Saturday, November 3, 2012


No room for great-grandma


Here is a timely article for All Saints Day.   While this article is American (and also talks about the UK and Hong Kong), on the news yesterday I noticed that Bratislava is having trouble as well and that there are discussions afoot about how to expand the Ruzinov cemetary.  Surely expansion cannot go on indefinitely however.  What do you think about the solutions that others have found?

6 comments:

  1. I remember when we went to visit the village in which my father was born during the summer we also went to visit the graves of our ancestors. While we were there, being the small village that it is, we met a number of people that my father knew from his childhood. One of them was this old grandma, who, except for visiting the graves of her family members, had gone to tend to her own grave. My eyes bulged out when she said this, because I had never heard anything so morbid. The thing is that the places in the cemetery are getting sold so fast that people have to purchase them in advance if they want to be buried in the place where they were born and lived their whole lives.

    After reading the article, I cannot help but think that digging holes in enclosed areas and putting dead bodies in them is indeed absurd. When my family and I occasionally go to a cemetery, it is sad to see that most of the graves are not tended to and breaking apart. Most people visit graves less and less as time goes by, and instead honor the individual by remembering them and reminiscing about them with other people. What people in Hong Kong and London are doing is just desperately trying to keep the traditions going in a modern world. The mechanized columbaria seem cold and heartless to me, while London’s approach is inefficient and will not solve this problem.

    After I die, I just want my family and friends to occasionally remember me and talk about me positively. I do not want it to seem like a chore, as it does for some people visiting graves on All Saints Day. I agree with Coutts’ idea of establishing green areas where ashes could be spread. I think I would like my body to be honored that way, as it is not that harmful to the environment (the harmful mercury emissions as a result of the dental fillings could be monitored and minimized) and is not as costly and hard to do. The green spaces could be visited by people who want to pay their respects, while still allowing for the land to remain green and be used by others. I also like the idea of giving my body up for scientific research because I feel that I could be useful and help people in some way.

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  2. I completely agree with Jana's statement that things like “All Saints Day” are just our society's way of holding on to old traditions. The whole idea of cemeteries is slowly becoming a less-than-ideal solution to the problem of our mortality. I still however do not think that the solutions proposed in the article are better.

    One problem I see with scattering the ashes of the dead on a public place, is that it would imply the scattering of the ashes of the dead on a public place. If I took you to a park and told you that several people a day scatter the ashes of someone dead there, I do not think you would be comfortable with that idea. Knowing that literally tons of ashes of dead people are all over the park might just ruin your experience of lying down on the grass and relaxing. There is something about the dead that would prevent you from simply lying on the ground. People scattering the ashes of someone they lost, should consider the feelings of other people towards it. I for example do not like the idea.

    On the other hand, using technology to store the ashed of the dead in huge “libraries” where the relatives could fetch the urn by a smart card completely defies the whole point of storing the remains of the dead. We store the remains of the dead to honor them and I do not think storing them in massive quantities and concentrations in one place like we do with for example radioactive waste, is even remotely equivalent to a cemetery. If we want to mix old traditions like honoring the dead with the newest technology like a liquid nitrogen bath and complete destruction by resonance frequency vibrations, we might as well change the approach completely and go to the very extreme:

    Recently a new and less traditional way of dealing with the deceased entered the market. A way that does not take any room. The ashes of the dead are completely made of carbon. This fact is not uncommon, but there is something else made only of carbon: diamonds. There is a company that will take the ashes of the dead and under extremely high pressures and temperatures will turn these remains into a diamond, which the relatives of the deceased can keep on a wooden tombstone-like structure hanged on a wall in their home.

    This is a less popular way of handling the deceased and I do not know whether I would prefer this to anything else, but it is also an interesting idea.

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    Replies
    1. Basically, I agree with both, Simon and Janka.
      Having my body honored after my death is not the way I would like my relatives to show me respect. If I had to force them to remember me with a grave that has to be treated, than I did something wrong in my life.

      I am long dedicated to donating my organs, because I cannot imagine a more beautiful "end" than by allowing other people to continue living. What is left, then, may be further used for science or cremated. However, just like Simon, I do not believe that scattering ashes of dead people would make a spectacular park. Really, lying on the remnants of thousands of people would not add to the romantic atmosphere of the singing birds, warm spring sun and blooming flowers.

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    2. Simon, I have to agree on all points you’ve made thus far bar two.

      The idea you’ve developed in your second paragraph certainly follows logic, however, making parks for people to scatter ashes is what Coutt had in mind, when he described his idea. “Walkable space” doesn’t necessarily have to mean you would be able to casually sit down on the grass, have a picnic while you’re at it or play Frisbee. The way I imagined it was just that – “walkable spaces, where people scatter the ashes” as mentioned in the article.

      On the second point, though it is just my opinion, I wouldn’t consider depositing urns a desecration to the deceased person’s honor. It is arguable whether massively storing urns is any worse than being buried in an overfilled cemetery with corpses merely two meters away from either side.

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  3. The earth’s population is increasing and logically, so does the number of deaths. More dead bodies mean we need more space for graves. The cemeteries are getting full and in the future there will be not enough places for the dead ones. As Coutts, an associate professor in urban planning at Florida State University says „We thought that space was infinite, but there are limits to the frontier“. Therefore, scientists are thinking of an ecological and efficient way how to deal with this issue. There are already several very good ideas how to solve this problem. Though, it is not very easy to realize them because the rules of different religions have to be respected.

    According to the author of the article, in Hong Kong there is a 5 year waiting lists for ashes to be placed in a burial niche. The Buddhists need a place, where they can always find their ancestors because it is their duty to visit them. The solution to this problem according to the author is, to create mechanized columbaria. There the Buddhist can find the ashes of their beloved ones. The system of mechanized columbaria is similar to the one of a library. The families swipe a card with a code and then the urn with the ashes of their deceased loved one's is chosen out of thousands and taken to a private viewing space. There the families can visit the ashes of their relatives. However, again the space in these mechanized columbaria is also not infinite and eventually there will also need to find a new solution to this problem. This solution is only permanent.

    I don’t believe in any religion so as Jana I just want my family to remind me as a happy person who enjoyed her life. Now, I don’t know for sure, what I want my family to do with my body after I die because as you get older you change your opinion on life and your beliefs. However, for now I would like my ashes to be thrown into the ocean or on a piece of land, so it would be a part of the nature. That is the reason why, I like the idea of a Swedish company called Promessa Organic Burial. This company will plant what is left of your body after several chemical processes and plant it under a rosebush. The part I like the most about this idea is that it doesn’t take up any space.

    „Land that could have grown houses now could grow graves." These words said by Basmajian made me realize the space the dead ones are using could be used by the still living ones. I do understand, for some people it is important to visit the grave of their friends and family because it helps them to deal better with their lost. Though, I think people can still remind them without knowing there body or ash is under the earth next to the grave. Moreover, I would like to add a thought which came up in my mind reading this article. I think it’s a pity that, people think funerals should be only sad and everybody should be in a bad mood. I personally think, funerals are a celebration of the life the beloved ones lived and got to live and I personally don’t want my family to take it as an only sad thing. I want them to celebrate me.

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  4. I am all in for efficiency. In that regard, burying people six feet deep to me seems like not only an outdated concept, but also one that pales in comparison to the alternatives we have today. When juxtaposing traditional burial alongside cremation, the first thing you may notice is the price difference between the two services. Here, in Slovakia at least, burial costs may exceed those of cremation up to fourfold. I’m not saying, we should cheap out when it sorting a person’s post-mortem situation, but is burial really necessary? A person due to be cremated can still have a proper funeral prior to the procedure; without the burial, that is. On the other hand, cremation offers a more elegant approach. After all, if someone so much desires, the ashes could still be buried. In the rest of the cases, keeping them in the urn is simply more practical – takes less space, requires not as intensive maintenance. On a side note, I found the argument against cremation on its environmental issues – [dental fillings release harmful mercury emissions], to an extent laughable. The amount released is just to minuscule for the author to be trying to make a point, using it.

    I am not certain what the situation in America, regarding graveyard capacities, currently really is nor am I capable of foreseeing what it might be in the following 2-4 decades, but I have to say that one of the images in the article, depicting a cemetery, struck me as highly ironic. If we compare the shown cemetery to some found in Slovakia, for example Slavicie Udolie or to an extent Ruzinov, you will easily see what I mean by that. The graves there are so cramped there barely is any space for people to walk around. Identical is the case with cemeteries in Bulgaria for all I know as well.

    As far as the rest of the new proposed alternatives are concerned, though it isn’t mentioned in the article, I have no opinion on burial in space. It is not something that is going to be commercially available any time soon or done on a massive scale. I come to terms with one of the ideas, however. I am not particularly keen on turning dead bodies into tree juice. Essentially, it erases the remnants of the person from the face of the Earth permanently. At least, when scattering ashes you still know that some part of the deceased person exists somewhere. After liquefying a person all traces of his existence will be forever gone. The sonic frost shattering procedure might seem a bit odd at first, however, it isn’t all that different from cremation, aside from being on the opposite side of the temperature spectrum.

    Lastly, I found the idea for a mechanized columbarium the most appropriate one. Despite sounding futuristic, the concept seems very practical for people wishing to preserve one’s ashes, yet reluctant urn handling and maintenance in their own homes.

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