"New idea in mortuary science: Dissolving bodies with lye "

New?

If this isn't somch bullshit I don't know what is. I am sorry but a dead body is sacred and should not be disgraced. What is up with people anyways?? Bunch of sad sacks of shit if You ask Me.

Larry Mohr

Good... hell when i'm dead why would i care. Shit you could shove a hambone up my ass,let the wild dogs drag me away. DEAD is DEAD

The coffee-colored liquid has the consistency of motor oil and a strong ammonia smell.

Sounds like Starbucks is already offering this option.

OK Jeff! We'll let your wife know how you want to be dealt with when you die.

Just makee sure to keep a big enough ham bone around.....

As per their wishes my mom and biological father were buried. My sister, who passed away a couple of weeks ago, chose cremation.

As I've scattered my sister's ashes - going down the list of places she requested - I'm struck by how much more meaningful (let alone helpful to the plants and flowers) cremation is.

The only bummer so far is that one place Beverly requested scattered ashes was at Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers. I went there a week ago Saturday and scattered vials on the outfield when they held an 'onfield clinic'. The Tigers haven't been doing so well at home.

Next stops: The Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico in a couple of weeks.

I had liquid death once in Holland. But they spelled it A`B`S``Y`N`T`H

What about soylent green?

"What about soylent green?"

Posted by Crackpipejunkie

What an original idea.

Time to turn off the Xeons and turn on the Linn.

I want to be buried in my back garden so I can fertilize my hostas. There is nothing better for plants than rotting flesh.

My Grandfather owned a small town funeral home in rural Georgia and for several years I worked around the business and probably saw more than I should have for a kid of my age. Things have really changed since then. Down south in those days, cremation was viewed by most people as being disrespectful at best and satanic at worst. It took several years before it was really accepted. But I think that the dissolving of a loved one's body is going to be a hard sell. No urn or gravesite, no place of fond memory where the ashes are scattered, just seems too damned cold to me.

FF for 726 and LBD!


When I go I want to be in a sequend gown and on the red carpet--

And when I fall to the ground I want my dress to stay down!

I don't mind cremation--can they send my ashes to deep space?

Murphy

Ok why would anyone want to be buried in someplace other than a cemetery with their family members?? Can someone explain that one to Me??

Larry Mohr

Larry - this is really easy for me. My ancestors are all buried in a tiny church yard in Warton, England. Curiously enough alongside the ancestors of George Washington cause that is where his family was from (Google it) I would go for a marker in the church yard, but in reality I want my body to rest where I have felt the most peace, where my soul feels that it is at home. That is in my garden here in NC where my lizards can run over me, where my butterflies can feed on the flowers that grow on me, where my dragonflies can dance over my grave.

Boy I am at a loss for words. Thanks for Your answer LBD. Helps greatly.

Larry Mohr

I think family and friends should respect the final wishes of the deceased in regard to what is to be done with the body.

That being said, very recently I attended a funeral service (a Catholic mass) for the mother of a friend. She was cremated. I must say the service had a very different feel from one in which their was a casket that held the body.

Usually at the funerals that I have been to, when the services begin the immediate family walks on the side of the casket as it is brought into the place for the service. The sight of seeing these loved ones in procession with the body of he or she who has passed has a very real emotional impact on those present. Though the life force is gone from the body, one still is acutely aware of a physical presence and the family around this person for the last time.

I had no real sense or similar emotional response like this with an urn filled with ashes.

Moreover, while in the past I have considered choosing cremation and the spreading of ashes rather than a casket and interment, I have realized since the passing of some loved ones how important it is for the family and those remaining to have a physical space and marker for the loved one. When I visit the grave site, I am rationally aware that the person I knew, his or her body, the atoms that made it up, are still in proximity. That knowledge has a profound emotional impact for me.

Anyway, sorry about babbling on. These thoughts have been going through my head since that recent funeral; it was nice (cathartic?) to articulate them

Cheers

No urn or gravesite ....

Posted by Jawjaboy at 2008-05-09 10:16 PM | Reply

No, but you could have a Thermos.

Grendel-
That's the only post of yours I've ever read where the "Cheers" at the end didn't come across as a smug and insouciant insult.

We do this thing called Chumming. Works real well. And if your lucky you get to pack some Mako in the freezer.

No seriously, I have a six acre cemetery literally in my front yard. It's has the oldest dated headstones on the island. They still bury people there every few years. The last one to go in was cremated. They still used a full plot and a headstone ten times the size of the vault.

I watched a movie tonight that was set, in part, in India. A young boy died, and the they showed a scene of the father preparing his body for the funeral pyre. Then they showed a scene of the pyre being prepared. They didn't show a scene of the body being burned but cut to a scene of the father fainting afterwards. I was also put in mind of another film I saw in which the dead bodies were taken up to the top of a mountain where birds of prey devour the remains. No casket, no grave site, no marker. Only memory and the spirit remained, for those who believe in such things.

In her book Long Quiet Highway,, Natalie Goldber writes about the death of her spiritual teacher, Katagiri Roshi. Four months after his death, she went to Plum Village to study with Thich Nhat Hanh. She told him how much she missed her teacher and asked, "Where can I find my teacher now?" He responded: "I knew Katagiri. . . .He was a great man. For two summers, I invited him to Plum Village. He could not make it. . . .He made it here this summer. You can find him here. In the trees. In the birds. He's here now."

"I am sorry but a dead body is sacred and should not be disgraced."

Unless it's the dead body of a fetus.

Grendel-
That's the only post of yours I've ever read where the "Cheers" at the end didn't come across as a smug and insouciant insult.

Posted by BetelG


What?


The guy may very well be the most civil poster on the DR.

Tibetan sky burial.

Yep, that was it. Thanks, Doc.

Gal - Incorporated into creation seems to be the idea behind it. Sounds terribly gruesome at first, but in terms of the idea behind it, not so much so.

No one need no stinking dead body. Just dispose it anyway convenient. And respectful.

I'm hoping to graduate from this deteriorating body one day --- and gain a spiritual body and go to heaven.

That's the only post of yours I've ever read where the "Cheers" at the end didn't come across as a smug and insouciant insult.

Wow, there must be filter out there on the internet that filters out tone.

If I remember at first I used it at the end to indicate that even if we disagree and get heated--no harm, no foul.

Now, in my mind it is just a throwaway signature line.

Oh, well.


Um, Cheers.

" I'm hoping to graduate from this deteriorating body one day --- and gain a spiritual body and go to heaven."

Posted by takitez


Hope all you want.
You're still toast.
Deal with it.

Zatoichi - Methinks you are probably of an age where you'll recall the hubbub over Max Ehrmann's "Desiderata" -

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Which was countered by Tony Hendra's "Deteriorata" -

You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
Whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back

The human body is subject to aging and decay. I think they call it entropy, a result of thermodynamics.

But the spirit is eternal. Either you enter heaven by way of Jesus (John 14:6), or you spend eternity away from heaven. The spirit world.

Jesus proved resurrection by resurrecting. No reincarnation for the human race. No mortal gets a second chance to come back on earth.

My makeshift will has specific instructions as to how to carry out my Viking funeral.. I am not Scandinavian in the slightest, but what a way to go..

Close, but they have to send it to sea and shoot it with flaming arrows (boat doused in white gas).. But that pic would work too.. Close enough...

It sounds as if these people are drifting away from "green" recycling concepts. What ever happened to soylent green?

Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2008-05-10 09:50 AM

And?

I'm not very religious, so I fail to see what is so sacred about a dead body, isnt it the immortal soul that counts? Is there somekind of bible quote someone could thumb me with?

I can see this becoming very popular or almost law in the future due to land being needed to grow food or for some other living human use.

I remember some show one time on TLC or Discovery about how in China people are only buried for a few years to allow for major decay, then they are dug up and the remains cremated and stored in a mosulleum(spelling?) with thousands of other urns.

They will be doing that here, its just a matter of time.

Funerals are for the mourners.

Graveyards are for the living.

The dead are dead and no longer care.

Is there somekind of bible quote someone could thumb me with?

I am sure that somebody here will find you one that in some convoluded way tells you how to ought to be disposed of..

"Sounds like Starbucks is already offering this option."

FF 726

although I think it may improve on starbucks.

The human body is subject to aging and decay. I think they call it entropy, a result of thermodynamics.
But the spirit is eternal. Either you enter heaven by way of Jesus (John 14:6), or you spend eternity away from heaven. The spirit world.
Jesus proved resurrection by resurrecting. No reincarnation for the human race. No mortal gets a second chance to come back on earth.
Posted by takitez at 2008-05-10 09:51 AM

Wouldn't it be hilarious to discover that preserved bodies are re-animatable up to seven days after death? Might even save on cremation costs if you could just walk home.

Creepy. That's my first impression. Creepy.

Another option that I heard of
www.lifegem.com
Posted by danni at 2008-05-10 04:02 PM

Wow.. not sure exactly what to make of it, but part of me finds that exquisite, even beautiful.

I definitely do not want to be wasted on burial or liquification - use every viable bit on the living, then let medical students enjoy the rest, but to be made into a tiara or at least a set of earrings.. wow! Natural disasters would put DeBeers out of business!:]