Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes

Dearest Readers,
As I type this to you all I am in my family's car returning from my Great Uncle Bob's funeral in Michigan five hours from my home. (I am writing in a word document and will post later) squinting to see the keyboard. So during this funeral I experienced a few interesting things. One of them was the same feeling I had at my grandfather's funeral in April. Now please don't take me for being cold hearted or anything, but you see the whole two day period I had not one ounce of sadness. The man lived a long life on planet earth and just as he slept, ate, and talked, it is now time for him to leave the Earth. I just cannot understand why people are acting so sad about it! Alright you do not get to see him anymore, I suppose I can understand that but they should just be grateful he is no longer suffering! (The man was quite sick) so that's my little rant right there.
The other thing I want to write about, I guess just write down my feelings about is the way the body was delt with. When I spent time in Varanasi, India with my Mom we visited the place where bodies are cremated. OK that may seem strange, but it is the oldest cremation ground in the world, and Swamiji says if you spend three days there you will loose all fear of death, and therefor be able to simply live your life fully in the present moment. So how they burn the bodies at the cremation ground there is they place the wrapped up body on a pyre of wood and take a stick, they light the stick from this fire at the top of the cremation ground that is continuously burning. The body burns up, then the ashes are collected, given to the family and placed in the Ganges. Oh one last thing before the pyre burns out completely some burning piece from the pyre is placed in the fire it was lite from and then completes the circle. Look at that! So beautiful and complete! And it only uses up a small area on the bank of the river.
Now this is what shocks me think about our American cemeteries. I cannot remember going to any cemeteries in other countries so if you don't live in America...... make do. Aces and aces of land filled with tomb stones. When my grandfather died the burial was a small event a little hole in the ground under an average size tombstone. The urn of his ashes was placed in it. But today I witnessed a full scale burial. It shocked, and confused me. First a hole was dug with backhoes the sides where perfectly straight, not natural, then there was this metal box on the bottom an the sides and around where covered with fake green turf to make it look nice. Chairs where placed beside the grave and covered with blankets for people to sit in. then around the grave a bunch of boards where placed (although they where covered by the turf) and a metal contraption placed on top of the boards. The casket (a huge metal box in it's self) was taken out of the funeral car and placed on top of the metal contraption then some words where said over it and the metal supports came out from under the casket, and it was held by two cloth straps. These where like pulleys, sort of, and with the help of the cemetery people, the casket was slowly lowered into the earth. Then another contraption trailer thing was wheeled over and a really heavy looking golden metal lid was placed over the coffin. It had Bob's full name on it, and his dates of life. It looked like the most unenviromentaly friendly thing you could stick in the ground... on purpose! And then the minister lady was saying ashes to ashes and dust to dust and I wanted to you yell “No! How can he ever become ashes confined in this big metal box!” But of course I didn't, and it wasn't only that. As we stood there the realization dawned on me, that most of the graveyard has boxes in it like this, and most likely people are not going to stop. They are just going to keep hurting the Earth in this way. So I just wanted to share that with you all. So thanks for reading!
Oh P.S. This picture is of my grandfather's grave at his funeral in April, I forgot to take any at the current funeral