Wednesday, March 10, 2004

    Wednesday morning saw the return of winter weather, with snow and rain mixed. Loie and Bucky each drove to the funeral home in Reisterstown, where they met Terrie, Pete and Alyssa. It was time to cremate Yo.
    Everyone piled into Terrie's Big Red Machine for the drive to the crematorium. They followed the hearse through the weather, and soon arrived in Catonsville at the Metro Crematorium. The crematorium had no waiting room. It was a very industrial place: a cinderblock building with a garage door and smaller door on the side street, seemingly no front entrance and a small parking lot behind. The owners were a bit apologetic, assuring the family they would not have to wait long, and asking them to stay in their car. Luckily the weather had cleared a bit, although it was still a raw day.
    Bucky soon became impatient, walking back and forth between the car and the crematorium's door. It seemed to him the family had been waiting long. After perhaps twenty minutes, the family was finally ushered through the side door into the crematorium. They were in a large room much like a garage. A machine, the furnace, stood right in the center of the cement floored room. Yo's casket was on a platform in front of the metal box of the furnace.
    George McNabb, the operator of the crematorium was there. He introduced himself and explained a little bit about how the cremation would be done.
    "I'll push this button, and the casket will be raised up," he said. "Then I'll open the furnace with this button, and push this one to slide the casket into it." Bucky had stepped forward to look at the parts of the furnace as Mr. McNabb explained them, but the rest of the family was huddled together not far inside the door, a bit nonplussed. The whole scene was nothing like they had imagined. Tools were scattered on shelves, boxes stood in a pile by the far wall. It was like being in a car mechanic's shop and nothing like the funeral home atmosphere. Mr. McNabb then startled the family by asking if one of them would like to perform the cremation. Bucky looked back at the others, thinking perhaps Pete might like to be involved. Everyone was standing silent, and Pete gently shook his head "no." So Bucky, who was already near the machine, agreed.
    It was very simple, all the machine operations were automated. "First push this button and raise up the casket," said Mr. McNabb. Bucky did so, and the platform rose up the few feet it took to move into position.
    "Now I'm going to open the furnace," said Mr. McNabb. He pushed another button and the door rose up, creating an opening about four feet tall and wide. Heat poured out of the furnace.
    "Now push this other button," said Mr. McNabb, and when Bucky did, the platform under Yo's casket moved it into the furnace and the door closed down. The furnace quietly heated up, and Bucky looked back again to see that no one had moved, the family stood watching, saying silent goodbyes. While the furnace burned, Bucky got a lesson in what was happening.
    "There isn't any ash, like most people think. It's so hot inside everything gets completely burned up except for the bones and metal parts, like hip joints." Mr. McNabb had shepherded Bucky to the back of the furnace, and they were looking at a smaller machine standing at the back wall.
    "I invented this. There weren't any good ones when I was starting out. This grinds up the bones, and what you get is this sandy grit. But first I have to take out the metal, or that'll mess up the grinder, see?" As he said this, Mr. McNabb was using a small scoop to poke around in a cardboard box that stood on a shelf next to the grinding box portion of the bone grinding machine, and Bucky saw he was rummaging a collection of bits of metal. Bucky was just nodding his head, in a kind of daze at the ordinariness of it all.
    "Then the cremains get put in one of these boxes," said Mr. McNabb, gesturing to a stack of cardboard boxes further along the wall, "and I send them to the funeral home. It takes a couple of hours for the furnace to burn and then cool off, so you can go home and pick up your cremains in a couple of days." Bucky thanked him for the chance to help with Yo's cremation and joined the rest of the family. They all filed out to the sidewalk and walked back to the Big Red Machine.
    "Did anybody want to help?" asked Bucky as they were driving away. "It seemed like not."
    "No," said Terrie as she drove, "That was your job."
    "Well," said Bucky, "I took Grandma Dee's rings off for Yo, when GeeDee died. Yo said she couldn't do it. And I helped close her eyes when Yo died. And now I've cremated her." Loie held Bucky's hand as the Big Red Machine carried them all back to the funeral home.
    The rest of the family went back to Bellview while Bucky did some chores. He had to get new wiper blades for Trucker. Then he went to Yo's bank in Reisterstown and opened her safe deposit box. He had thought that would be an affair, but as it turned out, his name and signature were on the card, so Bucky could just open the box.
    "I don't eve remember doing that," Bucky said to the manager who was helping him. "Our mother was organized.

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