The Last Journey

“Good morning, John’s Funeral Arrangement Service, how can I help you?”

Awkward silence, it is hard to put words to what I’m asking for as I really don’t know what it is. I didn't get the memo.

What am I asking for?

“….my Mother just passed away and I need to make some arrangements for her funeral”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place, we arrange funerals, and everything associated with them. My condolences. When do you need this done?”

“I…don’t know, how soon is it possible to get this done?”

John, or whoever is on the other end of the line, hesitates and I hear him browsing through something, probably a ledger or some other piece of documentation.

“It’ll be a while, we’ve had a LOT of people dying over the past few weeks and we’re swamped with bookings. Business has been crazy, we have a bit of a backlog to get through”

His enthusiasm might be contagious under other circumstances, but my thoughts are on the task at hand.

“I see…. My brother is only in the country for a few more days and was planning on flying back home as soon as possible, can we do this before then?”

“Hmm, it’s a bit tight but we might be able to squeeze you in on Friday morning at 10:30, does that work for you?”

Is this what life and death amounts to in the end? A single question of when it fits someone else’s schedule to attend your last passage?

I'd asked her about death and her last wishes during the last days in the hospital, after it was clear that this was the end of the line but before the last stages of the cancer overwhelmed her.

She had wanted to be buried in the town where she was born, she was adamant didn’t want to be cremated and she wanted a private ceremony.

“I think so, what happens next?”

A slight pause on the other end of the line, “We come by the hospital morgue today, pick up her body, take it to our office and prepare it for embalming. Did you want to have an open casket ceremony?”

I…don’t know. Cancer doesn’t flatter anyone, dying from it even less so. Will I recognize her in the casket? Would she have wanted this?

“Yes, but after the ceremony we’ll need to somehow get the coffin to the north of Iceland where she wanted to be buried. How can we do that?

John lays out three possible options.

“We can do that in our Hearse, for a modest sum. You could also rent a van yourself and take it there. Or you could have it delivered by mail”

Mail? As in postal services? How many stamps will that take, I wonder fleetingly before catching myself.

In the end, I choose the path that I think she would have chosen - we rent a van and take a road trip north.

My son accompanies us, for him it is an adventure that he will remember.