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Tuesday, March 28, 2000
Last week, I renewed my driver's license. No big deal. Every four years I send $36 to Harrisburg after checking the optional organ donor block and adding a dollar to the renewal fee to finance an act of mercy I hope won't be necessary anytime soon.
Organ donation isn't something I typically think about. In the event that something horrible happens to me, my family knows I'm not interested in any act of resuscitation that would confine me to a vegetative state for 20 years.
I'm wagering that death and the mysterious change of venue that comes with it won't result in a situation worse than lingering on life support for several decades. In the event of my death, I want my organs and every inch of my body that can benefit someone to be transplanted. What's the point of taking life-saving organs with me into that "dark night" Dylan Thomas so eloquently railed against?
Because I want to spare our long-suffering morticians the hassle of trying to make my organ-harvested corpse "aesthetically pleasing," I'm forgoing the beloved tradition of an open casket funeral. I've decided not to give any business to the morticians.
A modest gathering of friends and loved ones at a church or funeral home will be about as decent a send-off as someone with all my faults could expect. If folks want to yuck it up and talk about the good times we had, that's cool. I just hope that somebody gets around to uttering a word or two about it being a shame that I'm gone.
The eulogy, preferably by an Episcopal priest who still believes in God, must be interesting and full of enough biblical and literary allusions to distract the mourners from their misery.
As for the burial ceremony, there's no reason why anyone should accompany my body to the crematorium. I want to be buried in fire; it's the one thing, other than my last name, that I have in common with the pagan Vikings of old.
I'm not a subscriber to Plato's notion that the body is a debased reflection of some heavenly ideal and, thus, unimportant. The body is the only vehicle we have for navigating this glorious universe we find ourselves in, but it's not the sum total of who we are. That's why I believe it's a mistake to make a fetish of it after death.
An excessive sentimentality for corpses always ends up dishonoring life. Funeral directors who oppose organ donation because it makes it more difficult to perpetuate the lie that only cosmetic differences separate the living from the dead might as well be priests of Anubis, the jackal-headed god of death worshipped by the ancient Egyptians.
I understand that some families are unhappy with the way their loved ones look after parts have been given to strangers for the perpetuation of life. Morticians whose livelihoods depend on turning out fine-looking corpses are caught in the middle. Some funeral directors have even gone so far as to talk families out of donating organs, whether it violates the expressed wishes of the deceased or not.
We're not talking about harvesting organs for profit here; organ donations show a reverence for life. I can respect religions that consider organ donation an act of mutilation, though I believe them to be seriously misguided. But I'm appalled by the sleazy cult of funeral directors who stand in the way of organ transplants simply because saving lives cuts into their profits.
Tony Norman's email: tnorman@post-gazette.com