Would you prefer to be buried or cremated?

[givemepastaplease]

I have thought about this a lot and I really don't know what I want and the pros and cons of each option. I really want to make a decision and tell my husband and children so they know for whenever the time comes (hopefully in many, many years) rather than them not knowing and having to make that decision for me. So I've come on here to ask - which would you prefer and why?

Cremated.

I like the idea of a funeral pyre, but understand that crematoriums are more practical in a dense society.

The idea of being buried in a box horrifies me.
I could possibly accept a burial if there is no embalming and no container, just enough cloth wrapping for practicality. I wouldn’t want a headstone or anything like that though. I guess part of it is the idea of people taking up real estate when they are gone. We are supposed to give back to the earth, not claim a spot.

My Dad’s family are Jewish and the cemetery was very important to them so pretty much every weekend we’d spend an hour there visiting relatives. My cousins and I made a game out of finding the oldest grave and creeping each other out. I told my DH this a few weeks ago and he said it was super weird . We just used to have to visit ‘relatives’, my Gran would sit by my Grandad’s grave talking to him for a while.

Sorry should have said I’d rather be cremated. I saw some awfully overgrown old graves, no one alive remembered them.

I want to be cremated and my ashes put in a long barrow.

I lean towards a direct cremation but I suppose those who I leave behind may feel differently. Weirdly, I couldn’t face the idea of cremating any of my pets when they died, all are buried.

The awful sight of a huge hose from a water pump hastily pulled and poorly hidden when my fil was buried in the existing grave with his wife (mil) is something I really hope my dh and sil have forgotten in their grief. The thought of a flooded grave is not pleasant. Never ever encountered this in any burials I have attended over the years.

To be crude, I don’t care because I’ll be dead so what does it matter to me 🤷🏼‍♀️

Some good points on here. Definitely something I will have to think about more still thank you for sharing your views

Burial for me, with my archaeologist hat on that's more interesting long term.

Cremation seems a drawn out thing really- service, leave, small talk at wake, go back several days later, collect ashes, organise getting them in the ground. It's not done in a day and I find them emotionally tougher for that reason.

Service, burial, wake, done is neat to my mind. Even better if it's church, churchyard burial, wake. I won't care if anyone visits, or maintains it, I quite like the unkempt look, and we can't be remembered forever.

I am happy for my loved ones to decide on the most ecologically responsible choice at the time, but they know that the environmental bit matters.

Cremated and my ashes scattered in my favourite place, which is noted in my funeral plan. It's a bit of a climb to get there and I went and took photographs there last August. I had a stroke in June last year and recovered well enough to do the climb but may not be strong enough to do it again. My late husband's ashes are mostly in a large heavy garden planter in my garden. Some of his parent's ashes are in there too. I feel that I can sit outside and chat to him which is comforting. I suppose some of my ashes could be added to it if my children would like to do that.

It matters not one bit. I am hardly going to be around to experience it.

@WhoWants2Know

I wish there was an option to be fed to zoo animals or turned to cat food or something.

Apparently Ricky Gervais wanted this but London Zoo said no!

Cremation. I don’t like earthworms 🪱 and the thought of them wiggling around me gives me the creeps.

Not bothered.

They can use my head as a doorstop and my arse as a bike park for all I care.

Cremated. I've attended many exhumations as a cemetery manager and I know just how truly awful bodies can become when buried. Not for me, thank you.

@Crapbuttrue

Buried. It's more eco friendly.

This.

In order of preference : natural /green burial in just a shroud. Swift decomposition, useful to animals, insects, soil etc.
Sky burial again over with quickly, have benefited the ecosystem.
Conventional cremation, no site to tie children down. Not good at all environmentally
Conventional burial in churchyard. This is the finale for most of my family. I never questioned it until my mother died, when I was most unhappy to discover issues with chemical use, unethical wood for coffins, unnaturally delayed rates of decomposition due to being in a treated wooden box. Having said that, having a family plot with nice solid gravestones to visit is quite nice. I really wish it was possible to have a natural burial in a graveyard but we were told it wasn't.

@SlightlyJaded

I have been wondering about a Body Farm. It sounds gross but you'd be exposed to the elements, helping science and once you've decomposed, they give you a woodland cremation. But I am pretty sure the kids wouldn't cope with that. So whatever helps them I guess.

This is very interesting!

I prefer cremation and ashes fired out of a rocket over the sea

Cremation seems a drawn out thing really- service, leave, small talk at wake, go back several days later, collect ashes, organise getting them in the ground. It's not done in a day and I find them emotionally tougher for that reason.

Only because of the cold, detached, Victorian approach we take to cremation. Open air cremation is totally different and imo better for the grieving and healing process for those left behind.

Cremated. I live near a big cemetery and there are a lot of old graves that no-one looks after and I think it's really sad there's no one to look after them anymore. I am going to try and leave some money so whoever gets to scatter my ashes can do it on a massively big trip round the world and leave pieces of me wherever they visit.

Actually the lion's don't like eating comedians anyway.
They taste funny.

Buried. I don't particularly like the idea of being burnt to ash - i'd rather at least still be something.

Cremated. I have a fear of being buried alive!

I want a natural burial. I don't know what it is about crematorims but I just don't like them. I find them horrible soulless places and they're like conveyor belt. The next funeral party arrived before the next has even left. We do actually have some grave plots in a local church because we were tenant farmers there. But natural burial appeals to me. I like the idea of being at one with nature and I'm not bothered about having a tended grave.