This entry is pretty macabre. Those of you who are offended at making light of the dead should just go back to the March calendar. Okay, if everybody's now where they're supposed to be?
Last night, I read an essay in the New Yorker by a surgeon describing his ambivalence about mandatory autopsies. He sort of backed into his article by way of a family offended at the thought of further abuse to a woman who'd been hit by a car. ?An autopsy? Hasn't she been through enough?? Not to beat? er, not to belabor the point, but the woman was already dead. She couldn't go through any more. I found myself thinking of what to do with my body after my death.
Respect for the dead is, of course, for the living rather than the dead. Paying our respects helps ease the passage, and offers a left-handed assurance that our own death will be treated with dignity. Whatever my next of kin want to do with my body is entirely up to them, whatever makes them feel most comfortable. But if the departed lived a full life, and saw it coming, death is normal and natural. It's not a grim subject, though I suppose it isn't cause for celebration, either.
Or maybe it is cause for celebration. I've never been to an Irish wake, but I'd like to try one. When Grandma Roth died, we all had Sunday dinner together at her house, much as she liked to do, and I thought that was a fine wake. And I love John Cleese's eulogy for Graham Chapman, including lines like ?Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard. I hope he fries,? and ?[Chapman's spirit whispered] 'I want you to be the first person ever at a British memorial service to say ?'fuck.?'?
In that spirit, may I point out the opportunities for dada art your cadaver presents? I humbly suggest my friends and family consider attaching cords to my limbs and performing a unique marionette show. This would be a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle, and they could relax knowing that I wouldn't mind. Or imagine being put on display in segments, complete with a diagram like those you see of disassembled cows in butcher shops. If our laws allow it, and if my flesh isn't all old and icky by then, they could even go so far as cannibalism. Wouldn't you like to be able to tell your friends what human tastes like? I wouldn't object to being mummified or stuffed and mounted. I could continue to give visitors a start, sitting by the fireplace with a book in my lap, staring ahead like a mounted deer head.
I suppose a practical joke wherein a remote-controlled device snaps my eyelids open is going a bit too far; you can't be sure how a victim will react.
On a more serious note, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry has a stairwell in which are suspended two human bodies sliced into ¾-inch layers and sandwiched between glass for display. One is cut horizontally, the other vertically, so visitors climbing the stairs can see the inner machinery of the human body a slice at a time. Kids have stopped at that display for generations, and a few may have been galvanized to pursue a career in biology or medicine. What more could you ask of a corpse? If a museum can use my body when I'm done with it, they can have it, wholly or in parts.
Oh, one more thing. Get out your driver's license. See that area on the back where you can mark that you're willing to donate organs? Even if you're squeamish, there's no excuse for not filling that out right now. You could save a life. Keeping the casket closed at your funeral is a small price to pay for that.