End of life decisions

[trof]

Not to get morbid here, but...sooner of later we're all gonna tap out.
I didn't want my family to be left with maybe thousands of dollars in funeral expenses.

I don't want to be on display in a box and then buried.
I'm a bit claustrophobic.
I 'm an atheist, so no afterlife.

Cremation adds to pollution.

I've just donated my body to medicine/science.
It's free.
Who knows? Maybe you'll help mankind.
They come a get your remains.
After 6 months to a year, when they're through with you, they cremate what ever is left and return the remains to whoever you designate.

The outfit I signed up with is Genesys/MERI (Medical Experimentation and Research Institute) in Memphis.
https://www.genesislegacy.org/

Just something to consider.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Those are good thoughts, my dear trof. Very smart of you. n/t

[elleng]

2. Thinking of doing this; just gotta get my act together.

Green burial is a way of caring for the dead with minimal environmental impact that aids in the conservation of natural resources, reduction of carbon emissions, protection of worker health, and the restoration
​and/or preservation of habitat.


“The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem.
​Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.”
​​ — Theodore Roosevelt

https://www.greenburialcouncil.org/

[blm]

3. That's my plan, too.

I told baby blm… no services or memorials…just carry on and be good to each other.

[MLAA]

4. Very smart to make your choices ahead and let your loved ones know so they can honor them.

My dad passed last fall and man oh man was he prepared. Not a single decision to be made or bill to be paid. He always said plan your work and work your plan 😉

[SCantiGOP]

5. I've already done that

but, at least in my state, the living relatives can overturn the decision if they choose to. One of my daughters is very opposed to my body being sent to the Medical University.

The best option I have heard of (I think it's legal in Oregon and maybe a few other states) is to have your body put into a burlap bag with soil and a tree, which is then planted. After a decade or so, none of your remains are left in the ground - everything that comprised your body has become part of the tree.
My wife likes this idea, but says I should become a part of a gum tree like the one we have that drops thousands of little pointy balls in our driveway every year. She says that way, I could keep annoying people after I'm gone.

[niyad]

7. ohhhh, I love that! have to find out ifthey grow here.

[mitch96]

10. "have your body put into a burlap bag with soil and a tree, which is then planted"

My friend did this with his mom. Continue the circle of life. One ends and another grows..
Seems fitting. We come from space dust and return to space dust..
I like this idea. Then again you can do the same thing with a heavy weight and a deep ocean.
Fish food.. Circle of life... Then again that's me.. YMMV
m

[trof]

12. Sweet gum tree thingies?

[yellowdogintexas]

6. I am also seriously considering this

My grandmother in law did this. I was going to do a prepaid cremation (Under $1000) But I like this even better.

Thanks for that link!!! I am an organ donor too so one way or another I hope I will do some good

[BOSSHOG]

8. Love ya Trof, it's not morbid, it's life

My wife and I got our plan all “planned” out which involves medical donations, cremations, party’s, lots of alcohol and not one penny spent on a religious organization.

I want women to have the right to their body while alive and I want to do whatever the hell I want to to with my body when I die.

And to kinda quote a dumbass conservative,, “In one word, fuck you zealots.”

[MoonlightHillFarm]

9. A Great Resolution

Both my mom and dad signed up to be donated to OHSU (Oregon). They came and picked dad up. They were very respectful, almost like they worked for a mortuary. It was free. I got dad’s ashes back about a year later.

Mom died by shattering her pelvis from a fall. OHSU wouldn’t take her as broken bones can damage organs. I made frantic arrangements to have her cremated at the local mortuary.

They are now, each planted with a flowering tree in a separate memorial garden I made.

It all worked out in the end , although I know mom would be unhappy that I had to pay for her cremation.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. Not at all morbid. I am constantly pestering people about these kinds of things.

My mother, who died in 1999, had decided years before she wanted to give her body to the University of Arizona medical school for dissection. She had told all of us six kids, and had a note on her refrigerator so EMTs would see it if they came to her house when she'd died.

All of us were very much on board with that decision. Eventually, we got her cremains back, and while it took some years, we eventually scattered her ashes in a place we knew she'd have been very happy about.

Personally, I want to be cremated, but I have zero idea where I might want my ashes scattered, so I'm beginning to think about a green burial.

[RealityChik]

13. We're doing the tree thingy too!

Put it in our wills, too! We are currently forest dwellers on Kitsap Peninsula, Washington state...so it makes perfect sense to us!