It wasn't the cough that carried him off...
I have been prompted to ponder how I would like to be laid to rest... I think it was the uterus-shaped coffin that did it. I haven't been to many funerals, and thankfully none of them were for close family members. However, I've still come to the conclusion that they can be the most impersonal of occasions.
MrB and I recently (finally) wrote our Wills. One of the most important things for me, was to insist on a low-cost funeral. And cremation. (I have a phobia of being buried alive - I'd need one of those little bell contraptions they used to have in the Olden Days) We tried to insist on Cardboard coffins, but our solicitor suggested it wasn't such a good idea. Maybe it's a hang-up I've retained from having to study The Loved One but I have a abiding distrust of the Funeral Industry. When I go, I want something plain and simple. A nice simple coffin, a nice simple ceremony... No tears, no wailing, no hair-tearing... The beauty of a Christian funeral is that the mourners all have hope and a tear-stained joy in knowing their beloved is in heaven.
A couple of years ago I took the kids along to the Australian Museum to see an exhibition on 'The Australian Way of Death'. It was really interesting - the kids loved it, but it brought home to me how little choice we have in our final Resting. I was really attracted to a growing movement in the UK for woodland burials. Bodies are wrapped in a shroud, or a biodegradable coffin, and buried in a dedicated woodland area. No headstones, no flowers, just a tree planted over your final resting place. And you return to the earth...
posted by actonb at 9:08 am
36 Comments:
I wanna go out in a firey wreck surrounded by semi clad girls.
What is wrong with a cardboard coffin if you are being cremated?
Noting's wrong with them. We just were told not to put it in the actual will. don't know why. I love the idea of a cardboard coffin that can be painted! Much more personal.
Although funeral directors don't like them because (they're cheap) and they can sag and seep. Apparently. But I don't believe them.
We can't do the shroud thing in NSW. But I think it's great.
We designed a crematorium for a uni project and it put me right off the idea.
You don't burn to ash ... you burn to chunks and then they grind you ...
You're dead.
Who cares?
Sell my body to parts scavengers
I care. It's horrible.
They put the coffin on this grill-type thing in the oven and the bits fall out the bottom and then they grind you and coffin etc into a fine powder. So not dignified.
mum always told me never to want to have my ashes thrown off a cliff. she told me it would be quite unpleasant if the wind blew them back into everyones face.
and apparently human ashes are really greasy and gross.
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OK. Your body is dead. Who cares? Your soul is not dead.
Not that hard a position really.
And even if you don't believe the soul etc business, you're still dead. So who cares what happens to your body?
Sorry, I forgot I was on strike here at C&C, due to your non-participation on my excellent site...
huh?
Dear God fingers...
You're more petulant than my 8yo!
Fuckety, fuck, fuck, fuck...
I hate my shitty, slow-to-update blog. When did you slide that last post past my sentry ??
God, I loathe myself...
So. A shroud or a pretty wicker casket fingers?
Or a fuck-off ebony one with ivory handles?
Who said I was going...
You did.
When you die of complete exhaustion.
On your "OMG he updated twice in one week' blog.
Or a mint slice packet-shaped coffin.
The thought of standing around eating Anzac cookies, drinking tea and chatting to you for an eternity is enough to make me stay here a while longer...
Chatting?
That'd be novel.
It'd be a short novel based on your last performance...
See now the thought of being buried gives me the willies.
Having clutched someone I loved very much ashes' in a cardboard box, I say the simpler the better - why waste money on the trappings of a funeral - have a service, buy a plot or whatever and plant a tree. Although people look at you funny when you hug a tree in a cemetary - but fuck 'em. The most fuck off coffin in the universe is not going to bring you back.
I do believe it takes two to have a non-chat.
Precisely!
And if you can, have fun with the saying goodbye, or at least, not dwell on the maudlin...
Like the parents of the twins who died in Adelaide: the twins were buried in the same red coffin - because it would get to heaven faster...
Yeppers.
Although I do confess to having stood my ground for 2 years on the stone. But I got my way and right down in the corner of Jonathan's stone...PxNxD = Punks Not Dead
I think my parents caved just to shut me up, but now they find it cool like I do. And it makes me laugh and remember the fun stuff which is as it should be.
Wendy: I am in awe of your immense wisdom and saneness...
*big hugs*
You just do what you need to to get through it all - but in a way becoming aware of your mortality at a young age is helpful I think.
I don't know that I'd necessarily call myself sane....;-)
isn't the way you are buried more about the people who are left feeling better about themselves rather than you, as a dead unfeeling person, being happy about it?
Maybe...
Except being the control freak that I am, I kinda have dibs on organising things AFTER I'm gone too...
I'm a control freak as well but somehow I just can't get excited about how I'm going to be gotten rid of...
What about organ donations, would you do that?
Absolutely! I'd be quite happy to be an empty bag of bones by the time the funeral comes around...
I think my problem is that I hate wasting money. And wood.
so if you're happy to be a bag of bones why does it matter where the bag of bones ends up? I think we agree?
I really have no preference one way or the other where my bones end up, its not like I can object to it?
These two gay guys I know have a pact whereby if one of them dies, he will be ground into powder, mixed into a milkshake and drunk by the surviving homo...
i think the diamond thing is kind of funny. imagine having your husband compressed into a diamond ring...
Why do the homos want to do that, Fingers ???
I'm glad you asked, enquiring and anonymous young mind.
Apparently, they want to slide out of one another's ass one last time...
Oh bugger.
Why did anonymous even ask?
I quite like the diamond idea also. In a freaky kinda what-if way. And I like diamonds...
I don't like the cannibalism by default idea mooted by our lovely friend fingers...
How about taxidermy? That way you never leave your loved ones - you can just hang around in the living room!
Actually, as someone who worked in the funeral industry. All cheap coffins are basiclly pressed cardboard with stapled on handles anyway. But they still charge an absolute fortune for them!
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