Letters to Franz Kafka

During my last illness, you sat on my bed, dear child,
and I told you about my funeral:
I wanted all my artificial flowers
spread about the church, the flowers whose vases I had created--
There must have been more than three dozen of them.
I visualized these flowers because it was wintertime and the garden was desolate.

I said to you then that if I looked okay after death, I could have an open casket; otherwise,
I wished to be cremated.
You asked me if my husband had chosen a burial plot and I guessed that he had.
(He never thought of such a thing, ever, in his lifetime!)

But, of course, in reality the stepdaughter took over everything, did exactly what she wanted without consulting anyone.
I understand why you didn't attend my church ceremony--to go would have been like pretending that all my husband's family were so innocent, sitting there
in the church of God,
pure and sweet.

What a load of bullshit!!

So the moment my spirit was free, I looked down and saw the caregivers take off my ring (the one I had bought for myself because he couldn't bear to spend cash for something so useless!!!) and I saw the oxygen tube and tank removed.
The bag and tubes to my bladder were taken away.
My ravaged body was moved to a funeral home in preparation for the crematorium's work.
Then my pacemaker was removed from my chest.
They searched my empty mouth but my false teeth were still in the care facility bathroom (too bad someone couldn't use them now).
My body was prepared for the burning.
I wondered where my glasses were.

I saw the fire melt my hair--the hair you had so carefully pin curled a few days ago: first one side then the other when I turned over.
My features all melded together.

In a few minutes, I was cleansed and fired into ashes.

I know you visualized all this, and that it is your way of caring.
No one else has an imagination like yours.
My cooled ashes were removed and placed in a black urn awaiting the next step.

I watched this all without emotion knowing I would soon find out who cared (as if I didn't already know!)

My ashes sat for three months and only my husband could say what should be done with them.

Finally, you, my girl, were given my ashes under the condition that you pay for
the urn and the transportation and any other expenses.
So his penuriousness worked to your advantage, finally.

And now I see that you have markers in the cemetery, one for each of the three of us, we who started as a family of three and ended as a family of three.

Thank you for caring.
You did well, my only living child.