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.)

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.

Exactly. That is what is so heartbreaking about this case. Terri surely didn't want the court battles and hatred between her husband and her parents.

edit to note cool number in the midst of massive xposting

I've been pretty explicit with my family and loved ones, and will continue to do so, as well as, as Jen suggests, putting it in writing.

I suppose I'd settle for being turned into diamonds or perhaps fertilizer, but really? I very much want to be shot into space. I'm hopiing one of the side benefits of the X-1 project is that this gets to be done cheaply and easily by the time I kick.

coffin-shaped gemstone.

If I stick with my exercise plan for three more weeks, I'm getting a 10 carat garnet one as my "Hurrah! Exercised for two months in a row!" reward.

JSw, it might be called a "health care proxy" or something like that in other places; it's a legally-binding document saying that if you can't make medical decisions anymore, Person X is the one who can. And when Person X signs that piece of paper that details all the things you want/don't want, that's what they're legally obligated to do/not do.

I'm not an expert in this area, but my understanding is that in this jurisdiction, only a power of attorney will execute the powers you are describing. In spite of a push by a previous government, few people here were prepared to set up powers of attorney without existing circumstances that required them.

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.

Except in circumstances where people don't get all of the necessary loved ones in the room to talk about the contents of the Living Will, which I would guess includes many people. I know I'm the executor of my parents' actual wills. I have no idea what the contents are.

Opposite for me. I want all my nutrients in the soil and the worms in the ground. Why waste them by burning it up?

Hec has a point. I suppose they could throw my naked body into a cardboard or fiberboard coffin and bury me in an unmarked grave or something, so the land could still have other uses.