Life After Mother: Extras Like A Coffin

Great American comic talents Elaine May and Mike Nichols used to do a skit about how expensive funerals are. He comes to her about the seventy-five-dollar funerals her company advertises. (You may remember how, back in the mid-century, actual basic low-cost funeral packages were advertised at similar rates — everything was much cheaper then.) She says he can just pay seventy-five dollars and they’ll do the rest, and he agrees. Then, as he’s about to leave, she asks if she may suggest to him some extras — like a coffin.

May and Nichols weren’t exaggerating a bit. Coffins aren’t included in a basic funeral package. They’re truly considered extras and you have to buy one separately. That may be because they come in a wide range of styles and prices, so the cost can’t be easily calculated as part of a larger package.

Another great American comic talent, Bill Cosby, performed his own act on funeral expenses, inspired by the May-Nichols skit. He included a more serious observation, “It’s strange, people would complain about the cost of funerals because it’s your last thing and you want a beautiful funeral.”

My parents were among the many people who would disagree with Cosby’s view. They both willed their bodies to science and cared little about any arrangements beyond that. They shared the attitude, “I’ll be dead so it won’t matter anyway.” Such an attitude, though, simply transfers the burden of making decisions to one’s survivors.

Although I’ve long understood the wisdom of Cosby’s view, I’ve reached an age where I must admit such plans aren’t compatible with my lifestyle. I don’t move in a circle of relatives and friends who value the ceremonial closure a formal funeral provides. If I can’t depend on a houseful of relatives and friends gathering to celebrate birthdays and holidays, I’m not likely to find a supportive group willing to take the time and expense to formally mark my departure from this life.

As I face my final years, I also have to face that final decisions about my end of life will be made by relatives in another state, and their lives are very different from mine. From what I know of them collectively, they have neither the finances nor the sense of priorities to give me that one last thing, that beautiful funeral.

To have any confidence that my end-of-life wishes will be carried out, I will probably have to eventually join their community so I can at least be remembered as part of their extended family. Unlike my parents, I’d prefer a grave (or crypt), which was the choice of all four of my grandparents. I suppose that means I will have to, at some point, pick out and pay for my own cemetery plot, and set aside a special fund to cover my interment.