On Death & Dying [Repost]

I find it odd that death creates so many practical dilemmas. Sure it's a morbid observation, but death is like that sometimes. Sometimes it's cause for celebration (e.g., the death of the Wicked Witch of the West or the very sick old man with the really great corner unit in a rent-controlled building). And sometimes it's really sad (e.g., the death of Ronald Reagan, the parading of whose more-than-likely-corpseless coffin brought both local traffic and national television broadcasting to a screeching halt).

Why 'corpseless', you ask. Do you really think they'd tote a week-old dead body around the country for closed casket services? Plus, I don't know about the rest of the places the casket visited, but there were record high temperatures in DC that day. The soldiers in their wool ceremony uniforms and hats were dropping like flies from heat stroke and being carried away by the busload. Dead bodies and searing heat don't mix, at least not fragrantly. But, I digress.

Getting back to my point: although it can be joyous or sad, often death is just morbid, and it creates practical dilemmas for the living. It's a blessing in disguise, I suppose. By the time you finish an event planning ordeal rivaled only by the most lavish of weddings, make travel, lodging and feeding arrangements for scads of people, finagle bereavement leave from your job, sort through oceans of flowers and cards, and sort through crowds of well-meaning well-wishers and glory-seeking tragedy hounds, you barely have time to breathe, let alone process complex emotion.

I'm just saying death produces a logistical nightmare...and a lot of activity for a phenomenon traditionally associated with stillness.