Remains of the Day

Today, the Supremes declined to hear the appeal of some of the families of 9/11 victims who have sued New York City because they believe that some amount of human remains - their relatives' human remains - have been dumped in a landfill and not "properly" buried.

A lower federal court found the city had handled things properly by searching for human remains and personal belongings in the rubble prior to disposing of it in the landfill. The families of 1100 victims have been provided with NO remains to bury, despite these efforts. The families also insist that 223,000 tons of materials was not "sifted" prior to it being dumped.

As with any circumstance, we are presented here with legal issues and moral issues, some related to religious doctrine. The Courts, presumably, are only addressing legal issues. (I don't really know what those are. In other words, I don't know what duty the city owed or owes to the families to find the remains.)

Left with no further recourse, I suppose the dissatisfied families either have to accept things as they are or work out something with the landfill and find the money to pay for - whatever additional actions they want.

My Mom always says that she does not want flowers at her funeral. She wants flowers to enjoy while she is alive. She doesn't care how her dead body is decorated.

From this maternally-endorsed philosophy, I have adopted this POV: the body is merely a vessel that holds the person (mind, ego, personality, spirit, whatever you want to call it) inside it while alive. Once dead, the body is as meaningless as a side of beef(except for donated organs which can save many lives). I know not everyone agrees with me. And I have no problem with those who choose to revere human remains. But to me, it's just not that important.

What matters is not how you treat people when they are dead. What matters is how you threat them while they are alive. In summary, "let the dead bury the dead."

I wonder how much NYC revenue was spent retrieving the remains and belongings that were retrieved. I don't really begrudge the expense. I get it. People want something to say goodbye to, to have closure. But wouldn't the money have been better spent on medical care for those Ground Zero workers who now suffer from respiratory diseases and other ailments from cleaning up the site?

Why do we feel so compelled to treat dead people with reverence while we feel no such reverence towards our living fellow human beings? I know this does not apply to everyone. There are people who advocate for those sick and disabled by the Ground Zero pollution/dust/gases/smoke, etc. I just wish there were more such advocates.

I certainly do not intend disrespect to any of the families involved. They are, no doubt, still suffering a sense of grief that I cannot fathom. But it does not follow that we must sift the entire contents of a landfill to try and give them the closure they desire. Like the families of sailors who died and were buried at sea, or the relatives of soldiers lost in battle whose bodies were never recovered, they will have to find closure in other ways.

(This does not really fit into the "Above Your Raisin'" theme. But I thought it was noteworthy and interesting.)