This past spring, my wife, Pearl, asked, “What do you want for your birthday?” I turned 65 and it felt like a milestone worth marking. Last year, when Pearl turned the corner on 64, she wanted a party. I booked a local venue and chef, put together a 1970s top-10 playlist and a birth-to-65 video to the tune of “What I Like About You” by the Romantics. It was a blast.
Me? I wanted a casket. I can’t remember what, exactly, I was looking for, but the website for Fiddlehead Casket Kits popped up in my search results. “Build your own pine casket in under 30 minutes with this handcrafted casket kit, delivered directly to your door,” it said.
I told Pearl, “I want a casket for my birthday.”
Like so many decisions in my life, it was an irrational, intuitive thought; a tug or even a curiosity. I wanted a “handcrafted, environmentally friendly … locally made with Eastern Canadian pine casket.” I didn’t know why. I had no plan or desire to die anytime soon. Quite the opposite, actually.
Perhaps it had something to do with entering the final quarter of my life. While I’m not in a hurry to use a casket, I liked the idea of having one nearby, constantly reminding me to love life, pay attention to the miracles going on all around me, to play and create and to love more vulnerably and freely.
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So, I ordered the kit and sent an email to four of our closest friends. Subject line: Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp, Ice Cream and Casket Building.
When it arrived, I stacked the pine board parts in the living room, poured wine, lit a candle and read Mary Oliver’s poem, “When Death Comes.”
I’ve read that poem at 100 funerals. It begins:
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
It is more about life than it is about death:
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
And:
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
Our friends assembled the casket and helped me move it to the room where I write. I’m currently using it as a bookshelf until I need it one last time (which was an add-on option on the Fiddlehead website for those who “won’t need it for a while” but want to “put it to work right now.” )
It will be my daily reminder to live, and I’ve started to place items on its shelves that feel sacred. So far, I’ve added the fire pot from my days learning and teaching spiritual direction, the Star Blanket and the stole I received when I was elected moderator, a prayer bell, a copy of each of my books and a cross made of horseshoe nails and copper wire.
After we built the casket, we savoured the crisp and ice cream, our friendship and the end of the wine. It was a rich, perfect and early night. We’re getting old.
In 1995, Leonard Cohen told Interview Magazine, “To keep our hearts open is probably the most urgent responsibility you have as you get older.” I got a casket for my 65th birthday to remind me, as I get older, to continue to live with an open heart.
***
David Giuliano is a writer in Marathon, Ont.
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