We treat each other terribly.

I recently lost a wonderful neighbor when I was at sea.

He was in poor health and it was no real surprise to me of, really, for that matter, anyone else that knew him well. 

When I arrived home a someone told me and said the widow was sort of a mess and to be very careful. They told me he passed on the way home from a vacation home he has owned for decades. It really wasn't a bad way to go. The two of them were together.

I wandered over and with my usual sensitivity and compassion I knocked on the door. When she opened it I simply asked her, "Other than that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"

That woman and I have shared a relationship as neighbors that really meant we had nothing to say between us. She KNEW how I felt. I liked her husband. She also understands my sometimes brutal sarcasm and actually at times appreciates it. I actually think she would have disappointed if I didn't say something totally insensitive and sarcastic.

Losing a mate is a truly overwhelming event and there's no real preparation for it. It can and often does destroy people.

Of course, there really isn't anything anybody can do. We all leave the planet sometime. Death is a part of life just as birth is.

Still, everybody tries to sooth the widow or widower and virtually everyone is clumsy in their attempt. They generally make the bereaved feel worse. 

Personally I simply offer my condolences and leave it at that. Sometimes all it takes is a simply nod. The nod says it all. It says I know you lost someone and you have my condolences.  I do believe most people ought to do pretty much the same. If it's a friend I simply tell them they already know how I feel.Telling the bereaved what a wonderful person their mate was and carrying on tends only to make things worse.

The worst ones to for the bereaved to deal with are those that bust out crying and carrying on. That sort of thing is contagious and certainly do the bereaved no good whatsoever. 

While we're on the subject, if you are supposed to be a part of the service please get a grip on yourself first. Don't get up there and start blubbering away. Simply hold it in and do your reading or whatever it is you are supposed to do.

I hate funerals and it is my desire simply to buried at sea Old School style. It's a simple process. 

The remains are placed in a shroud of some sort, trussed up and weighted. At the appropriate time (over deep water) the order to stop engines is given followed by the order to prepare to bury the dead.

The body is placed in a plank of some sort, if appropriate covered with a flag. The prayer for burial of the dead at sea is recited, the end of the plank is lifted, the body slips out from under the flag into the sea. The order to secure from burial and prepare to make way is given. It really is that simple.

This is the prayer from the 1789 Book of Common Prayer, suitable for Christian burial:

WE therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body (when the sea shall give up her dead,) and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who at his coming shall change our vile body, that it may be like his glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself. 

The whole procedure is short and simple and tends to keep people from brooding, yet has a certain dignity to it. That at least lets the crew know that if they die at sea they won't simply be fed to the sharks.

I really only want one or two people to accompany me on my final voyage and the reason for that is to make sure the skipper doesn't just take the money and dump me where I'll be scraped up by some fisherman dragging the bottom for flounder.

Almost anything decent I have ever had has come from my working on the water. My home, car whatever have all been paid for by my career on the water. Life originated in the water and it is only fair that it return there.

I generally hate going in a circle and winding up at Square One but there's no getting out of this life alive so going full circle makes sense.















To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY