Eco-friendly funeral/burial

[gja1000]

How weird Betsi, that Mike would say that TODAY as we are having this conversation.

Diana, you were talking about how funeral homes take advantage of grieving families and that is so true. Gary's mom died very unexpectedly back in the early 80's. The family was so shocked they couldn't make very good decisions. I saw the same thing happen to them at the funeral home. It was just awful. They paid for a funeral and things they had no money for. I don't know how it was ever paid off. I swore I would never allow that to happen to my family. My daughter knows I'd like to have my body donated to science, but since it is weird for her, I told her to do whatever she wanted with me, but NOT to spend a lot of money. Since she went through this with her dad, she understands what to do and not to do, so it will be OK. If she wants to bury me, that's fine, if she wants to cremate me that's fine too. I think though I will tell her if she wants to bury me, I'd like to go the "green" route. I didn't even know such a thing existed!

[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/