BOTTOMLESS VAULTS

 
At Alice’s fitness class, a woman asked if Alice was a widow. The asker was a widow. Alice said, “No, I’m not a widow, but my husband talks a lot about dying.”

Nice, Alice.

I’m thinking of switching burial plots. Alice and I are slotted for a Reform Jewish quadrant in a nondenominational cemetery. At this cemetery (Hillcrest), you’re required to use a six-sided concrete vault around your coffin. And you need a plastic liner. Whatever happened to dust to dust?

I  recently ran into an Orthodox rabbi at another cemetery. He said I could go with a bottomless vault and no plastic liner at many exclusively Jewish cemeteries. I had never heard of a bottomless vault.

I’m all for bottomless vaults. Worms don’t bother me. Being stuffed into a six-sided vault bothers me. My wife doesn’t care. Dead is dead to her.

My synagogue’s cemetery (Bet Olam) allows bottomless vaults. I might move my butt over there. But Bet Olam is at a very busy traffic intersection. It’s not as bucolic as Hillcrest.

I’ve got to think about this.

—

Have you ever noticed how many people die without obits? No funeral, no wake, no shiva, nothing. Here and then gone, poof.

I’ve been searching the obit pages for years for one Ed V., whom I used to live with. Ed and I shared a duplex in Cleveland Heights in the mid-1970s. Ed was a major slob, and that was a real eyeopener for me. Now —  some five decades later — I’ve seen plenty tenants’ suites that make Ed look like a neat-freak. He had crap all over his bedroom and never washed anything.

He was also a compulsive liar and would jabber on the phone for hours, jacking around telemarketers and anybody else who called. He owed a lot of people money. He was a security guard.

He had epilepsy. A 6-2 heavyset guy, he once smacked the floor and foamed at the mouth and bled from a grand mal seizure. That was another eyeopener.

Years ago I could search the Social Security index for dead people, but the government has stopped listing dead people. Too much fraud, I guess.

Ed must be dead. He was in bad health even when he was young. He smoked nonstop.

If you see him, let me know.

An acquaintance — Larry — just died. I googled him. Nada. What’s going on with publicity-shy dead people?

Whenever a Cleveland Jew dies, you’ll hear about it in the Cleveland Jewish News. But Larry was a Buddhist — former Jew. I doubt his name will pop up in the CJN obits.

My uncle Bob Kent, ensconced in Georgia, read the Cleveland Plain Dealer online for obits. He had grown up in Cleveland. He often said his dreams were about Cleveland. Particularly riding the Cleveland streetcars.

I recognize about two names a week in the Cleveland obits. I might not know the dead person personally but I know of them. I’ve lived in Cleveland forever. Many Clevelanders are nuts about Cleveland sports teams. Nothing wrong with that. I’m just pointing out a pattern in obits.

What about Mayfield Cemetery in Cleveland Heights? I like the fact it’s in the Heights, but I’d probably have to rejoin the Reform congregation (which owns the cemetery) to get in. And I doubt Mayfield Cemetery allows bottomless vaults. Super Reform.

Just googled Mayfield Cemetery. . . . Mayfield allows bottomless vaults.

Now what?

—

(A member of my wife’s book club brought in a lengthy, laudatory obit about Larry, the Buddhist, from the Plain Dealer. I missed the obit. Sue me.)