(lol i almost posted this as a reply in a COMPLETELY unrelated thread)

okay so this may be a little morbid but hear me out here.

As of late i've had occasion to attend more than my fair share of funerals...or have been around people who have had friends die. At one such funeral it got me thinkin.....holy shit I dont want a funeral when I kick it.

Thats so totally not how I've lived my life...if I was to die today here is how i would want it to go.

1. i'd be cremated....I was raised catholic but i cannot stand the thought of being in a box 6 feet under for eternity..not fun.

2. NO STUPID VIEWING (do they still have those if you're cremated) funeral homes suck...all dark and dreary...who wants to sit through that??

3. For the sake of those that need closure or something, i'd okay a mass at the only church I can ever say i truly loved going to, back home in Jersey, beautiful Roman Catholic church, twin towers, just awsome. BUT, i'd have the organ music be some of my favorite metal tunes...ever see the Simpsons when bart made mrs. glick play InaGadDavida at mass? :tu:

4. I'd want my ashes spread around my home town in Jersey, I was born there thats where I want to chill for eternity. I'd have people play strip poker for the rights to spread my ashes around :lol:

5. Then TO THE BAR!!!! all night drinking, dancing, food, one huge party. If I kick off during the summer, its a beach party!! I'd have a letter written by me read by my best friend to all in attendance to say goodbye then that would be that. :tu: better yet i'd make a video...and what a video it would be :spaz:

anyone else care to take part in my morbid little thread? How would you wanna go?

To quote a comedian, "I want my body suspended by wires then swung around the room lit up with a strobe light with heavy industrial music blaring..." hah!

sigh.. yeah its morbid.. To be honest a small service in whatever way my family sees fit works for me... even if I didn't like it... I'd umm.. be dead..

- Emilio

The world can mourn my death in whatever way it wants, provided that they respect my wishes to be cremated (and possibly have my carbon compressed into diamonds). Anything that remains of me will be divided up and scattered in some choice places, which obviously I haven't decided on because I've got a good ways to go yet.

I also hope that I'll be allowed to put "Bury me in a box and I'll come back to haunt you" in my legal will :nod: Burial is just skeevy and weird to me, at least how we do it in this day and age. I guess some people find it comforting that there's still a body left over from their loved one, some sort of mourning-related homing beacon that they feel lost without, but I don't... let's just say that I think of people who have died in spirit, and try not to think of what's under the dirt in the graveyard.

I don't want to be cremated, what a waste of bits. If there's any chance that organs could be harvested from me, then that's what I want. There are people dying every day who could be saved with a donated organ. Hopefully, however, I'll be about 200 years old when I go (disgracefully with any luck) and nothing will be of any use.
My wife's mum died a few years ago, and she took it really badly. She gets real comfort from visiting her grave (despite it being really tough to go there) and if that is of help to others, then good I say. I'll be toast, so what happens to my body is really of little importance. I'll have continued my journey by that time.

Andrew.

Andrew,
I think they take the "bits" out to be used well before you are cremated.
Widers

I sincerely can´t stand the thought of being cremated, I am not a christian, but somehow fire, and heat reminds me of hell :mad: , not that I actually believe in Hell, hehe but still!.

I think my dream funeral would be set somewhere in africa where I grew up, on the savannah, I wouldn´t mind actually being eaten by animals, and be totally united with the nature itself, as long as there is some sort of memory left at the place, like a stone, or even a tree planted.

My worst fear is to lay in a box in some cemetary along with 100´s of other strangers just to be replaced by someone else in a 100 years from now, when nobody comes to visit anymore. I have a local church here where I live where there ´have been so many tombstones removed and now just lay around in a pile on the back of the church, that I think is sad. :eek:

About organ donation, I know it is a very honorable thing to do, and I´m glad that ppl are willing to do it. The thought that a part of me is in someone elses body however does freak me out, and I guess in one way it collides with the only few personal religious thoughts/values I hold.

I'm Atheist. Formerly Catholic. That made it hard, when creating my trust, to figure out what to do while still appeasing religious relatives. Having just said goodbye to my dad this year, I know that funerals suck, more so when it's immediate family.

I've already had it put in my legals... I am to be cremated. No funeral. A mass, if family chooses to do so for their (and friends) closure. No morbid effin' viewing, that's for damn sure. There will be no weeping over my body (I'm still trying to figure out how to turn it into a party so I can be sent off in style). From there on out, I asked to be kept with family and if no one wants me, my ashes are to be scattered on Cocoa Beach, just up the road from where I grew up. I will not be stuck, rotting in a tin box for all eternity nor will I take up precious greenspace in those useless plots of land we call cemeteries.

I asked the wife to put a teaspoon of my ashes in the tank of the Trans Am, should she still be with me. Then take me to the track and run me through the quarter mile one last time.

I asked the wife to put a teaspoon of my ashes in the tank of the Trans Am, should she still be with me. Then take me to the track and run me through the quarter mile one last time.


thats the BEST one i've heard yet!! that rocks. :tu:

Both my grandparents died over the last year. But what they did, which I think is a great idea, is they gave their bodies to a medical school. First, if they had any organs worth anything, then they were suppose to be donated before their bodies were given over to the school. The medical school then uses the cadavers in teaching their medical students about the human body. They totally treat the cadavers with respect as well. Plus, my grandparents didn't want the expense of a funeral to be passes on to their loved ones. The medical school paid for everything. After the school uses the bodies, they cremate them. Again, everything is paid by the school. I think when I die, I would like my body to be used like that as well. I would like my death to help the knowledge of some medical student who will hopefully help someone because he/she was allowed to study my body. I would like my death to mean something - if possible.

I am a donor, but cremation occurs after that :)

What I will say is that the "wake" approach is garbage. My wife's grandmother died and people went back to this funeral home back and forth for three days, depressed and crying. I mean, good God, it was just brutal. There is simply no need to put oneself through that. When I'm dead I don't want people mourning over my coffin for three days, because that is hell on them.

My wife and I both agreed to scatter each other's ashes on signal hill in newfoundland.

Now, back to my caffeine and music.

Hearse of weathered black enamel.
Undertakers fingering cigarettes.
Family, some crying, some bored,
Some only thinking of themselves.
Hired marching band out of tune.
Even in death we find no accord.
Tao Meditation


If you look closely at a dead person, can you truly see a soul? Is there anything left of the person that you knew? No. There is only a corpse, one that doesn't even look familiar; whatever animates people is gone. Have they flown to heaven? Have they gone into some cycle of transmigration? I don't know. Theories about what happens after death can only be conjecture.

A funeral is for those left behind. It is a ritual for us to come to grips with what has happened. Sometimes, one wonders if the weeping is more out of fear for ourselves than it is sympathy for the deceased.

All our lives, we seek union. We try to please our parents, we try to do well for our teachers and society, we try to make love and get married, we try to touch the universal through art, music, and meditation. Yet all our lives, our every attempt is flawed. Accord and harmony are transitory states. Their duration and quality come only from our determination. Once our mind gives way, we can no longer hold the connection that we want.

Don't wait for death to solve your difficulties. Do what you must while you are alive.


I'm in a unique situation where I've really had to face my concepts of death, what it means to me, and how I want my belongings taken care of. I'm more spiritual than religous, and follow no organized religions. I wish to be creamated, though I have not decided what I want done with my ashes. I'd like my previous cat's ashes spread with mine when that time comes. All that I've asked of my mother, is to never seperate Kino and Po who are the two siamese that I have now. They've been together since they were kittens...and all that I ask is that they are able to be together always.

First I want to donate my organs and corneas, and whatever else can help give a living person a quality of life. Then I want to be cremated in a cardboard box, so it is inexpensive. All I want written in my obituary is how much I loved my husband and my pets and nature.

After I am cremated, I would like to be mixed with the ashes of all my beloved dogs, and released into and around the Bow river, since it is my special hiking place.

I do not want an urn or a graveside that will never serve a purpose aside of sadness. My ashes will serve purpose in nature and will help things grow and thrive. I also hate thinking of rotting in the gorund, although I will be dead, and won't care. When I am gone, I want to be GONE. If people want to be close to me or remember me, I want them to go to the river for a nice hike and an afternoon with nature, instead of a cemitary. At least the day can be enjoyed with watching nature and listen to the water rushing by.

I want to be filthy rich and own a large corupt corporation. When i die, I want two young employees, who were about to get fired, to take my body and party with it at my beach house for a whole weekend. Then they can stuff me in a suitcase and take me down to the bahamas and party some more.

Then of course I'd be cremated and have my ashes thrown in hole and an oak tree sappling planted on top of me.

Then when the tree was big enough I would want a tree house built in it and a rope swing on it too. Because I like kids.

I want to be filthy rich and own a large corupt corporation. When i die, I want two young employees, who were about to get fired, to take my body and party with it at my beach house for a whole weekend. Then they can stuff me in a suitcase and take me down to the bahamas and party some more.

Then of course I'd be cremated and have my ashes thrown in hole and an oak tree sappling planted on top of me.

Then when the tree was big enough I would want a tree house built in it and a rope swing on it too. Because I like kids.

if i didnt know better i'd swear you died already stranger ;)

I like that one a lot.
Much better than mine......

Accept in my religion you're not supposed to be cremated or even transported more than a certain distance. Apparently it is too confusing or stressful to your sould before it has a chance to do whatever it has to do. At least thats the way I understand it.

yah i'm pretty sure cremation is out of the question in Catholosicm too...but i havent been a practicing Catholic in quite some time...I have faith...but not a religion. I have feelings about things, but I dont think one has to attend mass every sunday just to get a ticket to a good afterlife...i'm fairly certain that exists.

I accept my flaws as a human being, i just try to be a good person and hopefully if it happens that there is one dude passing judgment on me when I kick off he'll be able to see i'm really not a hell spawn.

Maybe i'll have someone take some of my ashes to Mardi Gras!!!!

Well, with my friends, there are explicit instructions to go out and have a drinking party a la the movie Snatch. Because, if I have gone to a better place, why mourn me?

I'm sure that some people will mourn their loss of me, I am an important guy after all... :p

In all honesty, I haven't really thought about the rest of it. I don't think I'll have exactly a whole lot of choice in the matter, and besides, what would I care?

My dad took a cruise in the Carribbean. He says he'll be cremated and his ashes spread through out there. Whether this happens, well, none of us is really sure if he was serious.

I haven't really thought too much about what I want to happen to me after I die. I don't like either option of being burned or buried, very much, but I wouldn't really know what happened anyway right?

As long as it wasn't too expensive I'd be okay with it. When my Dad died unexpectedly 2 years ago, it was so expensive for my family to take care of all the funeral expenses. He knew he was probably going to die soon (he had major heart problems), so he left some instructions. But the expenses are still causing my family to fight even after all this time.

I think I want the donate-my-body-to-science route. My degree lies in the forensics field, so i know that it could be really useful to students.

But as for not wanting anyone to cry for me, that won't be any use. Family and friends will feel sad you're gone whether you want them to or not. But that doesn't mean there can't be humour and celebration too.

I love to make people laugh at me, so I think I would want people to get together and remember all the silly things I did or said and laugh really hard. We did that for my Dad and it made us feel better.

:d_smile:

I want to go out New Orleans Style, tailgate trombones and the whole nine yards.

yah i'm pretty sure cremation is out of the question in Catholosicm too...
I'm a Catholic, and this isn't true. All down to personal choice, that said, cremation is fairly uncommon where I live.

Andrew.

I'm a Catholic, and this isn't true. All down to personal choice, that said, cremation is fairly uncommon where I live.

Andrew.


shows how much i paid attention in Catholic School :p

I love to make people laugh at me, so I think I would want people to get together and remember all the silly things I did or said and laugh really hard.

:d_smile:

same here, as I said before if i kick off in the summer i want a beach party, i told my friends to just position me on a lounge chair on the beach with a party hat on and a 40 of Old English in both hands :p

they can position a smile on my face for effect and so I dont look out of place, TANNING LOTION!!!

Afterwards i'll be cremated in a bonfire on the beach at midnight.

One thing we seem to forget, funerals, like life insurance, is for the living, not the dead.

I want my body harvested for organs and than the rest donated to a medical school or whatever. The only thing I will really be able to ensure happens, is the organ donation. If my family decides they want to have a funeral and this is what they believe will help them, than they should go for it, because one thing is for sure, we won't care.

Being alive for almost 1/2 a century, I have seen lots of different funerals. Some are nothing but crying fest, while in Korea, it is a celebration. I have also seen everything in between. Whatever we choose, we should not make that decision alone. Think of the people you will leave behind. Talk to them about it and really listen to what comes from their heart. We just might have to make changes for their sake. After all, we will be dead and won't be worrying about it.

After all, we will be dead and won't be worrying about it.

i dont know about you but I plan on being there...if you get pick assignments in the after life i'm DEFINETLY haunting someone or something. :D

I have a local church here where I live where there ´have been so many tombstones removed and now just lay around in a pile on the back of the church, that I think is sad. :eek

Can anyone else elaborate whether this is common place? My friend is doing a statistical project about grave sites and I mentioned this to him. He said I might have my facts mixed up. Sorry If I derailed the thread a bit.