Topic awaiting preservation: Burned or wormed, and why? (Page 1 of 1)

A friend of mine was told by an old girlfriend that she had a dream foreseeing his death while riding a motorcycle through Croydon. She saw it so vividly (and apparently, had a reputation for getting things right) that she felt she had to warn him.

In an accident (nowhere near Croydon) from which he was lucky to escape without serious injury, he totalled his bike completely. He never quite got around to rebuilding his beloved ride, eventually scrapping the remains.

A few months ago, some years after that last crash, he bought himself a beautiful new Yamaha YZF R6. Having tuned it, tweaked it, fitted a steering damper and changed-out the stock baffle for a kevlar race-can, he was dismayed to slip on gravel around a roundabout at twenty-five miles per hour the other day.

Both he and the bike avoided serious damage, but he cracked the engine casing on one side ('those Yamaha crash mushrooms were rubbish mate - snapped right off and didn't protect the bike at all') and watched as she bled to death in the road. He was told by the RAC when they arrived, that they were forever picking people's bikes up on this roundabout as it was a major route for overloaded lorries and the surface always ended-up covered in loose material.

...so he is counting himself lucky that he wasn't speeding, and that the accident was no more than a dent to his pride and his wallet.

He joked earlier today though, that he was going to die early in a motorcycle crash - as it had been foreseen - and that he was going to be sure to live every day as a lion.

'It is better to live one day as a lion than a whole lifetime as a mouse," he said, "so I'll live every day a lion.'

I was not overly surprised by such a comment, as he is a particularly apt Leo, but then he became ever-so serious, and told me something that made me realise he actually believed the prediction!

'Whatever happens, make sure they bury me. I don't want to be burned.'

I never knew he had any real feelings about that sort of thing, so was a little surprised. It struck me then that it is quite important to a lot of people that their bodies be disposed of in a certain way. For my friend, he is hung-up on burial, as he wishes to 'return to the earth'. My father says he'll haunt me if one penny is wasted on his funeral - he wants his body left to the hospital to dispose of.

I think I'd like to be cremated. I have a romantic notion that my body might be placed upon a great pyre atop a hill at sunset and burned as the day darkens. In truth, I don't really care much for this mortal carriage post-mortem (and no, I'm not religious) as without life, it is no more than the sum of its parts - waste.
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Now, what are the Asylumites views on this sort of thing? Are your reasons religious or just personal preference? What would be your 'dream funeral'? Viking cremation, perhaps? Burial at sea? Strapped to the nose of a rocket headed for the sun?

Would you prefer to rejoin the universe in a blaze of irridescent particles, or from the back-end of a worm?

Original ideas welcome - but do answer the title question, won't you?

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Burn me, it's cheaper and I have no use for my body once I am gone. To think that your family members would spend thouands upon thousands just on getting rid of your lifeless body is wrong to me, that money could be put to much better use.

As far as your friend goes, ever think he is just a bad motorcycle rider and should stick to cars?

Ramasax

Actually, he's rather a good rider - but he has been rather unlucky. It was through riding skill and quick reflexes that he avoided serious injury on more than one occasion, but his rides never seem quite so lucky.

Anyway, it's beside the point!

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Human composting: http://www.promessa.se/index_en.asp

Read about it in Stiff. <-- Read this book!

Cremation - and scatter my ashes to the winds, among the Redwoods of Northern California.

I'd have to agree that my body is worthless after death. I don't feel that I (or anybody else) should be overly attached to it when I'm gone. I'm not even all that attached to it now... lol

My friend offered his reason for wishing to be buried as "I want something left behind to remember me by". Perhaps his romantic notion of such a thing is to have explorers unearth his tomb and exclaim, "I think we must have uncovered a God!" ...or something. lol

I think I'd rather slip out of this world with as little mess as possible - and if people want to remember me, a stone in some cemetary (that nobody is likely to keep visiting anyway) makes no difference to that.

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Read about it in Stiff. <-- Read this book!

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Read it about a year ago. Great book. Had me in stitches.

I'm hoping they'll have that composting thing going here by the time I check out. Not holding my breath though since current US funerary practices are such a huge moneymaker.

Another great book is The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade by Thomas Lynch, funeral director, poet and essayist.

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I want something left behind to remember me by

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Do good things (or bad, it doesn't matter for this purpose) and you'll be remembered. Name on a stone isn't memory, it's identification. There's a difference.

As for my carcass, the other options more attractive to me--organ donation, medical dissection, other testing done with cadavers--aren't open to me due to the assumption that all gay men are infected with HIV, HepC or something equally nasty, (or that sexual orientation will "rub off" somehow). A shame really since I have several friends who are transplant patients and would like to be able to return the favor.

That leaves cremation or burial. I lean towards cremation. It's closer to recycling than burial, given the current American practices of concrete vaults protecting steel caskets protecting chemically preserved corpses wrapped in polyester. True, it's a huge waste of energy, but there are fewer toxic chemicals involved, it's generally cheaper and it doesn't steal real estate from the living.

I just had an odd thought. Presuming that society persists, all cemetaries are preserved, and everybody chose to be buried - how long would it take for all useable land to be filled with graves?

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I've always had a hankering for the traditional.
Funeral pyre on a large canoe or longboat, pushed out to sea by your people, to be set ablase by arrows of fire.

::tao:::: ::cell::

Another great book.

"Death: Grim Realities and comic relief"

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to be set ablase by arrows of fire.

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Sort of an 'Olympic' send off you might say. =)

(Edited by NoJive on 06-19-2005 03:35)

I always loved Terry Pratchett's depiction of DEATH in the Discworld series; especially in Reaper Man, and Mort.

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brucew:

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Do good things (or bad, it doesn't matter for this purpose) and you'll be remembered. Name on a stone isn't memory, it's identification. There's a difference.

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Amen. I've never seen the grave of my great father, and don't need to to remember him and the great moments we had.

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As for my carcass, the other options more attractive to me--organ donation, medical dissection, other testing done with cadavers--aren't open to me due to the assumption that all gay men are infected with HIV, HepC or something equally nasty, (or that sexual orientation will "rub off" somehow). A shame really since I have several friends who are transplant patients and would like to be able to return the favor.

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aside the fact that the HIV and HepC assumptions are stupids, reassure me : your sexual orientation is not written on your ID card or medical file.

As for me, I see burial as a waste. Cremation is an option and may have a "romantic" and pilgrimage aspect. Since I'll no longer my body when I'll closed my eyes, I'd like it helps the others. The most likely is that I'll let my body at disposal for organ transplant and/or medical experiments and if that's just for organ transplant have the rest burnt and the ashes thrown away in a beautiful place.

They can recycle all the organs that are left, and they can burn the rest. So, see it as a big ditto.

I have visions of The Big Lebowsky...

In case any of you knows this movie, you'll remember the two guys having their dead friend cremated. The urns are too expensive so they place his ashes in a cheap food box...

And when they open the box to spread the ashes the wind direction changes suddenly, and all the ashes are spread on them...

I was like, That was too funny

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If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets.

I remember that scene, and the moment of silent incredulity before John Goodman responds.

Very funny moment.

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My parter has agreed to packing my remains ( it will probably take her several trips...) up into the Chugach mountains where the bears and wolves and ravens can do their thing. Those mountains are where I belong and I can think of no place better to begin the cycle of life again.

No thanks. I'll just live forever.

Incidentally, has everyone heard of the Death Clock?
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Here's an idea for life-long bikers; the motorcycle/side-car hearse!