Posted on 05/08/2008 4:52:20 PM PDT by Westlander
Since they first walked the planet, humans have either buried or burned their dead. Now a new option is generating interest — dissolving bodies in lye and flushing the brownish, syrupy residue down the drain.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
They can’t cleanse the Prozac out of the water, why would I want biohazard?
Oh Diana, what a beautiful poem, and it is SO appropriate to my life right now.
Forgive me if I don’t spell everything in this post right, because I am moved by those words, very tired, and facing things in my life that relate to this.
I am just now getting on the computer tonight, I have had a BIG day, but a rewarding one. As far as I am concerned, LIFE is rewarding, and has always been, for me, including the challenging times.
I started my day driving to my Mom’s house, and taking her to pick out flowers for a special arrangement I am making her for Mother’s Day. I am also going to cook her a huge dinner, two of her favorite pies, and spent most of the evening (after her four hour foray into the Dollar Store and grocery store, her life) building the most magnifient hanging pot one can imagine.
I have dirt two inches thick under my fingernails as I type this.
I had been to the Dollar Store a few weeks ago, and found a flower pot that is a huge CONE ($7). Yes, a huge cone, one of the those metal planters with moss inside.
I made myself a hanging pot weeks ago with that cone, cutting holes in the moss at points, placing hanging petunias (striped red ones, maching colors) and some mounding plants with tiny white flowers, and even a mandevelia (sp) at the top.
Mom coveted my beautiful cone flower. So today I made two more, drove to the next county to get the right combination of plants. My Mama will be the Belle of the Ball in her neighborhood when her elderly neighbors see this arrangement.
I have an aunt, my Mom’s sister, who is also elderly (in her late 70s, with bad health), and the aunt has one very spoiled son. He hasn’t spoken to his Mom and Dad for 15 years (over greed, money issues), is a BRAT, and he has two kids. My aunt won’t get a card, phone call, anything for Mother’s Day.
So I made one of these arrangements for her. She WILL get a Mother’s Day present from me, was a wonderful, supporting person in my life when I was young and needed someone.
Well, when I was at the greenhouse today (a county away) where I bought most of my plants for my “cone” arrangements, I noticed they had a cone planter like mine (cheaper, smaller). They had set a hanging flower pot in it with two color mixtures.
They were selling these for $25.
I have about $10 apiece invested in mine. And I put alot into mine. I cut holes all along the cone, and coordinated the colors, mounding, hanging flowers.
I am so proud of mine, and proud of the women who influenced my life, like my beloved Mother and Aunt.
“Crewel Lye” would be an awesome name for a Metal Band.
Just saying.
The very thought of such a thing is enough to make you feel flushed.
Thanks, Diana! That’s perfect! A perfect end to a perfect life!
A disrespectful disposal of the creation of God in His image.
____
Because worms eating your body is so much more respectful to God? Or pumping God’s creation full of unnatural chemical so you don’t look dead at all?
Nothing new.
Mozart had the same fate.
He died too poor for a descent burial.
Sounds like you both had great gardening days! I didn’t accomplish what you two have, but I did get out in the veg garden for a bit. Managed a little bit of hoeing and weeding before the bugs got too bad.
Girlangler—so sorry about your cuz, but at least your aunt has you! :) Sounds like your mom and your aunt are both going to have wonderful Mother’s Days! I love my mom, but we’re not close, not like my daughter and I are. Lot of history, on both sides. She’s gone to my baby sister’s for Mother’s Day. i hope they have a great time. Mom and I just clash too bad, and I would rather avoid a confrontation than fight.
My boss’ mom is in the last stages of dementia—not sure what the dif between that and alzheimer’s is, but I wouldn’t wish either one of them on my worst enemy. I love her like she was my grandma, and it’s so hard to watch her going downhill.
The last few weeks have been really bad, and it’s hard on everyone but harder on us than her.
On a much lighter note—#2 son asked me yest if he could prune a shrub that was in the way while he was trying to cook on the grill. Dummy me—I said yes. His idea of pruning and my idea are vastly different. Needless to say, I now have a banana shrub six feet tall that was perfectly shaped, “pruned” back to the trunk—on one side. Gritting teeth—he’s 18—crossing my fingers and hoping he moves out before I commit mayhem!
Y’all have a great mother’s day!
You also have a great Mother’s Day gardengirl, Grammy, and Diana.
LOL about your son, gardengirl. He was just pruning, his version of it, I am sure he meant no harm.
Last year another aunt, who is also elderly, gave me some honeysuckle (I know, you and Diana, this is bad stuff) and a wisteria. I planted them away from the other plants I value, and my hubby and grandson cut them down while mowing. Since we also had a drought last summer they didn’t come back, although I fretted about it and watered the place I planted them daily.
Well, those plants, gifts from my aunt, were gifts of love from this British relative, who shares with me often her pictures and stories about her family in England, and the beautiful gardens they grow in small spaces. Although some of the plants she buys me (and she is on SS and spending money for a plant for me is a BIG deal — a thank you for me taking her to a doctor’s appointment, etc.) are not those I would choose for myself, I understand how her effort is one of love for me.
So, she was planning on visiting me earlier this spring, and I agonized over her not seeing those gifts growing in my garden. So I went to WalMart and bought two more just like she bought me last year, planted them and waited for her visit.
I planted them, nurtured them. It was more for her than for me.
Last week, I caught hubby and my brother doing me a BIG favor landscaping. They had pulled up the wisteria (thought it was a weed). I quickly planted it again, and nursed it with a root stimulator. It was looking good, going to survive.
Then, a few days later, I go out and find a big landscaping board on top of it, it was bent over and distressed. I chewed them both out again (Don’t EVER pull up ANYTHING without consulting me first, and don’t lay lumber on top of my flowers)!!!!!
The poor plant, after some more nursing, is back alive again.
I may have to fight those plants someday, but they will be a special gift from my aunt Betty. I’ll keep ‘em pruned and controlled, and after my ashes are scattered among them and my other flowers, someone else can deal with them, never knowing how much I appreciated the special aunt who gave them to me.
Sheesh, we ought to be in the gardening thread!!!!
Hope you have a wonderful mother’s day with your mom girl. Unfortunately, my mom is now with Jesus (well, unfortunate for me... fortunate for her) so I will just get to enjoy my kids and g-kids. I took the g-kids to the local pottery place to paint a plate for my daughter. The only thing I insisted on was that they place a handprint on each plate. We will go pick them up tomorrow.
Your gardening sounds great... if sabotaged. I gave up on trying too hard. It never mattered how often I told them, the people who mowed the yard, whether a hired gun or Mr g, always manage to mow down my daffodils or my iris... depending on the season.
I managed to put a few hours in last weekend, but was only pruning dead stuff from the bushes that survived the late freeze last year. One butterfly bush died, the other is about 1/5 the size it was, but most of my Japanese maple made it, and the purple berry bush looks like it will live. My rhododendron has gone great guns for the first time!
In the meantime, the sugar roses are in no danger. 8-)
LOL about helpful sons and spouses! Last spring—he did me a favor by bushhogging a woodsy area for me. An area I had underplanted with a couple hundred dollars worth of Azaleas, trailing gardenias, and hydrangeas. I still haven’t said anything to him about that! Some of the plants were cuttings from friends.
I probably would have done the same thing you did about replanting the destroyed wisteria! Honeysuckle isn’t that bad here. Maybe it’s too hot. It’s blooming right now, and then it just sort of goes away.
Aunts are so special! My daddy is the 8th of 10 kids, so I had lots of aunts. I know what you mean about them doing stuff for you that they can’t afford. I hate taking stuff from people like that—that’s not why I helped out, but it’s way harder to accept help than give it, and it lets them feel not so useless.
good luck with your wisteria, and have a great day!
Yes, we only have one Mom, so must enjoy every minute with her we can before she goes to Heaven. Your Mom is there, but she is also here on earth, and lives in you, your children and grandchildren.
I have a feeling the wonderful Mom and Grammy I know (the one I will outfish someday) learned her very loving ways from her Mom.
I know you are a very special Mom and Grammy. Tell those two little fishergrandkids I said Hi.
That was so sweet of you to do the hands on the plates for your daughter. I also have a feeling those little anglers I know are trying to outdo each other today/tomorrow to make a Grammy happy. I am grinning from ear to ear thinking about this right now.
LOL! Where do they come up with the dopes to write these articles? Mercury comes from silver? Really? Besides, putting these bodies in lye is not going to make the mercury go away (or silver for that matter).
What you describe is a dangerous vector for disease and should not be allowed anywhere near where people live or get their water. Even centuries ago bodies were buried with lime and other chemicals to keep things sanitary.
“A rival to burial: Dissolving bodies with lye”
Back in my college days, my prof. in organic/analytical chemistry
said he laughed whenever someone tried to “dispose” of a body in acid.
He said “if you kill/murder someone and you want to cover it us...
through them in a tanning vat. The strong base (lye) environment will
dissolve the body in short order.”
I’m sure these places have all that covered, as they are licensed and regulated.
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