THE BIG SLEEP

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

An article in Sunday’s newspaper grabbed my attention as all headlines should. “‘Big Sleep’ author to get wish.” It seems although Raymond Chandler allowed his hard-boiled detective, Phillip Marlowe, to quip that it didn’t matter where you lay when you were dead, in real life Chandler did care.

He’d planned to spend eternity next to Cissy Chandler, his beloved wife of three decades, but a fluke of no mention in his will about his remains left the Chandlers separated since his death in 1959 at age 70. The couple wed in 1924. She died after a long illness in 1954. In his depression, he wrote The Long Goodbye.

Chandler, known for his tough guys and language in his pulp fiction, was actually a romantic and devoted to his wife. Instead of being side-by-side for eternity, they were about a block apart with Chandler buried in a grave and Cissy’s cremated remains on a mausoleum warehouse shelf. On Valentine’s Day 2011, the two will be reunited with Cissy’s remains being placed next to his.

Chandler’s San Diego grave is modest with the word “author” carved on his tombstone below his name.

Does it matter where we’re buried? Or even if we’re buried at all? Most people tell me they haven’t thought that much about it, but now that I’d asked, they were considering their prospects.

Except for when he was married to my grandmother, my grandfather lived most of his life in St. Cloud, Missouri on his small farm. Shortly before his death, he requested to be buried next to my grandmother who’d died decades prior. He’d never remarried, and although she dated several men, she never remarried either. They are now side-by-side in a Texas cemetery. Does that matter?

My mother-in-law was cremated and her ashes spread on the farmland where she and my father-in-law first lived. This was not their property when they were newlyweds , nor when she died more than forty-six years later. Her memorial service was in Texas where she’d lived most of her life, then the ashes transported to Oklahoma where she was born, married, and gave birth. I remember my father-in-law and their three sons each taking a turn at carrying out her last wish, spreading her ashes on the farmland where she’d been the happiest.

Imagine my surprise when the owner strolled out to the field and asked what was going on and I discovered no one had first asked his permission. He was nice about it and left us after an explanation, but then, what else could he do? The deed was done.

My father-in-law has since remarried and I wonder what he wants us to do after he passes. I am hoping he’s told someone, but it hasn’t been me. Should his loyalty lie with the current wife or his first? I’m sure religions differ on their takes.

“Till death us do part” takes on more relevance to me now. Of course, my father-in-law may outlive his second wife, too.

Characters close to our protagonist sometimes die while our hero lives on. Many times, it fuels him to right the wrongs of life in their honor, or keeps him on the straight and narrow in order to meet up with his own beloved in the “sweet by and by.” Other times, he may be driven to drink or use drugs or behave badly because he’s an emotional wreck because of their passing. I haven’t thought much of what would happen when my character died if I dared let him, à la Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. If I had a series that popular, I’m afraid that even if I grew tired of writing his exploits, I would probably never let him die.

Would I (or my readers) care where my detective would be buried—or if he were not buried at all? I think that depends on the character and how he might want to go. I’d hope he left a will or a letter explaining his last requests. Sometimes characters tell you important things if you listen carefully enough. I’d think where he’d want to take his Big Sleep might be one of them.