I want to be dressed in my normal day-to-day clothing and encased in a block of some kind of long lived polymer. It would include some typical time capsule type stuff as well as disks of data on the stores of human knowledge and info on how to retrieve the data. I would also want a written statement, perhaps on copper or the like, with a form of the Rosetta stone written in English, French, German, Arabic, Chinese as well as Latin, Hebrew and Greek. The content of the statement is up for discussion but enough to glean structure and syntax and such.
I want this block of stuff irradiated to minimize decay and buried in a geologically stable area of the U.S. and most likely in the landfill of a major city. This because it seems ancient dumps are treasure troves of archaeological information and a place likely to be excavated in the distant future. I would want to co-ordinate this plan with the scientist of a major University that would put the agreed upon actions in motion at the time of my death.
I wish I could just be thrown into the ground without any sort of preservation, box, and marker, but I’m pretty sure that’s against the law. So cremated, then dumped…somewhere. Probably the ocean. I don’t really want to be on a mantlepiece. And anyone that memorializes me in tattoo or car sticker form gets haunted to their grave.
I hear that there is a company out there somewhere that owns a large tract of forest land. They just dig a hole and toss you in, wrapped in a sheet or something like that. The simplicity of that appeals to me.
I’ve thought about donating my body to a medical school, but I’m just 3/4ths of the way through my first year of medical school and will need to think about that choice a little more. Maybe plastination would be a little more dignified.
Like some others in this thread, I want my body to be useful after it is bereft of life. So harvest my organs, donate the remainder to medical science, and once they’re done with it, convert the rest into soylent green.
I expect to have my bits harvested and then the rest can be used for whatever (I LOVED Stiff ) but I think it would be cool to compressed into a diamond. My friend Holly is kind of counting on being able to do that with a grandma she dislikes.
Good point. I have a card asking that my organs be donated to those who can use them. And then I should be cremated. (of course, my organs have been letting me down regularly, so they may not be of much use when I go. )
Head put on a pike at the Tower of London! With a white ruff and Renaissance jewelry and everything.
Seriously, I’d like to donate my organs (if they’re still in good enough shape) and then be cremated, and have the ashes scattered somewhere quiet and peaceful and green–a rose garden, perhaps, maybe near a river. No wooden boxes for me, please.
I would rather have my remains put up for vultures to eat. Really. I love to watch them fly and glide on air currents, and admire their modus operandi of cleaning up the dead bits of the world. I’d love to have my last bits turned into fuel for beautiful flight.
Sans that, would gladly will my body to a skeleton marionette troupe.
I don’t give a damn, as long as it never enters a church or a mortuary. Funerals are the most macabre, creep-me-out things on the planet. Maybe fertilizer for some peonies.
I want to be buried, after the usefull stuff is removed. I just can’t get around the idea of cremation. Also, I take a fair bit of comfort in visiting a particular couple of departed and knowing they’re still down there in a form I’d more or less recognize, even if it’s skeletal.
I also want a kick-ass funeral! Start it off with “Spirit In The Sky”, full blast and end it with the last part of “Killer” timed so that I drop into the grave just as that final “thunk” sounds. I want videos of my last message, an open mike session for the mourners (extra points for funny/off-colour stories about me) and LOTS of food. Chocolate. There must be chocolate or I’ll haunt everyone!
Oh, and everyone has to wear black. I will be. My biker jacket, please.
)
