Have you or any of your relatives pre-planned your/their funeral?

[raccoon]

I’m not saying anyone (me included) is going to need it right now but it might take a burden off a close relative having to do it.

[2naSalit]

1. Yup.

[marybourg]

2. Yes, by telling my children: "Cremation. No funeral".

[lark]

3. Yep, hubby & I have discussed in depth with each other & our kids.

We want to be cremated and our ashes buried in our pet cemetery with all our fur babies.

[jeffreyi]

4. Me too.

[Sherman A1]

5. Yup

body donation to a local medical university. I would also recommend a book called "Before it's too late".

[Mike 03]

6. Both of my parents (one deceased, one still very much alive) both set out their

wishes in their wills, and the rest of us updated our wills a couple of years ago and included ours. They are very informal, to say the least. My dad had a memorial service, but the rest of us are pretty much cremate, no funeral, memorial service if you like...

The part I put way more effort into is what I want to happen in different scenarios prior to death, if I'm incapacitated, that I accept the risks of addiction in pain management if it is advised, issues about resuscitation and so forth. I want to avoid a situation like Maggie gets into at the end of the movie Million Dollar Baby or Karen Ann Quinlan.

[marybourg]

12. Unless you've taken steps to ensure that your family

knows to review your will, and can lay their hands on it, when death is imminent, or immediately after death., relying on instructions in your will rarely works. Tell your family where in your house your instructions are, and review with them so that they have a general idea what you want.

[Iggo]

7. They might've. I haven't, and almost certainly won't.

Let the necrophiliacs and the cannibals fight over me.

I'll be long gone.

[CentralMass]

8. No. However I'm thinking a risky mountain climbjng trip in difficult area for retrieval might work.

[skylucy]

9. My parents who passed away recently at ages 91 and 92, planned and paid for their funerals.

It was so like them. They were the most loving, giving and caring people. They were married for 73 years. My father passed away six weeks after my mother.

[634-5789]

10. Giving our bodies to science.

No expense, no grave, no embalming, and maybe they'll find that cure for this will help next gen doctors to do a better job! No downside to this. Already got the forms in, ready to check out.

[Dem2theMax]

11. Yes!

My parents had everything done. All I had to do was grieve. I was so grateful to them for planning everything ahead of time. I am single, but all of my relatives know what to do for me.

I can't understand people's reluctance to plan for something that is going to happen no matter how hard they try for it to not happen.

[doc03]

13. I did

[Hestia]

14. Cremation, spread my ashes at the river playing Jimmy Buffett's "It's Been A Lovely Cruise"

and drink a Margarita or two.

[justhanginon]

15. Cremation. I'm almost 84 so I am I am starting to save

kindling wood and old tree limbs. It's gonna be a frugal funeral.

[Skittles]

21. cremation with no religious ceremony

that's me

skip all that pricey stuff

[justhanginon]

30. Yep. Costs a fortune to bring you ointo this world

and costs a fortune to send you out. I'll stick with the no frills and save that money for the kids.

[nancy1942]

53. That's the ticket!

Frugality is always prudent.

[nancy1942]

54. My cremation is pre-paid.

I didn't want to burden my kids.
No memorials because all my friends have already died and no-one is left to mourn my demise.

[Maeve]

16. My mother has and every time she isn't feeling well, she talks about it

Right now, she's wondering "Since there won't be any visiting hours, due to the virus, do you think maybe you can get a refund for that part of it?"

Moms....

[TreasonousBastard]

17. Nope. Truth is, the closer I get to it, the less I care. Eons of human obsession with death rites...

fascinates me, and leads me to suspect there might be something to this afterlife stuff, but I still don't buy it.

Nope. I am leaving instructions to leave whatever is left to science and any harvest-able organs and such to be donated to whomever might find them useful. I have an inherited spot in a family gravesite, but I still haven't decided whether to use it for whatever is left of my corpse.

I am kinda partial to the idea of the Viking funeral, with the burning boat, but there are environmental concerns to deal with. And Vikings, aside from rarely using the burning boat, like many other societies, insisted on burying tons of stuff with the deceased, which I consider a waste.

Still, a burning canoe in the middle of the bay is a thought. Probably breaks a dozen laws, though.

[procon]

18. Yes. Been there; done that.

We encouraged my dad who was dying of lung cancer, to at least tell us what he would like and my bro and me would do all the work for him. We explained that it would be an awful thing to ignore getting that all setup and cruel to force us to have to make his funeral arrangements while we were grieving his death.

He refused every effort and we were left devastated when he died and we had to rush and do everything all at once. It was harder on my bro than me and I still resent my dad for not taking responsibility and needlessly hurting his kids.

Never again.

[brokephibroke]

19. Nope.

And we don’t even have a will nor an estate plan. Bad, eh?

[dhol82]

20. My mother did. It was truly a gift to me.

She preplanned and paid for everything including the headstone. She ordered her casket, arranged for the priest, etc. It made my life so easy.
I assume she did that so she could have the funeral she wanted. We did not get on and spoke very rarely for the last thirty years of her life. I would not have known any of her wishes.
She had evidently bought the plots when my father died - thirty years previously. They were facing each other. Probably so she could keep yelling at him.
All I had to do was have the date of death inscription done.
I keep meaning to do the same for my stepchildren and just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Need to get my ass in gear.

[Jamastiene]

22. My mother planned what happens to my body, but no funeral.

No one would come to a funeral if she had one for me. I have no one and no friends and she knows it, because she ran them all off with her threats to kill them. I won't be friends with the hideous people she picks out for me. So, no one would come to a funeral for me anyhow.

My mother decided my body would be cremated and put in a square building she calls a mausoleum.

It is a nondescript boring building, that I wouldn't be caught dead in, if I had any right to decide what happens to my own body when I die, and full of strangers I would never want to be trapped with because they are a bunch of Richmond County Trumplodyte bigots. Unfortunately, in the state of NC, I don't have the right to decide what happens to my own body, because I'm not rich enough to outspend her and make my own plans and I do not have anyone in this blood red area that I know who could step in and do what I would rather have done with my body. So, she gets to decide and even got to choose the urn and everything. She was so excited when she gave it to me as my 47th birthday present and told me about how fun it was to decide all this shit for me. She really enjoyed planning what happens to my body when I die.

She was so thrilled when she made my stepfather drive to the building after a dental appointment and made us sit there for an hour while she went on and on how great it was going to be, me trapped there with her and a bunch of strangers in that nondescript square building for eternity, with a busy, noisy highway nearby, and East fucking Rockingham right across the street with all their pro-KKK morons and never-ending barrels of burning household garbage. The area is HELL ON EARTH. I would never want to be there for two seconds, much less eternity.

I wish I had had a say, but I did not. It's fitting considering how many jobs she has made me lose and how many girlfriends she has threatened to kill and how many friends she has threatened to kill and how she has pretty much interfered with and meddled and ruined most of my life, because she is THAT controlling. Of COURSE, she would plan my death and be all excited about it and not even ask me if I wanted to be trapped across from KKK central in this county with never ending burning household garbage and trapped next to her for eternity too. And Of COURSE, she would do it as a birthday present and do it in such a way as to rub my nose in it AND make me visit the site while she went on and on about it like it was wonderful for her that I would be trapped next to her for eternity when I have spent most of my life trying to get her out of the way so I could live my life without being in misery from her domineering shit.

I despise the state of North Carolina for allowing such a thing. I had always believed you had a right to decide what happens to your own body when you die, but that's only for people with lots of money and friends and a family of their own choosing who are willing to protect their body from desecration by a morbid, deranged person, when they die. If you have a domineering, controlling mother from the bowels of Hell like my mother, who has spent most of your life threatening to kill you and anyone you loved if you don't live like she wants and do what she wants all the damn time and getting away with it because she can turn the charm on and off at the drop of a hat, you don't have that right. Or any rights.

I won't even have rights when I die. I hope she is not waiting for me in Hell when I get there, waiting to domineer and control me for eternity. I have a gut feeling she will be though. I will never be free of her. I resent every damn bit of it, to be honest.

[qwlauren35]

48. Couldn't you move?

Far, far away from your mom?

[Jamastiene]

59. I wish I could.

Our major employer is Walmart and everywhere else I have checked costs way too much to live. I'm too old to save for years to move now. It would literally take saving for years just in rent prices alone in even the nearest bigger cities where I could possibly disappear and be anonymous enough to get away from her. She knows that too. It's why she put me under a mortgage. She tried to put me under car payments too, but I wiggled out of that, so far. I'm pretty much stuck here unless I win a lottery.

[Laffy Kat]

23. FYI: If you donate your body to a medical school...

You don't have to do or pay anything. They will pick up your remains, cremate you, and get you back to your survivors when they're finished.

[Hoyt]

26. Good to know.

[Jamastiene]

28. How would someone go about doing that and could they instead request their remains

be disposed of some other way besides sending them back? I thought about donating my body to The Body Farm as an option one time, but how would I make sure they knew of my death and could get my body before my mother swooped in and did whatever she wants with my body? I have a feeling I could try it and the local yocals would ignore my wishes completely and just let my mother do whatever she wants with my body, which still irks me. I wish I had a say.

[marybourg]

31. Ask the crematory whose name and address

you plan to leave for your survivors to find and use. That's what I did when DH was in his last days. But they do not take every body, so have alternate plans set up.

[Laffy Kat]

37. Most medical schools have donation programs.

Google the ones in your area. There is usually a link. I know there are some caveats, however. For instance, I would imagine if you die from a known infectious disease, they would not take you. Make sure you have a plan B for your survivors. The University of Colorado School of Medicine has an application process to go through, as I'm sure they all do. Make sure everyone who will be making arrangments knows your wishes and plans, of course.

On edit: Here is the link for the University of Colorado School of Medicine: https://medschool.cuanschutz.edu/sab

You may also find an application on your state's website for their Anatomical Board.

[Bantamfancier]

52. That's the way my dad did it.

I’m going the same way.
It’s quite easy, just contact the med school of your choice.

Dad was very found of Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.
He died in Columbus ( Grant hospital), so it took them a couple hours to drive up tp get him.
The hospital was very accommodating, they allowed us to sit with him in his room while we waited.

The only twist was dad didn’t want him remains to be returned. Something about him not wanting to sit in an urn on someone’s mantle or be tucked in a closet somewhere. So he was interned in OU’s cemetery as a cherished donor to the school.
No muss, no fuss. And absolutely no expense.

We had a celebration at his church and all his friends got up to tell stories about him. Our cousin kicked the event off by performing at dad’s request The Statler Brothers’ “Counting flowers on the wall” His all time favorite song.

[MerryBlooms]

24. Yes. Plan for life, plan for death.

[Skittles]

25. my pre-plan is: no funeral

spend that money on something else, please

[Laffy Kat]

38. I agree. Ultimately, though, it's about the survivors.

I don't want a service, either, but whatever my kids need for closure is okay with me. Same with the ashes: whatever they want to do. They can use them for kitty litter for all I care, LOL.

[albacore]

27. An alternative....

"Ashes to ashes, guts to dirt.
Governor Jay Inslee signed legislation Tuesday making Washington the first state to approve composting as an alternative to burying or cremating human remains.
It allows licensed facilities to offer “natural organic reduction”, which turns a body, mixed with substances such as wood chips and straw, into about two wheelbarrows’ worth of soil in a span of several weeks.
Loved ones are allowed to keep the soil to spread, just as they might spread the ashes of someone who has been cremated – or even use it to plant vegetables or a tree."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/21/eco-friendly-ending-washington-state-is-first-to-allow-human-composting

[albacore]

29. OR... a very special alternative....

[NurseJackie]

32. No, but I have a couple that I'm looking forward to attending (Does that count?)

[ooky]

33. Yes but haven't done it yet.

Makes sense.

[Jeebo]

34. It's in my will.

Cremation and burial of ashes in the family plot in Selma, Alabama, next to my parents and older brother.

Yep, Selma's my hometown. I haven't lived there since 1971, but I was in the ninth grade in Albert G. Parrish High School in Selma when the Selma-to-Montgomery march happened.

That's my 800th post, y'all.

-- Ron

[Arkansas Granny]

35. My kids know I want to be cremated. They've already decided to spread my ashes

at a creek where we went swimming/camping when they were growing up. I just need to pre-pay at the funeral home. I'll leave the rest up to them.

I have told them no preaching or I'll come back and haunt them.

[AmyStrange]

36. Yup, I told my youngest sister, lots of booze and lots of pot...

-

No services, no burial, instead, cremate me, and then mix my ashes in with a whole lot of good dirt and grow some pot.

When that matures, have a big party, with lots of booze and lots of pot.

I've also been looking at life insurance to cover the whole thing.

Everyone here is invited, if they wanna come!
==========

[ChazII]

39. It is just me as my son and parents

preceded me in death. I need to get in contact with the research company that my son donated his brain and body for cancer research and orthopedic research. My ashes will be placed in a columbarium next to my son's ashes when that day comes.

[handmade34]

40. yes

burial... in Vermont we can still bury on our property... all know to just lug me out to the woods and be done!

[MuseRider]

41. I told both of my kids

that I wanted cremated and my ashes mixed with all the animals in various boxes and pouches and just scattered all over my farm or in the big pond or whatever. No funeral, no service no obit needed. Really, who cares? My husband will consider it just another day so....why bother. I wanted it that way for a long time, I have had to do too many funerals since one of my brothers has been dead for quite some time and the other is not really with it all the time. It is just too much work for them to have to deal with. I certainly will not care.

[katmondoo]

42. Yes, I am almost finished paying it off. I will be near my parents. I will be buried not cremated.

I bought a plot many years ago so the rest is almost affordable. One more year and it will all be paid for.

[Olafjoy]

43. My mom gave me a large envelope

Picture she wants for obituary etc
Music she wants
Bible verses
Readings
Cremation

My husband and I have prepared everything For ourselves so our son doesn’t have to. Everyone dies.
Don’t have to dwell on it, but make it easy for the people left behind, no?

[MyNameGoesHere]

44. Buried at sea.

Cremation is fine, but I would rather let the sea creatures gnaw on me and make a artificial reef out me. 😂

[Generic Brad]

45. Yes. We're going with the cheapest option available

Money is for the living. My wife and I are too logical to let emotion overtake us when we are grieving.

[Hekate]

46. Had to do the advance directive before surgery, but since the hospital forgot to ask..

... I likewise forgot to hand it over at the time. Finally gave it to my primary doc at my annual physical last month. I mimed yanking a plug out of the wall and said, “Pull the plug.”

So much talk of ventilators this year, it was a bit creepy to remember I had long ago ruled out their use unless there was a good chance of recovering to a meaningful life. Looking at it again, I decided not to change that. As of the most recent info I have about COVID, chances are not good for people my age to come off a vent anyway, since COVID destroys the lungs.

DH and I have finally agreed on cremation. That is, I decided long ago that after any usable bits are taken away to help someone who needs something from a person at whatever age I shall be, I would like the rest cremated. More recently my husband has come around to the cremation idea. And no, we have not prepaid, bought urns, or joined the Neptune Society.

There is no family plot where descendants could come and find our stone, in any case. He wrote some things up decades ago, then filed it with his other papers where it does me no good. If we die during the plague, a memorial service will be out of the question... But if there is any return to normalcy, I’d like someone to take charge of a memorial service. Which means I should set aside something specific in the way of money. Which also means I should probably get affiliated with the Unitarians in this town, as I was where I used to live. But I don’t expect much from my grown children, barring a miracle.

Jeez, this is depressing.

[qwlauren35]

47. Not my funeral

But definitely how to handle my body.

It was not an easy thing to do.

I left instructions with my husband on the post-humous messages I wanted him to give to my friends and family. I should put together one for him.

This gives me pause for thought.

[xmas74]

49. Yes

But that's been in place for years.

I'm fascinated with death advocacy so it's a conversation my family has heard nonstop for 25 years.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

50. I know I want to be cremated, but haven't a clue

what should be done with the ashes.

Some sort of service afterwards is needed by the living, so don't stipulate no funeral. Let your survivors decide what they want to do. I've told my son I want a good old-fashioned Irish wake with lots of booze.

[Xolodno]

51. Sort of....

...my wife gets rich. She will be financially secure. As for, her, just enough for expenses and to take some leave.

Been trying to pre-pay for the eventual loss of my mom, haven't been successful with the other siblings....but, one has took a good portion of her inheritance and shoved it into an account to pay for the fateful day.

[WestLosAngelesGal]

55. I registered with ScienceCare.com to haul me away for free

I know it is legit because they did it for my mom.


After death,

Step one: Call a medical professional to come to the house and pronounce death. (In Mom's case, we called the hospice nurse to come over instead of police or ambulance. If you call 911, you will likely be held for questioning for many hours.)

Step two: Call sciencecare.com to come get the body.

Within 5 hours an unmarked white van came and got Mom. We got a nice letter from the company about how they used all of her body parts. It was completely free. Her ashes came by UPS some time later.

As far as a funeral or memorial service, that's not happening. I don't want a bunch of people gathering to remember me and then getting COVID.

[The Blue Flower]

56. I paid for cremation via Neptune society

Did it 11 years ago.
.

[RobinA]

57. Not Exactly

My father had his financial plans in good shape, but stated no preference for post-death activities because he believed that burial etc. was for the living so we should do what we thought we wanted to. My mother...planning is a crime to her. She wants her ashes spread on their property, an idea that I don't like.

When my father died half the family wanted the ash scattering and I wanted him in the cemetery where the rest of his family is. We did both, burying half of his ashes in the yard and purchasing a plot in the cemetery. When we went to buy the plot, the single plots available I, and his sister who was pro-cemetery, didn't like very much so I asked them about two plots next to each other. This yielded many more options, one of which I really liked. So I took it and decided the second plot would be mine. I paid for my plot and my mother paid for his. My sister and I came up with a headstone we could live with, and he is comfortably at rest. Besides that I have nothing. Although my affairs are somewhat organized, I don't have a will, but my biggest property is my car. Most of my cashola has beneficiaries attached.

I am in the process of getting more organized, because with zillions of passwords and several jobs with money left behind at each in 401ks and the like, things are a bit scattered. Those have been and are being consolidated.

[MissMillie]

58. My parents did years ago--back in the 90s

Planned and paid-for.

We lost Mom on 7/14.

Of course, back in the 90s, Mom and Dad didn't know that one of them would pass during a pandemic.

Mom got what she wanted, except that it was a completely private funeral because of social-distancing requirements (capacity issues in the church).

Mom's plan didn't include flowers... but my family chipped in and got some.


Other than that, there just wasn't much for us to do. That was a godsend. I'm pretty sure that I can speak for the rest of my family when I say that we were in no mental state to deal with too many details. It was tough enough just getting the word out to invitees.

[onethatcares]

60. already paid for cremation

through Neptune. Dead and gone within 3 days but they are having a back up due to corona. That won't bother me if I go first.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

61. Yes, for my oldest brother as his POA.

I suggested a plot near our parents, but he wanted cremation.

He's been blind for years, and now he struggles to communicate after several mini-strokes too. He was clear and adamant about cremation, though.