We Buried our Friend
Sunday, January 24, 2021 at 2:59PM By Tamara Palmer Rempel
We buried our friend yesterday. Actually, we didn’t bury our friend. Because, well, COVID. But the her family buried our friend privately. And yes, it was tragic. And it is horrific. She was only 38 and left behind four children, two to ten years old. And our lives are irrevocably changed because we’ve known her. And our hearts are irreparably broken because she's no longer with us. And don’t even get me started on what the world is missing out on with her absence.
But, in the midst of the tears and the memories and the grief-ridden mourners, what struck me while viewing her funeral service, was the inconspicuous, yet gorgeous pine box that is her final bed. Three silver handles per side, a lid that slid on and was screwed tight by her bereaved at the end of the funeral liturgy. It was made with love and thought and care and, I imagine, many tears, by a college friend. He then drove across three (western) provinces to deliver it in time for yesterday’s events.
In his eulogy, my friend’s beloved spouse, spoke of the deliberate decision he made to not embalm her. Instead he laid her in a simple, exquisite casket, because the sacredness of nature ran through my friend’s veins. The natural world inspired her, revived her, blessed her and restored her soul. To know her, was to imbibe on the lush, untamed rainforests of coastal British Columbia. And the intentional choice of returning her body in the purest form to the earth’s embrace - no chemicals or plastics or barriers from the natural decomposition - is revealed as her last act of loving the world. It was also her family’s last gift to her, giving her back to the very creation that had formed their beloved into whom they now grieve.
And understanding that she is becoming part of the earth again is a comfort to those of us left behind -knowing we can step outside and be enveloped in her presence, alive in the windswept grasses, the beckoning wildflowers and most especially in her beloved trees.
Earlier SETI columns on burial