Throwing Out Old Cemetary Remains. Where Does This Lead?

[Munch]

Cremation does seem like the only alternative, and I specify that in my own will, but for many people, the concept is repugnant.  Although, I'm not sure why pumping toxic environmental hazards into your dead body and then slowly turning into a green mold would be preferred.

pretty much, plus if you look back at history, people have been cremated thoughout history.

The only member of my family who was buried was my brother (the one who died before I was born), and as mum has told me, she doesn't visit his grave anymore, because to her he's not there, its just a box in the ground.
I'd sooner have a stone slab with my name on it put somewhere, and my ashed scattered off a cliff, then be rotting in the ground. It did the same for my dad, brought him a stone, and laid his ashes.

Sorry, morbid talk there, just saying, people get up their ass about cremation, but like say, it can be as much a spiritual thing, if they are so inclined to wanting that, to have them burnt up as it is letting them to rot in the ground.

Honestly, unless your going to have your body given over to mulch and feed some plants to help them grow, digging up the earth, putting a box in it with your corpse, and taking up more and more space as time goes on, its a pretty selfish thing to do to the environment.

[stromboli]

My daughter had her two beloved dogs cremated and the ashes sit on their mantle. So every day you get to see their remains and are reminded of their lives. Better than occasionally going to visit a grave. Personally I have no concerns what is done with my body. My wife, because she has MS, has already signed up to have her body/brain donated for research. I'd just as soon be tossed in pieces into the Snake River because it isn't far away and there are big enough fish to eat the chunks.

Grind everybody up and use them as fertilizer. Who Cares?

[Aletheia]

I remember my mother telling me that some of the cemeteries in Germany buried the corpse upright to save space and required a recurring fee to maintain the plot. If you didn't keep up with the payments, then the body would be exhumed and returned to you. The plot would then be available for the next occupant.

Whether it's true or not, I don't know, but I've always been fascinated by the idea.

[Hydra009]

How about the part at the wake, with the corpse lying in an open coffin, and people dropping buy commenting on how good he looks: 

"Hey, they did a pretty good job on old Henry. Don't you think?" 

"Yep, they dressed him in the same suit he got married in." 

"Don't remember him looking quite that way, but it's close enough, I suppose."

I guess it makes sense for identification purposes, but I'm not a big fan of open casket.  If I wanted to stare into cold, lifeless eyes, I'd tune into The Kelly File.

[Hydra009]

Cremation does seem like the only alternative, and I specify that in my own will, but for many people, the concept is repugnant.  Although, I'm not sure why pumping toxic environmental hazards into your dead body and then slowly turning into a green mold would be preferred.

There's also burial at sea, but apparently there's all sorts of red tape and you have to be a pretty ludicrous distance from the shore (20 miles from Ocracoke), so that's not the best option, either.

Anybody now about the legality of a helicopter fall over an active volcano?

[trdsf]

There's also burial at sea, but apparently there's all sorts of red tape and you have to be a pretty ludicrous distance from the shore (20 miles from Ocracoke), so that's not the best option, either.

Anybody now about the legality of a helicopter fall over an active volcano?

I would actually like some of my ashes sent into space, since I've got sod-all chance of getting there while I'm alive.  There's a company that's working on a deep space shot where a capsule of your ashes gets sent out.  And just keeps going -- it's intended to escape the solar system.

And I want my capsule engraved thus: "Instant Human: Just Add Water".

[Atheon]

Honestly, the only value I see in old cemeteries is historical. It's educational to go around a cemetery from 150 years ago and see all the dead babies, dead young women, dead boys from war, etc.

Historical and genealogical... they're repositories of valuable data. And artistic. Old cemeteries are cool.

[SGOS]

I would actually like some of my ashes sent into space, since I've got sod-all chance of getting there while I'm alive.

Well, eventually that's where all the components of your body will end up.  And that's where you were long ago.  We are all stardust.  Granted, we are talking about lengths of time where stars come and go, but in eternity that might be a blink of an eye so to speak.

[SGOS]

I guess it makes sense for identification purposes, but I'm not a big fan of open casket.  If I wanted to stare into cold, lifeless eyes, I'd tune into The Kelly File.

It is a grotesque custom, for sure.  Friends and relatives walking around talking to each other about this and that, and here's this dead person lying at the end of the room, in a coffin, no less.  I always made it a point to take one last look at the deceased, so I would solemnly step up to the coffin, while attempting to appear to be meditating on the person's life or something appropriate, but in the back of my mind, I know that I'm looking at an empty shell.  Everything about him that made him "him" is gone.  This is a corpse.  So I do this pointless act, and just try to look like I am experiencing some kind of connection with a dead body, because frankly, I don't really know what else to do.

When my aunt died, the responsibility for the funeral fell on me.  She had a closed casket, but I visited her at the mortuary by myself.  The funeral director wheeled her gurney into a small private room and left me with her.  I'm not sure why, Maybe I thought I could experience a deeper connection with her remains if I actually touched her.  I asked the director if I could touch her.  He didn't bat an eye, so I got the impression this might not be uncommon.  He told me she would feel cold because she had been in the refrigerator and had not yet been embalmed.  I briefly touched her face.  It was very cold and lifeless.  The predominate part of the experience is that it felt creepy.  I couldn't get beyond the creepy.  She was just dead.

If there was anything helpful in the experience, I suppose it might have solidly driven home her state of "gone-ness" forcing me to accept her absence fully, and thereby shortening the grieving process.

[Munch]

The first time I was confronted with a dead person was my grandma. All those years, the sweet little old lady who made me tea, made honey yogurt, and talked about her day when I visited her, even helped me when I made some financial problems later on, now she was this pale, wrinkled up lifeless husk, and it looked nothing like my grandmother, her laying in a casket at the funeral home. I was so shocked at how the sweet smiling lady I knew had become this thing with no life in it, I ran out of the viewing room and broke down in tears.

I decided after that, if I had to deal the the death of a loved one from here on, I would not do it in the funeral home, where the body already was decomposing, but instead at the hospice just after they died, like my dad, who at least still looked like he was alive kind of.

[Youssuf Ramadan]

Become part of a Body Worlds expo. That's the shit - your kids can see you skinned and riding a horse, surfing a wave, or performing gymnastics or something.  Better than rotting in a wooden box or some crap like that.   

[stromboli]

I think every mortuary should have a big ass wood chipper out back. As an option, in case you want to be fertilizer or something.

[trdsf]

Well, eventually that's where all the components of your body will end up.  And that's where you were long ago.  We are all stardust.  Granted, we are talking about lengths of time where stars come and go, but in eternity that might be a blink of an eye so to speak.

Yeah, but I want to get a jump on that.  :)

[stromboli]

Fish food. Pay back for all the fish I've caught and consumed.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

How about having your corpse put in a cage hung from a tree or lamp post on the outskirts of town and let the birds eat you and to warn strangers to stay the fuck away? Seems perfectly reasonable to me..