I attended the funeral of my Gandmother this week. Once again, it brought up the questions I always have regarding burial practices in general.
My Grannie was placed in what seemed like a metal, airtight casket. Before they put it into the ground, they encased the metal casket into another metal container!
I asked my uncle why they would do this. He said it was to preserve the resale value. My family is filled with smartasses.
I thought the purpose of burial, beyond the benefit of getting rid of the corpse, was to ‘return us to the earth from whence we came’. We’re buried, we rot, we become part of the soil, part of the grass, stay part of the circle of life and whatnot. Doesn’t seem like such a bad deal.
But being locked in a metal casket to rot and liquify in an airless enviroment seems, well…kinda gross and counter-productive. Doesn’t it??? I myself, would rather be cremated. (actually, I’d rather go off into the woods and die and be left out there, but society frowns on that. God alone knows why.)
What say you? How do you wish your mortal remains be treated? If buried, would you rather the airtight metal box, or the bio-degradable wooden box? Or no box at all? Do you really care where you’re buries, seeing as how you ain’t really gonna know??
The sealed steel / concrete burial vaults seem to have become standard across the US, so there’s no “put me in a pine box, and it’ll rot away in a few years” option.
As for me, send me to glory in a Glad bag. Don’t waste no fancy coffin on my bones. Just put me out on the curb next Tuesday.
As irrational as this sounds (I know! I know!) I’m claustrophobic, so putting me in a box is a sure way to get me to haunt your ass for all of eternity!
I’m thinking cremation is the way to go. And I want my ashes scattered from the top of Kalalau Valley on Kauai.
My dad’s idea also is incredibly appealing to me. He says, “Wrap me in a clean, white sheet and drop me in the ocean deep.”
Actually, I don’t mind the idea of being lunch meat for our aquatic friends.
I’ve heard that burials in completely sealed containers cause anaerobic bacteria to rot the corpse, a far more disgusting end than simple aerobic rotting. Basically you’re turned into a big slimy goo, vs. simply rotting. Either way, you won’t much notice…
When the barber at the top of my hill died, he specified that he be cremated and his ashes be used in the window box in front of his business. I think that’s cool, and though I never met him, I think about him as I’m waiting for the bus up there, liking the idea that he’s helping the flowers grow in that box.
I want to be cremated. Don’t know where I want my ashes yet. Maybe spread on a beach. I love beaches. If, for some reason, my family decided they had to put me in a box instead (they’d respect my wishes, really) then I’d want the absolute cheapest one there is. Can’t imagine sticking $3,000 or $4,000 in the ground for no good reason at all. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
And I would specify to not be embalmed either. Let nature do with me as it will. The sooner my body can do its return-to-the-soil thing, the better.
I’m for cremation, with my remains being burned in a cardboard coffin. I am so not going to waste the kid’s inheritance (if there is any…hah) on a rosewood box that is just going to be burned up.
After that, I want to be dumped in the compost heap so that the worms get to have some fun with me.
I have lots of places that I want to be laid to rest, and since it’s illegal to dismember a corpse, cremate me and divide my ashes instead.
Spread me on the graves of:
My mother
my father
both sets of grandparents
bury a vial with my son
spread the rest of me at a point in the Tennessee Appalachians where an active railroad crosses a river that’s known for good fishing (trains and fishing are a few of my favorite things)
I think I’d like the old Viking treatment. Put me on a boat, surrounded by all my possessions, light the damn thing on fire, and send it out to sea. Wonder if that’s legal anywhere…
Cody wants a tree to be planted over his grave. Not sure how he wants to be buried, tho.
I don’t want to be embalmed and I’d rather not have a casket. Toss me in a hole, it doesn’t have to be in a cemetary. Actually, I’d rather it be in a forest somewhere. But for the love of god, don’t spend a lot of money. It’s such a waste. If I have a kid who wants to respect my memory by buying a fancy casket, I’ll tell them to buy a bunch of books instead. Or donate the money to various causes of my choice. Seems more useful than a box you’ll never see.
For years, my father was opposed to cremation on the grounds that he would be unable to arise on the judgement day if his body was nonexistent. I don’t know what happened to change his mind, but during the last six months of his life, he expressed the wish that he not be embalmed, that there be no viewing or service and that he be cremated as quickly as possible following his death. And that was what happened—a cardboard box, a dead body, and that was that. Much the best way to go.
My father in law died a couple of weeks ago and we cremated him. I went with Mum and Ivylad and his sisters to the funeral home to make the arrangements, and dear Og, some of the coffins were $10,000!!!
Cremate me. I don’t know where I want my ashes. Maybe sprinkled around the Library of Congress. I love reading. I love libraries. I love books. If we ever take a trip to Washington DC, I told my family to drop me off at the Library of Congress and pick me up when they’re ready to leave.
My wife and I had long ago agreed on cremation. I was trying to hold out for making a funeral pyre out of my library when I go, but she kept insisting that it would be impossible to get a permit to recreate the Great Fire of 1871.
She was cremated in a cardboard box. Her ashes are currently in a custom-made pottery urn decorated with a black rose; this summer some of her ashes will be scattered over the graves of her parents and my mother, as well as in our back yard over the spot where one of her cats was buried.
I’m seriously thinking about donating my body to these people.
It’s a school for forensic science. They have a ‘body farm’. They dump your body into a fake crime scene and students study your body there. They have to figure out how long your body has been there and other stuff.
Hey, at least I’ll get some co-eds to check out my body at some point in my life. err existence.
My husband and I used to have the “burial vs. cremation” discussion quite often. I want to be cremated, he wants to be buried. His argument is always that it’s not actually him that’s being put into the ground, it’s “just a shell.” Finally, I said what others of you have already posted. “If you put me in the ground, I will come back to haunt you.” He quickly agreed to have me cremated.
I want my ashes to be spread over the lake where I was baptized and married (not to mention having had much success fishing there). It seems a fitting resting place to me.
I find the entire process of funeral and burial to be goulish and macabre in the extreme. Some folks find closure in it; it just creeps me out. The whole thing reeks of self pity and cash flow.
Stuff me in the furnace, chuck me off a cliff, hold a funeral if you like. It won’t matter, as I won’t know about it, but do NOT expect me to attend any funerals while I’m alive.
If you don’t want to be embalmed, in many places by law the only viable alternative is immediate cremation.
I understand that some find relief and catharsis with the big fancy funerals; my MIL is one of those. She’s had plenty of practice, too – two husbands and a son. Also the big public display of grief is part of her culture. If she hadn’t gone that route, her contemporaries would have said she didn’t really love the departed, and that is important to her.
When my parents died, in both cases we had an immediate cremation in the least expensive legally-available container. Later we had a memorial service, much like you’d have a a “viewing” except that what there was to be viewed were photos of the deceased in healthy and happy times. Some people sent flowers, but there were a lot of donations to charities in their names, which was fine.
The winter after our father died, my sister and I and our husbands took the two sets of ashes with us to Florida and scattered the ashes at sea (well, Gulf of Mexico) near a location where they’d enjoyed vacationing.
My Grandpa had his body donated to science, and when they were done withit, it was cremated. They asked us if we wanted the ashes and we said no, but my aunt said yes. He died about 2 years ago and she’ll be getting the ashes in a month or so. We got a lovely letter from the medical college, and the students were really grateful to have gotten to study a 96-year-old man. I’m starting to think that may be the way to do it. You know, be useful even after I’m gone.
Chefguy, I agree with you… And my major was Mortuary Science! Needless to say, I changed my mind when I found out how much the public is screwed at the worst possible time.
My dad died in September of 2002. None of us expected it to happen so soon, so my brother and I had to make some very important decisions at the hospital right after his death. We chose to allow any of Dad’s viable organs to be donated. And believe it or not, a year after, we were still getting letters from various organizations telling us where some of Dad is now. Knowing that he kept on being the generous man he was even after death was/ is comforting. As for his “disposal,” we knew he wanted to be cremated, and he wanted it cheap. So we did the nonembalmed cardboard box style. Dad would have yelled at the funeral home guys because that damned box was still 100 bucks.
When I depart, my closest loved ones will be given letters instructing to cremate me and follow up with a party in my honor, rather than a funeral or memorial service at a funeral home. I want everyone to listen to my favorite music, eat my favorite foods and generally have a good time talking about me- the good, the bad and the ugly. No boo-hoo sessions at a place run by strangers. They can hold the festivities in my home if they like. I want my cremains to be kept with Dad’s, wherever they end up.
