead, even at Halloween. We might remember them by name at an All Souls service, or even wonder (hope?) if a flickering light bulb is a “sign” from a lonely ghost. But the horror of death (and death is horrible), remains untouched by the kitsch and the candy. We still know the absence of those who are beloved by us. We still know, even as we try to avoid this knowledge, the fate of those bodies that we once embraced as friends, sought refuge in as children, caressed as lovers, or cuddled as parents. Death’s power to destroy those beloved bodies is an evil so great, we can only ignore, seal, bury, embalm, costume and mythologize our anguish, even as we strive not to know it.
********************************
As a teenaged fundamentalist, I refused to celebrate Halloween. While every other member of my family eagerly carved their pumpkins into grinning jack-o-lanterns, I dourly scraped out my pumpkin (I still liked to roast and eat the seeds.) and made a pretty “Fall arrangement” with some colorful gourds. I wouldn’t pass out Halloween candy, fearing that I would be leading costumed children down the road to perdition.
(I didn’t know death then. I had never seen one who was beloved to me slowly decline into a human shell. I had never learned that someone who I loved would never be known to me again. Death had yet to touch me in any meaningful way: I could afford to be pious.)
I know death now. I’ve watched grandparents age and their weakened bodies fail. I sat helpless at a restaurant table when my father’s heart stopped beating and his eyes stopped seeing me. I’ve answered too many phone calls bearing news of a friend’s or relative’s overdose, suicide, freak accident, or heart attack. I’ve comforted my husband as he mourned his dead mother. I’ve held a beloved pet and felt the interrupted rhythm of a last breath during the fatal injection. I’ve also changed my tune on greeting trick-or-treaters. Now, at Halloween, I put on my feathered witch’s hat, fill bowls with candy, and cheerfully answer the door when the kids come. The costumed zombies and mummies and skeletons don’t know what they are playing at, but I do, and (probably out of wistful jealousy), I’ll celebrate their innocence with them, for as long as it lasts.
Check out the other great Synchroblog posts below:
The Christians and the Pagans Meet for Samhain at Phil Wyman’s Square No More
Julie Clawson at One Hand Clapping
John Morehead at John Morehead’s Musings
Vampire Protection by Sonja Andrews
What’s So Bad About Halloween? at Igneous Quill
H-A-double-L-O-double-U-double-E-N Erin Word
Halloween….why all the madness? by Reba Baskett
Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground
KW Leslie at The Evening of Kent
Hallmark Halloween by John Smulo
Mike Bursell at Mike’s Musings
Sam Norton at Elizaphanian
Removing Christendom from Halloween at On Earth as in Heaven
Vampires or Leeches: A conversation about making the Day of the Dead
meaningful by David Fisher
Encountering hallow-tide creatively by Sally Coleman
Kay at Chaotic Spirit
Apples and Razorblades at Johnny Beloved
Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground
Fall Festivals and Scary Masks at The Assembling of the Church
Why Christians don’t like Zombies at Hollow Again
Peering through the negatives of mission Paul Walker
Sea Raven at Gaia Rising
Making Space for Halloween by Nic Paton
Tim Victor’s Musings
