If I were to die any time soon, I’d want (and have told my wife & favorite sister) that I want not to be embalmed if possible (as I understand the law in my state, it isn’t required, though [del]funeral directors[/del] the vultures who make their living by preying on the vulnerable bereaved sometimes [del]obfuscate this[/del] do everything short of outright lying to your face on the issue. I’m neutral about having a religious service: that is, I don’t want one, but since the funeral is for the benefit of the mourners, that might be helpful to them. I do not, however, want anyone affiliated with my family’s church (the Church of God in Christ) officiating at my service in any capacity whatsoever. COGIC ministers have a distressing habit of turning eulogies into sermons, complete with altar calls; such happened at my mother & aunts’ funerals.
No strippers. That’s just tacky. If someone wanted to sing “Hand Me the Wine & the Dice” from Aspects of Love, it would be awesome, but otherwise anyone implying that Andrew Lloyd Webber is good for anything other than shining Stephen Sondheim’s shoes is to be thrown out on his ass. The fact that I rarely drink should not be taken to imply that I want anyone sober at my wake, but no beer. Scotch is fine.
Chances of getting it: reasonable, so long as I don’t predecease my father and my older sisters, who would complain. On the other hand, if my baby sister had to argue with the older ones a fistfight would break out, which I’m confident she would both win and enjoy under most circumstances.
I want and expect to be cremated and, assuming my wife is still alive, have my ashes strewn over my garden. No ceremony although I expect to have a memorial service a month or two later, but I can’t say I care one way or the other.
I want to be used for whatever organs can be donated and then be cremated. I’d rather not have a service of any kind. Odds are decent on the first two but unlikely on the third.
I have expressed to my wife, that I wish to be cremated and my ashes spread in a few different places that have special meaning to me and her. I do expect that she will grant my wishes if I do pass before her. But I have also believe that funerals are for the living and she should do whatever is best for her and the kids in their grieving process.
If I were to die tomorrow? Donate all of my donatable organs (even just corneas are better than nothing). Cremated with no casket, just a memorial service with pictures. Family can get up and take turns talking about their memories of me. My little sister would play something neat on her flute (preferably Jethro Tull), and Faith No More music would be playing quietly in the background while people are talking (partly for irony, but mostly because I fucking love that band). Instead of flowers, they would donate money to kitties. Nothing religious whatsoever. I’m not sure if you can plan a funeral without someone officiating, but I’d prefer that.
If I’m old and gray when I die, I probably won’t have more than a couple people to mourn me since I don’t plan to marry or have kids, and my sister is a lesbian who can’t have kids and doesn’t plan to adopt. It’ll probably just be the two of us old biddies, and maybe some random cousins who barely know us. So who knows?
I want everyone to have as good a time as possible under the circumstances. I’ll leave the details up to them as to how best to execute this (no pun intended). I have no preference at all about the disposition of my body, other than that if possible I would like to donate my organs.
You’re a L’Engle fan, named after you-know-her. You’re not allowed to die. I have already made arrangments. If that inconveniences you, tough; you’ll have to live with it.
Organ donation and cremation and then I want my ashes to be made into a diamond, except that when I looked into companies that did that I found that it’s really not at all clear they actually use your ashes, so the odds of getting that is quite low even if my family agreed, which is itself pretty unlikely.
Also, I would like people to have fun at my funeral – “Let’s tell funny stories about raspberry” or “Let’s tell physics jokes in honor of raspberry.” The probability I’ll get that is somewhat low, though.
I don’t want to be cremated…just never really liked that concept. But I certainly don’t want a big expensive casket. That’s just silly on a couple of levels: unnecessary expense for something that’s just going to be buried and never seen again, and I remember from a Death and Dying class I took in college that those fancy caskets are airtight, which means your body doesn’t decay normally but rather becomes kind of a soupy mess. I’d rather just be buried in a pine box.
As for the service…I’d rather it not be religious, but as others have pointed out, if that’s what comforts the living that’s fine. I think the most important thing for me is that they talk about me the way I really was, not use the standard “fill in the blank for the proper demographic” eulogy. I’d rather be remembered for being smart, sarcastic, a good writer, and a lover of cats and cyberpunk fantasy than for being “sweet” or “beautiful” (neither of which I am, and I’m fine with that!) or whatever else you’re supposed to say about dead women. And please don’t try to convince everyone that I was religious, because I’m not. I’d love to have a wake and have people enjoy themselves, but I probably won’t get that. And I want them to play cool music, like Alan Parsons’ “Old and Wise” and other stuff I like, rather than stuffy old hymns.
Oh, and I want my headstone to have a quote from the Harry Potter novels: “To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”
I’d like any usable organs and tissues to be donated, and if health or medication makes that impossible, then I’d like my carcass used for research or teaching in some manner. Lab cadaver, forensic anthropology research, strap a helmet on my noggin for safety testing, whatever.
Once the guys and gals in the labcoats have wrung every last bit of usefulness out of this mortal coil, I’d like the remains cremated and scattered in a spot I won’t tell you about, 'cause it’s not exactly legal like. It’s where my SO’s going to be scattered as well, surreptitiously in the dead of night. (I will tell you it was the site of our first kiss.) Whichever of us goes first, the other is going to put a bench there, so whomever comes to visit and think has a comfortable seat. Maybe some perennial flowers or a couple of trees.
That doesn’t mean there should be no wake/service. I don’t feel the need to micromanage that much, since it’s for the survivors’ healing, not mine. I’d like them to have fun and concentrate on the funny, silly, happy stuff, but I know some people need to cry. So…whatever.
Just don’t, for the love of Og, stick my body in an expensive box and bury it in the ground. What a waste of real estate.
I definitely want to be cremated. The thought of decomposing and festering kinda grosses me out.
I know exactly which hymns I want sung, too. I’m a church organist and know my favorites, and HOW they should be sung. It’s funny this thread should come up today, since we just had my Uncle’s funeral this morning, and I thought of these things, particularly as the lady singing at the funeral had the elocution of a running faucet. It was only halfway through the Mass that I realized she was singing in ENGLISH, not Italian.
No gods involved. Cremated. Memorial service is really up to my SO. If he is dead, I am not really sure who else would be there to put it together…maybe my brother, or his kids? But something simple, and then my ashes scattered over running water.
What I would really love is to have them sent back to India or taken back. I haven’t decided if something major like that is something I want to ask my beloved other half to do after I die, however.
Ideally, I don’t want to be embalmed in any manner. Just take the corpse, wrap it in a sheet and bury it down 6 feet. I came into this world without a box, I don’t see why I need one to leave it. I just want to go back to what I came from and a casket gets in the way of the decomposition process. (Hmm, maybe I could go to one of those body farms.)
Anyone who wants to is allowed to have a service or whatever will make them feel better, I’ll be beyond the point of caring. Organ donation would be a plus, however.
Organ donation, with the remainder donated to medical science. Any truly unuseable scraps - eh, whatever makes my family feel better, I guess, though the prospect of doing anything religiously significant with them would make me cringe. I’d rather have the bits cremated and scattered someplace illegal, just for the lulz.
As for the funeral/memorial: Given my druthers, absolutely no religion, just lots of good scotch, funny stories, and friends sneaking off to closets or whatever to create the next generation of lawyers. There should also be fist-fights. That said, my parents would probably insist upon a Jewish ceremony if I kicked before they did.
Actually, what I’d really hope for is a state funeral, with millions of people lining the streets to watch my casket pass, and a ceremony in the National Cathedral including a full performance of Mozart’s Requiem Mass. Toss in Duh Tvoy Blagiy as well, just because I like it and think it has the appropriate level of bombast. But I’d really need to conquer at least a small country to merit this sort of treatment, I think.
You know what? I think I’d want my ashes (if any remained after the donations) scattered in my hometown. I doubt I’ll ever visit it again while I’m alive - I don’t have any reason to - but the place did make me who I am today, for better or worse.
I’d settle for at least two people breaking into hysterical weeping and having to be sedated. One can lose it because she so desperately misses me, and other someone jogged his elbow just as he pressed the trigger, causing him to just barely miss me and another assassin to get the kill.
