Planning for your grave

[Amos in Utsunomia 0]

I have a rather sombre experience today.

 

With the g/f at her parents house and we took a visit to their proposed cemetry site - sounds like they have already decided where they will be buried and made plans for what kind of gravestone they are having and the like. The father stood on the piece of land (in the cemetry) and said "how's this for a position then". He was quite jolly about it.

 

Not sure how things like this work back home even, but wondering if this kind of planning is normal.

[soubriquet 0]

Yes. The out-laws have it all planned and paid for. He's 90, she's 80 and both are ailing.

[bobby12 0]

by coincidence i also went to the inlaws grave site today for the first time. i was quite impressed, they have a prime spot and a big fat gravestone they just paid 135man for. the family has been in the area for many generations so all the gravestones around it were from the same family.

[Yuki's Passion 1]

no grave for me - I want my ashes spread out around the ocean around Maui. My relatives will have to go visit me there

 

My mom showed me the paper work for hers when I was home last month. Quite taken back by it when she first mentioned it as well.

[BagOfCrisps 24]

I have no idea about all this. I will ask my parents I think see what the deal is here.

 

I can imagine large sums of cash involved in all this too, right?

[HelperElfMissy 42]

My parents have all thier affairs in order and have all the required paperwork in the fire safe in thier home - my brother and I both know the code to the safe. (No cash in there - just the 'in case we die' stuff!! LOL).

 

I appreciate that they have gone to this trouble (even though they are still young and healthy) as in the traumatic event of losing them - perhaps catastrophically at the same time - I know exactly what to do, what they want and where thier assets are. To the extent that Dad has even 'party planned' his own funeral and wake down to the food, entertainment and songs to be played! Sorta takes the stress off the kids!!

 

MIL has done a prepaid simple funeral plan. Also much appreciated!

 

Papabear and I have done nothing except write wills at this stage, but it is probably high time that we did do something more formal so that the kids (or our parents) are not left with it all in the event of us hitting a tree in Niseko or something silly! LOL

 

As long as it is not a big scam I think it is a considerate thing for people to do for thier families.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

My Gran bought up a lot of plots for her and her daughters (my mum and her sisters) after my grandad died. She says there is enough space for veryone!!

[Amos in Utsunomia 0]

This may well be wrong, but from what I understood the costs go something like this

 

400,000 yen over the first 4 years (ie. from when they start reserving the place, before they die)

 

10,000 yen a year after that.

 

Doesn't include the grave itself just the 'parking space'.

[soubriquet 0]

The memsahib has been instructed to tip my ashes in the Mogami river. Cheap and easy.

[HelperElfMissy 42]

Yeah but soubs you gotta get you into that urn in the first place - and that is not cheap! (Well not in Perth).

 

The funeral costs, the casket (even a plain one) and the cremation costs add up. Add to that a wake - and I am sorry - they can skip the rest, but they better chuck a damn good party to remember me by!

 

After all those costs are done with you can do the 'tipped into the Mogami River' thing. I certainly want to be "sprinkled", but I am not sure about the location as yet - musing on donating a park bench with a memorial plaque on it overlooking Cottesloe Beach - not a bad view to spend eternity 'looking at'. Then I could be mixed into the concrete foundations of the footings for the bench. Useful to the end!

 

My mother is a 'bury me' lass, where as Dad is staunch cremation - so they have purchased one burial plot - Mum will be interned there, and Dad will have his urn of ashes buried with her - meets both thier needs and puts them both in the same location for visiting at Christmas.

[JA2340 16]

MIL was cremated and ashjes spread around the rose garden at the crematorium. That's where I'd be inclined too! Although, maybe I'll be spread around the olive trees in my grove? (or perhaps just one or two of the 400+)

[nzlegend 1]

Quote:

Each year, 22,500 cemeteries across the United States bury approximately:

 

30 million board feet (70,000 m³) of hardwoods (caskets)

90,272 tons of steel (caskets)

14,000 tons of steel (vaults)

2,700 tons of copper and bronze (caskets)

1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete (vaults)

827,060 US gallons (3,130 m³) of embalming fluid, which most commonly includes formaldehyde.

 

 

 

from http://www.naturalburial.coop/

Quote:

With a typical modern funeral, the body is laid naked on a stainless steel embalmer’s table, bled out, and pumped full of noxious chemicals to keep the body fresh. Following the viewing, the body is sealed inside a metal casket or lacquered wooden coffin lined with plush satin and adorned with beautiful brass accessories… which is then lowered into a concrete vault and buried.

 

The reinforced concrete tomb is covered with a ton of dirt, and planted with a monoculture of grass which is kept artificially green with pest and weed killer. Above ground, the local cemetery may look pastoral and natural, however, below the surface; it serves to all intents and purposes, as a landfill of hazardous wastes and non-biodegradable materials.

 

 

The whole operation will take less than a week and cost your heirs and family more than the price of a new car.

 

Across North America millions of people are given this standard, funeral home send-off each year. Outfitting each of them demands the extraction and consumption of vast amounts of resources and leaves a trail of environmental damage in its wake.

 

A ten-acre swatch of cemetery ground will contain enough coffin wood to construct more than 40 homes, nearly a thousand tons of casket steel and another twenty thousand tons of concrete for vaults. Across North America enough metal is diverted into coffin and vault production each year to build the Golden Gate Bridge, and enough concrete is used to build a two-lane highway from Toronto to Montreal… and back again.

 

Formaldehyde, the primary ingredient in embalming fluids and a potential carcinogen (on the European Union’s list for possible banning) is another concern. We bury nearly a million gallons of embalming fluid every year in North America, some of which eventually leaches out and runs into surrounding soil and groundwater. Not enough research has been done to make definitive judgments about formaldehyde’s effect on the environment; however its effect on members of the mortuary trade is clearer. Numerous studies have shown that embalmers and funeral directors exhibit a higher incidence of leukemia and cancers of the brain and colon, among other ailments.

 

Alternatively, a natural burial takes the concept of “ashes to ashes, dust to dust†to heart with a simple, natural, and meaningful alternative to the wastefulness and extravagant consumption of the traditional funeral.

 

A natural burial it’s about completing the circle of life. What could be more beautiful than to become a part of nature? Perhaps a molecule from your body will ends up in a berry that a bird eats

 

 

traditional burials are so incredibly wasteful, anyone else would be prosecuted dumping all those chemicals in the ground.

 

Cremations arent even that great, they require huge amounts of energy and release large amounts of CO2 and other pollutants.

 

They way forward is natural burials, shallow grave wrapped in a shroud in the woods with a nice tree planted on top, thats the way for me. Now to decide what tree to have planted on top, perhaps a Cabbage tree, cabbage trees rock

 

[Amos in Utsunomia 0]

So is that a cabbage tree?

[gerard 6]

Originally Posted By: SG

Hey, Isn't that Niseko?

[Amos in Utsunomia 0]

 

All interesting.