This must absolutely happen too.

I can't wait to tell Pete. "Honey, guess what?! Seanie said I could have his skull when he dies!"

I can't wait to tell Pete. "Honey, guess what?! Seanie said I could have his skull when he dies!"

What is that species of bug they use to quicky strip flesh from bone? Better keep some of those around....

What culture eats ashes? And, for what purpose?

Honestly, I don't think it's a cultural practice, just something the widow asked us to do as we were scattering ashes in the river. So the dearly departed would be part of each of us. It seemed pretty natural at the time.

If you buy a funeral plan from a Jewish funeral home (or one that serves jews), your body won't be preserved with formaldehyde or what have you, and the coffin will have a halachically mandated amount of exposure to the soil to expedite decomposition. I'm not sure how long cemeteries stay cemeteries, but I think there's a limit so that the land will eventually be useful again.

One of the things I'm just as glad to have decided for me - there are rules, I don't disagree with the rules, it's all good.

If you buy a funeral plan from a Jewish funeral home (or one that serves jews), your body won't be preserved with formaldehyde or what have you, and the coffin will have a halachically mandated amount of exposure to the soil to expedite decomposition.

I didn't know that. That's neat.

Lots and lots of ~ma, juliana! How exciting!

(eta: that's my understanding anyway, it might not be totally correct, but I'm pretty sure I got the gist)

Plastination!

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.

FWIW, it doesn't have to be a relative if there's someone else you're close enough to that they'd make a better option. If my parents had gone, we would have gone to a couple (men, actually) who were very close friends.

Part of my parents' calculations in this was not just that they loved and trusted them to care to for us, but also that it be a) not a hardship to take us, and b)that we wouldn't be shoe-horned into an existing family with other kids. Your calculations will be your own of course, and we had less in the way of actual relations to worry about offending. But maybe your options are broader than you think they are. If I were doing something like that, I think I'd leave letters in care of the attorney to people who might be surprised or hurt by the decision, explaining how and why you made it.

I'd be in to getting plastinated, but then I don't think Jilli could have my skull, and that's just unacceptable.

Ooh, I've been meaning to go to that exhibit.

Maybe you can be plastinated from the neck down.