Independent to the grave
GREEN PARK, Trelawny — Pensioner Phyllis Gordon considers herself an independent person, a trait she is bent on taking to her grave.
So for nearly two decades now the 76-year-old has been aggressively putting together several items to be utilised at her burial.
“I am a person who don’t love nobody to do no favours for me — neither me husband nor nobody,” she said.
“I have made my will and I have a Scotia Mint insurance (policy) for full burial because I don’t want to give me children them no trouble when I die because man born to die and man must bury good and man must not waste out them money. They must prepare fe dem funeral and don’t give people any trouble,” she said.
Conspicuously placed amongst the furniture in her living room is a mahogany coffin.
Gordon revealed that for nearly 20 years she has owned three caskets, one in which her beloved husband, Livery Gordon was buried in 2006 and another which she sold to the bereaved family members of a friend who died during the period.
But the widow was quick to point out that she has no intentions of surrendering possession of her third box.
“My husband never looked at my coffin them but he is buried in one, and now I have a lovely mahogany coffin,” Gordon told the Jamaica Observer during a visit to her Trelawny home last week.
“A long time me making me coffins and me sell one to me friend but me not selling this one. Me keeping me nice coffin. All I need on my coffin are handles. Why I did not put them on is because the first ones got rusty.”
Born in Montego Bay in 1938 and raised in Kingston, Gordon emigrated to England in 1959 at the age of 21. After spending 26 years in the United Kingdom she was forced to quit her job and return to her native land after she became ill.
The casket is but one of other funeral paraphernalia that can be found at the home of the returning resident.
In fact, her “burial” dress and a tombstone, both sourced in England over 10 years ago, are also among items that she has stocked at her home awaiting her funeral day. Inscribed on the tombstone are the words: “In loving memory of my dear self. May I rest in peace.”
It took four men to remove the heavy tombstone from another room to place it in the living room when the Sunday Observer visited the house last week.
Meanwhile, in the family plot sited at the rear of her Green Park property is an empty tomb lying in wait beside her husband’s, inside a 20 by 20-foot mausoleum.
Recounting how dearly she misses her husband, the widow said that construction of the large and imposing tomb got underway and was partially completed while his body was at the funeral home.
“I told my husband, let us build a mausoleum and he refused to do it. When he died I kept him in the funeral home for five weeks to half finish it, because I am determined to make it our final resting place. I want to lay down beside him. The room is a 20 by 20 room and well-furnished with chairs and everything down there,” Gordon stated.
She revealed that prior to her husband’s death she had purchased a burial spot at the Martha Brae cemetery which she gave to her niece who died over a decade ago.
“I went to Martha Brae, bought a grave spot but I don’t like how down there look, so I gave it to me niece about 10 years now. I prefer to bury here beside me husband,” she said.
“And another reason is I don’t want anybody or animals to come walk on top of my grave,” she added.
She recounted that before she became stricken with arthritis, she used to visit the mausoleum every other week to keep it clean.
“Every fortnight I used to go down there and sweep it and sit down there, but health fail me. I can’t walk to go down there. Me ask somebody to go down there and keep it clean,” Gordon stated.
Meanwhile, Gordon rejected suggestions that her obsession with her funeral preparation is a result of not enjoying life.
“I am enjoying life to the fullest. I don’t have no wants or nothing. I am very happy. Me getting me pension from England and me happy. The (UK) government feeding me I have been well-fed,” she pointed out.
” I don’t want to die but I know I have to die. Death must come one day, and I don’t want to give my children any problem to bury me. Everything lay out. Me will and everything finish. I do everything that I am (supposed) to do. So if God call me home anytime I am ready,” she said.
Gordon noted that she is saddened when people do not prepare for their burial by acquiring indemnity plans or save towards burying themselves and their loved ones.
“Jamaican people have a bad habit. When them people dead them send a foreign. But me no business with them, is their business. You tell them even to go and join the death insurance at the Credit Union. I encourage them to join it and them not joining it but when them people dead them coming fe money. Well, me have nothing to give nobody. My money is my money, because them not learning. Them sport too much, and they don’t see from afar. They need to see from afar like me,” she said.
Arguing that she has made arrangements for a full embalment of her body when she dies, Gordon said that she also wants a private funeral, with just the clergyman outside of family members.
“I want a private funeral… a funeral just like the English people them. The English people them if them husband dead only the minister and the wife go to the graveside and that’s the funeral I want… just with a pastor to give my daughter my death certificate,” she said.
” I don’t want to have nothing — no ray ray in the morning or in the evening, and I am not going to church. I am going to church down there,” Gordon said.
Gordon is the mother of three children, two of them girls, and six grandchildren.
