A funeral is your choice but depending on the circumstances of death and the ultimate disposition of the body you may not have a choice about being embalmed.
I have written instructions that I am to be taken from wherever I die directly to the crematorium. I have no desire to have people looking at my dead body and saying, "My, doesn't she look good." No, hell, I don't look good! I'm dead. If my sons want to have some kind of memorial service, display a picture of me from back when I did look good. Then I want my ashes scattered to the wind, returning me to the universe from whence I came. And say, "She was one helluva gal!"
I'm of the same mind. I've been to a few open casket affairs. They're not for me. Dust-to-dust, baby.
Same as Shirley... no "viewing" for me. My family has been advised no funeral, no "celebration of life." Just cremate me and get on with it.
With many relatives, when I was a kid someone passed away fairly often. Custom was to display the person during a "wake" (never understood that term, nor did my folks). Obviously, then, embalming was a must. However, it was widely alleged that embalming was required by law (Crook County, Illinois), as was the burial of a casket being sealed within a concrete box. Burial of one casket atop another was strictly forbidden; Europe did that early on, availability of adequate land being the issue. Catholic Church forbade cremation, claiming burning "destroyed" the soul. That one greatly troubled my Dad, who always brought up the question of victims burned to death in, say, plane crashes. One "expert" told him the Lord makes exception in such cases; their souls are not destroyed. My Dad proclaimed that B.S. Burial of the dead usually involves purchase of a burial plot "in perpetuity", meaning disturbance of the dead remains was strictly forbidden. Except for court-ordered exhumation......or, Chicago's Mayor Richard J. Daley, who was faced with the grim decision of moving hundreds of buried bodies from the Jewish Waldheim Cemetery west of Chicago. Seems the alignment of the new proposed Congress Parkway Expressway, a part of the Interstate Highway System, lay across the center of the cemetery. After considerable political and legal bantering (the Jews vehemently oppose disturbing the dead), Daley declared, "Dig 'em up!". They did. Frank
We downloaded a document only last week and filled it in stating almost exactly the same as your wishes @Shirley Martin only extras we added was we don’t wish for certain members of hubbies family to be notified if he should shuffle off before me
I have told my sons that whether to have a funeral is up to them. As far as I'm concerned, I'd say.... go buy a bunch of barbeque, fried chicken with all the trimmings. Tell everybody that has loved me to come over to our house. Don't sit and cry. (well, maybe cry just a little bit to start with) Eat, drink and be merry. Tell tales of the good times we shared. Celebrate my life that way. If they want to have a few drinks, that's OK, too. Make the last one one for Mama.
This Is a follow up to another discussion that brought back memories of my first career. Most of the people that I personally embalmed had been dead for 5 to 48 hours and I would talk to some of them as they lay on the mortuary table and of course there was no response. I had no way of knowing if they had any pre death experience.
If everything else were equal, I suppose I'd prefer to be buried. However, since I'd want to be buried in my hometown rather than where I live now, there would be an expense involved and I wouldn't want to burden my wife with that. If I could talk my wife into burying me in the compost pile, I'd consider that but, given that I can't even get her to carry a bag of vegetable compost out to the compost pile, I don't think that would be a viable plan.
Considering what you wrote in the compost thread, @Ken Anderson ; I think that it is probably a good idea for Michelle not to drag you out to the back yard . I can see the newspaper headlines now, “Man eaten by raccoons and skunks found dead in his back yard “.
Give the poor guy a break hon. I mean, if Ken were eaten by the raccoons and skunks, I wouldn’t think that would kill them. Make ‘em a little sick maybe but ...........