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Funerals and Family

Started by rickrocks, May 21, 2012, 06:45:58 AM

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Amicale

Rickrocks, I'm so sorry to hear about your nephew and his wife.  :'( What a shock for your family.

For my own death, my instructions are fairly simple: if at all possible, use any part of me that you can to help someone else (even if it's just skin to help burn victims, fine), and cremate the rest. As for some kind of memorial service, if I know I'm about to die (say, something terminal) then I'm throwing a huge party for the people I love, and eating good food, drinking good wine, playing good music and generally just having a good time while I'm there to enjoy it with them. If my death happens unexpectedly, my loved ones know that I still want that memorial party to be thrown and I want everyone to show up, and just have the get-together without me. Tell funny, goofy stories. Share memories.

When a friend died a few years back (he happened to be an atheist), his parents had a Catholic funeral for him. I understood that was their way of finding some closure and especially peace, and I respected that. But we (his friends) chose to celebrate him a different way - we got his favourite beer, loaded up his favourite music, brought favourite foods. A few of his buddies brought one of his other favourite smokable substances  :P. And... we basically threw a keg party. We talked about him. Laughed. Shared crazy, fun memories. His little brother ended up blitzed, dancing on a table.  :D

Someone commented at the end of the night, "the only thing missing at this party was him". And I thought, 'damn straight. This was a good send-off.'


"Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb we are bound to others. By every crime and act of kindness we birth our future." - Cloud Atlas

"To live in the hearts of those we leave behind is to never die." -Carl Sagan

Sweetdeath

Quote from: Asmodean on May 21, 2012, 08:27:33 AM
My instructions are simple: Cremate me, dump the ashes and have a drink to my memory.

This is what i want. :)

Cremate and dump ashes.

Drink.

Be merry. Live on.

Pfft, i dont need to be a martyr for anyone's redemption. Funeral services, burials, and  coffins are an insane WASTE of money and time.

People who fall into that trap deserve to be drained.

( i also find graveyards to be a horrid waste of space , which could be used for housing. Provide for the living. Not the  dead.)
Law 35- "You got to go with what works." - Robin Lefler

Wiggum:"You have that much faith in me, Homer?"
Homer:"No! Faith is what you have in things that don't exist. Your awesomeness is real."

"I was thinking that perhaps this thing called God does not exist. Because He cannot save any one of us. No matter how we pray, He doesn't mend our wounds.

Sweetdeath

Law 35- "You got to go with what works." - Robin Lefler

Wiggum:"You have that much faith in me, Homer?"
Homer:"No! Faith is what you have in things that don't exist. Your awesomeness is real."

"I was thinking that perhaps this thing called God does not exist. Because He cannot save any one of us. No matter how we pray, He doesn't mend our wounds.

Firebird

Quote from: hismikeness on May 22, 2012, 06:04:18 AM
I want a sky burial.

You mean like Gene Roddenberry's ashes getting shot into space? I think that's still planned at some point, along with his wife.
My condolences as well, rickrocks. Such a tragedy. And sucks that it was used in such a way.
I've never thought much about what I want when I die. My wife is also secular and knows how atheist I am, so she'd at least know not to have someone say a stupid prayer over me :) Whether I end up buried, ashes, whatev, it better not be some gaudy expensive coffin. A simple pine wooden box, if that much, is just fine by my dead standards. I do like all of your ideas of a celebration, though. The only song that pops into my mind as something I'd like played is Pearl Jam's "Man of the Hour", which was played during the credits of "Big Fish". It's slow, melancholy, but ultimately uplifting. Also, I've seen Pearl Jam at least 6 times (I think) and they're the only band I've consistently loved since my childhood. So that's my pick.
"Great, replace one book about an abusive, needy asshole with another." - Will (moderator) on replacing hotel Bibles with "Fifty Shades of Grey"

OldGit

Quote from: ScissorlegsOr in the middle of a planted roundabout in Milton Keynes.

Aagh, no, not Milton Keynes, please.  Hell, yes.  The sewage plant, yes.  I know I'll just be a heap of ashes and no part of me will exist to sense my surroundings, but no ... not Milton Keynes.  Not even under the concrete cows.

rickrocks

Or maybe sky burial, Hunter S. Thompson style?

Sweetdeath

A viking funeral actually kinda rocks.
Law 35- "You got to go with what works." - Robin Lefler

Wiggum:"You have that much faith in me, Homer?"
Homer:"No! Faith is what you have in things that don't exist. Your awesomeness is real."

"I was thinking that perhaps this thing called God does not exist. Because He cannot save any one of us. No matter how we pray, He doesn't mend our wounds.

Asmodean

Cremated in a giant fire extinguisher, you mean?  :P
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Crow

I signed up to be an organ donor I don't know what happens to the bits they don't use and don't really care.
Retired member.

Asmodean

Quote from: Crow on May 22, 2012, 11:30:20 PM
I signed up to be an organ donor I don't know what happens to the bits they don't use and don't really care.

Medical waste. I think around here, the standard procedure is to burn until gone.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Whitney

I'm sorry for your loss...it's rough.  I just lost my dad.

We did a celebration of life memorial instead of a religious ceremony.  It included one prayer (at lot of attending relatives were religious; probably all but me, my husband and perhaps my step mom; and wanted it and I wasn't going to complain since it didn't bother me) and the funeral home director recited the poem about making the most of your dash.  We included a slide show of my dad's life accompanied by his favorite rock n roll songs and played a video of his band playing.  It was a happy sad ceremony...some parts made you cry (from the memories) and others made you laugh.

If you want something specific done for yours then have a living will notarized (best if a lawyer looks it over if it had any money involved) that includes full instructions on what to do.  Personally, I think that funerals/memorials are for the living and don't care if my family wants to have a big religious service for me (though my husband would nix it if he didn't die with or before me) as I don't expect to be there to see it nor would I care if I was.

Sandra Craft

Quote from: Whitney on May 23, 2012, 03:51:24 AM
I'm sorry for your loss...it's rough.  I just lost my dad.

We did a celebration of life memorial instead of a religious ceremony.  It included one prayer (at lot of attending relatives were religious; probably all but me, my husband and perhaps my step mom; and wanted it and I wasn't going to complain since it didn't bother me)

I'm sorry about your dad.  My stepmother's father's memorial was last Friday and was very religious.  It was nice service and had its amusing moments -- one of the two priests spoke English as a second language and kept pronoucing "sheep" as "ship". 

Quoteand the funeral home director recited the poem about making the most of your dash.

As in "dash thru life"?
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

pytheas

Quote from: Whitney on May 23, 2012, 03:51:24 AM
Personally, I think that funerals/memorials are for the living

as it happens they really are only for the living, and this "personal" remark is of global, all-time proportions.

one of my friends and distorted godfather(of three) to my first daughter dieda couple of years ago.
the family funeral was the "supposed" funerary priest lick-ass service.
the close circuit of friends later on threw a mini rave for the occasion and partied including also the same stuff he O.D.ied some nights before

my mum died a couple of years ago
the church funeral was unavoidable, and cremation is forbidden in orthodox byzantine (bankrupt) relic joke-states
however in the waiting room with the corpse I brought a ghettoblaster and played in loop 2 pieces
BACH    
Ich ruf zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ (BWV 639) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMnrjQK2Z8Y
which -as her favourite- she had asked me (when alive) to play at her funeral

and
Gabriel Faure- Requiem, which is the ultimate mourning sunshine for anyone
here is the end in paradisum- he wrote it for his mum and disguised it as a requiem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUfi0ts_D-0

the priest chanting after that sounded as ridiculous as he is

with family friends back in our privacy, good wine, food, music, slideshows etc and some poems read aloud as we were lucky enough for her to have written and left behind

i would like to say that a frenzied 96-hour rave festival at my demise would be appropriate, but I know  that my dionysos impersonation is false. possibly beasts should feed off me, get a little high.

the truth is anything we say we want or ask for our funeral, is irrelevant horseshit.
the people who cared, will remember and know what and how.
the people who didnt know us, really will not care


"Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance."
"Freedom is the greatest fruit of self-sufficiency"
"Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little."
by EPICURUS 4th century BCE

Anti-antidisestablishmentarianism

I don't ever want to die, but if I have to I want to be frozen Walt Disney style.
"All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." -Voltaire
"By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out". Richard Dawkins

Sweetdeath

Quote from: Anti-antidisestablishmentarianism on May 23, 2012, 09:19:23 PM
I don't ever want to die, but if I have to I want to be frozen Walt Disney style.

And have your brain put in an android body? :)
Law 35- "You got to go with what works." - Robin Lefler

Wiggum:"You have that much faith in me, Homer?"
Homer:"No! Faith is what you have in things that don't exist. Your awesomeness is real."

"I was thinking that perhaps this thing called God does not exist. Because He cannot save any one of us. No matter how we pray, He doesn't mend our wounds.