"dying tastefully in the mississippi delta"

"After the solemnity of the church service and finality of the grave, the people of the Mississippi Delta are just dying to get to the house of the bereaved for the reception.

"Friends and family begin arriving with covered dishes, finger foods, and sweets as soon as the word is out that somebody has died....You can't bury a self-respecting Deltan without certain foods. Chief among these is tomato aspic with homemade mayonnaise---without which you practically can't get a death certificate---closely followed by Aunt Hebe's coconut cake, and Virginia's butterbeans.

"The burial, which is solemn though rarely entirely devoid of humor, most likely takes place at the old cemetery on South Main Street. The old cemetery is one of the best addresses in Greenville, Mississippi. Being buried anywhere else is a fate worse than death in Greenville. The FFGs---that's First Families of Greenville---would simply refuse to die if they weren't assured of a spot. Not that the old cemetery is strictly FFG. Not by a long shot. Lola Belle Crittenden, bless her heart, had to plant a huge hedge around her ancestral plot. Why? The neighbors. "They're so tacky," Lola Belle huffed.

"We're people with a strong sense of community, and being dead is no impediment to belonging to it. We won't forget you just because you've up and died. We may even like you better and visit you more often.

The old cemetery sees quite a bit of traffic, from the living and the dead....When Adelle Atkins, a widow, married James Gilliam, a Greenville widower, she insisted on bringing her late husband, Harry, along. She asked whether she could re-bury him on the Gilliam family plot. Adelle's new in-laws...were appalled. They were obsessed with who would go where when the day came. And besides, they hated the notion of new dead people coming in and just taking over.

"Cremation is a possible solution to the overcrowding problem [at the old cemetery]. But it's still a new and dicey proposition in the Delta. The last time somebody was cremated, his ashes were sprinkled from a crop duster. We all ran for cover. We liked him fine, but we didn't want him all over our good clothes."

from Being Dead is no Excuse, the Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral, Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hayes