Burial Rites

Nostalgia for a time or a place one has never known

I recently joined a writing group where, once a month, we all write a short story based on the same one-word prompt. The word for January 2024 was anemoia - “nostalgia for a time or a place one has never known”. It’s been fun to read everyone’s wildly different stories stemming from the same word. Here’s my anemoia story.

Burial Rites

Dear Hannah,

The Wayfarer crew wasn’t always so efficient with the deceased. After the pancreatic cancer bedbound me two weeks ago, I went through all 2180 burial records aboard our ship to understand our death rites’ evolution.

The one you know - overnight vigil, scattering of flowers and salt, us funeral directors sending the body into the processor, repurposing its output as livestock feed - only became the default in my lifetime. When I assisted my father at a funeral for the first time in high school, the deceased’s family opted for a water cremation. A potassium hydroxide solution dissolved the body into compostable sludge. We no longer needed the compost by then, but people preferred the idea of rejoining plants to being consumed by livestock. It was only 19 years ago, when we lost a quarter of our corn harvest due to a UV shield misconfiguration, that an alternative livestock feed became a necessity. 739 of the 1012 Wayfarer crew voted in favor of making processing the mandatory death rite.

Further back in the records, my grandmother, your great-grandmother, directed the last star burial. The entire crew stood in silence at the port-side windows to watch the beloved Captain Quinn Stevens, in his silver spacesuit regulated for pressure but not temperature, vanish into the stars. Some observers claimed to witness frost gathering in the crevices of his face.

Captain Stevens’s star burial was an exception that arose from a vote. The last star burial before him took place three years prior, for a middle-aged man who many crewmates deemed lazy and arrogant. His insistence on a star burial, when water cremation was already the de facto default, led to the vote that removed the option. The crew were all Wayfarer-born by then, and should return to the ship when their time comes, should keep it a closed system. 

Star burial started out as the most popular option because it resembled the burial rites from Earth. The Earth-born found it comforting to know they’d receive a farewell similar to their parents and grandparents. It alleviated the worst of their homesickness. Our ancestors even built coffins from the extra lumber aboard for the first dozen burials, but stopped after a threat modeling project predicted a 17% chance of an accident whose mitigation would require all the remaining wood. The biggest threats were interior fires and stray comets.

Our ancestors’ mathematical models have been remarkably accurate. They calculated we’d need 180 backup batteries for the stretches between solar systems when the ship’s solar panels won’t be enough to power it, and nearing the end of our journey, we still have three left. They calculated we’d reach Gliese CC 209 years after Wayfarer’s launch date. We’re now scheduled to arrive next year, the 213th, well within the margin of error. The delay is mostly due to a detour around Antares 50 years ago, to avoid its unpredictable solar flares.

Unfortunately, the detour means I’ll be the last crew member to die aboard Wayfarer, instead of the first on Gliese CC’s soil. When I tire of reading burial records, I watch the planet draw closer, the red and blue marbling illuminated by the light of three suns. Yet it’s still too far.

I realize this letter is rather rambling. I’m writing it because you, and the rest of the crew, are so busy preparing for the landing. I’m glad you still find time to visit your mother, and I’d rather spend my last days hearing about your future plans than telling you about our past. Especially when it hurts to talk. But I believe it’ll be important for Gliese CC’s new society to remember their roots on Earth, and I’d like you to share my research with them.

I researched the burial rite on Earth as well: a wooden coffin buried in the ground, a tombstone marking its spot. It requires space that we can’t afford aboard Wayfarer, although it reminds me of how the Yung and McKay families keep their stash of stones engraved with deceased loved ones’ names. I found it superfluous until I directed Justine McKay’s funeral and saw how much closure it brought her family. 

Hannah, my final request to you is to preserve my body during these final weeks of Wayfarer’s journey. Once you’ve decided where to till the first farmlands on Gliese CC, please bury me there and place a stone on top with my name engraved. I’d like to be the first buried under the expanse of our new sky with its three suns. I’d like to be part of the Wayfarer’s closed system opening up onto our new home.

I also tried to research our family’s history, but there’s little of it in Wayfarer’s databases. I don’t know if we always directed funerals, or took on the responsibility after boarding the ship. But I discovered other rites that I’d love for you and the other crewmates to experience. Telling stories accompanied by sticky golden marshmallows around bonfires. Climbing up mountains to catch the sunrise. Diving into cool, clear lakes. Lying on grass with the night sky spread overhead and all its twinkling celestial bodies.

Love,

Mom