What are your options if you or someone you love dies as an American citizen in Pura Vida Land?
Again this is my series on living in Costa Rica, trying to help you avoid the glaring potholes of uprooting your life to move here. It is named “Breaking Pura Vida” because just like what you don’t know can trip you up in “Breaking Bad” so can moving here without accurate information. “Pura Vida” means pure life and happens to be the national slogan and attitude. Previous entries about if you should move here and the banking system can be found here. I know I said I would cover healthcare in detail in the next bit but this has been overruled by a recent expat death in our community.
I don’t know if you remember my recent talk about the man in the local pyramid house in our weird little neighborhood? Owned by Jackson, Jackson Lee Lastname? Clearly not his real name, but his name here. We sometimes called him J.L. Last Friday morning, early, around 6:30 am we were awoken by a phone call from his hysterical wife Maria. She’s from a South American country and we both struggle to understand her Espanol! It didn’t help she was in a state and asking my husband to come immediately to the house.
Around 7:00ish my husband sets off for J.L.’s house. He comes back a good hour later, white-faced and upset. He’d never seen a dead body before embalming before and J.L. was not much older than he. Turns out J.L. was up eating his Wheaties around 6:00 am per usual according to Maria when he suddenly keeled over onto the floor. According to the departing ambulancia drivers and the policia he was dead before he reached the ground. A massive widowmaker type heart attack. At least that’s what they think.
You know how in the U.S. they would have hauled J.L. off for an autopsy and then released his body to a mortuary of choice for embalming and burial. Here, no! What happened was Maria and others bathed and dressed poor old J.L., the guys from the mortuary showed up with a simple wooden casket and they lifted him into it, all before noon. It was actually quite moving, the laying out of the body, and towards the end the radio played a Simon and Garfunkle tune “Bridge Over Troubled Waters.” It fit the sombre mood among us. Shed a tear or two during this incredibly sacred moment. There was a sacred dignity in these simple tasks, a final loving actions for J.L. to send him off.
The very next morn there was a small simple funeral held at the local Tamarindo cemetery, and J.L. received his eternal rest on a hill surrounded by mountains and green hills. During that time I told my husband yet again that if it was me going before him that I wanted to be cremated by the local mortuary, taken out on Jose’s boat at sunset to be scattered into the vast reaches of the Pacific ocean, back on to the heart of the bosom of what I loved.
Why did I say this? Because if you move here and you are older you must really have those conversations, make your wishes known and understand it works much differently here. If you require to be embalmed and have your body flown back to the United States the expenses can really add up in a hurry. It can be done obviously. The airlines transport the bodies all the time in the belly of the airliner with the rest of the cargo. It’s not cheap, but it can be done.
During these stressful times you can reach out to the U.S. embassy in San Jose and they can help you with finding transportation options and mortuaries. Not the costs though, those must be fully borne by you. This option is the top of the line.
You can chose cremation. All airlines allow you to hand carry the cremains as ‘carry on’ and slot the container under your seat. The mortuary can help you with having the right paperwork needed to fly home for TSA and the Customs people. A U.S. based mortuary can also help you set up burial of those ashes at a local cemetery in the U.S.A.
Or you could take my option and scatter the ashes in a beloved place, or place the ashes on your mantle if you cannot bear the idea of letting go of your loved one.
The least costly option is the one that happened with J.L. No embalming, a simple casket, a simple service with interment into a local cemetery. No frills, but everything about it was both simple and sacred.
If you are here to stay you must give this some thought, unpleasant as it may be, because you really need to think about this well before hand, before it happens so there’s no confusion. J.L. and Maria had never discussed this, and she was thrown into this headfirst without warning. She’s still so devastated. To quote a Cajun French phrase “Nous pleurons et prions” or “We weep and pray” and I do pray every day for that peace that passes all understanding for my friend Maria.
Wow, very dark, much more so that I intended to write about today, but I am seeking in this series to examine the parts of the Pura Vida life that most writing or filming about it never touch upon that can trip you up. This is a big one.
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