How would you like your cremated remains handled?
My wife’s sister recently died. My wife’s niece wants to honor her mother’s wishes by depositing her ashes in San Francisco Bay.
Made me think about how I would like my ashes dealt with. I think it would be cool to have my ashes released from a drone 10,000 feet up in the air (the higher the better). That way my ashes would likely be spread many square miles.
How about you?
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36 Answers
They can snort it like cocaine for all I care.
I like the idea of going into the ocean, but a field or forest would do. I just don’t want to be in a box underground. I have claustrophobia and am afraid of the dark – like really dark. I know I’ll be dead and theoretically unaware of my location, but I don’t want to take any chances.
My pat flip answer is that I want my remains thrown into the ocean, but that I don’t want to be cremated. I want people to think of me as their “chum”.
Friends of my sister works in Disneyland, and say people often ” distribute” loved ones ashes in some of the rides, like Pirates Of The Caribbean.
For me, I would never want that. They annually clean the rides thoroughly, and I wouldn’t want my family to mourn me while on a fun ride.
Maybe releasing my ashes from a hot air balloon over water.
How? Gently, as if they could feel something. That’s for the survivors, not me.
I would like to have a handful of ashes scattered in the Vermont village where I was born, on the Atlantic Ocean beach where I spent childhood summers a short walk from my Massachusetts home, in easy view of the growing Boston skyline visible just across the bay, and in Ca!ifornia at the Henry Cowell Redwood State Park, my cathedral. Plus a little for the Pacific Ocean. My late husband wanted his ashes to go with mine, but I’d say just a token amount.
Maybe mail a packet to Fairfield, Iowa, and ask the postmaster to drop a tablespoonful in the grass of the town sqare if it’s not inconvenient. And send a handful to a Canadian cousin to rest near my father’s churchyard burial place.
If I could have my way, I’d like to be roasted with a book of poetry, a small notebook, and a sharp pencil.
Well, when my dad died, we cremated him and had a small, personal ceremony at a local park he used to love to go to. We put his ashes into some bushes to help add fertilizer to them. Something like that would be okay with me. Though if I wanted to be showy, I’d have my survivors bribe the company shooting off fireworks on the 4th of July to put little packets of me onto all the rockets they shoot up.
Amendment: Pour the rest into the Charles River close to the Larz Anderson bridge. Let it stand for all of Cambridge, spreading outward from the Square.
This will seem cold, but leave them in the incenerator. (I probably spelled that wrong, but I didn’t get a different spelling.)
The reason I say this is that it is putting a burden on the loved ones left. Just as your question asks, what the heck do I do with these ashes?
I work part time for a company that does auctions etc., for elderly people that have passed or gone to elder care homes. I have found many ashes of their pets, no humans, but I’m at a loss as to what to do with the ashes. The loved ones were obviously at a loss also.
We have a five foot teddy bear, and I want to be put in there then just sit it in the corner of the living room.
I have my Mom’s urn in our family home where they raised us. I would have mine placed there as well. And my Dad’s if he so wishes.
I can only hope that whichever family member gets the house after we’re all gone, me and my siblings…a niece or nephew who inherits that family home honors our wishes.
I saw something the other day where now they have these caskets made out of a certain type of mushrooms. And so they don’t embalm you but they just bury you in one of those caskets and the fungus takes over and breaks you down into nutrients. If it’s cheaper than cremation, that’s how I want to go because I don’t want my family to have to foot the bill anymore than necessary and I probably won’t have any money to pay into it. But I don’t really care, just don’t want to be a financial burden after I go.
I used to joke that I wanted my naked corpse placed in a large cage full of turkey vultures and everyone would have to watch my remains be devoured. Until I learned that it’s actually something they do in real life (I think in Nepal). I was mortified and stopped making that joke.
I don’t know if they allow it, but Muir Woods would be my preference, otherwise, there’s a spot on the Dipsea Trail where you exit the redwood grove into a beautiful meadow that overlooks the Pacific and Stinson Beach. That’d be a cool spot to have my remains spread.
Ultimately, I’ll be gone so it’s about my friends/family. If I can force them to go to a beautiful place and think of me, that’ll be a win in my book.
Makes no difference to me. It’s up to my kids to decide. I wouldn’t mind being spread over a pasture or in a forest, but I’ll never know.
Donating body to science. Probably to the body farm in Knoxville Tennessee if it can’t qualify to go to medical training.
Someone just asked me yesterday about whether I want to be cremated or buried. My answer is always, “while my parents are alive, whatever they want.” I figure the loss is so wrenching for them that they should have a say.
In my religion we aren’t supposed to be cremated, but my parents aren’t religious. Still, they might want to go with the tradition. My mom’s sister was cremated and my mom seemed ok with it. So, then I would defer to whatever my husband wants.
If I’m cremated I prefer the idea of my ashes being kept in an urn I think. My sister and I considered having our aunts ashes made into a gem stone.
I don’t have children, so effectively I will just disappear. That saddens me a little. My husband’s niece and nephew aren’t ones to keep us alive in memory if they ever have children.
My wife always said she wanted to be buried at sea but the way she kicked and screamed at the end, I think she changed her mind.
Couldnt care less. I’ll be dead…
I said to my sister once that I would like my remains to be scattered over the little burn (stream) where I used to play as a child. I’m not sure she remembers.
My son had the idea of getting a bench that holds cabinets that hold multiple urns. It would parked at the cemetery.
Mixed into a smoothie like protein powder.
Oh gross! Nobody wants bits of bone in their smoothie CookieMonster!
If I get my way, there won’t be much left to cremate. What’s left can be sprinkled on some field or garden to do a little good.
No cremation for me, my remains are to be donated for recycle and research.
That is one thing I truly don’t worry about.
I’d like my remains to be scattered at arm’s length and downwind of the casket.
@Dutchess_III You can have a viewing, which would consist of being in a casket, and a funeral, which consists of being in a casket, and then be cremated.
A casket can be a small box used to hold ashes after a cremation. In the UK at least.
@jca2. I know. Holding a viewing is freaking expensive. I’ve never experience a viewing of the body before cremation, but it’s what my DIL chose, with absolutely no discussion or input from me.
Then handed me the bill.
Thanks @flutherother. I actually have an urn for Rick. DIL gave me a small one because she split the remains up between 5 people (and I paid for all the urns.)
I bought a bigger one that more represented Rick.
DIL told me to dump Rick’s ashes into my new urn and give her the old one to put on his parent’s grave.
Well. Fuck you. The new urn was big enough to fit the other urn inside so that’s what I did, and packed paper around it so the little one, that actually has his ashes, wouldn’t break.
I want my ashes scattered off the breakwater in my neighborhood, in Lake Mendota, Madison, WI.
^^I want some of mine at the tracks of a train station my wife and I had been going to for many years.
”Here’s Rick.
If it were up to me I would have scattered them at Jeeps Club, which is a motorcycle venue in Wichita.
But it was not up to me.
No I am not scattering my 1/5 share of his ashes. I paid over $100 for that motorcycle urn. I think it’s a fitting reminder of Rick and it will look nice in the house.
BTW the urn is WAY bigger than was needed just for Rick’s ashes. His original, small urn is safely escorted in the motorcycle urn, securely cushioned with paper.
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