It says so much when a working family can't even afford to bury the dead

[SheilaT]

141. My mother, who had been a nurse,

made plans a good twenty years before her death to have her body go to the local medical school to be a dissection cadaver. We had a small service for her at a funeral home -- she wasn't a churchgoer so that wasn't an option -- and then food afterwards back at her house.

About a year after she died her cremated remains were sent to me. It took several more years, but eventually we were able to scatter her ashes in a location that she'd wanted.

Aside from the fact that this was exactly what she chose, there were almost no expenses connected to any of this. Whatever small fee the funeral home charged for an hour or so there, and that was it. Well, there was the cost of food after, but again that wasn't very much. I don't think as many as twenty people were there, including her six children and a couple of spouses. She'd been retired for nearly twenty years and led a quiet life, so there simply weren't that many people to attend a service.

In your friend's case, I don't know if donating her body at this point is even an option. There are many people that would feel creeped out at the thought of mom being dissected. For us, we'd known for years that's what our mom wanted, and we were all fine with that.