Alive or Dead?

by Will Cowing

Went to the funeral of Bill Wendt today. He was a couple of months short of 93. Died of throat cancer. He was a feisty old guy who was an excellent tennis player. He had a world ranking as a senior. At the funeral home, all his awards, certificates etc. were on display. His coffin was very expensive with bronze engravings of the last supper and other scenes of the suffering of Jesus. The sermon included the usual Christian assurances about eternal life and belief in Jesus Christ. The pastor was a very fat jovial man who was much more likable than many others I had known.

But after a while, even though I had been a Christian a good part of my early years and was familiar with the litany, I began to get a little uneasy. The Christian message just rubbed me the wrong way. The pastor talked about Bill being in heaven and how he wouldn't enjoy being on a cloud with a harp but would want to be in a more festive party. He went on about Jesus having a huge TV screen on which the events of your life would be replayed. Apparently only the good things would be shown, I gathered.

Karma, Karma, Karma, I wanted to shout out but kept my peace. I had known Bill for some 2 1/2 years only but had a good idea of where he was coming from. He played tennis to win, he had been a good father, and could be generous but he also had faults. A man of his times, from the south side of Chicago who made a decent life for himself and his family running a sporting goods store.

It was a dark day with a few drops falling as I sat in my car waiting for the procession to begin. I played a tape of Sensei from a recent sesshin as I drove in the procession to the grave site. Sensei’s teisho about habit traps in sesshin, relating this to the life of an extremely eccentric Englishman made a great deal of sense to me, the difference between the Englishman’s life and mine or anyone else's was only minor unless one breaks out of ego-driven habit bonds and begins to see and experience the beauty of... (well, you finish it.) We drove into the cemetary and I was struck by the dark somber beauty of the place.

We were given roses to put on the casket after a short service with the usual Christian reassurances (for the believers) of eternal life. Two soldiers in uniform saluted the casket and rolled up the flag for his daughter as taps was played on a tape recorder. This moved me to tears. There was only one minority person among the mourners, a short Asian woman who was an excellent tennis player. Bill had grown up in a much different time from today. I had driven with him in his old Lexus with the music of the forties blaring. Empty, empty, where was he now? I bowed to his casket quickly and left for my car as the service ended.

I watched from my car as the workers started to lower the casket into its final resting place. Bill wasn’t in it but the body that had housed him was beautifully laid out, a tribute to the embalmers' art. Dirt would cover the casket and the body would slowly decay over the years. He would be forgotten in time and his grave unvisited and none would know how expensive his casket was or how beautifully he had been laid out. I have little doubt that the situation with my body will be any different. Cremation started to seem to be a better option, I mused, but then the cars started to move and I drove out of the cemetary. Bill wasn't there anyway...