Dying has become too casual

I'm quite dissatisfied with the funerals I've attended lately — primarily because they're not funerals at all.

They're "memorial gatherings," "celebrations of life," or "mountain-top ash spreadings."

They just don't have the satisfying impact I expect to feel when someone dear leaves the world. These tepid affairs leave me yearning for more. My grievance is that I leave only half-grieved.

I miss the days when the departed got sent off with a big ritualistic production and a hot lunch. Thirty years ago, my dad got the full meal deal: a church, pipe organ, choir, old men dressed in black and white (implying some sort of direct connection with a deity) and a vast feast that was well-pied.

Sure, the proceedings were immensely sad but going through a formal funeral process helped with the grieving. Afterward I even laughed for the first time as I watched my brother carry my petite, impossibly ancient aunt to her car, seemingly against her will. Being able to laugh was a sign I would one day be able to move on.

I expected my mother's funeral this spring to be much the same, but it couldn't have been more different.

Not that my mother was one to change with the times. She used to think cremation was sacrilegious. Then her family began to fracture, as many modern families do, and her discontent upended her views on dying.

She ended up in an urn at a funeral home chapel, not in a coffin at her beloved church. A couple of eulogies and a few words from a multi-faith pastor was it. No pipe organs, no songs, no rituals of any kind. It was a dull affair. Even a City Hall wedding has more pomp and decorum. To add insult to injury, the food consisted of a few stale dainties, not even enough to go around. Had it been 20 years ago, my mother would have turned over in her urn at the thought. But, like many in our society, she was done with funerals.

When my mom's best friend died just two months later, she was celebrated with a "memorial tea" of all things. How casual about dying can we get?

Religion — that institution that was responsible for many of our death rituals — doesn't have the same prominent place in our society that it once had. Without the rituals all we're left with is words and squares. We have to come up with modern traditions that pay our loved ones the honour they deserve as well as help us to heal.

For me it might be as simple as spreading my ashes into the flowerbeds of the restaurant that likely killed me (sorry, McDonald's) with a marching band and confetti cannon.

Emerging technologies could play a role, too. When I read the other day that SaskPower was making electricity from the gas the oil industry burns off as waste, I wondered 'Why not spread some electrons when I die?' My demise could send electricity into the grid to power waffle makers, children's toys and angry tweets.

Perhaps I could be disposed of by rocket. I'm not talking about scattering my ashes in the upper atmosphere; rather, launching my freeze-dried corpse onto the lunar surface so others can look up at me during full moons and remember the love I gave. Nothing puts the "fun" in funeral like a rocket launch.

Before that, I'd like to have an old-fashioned viewing of my body. Don't worry: it's for my cat. You can't sit a pet down and tell them their loved one has died. If my cat can pay a visit to the funeral home to sniff, nudge or maybe climb on my dead self for a bit, she'll know I won't be feeding her anymore.

Funerals are for the living, after all.

This column is part of CBC's Opinion section. For more information about this section, please read this editor's blog and our FAQ.