My own Grave Goods

My mother and I have already talked about what we want to happen when we die and neither of us actually wants to be buried at all. This made this weeks topic kind of strange and difficult for me, I had to totally revise my ideas of what to do with my body once I was dead. The idea of being stuck in the ground with my things just seems cramped and kind of pointless to me, but none the less it made for a cool topic that was fun to explore.

What I would put in my grave would be kind of boring, I would have my favorite dress on and possibly my paper crane necklace that I always wear. Those are really the only things I feel would be necessary. Even when it came to coming up with ideas of ANYTHING I could put in there that would tell someone about who I was, I just came up blank. I feel like the only thing that I could do is just more jewellery. I want loads of diamonds and pearls in my grave. But honestly that says absolutely nothing about my personality other than the fact that leading future archaeologists to believe I was some kind of royal would be hilarious!

So since I was utterly stumped I started asking family and friends. This was the oddly unsettling part of all this; what everyone else came up with.

My mother was the first person I saw and actually remembered to ask. What I got from her were these things: 

• Art
• Music (Etta James, after I made her narrow it down a bit)
• (and with serious probing and FORCING her to do something less generic) my hair-straightener. If you could have seen my face when my mom said these you would understand why her reaction was "Well I dont know!!!" and then finally added,
• My boxing gloves

This was when I started getting worried. If my own mother only sees me as her little girl and doesn't really know or at least know how to express the other sides of my personality, what was everyone else going to say?

I then went over to my boyfriends apartment to hang out there and asked him the same questions. After a lot of "I don't care"'s and "this is stupid" answers, I finally forced him to just say something! This is what I got:

• a ladle
• lid to a cookie jar
• tiny novelty mug from Nova Scotia
• a Kate Bush album

:| ...... Yea none of these having any relevance to my life or my personality, I then moved on to the next person on my list. (Stupid-useless-annoying-nohelp-good-for-nothing boyfriend. Good thing he's pretty). 

Next I started texting my brother, normally I would just treat him to some sort of greasy disgusting food to get his help but unfortunately he now lives in Vancouver so a text would have to do. Since he has taken this class (and this is just what our brother-sister relationship is like), he hardly needed an explanation to help. He said:

• a bunch of skulls (which he admits would throw off any archaeologist looking at my grave)
• knitting needles
• small furry animals

These things put me a little more at ease since I feel they more reflect my personal interests instead of just my role as a female, which is really what worried me about my mom's ideas. Although this did lead to a hilarious discussion about how exactly the furry animals would be included. For instance would they be tiny adorable sacrifices? Or stuffed toy animals? Or something in between, like taxidermy animals? 

Just toss in some puppies.

At that point my brother just went, "Oh I dont know, do your own homework!"

All-in-all it was pretty fun, I think I really just like getting my family's opinions on things like this because I find their answers hilarious. But still this whole exercise was slightly worrisome and left me a little bit unsettled because of the way in which I found my identity being viewed through the eyes of someone else. The only one that really bothered me was my mother's choices. I suddenly felt as if she was only including the things about me SHE wanted to include. She chose things that, while I do enjoy them, I wouldn't use them in describing my identity. I'm far more complex than that.

THE OTHER THING that came out of this blog prompt was something magical. So magical it has gained a place in legend (well my heart at least). And that, my classmates, is the

~*Legend of the Ponybear*~

When I described this assignment to a friend from a different class all he wanted to do was to mess with the heads of future archaeologists. Not only did he want to be buried with the skeleton of a pony but the pony would have the skull of a bear in place of a pony skull. Amazing, I know. I'll let you take a moment and pick your jaw up from off the floor.

You good?

Good.

This then created so much stir between the two of us that we have been coming up with stories and myths surrounding our lives with the Ponybear. It has been magical. 

I give you the Ponybear:

I suck at photoshop.

The End.

Click images for links to original sites as none of these pictures are my own. (Although I did photoshop the Ponybear...those don't exist.)