Pure Cremation is body disposal right?

[josephiine]

The advert makes it sound like it’s a lovely thing and saves money. I get that it’s cheaper but surely that’s because it is literally a body disposal service?
My FIL has just planned his, he asked my husband if he minds which he doesn’t, but it got us talking, am I missing anything?

My DM wants one of these, but we are Irish where there is a whole process round funerals, bringing the body home, a wake, the mass and then a reception. Her family would think I hated my mother if I followed her wishes. The scandal would be something else.

We had this done for a relative, then had a funeral service at the grave side as we buried the ashes. It was lovely.

so you will go against your mother's expressed wishes because of "what people will think"?

Not necessarily. Pure Cremation use solid wood; private funeral directors use either cardboard or plywood.

why would you shut it down if it was what she wanted?

Because I'll be the one trying to explain this to a gang of elderly friends and relatives who won't get to grieve as expected as she won't let them have that experience. If she want this, she can tell everyone.

It's not so much a matter of 'what people will think' than, I don't know, the equivalent of saying in the UK 'Actually, we're not having a burial or a cremation for Mum -- we're having a sky burial!*'

*[old Tibetan practice where you ritually dismember a corpse and put the pieces out on a rock for vultures to eat, which makes sense in a country where above the treeline there's no much fuel to use for a cremation or enough soil to bury deep enough for a body not to be scavenged]

well that's fair.

yes I know what sky burial is. Its illegal in the UK

I’d be up for a sky burial, I love vultures!

My hubby has opted for leaving his body to the local University. We have all the paperwork and when he passes away (assuming he is first) I have to ring a number and they collect within 3 hours of his death.
We talked about it for a long time as it was something he wanted but I feel it may seem a bit odd getting closure after his death.

A very good local funeral director does this as well but family are welcome to attend the crem and watch the hearse arrive and be unloaded etc and you can also have flowers and the music of your choice. The funeral director also does a reading. I think with some of these national companies you just get chucked in a van and can be driven anywhere in the country.

We don't have the birds, or the high spaces to do it in the UK.....but yes, its clean and eco friendly.

But that's the kind of "normal" cremation funeral my late husband had except we had a car because I didn't feel I could drive. It wasn't a simple or "pure type" cremation and it cost what a cremation cost at the time.

Apparently they don't have the birds in asia any more either - or at least not in anything like the numbers they once did

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/04/vulture-shortage-threatens-zoroastrian-burial-rites-india-iran-pakistan

Yes. I think most of us realise it’s illegal in the UK. Not least because of the lack of appropriate mountain tops, ritual body-breakers and vultures.

The van wasn’t empty when it arrived to pick up a relative, more like a minibus for the dead.

Apologies for not replying sooner…although. I thought it was a known thing that the Pure Crem van has more than one passenger.

I think this is because they are dotted around the country so do a run of collections. Working in community care and that's how it was described to me.

So do those used by some "local" funeral directors

We used such a one for my mum - they have about 5 branches - and they too use a regional mortuary hub which collects the deceased, does the embalming then brings the deceased across to local funeral directors when there's a viewing

I linked such a hub upthread and it's certainly not just Pure Cremation who use what many seem to think of as "warehouses"

2 of my older sisters have said they want Direct Cremation. It actually makes me feel a bit sad because I recall the funerals of my parents and 2 Aunties and we got to speak and also to hear people say lovely things about them. I think that would be nicer for their DC but obviously their choice.

My dad had a Pure Cremation. We held a celebration of his life. I spoke and one of his neighbours spoke. It was a lovely occasion.

Why would anyone be embalmed if they were being cremated?

It's that fear about the ashes that has made me decide I'll have a direct cremation organised by an established undertaker rather than via Pure Cremation. They all seem to be slightly cheaper than PC too.

Really? Do you know how quickly a body goes off after death?