A French funeral

Way back in the beginnings of my blog, I posted about a funeral I went to in Ariège.

Friday was my second French funeral, but it was more personal this time: my husband's grandmother passed away on Sunday.

She was a few weeks short of 90 and had been in and out of the hospital recently, and the retirement home where she and her husband have been living for about 3 years was providing palliative care, so while sad it was not unexpected.

My in-laws drove up Valence to coordinate things while my husband's aunt cut short a trip to Rome. On Monday we got a confirmation that the funeral would be Friday, with the "mise en bière" at 8am, the service about 8:30, followed by the crematorium at 10am, and placing of the urn at 3pm.

My first question was "what is a 'bière'?" According to Wikipedia, the "mise en bière" is when the body is placed in the coffin, and is part of the legal requirements dealing with the deceased. Mamie died in her bed, and she received conservation treatment (and possibly dressed?) in her room and was left there from Sunday until Friday. When the undertakers arrived on Friday morning and we were all in the retirement home chapel they announced that anyone who wished to witness the 'mise en bière' could join them. Only my father-in-law and his sister went, and I have to admit I found it odd that family and friends were invited to witness this. The coffin was closed, as opposed to some American coffins that open 2/3 of the way up to reveal the person.

My second question was "Why the heck is it so early? And couldn't we wait till Saturday so people could attend more easily?" After talking with my in-laws, I learned that the undertakers had a really full schedule and Wednesday and Thursday were booked. Initially there was an opportunity to have the crematorium ceremony at noon, but in the 15 minutes my in-laws took to think about it and call another family member the slot was taken. I don't know if this is the case elsewhere, but in Valence apparently there are few undertakers for the number of deaths.

So with everyone in the chapel of the retirement home, the undertakers wheeled the coffin into the chapel. A fellow retirement home resident was a retired priest, and since he was in good health he conducted the ceremony. My husband's aunt had briefed him that they had to get to the crematorium at a specific time, so he had to keep it brief. The priest spoke a bit about Mamie, talked about God and quoted a bit from the bible. Then a retired nun living in the home gave a short testimonial on behalf of the other residents, followed by a short testimonial by one of Mamie's quilting group friends. We sang a hymn, and then were invited to approach the coffin and bless it by making a sign of the cross. I should specify that one of Mamie's quilts was placed on the coffin, along with a bouquet of flowers and a framed picture of her. Several other bouquets/potted plants decorated the chapel as well, with messages on them: "Pour notre cyber Mamie" "De vos arrières petits-enfants".

This ended the ceremony in the chapel, and the undertakers returned to wheel the coffin out to their sober utilitarian vehicle. With large windows and discreet ribbon decals, most people would not identify it as a hearse. Family and close friends followed the vehicle across town to the cemetery, where the crematorium had a space for ceremonies decorated with butterflies to avoid any particular religious connotations. The undertaker gave a bizarrely generic presentation talking about death and loss and quoting from obscure texts every few phrases while a large screen tv displayed generic French pastoral images (think fields of lavender, tree lined roads, fall foliage) with Yann Tiersen music softly in the background. Afterwards my brother-in-law joked that the undertaker had a dial Not religious-Really religious that he turned to adapt his text. After he had spoken, my mother-in-law, husband, and husband's cousin read a testimonial. I don't know if the undertaker had not been informed that this was the plan, or if he had forgotten, but there was an awkward moment when trying to figure out if it was okay to go up to the mic.

After this, the quilt was retrieved, and the coffin was wheeled out of the 'chapel'. The undertaker explained what was going to happen and invited anyone who did not want to watch to turn away, and then he switched on a web cam feed from the actual incinerator area. The coffin with the bouquet of flowers was visible in front of the door for the incinerator and after it opened a metal arm pushed the coffin inside, before the door closed behind no. The feed then shut off.

At the time I felt like it was really unnecessary to have the family watch the coffin being pushed into the incinerator, like I felt it was really unnecessary to have anyone watch the body being placed in the coffin. But now that it is all over, I wonder if that is not an American reaction, since the US has such a culture of denial of death. There was little chance to avoid confronting the reality of death when the door for the incinerator closed behind the coffin.

We then returned to my husband's aunt's house, where we had a cold buffet and chatted with extended family and friends. Some cousins had come from Dordogne and had to leave to drive home; others from Normany were staying the night and could eat a bit longer.

**As a side note, I got asked several of the stereotypical questions for foreigners, and I need to work on my delivery of the "Carla Bruni-Eva Joly" explanation for why I don't teach English. When I said they didn't teach Italian or Danish I got confused follow up questions about whether or not I worked with Eva Joly. So still not great with answering these questions.**

At 2:30pm, we all piled back in the cars to drive back to the ceremony. The undertakers arrived with Mamie's ashes in an urn, and they placed them in a "columbarium", which was basically a cement box in the ground about 2 feet deep and 1 1/2 feet square. A marble/granite square was placed over the opening and Mamie's name will be engraved on it. The various bouquets/potted plants that had decorated the chapel in the morning where placed around the columbarium.

By 4pm, we were back at the aunt's house, and those still around had left over quiche and roti de porc with rice salad for dinner.

I found the cemetery experience for placing the ashes a bit disappointing. Part of this was due to the fact that the plot that was purchased is on the edge of the cemetery by a very busy road, so the noise of cars zipping by didn't match the event. Placing an urne in a cement box in the ground was also rather anti-climatic for me. There were no "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" in that cement box. I also didn't understand why we left brand new bouquets of flowers with the plastic around them at the grave.

I already knew that French graves are not kept eternally. Families pay for a "concession" for a certain number of years, and then need to renew it (and pay again) if they wish to keep it. Apparently you can no longer pay for a "concession à perpetuité" like you see on older graves, but even with those if they start to fall in dis-repair the cemetery will remove them and re-sell the plot. I understand that the problems of space in France make this more or less necessary, as opposed to the US that has lots of space to open new cemeteries, but the idea that in 15 or 30 years you might lose your grave seems wrong to me. In the future people will not be able to visit the graves of their great-grandparents. Okay, you might say that they aren't exactly rushing to do that now, but the genealogist in me says its important that graves can be conserved for more than 30 years. (At the end of the concession, if the family doesn't do anything, the ashes are generally scattered in a garden part of the cemetery)

I looked up some information about French burial laws, and I was reminded that since 2008 you're not allowed to keep urns at home. You also have to fill out paperwork to indicate where the ashes are spread in nature or from which boat if spread at sea.

I can't say this funeral was entirely devoid of personal remembrances, like the funeral in Foix, but with only one photo displayed and the testimonials rather short, I felt like we didn't celebrate the life of Mamie enough. Part of the problem was the tight schedule between the "mise en bière" and getting to the crematorium. There were other elements I didn't quite understand, but I don't know if they were due to my in-laws, the constraints of the particular undertakers they worked with, or generalized French practices.

We're back at home now and have the quilt that was on Mamie's coffin, so we'll think of her often.