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IN OUR HEARTS FOREVER WHAT DOES IT MEAN to memorialize those who have died? Lincoln’s famous eulogy for the dead at Gettysburg was spare, somber, and modest : “We cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract” (Wills 1992: 61). But his sense of the carnage, with its appeal to God and history, is not the current fashion. Most no longer think of death as an occasion for memorializing in Lincoln’s sweeping, transcendent sense. The preference now is to “celebrate a life,” because that seems more personal, meaningful, even upbeat. There are some creative ways to do that. Eternally loyal Green Bay Packer fans, for example, can order a green and gold casket from a Wisconsin manufacturer. His promotional letter, on a bright yellow sheet and addressed to “Dear Fan,” ends with a cheerful, “We wish you a successful season and hope to hear from you soon.” 1 More celestial possibilities are available at the International Star Registry at www.misschildren .org. They will name a star after the departed, and their “star kit” ($116) shows survivors where to find it in the sky. Much more dramatic, Angels Flight (www.angels-flight.net) will load Fourth of July rockets with cremains for “a final image of your loved one you will cherish forever.” Prices begin at more than $3,000 and include appropriate music and a yacht ride to the watery “service site.” In northern California, well-published inspirational guru Salli Rasberry and coauthor Carole Rae Watanabe (2001) are creative in a different way. They treat memorialization as an art form and offer workshops on coffin and urn painting. Participants create personalized body disposal 152 6 containers, useful for the time being as furniture or for flower displays. Rasberry followed her own advice and created a “coffin garden” in her backyard , where she is making preparations for herself. I am designing a coffin made from willow branches formed in the shape of a swan, as I want to be propped up during my memorial ceremony with those big wings enfolding me. Before my time comes, I hope to use my cof- fin as a rocking chair in the garden so I am attaching wheels to move it from place to place. I will lie in my swan beneath a lattice-work bower covered with flowers in hues of blues, pink, and purples gathered that morning from the garden. . . . After the ceremony I will be wrapped up in a beautiful woven shroud, which we enjoy now as a table covering, and cremated. (2001: 96–97)2 Less frothy, survivors of the Colorado Columbine high school killings wrote personal messages on the coffins of classmates, shown on the front page of the New York Times (April 25, 1999). One message is quoted in the caption: “Honey, you are everything a mother could ever ask the Lord for in a daughter . I love you so much!!! Mom.” Personalized in much the same poignant way, spontaneous roadside memorials proliferate at the sites of fatal car accidents . While state highway departments generally prefer simple markers with warnings about drunk driving, family and friends occasionally construct elaborate , makeshift displays of flowers and mementos, virtual minishrines to the deceased. And for those who cannot get enough of celebrating lives, even while on vacation, there are several choices. Scott Stanton’s Tombstone Tourist (1998) is a travel guide to the last resting spots of celebrity artists, actors, authors, and musicians, from Acuff to Zappa, people you might think had already had their fifteen minutes of fame. Patricia Brooks’s Where the Bodies Are (2002) is a state-by-state guide to those she says were “rich, famous and interesting.” George Gershwin and Malcolm X are in New York, Ernest Hemingway in Idaho, Roger Maris in North Dakota, and in New Mexico you will find Billy the Kid, Kit Carson, and D. H. Lawrence. How can we begin to characterize this enthusiastic, sometimes quirky variety of commemorative practices, as diverse as “ecoburials” in unmarked forest plots, paeans to dead pets on the Internet, or the call to NPR’s over-thetop auto mechanics, Click and Clack, from a listener wanting to know if it would be alright to put her father’s ashes in the gas tank of his beloved Chevrolet? (The answer was no, they will clog the fuel lines. Put...

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