Working with Wood

Building a Pine Box.

PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. NOT long ago, my wife and I had a good friend over for a glass of wine. We had drunk just enough to feel pleasantly liberated in thought. Or at least that's how I felt. Probably that's why it seemed a good moment to bring it up. So, I calmly announced to my wife: "I'm going to build my own coffin. I just thought you should know."

It didn't go over well. Her first reaction, silence, quickly turned to blind anger. Then came demands for explanation, then commands to desist. Finally she fell silent again, this time not in disbelief but in punishing disapproval.

I hadn't anticipated so much resistance. The plan didn't seem so extreme to me, no more extreme, anyway, than my circumstances. I have incurable Stage 4 prostate cancer, which I learned I had at age 54. I've been living with it for 11 years, and in that time I've tried every conventional treatment and many trial ones. All in all, I think I have done extraordinarily well: I've been able to travel, to photograph, to write. On most days, I walk over four miles. And although I did have to give up my surgical practice, the extra time has let me become much closer to my family and friends.

My family, of course, remembers not just the positives but those dark days of sickness after chemotherapy, the reactions to drugs requiring resuscitation, and the hospitalizations for complications. While I like my edited version better, theirs cannot be dismissed.

What we all agree on, though, is that my journey is coming to an end relatively soon. The remaining treatment options are mostly minor modifications of previous failures. My bones are riddled with metastatic disease, and I'm starting to need pain medications. As we used to say in the medical business, I'm starting to circle the drain.

Yes, but why build your own coffin? When I mention it to others, most are distinctly uncomfortable with what they interpret as my abandonment of the "fight against cancer," which by their reasoning must be the explanation for my continued survival. I must be giving up. That my motivation is the exact opposite eludes them. In fact, it is a project that I wish I had started much earlier.

The idea came to me at the funeral of an 18-year-old boy. While sitting in the church, I couldn't help noticing the plushness of the young man's open mahogany coffin, and knowing the family's plan to cremate him afterward, I wondered whether there was a kind of contradiction here.

I began to think about this aspect of my own funeral. I, too, plan to be present " though unviewed " at my service, as well as cremated. But I find comfort in simplicity and familiarity and, I suppose, purity. A little investigation showed me that most people are cremated in a cardboard container of some sort. My ecological conscience argued for recycled cardboard, yet that implied that my ashes would spend eternity blended with the powdered remains of ice cream containers, first drafts and pizza boxes. I'm sure one could do worse, but why not opt for a more elemental final mix: me and wonderful old wood.

Making my own coffin was the answer. A plain pine box. My own plain pine box. Creating something of beauty and purpose would be both a celebration of life and an acceptance of my death.

I knew immediately whom to contact: Peter, a beautifully untethered soul and a talented artist who works in wood. Untethered or not, some persuasion was required. He feared he might be contributing to something my wife and family would find abhorrent. He said that he would gladly help if I could obtain their approval, which I eventually did.

Outwardly, Peter and I could not be more different. His earring, tattoos and free spirit are a counterpoint to my proper fussiness. Yet we had enough in common to begin our project with a shared purpose: to make something both practical and emotionally meaningful. We were both aware and at peace with the coffin's fiery denouement; what we hadn't anticipated was how building it would bring us together, and how that would affect the final product.

The pine boards, rescued from an old factory, were thick with dirt, oil and splinters. I was skeptical of resurrection, but when the boards were cut into strips, rotated and planed, each one revealed a new beauty, emerging from its own distinctive grain and knots and scents.

Peter's and my growing closeness as friends mirrored the process of preparing the wood. We each spoke of what we wanted to accomplish with our remaining lives, and what we regretted in our pasts. The coffin slowly took on its recognizable shape, prompting me to speak of my fears of death and of leaving my family behind. In moments like this, we set aside the tools, and we would sit and talk quietly. Peter had fears also, different from mine, but no less worthy: Artistic creativity is a challenging basis on which to support a family.

Amid this, there were also wonderful moments of black humor: How much nose clearance is acceptable? How much will I weigh when I actually need this thing? Does it come with a lifetime guarantee? We even made T-shirts that read, "I'm dying to show you my latest project." But even the most joyous laughter often merged with tearful embrace.

With time and almost without awareness, the quality of the coffin's construction became a surrogate for our mutual respect. We ed each board with careful deliberation. We glued and assembled them meticulously, and adjacent boards were book-matched to present beautiful mirrored images of the wood's grain. Finally everything was hand sanded and sealed with a natural finish.

We'd made a stunningly beautiful pine box, and a stunningly beautiful friendship. But we knew that neither could last, and that this was the very reason to celebrate them.

Something else has happened, too. The project has smoothed the rough edges of my thoughts. It's pretty much impossible to feel anger at someone for driving too slowly in front of you in traffic when you've just come from sanding your own coffin. Coveting material objects, holding on to old grudges, failing to pause and see the grace in strangers — all equally foolish. While the coffin is indeed a reminder of what awaits us all, its true message is to live every moment to its greatest potential.

So the box now sits at the ready for its final task, when together we will be consigned to the flames. I find comfort in knowing where my body will lie, and just above it, embossed on the underside of the coffin's lid, in front of my sightless eyes, my favorite line of poetry: "I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."

Jeffrey M. Piehler is a retired thoracic surgeon.

I guess this piece is maybe, how do they say...too hot to handle? I find it extraordinarily beautiful, so I have to respond.

I had a friend and mentor who did something very much like this once. He died twenty years ago at 64. Wonderful man. Time flies. I was still young then and now I'm already two years older than he was when he died. He was a well-known and well-loved artist and he allocated each of his colleagues a small space to paint something on. Whatever else they created in their lives, I'm sure they will always remember what it was they painted on his coffin and I'm sure they will always carry him with them in their hearts and minds. I'm not a painter and didn't merit one of the spaces, not being among the closest circle, but he asked me to contribute something so I gave him two of my hand-made oboe reeds to be cremated along with the rest. I know I'll never forget.

http://www.williammorehouse.com/Index.html

For anyone who might be thinking this man might be a little bit California liberal artist woo-woo, he was a Marine combat sergeant-major in the Korean War and had piloted barges on the Sacramento River in his youth.

Having my coffin custom made is on my list of things to do. After reading his story, it is a must do. Finding a cemetery plot is not the easiest thing to do. I want a plot that is in the shade. I do not want to be put to rest out in the open under the sun.

Egg, I like his work. He has quite a few paintings available.

These are the types of stories I prefer to read egg: true, Human Interest stories, if one must categorize

Great story twill. Makes me ponder a bit. I never much cared what they put me in, where,.... a hole on the hill, next to my dogs, no coffin necessary, would be fine with me. Once I'm gone, I don't reckon I got much need for this body I've abused so bad. I guess I see these kind of things are more for those we leave behind than for us. That's my take anyway. Glad the guy made a friend in the process. That's what really matters.

MikeH,

Like you once I am gone makes no difference. In the movie Jeremiah Johnson the mountain man that kept his head shaved at the changed and grew his hair. He said that he wanted to leave something behind to be remembered by. If only a scalp on some Indians lodge pole.

I would like to leave this world putting a craftsman to work, instead of being put into something that comes off the assembly line. I dread the thought of leaving this world being just another face in the crowd. So I make choices that insure that will not happen.

I would like to believe that once you meet me you will not confuse me with someone else. I am not to concerned with you liking me just respecting me.

I would like to stand apart right up to the end plus some.

Lefty, I met you. And you definitely not forgettable. Cheers! B)

Lefty,

Your post is longer than mine.

Made an impression on me, fer shur.

;)

The way I am going to leave this world is the most important topic in my life. It dictates the way I live. I guess that makes me a little wordy. LOL

I feel the same way, Lefty. Being concerned about integrity is not new to me; had it on my mind since early childhood actually and it was one of those things that I just couldn't shake, not even in my rebellious days. When you start "getting up there" the whole thing just gets more interesting. Once you're gone, the only part of you still operating in the world is your legacy and since you have no way of knowing how your actions will be interpreted by those you leave behind, it's better just to play it straight and do the best you can every day to be the kind of person you look up to. Just to show you what wordy is, here's a tiny fragment of a family narrative I've been working on the last couple of years:

"...Her own personal story was dominated by the tragedy of her father's alcoholism, her early childhood illness, and a catastrophic injury to her feet. Her oral recollections invariably ended with a great sigh and "Oh, why did he have to drink?"

In the car on our way home, my mother was adamant. "I don't want her to write the family history," she said, "She will just white-wash everything." But did she? Mabel's documentation may have neglected the single most formative event in her life, and she may have had every intention of excluding it, but history shows that the task of committing her story "to print" was too difficult for her to have wrought. The result is the core remains very much intact, un-white-washed, faithful to her truth, even more than had she included an account of his drinking and its effect on the family in a narrative as my mother demanded. Let this be a sharp lesson to alcoholics and kings. If you want to be remembered down through the eons while myriad others are forgotten, you can, but at what cost? For the Beloved it might be far better to be remembered for the sound of your voice, the color of your eyes, and the good joke you played on your neighbor...."

Egg, When it is all said and done, the last meeting of our friends and relatives there is a white-washing. For most of what we have done wrong will also die or a new twist will be put on it. That once was a sort of irritation to most will now be said to be one of Lefty's quirks. And all will shake their heads in agreement, while they smile with one side of their faces while the other side is in thought. This is a good thing to reform our memory's into an acceptance of our friends and loved ones that may not have been possible when they were alive. Some may see this as hypocrisy. As what your mother seems to be saying. I do not take advantage of this final white-washing, but it ease's my heart and gives me strength to carry on when most are irritated by my quirks.

After this last meeting of our friends and loved ones, the real question I ask myself is will there be anything to remember of me after the final whitewashing. Or is the only memory people have of myself a whitewash? That would be a wasted life. Did I make a difference in the people's lives I met? No matter how briefly. Will people talk about having known me? Will people teach others about the values that I lived by, because these values have made their lives better.

Thanks Egg for your writings. I never put the word white-washing to our reconcilation at the end. But I think it is the best way to put it.

Given the stereotype, many roofing customers would be surprised at this dialogue.

A few nights ago my wife and I enjoyed, along with about 250 other people, the celebration of our distributor's 120th business anniversary. The conversation at our table of eight revolved around mission trips to other countries and the work that was accomplished. Looking around the room, it was clear that many of this group of roofing, siding, insulation and window contractors were cut from a different cloth.

As has been implied and stated, what we live is our legacy.

"The evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." Wm. Shakespeare

This topic came to mind as I was building a cremation casket for my Father-in-Law on Friday afternoon.

I build OSB cremation caskets for a local funeral home as a sideline on rain days and ever since my Father-in-Law was diagnosed with terminal cancer I had imagined ever unit I made would someday contain him. I finally decided to make him a special one out of birch plywood when the day came as he was special in our family's lives.

Some people asked if it was hard to do but my Son and I considered it an honour as his character and life deserved more than the plain old OSB. It was nothing fancy or expensive as he did not want that.

The above quote from Shakespeare is so true.

seen-it-all Said: Some people asked if it was hard to do but my Son and I considered it an honour as his character and life deserved more than the plain old OSB. It was nothing fancy or expensive as he did not want that.

That shows your character. Thumbs up

This kind of touched me and made me cry a little and then I though about the scraps of fabric I keep for my "Death Quilt". The mere mention of my quilt has always been met with irritation from my family and spouse. I plan on being cremated wrapped in all my memories.

I have a small family and no children and have never even thought of what legacy I'd leave or even anyone coming to my funeral. I have no plans for my ashes. No fancy jars or burials. My legacy will never be compiled into a single thought but will just be comprised of small kindnesses shown to strangers known only to Jesus.

Wow, that was deep!