Are you planning to be buried?

In My Humble Opinion
41

I have mentioned my great, great, grandfather’s tomestone with the hand pointing upwards. I find it a powerful statement. Still, I want to make the same statement, but benefit somebody else other then Rock of Ages. My wife drug me to Homewood Cemetary in Pittsburgh where many of her family are buried. Beautiful sculpture, but what a waste of resources. I hope my family has better values. For what some of those things cost, you could fund a college scholarship. How about naming rights? My name on a plaque with the statement ‘‘The no longer functioning body went to science and what would have been wasted on his funeral and grave paid for this.’’ Much more about me than some gaudy carved granite. What would even a fairly simple funeral and burial cost these days?

I need to get serious about this. I had a fun Labor day weekend at the UPMC having bladder cancer surgery and they are talking a new bladder. I have heard state law requires embalming here before creamation. The cemeteries have bought enough politicians to force families to buy vaults for every grave.

42

I plan to be buried with a massive statue of an angel placed over me. With gas jet eyes and a recorded voice that cries out “Approach the tomb of Jophiel, mortal, and despair! For if the gods found fit to remove this man from the Earth, what value could your own life hold?”

But you guys have some nice ideas too.

43

Nah, just gonna ripen in the front yard.

Joe

44

If I had my way, my naked corpse would be dropped off into a nature reserve and turned into raven and fox chow.

As it is, all harvestable organs will be put to medical use, and the rest put into the ground in the cheapest, simplest container. I’m pretty sure the modern cremation process is not all that wasteful of energy, but my rustic senses just don’t see the point in burning up a big, wet sack of protein and fat instead of letting micro-organisms do their job at a leisurely pace in the soil.

Cemeteries around here routinely recycle burial spots, the backhoes happily digging up new holes on top of old burials, with human bones sometimes sticking out of the exposed soil. So the point of my dead body taking up valuable space for all eternity isn’t really pertinent. I also really like cemeteries, mostly the old trees in them and the peaceful atmosphere.

45

I’ve prepaid my cremation cost and the people who do the cremation will dispose of my ashes. There will be no service beforehand nor will there be any viewing of my body. Stuff me in a cardboard box and burn me up is basically what will happen. My only request was that someone please make certain I am dead before lighting the fire. As a sidebar I’ve also specified that no attempt at resuscitation be made and certainly that there be no “heroic measures” taken. I want it to be as fast and simple as possible.

46

I would like to be buried wrapped in biodegradable fabric in a garden or woods, so that my body can return to nature and provide nutrients back to the cycle as much as possible. I don’t want to be cremated because I think it wastes too much of that, and I really don’t want to be in a coffin in a cemetary somewhere, isolated from the natural cycle of life and death.

I don’t know if what I want is legal or feasible, but it’s what I want.

47

Cremated. Froze my ass off for 45 years in Northern Wisconsin, no way am I going to be stuck in the frozen ground for eternity.

48

For a full (at least at the time) exploration of all the options, read Stiff by Mary Roach. It is both thourough and hilarious. I love her books.

I forget what I requested from Eternal Reefs, but now they send me a birthday card. It’s a little creepy, but mostly funny.

I have a couple of distant cousing who got into genealogy in a big way. They find cemetaries to be a great resource. Scattering ashes is nice, but doesn’t leave a record. And yes, there are other records, but gravestones don’t get lost in courthouse fires as often as other records do.

Personally, I may not end up with a grave, but they’re useful, especially for someone who’s family has been in an area for generations. I don’t see them as celebrating the bodies, but as celebrating the lives and keeping them in memory.

49

I happen to love cemeteries, and no, I’m not a goth or a ghoul. I find them peaceful, and respectful. There is a dearth of respect these days for anyone, living or dead, and it’s just plain nice to see and appreciate such respect as that which is found in cemeteries.

I love to trace families by looking at the markers and the dates.

I have been interested in geneology since my father died in 2008. I have a granddaughter now, and I want her to have all the stories, all the relationships of her family history. Preserving the stories is one reason why I have established my blog.

My parents both believed in cremation, and they are inurned together at the columbarium at Riverside National Cemetery. (Daddy was retired AF) They have a marker with their names and the years of their births and deaths, and beneath the names it reads, “Beloved Parents.” It’s comforting to “visit” them.

When Momma died and I made her final arrangements, I was informed that the State of California no longer allows unpermitted scattering of ashes. You must have a permit to inter the remains or scatter them in approved places. We kept her permit with her container, so that when Daddy passed away, we were able to hand her over to the funeral director and the two of them could be placed together. So, please check the laws where you live and where you plan on being scattered.

Momma lived to 74, Daddy to 84. Both of them wanted anything they didn’t need any more to be made available to anyone who wanted extra parts. FYI, when you reach that age, nobody really wants anything. If you desire to be donated to a medical school, you MUST make all the arrangements beforehand. The school will provide you with all the documentation so your survivors can contact them for transfer. If you merely note to your family, “Donate my body to science,” most medical schools will NOT accept the body.

Do your homework ahead of time.

My husband and I have 36 acres of land out in the middle of nowhere in NE Arizona. When the county came by to see what we had on the land and to make sure everything was with a permit, my husband told the inspector that he wants to be buried on our property. The inspector said that would be allowed.

So, we’ll do our research, and make sure all the "i"s are dotted, and the "t"s are crossed. I’m too superstitious to be cremated–gives me the creeps just thinking about it! But I rather like the idea of being placed in a plain pine box, or even cardboard, and laid to rest on my land, with a marker saying something like, “She was here, she mattered, and she was loved.”
~VOW

50

After they take what they can use, I plan to be buried near my maternal grandparents. They lived in the town I was raised in, and I don’t expect to marry/have kids.

51

No.

I’m going the med school / cremation route.

52

You could turn yourself into a diamond. You do have to be cremated first. I think that’s kinda cool, especially since I make jewelry. Hell, I may make a setting to be put into before I die.

I doubt my kids would wanna carry me around in that fashion. I’ma ask them.

53

If I do have to have a grave I would like to have a bench near the grave, perhaps with a gas grill or hibachi close at hand. Those are nice when visiting cemeteries.

I have an on-again/off-again fascination with genealogy (well- my own, other people’s not so much) and cemetery hopping is a big part of the research for that- you can learn a lot from some headstones, squat from others, and even get hints of the family dynamics. A couple of ancestors even had things like their birthplace, the names of their parents and their kids, and other bio info (military iconography, Masonic symbols, etc.) carved into the headstones which can tell a bit about them.

An interesting thing though is that there’s no evidence their graves are ever visited. My great-grandparents died in the 1950s, they had 15 children who lived to adulthood- the last surviving three of whom died within the past decade. They had 70+ grandchildren, quite a few of them still alive. Today their descendants would number in the hundreds at the least and possibly the thousands and yet the times I’ve been to their cemetery I’ve never seen anybody at their graves or any evidence it was visited. (Personally I do the “stone on the grave” thing and when I visit I’ll see the stone I placed before but no others.)

One of my favorite family cemeteries- one where one of my great-great-grandmothers and various members of her family are buried- is everything an old Alabama cemetery should be: creaking iron gates, Spanish moss, kudzu covered trees across the road and a lake (that wasn’t there when the cemetery was formed) in the near distance. It’s also one of the few racially integrated cemeteries in the area (why is an interesting story- the black family buried there was very rich and powerful in a time when there were few blacks in Alabama who could say either). The only signs it’s ever visited are the cheesy little souvenir shop rebel flags on the Confederate graves and the beer bottles and occasional old used condom in the area. The rebel flags, very weathered anyway, I accidentally picked up and tossed into a trash bag (in the first place the last thing these dudes would probably have wanted to be “honored” for was the most miserable experience of their life, and in the second that’s not even the right frigging flag), but the beer bottles and condoms I thought were a nice touch- in the one in sixty quintillion chance that the spirits of those buried have any presence in that cemetery at least they got a nice little floor show.

I don’t think, at least after the first year or two anyway, the grave holds any special meaning for anybody. It may be different for somebody who dies young, but for somebody who dies at a ‘reasonable’ age after the initial mourning is over it’s just a headstone and plot of earth. Last year a cemetery where several of my ancestors are buried (the most recent relative in my own line was buried there in 1907, the oldest around 1850) was destroyed by a tornado; the trees were destroyed, most of the markers knocked over and shattered, etc… I supplied some pics of the graves as they were before to a local group that’s getting funds for the repair but I don’t plan to contribute money or labor to picking up the headstones as it can never be completely salvaged (it would take decades to grow trees that size back and would cost a bloody fortune to have those marble obelisks put back together without noticeable cracks) and it’s money better spent elsewhere. Frankly if the graves of the relatives I did know- my parents and my grandparents for example- were washed away in a flood it wouldn’t tear me up, I rarely visit them- really, never visit them except when I’m passing by anyway.
So while I like the aesthete of some cemeteries- they can be really cool places- I don’t see them as particularly sacred, just landfills with nice engraving that will very soon be ignored by everyone to whom the deceased had any meaning. Cremation’s better: cleaner, more permanent, there’s remains if somebody wants to revere them, there’s the opportunity to be creative in how you get rid of them, and if they’re not of reverence you can flush them, no biggie.

BUT, if I do end up in a cemetery, I want the damned hibachi. And maybe a gay pride flag made from inlaid stones in the headstone.

54

Personally, I want to be cremated. The cost of burial in my neck of the woods is unbelievable, and I supposedly had the “cheaper” end when I buried my mother, considering we already have a family plot (it’s full – even if I wanted to be buried there right now, I couldn’t).

I still visit my long-dead relatives – the ones who passed way before I was even a glimmer --in the older section of a city cemetery. I think what compels me is the fact that there’s seldom a sign anyone visits that section. In the row where my relatives are located are the graves of several young people, ranging in age from 5 to 20 years, all of whom passed in the early to mid 1900s. I always bring flowers for them because, in all the years I’ve been there, I’ve never seen any. I never knew them, but they should be remembered, if even by a stranger.

Sampiro is correct, though, in that gravestones provide a very big chunk in the study of genealogy. In my case, I don’t have any direct blood descendants, so part of me thinks my body would just be taking up valuable space if I was buried.

55

I love cemeteries, but they aren’t the best use of resources. Cremate me. Bury the ashes under a rosebush. Donate a bench with my name on it to a park if you must.

56

They, whoever they are, can have whatever organs they want, but the rest is going up in smoke. If I could just lie in the ground an rot, that would be okay, but modern burial practices ensure that I’d end up a sloshing anaerobic slime. That doesn’t appeal.

Of course, I can easily be overruled.

57

Nature is OK kept in its place, but I love cities. Especially Chicago. I keep trying to figure out a way to get my ashes mixed in with the concrete for a new skyscraper so I could become part of the skyline.

58

How much do you think it would cost to have my carcass frozen in carbonite?

59

I can’t find an online cite but I swear I’ve read that some Romans were cremated and had their ashes used in little concrete statues for the columbary. I always thought that was cool.

60

Yes or No.

My will specifies that I would like to be cremated and my ashes scattered. HOWEVER, my parents are strict catholics which demand that remains be interred. If I die before they do, I gave my parents permission to have a catholic funeral and inter my ashes if it gives them comfort. Otherwise, dump me in a field somewhere after taking whatever someone else can use. I won’t be around to care.