A Sense of Doubt blog post #2842 - Death Series #001 - Cremation

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2842 - Death Series #001 - Cremation

I am starting a new, somewhat short series in an effort to make a series of simple posts to catch up as I am currently writing this on 2212.08, which means I am TEN days behind.

It's been seven years since my mother's death and yet the grief still sneaks up on me and reminds me it's still lurking inside. I sobbed earlier this year after receiving some bad news right around Mother's Day when I was missing my Mom a lot.

Though more than seven years has passed, 2706 days, since I keep a count on the blog, I have found it difficult to plow through the book Advice for Future Corpses by Sallie Tisdale as I am still at times fragile, too introspective, too sensitive, on the verge of tears and despondency. I had to take a week off from listening to this book. In part, the break came due to the need to think about work things, plan lessons, write lectures in my head, but also I needed the break because the book was affecting my mental state, and I needed to save myself from being dragged down at the end of the quarter when a teacher's work is the hardest.

So, here we go, first installment.

Thanks for tuning in.

Enjoy.

THE DEATH SERIES - POST #001 OF 10

In a series of ten posts over 12-13 days, I am presenting a fact a day about death from the book I am reading titled Advice for Future Corpses by Sallie Tisdale. I hope the thought provoking facts that I share will enrich your life as much as they have enriched mine.

LOW POWER MODE: I sometimes put the blog in what I call LOW POWER MODE. If you see this note, the blog is operating like a sleeping computer, maintaining static memory, but making no new computations. If I am in low power mode, it's because I do not have time to do much that's inventive, original, or even substantive on the blog. This means I am posting straight shares, limited content posts, reprints, often something qualifying for the THAT ONE THING category and other easy to make posts to keep me daily. That's the deal. Thanks for reading.


CREMATION

"A cremation oven runs as hot as 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Few bonfires reach the temperatures needed. The human body is wet, a loose collection of watery cells, about 85 percent moisture. In the oven, the coffin or shroud burns away first. The intense heat quickly evaporates the body's water and the suddenly dry skin and hair ignite. Everything soft chars, shrivels, and burns away. The abdomen may swell and burst. On occasion, the chamber has to be opened to reposition the body for a more thorough burn. Metal may melt but not combust: gold fillings, jewelry, the rods and pins of a rebuilt femur. Gradually the skeleton is exposed, cooking until the bones are friable and begin to crumble. At the end of cremation, about 5 percent of the body is left.

"Perhaps one day we will collectively throw up our hands and decide cremation is just too dirty. Crematoria are considered incinerators, in the same category as municipal waste and hazardous waste incinerators. The cremation of an average adult requires more than two million BTU an hour of energy. (To compare, a gallon of gasoline provides about 124,000 BTU). The pyres of India and Nepal use up more than fifty million trees every year and create a significant fraction of the particulate pollution of this very polluted region" (Tisdale 177-178).

Work Cited

Tisdale, Sallie. Advice for Future Corpses (And Those Who Love Them): A Practical Perspective on Death and Dying. Gallery Books, Simon and Schuster, 2018.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2211.29 - 10:10

- Days ago = 2706 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.