Ashes to ashes, dust to… cold storage?

Like most traditions, burials vary from culture to culture, but the goal remains the same: to demonstrate respect for the dead. In Jewish tradition, kevura or burial, takes place as soon as possible. Cremation is the norm in India and mandatory in Japan. In many cultures, burial is often believed to be a necessary step for an individual to reach the afterlife. Warriors in some ancient societies were buried upright. In Islam, the face is turned toward Mecca, the holiest city in Islam. African-American slaves were buried with the head facing east and their feet to the west; the direction of home, Africa. In New Orleans, they serenade their dead on the way to the cemetery and then bury them in above-ground graves; safe from floods. No matter what the tradition, the goal is the same: respect for the dead.

What is deemed "respect for the dead" is really just respect for the living. The dead don't care. They're already dead and free of the limitations and frustrations of this world. We remain behind, wrapped in our grief, and as such, we care.

"On a day of burial there is no perspective--for space itself is annihilated. (…)The day you bury him is a day of chores and crowds, of hands false or true to be shaken, of the immediate cares of mourning. The dead friend will not really die until tomorrow, when silence is round you again," says Antoine de Saint-Exupéry so poignantly. Burial is, first and foremost, closure.

As of last week, there were 355 bodies stored in refrigerators at the Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery, because of stalled contract negotiations between the cemetery and its 129 maintenance workers. Three hundred and fifty five families, whose loved one won't really die "until tomorrow, when silence is round them", 350 families who are waiting in limbo to bury their loved ones because of a labour dispute! This week, the cemetery announced that it increased its cold storage capacity to 700, which means that they'll be able to accommodate the incoming dead until the end of October. How thoughtful…

I can't imagine what it must feel like to lose someone close to you and not only have to deal with the indescribable pain of their death, but the terrible indignity of locking them up in cold storage until they can be properly buried.

To add insult to injury, Montreal's Archibishop Jean-Claude Turcotte has refused to intervene and help resolve the two-month-old stalemate. How ironic that a church that has no problem getting involved in people's personal lives and their most private decisions somehow feels its overstepping its bounds in getting involved in a labour dispute! Does it not feel a moral obligation to intervene now?

How can anyone possibly allow the bodies of the dead to be used as bargaining chips?