@vistesd2said I have no particular moral views over cremation versus some burial that (without non-biodegradable coffins and crypts, etc. ) means that my remains will be returned to the earthly components of which they are. [I’m not sure that cremation prevents that?]
I only have two (competing and conflicting) wishes:
(1) That I am simply and quickly disposed of, without the f ...[text shortened]... mug or two.
That second option is more than unlikely (given the personal economics involved). 😉
I think, in practical terms - as well in more abstract terms too perhaps - that what is done with my remains along with all other dimensions of how my family respond to my death after it occurs is none of my business.
Yeah. That makes sense -- more sense than me trying to "save" them from the whole bother (if some bother is what makes them feel better). Still, in my recorded last wishes, I would like to relieve them of any such bother that they might otherwise construe as some obligatory behavior -- for the "me" that once was, or for the views of society -- without laying some other (even negative) obligation on them.
EDIT: I wanted to add, Thanks for that thought -- and the thoughtfulness behind it. As I contemplate such things, it is helpful.
Yeah. That makes sense -- more sense than me trying to "save" them from the whole bother (if some bother is what makes them feel better). Still, in my recorded last wishes, I would like to relieve them of any such bother that they might otherwise construe as some obligatory behavior -- for the "me" that once was, or for the views of society -- without laying some other (even negative) obligation on them.
I wrote this six months ago:
My father in law died back in December.
That evening he lay in an open coffin and was viewed by hundreds of people including students he'd taught 40-50 years ago.
The next day he was buried in the ancestral cemetery [where my wife and I will be buried one day] in a town 90 minutes' drive to the east of here - where he was born. They rented two coaches to get the funeral-goers over there.
Three days later there was a prayer meeting in his widow's house. They had to borrow the neighbour's garden and put up a tent thing to accommodate all the people who turned up.
Seven days later there was a church service at the church where he served for decades as a deacon - and where, incidentally, I was married and where both of my sons were baptized. A couple of cars full of close family members went to visit the grave later that day.
Forty days later [the day before yesterday] five carloads of family and friends visited his grave and spread rose petals on it and prayed. They also paid their respects to his parents who are buried there too.
Everyone also visited the grave of my father in law's father in law, something which all family visitors always do.
This will be repeated after 100 days, and then after exactly one year, and then after 1,000 days.
And that will be the end of the formal commemoration of his passing.
Three days, seven days, a hundred days, a year, and a thousand days.
As far as I know, all Javanese people observe these traditions, regardless of their religion.
All this was undoubtedly what my father-in-law would have wished for and expected. However, the carrying out of all of it was what those who survived him wanted and, regardless of how conscious they are of it, they do it for themselves and because they want to do it.
Burial or cremation?
01 Jul '22 19:57
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