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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2014 18:48:22 GMT
by LizzyFaire
OK, I don't figure this is a depressing topic for AnyPorters who are known for their thoughtful commentary and morbid senses of humour, but today I have been contacting mortuaries in Pasadena, California trying to purchase a headstone for my gg grandfather who died there 100 years ago. Being born in the small village of Bothamsall, Nottinghamshire in the UK, I'm sure he never thought he'd be buried in a town primarily known for a mention in a Beach Boys song. It's got me thinking:
What are your plans for your passing? Do you have any? Burial or cremation? Family plot or a beach? Do you have anyone to take care of that stuff, or will you simply leave instructions? Do you even care?
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 16, 2014 5:22:58 GMT
Excellent topic, Lizzy!
I've discussed my lack of plans with my family. If I die here, which is probable, I could be shuffled off to be cremated with little fuss. I've told my family they don't need to pick up the ashes or do anything, unless they're so sentimental that going to the hassle would make them feel better. I also told them that years ago when I told my grandmother I thought cremation was the best option, she was rather horrified, but was mollified when I said my ashes could be stuck into her crypt. (the family has four spaces in the Catholic cemetery in my mother's home town) So, if anyone thinks my remains need dealing with, that's an option.
A favorite cremation story ~~ when Frieda Lawrence took DH's ashes back to New Mexico, she was so excited to see the friends picking her up that she went off & left the ashes setting on the railway platform.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2014 17:39:37 GMT
kerouac2: I didn't have any specific plans but after bringing my stepfather's bag of ashes to France and having him put in an urn in my grandparents' grave, where my mother will also go when the time comes, I am pretty sure that the most logical place for me is the same place, just to keep the family together. I'll need to get all of that set up ahead of time, since there will be nobody to do it for me. My parents probably thought that they would end up in Florida, where they had been living for more than a decade, but since there was no way to leave my mother there after my stepfather died, it was out of the question to leave him alone in Florida. Already, his own father was buried in North Carolina and his mother in Texas, so his family was excessivly dispersed (he was an only child and had no children of his own).
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jul 16, 2014 19:55:25 GMT
I like the idea of an eco-grave so that my molecules can return to the earth, but tbh once I'm dead I won't care...so it depends what my family decide to do with my corpse. My youngest son and I have often joked about him building me a long barrow with a burial chamber and grave goods.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2014 19:56:59 GMT
LizzyFaire:
I like that idea, cheery, perhaps with a good old-fashioned curse to go along with it to protect it!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2014 20:06:54 GMT
LizzyFaire:
I know I'm planning to be cremated like my mother was and my father will be. My father's second wife passed away two years ago, and my instructions (I believe) are to take half of his remains to the beach where my mother was scattered and the other half are to be mixed with his second wife's remains and scattered from a boat. They'll all end up in the same place anyway, but we wouldn't want the two ladies fighting over him.
When I'm gone, I'll leave a sum for my godson to go on a good holiday to Paris and take a baggie with me in it, to be surreptitiously distributed at a few sites. The rest of me probably needs to be dug into our property on Whidbey Island because the soil is remarkably poor there. I'd hope I'd be good for the roses.
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Post by mich64 on Jul 16, 2014 23:16:38 GMT
Very interesting so far.
Lizzy we have the same plan! Just fighting the urge to attach an itinerary to our Will.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 17, 2014 5:31:39 GMT
Ha, Mich!
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Post by bjd on Jul 17, 2014 6:19:11 GMT
I don't actually know although I have occasionally thought about it. I know I don't want to be buried where my husband wants to be -- in his father's family tomb in a small village in northwestern France. We never go there any more, except for funerals, and among my less favourite memories are spending summer holidays there in a large house full of people, some of whom never lifted a finger. But our kids were small then and there was no other option.
I guess cremation and scattering would be a good idea, with maybe a little plaque on that tomb. My own side of the family is so spread around that there is no one place.
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Post by questa on Jul 17, 2014 7:30:36 GMT
I have a vague plan that, as I have fallen in love with so many places, after cremation I want half my ashes put in the ocean near my home and hope they swirl from Adelaide to Sydney, where I originally came from. The other half sent to Bali where my Balinese friend will organise the little ceremony where, like all the local people do, my ashes are returned to the sea from a beach there. Maybe they will also swirl around to Lombok as well.
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Post by questa on Jul 17, 2014 9:54:55 GMT
The poll has left out one other option. My son #2 wants to leave his "carcass" to forensic science. He fancies being left out in the bush where scientists will chart the time it takes for him to be part of the earth. As I have Parkinsons the scientists here have asked if I will donate my brain and spinal cord to their foundation. I told them only when I don't need it. All our family are organ donors anyway.
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Post by htmb on Jul 17, 2014 11:14:14 GMT
I would like cremation, a small gathering of family and friends for a pleasant party if they wish, and a tossing of my ashes into a large body of water.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jul 17, 2014 11:19:07 GMT
Knowing that his family would be grieving, my Dad made meticulous plans for his funeral and the scattering of his ashes. The funeral was paid for, including the secular service, the cars and the 'after show party'. The music was chosen and on CD
The choral version of Angus Dei sung to the theme of Samuel Barber's Adagio for strings performed by the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge
Richard Strauss(Im Aberndrot) from Four Last Songs at Sunset Joseph Van Eichendorff
I've struggled to find the specific recording that he wanted on youtube, in the chapel it was calming and beautiful. Having all the 'technicalities' taken out of our hands made it so much easier. Right down to the exact map coordinates for the scatting of his ashes. Dad only requested that it be a secular funeral, and that the music that he chose be played in it's entirety, family tributes were our contribution to what was a very beautiful celebration of an extraordinary man.
I hope that we have the courage in the next few years to follow my father's example and pay for our own funerals.
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Post by htmb on Jul 17, 2014 11:21:57 GMT
Such a wonderful gift from your dad, Cheery!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2014 13:06:55 GMT
Cheery, that sounds like the a wonderful way to finalise a wonderful life. questa, I know, I realised that, after I created the poll, I left the "science" option off the list.
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Post by bjd on Jul 17, 2014 13:15:31 GMT
I too find it great that people think to organize their own funeral. An English friend of mine told me that when her father was dying of cancer, he ordered in a few cases of champagne and asked his family and neighbours to have a party after his death, drink champagne to his memory and remember the good times they had enjoyed.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2014 18:55:47 GMT
kerouac2: The trouble with leaving your body to science is that actually more people do it than medical science needs. I have read that one way that the extra bodies are used is for what are called "special mannequins" for automobile crash tests. While I'm sure it is a somewhat useful function, I don't think it is what most people have in mind. I suppose that countries that don't have an automobile industry are less at risk, but it's not hard to think of other unsavoury ways that dead bodies can be used for science and industry.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2014 18:57:07 GMT
kerouac2: Speaking of organising one's funeral, I started getting emails from undertaking contractors the very first month I was officially retired.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2014 19:08:43 GMT
LizzyFaire: I didn't know that about the overabundance of bodies for scientific research, Kerouac, very interesting. Well, I'm donating whatever's laft after I've gone to whomever needs it, but I'm kinda at the point that I don't want to be laid out on a slab for 23 year-olds to gawk at at their leisure. How did they know you were retired?
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Post by mossie on Jul 17, 2014 20:07:22 GMT
i had planned that I would be cremated and my ashes fed into the asphalt plant that I had been resposible for for over 20 years. Then I would form a very small part of some road.
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Post by htmb on Jul 17, 2014 21:12:03 GMT
That would be pretty cool, Mossie.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2014 21:13:51 GMT
LizzyFaire:
Very useful!
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DianeMP
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Post by DianeMP on Jul 17, 2014 21:42:31 GMT
Ashes thrown off a cliff into the ocean. Any ocean, but preferably the Pacific off California. I've warned my son to stand back, as wind may blow me back into his face. He said, "Uhhh, I know that, Mom." If he wishes, he can crack a beer and play one of my Blues CDs, such as...
My only absolute: "Do not toss me out where I live, Klamath Falls, Oregon (it's a long story)."
He says this plan sounds great to him - he and his wife can make a nice beach weekend out of it.
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Post by htmb on Jul 17, 2014 21:48:01 GMT
My former mother in-law's ashes where dumped in the lake along the shoreline of my old home. That was not a good idea, as far as I was concerned, which was probably the point.
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Post by bjd on Jul 18, 2014 5:53:56 GMT
Diane -- this thread also made me think of The Big Lebowsky.
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DianeMP
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Post by DianeMP on Jul 18, 2014 23:48:19 GMT
"My former mother in-law's ashes where dumped in the lake along the shoreline of my old home. That was not a good idea, as far as I was concerned, which was probably the point." Lol! I'm sure there's an interesting story between the lines of your comment, htmb. bjd - I've never seen that movie and now I have to!
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Post by mich64 on Jul 18, 2014 23:56:11 GMT
Yesterday I saw an advertisement for a biodegradable urn that once filled and put into the ground a tree will eventually grow from it.
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Post by lagatta on Jul 19, 2014 1:00:49 GMT
I had planned on the scattered ashes (this is quite a tradition among the circle of friends), but the tree would be nice too.
Medicine or other science would be fine, but not some stupid thing involving either cars or weapons of war.
Questa, Lombok! Peppery ashes. Perhaps they could help the chilli plants grow.
Good plans can go awry though. A very brilliant friend of mine who was a head of a university department at only 37, who died of AIDS in 1993, wanted there to be a big party when he died with good wine and food, and the family sent him off with a horrid church basement wake, with wan coffee and terrible sandwiches. Food and wine were certainly not on our minds then, but we were pissed off at his cheapskate family (cheap with HIS money, not their own).
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Post by bjd on Jul 19, 2014 7:27:24 GMT
I didn't know about the tree either. That sounds even better than scattering.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2014 20:27:41 GMT
kerouac2: I have always liked the idea of becoming plant food, but at the same time when I think of all of the graves of impressive people that I like to visit -- some of whom were not impressive at all when they died -- I still feel that there is a certain importance of having a specific memorial place where one can honour someone from the past, for whatever reason.
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