A Simple Pine Box

[Matt Shade]

I'm not sure how I feel about being buried in a box to rot, but I have some issues with how folks handle cremation too.

When I worked for a landscaping company me and a buddy got sent to a church to do warranty replacements on some boxwood shrubs in their courtyard and we also had to pull up about a dozen pavers scattered about and replace them with bricks that had been engraved with names.

We did the pavers first and there was a little old man and 2 old ladies there to supervise us. Lets just add that it was some kind of baptist church and my buddy and I were the only 2 white folks to be found on the property. And that didn't matter beyond the fact that neither one of us knew the proper timing for throwing in "amen" and "praise jesus" in the conversation and it made things very awkward

So then it was time to pull the shrubs up. These things were dry and brittle and completely dead. I grabbed the first one and rocked back on it as my buddy worked on the root ball with a spade and as it pried out, we found that it was buried completely in what seemed like a very coarse gray/white sand. We looked at each other like what the hell kind of dirt is this and who thought a bush would grow in it?

I tossed it in the wheelbarrow and that brought the wrath of old lady number one.
"Young man, you are not to take ANY soil from this garden. Clean those roots off!"

I stood there confused

Old lady number 2 apologizes- "those are human remains, its all the people who's names are on those bricks"

The old man was sitting on a stone bench and he slaps the armrest "This is my wife!"

My buddy and I both looked at each other and he got a bit pale. I'm sure I was too.

We spent the next hour taking turns holding shrubs up while the other knocked "grandma" off the roots with a shovel while the 2 old ladies supervised.

I don't think that set up is really a proper final resting place.