HW 52 - Third Third of the COTD Book

precis

-The third third of Grave Matters focuses on three cheaper different burial options as well (compared to second third) The first is a plain pine box, which is exactly what is sounds like. Plain pine boxes are usually better because they are cheaper. The second option is a backyard burial. As Robert Smith stated, it allows you to return the body to the earth where it came from. At allows one to feel a closer, spiritual connection to the deceased. The third option is a natural cemetary which, like a backyard burial allows one to feel more connected to the deceased, but in the fact that the body is actually becoming one with the earth (a biological burial).

quotes

-"Looking at his wife, Ed had one clear thought: "she should have been the one standing there looking down at me, not the other way around"

-" 'It was so much better to have her here than in some hospital or nursing home, where she'd have stranger looking after her,' he says. 'I don't know how i would have managed without these angels of mercy.' "

-"..Billy's father, preserved to appear as if he had just slipped off to sleep and outfitted in his best suit, 'looked like he was going to a great sales meeting in the sky.' "

analytical paragraph

-Just like "Born in The USA" by Marsden Wagner, "Grave Matters" comes to the same conclusion that there are much healthier options to a dominant social practice then most people think. These are ways of not only giving back to the environment (literally for Wagner's book) but assuring a healthier connection for the person mainly involved in the social practice (the relatives of the dead, the birthmother and father). Both authors realize that the typical ways we perform these social practices are nightmares of a modern America.