Burials, not Funerals

Yesterday, Jakob and I buried our 14-year old dog Benny—Jakob had him for four years, I had him for six—below the garden, under the willows. It was the fitting end to a gentle death at the vet’s: a sedative to go to sleep, then a lethal injection. I’m glad we physically dug the hole, laid him in it, gently covered his face with a sheet, and filled the hole. I’ve buried some of my animal friends before, and cremated others, but this felt especially right. Today, I went to the Catholic mass for a sweet neighbor named Teresita Montoya. Her death at 66 could have been avoided. She didn’t know how to take care of herself or how to navigate the medical industrial complex, and she died of a heart attack from an avoidable infection. But it’s her funeral I want to talk about. Over the course of my 30 years in El Valle I’ve been to many masses at the local church: funerals, christenings, confirmations, feast days, Christmas posadas. The latter are the only ones I enjoy, a festive recreation of the birth of Christ with carols and good cheer. But frankly, if I never have to attend another mass I’ll be happy.

This one, for Teresita, at the church in Peñasco, was especially depressing. I doubt the priest had a personal relationship with her. No one from the family spoke, no one delivered a eulogy (I did find out her daughter spoke at the rosary). It could have been a mass for anyone.

Twelve years ago I delivered the eulogy for my buen vecino, Tomás. He’d been the mayordomo of the El Valle church many times over the years, the priest was his longtime friend, and I got to tell stories about this wonderful but complicated man who accepted my family as the good neighbors we wanted to be when we moved here, only the second fulltime Anglo family in El Valle. Then we went to the camposanto and more people told stories and we laughed and cried and laid him to rest.

After Teresita’s mass, we went to the El Valle camposanto—at least they buried her here—where again, no one other than the priest and the funeral director spoke. They lowered her into the ground while the rest of us milled around whispering with friends and acquaintances we often see only at funerals. Teresita’s husband, my friend Nelson (they were still married but lived in separate houses and got along great) told me that the funeral cost him over $8,000: travel from the Burque hospital to the funeral home in Taos, care of her body, conferences with the staff, a fancy casket, printed handout cards, etc., etc. It made me think about Mark, whose care by the same funeral parlor cost around $2,000 because we cremated him and had a wake, not a funeral, where we talked about him—a lot.

I wish we could deal with our human deaths like we did with Benny: humanely, simply, personally. This blog will probably seem sacrilegious to many of those who were at the mass today, who are comforted by the ritual of the Catholic Church. For me, I found comfort in the gentle treatment of the vet, the ride home with the body, the quiet scene under the willows, and the time spent with my son. Hey guys, that’s what I want when the time comes.