by Amy Spurway
“No, that’s not why I — it is not just about money,” he sputters. “It is a very noble enterprise, and could be a fresh start for us all, as a unified family. Unfortunately, the accumulated negative karma between Sarah and me prevented a fruitful conversation.”
“Only fruitful conversation you’d get from that one is rotten apples biffed at your head in between insults. She always hated your guts, Alec. You being dead suited her just fine.” Peggy’s arms lock into a tight cross atop of tit mountain.
“The Spenser name is powerful, and could bring great resources to bear.” He ignores Peggy’s pouting, a calm conviction rising in his voice, his eyes. “If we could somehow convince her of the merit, of the business case, this could diversify Spenser’s prospects and benefit the community in a sustainable, spiritually significant way. I can’t help but think that my sister truly does have a loving, compassionate nature. It simply needs to be liberated.”
“Pfft. All that meditation must have really made your damn mind go blank, then.”
Meanwhile, I feel a grin creep across my face as I observe the little silver spirals twisting in and out of the fresh emerald-coloured cloud emerging around Smart Alec Brother Gyaltso. Peggy may well smell bullshit and bubble gum, but I see an opportunity for putting both my new and old skills to good use here, even if it is just a distraction from shock and sorrow and chaos. I’ve learned a thing or two about finding and freeing people’s truths lately, and the impulse to make a living with a sales smile and a marketing pitch dies hard. What remains of the money Mama left me isn’t going to last forever. It’s no surprise to hear her voice quip ever so faintly in my ear, Jesus saves, Moses invests.
“Stacey,” Smart Alec Brother Gyaltso says, as he sways to the edge of his seat, and spends a few too many moments gawking at me, like he’s scanning for pieces of himself in my eyes.
“It’s Crow,” I say, like I mean business. Because I do.
“Right. Crow.” His hands and fingers weave into what I imagine is some sort of sacred cross between a snivel and a prayer formation. “I realize that an apology is insufficient. But that day on the wharf, I feel we made a genuine connection. Perhaps, from that, a prosperous and mutually beneficial relationship could grow. My collaborator Wendy and I are hosting an event at the fire hall next weekend, entitled —”
“Rig Yer Mortis. I know. I’ll be there.” Because who am I to ignore what feels like a deep, insistent nudge from a faintly conspiratorial Universe? Or maybe that’s just Cletus gearing up for another furious flurry of rib kicks and bladder jabs.
[…]
Turning a rundown rural fire hall into a half-decent space to host a celebration of life for a woman they all called Scruffy Effie was no great feat. But making that same spot into a place that can pass for an oasis of spiritual conversation and meditative profundity? It doesn’t really matter how many pictures of lotus flowers you tack over top of the dartboards. There’s not enough patchouli incense in the world to fully cloak the smell of a sewer that needs suctioning. And plunking a piece of red cloth and a Buddha statue on top of a rusty old dehumidifier just doesn’t cut it either.
But that must be my big-city-asshole critical self talking, because nobody at the Rig Yer Mortis seems to care, or even notice. Gyaltso, Wendy, Allie, and four other people I should probably recognize — but don’t — sit on cushions arranged in a lopsided circle. They take turns gawking at what sits just outside the ring, in between the tea table and the Buddha that guards the rusty old dehumidifier: a four-foot-tall, pale beige, translucent egg-shaped thing.
“Welcome.” Smart Alec Brother Gyaltso folds into a deep bow from his spot on the floor. Everyone smiles at Willy and me as we stand in the doorway, hesitant and awkward as fuck. Because there is no way either of us can comfortably get down to or up from those raggedy little cushions. But God love Wendy, she goes and merges a couple of chairs into the formation without us even having to ask.
“Now, what? We bow to the Almighty Egg?” Willy cracks, loud enough to make me wince.
Wendy unleashes one of her infamously discordant peals of laughter. Allie and the strangers chuckle. Gyaltso smiles, all benevolently Cheshire Cat-ish.
“That” — Wendy’s tone settles from jangly laugh to sales-pitchy chimes — “is a Crann Na Beatha Burial Pod. Anyone care to try it on for size?”
“Let’s save the Crann Na Beatha conversation for the end, Wendy,” Gyaltso says. “We will open with a group bow, to acknowledge the primordial wisdom and sacred intelligence in each of us as we embark on this journey into the unknown together.” But nothing undermines a wise and sacred vibe quite like a three-hundred-pound buddy named Tooker letting a fart rip as he bows. Gyaltso, again with the Cheshire Cat face, “Wendy, open a window please.”
We go around the circle to introduce ourselves and say what drew us to a community conversation about Doing Death Right. Allie talks about her mother, about her own frightening thoughts about death as an escape from pain and drudgery. Tooker talks about finding his own father dead of a heart attack in the backyard, how nobody ever let him talk about it, and how scared he is that his own son will find him the same way someday. An old blue-haired, droopy-faced scratch named Neilina is there because all her old scratch friends are dropping like flies. A young blue-haired, face-pierced, tattooed Townie named Kersti says her friends are ODing left, right, and centre. And an old backwoods rubber booter hippy named Barb says she came because she is just so intrigued by the mysterious wonder of it all. When it’s my turn, I don’t even know where to start.
I’m here because I feel bad about being such a shit friend to Allie, and to spy on The Wendigo and make sure she loves her the way she deserves. Or, I’m here to suss out what kind of business my newly undead fake-father real half-brother is plotting, and how I might be able to get in on the ground level and make a few bucks to pay for Cletus’s diapers and therapy. Or, My mother probably killed herself and I miss her more than words can say, so I’m just here for the tea and squares. Instead, I blurt out, “Hi I’m Crow. How ’bout being nice to me? I’ll be dead soon.”
Loops of nervous orange and shards of wounded blue stop me from saying more, as they gush up into the air around Willy, Allie, and even a touch around Smart Alec Brother Gyaltso. Like what I just said is somehow news to them. Willy hauls himself straight up in his chair and gives me a bit of the side eye.
“I’m Willy. Some call me Gimp. Don’t mind Crow. She’s here for the tea and squares. I’m here because I can be. Tomorrow isn’t a guarantee for any of us.”
On that cheery note, Gyaltso dings a little bell and proceeds to take us — a sad pack of heartbroken future corpses — on a magically mystical meditative journey through an uber-serene Nirvana where all we do is sit and breathe for a few minutes. Allie is already bawling. Wendy breathes like a labouring moose with a sinus infection. Tooker breaks wind three more times because he had cabbage rolls for dinner. Me? I think about being dead. About Mama’s ashes out on the Bras d’Or. About Parry Homunculus, Ziggy Stardust, and Fuzzy Wuzzy the astrocytoma trio having a knock-down-drag’em-out war with Cletus the Fetus, with my body as the battlefield. A version of Gyaltso’s words from our New Year’s Eve encounter down on the wharf rings in my head as he beckons us back with the bell. We’re all dying. But only the lucky ones know it.
Over herbal tea and a plate full of vegan, gluten-free birdseed cookies that leave me longing for squares, we talk. About all the ways we hide our grief, our guilt, our dying. How we are supposed to just bury the evidence and move on. The way we aren’t supposed to say terrifying things out loud — especially when they are true — lest we make the fine folks around us feel uncomfortable. The kid in the “Emperor’s New Clothes” story, who had the audacity to shout about the dangling royal pecker and bare arse? Nobody liked that kid. That kid never got to be in another fairy tale ever again. But the emperor is prancing around buck naked.
We’re all still dying.
And right before the who
le thing whirls off into some kind of nihilistic, nudist-shaming, existential depression session, and right before I can articulate the profound truth of how bad this tea and these cookies suck, Brother Gyaltso intervenes by asking us to close our eyes and pretend we are trees.
“Imagine yourself, strong, flourishing, and spacious,” he says, tilting his face and sweeping his arms up toward the cobwebbed ceiling.
How ’bout bent, crooked, and covered in fungus? Surrounded by nuts. With an agitated chipmunk inside.
“Now imagine any pain and suffering you perceive in yourself, or in others, or in the world, as thick, dark fog. Like air pollution,” he says.
I can see it.
“Now breathe that in. Because that is what trees do.” His voice is urgent, insistent. “They take in what would otherwise be destructive, and they use it. They change it. They let it change them. And then, they put something useful back out into the world. Oxygen. Life. This is what we can do. Pretend we are trees when life feels hard. Breathe it in. Soften it. Let it change you. Let your heart, your mind change it. Then offer the world whatever it is inside you that is needed. Peace. Courage. Light. A cup of tea and a good laugh. Don’t hide from the sorrows of the world. Welcome them in. Watch them transform. Be a tree in your life.”
“And now,” without missing a beat, Wendy jumps in, “you also have the option of being a tree in death as well. We’d like to introduce you to the Crann Na Beatha Burial Pod.”
She directs our attention to the thing in the room we’ve all been pretending not to see. The big old egg. The big old sales pitch.
The whole setup was brilliant. The cute, colloquial name of the night. Getting us here to think and speak freely about death. Feeding us gross cookies that might kill us. Then presenting us with a novel option for burial! My little marketing-stunt-loving heart bubbles with delight. As Wendy tells us all about it, Gyaltso busies himself by spreading for-sale copies of his book, Living and Dying: You’re Doing it Wrong, at the feet of the dehumidifier Buddha.
Crann Na Beatha is Gaelic for “Tree of Life.” Wendy wanted to call it Ubh an Bháis, meaning “Egg of Death,” but Gyaltso put the kibosh on that one. The two of them ended up buying this demo model from a guy in Europe after Wendy’s father died, and the local funeral homes went out of their way to harass Wendy about the post-death and burial plans. He wanted to forgo the chemical embalming, be waked at home, and buried on his land in a simple shroud. When Ciad Mille Failte Funeral Services Inc. caught wind of that, they came to Wendy armed to the teeth with threats and lies. You can’t do that. We’re the only ones authorized. That’s immoral, and that’s illegal. Give us your money or there’ll be hell to pay.
But Wendy’s no fool. She’d been studying with Gyaltso and the rest of the backwoods Buddhists Down North, and training to become a death doula. She knew the loopholes and laws, she knew her rights, and she knew how to say “Go fuck yourself” in Gaelic. Her father was waked in his own bed, with ice packs to keep him cool and rice bags to close his eyes, and friends and family by his side until they were ready to say goodbye. Then, they put him in a shroud and buried him in a clearing on the land he loved. Wendy and Gyaltso spent many a morning sitting at the site meditating, until one day, it dawned on them that other people would be ripped off and ripped up by the likes of Ciad Mille Failte Funeral Services Inc., unless somebody had the guts to offer something different. Thus, the Tree of Life Egg of Death plan was hatched.
“It’s a nifty little thing, the Crann Na Beatha eco-burial pod,” Wendy explains. “You curl a naked corpse up into it and you bury it deep in the ground, with no need for toxic chemicals or outrageous expenses. And in the top compartment of the egg, you place a tree. That tree is then nourished by both the biodegradable egg and the body it holds, as both return to oneness with the Earth. And instead of having a swath of land filled with embalmed bodies and crumbling gravestones, you have a sacred forest. Living memorials that take in the pollution of the world and turn it into fresh, clean air. Or fruit, even. That is our vision. A cemetery that is truly green, living, and dynamic as we wish our loved ones and our legacies to be.”
Next thing you know, she’s climbing in to give a demonstration of how a body fits into the thing. She wriggles her way in, knees hugged to her chest. “The way it softens the light. The warmth, the coziness. It’s like a womb. In death, we are reborn.”
Rubber booter Barb gasps. This is the magical mystery she’s been waiting for. Even through the translucent shell of the pod, I can see Wendy’s feelings streaming out in ribbons of crystalline awe, hopeful sunny yellow, and lavender joy. She pops her head out, smiles straight at big ol’ Tooker and says, “We can order it in various sizes to accommodate all body types!”
Everybody oohs and aahs for a few minutes, and the room is crackling with the neons of novelty and the soft pastels of hope and faith. Sure, it’s no Gem-Mortalization, but it beats the shit out of becoming a slab of chemical-soaked cold cuts in a Cadillac casket, or a pile of greasy soot in a glorified Mason jar. Plus there’s the buy-local, eco-friendly, stick-it-to-the-capitalist-man angle.
But of course, the devil is in the details. Wendy and Gyaltso need a good piece of land. They also need ten grand in a trust fund, to make it over the first bureaucratic hurdle of setting up the business. And finally, they’ll need a steady stream of bereaved renegades who can shell out to have their loved ones grow trees of life from eggs of death and are willing to tell Ciad Mille Failte Funeral Services Inc. to Ciad Mille Fáilche Áielf. Preferably in actual Gaelic.
They give us the soft sell, so as not to thoroughly taint the trail we’ve all just blazed through our own hardships and hang-ups. Proceeds from Wendy’s death doula services and Gyaltso’s book go to the trust fund. They ask us to keep an eye out for available land. And to think and talk to our loved ones about this exciting new option in the death and dying care services. And somehow, despite my ongoing preoccupation with my own ending, when I picture myself in relation to all this, it isn’t curled up and buried inside one of those things. But rather: Hihowareyatoday. I’m Crow Fortune. Marketing and Communications Director for Crann Na Beatha, Cape Breton’s first and only eco-burial memory forest.
Mama’s voice eggs me on. Remember Crow, those who get, get! And I don’t even know what the Jesus that actually means, but Mama always said it, and it sounds like encouragement. So, I’ll take it.
[…]
“I’m good cop, you’re quiet, not-acting-crazy cop,” I remind Char as she fidgets and twitches in the shotgun seat of Peggy’s car. I probably should have come alone, but I thought it wise to have a co-pilot. Someone to back up my story about why I’m driving without a licence if the cops stop us. Someone to witness the persuasion miracle I’m gearing up to work via a combination of business acumen and squirrelly vision insight. Or, someone to beat Sarah Spenser up if she’s really nasty to me when I diplomatically lay out the case for Spenser Mining Inc. partnering up with Crann Na Beatha. Or when I tell her I’m her sister.
By the time Sarah Spenser answers the door, Char is off caressing the tentative green buds of rhododendron bushes on the lawn and singing to them. Loudly. Off-key. In Gaelic. Which she doesn’t speak. Sarah Spenser says nothing, but her cold gaze sweeps past my face, and lands squarely on my belly bump, where the ice in her eyes morphs into disgust. Still, I smile my biggest Viva Rica smile, exuding an air of professional. Sensible. Convincing. Not even wearing a slutty dress, morning-after makeup, and an old woolly toque like I was last time I stood on this doorstep.
Char comes galloping over, all grinny and wide-eyed, still humming the melody of the tune she’d been singing. “Man, they totally dig that Gaelic music shit. ‘Kill ’em Maroon,’ or whatever they wanted me to sing.”
“What?” Sarah sneers.
“The song old Rozzy liked to sing in the garden, duh.” Char’s dreads do a serpentine flop dance as she juts her face forward.
“‘Gillean Mo Run.’ It was Mother’s favourite s
ong.” Sarah’s face is harder, stonier than when she opened the door. “Nice of my brother to share some of our family’s history with you. That’s all you’ll be getting.”
“Yeah, well, the bushes are pissed that you won’t even sing to them” — Char’s voice drops to a whisper — “so they told me all of the things.”
I elbow Char in the ribcage and hiss, “Not-acting-crazy cop, remember?”
“What do you want?” Sarah glares.
“I have a business proposal you might be interested in. One that could revive the Spenser brand, financially. And socially.” I extend my hand, but it might as well be a toilet plunger the way Sarah Spenser grimaces and recoils. Still, I can tell she’s intrigued, at least enough to humour me. Money and status are irresistible lures for the likes Sarah Spenser, even when dangled by the likes of me.
“Fifteen minutes.” She opens the door just wide enough for my belly and Char’s dreadlocks to squeeze inside. I follow Sarah through the hallway, where the old bones of the Spenser house have been caked and covered with gleaming, sleek, off-white modernity. Her office is decked out with a mahogany table, leather chairs, and crystal whiskey decanters. On the way there, we lose Char. Sarah has a white-knuckle grip on her nerves as the two of us sit, face to face. Despite the terse grin, the proud posture, and the tented fingers, I can see it. A thick grey mass heaves and hovers over the anxious flurry of blood- and bile-coloured sparks that spit around her head. Gripping. Containing. Controlling. I look for a way in. A way to soften her. A place to begin the bridge we need built.
“As you know, Alec is alive and well.” I watch for signs of a thaw. “We’re working together on a new initiative. A one-of-a-kind cemetery comprised of eco-burial pods that grow trees.”
“And?” she says, eyes shifting down to the screen of her little gold-cased phone where a timer counts down our fifteen minutes of grace, her French manicured talons dropping down to impatiently drum the table surface in rhythmic displeasure.
