I wonder if you could ask for custom stone shapes from LifeGem? Because, yes, I would want my ashes turned into a coffin-shaped gemstone.

That should answer the question "Who's the gothiest of them all?"

I dunno about your jurisdiction, but a Living Will is about as legally binding as a horoscope in this province.

I think even when it is not binding, it is useful, because it makes families talk about it. In a case like the Schiavo one, it would have meant her husband, her mother, and her father each would have known what she wanted, and would have each known the other knew, too. If you get all the arguments out of the way, while you are still able to make your case, the odds are better that, assuming they're half decent, your family will do what you want with fewer arguments and less hatred.

That should answer the question "Who's the gothiest of them all?"

Definitively. Though the person who wore the Jilli-coffin-gemstone would certainly be getting points.

You get free health care. Quitcher bitchin.

Not any more! The current provincial government inherited a big deficit from the previous "fiscally responsible" neo-conservative gang of thugs, so they have instituted a temporary Healthcare Premium (aka hidden tax) that everyone has to pay. Of course, it is about two hundred bucks and change for many taxpayers, but will double next year.

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Use anything useful and burn the rest. When I am finished with this body I dislike the notion of it being put in a box in the ground.

coffin-shaped gemstone.

Oooooo.

I think even when it is not binding, it is useful, because it makes families talk about it.

Yes. Those conversations should be had by everyone, and should be repeated as needed.

When I am finished with this body I dislike the notion of it being put in a box in the ground.

Opposite for me. I want all my nutrients in the soil and the worms in the ground. Why waste them by burning it up? If everybody did cremation there'd be no cool skeletons and mummies!

Though the person who wore the Jilli-coffin-gemstone would certainly be getting points.

My poor, poor godchildren.

"Okay, kids! Time to go visit your godmother, so she can decide which one of you is Goth Enough to wear her ashes as sparkly thing."

"Mo-ooom! Do we *have* to? She's going to start talking about how in HER day you had to spend hours dying your hair, instead of just using the matter transformer. I hate that."

We keep discussing the whole will/living will thing, and bogging down on the fact there's really no one in either family who's ideally suited to raise Annabel if both of us were gone. Everyone is too old or too young or too poor if we couldn't arrange to die with enough wealth/insurance to completely provide for her through her undergrad education. And I'm not sure how well it'd go over in the family to leave her in the care of a relatively distant relative (one of my grown nieces or nephews as opposed to one of our brothers) just because they'd raise her to vote Democrat.

When I am finished with this body I dislike the notion of it being put in a box in the ground.

Me too, seriously. Why waste the land? Why waste the money? Why have your corpse rotting slowly in a coffin designed to delay the inevitable decay?

(Those are rhetorical questions that reflect how I feel about it - I recognize that others feel differently.)