I'm coming back as a cat

 

Over the last 50 years, I have lost count of the number of cats that have lived with us, but I’m pretty sure that it’s several dozen. At one point, we had 5 cats living in the house simultaneously, and they all led pretty leisurely lives

The average cat lives 10 to 15 years old if they spend most of their time indoors, and about 7 years if they spend a lot of time unsupervised outdoors. The male cat that moved with us to Tucson was in the latter category, and he was roughly about that age when he disappeared one day, a victim of the predators in the desert.

One of our cats lasted for 18 years, which would be the equivalent of 88 human  years.

https://www.petmd.com/blogs/thedailyvet/jcoates/2011/aug/how_long_do_cats_live-11496

Cats sleep from anywhere from 12 to 16 hours a day, but most of that time is in a state of “light sleep”. When they are awake, they are either eating, using the litter box, or wandering around in the back yard, but they also spend a lot of time sitting on people’s laps.

 

 

 

I’m actually not a believer of reincarnation, but several prominent American citizens were. Included on that list are Benjamin Franklin, Mahatma Gandhi, Henry Ford, Ralph Waldo Emerson, General George S. Patton, and George Harrison.

https://www.journeyofthesouls.com/famous-people-who-believed-in-reincarnation#:~:text=Famous%20people%20who%20believed%20in%20reincarnation.%20Benjamin%20Franklin,to%20the%20continual%20trouble%20of%20making%20new%20ones.

Sharon and I have decided that traditional funerals are silly affairs, and having your old bones sitting in an expensive box buried six feet down has very little appeal, so cremation seems like a fitting “end story”.

However, there ARE alternatives to cremation.

There is a company in Florida that will imbed your ashes in a reef

 https://www.eternalreefs.com/

 An Eternal Reef combines a cremation urn, ash scattering and burial at sea into one meaningful, permanent environmental tribute to life. An Eternal Reef is a designed reef made of environmentally-safe cast concrete placed on the ocean floor as a permanent memorial of a life well lived.

There are also companies that bury your ashes with a memorial tree. If this is your pick, here’s how to do it:

1. Dig a hole 1-2 feet wider in diameter than the root structure of your sapling. Loosening the soil will help initial root growth, as well as water and nutrient absorption.
2. Dig a little deeper still if you want to accommodate a biodegradable urn to place below the tree during the planting process.
3. If planting a number of smaller plants, first map out the planting on the ground. Using a garden spade, dig holes wide and deep enough to accommodate the roots of the plants.
4. Once all the holes are dug, you might wish to conduct an ash scattering ceremony or memorial service with friends or family to provide a sense of closure. Then scatter the ashes into each hole from a scattering tube.
5. Once words and prayers have been shared, and the urn or ashes have been placed in the ground, add any desired fertilizer and a shallow layer of dirt.
6. Place the root of your plant on top of the urn or ashes. Backfill the soil around the stem and tamp down the earth to ensure a stable footing.
7. Lastly, add three to six inches of mulch around the bottom of the new planting. This helps keep roots moist, deters competing weeds and insulates roots over the winter.
8. Give your memorial planting a good soaking, and continue to shower with attention at least once a week

https://www.oneworldmemorials.com/blogs/news/burying-ashes-with-a-memorial-tree-or-in-a-remembrance-garden#:~:text=%20How%20do%20I%20prepare%20the%20site%20for,first%20map%20out%20the%20planting%20on...%20More%20

This morning’s Tucson Daily Star provided information about another alternative.

Composting.

A woman in Kent, Washington founded a company that will transform dead people into compost. In 2019, Governor Jay Inslee signed the bill making natural organic reduction law. The law went into effect in may of 2020, making Washington the first state to offer alternatives to burials and cremations. The company that Karen Spade founded is called Recompose, and there are currently are 700 people on the waiting list to be “recomposed”. The fee for the transformation is $5500, This year, Colorado became the second state to legalize the process, and other states are also considering doing the same thing.

 I have several relatives that lived to be 95, so I am pretty sure that I’ll eventually become a centenarian. When it’s time to “check out”, it’s very unlikely that I’ll come back as a cat. However, if composting ever gets legalized in Arizona, I could eventually come back as a tomato, at least for a couple of seasons.

If you want to pay homage to me, come during the growing season.