Really curious - most peoples i know wana be cremated but fair share still wants “traditional” burial one marine but what you think
Oh yea personaly i wana be cremated
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Burning drakar in a storm.
Off course.
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I can respect that
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Cryogenic freezing, of course. Staying dead is for wimps. 
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Tossed into the LHC and smashed into subatomic particles? A bit like cremation, but more theatrical.
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LHC does not work like that is waaay to small for probably even small animal let alone human sized being
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No one said it had to be all it once. @ChristopherMerriner could just have a veeeerrrry long cremation, one bit at a time. 
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In my will, I left my body to the medical school here. It’s been a useful body in life. I’d like it to be useful after death, too. I hear med students nickname their cadavers; it’s a shame I don’t get to know what my nickname will be.
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I’m also hoping to leave my body to medical science, assuming it’s deemed suitable when I die. It is all set up. My dad died recently and it was an enormous comfort on the day he died when his body was formally accepted. Bodies donated to my local university anatomy department are cremated after. That’s all fine with me. Like my dad I’d be happier if my body can help train medics first. We both had to arrange this in advance while still living, completing forms registered with the medical school and our family doctor. The body must be donated very soon after death when its condition is assessed to see if it is suitable.
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I still haven’t decided on the exact details. I want to choose a method that asks for the least amount of effort for everyone involved, though. The idea is to help minimize the weight of the grieving process.
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It was complicated and I don’t remember all the details, but if my body wouldn’t work for a med school, then it either (gross stuff ahead) gets dismembered and the parts sent to various specialists for training (eg feet go to podiatry programs), or the whole thing goes to a body farm for research purposes.
I’m fine with any of that.
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I thiiiink I might be signed up to be an organ donor (I think there’s a checkbox when getting your drivers’ license?) but a) I don’t know if my organs are healthy enough to be useful and b) I have no idea what they do with the rest of the body. So, uh, I dunno, cremation probably?
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I want a traditional burial. I’m also an organ donor.
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Yeah, I believe at least in CA the left-over stuff is cremated and returned to the family – that’s my plan.
(Sky burial/excarnation has always appealed to me – perhaps oddly as I’m vegetarian – but it’s rather high-overhead and potentially a liitttle traumatic for any family members who want to attend)
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Btw, fascinating choice of first post, @tatiana . Very interested to see how you’re going to follow that up, lol.
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I grew up in a mixed faith, quite devout household: and so the question of what comes after death has always been a fraught one. One half was Roman Catholic, the other was Mahayana Buddhist. (Many of my protagonists reflect this sort of oddball faith background.)
Interestingly, I’ve never actually concerned myself too much with the details of the actual corpse cleanup. I’d had vague ideas of ‘wouldn’t it be funny to get your ashes pressed into gems to decorate a HAUNTED sicknasty sword to pass down as a heirloom like any good Gothic ancestor,’ but nothing seriously contemplated.
Instead, the emphasis had always been on the maintenance after death- a framed portrait of the deceased, the altar, the candles, the consecrated meals, the fruit and sweet little candies as treats, the incense- the rote prayers and bowed heads, the held together hands. I often think of the ghosts’ festival- (alternatively translated as the hungry ghosts (which brings to mind our cultural equivalent of a revenant, another theme I bring into my personal writing) or the lonely ghosts).
Something that weighs on me is that there are certain things that are impossible to carry out- like cleaning off the grave of a loved one, and setting it in fresh bloom: because of course, the destruction of war and decimation that followed make that impossible, even if geographical distance weren’t an issue. It’s also been interesting to see how our traditions get adapted to mesh with modern life: how the LED light of fake incense glows all hours of the day in the little pot, but how smoke smoulders and the smell of incense tangles up in your hair and clothes when we set food before the altar at special meals or particular dates- how it follows you afterwards, almost like a haunting in of itself.
I always kind of ambiently worried about whether I’d die in a really hideous outfit, haha. And the horrorshow of making sure you have a nice enough photograph to go up on your altar! Never paid too much mind to ‘oh, right, I probably might have to pick a coffin or something?’ There were often jokes about ‘make sure that you feed me after I’ve kicked the bucket or I’ll haunt your ass!’ and that continuing of a relationship with the departed had always been more present in my thoughts than trying to waffle between cremation or burial.
But I guess I’d probably pick cremation, after the resting period- it’s easier on everyone, cheaper, and then you can make me into a cool gem or something. If there’s not enough of me to adorn a sword hilt, I can be fashioned into a cool little ring and then haunt the fuck out of whoever picks it up in a spooky secondhand shop some years down the line.
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I want to be taken by the dirt. I want to die with someone and allow our flesh to be eaten clean by the worms and the mushrooms, hands interlocked even as we turn to bone such that not even erosion will not separate our fingers. My body can serve to feed the decomposers and give back to a nature that I have taken so much from.
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I’m sure you’ve seen the poem ‘The Orange’ by Wendy Cope.
When we consecrate food for the altar- it has to remain there for some time: usually until the incense burns itself out, and the sticks needs to be refreshed. Afterwards, though- you can pick up the plate with ash smudged fingers, and eat it yourself.
There’s something pretty Catholic about the act of consumption- of taking something next to holy into yourself, as an expression of love beyond the grasp of death. If you died, I’d peel oranges for your altar. There’s something hopeful in that if in lieu of when.
(I love you.)
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After whatever organs can be given to someone else are removed, cremation and the ashes are used to plant a tree (preferably olive).
Joke’s on me. I’m deadly afraid of death.
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My friend’s wife the other day made the comment “I plan to become a cursed haunted mirror!” and we were all like…“Yep.”
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