"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval." -- George Santayana

Death is a funny thing. You never know when it will hit. You never know how much time you have on the earth. But you know from about the time you're five that it isn't forever. The vast majority of us live our lives in fear of death.

I spent a whole summer of my life obsessing about death. It was between fifth and sixth grades, I think, and it occupied far too much of the time that I should have spent playing in the sun.

In the end, the only thing I think I really learned from it is that I should value whatever time I have, that nobody really has the answers, and that given half a chance I can wallow in depression for an extremely silly length of time.

Death is really mystifying to us. And this is reflected in the way we deal with it.

Part of the problem is in determining exactly when death occurs. Even now, with modern science we have a hard time. Is death the moment the brain stops functioning, or can it be assumed when people start buying Garth Brooks albums. However confusing recent medical advances and country music have made determining the moment of death, imagine how confusing it was to our ancestors.

For instance, the Dayaks of Borneo didn't bury the corpses of their suspected dead for months. During that time they'd always set a place for it at the table, offering it food and water, and they'd talk to it. They were waiting for it to complete it's departure to the spirit world or snap back to life. If it didn't come back to life after several months they'd bury it.

However frightening the idea of burying someone alive is, I think they probably went a little overboard with it. Of course, I think we here in the U.S. are hardly in a position to criticize. I mean, we were so afraid to bury a particular former actor that beyond just offering him food and drink we elected him to a second term as president!

In Bali, they believe that the spirit lingers on for exactly 42 days after death. After that--and only after that--will they cremate the corpse.

Strangely enough, 42 days is exactly the amount of time it takes for the Columbia CD Club to process your order.

As time went on, most cultures developed a pretty good idea of when death occured. Or at least they figured out that when someone started to turn green and smell funny it wasn't just a good place for a stick-up, it was a good time to bury them.

Which brings us to burial methods.

The first and most popular is sticking someone under something (the technical term is "inhumation," but I've read my Dante and know which circle of Hell is reserved for people who use lots of technical terms). The Egyptians were really good at this. In fact, they built huge pyramids just to stick people under.

The Egyptians, who thought way too much about death, were the first to use the practice of embalming. This involved removing the major organs and placing them in herbed alcohol-filled urns. Special oils and such were placed inside the body cavity which was then sealed. The whole body was soaked in alcohol, wrapped in bandages and finally sealed away in a sarcoph--sorry, coffin. This was to prepare the body for it's journey in the afterworld. Interestingly enough, the only major organ that didn't accompany them on the trip to the afterworld was the brain, which was thrown away during the embalming process because it was thought to be useless. Bet they feel pretty stupid now.

Nowadays we have an entire industry revolving around embalming. Where it was once useful to preserve corpses for transport from battlefields to home or to prevent the spread of disease, it is now used almost entirely as a way to take money from grieving people. If you're a president's corpse and plan on being viewed by millions of people over the course of several days, then embalming may be for you. But otherwise, just how many days does the average person's corpse need to be preserved? Smart money is on, "No days. I'll start rotting immediately, thank you.

Another interesting corpse-disposal method that's seeing more and more popularity in the U.S. is exposure. Practiced mainly by the Zoroastrians in Iran, it's where a corpse is left outside to be eaten by wild animals. The wild animals, mostly vultures, wolves or sharks, pick the corpse clean in a matter of hours. I won't say much about its growing popularity in the U.S. save that it involves Rush Limbaugh and a fair amount of barbecue sauce.

Really, they've got a point. Why go to all the trouble of embalming them and burying them when you can just leave them to be eaten by carnivorous animals. I know I have a relative I wouldn't mind throwing to the wolves.

Cremation sounds like a winning idea. It takes up very little space, it isn't as expensive or gruesome as embalming, and it leaves a decorative urn for the mantelpiece of your survivors.

The only trouble is most of us don't know what happens to us in the afterlife. Where this becomes a problem with cremation is: What is we need our body in the afterline? All the adhesive in the world won't help us then.

That's why I haven't signed a donor card -- I'm afraid I'll need some major body part that I've foolishly given away.

All in all, death isn't really all that funny. That's precisely why we have to laugh at it long and hard whenever possible. Otherwise, it's far too serious a notion to devote much time to considering.

I'll leave you with the words of Oscar Wilde who said, "This wallpaper is killing me; one of us has to go."

If you've enjoyed reading about death, why not pick up "Panatti's Extraordinary Endings of Practically Everything and Everybody" by Charles Panati?

Copyright © 1994 by Robert T. Bakie