When you die do you want to be buried or cremated?

[Chris OConnor]

When you die do you want to be buried or cremated?

Do you have an opinion on this matter or is my asking the question your first reason to consider it? Would you rather be buried or cremated? Explain your reasoning too.

[Chris OConnor]

Tonight I read an article that said that more and more people are opting to be cremated these days. I believe the number was about 26% that opt for being cremated. This is interesting to me and I couldn't help but wonder what you guys thought of the question.

Personally, I'm wanting to be cremated. The whole idea of having my dead body laying around decomposing is rather disgusting. I'd rather be cooked into ashes for some reason...I can't really explain it. What are your thoughts? Why do you think you feel that way? Does your religion have an influence on your desire to be either cremated or buried?

[Ophelia]

I want to be cremated (of course) and so do other people in my family.
This is what more and more people are choosing in France.
I think it's mainly people who do not have strong religious beliefs, as religions in France are associated with the tradition of burial.

I want to be cremated for the reasons you mentioned (rotting, etc...) but also because this makes more sense: in countries where space is not unlimited we have a problem of space in cemetaries, so I'm happy not to increase the problem by being cremated.

Sometimes the situation can be cruel: you buy a concession for one or several people in your family, but this is only for 50 years. A friend of mine, whose mother died when she was a child, had to suffer the torture of a second burial when the fifty year concession expired and her mother's remains were taken to a second cemetary.

[Penelope]

I certainly don't want to be buried and risk contaminating the earth. To me our dead bodies are just our old clothes.....should be burned.

But for at least forty years I have told my family that I would like my body to be wrapped in a piece of chintz.....and thrown into the sea for the fishes to have a feast. I have eaten enough of them in my life, being a great fish lover. Yes I would like a burial at sea. For preference I would like to be thrown into the River Mersey........but they don't let you do that now.....so I have a lovely picture of my family sailing out into the night on the Mersey Estuary, to surrepticiously scatter my ashes......that would be very apt....

Birth is not the beginning of us and death is not the end of us....

[tarav]

I want to be cremated. I have never liked the idea of going to a grave. I certainly don't want people crying at my grave and putting down flowers or blankets. I think that without the obligatory morose visits to the grave people might remember happier times with the deceased instead of focusing on their death. I cremated my mom and put her ashes in the NJ ocean, where she loved to spend time. That might be where I go too.

[Audrey]

I want to be cremated as well as everyone else on this board (even though, I wish I wanted to be buried, so there could be more discussion, oh discussion ) I just don't agree with the costs of all the burial concessions. I don't want my family to have to go in debt. This process is also a little simpler and I like to believe that the grieving process will be a easier to handle.

[Ophelia]

One of those annoying things about the consumer society-- I've heard that in France you are charged the same for a cremation as a burial, it made me think they probably din't want to lose money as more of their customers are opting for a cremation.

Also you have to be cremated in a coffin - if you think you'd like things simple and no wood wasted for example you can't win.

[Penelope]

We can get cardboard (ecologically sound) coffins.....

I'd still rather be dropped into the sea and not float!!!!

[Constance963]

I voted creamation as well. I know it seems silly since I'll be dead and won't care, but I don't like the thought of rotting away either or the thought of being in the coffin buried underground. I think it may come from seeing people buried alive in movies and I feel clausterphobic just thinking about it. I don't want people coming and crying at a grave, burial plots are expensive...all that adds up to creamation for me.

[Penelope]

I can remember, some many years ago, being in a 'Housewives' meeting and this young woman saying that her first child had died and been buried in Lincolnshire (I think). She was now living in Cheshire...so she was grieving that his grave was unattended....it would look as though no one cared.....she wished she had opted for cremation.

A case for dropping in the sea or cremation I think....because the days when we stayed living in the same village or town for generations and could visit the graves....have long gone.

Funerals and graves..... are about the comfort for the living....the souls of the departed are somewhere else....moving on.