This is not really an entry to The Silver Blogger Community's initiative, Silver Prompts, because right now my mind is not on collecting my retirement funds when I turn 65; at the rate my sisters have been dying, I wonder whether I'll live to see age 65.
NOTE: This post expanded and morphed into a long diatribe full of excerpts from a guy who died but came back 90 minutes later. Skim, dear reader, skim!
Here is my one thought on funding our retirement years: be sure to leave funds behind for your dang FUNERAL,
if you think you need such ceremonies, with cemeteries, and all the usual trappings and trimmings that can bankrupt a family. Most Americans have been conditioned to believe we are terrible people if we don't do the customary (expensive, time-consuming, inconvenient) things to honor births, weddings, and deaths.
My sister died six months ago at 63. Not a penny of all the paychecks she earned and had confiscated for Social Security made it her way. Then again, she was on Disability and Medicaid, so it all came back to her, one way or another. Probably. Maybe.
I miss her more, not less, every day. (But I digress.)
Our grandchildren lost their only other grandparent just before Valentine's Day. He was 62. Maybe he didn't pay much into Social Security. Maybe he collected unemployment checks after the cancer struck. He worked hard. Factory labor. YEARS of work, and he never got to retire and enjoy the fruits of his labor.
How many people have paid thousands into it, only to die young, and all their earnings fund the Social Security checks of others who never paid in at all (my grandpa, for one, who started collecting when the program first began).
The long, drawn-out funeral and "repast" of our daughter's father-in-law finally came to an end Sunday.
("I touched Grandpa," the 5-year-old said. "He's hard as a rock.")
It was sad, sorry, yet poignant and beautiful occasion, and it reinforced all my intense disdain for funerals and cemeteries. If anyone stuffs me in a vault six feet under, I swear I'll come back as a poltergeist to haunt them. If they host a gathering to eulogize me and say stupid stuff such as "She never once complained," I will send a polka band to drown them out. "In heaven there is no beer," of course, will be my theme song.
(HOW CAN THEY NOT LOVE THIS SONG)
I love this song!
Dust in the wind.
So, instead of thinking about my IRA, my cyber wallet, my retirement years, I'm thinking how to economize my death. Save the offspring some money, save the cemeteries from another corpse, save the planet from my carbon footprint.
If cremation leaves as big a carbon footprint as coffins in vaults, maybe I'll leave orders to bury me in a body bag (this is a thing now!) or in one of the new mushroom coffins (I kid you not; it showed up on my Facebook wall because the busy bots are ever looking for stuff to market to me).
Green Burial
Burial shrouds are designed for the body to be placed within them, so are long and rectangular (like a blanket), fold around the body, and have ties (either sewn onto the shroud or separate) that tie the shroud into place once it's wrapped around the body. Don't confuse a custom made burial shroud with just any piece of fabric.
Funeral Planning
5 Biodegradable Funeral Caskets That Will Save You Thousands on Funeral Expenses
You may think that eco friendly caskets are only used by those people looking to reduce their carbon footprint. This is true. The use of environmentally friendly biodegradable caskets initially started with people looking to have a natural burial. However, due to rising funeral costs, families are looking for more affordable options.
First funeral held using ‘living coffin’ made of mushroom fibre: Netherlands-based startup company behind eco-friendly fungi mycelium casket
Bob Hendrikx, the founder of Loop, the startup producing the Living Cocoon, said this mushroom coffin allows “people to become one with nature again. We can enrich the soil instead of polluting it.”
Mycelium is “nature’s recycler.... Not only does it neutralise toxins and provide fresh food to everything growing above ground, but its fibres can be used to make anything from food to clothes and packaging – including coffins.
“Mycelium is constantly looking for waste products – oil, plastic, metals, other pollutants – and converting them into nutrients for the environment,” he said. “This coffin means we actually feed the earth with our bodies. We are nutrients, not waste.”
The dust settles, the bills eventually get paid. Dying is expensive.
Let us rethink our customs, bury our traditions.
The funeral industry is second only to the wedding industry, it seems. I have spent a lot of time thinking about all the obligatory things we do because someone else said we must. Billions of humans die and their bodies must be properly disposed of, but not like trash going to the landfill or the recycle bin. Cremation consumes fossil fuels and pollutes the air, and many are opposed to it (my mom, adamantly). My sister chose cremation. It saved thousands of dollars and she isn't taking up space in the cemetery. Valuable real estate... in Europe, the cemeteries are full. After so many years, new corpses replace the old, and I have not researched what happens to the old ones. Vast crematoriums...?
My sister also said "no funeral," which saved additional thousands of dollars. Our daughter and her husband, following his Liberian tradition, paid a fortune to embalm his father, rent a casket, adorn it with a massive floral bouquet, pay musicians, pay the director to deliver a speech, pay for a slide show with canned music, AND THEN, pay for food, disposable utensils and cookwared, rent a hotel meeting room, host a "repast" with traditional Liberian food (cooked by sisters of the deceased), all to "honor" the lost loved one, and people drove from afar for this occasion, which cost almost as much as a wedding.
How many people have the money to pay for a "proper" and "decent" funeral service and burial? Billions of people live and die, year after year, and they cannot all fit into satin-lined coffins (which cost $10,000 and up, yes, TEN THOUSAND, the cost of a car), to be sunk into cement vaults, six feet under, with a granite slab engraved with names and dates.
Everyone's life span is marked by a little dash. However many years we get, say 1957-2021, our life is represented by that space between, that dash, said the funeral home director.
"A man was born. He lived, and he died. The end."
Of all the Peanuts cartoons I read and loved, that was my favorite. You all remember Charles Schultz. Snoopy. Linus is annoying Lucy, pestering her to read him a story. To shut him up, she grabs a book, opens it, and says, "A man was born, he lived and he died. The End!" She tosses the book aside. Linus picks it up reverently. "What a fascinating account," he says. "It almost makes you wish you had known the fellow."
Of course I cannot find the comic strip I have in mind, so I will trot out this one:
Since the death of Sister #2, whose ashes now lie three feet under with Sister #1 (who was murdered in 1975 at almost 19), I have been more preoccupied than usual with death. (Morbid, yes, from early childhood.) The finality of it! The silencing of a voice we loved, the stillness of hands that were once so busy! Some people "know" that death is not the end, and we live on in some spirit form, and we reunited with our lost loved ones.
Mom taught us the Christian version of it, which never sounded plausible to me. She still believes: "In my Father's house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place for you." People two thousand years ago could imagine a heaven up there in the sky but I couldn't. We have photographed the moon, the planets, stellar nurseries, distant galaxies. Are there cities up there with pearly gates and streets paved in gold? Whatever lies beyond life in this body, no human has been able to describe it.
There is simply no evidence that we live on after our bodies die. Yes, I've been reading books for years, NDE, Near-Death Experience, Life After Death stories. I even met an old woman, when I was sixteen, who told me she had died, left her body, then came back, and she knew--KNEW--there is life after death. She was more convincing than anyone. I wanted to believe her. But any number of drugs or hormonal surges can cause hallucinations. She got to "know" but I get to wonder.
So with Sister #3 fighting cancer and facing probable "only months to live," I'm revisiting old NDE accounts I'd read and appreciated before but dismissed as one person's experience, and his conclusions were questionable. I just squandered my entire morning listening, reading, summarizing, and excerpting this guy's revelations. I wrote a group email and blind copied everyone, including 
Here is the email I wrote:
Hi from Carol,
Sending this because it's a fascinating account. I highlighted my favorite parts for those who will only skim (um, yeah, I'm a skimmer!). Julie and Lori are ever on my mind, and (Sister #3 of the 5) too as I keep praying for a miracle of this magnitude.
I can't find anything online to confirm that this guy really did miraculously recover from terminal cancer. He's one of the most studied NDEs ever.
One of the things that I saw is that we humans are a speck on a planet that is a speck in a galaxy that is a speck. ... human beings are already legendary throughout the cosmos of consciousness...One of the things that we are legendary for is dreaming. We are legendary dreamers. In fact, the whole cosmos has been looking for the meaning of life, the meaning of it all. And it was the little dreamer who came up with the best answer ever. We dreamed it up. So dreams are important.
@Owasco, I also think of you:
“If something ever happened to me again, I would give faith healers and healers the first chance; I would give a miracle the first chance… If someone was all wired up and everything, I would bring a whole bunch of healers in the room, some manifestors, and let them have a go at it. I traveled the world studying these things and I’ve seen people healed of the most amazing things by holy water, holy places, holy men, holy women, and holy moly. I would give a miracle the first chance… the universe is one giant miracle and you are a part of that!”
@ rfsignals,
anything electrical (physics) has me thinking of you, even though I doubt you will identify with this:
In its total energy configuration, the galaxy looked like a fantastic city of lights. All energy this side of the Big Bang is light. Every sub-atom, atom, star, planet, even consciousness itself is made of light and has a frequency and/or particle. Light is living stuff. Everything is made of light, even stones. So everything is alive. Everything is made from the light of God; everything is very intelligent.
I'm afraid you'll stop reading at this point:
I could hear the music of the spheres. Our solar system, as do all celestial bodies, generates a unique matrix of light, sound and vibratory energies. Advanced civilizations from other star systems can spot life as we know it in the universe by the vibratory or energy matrix imprint. It is child’s play. The Earth’s wonder child (human beings) make an abundance of sound right now, like children playing in the backyard of the universe.
The one thing the Bible asserts most eloquently is that the world began with sound (a word). God said let there be light, and voila! There was light.... Physicists tell us sound (vibrations, rf signals) set the universe into motion.
Who is still with me?
Who has read beyond the subject header, the opening sentence?
In 1982, after suffering from terminal brain cancer, Mellen-Thomas Benedict “died.” His body was monitored for an hour and a half after he died and showed no vital signs. Miraculously he returned to his body with a complete remission of the disease. While on the other side Mellen journeyed through several realms of consciousness and beyond the light at the end of the tunnel. He was shown during his NDE, in holographic detail, Earth’s past and a beautiful vision of mankind’s future for the next 400 years. He experienced the cosmology of our soul’s connection to Mother Earth (Gaia), our role in the Universe, and was gifted with access to Universal Intelligence. NDE author/researcher Dr. Kenneth Ring says that Benedict’s NDE “is one of the most remarkable I have encountered in extensive research on near-death experiences.”
Mellen-Thomas Benedict passed away on March 31, 2017
Excerpt:
*It was not a near-death experience. I experienced death itself for at least an hour and a half. She found me dead and checked the stethoscope, blood pressure and heart rate monitor for an hour and a half. Then I awakened and saw the light outside. I tried to get up to go to it, but I fell out of the bed. She heard a loud “clunk”, ran in and found me on the floor.
....Within three days, I was feeling normal again, clearer, yet different than I had ever felt in my life. My memory of the journey came back later. I could see nothing wrong with any human being I had ever seen. Before that I was really judgmental. I thought a lot of people were really screwed up, in fact I thought that everybody was screwed up but me. But I got clear on all that.
About three months later a friend said I should get tested, so I went and got the scans and so forth. I really felt good, so I was afraid of getting bad news.
I remember the doctor at the clinic looking at the before and after scans, saying, “Well, there is nothing here now.”
I said, “Really, it must be a miracle?”
He said, “No, these things happen, they are called spontaneous remission.”
He acted very unimpressed. But here was a miracle, and I was impressed, even if no one else was.*
=========
Ok, some of this guy's story sounds like the good witch telling Dorothy, "You've always had the power to go home!"
“The time has come for you. You can leave. You always could,” the angel said....
But so much of it echoes what I've heard from others - scientists, skeptics, Christians, New Agers - and I hope you'll at least skim these excerpts.
Download a transcript of this audio recording here (pdf)
You can start with this:
The Near-Death Experience of Mellen-Thomas Benedict By Mellen-Thomas Benedict
Excerpt:
In 1982 I died from terminal cancer. The condition I had was inoperable, and any kind of chemotherapy they could give me would just have made me more of a vegetable. I was given six to eight months to live. I had been an information freak in the 1970’s, and I had become increasingly despondent over the nuclear crisis, the ecology crisis, and so forth. So, since I did not have a spiritual basis, I began to believe that nature had made a mistake, and that we were probably a cancerous organism on the planet. I saw no way that we could get out from all the problems we had created for ourselves and the planet. I perceived all humans as cancer, and that is what I got. That is what killed me. Be careful what your world view is. It can feed back on you, especially if it is a negative world view. I had a seriously negative one. That is what led me into my death. I tried all sorts of alternative healing methods, but nothing helped.
So I determined that this was really just between me and God. I had never really faced God before, or even dealt with God. I was not into any kind of spirituality at the time, but I began a journey into learning about spirituality and alternative healing. I set out to do all the reading I could and bone up on the subject, because I did not want to be surprised on the other side. So I started reading on various religions and philosophies. They were all very interesting, and gave hope that there was something on the other side.
......I got so that I would not dare to drive, and eventually I ended up in hospice care. .... I did not want to take a lot of drugs, since I wanted to be as conscious as possible. Then I experienced such pain that I had nothing but pain in my consciousness, luckily only for a few days at a time.
I remember waking up one morning at home about 4:30 am, and I just knew that this was it. This was the day I was going to die. .....
Being out of my body was even more vivid than ordinary experience. It was so vivid that I could see every room in the house, I could see the top of the house, I could see around the house, I could see under the house.
Ok, I'm not going to spend what's left of a morning block-quoting all this.
Excerpt:
I fell into what I can only describe as hell, and what a fall it was. It was as if I was sinking into a suffocating black hole, it was my personal hell. But there were millions of others all around me in their own hells suffering and grieving in every way imaginable. My pain and fear was amplified millions of times. I cannot and do not want to describe this any further than to say it was each individual’s version of eternal misery.
It seemed like I was in hell for eternity, when somehow I noticed that I could still see that speck of light way off in the distance. I also saw that every other hell around me had a speck of light, but no one was paying attention to it. We were all so consumed in our own fear, grief, loss, hopelessness, anger and on and on. There seemed to be no bottom or end to this pain. I felt cut off from and yet somehow intimately connected to all the suffering around me. Feeling cut off by my own pain was the darkest part of this hell for me. And yet all around me were millions of others, each caught up in their own private hell.
In the midst of all my suffering, I remembered that the light became brighter when I called to it. I cried out with all my soul, “Please help me! Please help me!” I now began to focus less on my pain and more on the light. The more I summoned my will to focus on the light, the brighter and more intense it became. It occurred to me that if there was any way out of this place, it was the light. I focused all of my energy, and that was no easy task, and called out to the light with every atom of my being, all without words, just emotion and energy.
Suddenly, everything stopped. There was a great silence in hell, mine and all the others. The intensity of the light continued to grow until I felt spears of light shooting through me, piercing my heart, hands and feet, then my head and eyes, giving me strength. Then, out of the light, a golden beam shaped like a halo came towards me. As it moved closer, I could see that it was a towering golden angel. I had always believed angels to exist only in fairytales, but there before me was the most beautiful angel. I felt so much love emulating from this being, I saw its golden face, powerful wings and shimmering skirt.
I didn’t know what to do, so I asked, “Are you the Angel of Death?”
“There is no death. There is only eternal life,” the angel answered.
“Who are you then? Can you save me, please?” I begged.
“I am your guardian angel, your higher self, your oversoul,” answered the angel, “I have been with you all of your life.”
Upon hearing these words, I became aware of another part of myself, a larger, higher part that I had only glimpsed as a child and in rare dreams throughout my life. I had not understood that this was the larger part of me, the oversoul, or the source of inspiration, my connection to the light. I cried, “Where am I? Am I in hell? Can you save me from this suffering, or must I stay here forever? What did I do to deserve this hell?”
Then I was enveloped in the angel’s shimmering golden skirt. From inside it, it seemed to be transparent. “Look again at your life,” the angel said.
I began to slowly spiral inside the angel’s skirt, seeing again my life’s demons, the shadows, the cold, sticky fire clawing at the skirt all around me. This time, however, I was protected in the skirt of the angel and could see the shadows without fear. The angel explained to me that I was trapped in my negative life issues, that they had consumed me, not just here but all during my life as well. Then I realized that hell is a state of consciousness, very real and existing in both life and what we call death. But consciousness survives death, and the individual takes their issues, positive and negative, with them to the other side.
“So below, so above, and so above, so below,” the angel said, and then, “No soul was ever created to suffer.”
“So why then have I suffered?” I asked.
“Ignorance and fear, fear of survival,” the angel answered, “Look.”
I was shown more aspects of my life in exquisite detail. I realized how ignorant I had been because I did not know how the pieces of life create a tapestry that can be woven, unwoven and rewoven by everything that we do, how every thread has a reason and a purpose. I had come into this world full of fear and anger. I saw my biological father’s life and experienced his rage, allowing me to understand why he was the way he was.
I could see my mother’s fear of survival in her adopted mother’s hands, and later in my father’s hands. This was her program, or life pattern. I also experienced my brother’s life, to whom I had transferred a great deal of fear and anger as it had been transferred to me from my parents. I could see why my grandmother had been so cruel to my mother and why the grandparents on both sides of the family had never felt close to their grandchildren, and so on and on. Every little aspect was playing out. I could see and feel how fear and ignorance dominates so many lives.
“Please, I’ve seen enough! Don’t make me watch this forever,” I pleaded. For the first time, I could begin to see why I was the person I had become. “Can I leave this place? I don’t want to be here anymore,” I asked. Suddenly, everything stopped and there rose a profound silence, except for an ever so slight hiss all around me. I waited it seemed forever for an answer.
“This is your life,” the angel whispered into my right ear, “What do you really want?”
“I want to leave here, please!” I replied.
“Then let go of your negative life issues.”
“What do you mean? How do I do it? I’ll do anything,” I said.
“Listen to me now. You have the power, you have always had the power to be free, awaiting inside you.”
“But how?” I asked.
"Tap your ruby slippers three times and say...." (ha ha, Carol here)
“Forgive all your life issues, forgive everyone and everything in your life. Fear is the only hell,” said the angel, “Love your life, everyone and everything, and fear no more.”
At that very moment, I came face to face with my life and trusting in life as never before, I said and meant, “I love my life, all of it.” I surrendered, and what an incredible release that was. Loving my life freed me from my hell. I felt free and light, the first inklings of a love light, of being loved like never before.
“The time has come for you. You can leave. You always could,” the angel said, “Now, reach to me and come.”
I reached out emotionally for the angel. I could see millions of souls still trapped in their private hells. Most of them were totally consumed by the traumas they had suffered or created in their lives. A few, from what I could see, seemed to actually be enjoying hell. Some others seemed to be bored with the whole thing. But millions of souls were begging to be saved. I asked why these souls were unable to be free.
“They are already free,” answered the angel, “They hold themselves to negative patterns, memories, prejudices and fear. None of these negative qualities exist where you desire to be.”
I was protected by the angel and we moved at light speed through this realm of hell consciousness. I shouted to the others, “Call to the light! Call to the light! You can leave this place any time! Come on! Let’s leave hell together!” I kept yelling, “Call to the light! Call to the light! You can leave! You can leave!”
And you know, many did call to the light, many souls did leave hell together, sort of a group exodus. I can tell you the whole thing caused quite a ruckus in hell that day. I would meet some of these souls later after my return to life, we recognize each other every time. I sailed with the angel out of hell and through several other realms, like varying degrees of light and dark, finally leaving the darkness behind…
Excerpt:
“The Next question I asked was why would You create humanity? Why would humanity be created when they are such dark and evil beings?
“And at that moment, The Light turned into a mandala, like a big, round stained glass window that was alive and I was breathed into the center of it. In that center it was like I could look into every human soul, including my own. And I could see no evil, at all. No darkness in any human that has ever lived. And that may shock you. It shocked me. But I was there in the nexus, the mandala of human souls. There was something in us all and in all of nature and all of Gaia that’s incorruptible, no matter what you’ve ever done — it’s incorruptible. And that is that Source in you that is perfect, that is there already. And in that moment, I heard The Light say, ‘Oh Beautiful Human.’ It was a blessing. And in that moment, I fell in love with humanity again. And I think that’s when my cancer was cured.”
Ok, he may be a total fraud.
Or he sincerely believed all his revelations, but that doesn't make him an oracle of truth.
I was given a tour of all the heavens that have been created: the Nirvanas, the Happy Hunting Grounds, all of them. I went through them. These are thought form creations that we have created .... I saw the Christian heaven. We expect it to be a beautiful place, and you stand in front of the throne, worshipping forever. I tried it. It is boring! This is all we are going to do? It is childlike. I do not mean to offend anyone. Some heavens are very interesting, and some are very boring. I found the ancient ones to be more interesting, like the Native American ones, the Happy Hunting Grounds.
We all might as well top reading!
But his cancer do go into remission.
He did live several more years.
He saw something, he experienced something, that changes lives....
.
Carol again:
You may have seen me mention scientist/novelist Libby McGugan. This (we are the perfect matrix of body and spirit) sounds like what she, an atheist, has also come to believe.
Excerpt:
"......there is a lot more going on than we think.”
“The other side is not all it is cracked up to be. There’s a lot you can’t do on the other side. There’s a perfect combination though. A body without spirit is a wasteland and a spirit without a body is a wasteland. And we are the perfect matrix of body and spirit. With body and spirit, you can have it all.”
“Everyone has direct access. Everyone is directly connected to The Source that we all are. There are many ways to get there. There are many ways to experience this. It is as natural as breathing, as natural as sunlight. What we have to realize is that we all have that direct connection. Some can do it through meditation. Some through song and dance. There is a million ways to do it. And no one is ever cut off, or ever will be cut off from The Source that we come from. To really focus it we must — and this is a lesson I had to learn — you must come into a space where you love your life and then everything can flow…”
Excerpt:
What mystics call the void is not a void. It is so full of energy, a different kind of energy that has created everything that we are. Everything since the Big Bang is vibration, from the first word, which is the first vibration.
The Biblical “I am” really has a question mark after it: “I am? What am I?”
So creation is God exploring God’s Self through every way imaginable, in an ongoing, infinite exploration through every one of us. Through every piece of hair on your head, through every leaf on every tree, through every atom, God is exploring God’s Self, the great “I am”. I began to see that everything that is, is the Self, literally, your Self, my Self. Everything is the great Self. That is why God knows even when a leaf falls. That is possible because wherever you are is the center of the universe. Wherever any atom is, that is the center of the universe. There is God in that, and God in the void.
....The mind is like a child running around the universe, demanding this and thinking it created the world. But I ask the mind, “What did your mother have to do with this?”
That is the next level of spiritual awareness. Oh! My mother! All of a sudden you give up the ego, because you are not the only soul in the universe.
==============================
Me again.
Disillusioned, again.
He came up with "light spa" machines, sold pre-orders, but failed to deliver them....?
......Being an inventor he always looked at the world with an eye for how he could make it better, asking, “What does the world need?” Some of Mellen’s light technology inventions include: The Starship, the Inlight Pro, and the Dream Spa. He created other inventions, some very successful others not, such as the Ultra Spa, which he was not yet able to offer to the public at the time he transitioned.
.....He also traveled several times to the Philippines, where he researched psychic surgery, working with powerful shamans to discover the hidden secrets of shamanism. It was during this time that he realized that the Chi energy used by Shamans could also be similarly harnessed with the energy of light.
Adora Deva, Who Is Charged With Handling The Estate Of Mellen-Thomas Benedict, Needs Your Help.
From P.M.H. Atwater’s August 2017 Newsletter
........It is truly sad for me, being the one who was his business and personal partner to watch Mellen suffer with shame for not being able to finish the Ultra Spa. I myself pre-sold some Light machines to my clients and friends and have to live with the pain of that. Again, I am truly sorry I am unable to refund anyone, as I am trying to come up with money to pay for a memorial to honor the good parts of Mellen that I remember.”
Here’s how you may help: Adora has set up a GoFundMe page to help pay bills and to help with the Memorial to Mellen-Thomas Benedict. In case you have forgotten, Mellen’s near-death experience is one of the most unusual of record; his incredible psychic abilities afterward were proven in medical tests; his understanding of light and how to heal with light led him to become an inventor of note. Unfortunately, his knowledge of business and financing turned out to be severely lacking, which left him unable to protect himself and his inventions from “legal” theft. Please help!
"Please help!"
Send money!
Honey, if I send money, it'll be to my daughter and son-in-law to defray the insanely expensive funeral of his father, who was only age 62. Sister Lori had only just turned 63. Sister #3 may not make it to her next birthday. She just turned 62.
Funerals, caskets, vaults, granite tombstones.
"Gravestones cheer the living, dear; they're no use to the dead."
"Buy For Me The Rain"
Buy for me the rain, my darling, buy for me the rain;
Buy for me the crystal pools that fall upon the plain.
And I'll buy for you a rainbow and a million pots of gold.
Buy it for me now, babe, before I am too old.
Buy for me the sun, my darling, buy for me the sun;
Buy for me the light that falls when day has just begun.
And I'll buy for you a shadow to protect you from the day.
Buy it for me now, babe, before I go away.
Buy for me the robin, darling, buy for me the wing;
Buy for me a sparrow, almost any flying thing.
And I'll buy for you a tree, my love, where a robin's nest may grow.
Buy it for me now, babe, the years all hurry so.
I cannot buy you happiness, I cannot by you years;
I cannot buy you happiness, in place of all the tears.
But I can buy for you a gravestone, to lay behind your head.
Gravestones cheer the living, dear, they're no use to the dead.
Writer(s): Steve Noonan, Greg Copeland
album: "The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band" (1967)
