Plan B Forum

I was at a funeral for a friend of mine the other day, and got to talking with the funeral director, since I am getting up in age and have started giving some serious thought into putting something aside to cover some of the costs of my final send-off.  We got to discussing the costs of a full funeral — embalming, the casket, the vault, and interment — and comparing that to cremation, and I mentioned in jest that, "at least if I'm cremated and there ever is a 'Zombie Apocalypse', we know that I wouldn't be one of the walking dead."

He chuckled, and then told me that while he didn't for a minute believe in such things as zombies, for the past five years he had tied the shoelaces together of every person he had worked on before placing them in their caskets.  He said that way, if there ever WAS a 'Zombie Apocalypse' and the dead came out of their graves, it would be absolutely hilarious.

-"BB"-

But seriously, folks...

Donate your body and know you're making a wonderful advancement in science -- at no cost to you. On my whole-body donation application all I ask is that the students/researchers refrain from giggling.

Donate your body and know you're making ... giggling.

What are you going to do about it if we do, Ray?

He might be pulling your leg; I have been told by a number of funeral directors that, while the shoes are in the casket, they routinely do not put them on the feet unless the entire body will be visible, like with Aretha), I have gotten two reasons for this custom, one being it came about int he Middle Ages and deterred the walking undead, and the second that feet tend to swell/bloat so they cannot be placed on the feet (I lean toward this one). I am not sure this is a universal custome, but I had heard it whe I was a kidd, which is why I asked

As polluted as we’ve made this world, we should all consider burial in a mushroom suit or some other method that doesn’t include toxic embalming fluids.

Personally I’d like to be planted at a body farm so my corpse could serve science by observation of the decomposition process, but I live too far away for it to be worthwhile to them. So, donated to medical science it is.

My wife and I are both planning to opt for cremation, which is not as environmentally friendly as other forms, but puts no toxic fluids in the ground. Notsure what we'll do with the ashes.

Big RR wrote:My wife and I are both planning to opt for cremation... Not sure what we'll do with the ashes.

My father died almost 10 years ago. He was cremated. My brother has his nicely contained ashes in his hall closet. We're still not sure what to do with them.

We call him "Pop in the Box."

Two friends of mine have owned large storage facilities. When the rent on a unit is unpaid, the contents are auctioned. (The ones you see on TV are staged.) Both have told me that cremains are often found by the winning bidders. (I hope they didn't bid much.) So now what becomes of "pop in a box"?

Both of my parents were cremated, as were all five of Mom's siblings. My biological father asked that his ashes be scattered over his favorite lake in Idaho where he'd lived. His widow and a pilot friend scattered him from a Cessna. She was a pilot too. I made a cross shaped trench over my step-father's grave and "planted" mom there along with some grass seed. You can still see the different grass nine years later.

Google 'embalming process' if you are in need of some prodding in the cremation direction.

Both my parents were cremated and their ashes were interred at a memorial garden at my church. There are many ways cremains can be respectfully disposed of from scattering to burial to interment in a columbarium. but evn with the big carbon footprint of the cremation process, these are still more envronmentally friendly than burying a formaldehyde filed corpse in a metal box in the ground.