# Burn or Bury? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 22, 2002, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burn-or-bury/144401 "2002-12-22T17:42:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2002, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burn-or-bury/144401/61 "2002-12-27T01:15:08Z")
Cremation please, I’m claustrophobic 😃 I don’t like the idea of being buried at all. Not only does it waste a lot of space, I can’t quite deal with the thought of being under the ground, under a heavy layer of earth. Sure, I’ll be dead, but still… ---
**Author:** ![Archergal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burn-or-bury/144401/62 "2003-01-06T19:17:15Z")
I was at a funeral home once. The folks I was visiting with had the traditional embalmbed-body-in-a-casket-with-the-cover-open-for-viewing. There were lots of folks there, visiting each other and the deceased. In another room in the same funeral home, someone had been cremated and their ashes were sitting in a very nice urn, presumably waiting for the memorial service. There was no one there, anywhere. There could be lots of explanations for this, but it’s made me feel just a little bit different about cremation since then. I guess part of it is that there less sense of the dead person still being “there” in some sense. Dammit, I’d like to think my friends would get together and tell stories about me after I’m gone. Another thing: my mother died a slow lingering death from cancer. My dad chose the traditional funeral arrangements route. I was really surprised at how much it helped me in my grief to see my mother looking more like her “normal” self than she had for months. It was a little like the time my favorite cat got hit by a car, years ago. Before that, I had never understood why people in movies would clutch or hold a dead loved one. They’re dead, right? It’s just meat now, right? Wrong for me then. I picked my cat up tenderly and carried him to the porch and couldn’t do anything except stroke him and weep for the longest time. That surprised me too. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burn-or-bury/144401/63 "2003-01-06T19:24:43Z")
Ideally, I’d like to be buried without a box, so that I become fertilizer. Burning seems like such a waste of bio-energy, and the alternate, with the whole draining my blood/replacing it with enbalming fluid seems icky. I guess my ideal corporeal fate isn’t legal in these fifty states, though, so I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burn-or-bury/144401/64 "2003-01-06T20:08:16Z")
If I can get one specific spot I have in mind, and it’s not in a concrete vault: Bury. Otherwise, burn me up and scatter my ashes. I have one or two places in mind. Plastination seems like a freaky fun idea, but what the hell would people do with my body after all my living relatives are dead? “Oh yeah, he was my great-grandma’s grandfather, and nobody else had the space for him.” ---
**Author:** ![cowgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cowgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cowgirl)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burn-or-bury/144401/65 "2003-01-06T20:23:12Z")
Burn and scatter. I can’t wait to rejoin the carbon cycle! ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burn-or-bury/144401/66 "2003-01-06T20:25:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by cowgirl \* > \*\*I can’t wait to rejoin the carbon cycle! \*\* I can. But I don’t have much choice. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burn-or-bury/144401.md?page=3)