Buried, wearing my “I’m Going Underground” T-shirt from London.
Spousal unit and I have already arranged for our remains to go to the Maryland Anatomy Board to be used for whatever studies or research they choose. I’m assuming they mostly distribute cadavers to the state med schools.
Once they’re done doing whatever they do, they cremate the remains and return them to the family. We want our cremains dumped into the Chesapeake Bay. No muss, no fuss, no perpetual care fees or any of that nonsense.
My parents wanted to be cremated and buried next to each other in a local cemetery, which I arranged for them.
I bought an adjoining plot for myself.
Organ donor, if applicable, then cremation and scattering.
My goal is to lie permanently in state.
Body farm is my #1 choice - already got my outfit picked out! - tho my wife disfavors. So if I go first, science/medicine can take whatever they want and (hopefully legal by then) compost the rest. I’d love to have a music-filled memorial at which attendees are given a shovel of me-mulch.
In whatever way is the least burdensome for my wife, assuming she is still alive. Other than that, I don’t care.
Yeah, I have some creative ideas for my funeral and burial (a couple involving trebuchets and volcanos). I shared some of the more whimsical ones with our pastor. He laughed and said “Keep coming up with wild schemes. Meanwhile, I’m going to do whatever your wife and kids request.”
I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those pesky wife ‘n’ kids…
(Seriously, they know I’d vote donations/med school/compost)
Yeah, my instructions to my wife are anyone who wants my organs are welcome to them and under no circumstances should you allow me to be interred in Prince William County, Va.
I sometimes wonder about the best time to start making these arrangements. I’m only 38; I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, but I could also live another ~60 years (an online calculator once put my life expectancy at 95 given a few pieces of demographic info), which might be longer than some of these particular institutions will be around. I’m already a registered and vocal organ donor, so I feel pretty confident my top priority of donating any useable organs, tissues, or parts to living people who need them will be honored. But if I do live to 95, I probably won’t have anything left worth donating.
My secondary priority is to help with research or education; I’d love to be a med school cadaver or go to a body farm, or be plasticized for one of those Bodies exhibits. I don’t really care which; I’d prefer whichever one is most in need at the time I die. (If body farms have wait lists, maybe it won’t be them.) But depending on what I die from, maybe there’s a particular research lab that will want to study me. I think we donated my grandmother’s body to UCI for Alzheimer’s research.
My third priority is to minimize the environmental impact of my disposal. I’ve looked into aquamation and it sounds cool. But will any of those places offering it still be in business when I die? And who knows what other techniques they’ll come up with over the next half-century?
Doughty (Ask a Mortician) says that is becoming increasingly difficult and was not easy to begin with.
I like the compost thing.
Umm… huh?
Cremate. Scatter the ashes to the winds.
There are a number of companies that will mix your ashes with gunpowder, and make them into fireworks.
Part of me thinks that is horribly tacky.
Part of me thinks it is really cool.
What is that??
I have told my wife to have them harvest organs and donate to science.
Eh, that’s just a Communist plot.
Personally, my ideal option? You know those museum displays where they preserve a body, slice it into thin layers, and embed them in Plexiglass? That’d be my ideal.
Failing that, I’d be happy with it going to any educational or scientific purpose. Most likely, being used to train the next generation of doctors, but I’m not too picky. I’d be fine with being part of a body farm, but it sounds like there’s a lot of competition, so others can take those slots if they want.
If it’s a reference to Valentine Michael Smith, the protagonist of Stranger In A Strange Land, it means having your corpse eaten by your loved ones. (A cup of meat broth, for the more squeamish.)
I’d like to be turned into animal feed.
I was born there and fled as soon as I could. The last thing I want is to be there for eternity.
No, that certainly can’t be what the OP was referring to, as they hyphenated Valentine-Smith. They must mean something else, though I have no idea what that might be.