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.

I have found the wakes and funerals I have been to, to be useful to me, as a mourner. It sort of finishes it off. All three of my children went to my father's wake--but a little early, before anyone other than immediate family was there. Ben and Julia went to his funeral and burial. They insisted, so we described what it would all be like, and they said they still wanted to go. It turns out they were quite surprised to see the casket at the burial. They had visions of just the body being thrown in a hole in the ground. I hadn't taken a moment to think that would be their impression.

Cremation squicks me. I don't know why. Wait. No. My cremation squicks me. My rotting? Not so much. I don't why.

I believe in Arizona (at least when I lived there) you can (could) petition to be buried in one of the state parks, then they can't do any formaldehyde or anything like that. I like that idea. Give away any bits that can be used for someone's life or to medical science, bury the rest in a hole where it can be useful to the earth.

I dislike the notion of it being put in a box in the ground.

I'm with Laura, I severely dislike the idea of being put in a box in a vault 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 there was nothing, no box or vault between me and the earth, maybe. But not the way the modern mortuary process goes. Uh uh. No thank you.

Although, mummification would be acceptable. Especially if y'all built a tomb that lasted over 4,000 years with no sign of falling down. That would be acceptable indeed.