S/O What would you want? Trigger warning for funerary thoughts and references

[Kidlit]

10 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

Just another point of view. (Am not saying yours is wrong, just different from mine.)  Today is my dad's birthday.  So I went and brought new flowers and sat by it for a while.  I don't know, it just feels comforting to have a place to go.  My mother was cremated and her ashes are in a closet in my house (Don't ask how I ended up with this...ugghhh.  I have to wait until step-dad dies and then I am supposed to mix their ashes and throw them on a mountain in Colorado...)  I don't know... Having a marker is a place I can go... a place where her name would have been engraved and never forgotten.  There will be no place to go and really no place now...sitting by a box of ashes, not the same.

We bought the plots next to my dad because we both loved the cemetery.  You can see trees and a pond. ( You cannot see the pond in this picture, but it is back there.  Just so peaceful.

Lovely.   I understand this.   

[Ottakee]

I would vote for more of an open house style memorial service.  The only thing is that I want the gospel shared again so maybe a very brief service.   
 

i have said that if the weather is decent, rent the building at one of my favorite parks and have open house style food and let people mix and mingle and go hiking

[regentrude]

2 hours ago, TexasProud said:

Just another point of view. (Am not saying yours is wrong, just different from mine.)  Today is my dad's birthday.  So I went and brought new flowers and sat by it for a while.  I don't know, it just feels comforting to have a place to go.  

I understand that. It comforts my mother to visit my father's grave.

However, as an immigrant, I do not have the luxury of visiting the graves of my ancestors. The existence of those graves on another continent isn't a source of comfort for me, but a source of guilt. I cannot lay flowers at my father’s grave on his birthday.

Which I don't want to inflict on my kids who wouldn't have any reason for returning to this town except for parental graves. 

No, I'd rather be part of the ocean or the Grand Canyon or a river. They can have comfort knowing my molecules are back in the cycle.

Edited June 21, 2023 by regentrude

[Lady Florida.]

6 hours ago, Kidlit said:

I'm curious about this. I looked up a green funeral and it doesn't APPEAR to be more expensive than the whole shebang we just had for my great aunt two years ago.  (I went with my parents to make arrangements which is how I know the cost.  She didn't have anything overly elaborate--more middle of the road casket, etc.). Maybe these things vary greatly by region. 

Maybe the cost has come down. When I first heard about it a number of years ago it was much more than a traditional burial or cremation. I admit I haven't looked into it recently. 

[klmama]

I like visiting my mother's grave, even though I can't do it very often.  And while occasionally I feel some guilt about not going more frequently, I know my mom would tell me it's okay -- just to come when I can.  While I'm there, I also visit my grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, childhood friends, my parents' friends.... That's one of the advantages of growing up in a small town.  My brother and his wife bought graves right next to my mom's, but we chose not to.  While I kind of like the idea of being buried there, we live so far away that my dc would likely never visit.  They'd be more likely to do so if we were buried here, where they grew up; we'll probably choose the same cemetery as dh's parents.  Even if our dc never visit, I want them to have the opportunity to do so and for it to be a place where other relatives they loved were buried, as well.  I know that will mean something to at least one of them, and that's good enough reason for us to do so.  

[katilac]

 

13 hours ago, City Mouse said:

 One thing that bothers me is that I am an extreme introvert, but my DH is the exact opposite. I can imagine that after he dies, there will be people coming out of the woodwork that will want to talk to me about him and attend a service. The thought of that makes me very anxious. 

Think ahead of time of a few people who will be willing to run interference for you. They can be in front of you, wherever you are for the service, and greet people first. Then they either guide them to you or guide them gently past you. Oh, but I wanted to tell City Mouse this story . . . she's not up to it right now, but I'd love to hear it (that's why you need a few people). 

It's also perfectly fine to duck into a private room during the meet and greet part of the service. Again, people can be deputized to say, City Mouse is overcome, she probably won't return to the gathering. 

8 hours ago, rebcoola said:

A large casual event and cremation with my ashes turned into fireworks

If my kids somehow infiltrate the park and get my ashes turned into Disney fireworks, that would be exceptional. 

4 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

 c) splitting up someone's ashes feels horrible to me, somehow lacking in integrity.

Yeah, that freaks me out. My bil is like, half at the camp, half at the beach, and I'm like, okay, but don't you dare split me up. I'm conflicted enough in life. 

4 hours ago, rebcoola said:

Admittedly I have not actually looked into all the details.  Just that its a thing and my family and I are super into fireworks.

You can legally make your own fireworks (up to a certain level), but you can't transport them. 

But apparently getting it done professionally is pretty popular in the UK!

[Scarlett]

5 hours ago, TexasProud said:

Just another point of view. (Am not saying yours is wrong, just different from mine.)  Today is my dad's birthday.  So I went and brought new flowers and sat by it for a while.  I don't know, it just feels comforting to have a place to go.  My mother was cremated and her ashes are in a closet in my house (Don't ask how I ended up with this...ugghhh.  I have to wait until step-dad dies and then I am supposed to mix their ashes and throw them on a mountain in Colorado...)  I don't know... Having a marker is a place I can go... a place where her name would have been engraved and never forgotten.  There will be no place to go and really no place now...sitting by a box of ashes, not the same.

We bought the plots next to my dad because we both loved the cemetery.  You can see trees and a pond. ( You cannot see the pond in this picture, but it is back there.  Just so peaceful.

I am one of those who enjoys visiting graves.   I have been to the grave of my childhood friend many many times,  it is such a remote location I always feel I will get lost but I never do.  I just sit by his grave for a while and take a few pics and leave.

But  times are changing and our kids probably won’t be around or care the same.

[Eos]

6 hours ago, klmama said:

While I kind of like the idea of being buried there, we live so far away that my dc would likely never visit. 

This is the crux of my questioning.  Should my body/ashes/headstone be far away from where my kids can visit but with my mother/sister/grandparents/ancestors?  Could I just have a stone there?  What do stones even mean - sort of like solidarity with family but not marking a physical trace of a life lived on earth?

Back to square one... 🙂 

[TexasProud]

13 minutes ago, Eos said:

This is the crux of my questioning.  Should my body/ashes/headstone be far away from where my kids can visit but with my mother/sister/grandparents/ancestors?  Could I just have a stone there?  What do stones even mean - sort of like solidarity with family but not marking a physical trace of a life lived on earth?

Back to square one... 🙂 

Can't answer for you, but I could care less if my children visit it.  It is a remembrance that I was here. That I existed.  That I was important. In 1,000 years it will still be there when my relatives have no clue who I ever was.  

[Pawz4me]

1 hour ago, TexasProud said:

Can't answer for you, but I could care less if my children visit it.  It is a remembrance that I was here. That I existed.  That I was important. In 1,000 years it will still be there when my relatives have no clue who I ever was.  

My personal concern (and I'm not saying anyone else needs to share it or is wrong for prioritizing other things) is that land is already in short supply in many places. A thousand years from now, if we keep burying people as we do now . . that's so very much land that's not available for other uses like growing food or housing. Now I'm a bit of a hypocrite, because I love wondering around old graveyards and trying to decipher markers. But at the same time I believe we can't keep wasting so much land that way.

[fairfarmhand]

We have a cemetery on our farm. We’ll be buried there. I do want a headstone, and hope to find a quote that makes people scratch their heads and think “I bet she was an interesting person” 

I don’t want to be embalmed. I want a small graveside service and then want everyone to come back t our house and have a weenie roast in the yard and share stories. Nobody should wear pantyhose or a tie at my funeral. I want people to be comfortable. And no open casket. I despise that. 

in reality i I die before my dh I will have none of that. He’s big into traditional stuff so having the dressed up church thing with a corpse lying there is gonn be what he’ll want. My girls will be horrified because they hate that kind of thing.

[Lady Florida.]

Visiting graves: It's not something I remember to do and I don't want ds (and dh if I go first) to have to feel guilty for not visiting. That's one reason for cremation and letting him (or dh) decide what to do with my ashes.

My dad died when I was 14 but my parents split up when I was 7. We were already living in Florida so we flew back to NJ for the funeral. Since then I've been to his grave a handful of times, the last being some time in the 1980s. Because I was too young to be able to visit his grave so far away unless an adult took me there, I developed my own ways of remembering him. I think this is where my lack of need to visit graves comes from. I try to get to my mom's and grandparents' graves (their plots are next to each other) but I rarely do even though they're all buried locally. I remember them in my own way and don't need to look at a headstone to do so. Nor do I need a cemetery for solitary remembrance. They are dead. There's nothing imo special about their graves. In fact I'd rather think of their lives than look at a confirmation of their deaths.

Of course I think if visiting a grave is comforting then one should by all means visit. It's not for me and I know it isn't for dh or ds so there's no need for me to be buried in a traditional grave.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Lady Florida.

[kathyl]

nm

Edited July 8, 2023 by kathyl

[Kidlit]

7 hours ago, fairfarmhand said:

We have a cemetery on our farm. We’ll be buried there. I do want a headstone, and hope to find a quote that makes people scratch their heads and think “I bet she was an interesting person” 

I don’t want to be embalmed. I want a small graveside service and then want everyone to come back t our house and have a weenie roast in the yard and share stories. Nobody should wear pantyhose or a tie at my funeral. I want people to be comfortable. And no open casket. I despise that. 

in reality i I die before my dh I will have none of that. He’s big into traditional stuff so having the dressed up church thing with a corpse lying there is gonn be what he’ll want. My girls will be horrified because they hate that kind of thing.

Your vision is close to what I'd prefer!

[Jaybee]

9 minutes ago, Kidlit said:

Your vision is close to what I'd prefer!

Same. I'd love to have a simple burial in a family gravesite, but there isn't one. Many of my paternal grandparents are buried in a church graveyard, but I never went to that church (we lived about a half hour away). I have talked about cremation for two reasons--one, I hate the ridiculous expense of funerals and don't want that burden on my family; two, embalmed burial seems so far from "dust to dust." Yet, when my family members have died, it was a helpful part of the grief process to see their bodies. That may sound morbid, but it is a concrete way to help your mind accept that they are gone. And when my grandmother died, she had been sick for a long time. When we saw her in the funeral home, it was so healing--she looked beautiful! My aunt saw her, gasped, and said, "She looks like a queen!" And a longtime friend of hers said, "She looks like she did back when she was a young teacher." After the agony of watching her die slowly, it healed something within us. I have talked about cremation, but when dh's mom died, he said that it really helped him to see her, so I have backed away from that somewhat.

While I think about what we will do, I don't feel like we can put anything down in writing yet, because we don't live where we would hope to be buried. So trying to figure out the various scenarios of what might happen is complicated. If we make it to dh's retirement, we plan to move back to our home state, and at that time, my plan is to go ahead and do pre-paid and planned arrangements.

[Kidlit]

My vision would be a green burial on family property (which actually could be possible--my parents own about 100 rural acres--but what legalities are involved in making a cemetery?) 

[Jaybee]

The problem with my plan above, is that it means that if both of us die here, that's a big bunch of stress for our kids to deal with. But frankly, I don't know what to do.🤷‍♀️

[Kidlit]

5 minutes ago, Jaybee said:

The problem with my plan above, is that it means that if both of us die here, that's a big bunch of stress for our kids to deal with. But frankly, I don't know what to do.🤷‍♀️

I understand that.  We live in the same area where both of our families live (&

our kids, though nobody is through college yet, so that could change).

[teachermom2834]

I really don’t care. Whatever my kids want to do is fine. 
 

I really hate the idea of money being spent on it. However, when my mom died my dad was as so stressed about money he was trying to do everything without spending any money and it was embarrassing and hurtful. I’m cheap but he was SO cheap it was embarrassing and painful and disrespectful. And you will have to trust me on that. I am super cheap and super low maintenance- there is a line that can be crossed here that is too cheap. So I guess I need to express to everyone that low key no frills is fine but it is okay and expected to spent some money and here is the chunk of money set aside. 

[Kidlit]

@teachermom2834 ((hugs))

 

I can imagine that felt bad. 
 

My plan is to pre-pay, for sure.  (I'm hoping against hope this isn't a "best laid plan.")

Edited June 21, 2023 by Kidlit

[Kassia]

@teachermom2834that must have been really hard.  I'm sorry.  😞  

[Pawz4me]

21 minutes ago, Kidlit said:

My vision would be a green burial on family property (which actually could be possible--my parents own about 100 rural acres--but what legalities are involved in making a cemetery?) 

I'm sure it varies by state. A relative set up a family cemetery here in my state awhile back, probably at least twenty years ago. My impression was that it wasn't a big deal, although what's required certainly could have changed in the interim. So far no one has taken him up on his offer to be buried there, though.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Pawz4me

[Kassia]

I was brought up going to the cemetery to visit loved ones and it was something I continued to do as an adult but I stopped in the past few years.  I always found it very peaceful and comforting in some way even though I don't believe that the deceased's spirit was there or anything like that.  It was just a time to reflect and focus on the people I loved and lost.  

I don't care what is done with my body when I die, but DH and I agreed we'd both be cremated and scattered together once we are both gone.  I'd be fine with donating my body to science.  

My dad died OOS and his ashes were delivered to me in a cardboard box.  I've never opened the box - it's up on the top shelf in my laundry room.  He wanted his remains scattered but didn't say where and I don't know where the best place would be.  I like having him in the laundry room with me, though, and I think he'd be fine with it.  It's the only room that's really *mine* and I spend a lot of time there.  So he's staying put for now.

 

Oh, the weird thing was when his ashes were delivered.  I wanted DH to be the one to get them from the mail carrier because I was afraid of how I'd react.  We waited all morning but DH had to run a quick errand.  Sure enough, as soon as he left, the mail carrier delivered my dad's ashes and I had to sign for them.  We like to think my dad wanted me to be the one to take them.  ❤️ 

ETA - I read this book about what happens to your body when you donate it to science a long time ago and thought it was interesting:  Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Edited June 21, 2023 by Kassia

[fairfarmhand]

2 hours ago, Kidlit said:

My vision would be a green burial on family property (which actually could be possible--my parents own about 100 rural acres--but what legalities are involved in making a cemetery?) 

Look it up in your state. Here in tn it’s actually pretty simple, inexpensive and straightforward.

[fairfarmhand]

3 hours ago, kathyl said:

 

I do love visiting graveyards wherever we happened to be living though.  They're usually so peaceful.  And I enjoy looking at the different names and headstones.  We recently found many of the Woodmen of the World headstones in graveyards around here.  I googled them and it was a very interesting story.  But searching out relatives in graveyards?  Nah.  

I love cemeteries too. And my kids do too.They’ve even introduced their friends to the concept of walking around and looking at old cemeteries. 

I

[City Mouse]

On 6/20/2023 at 1:05 PM, Kidlit said:

I looked this up and am interested in watching later tonight. Do you have a favorite/most interesting/one to start with?

It took me a while to come up with a specific episode to suggest, but I enjoyed this three part series https://youtu.be/CecD1prIOZs

[Junie]

I'm not one to visit cemeteries, but I like knowing that I could visit my deceased relatives if I wanted to.

OTOH, I recently went to a new friend's house and she had her deceased son's remains in an urn on a shelf in the living room.  That was comforting, and I understand why she made that choice.