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I know this may be uncomfortable......most of people do not discuss the same because we fear death. Well, I am making choices now on how I would like things to go. I may live four years or I may be gone in six months, but I want to relieve my wife of having to worry about choices, and I want to do it now when I am reasonably still healthy and have a sense of humor.
First, nobody in my family has been cremated. I never considered it because well as my family is mostly lutheran, baptist, and catholic I grew up going to funerals and looking at bodies in caskets. I remember the horror as a 10 year old looking at my father in the casket with autopsies scars barely being covered by make up. I had been to other funerals before that......but they were old people who I was related to and it just seemed like a bizarre ritual to a child, but what you learn as a child is usually what you have expectations. I remember like it was yesterday being about five years old and seeing one of those old bodies in a casket in a small rural church in Alabama. I remember immediately after the funeral, they took the body across the dirt road and they had dug a hole in this bright red clay, and then I remember in horror not understanding why they were putting the man in the hole......but that was my first child like experience....and almost 60 years later those memories are vivid.
So, now my simple choice. I want to be cremated. I am in the process of prepaying for the same. I want to have a simple memorial service in the basement of a gym where I ran volunteer youth programs for 15 years. It has a kitchen area and can seat a couple of hundred. I am going to start selecting photos, and actually Eric talking about where his father grew up started my wife and I having fun going through the boxes of old photos.......this has really turned out to be humorous and fun, and finally I think I will run a few music videos which will quietly be running when people go by the table of photos.......and here is one of my first selections:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_tcE4rWovI
It is the simple joy of children which have given me the most pleasure in my life and the positive human spirit which gives me hope, but I still have a problem.........I really do not like the idea of a grave and marker.....at least not the traditional ones, and I really would like to put a simple marker and have my ashes spread on the islands I own in a Midwest River (officially this would not happen) and I would pretend to remain in a vase on the fireplace mantle.....wink wink......but I would like to simply build a base and take a two or three foot maple and using a chain saw do a sculpture......I need to work on this in the spring, but I have gone brain dead on what to sculpt.....I need suggestions. I have suggested a phallic symbol to my wife just to irritate her, but really I have no wood sculpting talent....so I am looking for something very easy and doable.
First, nobody in my family has been cremated. I never considered it because well as my family is mostly lutheran, baptist, and catholic I grew up going to funerals and looking at bodies in caskets. I remember the horror as a 10 year old looking at my father in the casket with autopsies scars barely being covered by make up. I had been to other funerals before that......but they were old people who I was related to and it just seemed like a bizarre ritual to a child, but what you learn as a child is usually what you have expectations. I remember like it was yesterday being about five years old and seeing one of those old bodies in a casket in a small rural church in Alabama. I remember immediately after the funeral, they took the body across the dirt road and they had dug a hole in this bright red clay, and then I remember in horror not understanding why they were putting the man in the hole......but that was my first child like experience....and almost 60 years later those memories are vivid.
So, now my simple choice. I want to be cremated. I am in the process of prepaying for the same. I want to have a simple memorial service in the basement of a gym where I ran volunteer youth programs for 15 years. It has a kitchen area and can seat a couple of hundred. I am going to start selecting photos, and actually Eric talking about where his father grew up started my wife and I having fun going through the boxes of old photos.......this has really turned out to be humorous and fun, and finally I think I will run a few music videos which will quietly be running when people go by the table of photos.......and here is one of my first selections:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_tcE4rWovI
It is the simple joy of children which have given me the most pleasure in my life and the positive human spirit which gives me hope, but I still have a problem.........I really do not like the idea of a grave and marker.....at least not the traditional ones, and I really would like to put a simple marker and have my ashes spread on the islands I own in a Midwest River (officially this would not happen) and I would pretend to remain in a vase on the fireplace mantle.....wink wink......but I would like to simply build a base and take a two or three foot maple and using a chain saw do a sculpture......I need to work on this in the spring, but I have gone brain dead on what to sculpt.....I need suggestions. I have suggested a phallic symbol to my wife just to irritate her, but really I have no wood sculpting talent....so I am looking for something very easy and doable.
