How to Turn Into a Tree

...a dispatch from bewilderness

Shift happens.  For example, someday I’ll be dead. Turned to ash, travel-sized, maybe, in a cute micro-urn. Three ounces or less and I’ll get through airport security.

You can choose urns trimmed with leopard spots. Or in ambassador shapes. I have no idea what that means. Or you could turn me into a tree.

Check out this quote from one death-industry ad: “Whatever your motivation, the Memorial Tree Urn is a beautiful idea that combines burial and scattering with new life and ‘living memorials.’

Then what? The cremated ashes are placed in the urn, which is then “planted” in the ground to “aid in the growth of a beautiful tree seed.” Repeat, “tree seed.” They had me at “tree,” but lost me at “seed.”

No one wants to turn into a “tree seed.” No one is dying to be one either. So I would have said to “aid in the growth of a beautiful tree.”

If you choose the tree option, I might become a sapling, then get roots, then turn into a tree. Maybe a majestic oak, willow, cherry, or one of the other 15+ trees proffered in the ad.

Urns can be decorated with a coastal lighthouse — as opposed to what, the inland kind? Or with a three-dimensional buffalo.

Fyi, a freelance career in media is fairly long if it lasts a heartbeat. I mean a week. Beyond probability, mine lasted thirty years. It had to. I was a single mom—making dinner and deadlines all over the world. But, of course, there’s one last deadline for us all.

In closing (as candidates say), if clutter remains a problem for you, you can launch my cremains. No, really, you can launch me into space so you won’t lose precious space from closet or shelves. Just click Celestis, which offers several one-way packages to the final frontier.

Or you can light me up with fireworks, courtesy of Angel Flights. The choice is yours. I’ll leave it to you.