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I would bet that is the way God prefers our bodies to go after we die too!
The act of putting a body in a super expensive casket (to somehow protect it from harm) is strictly done so greedy people can make a buck off the dead. That casket serves absolutely no purpose at all once its buried...and in our state, they also put in a solid concrete box (for the casket to sit in!!!) Just another high ticket item that is REQUIRED. LOL
I suppose the concrete vault is to keep water out and any eventual decay in but it does serve one other purpose: bodies have frequently been exhumed years after a crime in plenty adequate condition to uncover new evidence. In fact I've heard bodies described as no worse for wear (if by that you mean, "no waxier-looking than during the funeral").
My wife & I are headed for cremation though, I think, as it's cheapest. When my son died I literally went on the Internet and filled out a form and his body was picked up from the hospital, cremated, and delivered to my doorstep a week later by UPS. I think the total cost was something like $600. I realize people are so accustomed to the solemn gravitas of the whole funeral dirge that this probably seems sacrilegious or disrespectful but it's how my son wanted it. My brother is the same way, "put me in a plastic bag and bury me in the back yard" he always says. Of course that's not legal but it's my general sentiment too. All this unctuous nonsense has little to do with how one honors or remembers a deceased person. That's a function of how you remember and talk about the person, a thousand little rituals over the years. For example the organ donation place has volunteers who hand-knit sort of half-afghans or leg-warmers if you will, and send them to you as sort of a symbolic thank you. I have that over the foot of my bed, and pictures of my son on the wall. These help keep his memory alive for me. I don't think turning him into a mannequin and burying him in a concrete vault would have improved on that.
Little-known fact: If you don't have to spruce up a corpse for viewing, the organ donation people can harvest more bone and connective tissue for grafts and the like. They can take all the spare parts they want. And it means there's less to cremate.
Being the age I am, and particularly with covid still being a scary thing, I have had to face the prospect of death, but in a way I had never thought of before. I'm the last of my line. When I am gone no one will remember my mother or father, or grandparents, and probably none of my aunts and uncles. Or even pets. That has affected me.
Being the age I am, and particularly with covid still being a scary thing, I have had to face the prospect of death, but in a way I had never thought of before. I'm the last of my line. When I am gone no one will remember my mother or father, or grandparents, and probably none of my aunts and uncles. Or even pets. That has affected me.
You never had kids then Phet?
Your grandparents didn't have cousins, anything like that?
I'm sure they will be on someone's family tree, even if indirectly somehow. And they will be remembered by other people that were in their lives.
If you think about it though, all memories of all of us will fade at some point.
I do think though (and I always say this) that we should all live our best lives because life is precious and we shouldn't waste it.
And think of it like this, 250 years ago life expectancy was much, much lower, so think of every day after 40 as a bonus.
I feel like I'm living my second life already.
I suppose the concrete vault is to keep water out and any eventual decay in but it does serve one other purpose: bodies have frequently been exhumed years after a crime in plenty adequate condition to uncover new evidence. In fact I've heard bodies described as no worse for wear (if by that you mean, "no waxier-looking than during the funeral").
My wife & I are headed for cremation though, I think, as it's cheapest. When my son died I literally went on the Internet and filled out a form and his body was picked up from the hospital, cremated, and delivered to my doorstep a week later by UPS. I think the total cost was something like $600. I realize people are so accustomed to the solemn gravitas of the whole funeral dirge that this probably seems sacrilegious or disrespectful but it's how my son wanted it. My brother is the same way, "put me in a plastic bag and bury me in the back yard" he always says. Of course that's not legal but it's my general sentiment too. All this unctuous nonsense has little to do with how one honors or remembers a deceased person. That's a function of how you remember and talk about the person, a thousand little rituals over the years. For example the organ donation place has volunteers who hand-knit sort of half-afghans or leg-warmers if you will, and send them to you as sort of a symbolic thank you. I have that over the foot of my bed, and pictures of my son on the wall. These help keep his memory alive for me. I don't think turning him into a mannequin and burying him in a concrete vault would have improved on that.
Little-known fact: If you don't have to spruce up a corpse for viewing, the organ donation people can harvest more bone and connective tissue for grafts and the like. They can take all the spare parts they want. And it means there's less to cremate.
Always sorry to read about your son Mordant. I know you are philosophical about it but still.
My husband's grandmother used to say something very similar to your brother. 'Put me in a black bag and throw me in the river'. We didn't follow her instructions. Might have been a bit hard to explain to the police.
I suppose the concrete vault is to keep water out and any eventual decay in but it does serve one other purpose: bodies have frequently been exhumed years after a crime in plenty adequate condition to uncover new evidence. In fact I've heard bodies described as no worse for wear (if by that you mean, "no waxier-looking than during the funeral").
My wife & I are headed for cremation though, I think, as it's cheapest. When my son died I literally went on the Internet and filled out a form and his body was picked up from the hospital, cremated, and delivered to my doorstep a week later by UPS. I think the total cost was something like $600. I realize people are so accustomed to the solemn gravitas of the whole funeral dirge that this probably seems sacrilegious or disrespectful but it's how my son wanted it. My brother is the same way, "put me in a plastic bag and bury me in the back yard" he always says. Of course that's not legal but it's my general sentiment too. All this unctuous nonsense has little to do with how one honors or remembers a deceased person. That's a function of how you remember and talk about the person, a thousand little rituals over the years. For example the organ donation place has volunteers who hand-knit sort of half-afghans or leg-warmers if you will, and send them to you as sort of a symbolic thank you. I have that over the foot of my bed, and pictures of my son on the wall. These help keep his memory alive for me. I don't think turning him into a mannequin and burying him in a concrete vault would have improved on that.
Little-known fact: If you don't have to spruce up a corpse for viewing, the organ donation people can harvest more bone and connective tissue for grafts and the like. They can take all the spare parts they want. And it means there's less to cremate.
In a previous post I mentioned green cremation, and how it was briefly legal in New Hampshire before being made illegal, in part because of the Catholic Church. You have their sentiments pegged.
The Diocese of Manchester:
Quote:
Alkaline Hydrolysis (Chemical Cremation)
Alkaline hydrolysis is a method to dispose of human remains. In this process, the human body is reduced to bone ash and a sterile liquid substance through a chemical reaction. While the bone ash is returned to the decedent’s family, the liquid substance that is produced in the process is flushed away, usually into the public waste system. The Diocese of Manchester has opposed this process because Catholic teaching affirms the sacredness of every human life from conception to natural death. Every human person has an innate dignity that calls for the remains of every deceased person to be treated with the utmost respect.
Aside from the incoherence of the Church's position (by definition, disposal of remains occurs after the cited period 'from conception thru natural death'), there's the usual position that the Church wants not only for Catholics the right not to participate in green cremation, it wants to deny everyone - Catholic or not - the legal option to do so, going so far as to urge the state government to ban the practice.
I suppose the concrete vault is to keep water out and any eventual decay in but it does serve one other purpose: bodies have frequently been exhumed years after a crime in plenty adequate condition to uncover new evidence. In fact I've heard bodies described as no worse for wear (if by that you mean, "no waxier-looking than during the funeral").
My wife & I are headed for cremation though, I think, as it's cheapest. When my son died I literally went on the Internet and filled out a form and his body was picked up from the hospital, cremated, and delivered to my doorstep a week later by UPS. I think the total cost was something like $600. I realize people are so accustomed to the solemn gravitas of the whole funeral dirge that this probably seems sacrilegious or disrespectful but it's how my son wanted it. My brother is the same way, "put me in a plastic bag and bury me in the back yard" he always says. Of course that's not legal but it's my general sentiment too. All this unctuous nonsense has little to do with how one honors or remembers a deceased person. That's a function of how you remember and talk about the person, a thousand little rituals over the years. For example the organ donation place has volunteers who hand-knit sort of half-afghans or leg-warmers if you will, and send them to you as sort of a symbolic thank you. I have that over the foot of my bed, and pictures of my son on the wall. These help keep his memory alive for me. I don't think turning him into a mannequin and burying him in a concrete vault would have improved on that.
Little-known fact: If you don't have to spruce up a corpse for viewing, the organ donation people can harvest more bone and connective tissue for grafts and the like. They can take all the spare parts they want. And it means there's less to cremate.
I'm sure laws and regulations vary from place to place, but I think in many cases that the requirement for a burial vault is a policy of the cemetery so the grave won't collapse as decomposition happens.
The cheapest thing you can do is donate your body for use in medical science. Mine is going to a nearby university's medical school.
Always sorry to read about your son Mordant. I know you are philosophical about it but still.
My husband's grandmother used to say something very similar to your brother. 'Put me in a black bag and throw me in the river'. We didn't follow her instructions. Might have been a bit hard to explain to the police.
Thanks for your kind words.
Regarding the plastic bag burial, I am speaking of the youngest of my three brothers, who is 10 years older than I. He has always been an out of the box thinker and his views sometimes scandalize the next older brother, who is far more conservative / religious. I suspect he planted the seed of the notion in me that we need not be so sepulchral about death, it is just part of life. We prefer it to be at the expected time and in the expected manner of course, but there is no guarantee that we all get our "four score and ten" years either.
This notion has been more help to me in coping with grief than anything religion ever gave me. Religion as I've experienced it anyway often seems to want to push any sort of pain away and deny its existence or explain why it really isn't painful or suggest that it will eventually be negated by some form of afterlife bliss. In my experience, it's always better to deal in reality.
In my early 30's and from what I have learned from my time on this earth is I don't believe for one second that there is a heaven and hell or people walking around after dying or any type of afterlife at all Just don't believe it at all.
The most logical approach is this:
As one gets older, they realize more and more that they will be leaving behind so much to the point where they simply don't want to die, they want to live on. They want to look upon their legacies and accomplishments they have left behind. They want to see their children and their children's children go on to represent their legacy. They want to remember every great thing that happened in their lives.
That is completely understandable, but ego is a trait for the living, NOT THE DEAD.
Death is just as beautiful as a child's birth. If you enter this world knowing nothing, why would you know anything when you leave it?
It truly is amazing that just about everyone on Earth can accept the beauty of birth, but a lot of people just cannot accept the beauty of death when they are the same exact thing.
You mention ego in your thread title. When someone can't see anything past themselves, that would be an egotistical trait.
Certainly well thought out approach. When someone says, do you believe in hell? The answer is, if you're a bad person, heaven won't be your destination. It's back to the ground for that person. Meaning squirming on the ground. And cannot escape the ground. Is this hell? I would think so. The earth is the ground. Limited area. So heaven then is unlimited area.
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