Beating the business of death.
 

No, I haven't found the fountain of youth, but my mother has made a decision that will reduce the cost of her burial to $0.00. We have never been a wealthy family (lower middle class at best), but I think her decision resulted from a combination of wanting to save the family from the expense of a funeral, and her obsession with helping other people.

She plans to donate her remains to Dalhousie University. The Faculty of Medicine, Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, to be exact. They accept human remains, shortly after death, for medical teaching and research purposes only. Once they have finished with a persons remains, usually a period of one to three years, the remains are cremated and buried during a memorial and interment service at Dalhousie Garden Cemetery plot, at no expense to the family. The plot has a large, bronze memorial plaque that says "Here lie the mortal remains of those who donated their bodies to the furtherance of medical sciences at Dalhousie University. Beyond the sphere of earthly life, they have given of themselves for the good of others"

There will be no marker bearing her name, but that isn't something that bothers her, or my sister and I, in any way. In the 49 years since my fathers death, I think I have visited his grave not more than three times. I commend my mothers decision and am seriously thinking of making the same choice for myself.

I don't want tourists gawking at my inside-out wang, thank you very much.

Seamaiden, sounds like your mother is a wise and generous lady, very aware of the importance of medical training for future generations.

Thank you for sharing.

not to rain on anyone's parade, but is it a question of money or is this really a charitable action?

because if its about money and this is being done in order to only save money, then the charitable action loses its meaning.

^^ I'm a donor. I don't donate blood, but I am hoping some day someone might get my brain and be subjected to endless arousal. Like, at ALL times! See if it's easy being me.

dlish, Point made. Hopefully, this was just a smart decision - on many levels for mom and her family. Don't want to belabor a good idea, do we?

I believe my mother has a genuine interest in the benefits her donation would provide to the University. She has advanced osteoporosis, with over 40% bone loss in her back, and would feel good about whatever knowledge could be gained from the study of her remains. I do believe her decision was made primarily for charitable reasons. She does worry about the cost of things and being a burden to her family, and has already paid for a cemetery plot...several years ago. This new decision is a win win for her; She's happy to be able to assist medical students learn their skills, and she's thrilled to avoid the high cost of dying.

I'd always planned on being cremated and scattered at the island (seamaiden will know what I mean), but I like the idea of being used for medical training. I'll have to give this some thought.

Don't be ridiculous. You can be charitable and save money. They're not mutually exclusive, Dlish.

Yeah, I'm donating my body to science. I don't believe in funerals, burial, or any of that superstitious bullshit.

I also don't believe that I should work my whole life to pay for a retirement home and a fancy Tupperware for my corpse.

Our current life-to-death system leaves little room to accumulate wealth in a family. Fight the system: don't buy into it.

We'll see how that works out for me in the end. There isn't a lot of dignity left in modern life... but there can be in death.

...

It's either that or the steak-robe+baseball-bat-on-Grizzly thing I talked about in the other thread. Yessir.

I'm going to do both organ donation and MedCure... they take the usable living organs if possible and then the rest goes to research. And the cremation is free. I don't care about the cost stuff, because I want a cremation anyway, but MedCure is awesome. And if for some reason my organs can't be donated, then MedCure will take everything they need.