unburying the dead

I read recently that in Greece, graves are not forever - they are rented for a few years and then the law requires that the body be exhumed to allow for other burials, while the bones of the exhumed are put either in an ossuary (like a file cabinet for the dead) or tossed in a digestive pit, though these are now so full that another option will have to be found. Of course everyone eventually ends up in the digestive pits - eventually, people run out of money to keep the bones of their loved ones in an ossuary, eventually, when enough time passes there are no more living to remember the dead. Greece’s gravediggers average 15 exhumations a week - the country is slowly but surely turning into the world’s largest, oldest boneyard, unless they break the grip of the Orthodox church and start cremating the dead, as you were.

Naturally there are people terribly traumatized by the exhumation process - the law requires a family member to be present, but some just can’t bring themselves to see, especially the parents of deceased children who fear to be confronted not with the remains of the child, but the remains of the childhood - plastic and metal toys that do not decompose anymore than the dreams they had for the child’s future decompose.

“You imagine him like a person and then you see only the bones,” one woman said. “It’s like a second funeral.” Though that’s not always true - three years (the minimum rental period) is not always enough for the decomposition process, especially if the departed had cancer treatments - apparently, chemotherapy has. a partial embalming effect. Which means, had you been buried you might still be here in part, even wasted away as you were.

The gravediggers use a backhoe to start and finish the job with a shovel. No priest is called - the gravedigger himself is the one to gather up what remains….a long black sock with a shin bone still inside, a shoe, a suit jacket that is given a shake for the bones inside to clatter out. The bones are laid out on a white sheet, the clothes go into a common wheelie bin sitting at the edge of the grave.

When I learned you were cremated (“cremation rights have been accorded”) I screamed aloud. But we’re going to be cremated, my husband said, not understanding my tears. I just wasn’t ready yet for you to be totally gone, is all. The idea of you lying in a bed with a lid on it under the weight of dark earth was comforting; the idea that I could see what was left of the physical you, no matter how improbable, made me feel better. How surprised I was to learn that Greece is place where it is not only not improbable, but inevitable. How unsurprised I was to read the story of the woman who slipped a finger bone of her husband into her pocket.

It’s good that you were cremated, because I’m not sure I would have been able to withstand the temptation to dig you up and take something, anything from your coffin. I read Pet Sematary; I know what to expect. Stephen King had a mortician uncle, and provided great detail with regards to embalming, grave liners, etc. I feel like I know what to expect, and seeing you decomposing was not an awful thought - cancer had started the process well before you died, and nothing but nothing will ever be as upsetting as the picture your mom sent, the pain-raddled smile on your skull-like face, only your blue eyes recognizably the same.

I did not have the courage to ask your wife for some of your ashes - I knew I had no right but the urge was there. I have a few things of yours, though not enough. The important ones I gave to your mom to give to your kids. I am left with some of the furniture we bought together, which is meaningless as you didn’t care about such things. I have some of your CDs, and a couple of hats. I wish I’d kept a pair of your shoes which maybe more than anything else expressed your values - comfortable, never fancy, always practical and well worn, often with holes in the soles. I wonder that happened to the windbreaker jacket you bought in Korea with your name stitched in white cursive on the breast, the one with matching pants you’d wear spring skiing, laughing along with everyone else at the comical figure you cut, shining head to toe in royal blue against the white white snow.

All of which to say, I still miss you. The other day I saw a long legged bird standing knee deep in an estuary and suddenly remembered that dumb joke you made, all solemn faced as we sat at a little cafe on the edge of the San Francisco Bay, just after moving there. When I go, you said (and ah God we had no idea how soon that would be) let’s have no tears or egrets. I looked at you, puzzled, then followed your thousand yard stare to the snowy egrets stalking the lawn outside and we both burst out laughing. I am doing my best with the egrets but I still cry at the most unexpected times. I still whisper hello to you and my dad every morning, imagining the two of you, joined by your dad, sitting together in lawn chairs on a porch somewhere having a beer and contentedly not talking, just watching the evening fall down to dusk.