Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    Please let me express my sympathy for your loss.  Your note sounds
    like it may be a part of your coming to terms with your father's
    death.  I hope my response will be helpful in your search.
    
    I can only speak for myself, and somehow "ritual" and "philosophy"
    are such lofty terms for what, to me, is a simple act of conservation.
    
    I, too, believe in the continuing life of the soul.  But the soul
    and the body are two distinctly separate entities.  Once the soul 
    departs, the clay shell that remains is, to me, just so much refuse
    to dispose of in the most expedient way.  I don't want to burden
    my heirs with expensive and needless upkeep of my mortal remains.
    I do want to rejoin the Earth in the most natural way.  But our
    society (i.e., the Funeral Director's Lobby) has legislated against
    simple burial of the body directly in the earth.  Since vaults and
    caskets and burial plots eat up precious resources, I have chosen
    to be cremated, preferably in a simple pine casket, and the ashes
    disposed of (state and local laws allowing) by sprinklng me over 
    the flower garden.
    
    Not everyone agrees with this approach.  My grandmother had a heck
    of a time dealing with my cousin's cremation.  She didn't have any
    place she could go to pay her respects and bring flowers.  While
    I sympathize with her plight, I believe it's better to pay respects
    and bring flowers while the soul is around to enjoy them.  And if
    death has intervened before respects can be paid, I believe in
    contributing to _living_ memorials, such as charities of one's choice,
    rather than decorating tombstones in cemeteries.
    
    I hope my response is not too flippant for your needs.  I have no
    intent of sounding heartless.  But my own beliefs about the primacy
    of the soul and the emptiness of the dead body are key to my choice
    of cremation.
    
    Karen
    

    I find myself in agreement with the prev. reply. Considering the cost
    of the average funeral in the United States today runs well into the
    Thousands of Dollars, I prefer that this burden not be placed on my
    family. I feel that many funeral directors play on the family's
    bereivement (sp?) and convince them to spend far more than they should
    for "show" (the box my Wife's Aunt was buried in cost more that the car
    we drove to the funeral).
    
    If your desire is direct cremation (no chapel funeral), then make sure
    your wishes are spelled out IN WRITING before its needed.
    
    Eric

    As far as cost of funerals go, there is a no-cost alternative.
    Arrange to have your body donated to a medical school after your
    death. My mother did that after-the-fact with both my brother and
    my father, and she's arranged to have that done with her (and one
    of these days, I plan to arrange it for myself) -- though not for
    cost reasons, but in the interests of medical research. If the
    deceased had a rare or all-too-common disease (like cancer or
    heart disease), this use for research can be especially invaluable,
    and allows the deceased and his or her survivors to contribute toward
    the betterment of the mankind as a whole.
    
    Most medical schools will pay for funeral costs (both Harvard and
    Tufts definitely will) in return for use of the body for research.
    They will also arrange for cremation or burial "as is" if that is
    desired. I plan for cremation for no other reason than to reduce
    the amount of space needed for my plot.
    
    --- jerry

    RE:1   I don't think your answer was filppant at all. Everyone is
    entitled to their own opinion.  I'm really beginning to think of my
    own mortality and what I would want done for myself. 
    
    My fathers wishes were to be cremated, and we kept his wishes. They
    were burried at a cemetary with a marker. Fathers Day was really hard
    for me, but visiting the cemetary helped me to feel close to him.
    
    I know the price of cremation is alot cheaper and takes up less space,
    but I really don't know what to think. All I know is when I saw him for
    the last time I wished I could keep him.
    

    
>    					      My grandmother had a heck
>    of a time dealing with my cousin's cremation.  She didn't have any
>    place she could go to pay her respects and bring flowers. 
    
    
    I can understand your grandmother's feelings.  Had my sister lived, she
    would be 43 on Monday.  As it was, she died less than a month before
    her 28th birthday from a rare form of cancer (appendix).  Her last wish
    was to be cremated and her ashes buried in the memorial garden at the
    church.
    
    I was 14 when my sister died.  She'd gotten married when I was 5 and
    travelled around until I was 13 (her husband was in the army) so we had
    really just begun to have time together when she became sick.  I can't
    explain why but just having that memorial garden to put flowers on,
    etc., always made me feel somehow like I was closer to her than I would
    have had her ashes not been buried there.  Does this make sense?
    
    - Beckie

    Re .5, I guess feelings on this are very individual depending on
    a person's beliefs or whatever.  I agree pretty much with .1.  
    My father was cremated when he died 12 yrs. ago of a heart attack.
     He had expressed this wish to both my mother and myself.  He also
    didn't have a funeral.  It was his opinion that funerals were morbid
    and that the thought of one's body being buried in the ground to
    decay was more morbid than cremation.  He felt that if the spirit
    does live on that it wouldn't matter what happened to the body.
     He also thought that having to go through a funeral would have
    been more difficult for my mother than not, and I think in this
    case he was right.  My mother scattered his ashes over his 5 acres
    of land where he had built his own house, and where he had lived and 
    farmed for 40 yrs.  If it was illegal it's too late now!
    
    Although I loved my father very much, I, personally, have never
    felt a need to have a tombstone or whatever to bring flowers to.
     It sounds corny, but I have his memory with me all the time, and
    even though I may go months sometimes without really stopping to
    think about him, whenever I do think of him, I feel that he is with
    me wherever I am.  I don't feel that I have to go to some physical
    place to feel closer.
    
    It is very painful to lose a parent.  You never really stop missing
    them.  But, after awhile, you just sort of get used to the fact
    that missing them is now a part of your life, and you don't consciously
    think about it all the time.
    
    Lorna
    

    It is interesting to read the other replies to this note, since I come
    from India where the Hindus have always cremated the dead rather than
    buried them.  And it is probably not for the sake of saving space or
    money (though these are certainly valid reasons too..), but purely from
    philosophical angle.  "The physical body has come from the earth, and
    that's where it should go after the soul departs" is the real reason
    for cremation.
    
    I agree with .1: having a place in the cemetry to go to place flowers
    or feel close to the dead is essentially the same as say "preserving 
    the bed that they slept in" or the "clothes that they wore" etc. These
    are just crutches that one uses to hang on to the "memories" - which
    are best carried in your heart and acts (as someone sugggested doing
    what the dead person valued, eg. giving to charities, or 
    contributing to the local boys club, etc.).
    
    So as I see it, cremation is purely to give back to the earth what came
    from it.  Pomp and show and unnecessary expenses can be indulged in by
    human beings (perpetrated by societal pressures) every which way they
    can.  Eg. in India, you have to feed some X (very large) number of
    people when someone dies.  As you can imagine, that's no small sum of
    money.
    
    - mayank  (who hates doing something that I don't believe in..)
    

    I have also express to my imediate family that after the organ
    donations(for our family this means that the brain willk be given
    to the closest Huntingtons Foundation that does research) I wish
    to be cremated and "returned to the earth" I would like as little
    money as possible be spent on what I feel would be "trapings".
    At this time I worry about the expence of taking care of my children.
    Once they are old enough to take car of themselves give the money
    saved to the Huntingtons Research. I dont want to lay in an expencive
    box while people still need. It cant make a big diffence but maybe
    it will make a small one.
    
    Memorial services and sharing of memories of the loved ones are
    important and dont cost a lost. I think these are more important
    than buying a place for my remains to lay in ... well the details
    can get gritty. 
    
    
    jan
    

    When my dad died 8 yrs ago my younger brother arranged to have his
    remains cremated in accordance with his wishes and the ashes stayed
    with my mother until her death 4 yrs later. At that time she was
    layed to rest in the town I live in along with his ahes in her coffin.
     She decided before her time came that she wanted her body buried
    and his ashes with her. In the case of my dad and my mothers funeral
    there was a memorial service that had friends of my parents attending
    my dads service at the creamatory and friends of my mothers and
    my family attending the memorial service at my church for my moms.
     It was at both of these services I realized that the friends paying
    respect were really an uplift to the survivors and helped ease the
    pain of loss. I lost my brother several years ago and he had been
    cremated before I could get to Colo. Springs. His ashes were spead
    over the Colo. mountains near Colo. Springs by his ex wife and there
    was no memorial service at all. That was a very difficult loss to
    cope with but my wife suggested we hold a memorial service in our
    church and I must admit it did help a bit. I miss my little brother
    ( I lost two days of my life just crying for him) but the fact that
    I don't have a grave to visit like my parents does not bother me.
     I too believe that our bodys are like a suit of clothes we wear
    on earth but after we die,we no longer need a body and our soul
    is free. So whether one is cremated or buried in a traditional way
    I feel that some memorial service at that time is of benefit but
    having a grave for remains is not that important. I don't know where
    the idea of cremation came from...maybe the vikings who had their
    remains in a ship that was set afire ?...but is has been with us
    for a long long time.
    
    /ph
    
    ps I can't believe after all this time how emotional I became just
    writing about the loss of my brother. (Both my parents were ill
    long time before they passed away..but my brother was only in his
    30's)