“Youth is wasted on the young.”
I would ask some questions:
- How do you wish to be remembered — and in what fashion?
- Do you wish to be buried? And where?
- Do you wish to be cremated? And what to happen with your ashes?
My decision, made at least 40 years ago, is this: I would like a nice party for my friends, nice food, drink, music, laughing. And then, as I refuse to take up, with my death, room for the living, I will be cremated.
However, only recently have I realized what I want done with my mortal remains:
After cremation, then:
I want to have my ashes placed into a coffee tin with a note, and that tin placed through the open door and onto the deck of a railroad boxcar in the Roseville Union Pacific yard.
And from that boxcar, I want my remains to take the national ride that I never would have gotten otherwise. I want to see the Rocky Mountains, the plains of the midwest, maybe the southern coasts, the leaves falling from the trees of Vermont in autumn. I want to be exchanged on numerous trains and see my country.
Life is an adventure; maybe, with luck, I’ll continue that adventure.
And you?
BZ
I’ll be wrapped in a shroud and placed in a hole with no marker, over-looking the Pacific.
Natural Burial for me. I will be taken from my place of death and placed in that hole just as soon as someone can dig it.
BZ, Make sure your tin-can has a glass top or you won’t be seeing anything. Better yet, have you ashes put in a bottle.
Cremation for me…
Place my ashes on the mantle, take a pinch out and drop it in a douche bag every so often…
Run me through once more for old times sake…
When I was a boy, I told my grandparents that I wanted to be buried beside them. They bought me a plot.
Now, I sort of wonder what I want. I really don’t know.
After I drop this mortal shell, gain an immortal one and go to my true home, I don’t care what they do with my body. It wouldn’t matter if they toss it into a dumpster. I’m not being flippant; I really don’t consider my dead remains that important afterall I won’t be needing it anymore and the part of me that matters will live forever in a perfect body.
ShopRat,
Then donate it. It may not mean much to you but to someone who could use the parts it would mean alot.
I go along with being cremated. I dont see the sense in buying a plot for $10,000 that will neve be used again unless the mood of the modern world changes and cemetaries are used as parks for picnicks and playing like they once were. Just pour the ashes either in the Gulf of Mexico or in the Pacific where I loved sailing.
Ranando is right, if I had anything left that was worth using, I’d donate too, but damn, I have used ALL of mine up…
Ranando: bottle; dude, that’s it! Genius!
TF: Oooooeee!
Ranando: great idea for Shop; I’m not doing it because there won’t be anything worthwhile remaining after I’m done. I’m already 7/8ths shot not unlike TF.
I just don’t want to take up valuable space for the living; they deserve it and I do not.
BZ
I am with Shoprat and Ranando on this one. It doesn’t matter what happens with my body burial wise because I am going to be at home with Jesus and won’t care, but prior to burial I will donate whatever could save someone else’s life.
“Summoned, I take the place that has been prepared for me. I’m Grey. I stand between the candle and the star. We are Grey. We stand between the darkness and the light.” – Delenn, at the Grey Council.
From nothing I came, to nothing I go. I am summoned.
My life will leave no clues, no marks, and footprints that fade.
That trail to the mountains, the goal, the destination will see my passing and be worn by one more to show the way.
Many shall pass this trail and stick to the sunny road where the heat increases step by step until it can be tolerated no longer and they will seek another path or perish seeking fleeting satisfaction. This sunny road leads not to the sun but to heat without end, without mercy, without compassion, without justice.
Let them who leave that road find that trail worn by myself and others pointing to the fixed goals where sunshine and shade abound. A good life can be led in honor, in dignity, in tempered views and never veering for the path of ease… the path of ends, not means.
My life shall pass, even memories of me directly will go, yet the few things held dear and fixed are passed on as they were to me and others like me. That is the trust passed onwards generation to generation and I shall not shirk it and honor the path it has given me. None shall reach that final goal, but the path is sustenance, survival, and trust. This trail blazed forward by generations gone and if I come to new blockage then I, too, must cut and step forward to extend it. Those behind will forget the names of those who cut far and far back, but their direction and destination is honored even so. The weeds encroach and I cut… a tree falls I plant seedling for future shade… the washout soon gains stones to bridge again.
The sunshine road to Hell is well trodden and paved, I shall not step on it nor go that way willingly or unwillingly.
In my passing my friends may grieve as they will or not as they are: each to their own, I have no wishes for them but good life. My body will be gone, my spirit fled, I will not haunt nor creep nor bother ever more, save to remind that the sunny road is not a good one and that will not be done by me but by the path itself. I am not ashes, nor dust, nor anything at all physical, for all that I must deal in this physical realm. I will burden not the living for they have life to lead and my wish for song and dance and revelry are done while living, not by cold, dead asking.
If I am nothing after this life: so be it. I have led it as best I could and have few remorses and regrets.
If sunny path presents itself: find me in the other way towards fixed, good destination that is neither light nor dark. For the goal is the goal, the path is the path, and that is who I am.
Between the Darkness and the Light.
Cremation doesn’t appeal to me. I know it’s stupid, but I dread fire. Donation does appeal to me, as long as something will be useful to somebody. And even for those who believe they won’t have anything left to donate, your bodies can be used for research.
well,
If there’s anything usable of this ‘ol carcass when I’m done somebody who needs anythin can have it. after that whatever’s left, I don’t really care, stuff me in a stump hole, leave my butt sticking above ground and maybe I’d be useful as a bike rack or something I dunno…
AJ: wow. What a missive.
BZ