Burial or Cremation?
 

After reading the how to die thread, I was curious to see how people felt about what'll happen to them after they die.

I'm in a death/dying class this semester, and we had to take a tour of a local funeral home/memoral park two weeks ago. Let me say, going to a place like that is much different when you're not full of the emtions of going to a wake or memorial. Their business is 70% crematory, which is pretty high comparatively speaking.

I'd like to be cremated, then leave it up to my family whether to scatter me over a special family place, or stick me in an urn or memorial at some funeral home. I figure they're the ones who'll miss me, so it might be easy for them to have some flexibility. All i know for sure is I don't under any circumstances want to lie and rot in a hole in the ground.

So, what's your last wish as far as your body goes?

Flame grilled, and served with fries.

I want to be cremated and have my ashes incorporated into a drag car somehow.

heres what I said in this thread
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...ms+you+funeral

(damn it... wrong ware... damn it)

I'd like to be compressed into a diamond, then have myself made into a piece of jewelry, which i will guilt trip my offspring into wearing.

Mwahahahahahahaha...

I definetly want to be cremated....and scattered. I don't want my family having a big jar of Sabrina on the mantle.

And just so everyone knows...I don't want a visitation, I want my friends to get drunk (on either red wine, dark beer, or Kentucky bourbon, their choice) and tell Sabrina stories. You know, like when I was three and peed in front of everyone at a horse show. Or how I used to make the best cheesecakes EVER. That sort of thing.

Sorry to ramble....I'll be shutting up now.

Smoke me, add hot pepper and throw me in my mother-in-laws face.

Pretty please, with sugar on top.

bury me, ..i just wanna be buried for some reason, always felt that way :P

That was a great class when I took it.

Something you don't want to take again, but you're glad you took it the first time.

Cremated here.

cremated please. to have here.

i'd like to have my ashes scattered somewhere special, and have a plaque placed with the rest of my departed family.

I don't feel any connection with the graves of those I love who have died--but I know some people do. I'd like to be cremated, with some sort of memorial, but if my family would rather I be buried, I'd be okay with that too.

In the long run, I suppose that it really doesn't matter. I mean, I'm dead, so it's not like I'm not gonna have a bunch of other, much more pressing matters, to deal with, at the moment. Especially if I'm wrong about that whole "God is a myth and doesn't really exist." thing.

I guess that, if I really had to choose, (and one day I'm really going to have to, I suppose) go ahead and cremate me.
1.) It takes up less "real estate".
2.) The thought of rotting away, in a 3x3x6 confined space, really doesnt appeal to me.
3.) I would assume that it's a little more, shall we say, "cost effective".

Like SabrinaFair, though, I don't want my ashes just left sitting in a jar on someone's mantle, someplace. You just know that before ten years is out, someone's gonna knock me over while dusting, or during a rowdy party, and there I am...getting sucked up into a Hoover.


I had actually thought of that. Burning is a big fear of mine. It's contradictory...I know.

I don't want to burn.

Bury me.

Cremated -- actually the thought of sitting in a grave, preserved with formaldehyde is what I don't like.

I'd like to be scattered in the ocean somewhere -- preferably somewhere tropic.

I don't care what happens to my body. It's just a shell and will eventually be dust and absorbed back into the environment. If my family wants a place to visit to remember me then fine. You can remember someone without a grave of any sort to visit though. Cremate me, bury me, or scatter my ashes, whatever you want. I do hope there will be many people at my wake to remember me. I want to positively impact as many lives as I can before I die. I would like to donate my body parts for transplants or whatnot but hubby objects so there's nothing I can do about that from what I understand.

Yep - Burn me and toss me. I can't see paying thousands of dollars for a piece of land that serves no purpose except for me to take up space in.

Cremate me. Burials are so wasteful.

Me too. I see it as conquering my fears after death. I'm invincible! :)

Cremation. Becasue... does it really matter? Hell, when Im dead, you can do whatever the hell you want to me. Cuz well... Im dead.

Donated to science, or in a ditch out in the woods. The other ways seem like stealing from nature. Either that or turned into a jewel, that would be cool.

never really cared, I just told my wife to do it on the cheap, as I'm just meat then.

I definately don't want to be burned even when i'm dead so I will have to go with buried. At least then if your soul is like a zombie or something you are still in one piece lol. Does that seem really fucked up? :confused:

The Funeral of A Viking, 1893
http://dicksee.homestead.com/files/t...lofaviking.jpg
Sir Frank Dicksee

That's Bundy, holding the torch.
-GH

Don't want to die in an automobile,
I wanna lie in an open field,
I want the snakes to suck my skin,
want the worms to eat my eyes, as here I lie.

For the most part, I don't really care. But if there is even a minuscule chance I can come back as a flesh eating zombie of the apocalypse, I'd definitely want to have a body for that. Who would want to miss out on that opportunity? I don't want to burden my loved ones with burial costs though, they can just throw me in a ditch or river or something.

John Prine said it best:

Woke up this morning; put on my slippers; walked in the kitchen and died.
And oh what a feeling
When my soul went thru the ceiling
And on up into heaven I did ride

When I got there they did say
John, it happened this a way
You slipped upon the floor and hit your head
And all the angels say
Just before you passed away
These were the very last words that you said:

Chorus:
Please don't bury me down in that cold cold ground
No, I'd druther have 'em cut me up and pass me all around
Throw my brain to a hurricane; the blind can have my eyes
And the deaf can take both of my ears iIf they don't mind the size

Give my stomach to Milwaukee if they run out of beer
Put my socks in a cedar box - Just get 'em out of here
Venus de Milo can have my arms; Look out! I've got your nose
Sell my heart to the junkman; and give my love to Rose

Repeat Chorus

Give my feet to the footloose - careless, fancy free
Give my knees to the needy; Don't pull that stuff on me
Hand me down my walking cane - It's a sin to tell a lie
Send my mouth way down south and kiss my ass goodbye

Repeat Chorus

i want every part of me to be shaved bald, ( i want to leave like I came in) and then a pyre, in which my ashes are collected and then spread out over the waves of the Dead Sea.

First I want everyhting taht is usefull donated to people who needs it. The rest could be cremated. I don't want worms eating on me.

Just throw me in the shed. I'll be fine.

Cremation all the way
i hate bugs so i wouldnt want to be in a box with bugs crawling all over

I wish to be stuffed into a brown paper bag, lit on fire and tossed at someones front porch

so i guess cremation

I wanna be cremated, then I want my loved ones to do lines of me.

cremated and launched into orbit!;)

sweeet idea.

just don't leave that bitter after taste.

I told my parents already that I wanted to be cremated and NO viewing at the funeral. That's barbaric and I don't want peoples' last memories of me to be of me all bloated and dead. I know, great topic of convo to have with your parents, but ya know...

I also joke about wanting to be turned into one of those body gem things. I think that would be so cool. Make me into a jewel, and then into a ring so my husband will feel bad about dating after I'm gone.

... muahahahaha

Burial.

I've seen way too many TV episodes where something WACKY happens to ash remains.

Doesn't really matter to me. It's not like I'm going to complain.

haha, i have 2 ideas, maybe more
1. This is a big joke in my family, but they suggested i be buried in a styrofoam box...the type that takes millions of years to degrade...so i can be around to annoy people i have never even met...

2. seriously, any organs that can be used, i'd be happy to donate. I'm an organ donor, it's not like i'll be using them soon...After that, cremate me and put my ashes in the ocean and in space, two places i love and would love to spend eternity.

As for my "funeral" i want a huge assed party, drinking, fun, fun stories, everything. I figure that i'll save money on the burial/burial plot and have that money diverted over to the cremation party.

burial probably..would seem wierd to go to someone's grave (namely mine, i guess applies here) and know that the person/person's body isn't actually under the rock that you visit. Of course, MIA and stuff like that, I guess you can't avoid it..so you do what you can with what you have. But since this is a choice, I choose burial.

It may be wierd, but i'd like my tastiest bits to be cooked and served to everyone that comes to my funeral.

Won't matter to me, I'll be dead.

donated to medical science here. all for the good of humanity baby

Err...I don't think that I'll be in attendance.

dump me in a ditch, that is unless my body is intact, then donate it to science, or a Marionette

Well, here's my thought.

First you are alive, then you are dead. Dead is Dead.

I don't care. I'm dead!

Whatevers easiest for the rest of the people who are left to deal with me!!

Burial is wasteful and expensive. I'd like to have my body thrown in the ocean to be eaten by whatever is hungry. But that's illegal so I guess cremation.

Cremated....burial is a waste of space, probably would cost more for my family, and I'd rather be scattered out into the world than buried hidden underground.

I want to be buried, but not in a regular coffin in a concrete box. I think that is morbid. Put me in a nice wooden coffin, like a pine board box, and bury me in the dirt, so I can decompose and give back to nature. Or else bury me in my car, because I love cars. You can drain the oil and gas first. But I want to be in the drivers seat, hands on the wheel, Rush's Tom Sawyer in the radio, and a crash helmet on my head for whatever Lies on the big highway ahead.

if i had useful any remaining parts to donate, sure take them... i suspect they'll be nothing worth retrieving though.

don't spend thousands of dollars to toss me into a box to just get all slimey & gross. ok. 'i'm' not there, but just my worldy once was body yknow. what a waste of money... in my mind.

just cremate me then toss me in the pacific. cheap & easy as best.

Hmmmm. Some strange tpes out there. I vote for, take what you can use and then get rid of the rest the cheapest way possible. Makes no sense to me to spend thousands of dollars and get nothing you can really use.

I wanna donate my body to forensic science for the homiside study scene they have.

cooked well done, and scattered at the top of a mountain where the wind will take my ashes all over the place. that sounds kinda cool. and if my ashes get in your mouth, then hell swallow it. then i'll always be with you.

I want to donate anything that can be taken from me. Then I want to be cremated, and spread into the ocean and into the mountains.

i want to be cremaited and poure over some huge lake like lake tahoe or something

I just posted this on another message board.


Cremated.

I dont want people looking at my dead body lying in a coffin.

Donate my body for use in MEd school. I won't be in it so why spend the money for burial or cremation. Might as well let someone get some pratical use of it.

Cremated and spread around my favorite fishing spot. I'll be happy with that.

I will be worm food anyway, so just kick my dead rotting ass into the garden...that seems like it would be a nice place.

at the moment, cremated.

I read somewhere that there is a small amout of people, not many, but some that are buried alive. Im not sure if its true, but that would be the most horrible thing to wake up to.

hanabal, there are several scary truths to that about people being buried alive, but most/all happened well before modern times. Mainly, we now embalm before burial, so if you're not dead before embalming, you're dead afterwards :)

And yeah, quite a few people were buried alive. They have exhumed a rather distressing amount of graves that had clawmarks on the inside where the person tried clawing his/her way out of the casket..

Also, during hte 18th/19th centuries, they would put a pole down with a string and a bell on the top side. The string would extend into the coffin so that if someone were alive, he could pull the string to alert someone above so they can dig him up. There were people who stayed at night to listen for any bells. From this, we get the terms, "Graveyard shift" and "Dead Ringer"

That's also where the tradition of the "wake" comes from.

True true, something about the acids in tomatoes mixing with the pewter in the plates that produced a toxin that caused people to deeply pass out and pass for dead....

i wiesh i could find the site with all that stuff..

you're death class????????

i want to be buried... that's it.. nothign fancy. I don't want to be burned to a crisp and have my ashes in a Urn (sp?) for all to see..

I want to me mummified and placed in my own tomb.

I suppose if I had to choose I'd say just cremate me. But I just hope they make sure I'm dead first...

Cremate me and spread my ashes around the Ferrari factory in Modena.

left in a ditch somewhere or fed to livestock.... cheap and easy for the family, and its not like I'm gonna care.. I'll already be reincarnated into something else.

Cryogenics all the way! Unless of course they find a way to transfer my brain into a robot armed with lasers and rocket-launchers. Then I'd take the robot. Yeah.

Cremation- and spread into the ocean.

I personally dont care what happens to me once I am dead. After death activities here in the physical world are more for family and friends. Its there closure. Im dead, what does it matter?

If I am buried (which i dont really care for), I want to be placed face down in an old fassion pine box. yeah yeah so the rest of the world can kiss my ass.

But what I really want is to be cremated. Before hand, I want my tattoos to be skinned off my body and dried so that they can be given to my friends. Im thinking black frames with a black matting. After that lets light a fire! I want my ashes placed in small vials and given away to my friends. I'm thinking that death really sucks but I want those in my life to have something of me to hold onto. Besides I would be a great conversation piece after death. If I pass on before my dad and he takes me to the supermarket and weighs me like we did to my uncle or takes me out to dinner like we did my grandmother, Im gonna be pissed that he couldn't come up with something a little bit more original!

I'll go whatever way is cheapest and easiest for my loved ones.

Cremated. Then put in a big urn. Then put in a scary mausoleum so my spirit can haunt horny teens when they knock my urn over.

I'd definitely prefer to be cremated and have my ashes scattered. No reason to hang about for eternity...besides...urns take up space.

cremation!! all the way

Cremate me so my corpse doesn't take up space...

I can't remember the film but someone requested their ashes get scattered and when the friends go to scatter them a big wind comes up and they get a faceful of ashes... creepily funny.

I'd either want to be cremated, or donated to science.

Donate my body to science, and when they are done with me, burn me and shoot me into space using a bunch of fireworks.

Huzzah.

I'm gonna die??? Oh, hell no, I don't think so.....

:lol:

Honestly, I could care less. I'll be dead, what would I know?

Burn me baby I whats left of my useful organs to be donated then cremate me I want to be put in a container of some sort and shipped around the world

Cremated...there's not enough room on the world to have every body buried.

cremate me and fling my ashes into the breeze on top of a mountain in the Sierra Nevadas, or dump them into Hot Creek so that I can be ingested by lots of trout!

assuming whoever would be funding my death party can afford it, I'd like to try the cryogenics out. Futurama! :D

Whatever's cheapest. I don't care. Grind me up in an industrial chipper/shredder... feed me to the fish... doesn't matter. I'm dead.