Untrue. Hannah has new information: that going through with the cremation will hurt someone she loves.
ETA: You realize it’s possible that Jack never discussed this with his mother, right? And that, if he had realized how much it would hurt her, he would have chosen otherwise?
But in your scenario Grace, knowing full well about Jack’s wishes, has waited until after he is gone to bring up this oh, so hurtful topic. She could have discussed it with Jack, maybe she did, who knows, but she chose to push her agenda on his widow, at a time she was already under enough stress. Grace may be a really nice person but if this topic was so critical to her happiness she should have addressed it with Jack when she found out about his wishes.
Contrapuntal put it nicely.
Says who? I reread the OP and nothing in it implies that Grace knew Jack’s wishes beforehand. I can think of many reasons to think he never did.
My wife and my baby sister both know what I want done if I die before them. (Which is likely if for no reason other than the large age difference in both cases.) I’ve never discussed it with my father, and my other sisters haven’t a clue.
My understanding is that, many times, the will isn’t accessed until after the funeral. I’m not sure it would be legally binding anyway, but there’s a fairly good chance that funeral instructions wouldn’t be read until after if you put them in your will.
Joe
Put him in the crypt - I don’t know if you cremate him or not.
As I understand it, the main ‘resource waste’ that the the pro-cremation group worries about is cemetary space, since Americans don’t recycle cemetaries. Since there is a family crypt that is already using space, there is no waste there. I think that removes half of Jack’s reasoning and helps tilt the scale to his mother’s wishes.
The “he was a confirmed atheist and does not wish to pretend that he thinks that one day he’ll be physically resurrected” is a bad reading of my understanding of most Christian theology on the subject. I know that Catholics can be cremated (although I believe you have to specifically state that you aren’t being cremated to attempt to avoid bodily resurrection or some such nonsense) - and I think most of the other Christians have a lot fewer rules. So it almost seems like that cremation reason is kind of construable as him wanting to make sure he won’t be resurrected.
Joe
How soon before you are cremated must you state the reasons you are not being cremated for?
Well, you wrote the OP so I guess it is pointless to argue with you about what the OP means. I concede that there is no concrete evidence that Garce wasn’t surprised by the news that Jack would be cremated. But consider this quote from the OP:
“Hours after Jack’s death, Grace is comforting Hannah when she herself breaks down in tears. As it turns out, she cannot bear the thought of Jack being cremated …”
Grace got the stunning news that her son was dead, then that he wouldn’t be sleeping with the angels in the family tomb. She tried to console her daughter-in-law for a while but couldn’t get past worrying about Jack’s surprising funeral arrangements, which Hannah has only revealed within hours of Jack’s passing. Have I got it right now? I’m also assuming that Jack and Grace have actually met before and that Jack may have some knowledge of what his Mom and other family members like, yet he has decided on cremation anyway. Hannah should still keep her promise to Jack.
You got that from the OP? That her purpose was to comfort a dying man? Where?
This is the same woman who is using emotional blackmail to get Hannah to break her word.
I have no idea what code you refer to, but a kind compassionate woman would not make such a request. Hannah has gone through enough already.
[QUOTE=Sampiro]
I said inter him for two reasons, the first obviously being it will comfort Hannah and not ‘discomfort’ the deceased, and I think he would want his mother comforted more than his body cremated. The other is the two pre-teen children- as they come to grips with their father’s death, which can take years, they may wish to have a place to associate with him as their memories of him fade.
[/QUOTE]
Here’s the problem. These pre-teens now know that breaking a promise is OK as long as the promisee doesn’t know about it, and they also know that any similar promise their mother might make to them is suspect. I would argue that this is a very bad thing, and that folks should not make promises they are not prepared to keep, absent extreme duress.
I’ll ask the panel again : If Hannah should make a similar promise to the mother, would it be OK with the mother if Hannah goes against her word?
This is her son’s dying wish, and it is despicable of the mother to try to change it just so that she can feel better.
“I agree with this. Hannah made a promise, it doesn’t matter if Jack will never know, because Hannah will know. If I marry and vow to “forsake all others” and my wife is away for six months working in Hypothetical Land where people never ever ever find out what happened outside their borders, would it be okay for me to sleep with someone else because my wife will never know? By that logic, ANY promise is meaningless if there is no threat of discovery.”
The other person is alive. This would also not be a situation where 'conditions changed after the promise was made without an opportunity to discuss it with the person you made the promise to. Nor can an issue of ‘harm’ be argued as a reason for breaking that promise unless one still subscribes to the high school blue ball shtick.
The idea that this is simply being done because ‘one can get away with it’ misses the reasoning entirely.
Otara
I vote for the first AND second option. It if were me, I wouldn’t care how much stock my mother in law, whom I love dearly, puts in her invisible sky friend and how much emotional turmoil she’d manufacture for herself. If my dying wife asked me to do something specific with her remains and I agreed, I’m not changing that plan to make my mother in law feel better. If she actually gave a damn about my wife or me, she wouldn’t dare even consider asking.
How does death invalidate Hannah’s promise to Jack? The circumstances don’t change because Jack died - Jack’s death is the reason the promise was made in the first place.
Jack basically told Hannah, “When I’m dead and have no more control, I would like you to do xyz, you’re the one I trust to carry out my final wishes.”
The whole discussion and following promise spring from the fact that Jack will die so saying that his death somehow devalues the promise is ridiculous to me.
Were I Hannah I would do my best to explain my feelings to Grace and proceed as Jack wanted, I would feel guilty pursuing any other course of action.
How about a compromise? Inter him in the crypt, then come back that night and set fire to the crypt.
The issue isn’t discovery but the effect that keeping or breaking the promise has on other people. In this case, the most compassionate, ethical thing to do is break the promise (which has already fully served its purpose), and do a kindness to the mother. Keeping the promise is just pointlessly pedantic and gratuitously cruel to the mother. It’s ridiculous to prioritize the wishes of a person who no longer exists and can’t be harmed over the wishes of someone who does exist. Being kind is more important than being superstituous.
I don’t think anybody really has a right to make demands about what should happen to their dead body anyway. That should only be for the living to decide. Meat has no rights.
People who break their word are untrustworthy. The question is whether or not one cares about that. I prefer to be known as a man of my word. That may not matter to some folks. So be it. But I prefer to be around people I can trust.
Exactly. That is why I used the word ‘strangers.’
And, I’m not holding anything against them.
Best wishes,
hh