Learning the hard lesson
Professor Kathy Black peppers each startled student enrolled in her University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee class with a single question on the first day: “How old will you be when you die, and what are you going to die of?” Halfway through the course, shaking them up again, she schedules a field trip to a […]
This is how it’s supposed to be
From the website of the Federation of Funeral Cooperatives of Québec: Cooperative funeral homes have proven a highly successful model in Canada, and especially Quebec. The cooperative movement is growing, with 9,600 deaths treated by funeral cooperatives in 2011 in Canada, up more than 5 percent from 2010. The Fédération des Coopératives Funéraires du Québec (Federation […]
Make your own carryyouoffin
From the Waikato Times, New Zealand: A Hamilton high school night class offering people the chance to build their own coffin has been inundated with budding box builders looking to cut funeral costs. Clyde Sutton, a Fraser High School relief teacher, said a surprising amount of community interest was behind the move to teach carpentry […]
An affair of the heart
From today’s Daily Telegraph: Dedicated Winston Howes, 70, spent a week planting each oak sapling after his wife of 33 years Janet died suddenly 17 years ago. He laid out the fledgling trees in a six-acre field but left a perfect heart shape in the middle – with the point facing in the direction of […]
Simile of the day
“This was the last of the fast Oval pitches. If Malcolm hadn’t taken nine for 57, there might have been a case for making Harry Brind the man of the match. Brind, in his last season as head groundsman at Surrey, produced a glorious wicket: hard, fast and as true as a dying man’s final […]
Simple solution
We had an enquiry the other day about simple funerals. Our enquirer had visited the website of a funeral director, surveyed the components of their simple funeral (as prescribed by the NAFD at 11.4), and reckoned it would do nicely. The cost was £1640. All our enquirer wanted on top was a limousine. He gave […]
Thoughts of a funeral-goer
Posted on behalf of Mrs Mollington by Barry I have not been well lately so Barry, Daisy’s lovely friend, is kindly typing this as I dictate my latest ‘Thoughts’. He is an excellent touch-typist despite having builder’s hands. He’s smiling – he’s a retired English teacher. But I don’t think he’ll mind if I proof-read it […]
Stat of the day
A study in Finland (1996) found that men are 30% more likely to die in the first six months after the death of their partner, and 20% more likely to die thereafter. Women, on the other hand, are 20% more likely to die in the first six months after the death of their partner, falling […]
The Common and the particular
Posted by Vale I like these men and women who have to do with death, Formal, gentle people whose job it is, They mind their looks, they use words carefully. I liked that woman in the sunny room One after the other receiving such as me Every working day. She asks the things she must […]
Interdependence
Posted by Vale We were saying farewell to a very old lady – nearly 99 – who had spent her last years living in a care home. She had no family there and, apart from myself and the organist, there were just four people present, all of them members of staff from the Care Home. […]
