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Permalink Reply by mojo5501 on August 21, 2011 at 1:47pm

Just a nice little heap of ashes sitting in the silk lined casket.  What an image.

 

I don't think I'd want my ashes on display in an urn...but I know someone who has their deceased pets ashes in an urn in their living room.... I still don't know exactly how I feel about that.  Personally, I'd rather have my ashes scattered or encased in something. And, as for my 2 pets, I don't think I'll be cremating them or putting them in one of those 'pet cemeteries'....but I might feel differently when the sad day comes!

My parents still visit their parents' grave sites and 'keep them tidy'.... it is a kind of obligation that they feel, I suppose.  I don't think I really need a gravesite...maybe just a little plaque or brick would be nice. 

My late husband has his gravesite (cremation/encased in a wall...like a library sort of) in his hometown and I haven't visited the site since his funeral day 4 years ago....too morbid.  I did have a memorial brick made for him at our local Rotary Garden, however, in the town I'm living now.  It provides a place for our kids to visit.  And a non-religious atmosphere was important to me.

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Permalink Reply by ɟǝןıx dǝʇɹɐɹ on August 20, 2011 at 2:23am

"I would request, that my body in death, be buried not cremated, so that the energy content, contained within it gets returned to the earth so that flora and fauna can dine upon it, just as I have dined upon flora and fauna throughout my whole life."

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Permalink Reply by Atheist Andrea on August 20, 2011 at 3:09pm

I am not familiar with him. Is he religious? He rattled that off quite nicely. Better not be embalmed then.

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Permalink Reply by ɟǝןıx dǝʇɹɐɹ on August 21, 2011 at 9:43am

Neil deGrasse Tyson is a well known name. He is agnostic.

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Permalink Reply by booklover on August 20, 2011 at 7:32am

I agree with a lot of the responses about cemeteries just taking up too much space, etc.  I'm choosing cremation I think.

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Permalink Reply by John Hunt on August 20, 2011 at 8:13am

I was a fan of cremation ... until learning that it's less environmentally-friendly than a woodland burial.  With seven billion people on the planet, that's a lot of fuel, and a lot of smoke.

 

Has any research been done into using human corpses as fodder in, say, fish farms?  Or would that constitute a significant risk for transmitting CJD and other diseases?

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Permalink Reply by John Hunt on August 21, 2011 at 5:56pm

A Day in a Mortuary: June 2006
October 4, 2010 at 21:57

We arrived at 7:45, only to wait 1½ hours in the foyer.  In the absence of glossy magazines, I was given A Handbook of Anatomical Pathology Technology to browse while waiting.  From this I learnt that there are around 600,000 deaths a year in the UK, and that about 30% [mostly deaths outside hospital] result in a post mortem.

After our breakfasts were well on the way to being digested, we donned full-length industrial-thickness green aprons, flimsy Tesco-quality blue bags as galoshes, and pleated masks, allegedly to reduce the pong.

This mortuary could store 25 bodies.  Most compartments were occupied.  There were eight bodies on the day's programme, but there was room to dissect only five at a time.  The youngest corpse was 60.  Two were admirably lean.

A technician made a single cut from the chest to the abdomen, used heavy loppers to cut the ribs, then inserted a hand to pull out the tongue.  The organs [heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, bladder, spleen] were removed and tossed into metal bowl, roughly the size of a generous washing-up bowl, brim-full.  –  Don't try this at home, folks.  It's rather messy!

In six cases the brains were also removed for examination.  First you make a cut near the back of head, before loosening the scalp in halves, pulling the front half over the forehead.  Viewed from the front, this gives a vaguely comic appearance, like a parka fringe below the eyes.  You can then use a circular saw to cut a neat 90°-sector, exposing the brain.  To remove this, you must cut the optic nerves.  The eye sockets are then plainly visible.  A woman ladled fluids out of body cavities into a jug, mixing the fluids from different bodies:  but emptied the whole lot down the sink, evidently not wishing to make a black pudding today.

The naked bodies were left lying gutless and mostly brainless on trolleys, propped up jauntily.  We then waited well over an hour for the duty pathologist, delayed in traffic, after visiting two other mortuaries.

A woman visiting said she worked in a nearby hospital mortuary, where duties consist mostly of dealing with the bereaved and putting bodies on show.  They performed just seven autopsies all last year.  A hospital autopsy takes several hours and is much more thorough than the routine ones here today.

Five police arrived for a lecture:  but the youngest [and prettiest] was soon taken out, evidently feeling queasy.  It must have been a great shock for him to walk into the room to meet five naked eviscerated bodies all reclining nonchalantly on trolleys, with their heads propped up, as though chatting.

The pathologist worked his way through the bowls of entrails, slicing organs as a cook or butcher might, though using a small scalpel on hearts to expose and slice through arteries, testing for crunchiness due to calcification.  In one body he found gall stones [one a little larger than an olive].  One body had a brain tumour in remission, c. 6 x 7 cm.:  tissue necrotic from radiotherapy; bolts on skull following earlier surgery.  Another patient had failed to regain consciousness after a general anæsthetic for an operation on his ear.  In one case a blood clot was white, as the hæmoglobin had separated and settled below; post-mortem clots are mostly long, thin, and pull out easily; pre-mortem ones from embolism / thrombosis are thicker, cause a blockage, and tend to stick.

Most of the bodies today showed signs of heart disease.  The pathologist apologised afterwards, saying that the session had been fairly boring, as most of the deceased had suffered heart attacks.

As each bowl was finished, the organs were weighed individually, in case some future researcher might one day be interested.  The contents were placed in a plastic bag and returned to the body cavity, like a supermarket chicken with giblets, as required by the Human Tissue Act.  The incision was sewn up [like a sail or a carpet], before a quick hose-down, then back in the 'fridge to make room for another evisceration.

It was not apparent that all this ritual disembowelling, the cursory examinations of offal, the alchemical weighing of organs, and the bagging of giblets is  –in most cases–  of ANY benefit to the deceased, to their kith & kin, or to society.  It provides a job for the workers:  but what a job!

Afterwards a clerk said there had been several "suspicious deaths" [i.e. murders] recently.  For these, an examination can typically take several hours, as clothes may have to be removed layer by layer, photographing at each stage, then taking X-rays, …

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Permalink Reply by Atheist Andrea on August 20, 2011 at 3:11pm

There are so many laws nowadays. To even dump ash into an ocean, you need a permit (like anyone would know) so it might be difficult to become food for piranhas.

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Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on August 20, 2011 at 3:30pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burial_at_sea

"California is the only U.S. State that does not permit full body burials. The Environmental Protection Agency regulations for full body burials at sea in the United States require that the site of interment be three (3) nautical miles... from land and at a depth of at least 600 feet.... In the northeastern United States this may require travel in excess of 30 miles (48 km) for a suitable site."

This could mean you'll be spending eternity with a hirsute, saudi-looking man with half a face, but only if you opt for burial in the Arabian sea.

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Permalink Reply by Atheist Andrea on August 20, 2011 at 3:37pm

Does "full body" include ash?

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Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on August 20, 2011 at 3:52pm

I would think whole bodies are just un-cremated ones.  They don't want them to wash back onshore, or be an accidental catch for a fishing expedition.  Although, if someone had an amputation, they would likely be considered a "whole body" under these regulations.  

 

One person's ashes don't amount to much - I would imagine they could be spread almost anywhere outside of throwing them over a highway overpass or something similarly messy or dangerous.

 

According to slate.com one person's ashes weigh about 5 pounds.  That's like a 5 pound sack of flour.  I got a lot more than that out of my fireplace last time I cleaned it.  If you spread it over an average lawn, which I did with the fireplace ashes, I suspect it wouldn't be noticable after a good sprinkling or soaking rain.  It's hard to imagine that throwing ashes into the ocean would be an issue.

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Permalink Reply by mojo5501 on August 20, 2011 at 7:29pm

Check out the site below...Eternal Reefs.  I heard about it a few years ago and it sounds like a useful, meaningful, and eco-friendly way to have a funeral service: 

http://www.eternalreefs.com/

 

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