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Monday, July 20, 2020

A Brand New Mourning: A bush funeral.

           

A Funeral in the Bush

           I grew up in rural northern Michigan.  Life was far from sterile.  I was pulling venison off of my dad’s meat saw in our garage by the time I could just see over the table.  I did my fair share of manure shoveling and spreading on the backyard garden and killed my first deer on my own when I was twelve.  I knew the feel of fish slime on my hands, dirt under my finger nails, and slivers in my palms.

            Losing family members and friends, on the other hand, was a very sterile experience.  I was a teen before going to my first funeral, and it was orchestrated from the beginning to remove me, as well as the rest of the audience, from the true act of the person passing from this world to the next.

            Don’t get me wrong, the tears and pain we felt at that funeral were real.  I knew that my great-grandmother was gone from her body, and what was in the casket was just her shell.  But, when the pastor was done, the last hymn was sung, and the casket closed, that was it.  I walked out to the car, and my grandmother was gone.

            I will never tell someone how to mourn.  That is a very personal experience and is a path that we all have to walk on our own, but there is something different about how we do it in the culture that has adopted me.  I don’t want to claim it is better, but it does work better for me.

            My family recently lost one of our close members.  He went hunting on his own, and while out, experienced a stroke.  Search and rescue was made up of family and friends.  We searched all over town, checking the homes of his friends, we looked across the river at his old cabin, and then finally took the search out of town where he liked to hunt spring bears.

            A friend spotted his four-wheeler from the air and called others to go out by four-wheeler to find him.  When they got there, he was conscious, but had signs of a stroke.  They loaded him on to a four-wheeler and met up with others who had gone out with a side-by-side that made transporting him easier.

            The clinic staff met us in the very early hours of the day.  The physician assistant was the spouse of one of our local teachers, his helpers my former students.  When our loved one made it to the clinic, there were no introductions necessary as we strategized how to best assist.

            Due to Covid, a medivac without an accompanying family member was arranged.  My sister-in-law flew in later to be with her brother.

            He didn’t get better, and the reports from the hospital indicated that it was only a matter of time and that we should say our final goodbyes and make arrangements. 

            Making arrangements in the village means that family contacts the pastor, speak with a  friend with coffin making experience, talk to the city about where to dig a grave, and decide who should make the grave marker.

Gary allowed me to learn from him.  Knowing how to build a casket is an important skill in the village.


            “You live in the olden days,” my sister texted me when she found out what was going on. 

            In Michigan, people don’t make caskets for loved ones.

            The school district donated pine, and a family friend (we’re all related in the village somehow) offered to lead building the casket as well as teach me what he knew.

            Dave, who donated materials and shop space, commented as the casket took shape, “Gary, if I go first, this is the style I want.  Looks like something right out of a western movie.”

            “Well, Dave,” Gary responded, “if I go first this is what I want you to make for me.”

            Dave and Gary are brother-in-laws.

            We worked on the casket for three nights.  Myra and Ellen came along for the last two with Ellen helping around the shop, sweeping up sawdust, helping to clear coat the pine, and picking up scrap wood. 

            “What are we building, Dad?” she asked at one point.

            Ellen is three.  This is a casket, would not have been a sufficient answer.

            “Well…” I started, “Uncle didn’t get better when he was sick.  This is a box to put his body in since his soul doesn’t need it anymore.”

            “Uncle isn’t real anymore?” she asked.

            Admittedly, her question took me aback.  She is three, but made me think about death in a whole new way.  We had been fishing plenty of times together recently and the way she verbalized the difference between the fish when they first came splashing from the water and what they were like after being in the plastic tub was the same.  Living fish were “real.”  Dead fish were “not real.”

            And, I had to say, that a person’s body after that person had passed looked nothing like the “real” person he or she had once been.  That body wasn’t a real person anymore.  What had made it real was missing.

            Where I grew up, the hospital and funeral home made all the arrangements for transportation.  In the bush, we worked with a friend on shipping, met the plane with a truck, and transported the body to the clinic where it would be until the funeral.

            Three guys and Ellen went to get the casket (we dropped Bub off at home before going to the clinic), and we carefully transported the beautifully crafted pine box.  We moved the body to the casket, and one of his sisters put socks on the body that she had knitted for him.  The funeral home had taken care of the rest of the dressing, though that is not always the case with bush funerals.

The casket matched the man: He was an outdoorsman who lived a rugged life.  The handles (not seen in this picture) were made from an ax handle that he must have used for years at his camp.


            Earlier in the summer, a friend, Bub (she goes everywhere I go), and I went logging up the river for trees calving off the river bank.  I had milled a number of them up into boards.  An electric planer cleaned two of them up, and I fashioned the marker for the grave.

            The grave it would mark was that of an outdoorsman and artist.  Its natural simplicity and straight lines were purposeful for who I was building it for.  The school shop teacher laser engraved it, and we decided to leave it natural spruce with just a clear coat.

            “He would have passed that tree on the river a lot during his life,” Myra pointed out.  “Now it is his cross.”

            The pall bearers assembled at the clinic and loaded the casket into the back of a truck and took it to the church where the same discussion we have before every funeral took place.

            “Do we need to take the center post out of the entry door?” I asked.

            “Nah,” another pall bearer responded, “the casket should fit.”

            After a failed try…

            “How does this center post come out again?”

            People were sent for tools that were brought to the church just as my nephew, Merle, was getting the center post out.  We will remember how it works for next time… and still have the same conversation.

            Covid has impacted everything, funerals only being one.  The viewing was limited to just a few family members and friends before we moved out to the cemetery.

            A long-time family friend and pastor, Chip Swanson, lead the service on the most beautiful day we had experienced in weeks.  Chip had spent a lot of time with the family, at times even sharing a room with the man we were now burying. 

            “Nowhere in the Bible,” Chip spoke, “does Jesus say, ‘are you ready?’  He just says get ready.  Now.”

            We laid the casket we had built with our hands to rest in the grave.  In Michigan, there is a fancy lift that lowers the casket.  In the bush, the pall bearers lower the box by rope by hand.

            “Those who believe in the resurrection of the body,” Chip said, “are welcome to put some soil on the casket.”

            The men then provided their final service to the one who had passed and began filling in the grave.  The city left around a dozen shovels for the job, and as one man tired, another tapped him on the shoulder for his shovel.

            The first shovels-full were somber and the workers sad, but there is something about the work and working together.  Stories were told of the person’s life, and smiles began.  It was rhythmic.  It was healing.

            “How will he get out, Mom?” Ellen asked as I removed my kuspuk in the heat of the sun.

            “His soul isn’t there anymore,” her mom answered.  “In the end days, the grave will not hold him.”

            Mourning is a process.  I won’t claim this way is better, but it works better for me.


Walter would have passed the tree his cross was made out of multiple times on his way up and down the river as late as this spring when he went out on the ice to catch trout.

Walter J. Slwooko
1/2/1954-7/2/2020