Where does your body go after death

[teflon6string]

Mrs. Teflon suggests donating one's remains to science for research or harvesting viable organs. But they'd still incinerate the remaining carcass. OP doesn't want "an expensive funeral or cremation." Would a relatively cheap burial be satisfactory? BTW, families of military veterans are routinely reimbursed for reasonable expenses.

 

[JDubDub]

I don't think cremation is all that expensive.

First of all, you need to leave instructions. Even then, there is no guarantee that they will be followed. If you are a thoughtful person, you will make financial arrangements in advance. Or leave enough money behind so that those with instructions can do the job as you have chosen.

Choosing cremation doesn't require purchase of a permanent repository; you can have your executor scatter or leave them anywhere. Located in a city where I used to work (but not for), there was a filled-up cemetery that had been deeded over to the municipality. There was no more money to be made from burials, so the property defaulted to the city and they took it over. Basically, it meant mowing the lawn. So one time, they got a package in the mail addressed to X City Cemetery. It had been mailed from Alaska; the decedent had left instructions that he wanted to be buried in X City Cemetery. His attorney or executor had mailed his cremated remains to this city. Who turned it over to their parks department, who in turn simply dumped the ashes in a flower bed, as burials were no longer being done.

Mrs. Merkt, a Roman Catholic, wants burial in a Catholic cemetery. I don't really care, so I went along with her wishes. I got her to agree to cremation, formerly a big no-no for hard core Catholics but it's now accepted (if frowned upon by some). We bought a little niche in this cemetery for the urns to be placed. No expensive "land" to purchase, no expensive embalming, etc., no expensive caskets, no expensive digging. It's bought and paid for, so it won't be an expense for our children.

Your instructions need to be left with a responsible person. A cousin of my mother never had children. Her husband died first and she was widowed, so had no close relatives to take care of "final arrangements." This chore fell to some younger guy the husband had worked with, "he was like a son." Right. Anyway, when this woman died, this guy had her buried (the plot was pre-paid). The guy was also the beneficiary of her will, and he never paid for a headstone to mark her grave. I guess he didn't want to cut into his inherited money to pay for it.

Dealt with this after my step-father passed last year and mom is starting to look into her options. Cremation was a bit over $3k, so not exactly cheap. Mom was looking at donating her body to science, but that comes with some issues. Surviving family needs to find an approve organization to accept the donation and generally has to cover transportation costs.

I'm personally in the "let the buzzards have my corpse" camp, but that's generally not legal. I'll probably end up with the cremation option if I go 1st. If my wife passes 1st, I'll just let the government toss my body in local pauper grave, or what ever Oregon does with indigents.

 

[kmk1012]

I remember a place that'll cremate you and press the ashes into a real diamond. That would be pretty neat and weird at the same time.

 

[Bobbygun]

Cremation was a bit over $3k, so not exactly cheap.

Must be higher in Bend. I had a relative cremated in Cottage Grove just over three months ago and it was a little bit under two grand.

 

[oremike]

My Mom's cremation was $1800.00 back in October. I scattered her ashes up in the woods at the same place I scattered my Dads.
A friend of mines brother died recently and willed his body to OHSU but they didn't want it so they had to make other arrangements on the spur of the moment.
Me, I'll be cremated, get a Veterans ceremony and internment at the Roseburg VA cemetery.

 

[WillNotComply]

My Mom's cremation was $1800.00 back in October. I scattered her ashes up in the woods at the same place I scattered my Dads.
A friend of mines brother died recently and willed his body to OHSU but they didn't want it so they had to make other arrangements on the spur of the moment.
Me, I'll be cremated, get a Veterans ceremony and internment at the Roseburg VA cemetery.

Funny that this came up in conversation about two days ago. I'm in the compost or buzzards category myself, but both of us have decided on cremation. Due to health it now looks like I will outlive my wife (never thought that would happen!). She said to take her ashes and just scatter them a little at a time wherever I go.
I told her I would fire up my shot shell reloader and blast her all over the place!

@oremike : got the name of that place? We are looking to pre-arrange. TIA.

 

[P7M13]

1. Have someone fly you to Everest and deposit your body where you can be a guide post for climbers for the next century. This would likely not be cheap.
2. Attend a rally in Salem for one of the Global Warming or Antifa protests. Bring a sign, "THE END IS NEAR". Impregnate your clothes with gunpowder, saltpeter and sugar. Light a match and practice immolation. That'll git'r'dun.
3. Get a little inflatable raft at Bi-mart. Fill all your pockets with rocks, let a rip-tide catch you on the coast, and jump out when you're a good ways out.
4. Cut yourself and go swimming with sharks.

 

[albin25]

I was once asked, "would you like to try skydiving?". My answer was, " Over my dead body!"
So, I guess my remains could be thrown out of a plane over the mountains…
… we'll call it the D.B Cooper plan.

In the meantime, my plans are to be cremated. I've given my wife a list of people whose eyes I'd like my ashes to be blown into.

 

[OrPackrat]

Leave instructions to have your ashes pressed into diamonds or similar.

Granted that's expensive...

Could just have the ashes put into glass artwork.

 

[oremike]

Funny that this came up in conversation about two days ago. I'm in the compost or buzzards category myself, but both of us have decided on cremation. Due to health it now looks like I will outlive my wife (never thought that would happen!). She said to take her ashes and just scatter them a little at a time wherever I go.
I told her I would fire up my shot shell reloader and blast her all over the place!

@oremike : got the name of that place? We are looking to pre-arrange. TIA.

My brother handled my Mom's cremation down in Medford and just told me what it cost.
One thing to note is it''s much easier and cheaper to transport a box of ashes as compared to a body.

 

[kmk1012]

When my kids were younger, I told them it's family tradition to have their parents stuffed/taxidermy and the oldest takes it with them to display in their living room. They said I was weird, and they are correct.

 

[AshWilliams]

Right, you need to leave a legally binding last will and testament with explicit instructions for your wishes.

As for me I'll be doing that and a simple cremation without any embalmings, viewings, grave site, or any of that pomp and circumstance. It will be a simple passing on to the next thing, whatever that is, if anything.

 

[JTK1791]

Tibetan sky burials are pretty wild, be one hell of a way to do it lol

 

[TTSX]

Tibetan sky burials are pretty wild, be one hell of a way to do it lol

That's the one where they put you in a big slingshot and launch you straight up and run around flailing their limbs hoping not to get mushed by your body on the way down, right?

 

[jbett98]

My late brother-in-law got the last laugh when the time came to spread his cremated ashes near an island in the Puget Sound area.
Right when we tossed the remains into the air, a big blast of wind suddenly came up and blew all the ashes back towards the boat and into all of our eyes and hair.

 

[lucusloc]

I plan on living forever; so far so good.

But if I was thinking about this I'd be interested in the "bare hole with a tree on top" method, but that has a ton of regulations attached to it, and there was one place doing it that got shut down for being all scammy (they planted the trees, but dumped the bodies in some kind of dumpster. I think it was for an industrial incinerator? If I remember correctly they got caught because someone figured out they were not actually licensed to bury people on the land they claimed they did.)

That is one of the things that I find pretty interesting about the body disposal industry; they seem to have tons of regulations governing what they can and cannot do, but they have very little oversight, so some of them just seem to do whatever the hell they want anyway. Really, after they said they did something with your body, who is going to check?

 

[AshWilliams]

I plan on living forever; so far so good.

But if I was thinking about this I'd be interested in the "bare hole with a tree on top" method, but that has a ton of regulations attached to it, and there was one place doing it that got shut down for being all scammy (they planted the trees, but dumped the bodies in some kind of dumpster. I think it was for an industrial incinerator? If I remember correctly they got caught because someone figured out they were not actually licensed to bury people on the land they claimed they did.)

That is one of the things that I find pretty interesting about the body disposal industry; they seem to have tons of regulations governing what they can and cannot do, but they have very little oversight, so some of them just seem to do whatever the hell they want anyway. Really, after they said they did something with your body, who is going to check?

In Alaska you can be buried in the backyard as long as it's a certain distance away from the home.

That kind of freedom appeals to me, but as I get older I doubt I could weather the brutal winters.

 

[jbett98]

In Alaska you can be buried in the backyard as long as it's a certain distance away from the home.

That kind of freedom appeals to me, but as I get older I doubt I could weather the brutal winters.

Old timers pre dug graves before winter set in.

 

[ma96782]

Aloha, Mark

 

[bionic knees]

My youngest bro kicked the bucket on christmas 2022 it was $1800 for the paperwork and cremation.