Final Choices

Information on promession. I love the idea of a forest of memories.

I couldn't find enough information on chemical digestion, but it was a method proposed and demonstrated in the book Stiff - The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Simply add lye and "your troubles go down the drain", so the speak.

Chopped for spare parts.

I'd rather die in my sleep. The other ways seem painful.

Or are you asking how I want my body disposed? Meh, throw me in the woods out back and let the coyotes get something out of it.

Why wasn't "converted to Soylent Green" one of the choices? Then, when I tell someone "Eat me!", there's a chance it might actually happen.

I am a chemist, and work with carbon. I have always wanted my ashes to be turned into a graphite target, for people in lab to use. That way, I can still be involved in experiements!

This firm took my idea, and made it better:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2209799.stm

Basically, "A US firm says it will turn your cremated ashes into a diamond for the loved ones you leave behind to cherish."

That sounds awesome.

Other, donated to science. Let some pre-med play with me to learn something.

Undertoad wrote:

Other, donated to science. Let some pre-med play with me to learn something.

That you can scare the crap out of a fellow med student by stuffing a cadaver in their locker...

I don't care too much what happens to me. I'll be an organ donor like HM, and then after that, my next of kin can do whatever is easiest/cheapest for them. But I don't want to have my bones decorate some church somewhere.

I'm going with cremation, but I kind of liked these ideas, from the article

"THE Parsees of Mumbai in India leave their dead on top of Towers of Silence to be eaten by vultures, while in the Solomon Islands, the deceased are laid out on a reef for the sharks to eat."

I choose burial because now I'm on this island I do not want to leave, even temporarily to be cremated. If they build a crematorium here I'm happy to be cremated and scattered here.

Undertoad wrote:

Other, donated to science. Let some pre-med play with me to learn something.

I wanted to be donated to science until I found out that most of the cadavers end up being used for cosmetic surgery practice.

The book "Stiff" ruined a lot for me. Finding out what really happens to bodies in the science field was kind of depressing since rarely are they ever used for "good", anymore. Donating your brain? It usually ends up in a tupperware bin labeled with masking tape and a marker, then forgotten.

Not even turkey roasting pans have the same meaning to me, anymore. :thepain3:

Elspode wrote:

Why wasn't "converted to Soylent Green" one of the choices? Then, when I tell someone "Eat me!", there's a chance it might actually happen.

I was gonna say, "served with fava beans and a nice Chianti."

I want to be floated out on a wooden raft at sunset. Just as my Death Float hits the horizon I want someone on shore to shoot a flaming arrow onto the raft and I'll burn up as I float away. I'll be ashy-swampy.

I am gonna be deep sixed offa Coast Guard Cutter. Just feed my nasty ass to the crabs.

fargon wrote:

Just feed my nasty ass to the crabs.

I would prefer turkey buzzards somewheres up on The Mogollon Rim. But, med school cadaver is OK, too.

Well, I chose cremation, but I meant it more in a re-entry sort of mode. Y'know, like into Jupiter's atmosphere.

- Pie (flambe')

My older brother has expressed a wish to be stuffed and placed in a rocking chair on the front porch next to a cooler of beer, so that passers-by might stop and have a cold one if they wished.

I have always wanted to be cremated and scattered at our local national parks waterfall, where my dad and I used to bushwalk and picnic when i was younger.

Although, that "turned into a diamond" idea sounds awesome.. I could make my kids walk around with me in their jewellery for the rest of their lives! Although i dont like the prospect of being forgotten in a jewellery box somewhere.

cremation.

but ...that freeze dried thing sounds pretty cool too.

made into a diamond? definite big shot stuff there. but who would get to wear it? what if they lost you? or sold you when times got tough? you could end up the symbol of some couple's love? that sounds cool, too.

Or you could end up planted here . . . . . .

I suppose when the time comes, it won't make any difference to me. :dead:

I imagine I won't notice what happens to my earthly remains. I would like to be recycled, though. Throw my body to the wild critters on the Uncomphaghre Plateau, or at least my ashes to give a little additional nitrogen to the sage brush out there.

Tan me 'ide when I'm dead, Fred,
tan me 'ide when I'm dead.
So we tanned his hide when he died Clyde,
(Spoken) And that's it hanging on the shed.
Altogether now!

Tie me kangaroo down sport...

Organ donor.

Then, medschool cadaver for the rest. A plaque, or some other memorial suitable to the tastes of the day... I dunno.

The diamond thang sounds crazy-cool. How damn pretentious can you get?

I'm also an organ donor, but by the time I'm done with 'em, I'm not sure anyone will want them.

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
:flamer:

:mg:

I'm surprised by this -- cremation leads well over burial. I always thought burial was still preferred over cremation, but I couldn't say why it once was. Something to do with the catholic church, maybe? (I can't remember when they finally accepted cremation.)

Very interesting! If you do prefer cremation, is there any reason why you'd rather have it than burial? Expense? The idea of "returning to the land"?

I will say this, the one nice thing about burial is that there is a place with a marker that people can visit to pay their respects to you.

It's too easy in our fast paced society for us to forget those who have come before us. Graveyards help us remember our place in the scheme of things. We are but one generation of the vast story of mankind. There were many before us, and there will be many after us. It's humbling.

But personally, when I'm dead, I won't care. Do what you want with me.

I think nearly all the stuff we do for the dead is actually for the living - which includes the gravesite.

I played at a funeral yesterday. [UT plays with Poco. I play funerals.] It was a very nice ceremony celebrating the life that had ended. It caused me to be quite reflective. I think people should go to a funeral now and then to remind them of how little time we actually have.

dar512 wrote:

I think people should go to a funeral now and then to remind them of how little time we actually have.

That's how Harold met Maude. :)

I'm with Glatt - I carry a Donor card so they'll hopefully take whatever is useful. Then it's up to whoever is around to dispose of me.

Kitsune wrote:

:mg:


Very interesting! If you do prefer cremation, is there any reason why you'd rather have it than burial? Expense? The idea of "returning to the land"?

I dislike the idea of rotting away in a box 6 feet under. even though i understand that i wont feel it, it's still nasty. better to have done, and move on, give something back if you can. if the freeze drying thing is accessible when i kick it, i think i like that even more than cremation. seems like the nutrients would be more helpful unburned. less stinky, too i expect.

Burn my dead ass up !!! I don't want any body to have to try and come up with the thousands of dollars it takes to plant a body ,
as I said cremate me , put my ashes in a straw hat , go to a certin place on a certin river( those who need to know , know where it is ) , light the hat , float it down stream and pop open a beer for the memorys .
Say a few words if you want to .
That is all .

ashes to ashes ,
dust to dust ,
from wents we came,
we shall return .

There's sort of a running joke in the ceramics studio about how it'd be cool to make an urn for yourself, be cremated, and have somebody turn you into an <a href="http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/ecolodge/25/glazes.htm">ash glaze</a> (<a href="http://www.aquariusartgallery.com/Dec2004/IMG_6967.JPG">img</a>) to put on the outside of the urn.

A bit more hands-after-death-on than the whole diamond thing, I'd say.

I choose cremation. I hate the idea of being stuffed in a box six feet under. I prefer to leave little as possible behind, and I like the idea of cleansing by fire.

Skunks wrote:

There's sort of a running joke in the ceramics studio about how it'd be cool to make an urn for yourself, be cremated, and have somebody turn you into an <a href="http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/ecolodge/25/glazes.htm">ash glaze</a> (<a href="http://www.aquariusartgallery.com/Dec2004/IMG_6967.JPG">img</a>) to put on the outside of the urn.

Damn. I'm going to have to suggest that to a friend of mine who is a potter that happens to really like that technique.

barefoot serpent wrote:

That's how Harold met Maude. :)

One of my all time favorite films.

marichiko wrote:

I imagine I won't notice what happens to my earthly remains. I would like to be recycled, though. Throw my body to the wild critters on the Uncomphaghre Plateau, or at least my ashes to give a little additional nitrogen to the sage brush out there.

Seconded.

Skunks wrote:

There's sort of a running joke in the ceramics studio about how it'd be cool to make an urn for yourself, be cremated, and have somebody turn you into an <a href="http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/ecolodge/25/glazes.htm">ash glaze</a> (<a href="http://www.aquariusartgallery.com/Dec2004/IMG_6967.JPG">img</a>) to put on the outside of the urn.

A bit more hands-after-death-on than the whole diamond thing, I'd say.

You missed the bit about the bisque fire in the cremation furnace.....

Kitsune wrote:

If you do prefer cremation, is there any reason why you'd rather have it than burial? Expense? The idea of "returning to the land"?

I've made it clear to mine that I do not want to be buried. I've suggested lifegem but will leave it to them. While lifegem can make diamonds from cremated remains, they don't use all the ashes leaving some for distribution in a meaningful place.

I just think its the height of human selfishness to tie up a peice of earth for all eternity just to house a lousy skeleton. I understand burial and respect the idea of having a place to pay one's respects but there should be a moratorium on how long you can tie up that patch of earth. If no one alive knows who you were, then maybe its time to surrender the claim.

If I had to decide now, I'd go for three diamonds with the rest being scattered in the small town in France where I made my debut.

Promession sounds good, but if I can't afford that I either want them to leave me where I lay or shoot me out of a cannon into the sea.

Hiya, simling.

The darndest thoughts get people to post, don't they?

i'm thinking that if i got to go the way i wanted (non-opening chute - what a rush) the choices listed are kind of irrelevant. if i live long enough to go from natural causes then cremation.

lookout123 wrote:

i'm thinking that if i got to go the way i wanted (non-opening chute - what a rush)

Ah, the ol' Sudden Decelleration Injury. Me like.

...dead...

Not that bothered really, although I dont like the idea of taking up space by being buried. Leaving my body to medical science seems reasonable. Im not an organ donor, logical arguement says I should be, and I have spent a lot of time persuading myself I should be one. Peculiar religious types beliefs say no.... Feel free to try to persuade me otherwise, yours may be an arguement I havent heard or thought of before..

If your religion won't let you be a donor, they probably won't let you be anything but buried.

NotAnAngel wrote:

Peculiar religious types beliefs say no.... Feel free to try to persuade me otherwise, yours may be an arguement I havent heard or thought of before..

Because it's what you want. There is no other concern. :eyebrow:

Jewish burials involve a lot of do this’s and more do not do that’s, (most of what people hear are misconceptions.) I will give you an example of the do's, (ultra orthodox, which I tasted.)

My mentor, Levi, has promised to open the box a crack, before I’m buried, and whisper my Hebrew name, doveed shaul ben barauch ha cohain, (try spelling that in sixth grade, dyslexic or not.) The reason for this ritual is when the spirit leaves the body it is fucking confused, does not know whom what or where it is. Hearing its name begins its trip to Gan Eden, which takes twelve months to get there.

Major do, body must be intact.

When you see pics of the aftermath of a suicide bombing in Israel, you will notice a guy, usually with a beard, picking up pieces of flesh and organs and later he will do his best sorting them into specific individuals. I will pass on that job, if ever offered.

It's your Nashama. I am sure.

Yo, dov.

This ain't Jeopardy. The answers are commonly preceded by the questions, if you please.

Nashama? That little car back in the day? Wha?

BigV wrote:

Yo, dov.
Nashama? That little car back in the day? Wha?

Nashama = Jewish Soul

Thanks.

Interesting that. I can tell you for a fact that when the body dies, the soul departs at once, Fragments or entire, makes no diff. I sat by my father's death bed for three days and alternately talked to him and read aloud to him from the Bible. He was unconscious the entire time, but people aren't always so unconscious as you might think as I have learned from a near death experience of my own. Anyhow, when he breathed his final breath, that was it. What was left of his earthly remains bore no resemblence to the man I had known and loved. There was just a dead body lying in a hospital bed. Where -ever my father was, it wasn't there.

His final wish had been to be buried back in the family cemetary plot in Kentucky. So, I had his body cremated and flew back to Kentucky with the ashes. I kept the urn with his ashes in my living room until it was time to catch the plane back East for the in-urnment and the memorial service. At the end of the service, a coyote (??????????) - yes, it was a coyote, several other family members present commented on it - appeared in the field opposite the cemetary. It gave a single, long sad howl and then vanished off in the tall grass...

NotAnAngel wrote:

Feel free to try to persuade me otherwise, yours may be an arguement I havent heard or thought of before..

Let me explain why the rationale of keeping the body intact, including burying amputated appendages and all organs with you, is absurd. Even if you never read Patricia Cornwell, you know that depending on the kind of ground you are buried in, not even bones remain of a body after several hundred years (That is why the Egyptians were big on mummification). In fact, MOST of the graves in the USA prior to a fairly recent time are officially "lost". We do not know where the burial was or it got washed away or other misfortunes (including airport expansions and condominium developments) either destroyed or scattered the contents. Even in primitive Europe, where this business of keeping the body "intact" got cemented by the Catholic Church, graves were recycled constantly and the remaining contents of the graves which could be located were unceremoneously dumped in a charnel house, and even THAT feature of the cemeteries did not survive in the burial grounds of Europe and the bits and pieces gone to places unknown. So what is God supposed to do, all these millions of people perhaps can't be raised from the dead? What about people who died thousands of miles from anybody who knew them, what about the people who were vaporized at the World Trade Center too? Alferd Packer's victims will not rise again on Judgment Day? Ask yourself what sense this primitive superstition really makes. IF you believe in the God of the Bible, and IF you believe that said God is not only capable of raising someone from the dead in a physical, "uncorrupted" form but WILL do it, don't you think he can manage without a plot map and full casket? Because if he can't, why does anybody believe this stuff anyway? And if he CAN, he doesn't need you to tell him how to do it. He got you here once, he can do it again. Do not insult His intelligence ;)

Go ahead and do what ever is respectful and tidy with the mortal remains, is is not something you are going to have to worry about beyond that.

I just don't understand why a blind person (for example) has to remain blind so that someone has the satisfaction of knowing that their healthy visual organs can rot.

To refuse to share what you cannot use...

Because it's "God's Will"? :headshake

Because they're my mofukin eyeballs, and i'll decide if they go in the collection jar?

Yeah, I'll donate. I'm just sayin.


liberals. sheesh.

I would die happy anytime..Death might sound a scary thing for some because we are not used to the idea of it..is not part of our everyday life although everyday people die...Why most people afraid of death?Maybe is the fear of the unknown?what do you think?

May wrote:

I would die happy anytime..Death might sound a scary thing for some because we are not used to the idea of it..is not part of our everyday life although everyday people die...Why most people afraid of death?Maybe is the fear of the unknown?what do you think?

Healthy living things are programmed to avoid death. Fear of death keeps them alive and breeding longer. Fear of death is natural and healthy. Living things that welcome death are more likely to die before reproducing, so their genes and outlook on life are not passed along to their offspring. Those that fear death, are more careful, and live longer. They pass those genes and attitudes along to their offspring. So there is a strong instinct to fear death.

Also, a thinking being knows that death is the end. Most people don't want the ride to stop. They look toward the end of the ride as a sad or scary thing.

If there is no afterlife, when you die you simply cease to exist, so you will be neither happy nor sad. If you think there is an afterlife, you have the fear of the unknown thrown in there as well. Unless you think 72 virgins are waiting for you, then you embrace death.

glatt wrote:

If there is no afterlife, when you die you simply cease to exist, so you will be neither happy nor sad.

I prefer the turn of the century phrase "dreamless sleep".

...which is disturbing, because it makes it sound so damn inviting because of the work hours I've been putting in during the past week.

My personal opinion,is that realising death is a slow process..it begins in the early lifetime and sometimes it might cause shock.Some people even get mad with this thought.For example hypochonders are afraid of the possibility of getting sick so by any imaginary symptoms they rush to cure their "diagnosed" disease...so they won't die! If we look at life as the greatest gift we could ever get then we will enjoy it..on the same time,acceptance of death feels natural.A person who thinks in a similar way has won the game with death,because he has accepted it.Such a person lives with peace as if he will live for ever..it doesn't bother him..and this is the aim,not to be bothered by death..this could be another form of immortality!

Burial for me. But cremation is fine too.

Somebody commented earlier on the amount of space it takes to bury people. My aunt & uncle were cremated but they had their urns buried together in a very small plot, about 1/4 size of an adults. Most of my family have gone, and are going the buriel route, although my Mom and stepdad have discussed creamation quite a bit here lately....
Personally, if it would help at all! I'd like to do like my favorite uncle did, and donate my body to medical science. Hell, after that uncomfortable, embarrasing, mortifying!!trip to the "Teaching Hospital" in Ft. Worth, I'm up for the med students to probe & prod especially when I'm dead! I managed to handle it when I was alive! Hopefully, they learn much more than they could without access to cadeavers.

A good friend of mine passed away last year. She was cremated. The problem now is the ashes and the urn are at her parents house. I love her parents, but I feel like... I wish she was buried so I could go visit her grave, bring her flowers, and not have to bother the family in anyway. It's long distance too (relatively) so, I can't even think of a reason to call them. It seems weird to say I want to visit the urn in their house. They know I was close with her, and I keep in touch with her sister, and care about them, but I feel awkward about contacting them on this. I feel like they've been through enough without me bothering them. If there were a grave site I could visit it without bothering anyone. So could other friends she had. I don't know if any of them feel this way, but I do.

Personally, I don't want the 'pomp and circumstance' that a funeral and burial seem to require. I also am cheap, and don't think the money is 'well spent' to throw in a hole in the ground.

Cremate me. Roast marshmallows if you want. But sit around and remember me, rejoice what I had in this life, not what I lost when I left it. I have a fairly good idea of what will happen with my 'non body' self after I leave this word - trust me, I'll be enjoying myself - you should too!

K

I'm thinking, if all goes well, there won't be enough left of me to worry about.
Failing that end, cremate me and put my bone chip remains into shotgun shells so as to help keep "them pesky undead kids off'n my lawn."

SteveBsjb wrote:

A good friend of mine passed away last year. She was cremated. The problem now is the ashes and the urn are at her parents house. I love her parents, but I feel like... I wish she was buried so I could go visit her grave, bring her flowers, and not have to bother the family in anyway. It's long distance too (relatively) so, I can't even think of a reason to call them. It seems weird to say I want to visit the urn in their house. They know I was close with her, and I keep in touch with her sister, and care about them, but I feel awkward about contacting them on this. I feel like they've been through enough without me bothering them. If there were a grave site I could visit it without bothering anyone. So could other friends she had. I don't know if any of them feel this way, but I do.

I'm sorry
It will always suck at a time like this. You need to find somewhere that meant something to the two of you and make that the place you go to remember her or talk to her. It worked for me.

Grave, urn, crypt, wherever..... she's not there.
She's in your head and your heart, so you can visit her whenever you want.
Pick a quiet spot, or whatever works for you, and dedicate some time to talking to her....... no multitasking. ;)

in the words of stewie from family guy "the only reason we die, is because we accept it, as an inevitability"

so im living forever. i wont die till im content with life and that wont happen until i know all there is to know. and thats going to take a while

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

Grave, urn, crypt, wherever..... she's not there.
She's in your head and your heart, so you can visit her whenever you want.
Pick a quiet spot, or whatever works for you, and dedicate some time to talking to her....... no multitasking. ;)

Thanks. And thanks to Funkykule too... I do talk to her practically everyday. Who knows what I'm expecting. I just miss her.