Eco-friendly funeral/burial

[Janet]

I guess the green burial is becominbmore and more popular. There are only a few green cemeteries here in Indian, but one just happens to be near Lafayette and thTs not far from us at all.

[gja1000]

http://www.walletblog.com/2010/04/ar...ost-effective/

This is a link to some info on green burials.

[DianaB]

Here's an interesting site on home burial. In Indiana and Texas you have to have a funeral home director but in 44 other states you don't have to. I can't imagine living in town and having my neighbor bury his wife in the back yard!!!

http://www.ehow.com/info_7817474_law...-property.html

[Lindsey]

Since I just went to a funeral yesterday, I have been thinking about it (you never know when it might happen!) and I want to talk to Scott about what I want. We don't have wills yet, but we will do that after we're married. So weird that this thread is here today!

I think the natural burial is a great idea. Nothing lasts forever, and all the chemicals not only in the body, but even in the coffin, don't need to be leaking into the soil. There is enough contamination on earth as it is!

On top of that, I've been thinking of how I want my funeral to be. I found out yesterday that my family and Scott's family do funerals WAY differently. For Scott's grandmother's funeral yesterday, we had to be at the funeral home 3 hours before the funeral in the church. We spent probably at least an hour in a room with the open coffin. Everyone was bawling and it was really tough for me to sit through. I was trying to comfort Scott and his mom and his aunts but it really got to me too, and I just needed to get out of there. I can not sit there and look at the dead body of a woman I used to know for an hour. Maybe some people need that for closure, but I know I do not want my family's last memory of me to be my lifeless body in a casket. It was really tough. The whole day just seemed so long and drawn out and I've never been to a funeral that was so somber. Everyone was just dragged down and focusing on death all day long.

Of course funerals are sad, but every funeral I've been to in my family has been a short service, usually including funny stories from the person's life and remembering how they were when they were alive, and later we would visit with family and remember the good times and talk and laugh! That's how I want it to be when I go. I don't want to make people so upset!

[DianaB]

I think that each family's funeral services are different. It sometimes depends on how sudden the death was. If the person died suddenly and no one got to say their good-byes then it's a lot harder than if they were sick or expected to die.

For me and other Christians there is the expectation of Heaven and seeing each other again. That makes a difference in funeral services for me.

Personally, I want a "Celebration of Life" service when I go. I'm going to be in Heaven and I want people to celebrate that I'm there!!!

For my Dad's funeral I had people wear bright colors......because we weren't celebrating his death......we were celebrating his life. I didn't want anything to be morbid or sad. It was still hard to tell him good-bye. I placed a card in the casket with my Dad telling him how much I loved him and that I would always be a "Daddy's girl" and my brother put a couple of cigarettes and matches in his pocket because my Dad wouldn't give up smoking. We had a laugh over that one!!

[gja1000]

Sorry the above link doesn't go to the page about eco friending burials. I'm going to try another link - hope it works, but if it doesn't I googled eco-friendly funerals austin, tx and the link came up - it's actually on a site called WalletBlog.

http://www.walletblog.com/2010/04/ar...ost-effective/

[gja1000]

Diana, your dad's funeral sounds so perfect! Thanks so much for sharing that with us. that is exactly what I would want!

[Lindsey]

Diana, I think your dad's funeral sounds like a wonderful celebration of his life! That is exactly what I want... don't think about me being DEAD, think of how much fun we had together when we were alive! Memories will last forever. I love that you got to have a little laugh that day. I think that makes all the difference.