A Tree, A Grave and a Really Big Party!!!

Assistant Village Idiot rejects the planting of a memorial tree. I can certainly understand that as far as it goes. To think that by planting a tree instead of a gravestone you extend your remembrance strikes me also as a misplaced sentiment. But if you take a much shorter and much less sentimental view, then planting a tree can be a pretty good idea. I would like to offer my survivors two options. While both require some effort, I think they may be worthwhile.

Option A.

Plant a fruit tree directly on my grave. Plant me below it in a simple pine box. The idea is that the tree’s roots should penetrate the box and assimilate me into the itself. I will be a huge organic fertilizer spike. It must be a fruit tree, preferably an apple tree. You see, when it gets to the point where it can bear fruit, lots of yummy apples, then take those apples one autumn, mash them and press them. Take the resulting juice and put it up to ferment. That’s right – Cider. Lots of it.

Then have a party. Invite people from all over. Drink all the cider. Tell ridiculous stories. Stay up very late. Sing loud songs. And Dance a lot to wild music, preferably by live musician playing stringed instruments and drums. If you wish, repeat the ritual yearly until the tree is too old to bear fruit any longer. Then cut it down and burn it at the last party. Roast a pig over the coals and have a really great final shindig. Then forget about me.

Option B

Burn my body. Scatter the ash over a plot earth. Till the plot and grow a garden fertilized by my ashes. Grow vegetables of all kinds. Especially grow cabbage, carrots, hot peppers, tomatoes, onions, Take whatever gets thinned out or that you can’t eat and feed it to a pig.. Take the veggies and make cole slaw, salsa, soup, and whatever else you can think of that is good. Kill the pig and roast it over a hardwood fire. Serve it with cider, barbecue sauce, cole slaw and salsa from the garden. Have a barrel of cider on hand. Eat it all, drink it all, laugh a lot…you know the drill.

I prefer Option A, but let me suggest that if you cut my body in half, burn one half and bury the other, then you can have it both ways. It has a certain symmetry to it really.

And…after the Resurrection, we all get to do it all again, forever, but without the whole dying part. I'll be able to join in directly. I figure these little rituals can me my way of helping the descendants practice for the Eternal Wedding Feast of the Lamb. We better start practicing now…it’s a real endurance event. We’re gonna need to get ready.