Rest in leaves

I don't think we give enough thought to our final resting place.

We leave that gruesome business to our loved ones. Who end up spending way too much money on a mahogany coffin with pearl handrails. And then stick you in the ground next to the kind of people who are always sending the soup back at a deli. Or talk too loud on their cell phones, while sitting inside a Starbucks.

The kind of people, if you'll pardon the expression, you wouldn't be caught dead with.

Well, eternity is a long time. Longer than a Monday morning status meeting. So I'm going to think this thing through.

And I'm pretty sure I've come up with the ideal solution. That is, the people at Bios Urn have.

They have given birth to the new notion of sustainability. With one of those simple ideas that leaves you facepalming yourself and wondering, "Why didn't I think of that?" Of course, even if I had I probably wouldn't have done anything about it, as I have the entrepreneurial skills of a common garden slug. Years ago, my wife and I talked about opening a blintz store, a unique boutique that exclusively sold blintzes.

OK, I talked about it. My wife just laughed.

Back to the Bios Urn. According to the press release it's a biodegradable urn, made from coconut shell, compacted peat, cellulose and the seed of a tree (your choice). Your remains are placed in the urn, planted in the soil. The seed germinates and you have effectively been reborn.

As a tree.

It doesn't get any better than that. Particularly for an atheist like myself.

Frankly the idea of being a tree -- buried in Upper Grey's Meadow off Rt. 395, as pictured above -- is much more preferable to the other afterlife possibilities.

If it's heaven, I don't relish spending the rest of my days in a white robe. I'm not a robe guy. And with me, white never stays white, especially if there's tomato soup or enchiladas in the vicinity.

And hell, I don't want to got hell.
I tend to schvitz the minute the temperature goes above 75.

Look for me 100 years from now, I'll be the sprawling eucalyptus on the hill looking up towards Kearsage Pass. And please don't let your dog pee on my trunk.