On my way home from Vic's mom's house this morning, I passed a florist with a sign advertising New Year's plants and grave blankets. How interesting that they are marketing toward the new and the very not new. I just don't understand the whole burial thing at all. What's the point of taking my dead, but still useful body, and putting it into a very expensive box that's going to be stuck in the ground like a jar of pennies. And then, to further astound me, someone is going to spend a heap of money to etch my name in a slab of stone to show where exactly the jar of pennies is located for the maybe 2 or 3 people that want to come to visit my decayed corpse in a box. And then somebody is going to actually spend good money on a grave blanket?? Can I just have the money now?
It makes way more sense to donate my useful pieces to someone who might need them. And then take whatever is left over and give it to nice young doctor-wannabes to practice on. You just know that very few people are going to trek out to the very cheery cemetary to stand by my stone and fill me in on the goings-on of their lives. I'd rather you just sat quietly in a comfy chair with a little soft soothing music playing in the background (maybe something Celtic-y) and talked to me that way.
Vic, of course, disagrees with me whole-heartedly. She's all about being stuck in the ground. She doesn't even want to donate anything. I want to live on in another person. I say "recycle!" I don't want to be a jar of pennies. I want to be the 80% post-consumer waste used to make the Christmas card!
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6 comments:
I'm with you! If they would take my parts I'd give them, but they don't like to take gayboy parts. So, alas, I'll probably just end up being cremated.
Hopefully it will be a long time before either of us are in that situation, though!
Happy New Year!
do those blankets come in pink? LOL!
I'm of two minds about burial. While the cost associated with it appalls me, I am also a grave visitor. I like having a physical place to go where I can feel connected to the person who has passed on. I know I don't *need* that physical place, but I like having it.
My husband and I are both in favor of cremation. It's what to do with the ashes that we have disagreed on. He wants to be scattered. However, if he dies first, I want a place to visit. We've agreed on the compromise that I will bury his ashes in our rose garden, so I have a place where I feel close to him.
Oh, and if you donate your body to a med school, the body generally comes back to the afterwards, so your family still may need to deal with the bury/cremate decision later.
Ah..posts like this is why I love you girl !! I too am all for recycling. I'm just not so sure there is anything on this tired old body that anyone would want to have, but I'm all for giving it to them. Afterwards, cremate whats left and throw me towards the ocean....I'm sure I'll make good fishie food !!! Happy New Year !
Wow, I've never even heard of a grave blanket. What is is - a blanket of flowers?
Dan says "Put me a pine box". However, I think that's illegal in ND. Ridiculous!!!
Julie
I think it is a blanket of flowers, but I prefer to think of it looking more like Shannon's red blankie ~ the one with the little white dog bones and pawprints on it.
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