An offshoot of the organ donation thread… apologies if it’s been done. I know we’ve had a million “plan your funeral” threads; this is slightly more specific to disposal of the body. What do you want?
I want to be buried with the minimum possible covering. I understand Orthodox Jews are buried in just a shroud, no coffin; that sounds great. No embalming, please. Rent a show coffin for the funeral if you have to, but I want to decompose as quickly as possible.I think just as my spirit will return to the universe, my body should return to the earth. I’m not averse to cremation (my dad was cremated - in a $5,000 coffin that was pretty much forced on my mother, I might add) but this is what I would prefer.
Since I will be done with them, the medical folks are welcome to any parts of my body someone else happens to need. That’s actually the only better way I can think of to dispose of my body: keep the living bits and use them for something useful.
(People look at me rather strangely if they know I’ve made a will and have definite ideas about this sort of thing. It’s not like it won’t happen if I don’t think about it, though. Hell, I’m a gay man - for all I know I could get fag bashed tomorrow. Or I could suffer my long-awaited fate of being killed in a freak library accident. In any case, I prefer to know I have my papers in order.)
I want mine sold on eBay, the proceeds of which to be added to my estate. The buyer of my body shall pay for proper shipping. I don’t care if it’s used for experiments, necrophilia, or if a hambone is jammed in my butthole to see how far the hound dogs can drag my carcass.
Harvest the organs if feasible, then direct cremation (no frills), with the ashes to be either scattered at an appropriate location or kept by a loved one, at that person’s discretion.
Not quite - a simple white shroud, in a simple wooden box (usually pine in the US). The rabbinic authorities banned anything ostentatious a couple of thousand years ago to prevent people from impoverishing themselves making elaborate burials for relatives. No embalming, and the burial happens ASAP, preferably within 24 hours of death; both are out of respect for the body.
For me, take what organs they can (as long as it’s OK within Jewish law too), then an Orthodox burial.
Organ donation, followed by cremation. Unless I’ve outlived my parents and husband. I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to deal with my ashes afterward; it seems like an unfair burden to place on anyone but your very closest family. In that case I’d prefer to be a med school cadaver. Actually, I’m not averse to being a med school cadaver at any point, but I think it would upset my parents horribly to know that someone was dissecting my carcass.
That sounds just my style. And there is a large Orthodox Jewish population in my city, so it shouldn’t be that much of a hassle getting it done like that.
Well, I won’t be using it anymore, so I hope they let someone else have whatever parts of it they can use. Organ donation, research, or both. Burial seems like quite a silly tradition, in my opinion.
(Warning: a definte lack of sensitivity lies dead ahead.)
Burn it. Junk out the spare parts and burn the rest… and get a good deal on that cremation! I don’t want to run my family broke over a silly funeral.
Have a funeral if you want, but make sure that the preacher knows well enough not to use me as an example (not that any are that insensitive.) A simple “ashes to ashes” or a rosary would do for me, but I won’t be around to see it anyway.
Walk out to the end of a jetty in Galveston and scatter the ashes in the wind; remember not to stand downwind. Save some for my wife’s grave. It would be a nice touch to have a handful tossed into the air in Texline, downwind at the other end of the state, but that isn’t that big of a deal.
First off, I do NOT want to be buried in a suit and tie. I promise I will rise from the grave to feed upon the living if that happens.
I’ve never been fond of cremation, for the simple reason that I’d love to end up as a skeleton.
Unless I’m getting interred in a huge monument that’ll outlast the current civilization, I don’t want anyone to spend a lot of money on a fancy funeral for me. I don’t need an expensive coffin; just use the money to buy everyone in the family an X-Box, or something.
…Although a performance of Lloyd Webber’s “Requiem” in an open-air funeral under the light of the full moon has a certain appeal to it. Ah, well.
And, you know, ideally, I’d like to end up in a museum.
Or, at least, have my body hidden away in some distant, frozen wilderness, hundreds of miles away from the nearest human. So that if I have to be forgotten, I can at least be alone. And not in some neglected cemetary next to a freeway, or something.
I’m not Jewish or indeed religious at all, but the burial methods sound good to me. I’d prefer not to be embalmed and for my body to return to the earth as naturally as possible. I used to want to be cremated but I don’t want my ashes all mixed up with someone else’s. That just seems a bit too icky to me. No mourners, please.
Organ donation (if viable: I’d like to die as an ancient, decrepit old lady), then burial. Not cremation, because a) I’m not really into the whole fire-burning-me-up thing, and b) Someday I might be one of those cool skeletons with a room in a museum all to myself.
I have always wanted to die by being hit by a meteorite eaten by wild animals. In either case I hope not much would be left of me what little remained if any could just be left there or thown out with the garbage.
If neither of those happen I would like to be harvested and then my remains fed to wild animals. I would prefer aligators but a polar bear or wild boar would be acceptable.
Put me down for the organ donation, followed by cremation route. I don’t care what they do with the ashes. And no expensive coffins or funerals. A memorial service at my church, and then a party where you spend all the money you saved on the funeral.
My folks have both donated their bodies to a medical school for dissection. My cousin met her husband because they had the same cadaver in medical school, and they have been married for thirty-two years.
I want to be placed under a stasis spell, and displayed in my wife’s front hallway, along with her other late husbands. As long as she dusts us from time to time.
My mother wants to go intact to the Body Farm for forensic anthrophology research. They’re also welcome to take whatever they like of me *after *organs and tissues are harvested - I think saving the lives of living people trumps research about already dead ones, but they’re both nice things to do.
Since I own nothing of value, my will reads pretty much as follows:
kids- to dad or grandma
jewlery - to kids
clothes - to Gaia Project
household items - to Goodwill
furniture - to the Veteran’s
this mortal coil - to whomever has use for it
I won’t be needing any of it, and I don’t like things to go to waste. Whatever can’t be reused or recycled should be burried unembalmed as fertilizer.
