Ashes to Ashes

I recently went to the funeral of a somewhat distant relative. I hadn't been to a funeral since Maze got me and my sister into Ray Charles' funeral back in 2004, which was honestly one of the most amazing things I may ever witness. I don't think BB King often interrupts songs to weep for his old friend. Incidentally, I just learned how Ray got Quincy Jones started in music, who has been nominated for 77, that's seventy-frikkin-seven, grammys.

So, my relative Olga was a holocaust survivor and a pretty religious jewish woman. Apparently the tradition is that you are supposed to be buried in a plain wooden box, which she was, with wooden screws, wooden joints, etc. No metal, just organic elements. It was obviously a grim affair. As she was put into the ground and dirt was shoveled onto the casket with a hollow thud, I saw a few birds landing on bushes in the cemetery and across the road a factory churned and blew stacks of smoke in the air. These bushes are the reincarnated elements of the people below them. Olga was being checked back into the planet that gave her the carbon, oxygen, hydrogen she was made of. This is the infinite cycle of the earth. And where did this come from? Stars. No shit. Carl Sagan says it best.