fuck thousands for a coffin. or hundreds for an urn. can i legally be burried in butcher paper?

can i donate my body to science and skip burrial all together?

i want my final action to be a big middle finger to the funeral industry picking on people in their weakest moments.

  • garbagebagel@lemmy.world
    49·
    7 days ago

    Pay a local taxidermist to stuff you so your kid/friend/partner can have you hang out in their living room. I told my mom I’m gonna have her stuffed and posed like a bear.

    Thinking about this now it makes sense why my mom picked my sister as the executor.

  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
    48·
    7 days ago

    I want my body dumped on the front steps of my least favorite living politician.

    When they return my body to my next of kin they will dump it back on the politicians’ doorstep

  • swelter_spark@reddthat.comEnglish
    21·
    6 days ago

    There are burial grounds that are basically natural parks, where you have to be buried in something biodegradable, like a shroud or pine needle basket, and no grave markers are allowed besides something like a tree or uncut rock. (Burial locations are recorded by gps.) I’d like to be buried in one of these places. Not sure what the cost is, though.

    • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
      1·
      5 days ago

      Ironically enough, it sounds expensive because it sounds like someone bought a bunch of land for that purpose to appeal to people who want to be buried naturally. Big money Maker for them.

      • swelter_spark@reddthat.comEnglish
        2·
        5 days ago

        Could be. Being buried in one of the old, forgotten cemetaries that dot the woods in some places might work. You might be able to just add an extra body there and no one would ever see or question it.

      • swelter_spark@reddthat.comEnglish
        1·
        5 days ago

        Depends on who owns the land, I guess. But they specifically mentioned wanting to be buried in just a wrap or something, which places like this let you do.

  • IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
    421·
    7 days ago

    Regardless of the final resting place after the funeral - DON’T EMBALM. They’ll pressure your family into embalming to ‘ensure the dead look their best on the day of the funeral’, but refrigeration does the exact same thing. You might think it’s more ‘dignified’, but just do a quick google at what the process entails. It’s ALL smoke and mirrors, and I’d rather have people at my funeral actually understand what my body is doing at that point - not the image of what a ‘body at rest’ looks like from Hollywood.

        • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
          1·
          4 days ago

          I wonder why they wouldn’t just cremate immediately, which makes me wonder if morgue is waiting for a moment when cremating a non-paying homeless person would be most time-and cost-efficient, horrifying I imagine that they might throw that body in with the next paying customer. You know family members are never allowed to witness a cremation of loved one, even if they’re the ones who paid the fee. So hey, morgue might as well throw in a homeless guy, make it a two-for-one deal. Because surely there are costs associated with heating up the crematorium.

  • Fondots@lemmy.world
    35·
    7 days ago

    My family has some experience with this

    My mom’s cousin was a wonderful person, her husband, however, was an enormous piece of shit in just about every way you could imagine.

    She got sick and died, he never had a funeral for her.

    Then he up and died maybe a year or so later.

    My mom was still listed as the executrix of their wills, so it fell on her to decide what to do with him.

    And she decided on nothing. Let the coroner haul his body away and never claimed it.

    After a while they cremate the remains, they hold onto them for a while to see if any other next of kin wants to claim them, then after a while they bury or scatter them somewhere if no one does.

    I’m sure the exact specifics of how that all works varies a bit from place to place, but in general that’s gonna be an option. They can’t exactly force you to pay for a funeral you don’t want, and the local government has some plan on dealing with bodies no one wants to pony up for a funeral for (otherwise there’d be a lot of corpses of homeless people and such piling up in a freezer somewhere)

    • viking@infosec.pub
      6·
      6 days ago

      They can’t exactly force you to pay for a funeral you don’t want.

      Where I’m at that’s exactly how it works. Even if you don’t accept the inheritance, funeral expenses are owed by the next of kin (jointly if there’s more than one in equal lineage).

      They might not be able to force you to conduct the funeral, but they will enforce the costs regardless. If there’s an estate left, the next of kin can claim it back from the estate though, if somebody further down the line accepted the inheritance.

      • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.oneEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        Depending on your jurisdiction, the State will act as the Estate Administrator. The State will liquadate all assets and deduct any expenses (funeral, taxes, etc). The money will then sit in a trust account waiting for be claimed.

    • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      6·
      7 days ago

      interesting. im guessing the parties that op has beef with still get paid in this scenario, though. they get paid with state money

      • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
        2·
        6 days ago

        Would the bodies really be at a funeral home though? Maybe like during covid when they were running out of space in some locations but generally I think it only gets sent to a business if the paperwork is done. Would be weird to just start sending random bodies to different funeral homes across the cities every time someone dies. (I have no idea btw)

  • MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    34·
    7 days ago

    My body is going to a medical school, to be used for student dissection. Once they are finished with it, it will be cremated. My relatives can have the ashes if they want, otherwise it will be disposed of. My name will go up on a plaque in a special memorial garden. It was pretty easy to organise, just a matter of signing consent forms with a witness. Family are ok with it.

    There’s a chance my body will be rejected - infectious, too mangled, whatever - and in that case it’s bounced back to family to deal with. I favour forest burial wrapped in an old bedsheet.

      • MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        11·
        7 days ago

        I searched the university website for “body donation” and got a phone number and email address (dept of biomedical sciences).

        There was a lot of info to read about what will happen. I had to let my doctor know so it’s on my medical record, and my best pal is down as the contact person. He has a phone number to ring so they can come and fetch my body asap, and decide if it’s suitable.

        What inspired me was a documentary I saw years ago that interviewed a man who’d signed up for donation, then showed the process after he’d died, including dissection (from a distance). They also interviewed the students. It was very moving.

        • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
          3·
          6 days ago

          Just as a curious follow-up, did they go into what would happen if your body is rejected or is there already a back-up plan in place?

          • MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            4·
            6 days ago

            Well then it’s “as you were” - back to your executor/family/friends to decide what to do. I personally don’t care. I’ll be dead, and I’ve done my best to avoid the fuss and expense.

  • OddMinus1@sh.itjust.works
    7·
    6 days ago

    Do a viking funeral. You know, that ceremony where you are sent out in a boat and a fire arrow is fired into the boat so it burns down while floating into the sunset.

    But skip the boat. Have someone chuck you into the ocean and shoot arrows at you until you sink.