Any wise words on leaving this mortal coil

I haven't thought much about it for myself. But my mother died last month. And the thought of her being cremated was horrible. It had never occurred to me before, but I started being really irrational, worrying it would hurt her.

Sorry to hear that Gagajo but I’d prefer to be cremated. I don’t know why.

I try not to think about either. Please just make sure I’m really dead, that’s all!

I like the idea of what Parsees do. We’ve seen the Palace of the Winds (as they call it) in Mumbai, where Parsee friends (both sadly gone in the past couple of years) used to live. It’s a very high wooden platform where bodies are placed, for birds, insects and Nature generally, to ‘recycle’.

You can avoid the cremation. If it’s a burial leave wishes with someone that you have your mobile with you in the coffin.
At least you’ll be ok until the battery runs out.

I think cremation is preferable to being put in the cold, dark, dank earth, with worms eating your flesh. Seems quick and doesn’t leave a grave for anyone else having to tend (thinking of little country churchyards here). Realise a municipal cemetery is different, but still think many years down the line, how so many graves are left, forgotten and neglected, with no one to remember.

My personal opinion only, and I know visiting a grave brings comfort to many.

I want someone to come to the undertakers before hand and pinch me really hard and generally check to make sure I'm not in a coma
Imagine waking up as they're about to shove you in the oven

I think I might live forever! Don't really fancy either method of dispatch.

snowberryZ

I want someone to come to the undertakers before hand and pinch me really hard and generally check to make sure I'm not in a coma
Imagine waking up as they're about to shove you in the oven

My father was cremated, and a while after, my boyfriend and I went to see the latest James Bond film, can’t remember which one, and it featured a scene where James was in a coffin, going into the crematorium, and flames roaring round.

It bothered me at the time, made Dad’s exit seem very real.

James escaped, of course.

Snowberry
Get them to stick a pin in your septum. Foolproof.
My father did a few burials at sea and this was always used to make sure someone was dead.

This one scene has given me a fear of cremation

youtu.be/qaz73KCiKaM

Have a nice day everyone

I’ll certainly be dead by the time my burial comes round if I get my wish: my body is down to be donated ?

MerylStreep

You can avoid the cremation. If it’s a burial leave wishes with someone that you have your mobile with you in the coffin.
At least you’ll be ok until the battery runs out.

That made me giggle! Imagine if the phone went off and someone was passing! I’m not sure there would be a signal though.

The thing to remember is that your 'self' has already gone and all that is left is a rotting carcass which needs to be disposed of. So either ashes to ashes or dust to dust, unless you wish to be frozen or preserved (like a Pharaoh) in hopes of being reactivated in the future.

I've told my kids they can feed me to vultures for all I care. Dead is dead.

As most of us will probably die in hospital, there is no real risk of any of us being buried alive.

I don't know what the procedure is in the UK now, but I can assure you that in Denmark the physician signing the death certificate has checked the deceased's pulse, listened to their heart and lungs through a stetoscope, touched them etc.
And if there is any doubt, the death certificate will remain usigned until a second opinion has been sought.

The undertaker too is used to seeing and handling the dead, and very unlikely to make a mistake.

I doubt that even the most inexperienced of us with no medical training would be in any real doubt. The dead become cold to touch very quickly - far colder than any living person or animal I have ever touched.

In hospital a doctor is no longer relying solely on the clinical signs of death that he or she can see or feel, but also has a range of sophisticated eletronic equipment at hand.

By law here, a watch is kept by a deceased person for a certain number of hours before the body can be prepared for burial.

By aquainting yourself with the procedure that the certifying physician is legally obliged to follow, I think you will find a good number of your fears are resolved.

Whether you choose cremation, burial or to leave your body to science is a personal choice that no-one really can help you with. My preference is burial, but as far as I am concerned the important thing here is to be certain that your spouse and children know what you want and are accepting of it.

We do all have to go sometime, and no, very few of us can honestly say we are philosophical about it - what hurts me, if I allow myself to think of it, is being the first to go, as leaving my husband to fend for himself - oh, dear no, I know how utterly miserable he would be without me - I shall miss him like h* if he goes first, but will be truly thankful that it was that way round.

My friends daughter was knocked down on her way home and I went to the cremation. I was surprised at how upset I was at leaving her.
I don’t care what happens to me but I couldn’t cremate my child. To leave them and go home or to a wake while they were waiting in line is too horrible.
Another friend whose daughter had a riding accident said that it gave her comfort to bury her daughter. She felt her DD was ‘safe’. I understand what she meant.

Skyblue
Make sure your buried in an area with good reception ?

I’ve told my family to let me lie in state for a few days....or at least until I start to smell, then they know I’m really dead!

It is something I’ve considered. Dead or just in a deep coma.

For years I wanted to be cremated, but I am a countrylover at heart and after living where I do for the last 25 years, and counting, I now want to be interred in a wicker coffin in the graveyard that surrounds the church I attend, in the centre of an old village and gradually rot away to become part of landscape and countryside that are my life.

Baggs

I used to live next door to an old lady who had a walled garden with walls about 15 feet high. It had been neglected for years but had sort of compost heaps piled against her side of the wall nearest our front door. She would occasionally pop her head up over the wall which always caused great shock and we never worked out how she did it. She always proclaimed ‘I’m 86 you know, can you put me on the compost heap when I’ve gone’. The poor thing was finally taken away by her neglectful children and we never found out what happened to her but I don’t think it was to the compost heap.

Woodland Burial are popular here. No more room at the cemetery seemingly. I think I would prefer a cremation as I don’t like the idea of being with people I don’t know around me.

My dad would like his head blasted into space, he hopes that some friendly aliens will either be able to bring him back and show him some things or at least be freaked out one day.

I'd like to be cremated and turned into coral reef. Seems peaceful

Cremation for me. The thought of being still alive and buried is terrifying. At least cremation would be quick.