Funerals are obviously for the living and they are important to those left behind; however I would like to see a lot less weeping and a lot more wakes. Except for ghost hunting graveyards seem wasteful; Parks to visit with plaques, engraved pictures, quiet streams, maybe include a quaint pub would be a nice place to reminisce about those that are gone.
Sure, they’re a waste, but they are interesting as well. I’ve checked out cemeteries in New Orleans and St Martin.
There is a very popular graveyard near where I live. People are just dying to get in!
That never gets old. I see you’re in Western Pennsylvania. It’s not Evans City Cemetery, is it? (Famous from Night of the Living Dead.)
No, just a tiny lil local cemetery, maybe an acre. But, hats off to Mr Romero!
I agree.
There seem to be a lot of people in favour of doing away with graveyards and I must admit while thinking about it one of my thoughts was “what a waste of space”, but as they would only build another concrete monstrosity on the site maybe they aren’t.
The few times I’ve looked around properly I have found that you can find out a lot of interesting historical information and personal information. Plus I think they have some psychological purpose. Maybe one day we can all be recycled, but I don’t think the majority of the human race is ready for that yet.
I have already specified what i want done to my body once i die, but my relatives do not want to hear it :/.
what i want is:
- Donate any organs that are in a good enough state to be usable
- donate any other parts of the body that can be used to do scientific research to some university and the like
- donate the skeleton to some medicine student in need of one
- whatever bits and odd parts remain, put them in a trash bag and let them for the garbage collector to come and get it.
I don’t wish to be buried; I wish to be cremated. I anticipate a fight on this between my wife and sisters after I’m dead.
Except for the ban on cremation, Jewish funeral customsare much like what I’d want: simple, respectful, and beautiful.
As for visiting graveyards: I dno’t have a problem with the religious iconography. People need to be comforted in such places, and far be from me to deny them that. What does bother me is the lengths people go to – prodded by the funeral industry, which is only in it for the money – to delay decay and thus deny death. I write specifically of embalming bodies and placing them in overly ornate caskets and placing those in steel vaults in the ground. I found this quite distressing when we buried my mother two years ago.
Funerals and graveyards are for the living, not the dead. I’d prefer to be cremated, or even better, donate my body to science.
Or I could be like David Cross and have my body donated to necrophiliacs so they can have a guilt-free experience for just once in their lives.
[INDENT]Send me to glory in a Glad Bag
Don’t waste a fancy coffin on my bones
Just put me out on the curb next Tuesday
Let the sanitation local bear me home[/INDENT]
*Send Me to Glory in a Glad Bag *(c) 1979 Don & Mim Carlson, Steve Mason
Exactly! 
why spend money and time on lifeless meat?, just dispose of it.
Now, mind you, i’ll like a good funeral, i have asked that, in the event of my death, all my friends get together and have a party, a wild,wild party, with roleplaying and Close Combat tournaments,Halo CTF battles, and lots and lots of caffeinated beverages, and when they play i’ll ask for the same thing that G. Gygax got, leave an empty chair and put my character in front.
also i’ll like a giant monument to my glory worth half the worlds GDP, but i am modest and would be all rigth with one worth only 25%.
I feel that the whole business of cemeteries, funerals, what-have-you is tradition. I have the utmost respect and love for tradition, regardless of religious roots. I may be an atheist—one of those Douglas Adams radical atheists, even—but I love traditions like Christmas and Thanksgiving, even though people tend to give them very religious connotations.
Graveyards—which I just misspelled as gravyards, delicious—are kind of the same thing for me: traditions, and I think they’re lovely. I like to go and visit the grave of my grandfather, who was a devout Christian. He planned his funeral with my grandmother years ago, and they believed that it meant something, and so I believe that it did, too. I make it personal for me, even though it’s just a body in the ground. After all, I do know he’s down there. In some form…
When I die, my ultimate wish would be to have a green funeral. Something that gives back to the earth. No chemicals, no stainless steel caskets, nothing that would stop me from fertilizing the soil. I just want to be put in the ground and have a stone marker where I’m buried. If that isn’t possible, I’ll just be cremated.
I joke with my boyfriend that I’ll put in my will that I’m to be placed in an urn next to the bed so my ghost can haunt him.
Basically, it’s like a city park or a golf course with a significant increase in cadaver content. In other words: It’s a well-groomed field of meat.
I like meat. Therefore, cemetaries are awesome.
The only thing better would be a well-groomed field of bacon.
Old historical graveyards are cool. Modern ones around here seem to be rather embarassing, with fake flowers and pinwheels. I keep expecting to see plastic flamingos and ceramic gravedigger gnomes pop up. On second thought, that could be sorta kitschy-neat.
Put me on the list of take-what-you-need-and-burn-the-rest people. I never go to gravesites, preferring to remember friends and family as they were while still alive and functional. I adored my grandmother but was not shocked and dismayed when I received her ashes in a shoebox. I doubt she minded.
I see you that and raise you John Prine
*Please don’t bury me,
down in the cold, cold ground.
I’d rather have them cut me up
and spread me all around.
*
When I lived in NJ, I lived across the street from an old church (the Hessians ran to its predecessor after the Battle of Trenton) with an old graveyard. Old headstones are the best things about graveyards.
Now, my mother and my grandparents are buried across the country from where I live now. My father remarried, and I used to wonder about fighting my stepmother about where he would be buried, but on reflection I can see it doesn’t matter a damn. As for me, cremation is much cheaper and I don’t have to worry about buying space in a graveyard. I’ve already left my legacy in more useful ways than a headstone.
I find older cemeteries to be fascinating places. I’ve always enjoyed walking around in them, admiring the beautiful monuments and contemplating mortality, love, grief and time, etc. However, I find the idea of having my body embalmed and buried in a box disgusting, personally. I’m going for either cremation or some kind of green burial. Having a tree planted over me would be nice. And I find modern cemeteries ugly as hell, with their golf-course lawns and uniform flat markers with those stupid urns. Blech.
I love cemeteries. I find them very restful and contemplative. I especially like old ones. The older the better.
I don’t care what happens to my body after death. I wouldn’t want my family to have to waste any money disposing of it. They can dump me in a river for all I care.
My father-in-law died of a massive heart attack around this time last year. He had all the arrangements made and paid for. He wanted to be cremated without any kind of ceremony. He didn’t want anyone to make a fuss over him.
This was very hard on my wife. They were very close. She didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to him. She didn’t get any closure.
We honored the man’s wishes, but I think it would have been easier for the family if he was buried and there was a funeral.
Waste of good real estate.
Not an athiest, but I totally agree with the guy who says he wants a party in his honor. My main things would be:
1)Wipe the hard drive on my computer. No, really, wipe it, then do whatever you want with the computer. Trust me mom and dad, it’s for the best.
2)…
Actually, after that, I find myself far less concerned with the idea of my funeral. I should probably go talk to the JAGs and see if there is some procedure for having all of my internet forum logons and such handy so my online friends can be alerted if I should pass in an untimely fashion. Maybe just include it in my will. But then I change passwords from time to time… well, as long as they have the logons for my email account, they can do the password reset routine.
I kinda would like to be buried, out of tradition, but in a plain pine casket. I hate things that are fancy for the sake of being fancy, and my parents know this. Simple casket, simple ceremony, round of drinks and pizzas/wings are on me (well, not ON me, for obvious sanitary reasons. You know what I mean.)
OK, done hijacking. flees