Cremation or Burial?

[Mahonri]

We go the burial route... I just want to make it easier on resurrection day.

 

[Damummis]

Told the kids I didn't want a funeral, afraid no one would come. Cremate me and throw me in the compost pile. Boy, they didn't dig that to much. I think the youngest actually stared to cry.

The funniest thing is, I was serious. I love to make things grow.

 

[Miltonchix]

Quote:

 

[chicken_china_mom]

Personally, I can't stand the thought of my body being eaten away by insects. I know it's nature's way of breaking it down and returning it to the earth, but the very thought of it is enough to induce anxiety attacks, so I'll be cremated. My mother has asked for this as well. Much less expensive and I can have my ashes spread somewhere I really love, or my children can keep them, depending on what they want. Me, personally, I am not comfortable with the idea of ashes being inside my house (my mom has her cat's ashes, and it creeps me out, though I don't really know why), but spread in the garden, or somewhere beautiful, that would be wonderful. I don't want my ashes buried in a cemetary either, they also creep me out. And not stuck in a mausoleum. I like nature and would like to be returned to it in death. And it has to be better for the environment than being pumped full of formaldehyde and stuck in a box deep in the ground. My best friend passed away in January of 2009 and it bothered me that she was embalmed AND cremated. Anyone ever seen the Korean movie "The Host"? Doctor was dumping TONS of formaldehyde down the drain and it fed into the lake, and, because it was a horror movie, a fish mutated, grew to the size of flippin Godzilla, and began eating people. Sure, it was fantastically over exaggerated, BUT there are terrible effects from chemicals that leak into the water supply. Frogs with extra legs, fish with two heads, etc. And thinking about how many people there are on Earth, and how many opt for embalming and burial, it's depressing and frightening to think about the effect this has on the Earth. I want to be cremated no later than the day after I die so that embalming is not necessary, and I'm not making the biggest carbon footprint of all.

 

[Slinkytoys]

Unless you opt for "green" burial, your body is not fodder for insects. The caskets are sealed and in a concrete vault. If you are embalmed, nothing that feeds on you will live. Bugs can't get to you, you are sealed in. No maggots, etc..... Most of the bodies end up with some mold/fungal damage, but on the whole as the body does decay (slowly) it ends up as a chemical "goo" glob. This process takes a long long time, which is why bodies exhumed can still offer some information to forensic scientists. Buried persons don't end up as "dust to dust" nor enrich the earth. I'm glad this thread was started, seems like most of us are uninformed as to what happens to our bodies after death.
Slinky

 

[Cetawin]

Cremation for me; Burial for my husband. I anticipate going before my husband for several reasons and I have left instructions in my Will and his that my created remains will be buried with him along with my cremated wolf who was my pet for 13 years. Should he die first, then I shall be sprinkled.



Slinkytoys - Ashes to ashes; dust to dust refers to the cremation of the body or burial by fire.

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
This is the precise reason I chose cremation. I don't want my family to feel obligated to visit some stone with writing on it to "honor my memory"....and I shudder at the thought of plastic flowers over my grave. How tacky.

If my family and future generations cannot remember me, from me just merely being ME, then a gray stone in a field of stones will not make any difference at all. Not to mention the expense they would have to bear putting me into the ground in the traditional manner, to lie there slowly rotting under their feet....NOT what I want my kids to remember.

I have instructed my kids to take my ashes to where we used to fish all the years they were growing up. There they can scatter some wildflower seeds along with my ashes, talk about the fun we had there and catch a few rainbow trout to "remember me". They can return to that beautiful spot in their minds anytime they wish to remember me....not a field of stones with me and a bunch strangers rotting under them.

 

[Cetawin]

Amen Beekissed!

 

[speckledhen]

I never visit anyone's grave, not even my mother's. Never saw a reason for that, truthfully. The soul is gone, the body is a shell, and if someone has to go somewhere to remember me, then I didn't make an impression on them when I was alive. Never understood the sense in going into debt to buy a $4000 box that no one will ever see again. I'm sorry if that offends, but the modern society death rituals make no sense to me, never did. My DH said to put him in the compost pile. At least he'd still do some good for someone.

 

[Beekissed]

Same here. Never have visited a grave...heck, I usually won't go to funerals. As you say, the body was a shell and the soul is no longer there. I see no reason to gaze upon a shell when I knew the living being, vibrant and whole.

I also had thought of being placed on the compost pile but I knew the kids wouldn't be gardening once I'm gone....nor would they raise chickens who would dust in my ashes. Mores the pity!