I wonder how many families just surreptitiously scatter cremains on a relative's expensive plot. Sort of like the Great Escape prisoners carrying up pocketfuls of excavation dirt to shake out in the exercise yard.

My family favors cremation and scattering at sea, which makes sense for Dad, whose home is in Half Moon Bay and who had a two mile beachside walk on his last functional day.

Yesterday we took him to hospice. He's so strong that his body just won't quit and it is shutting down very slowly. I have trouble spending time sitting with his empty shell because it is horrible to see blankness and drooling in such a vivid person.

This has been a worst case scenario for his loved ones. The cardiac arrest took him down suddenly, and now more than a week circling the drain. My stepmom has been a tower of strength, I have been completely calm and very sad, and my sister has been covering storms of emotion and asking about miracle cures. I think we have all the reactions.

I advise pre planning postmortem wishes. Having all that in place has been one relief in a sea of paperwork.

I'm so sorry, Katie. This must be excruciating.

I wonder how many families just surreptitiously scatter cremains on a relative's expensive plot. Sort of like the Great Escape prisoners carrying up pocketfuls of excavation dirt to shake out in the exercise yard.

Ha! Not sure how you get the name engraved in that case?

Oh, Katie, that is so hard. Wishing you strength and love.

There are so many more regulations around cremains than I ever knew before this job. Special permission (or at least paperwork) is needed to fly with them, for instance, and in some cases to scatter them (although that depends on where, I guess).

In my limited experience on the phones for the last 18 months, a huge majority of people are being cremated over traditional burial, and a lot of people don't seem to be bothering to bury cremains, either. I did have a guy call the other day, though, who was having his dad's amputated leg cremated, which was a first for me.

I shall be cremated and scattered, by preference, in the water. If that's impractical, up with Hubby in the mountains will be nice. No engraving anywhere, the universe already knows me.

Me, I'm considering a natural burial, i.e. no embalming, no artificial material in coffin (in fact, cardboard would be fine). What I really want is archaeologists finding me as a rare undisturbed burial of the late 21st Century and speculating badly about my life, "She had extensive dental work -- she must have been a princess!"

Perhaps acquiring some authentic Viking grave goods to be buried with me would be a good idea....

Maybe I'm a weirdo, but I find it a little baffling to care what happens to my body when I die? I mean, it's be nice if it could be useful somehow, but I really don't care if I'm cremated or buried or what the stone would say. I have a preference for if I'm ashes, not being in a box in the closet? Like, display an urn or scatter the ashes but don't just stick me somewhere and forget? But really whatever is easiest for whoever is dealing with it. My assets I have a few feelings about and I'd like a good funeral party, but body? Meh.

We saved my dad's ashes for 16 years (reverently stuffing them in a box on a shelf in the back of a closet) until my mom died and they are scattered together in the memorial garden at my mom's church. My dad was not a churchgoer, but liked that particular church, so he had approved in advance.

I've informed my DH that I want my organs donated if possible and the rest of my body donated to a med school. I'll be gone and I want my body to be useful if possible.

I've got my plot next to DH and I may have already gotten my name on the shared stone, I'll have to check next time I'm over there. I think all it needs is my death date added. I haven't made the actual funeral arrangements, though, which I should do. I do have enough life insurance to cover a simple burial, though, so that's something. Just paid that annual bill, coincidentally.

Dad has backed off on his plan to get illegally scattered in Yosemite and is fine with being illegally scattered/buried on the less patrolled nat'l park land near where they live. Mom is sticking with her "it's not my problem after I'm dead, you figure it out" plan. Most of my dad's family is buried in the Russian/Serbian Orthodox cemeteries either in Colma or Santa Rosa and he has no desire to join them. Mom's family has mostly been cremated and other than my Grandpa's ashes getting scattered up at his ranch I don't know where any of them have ended up. In the back of someone else's closet, maybe.

My folks went to one to many funerals at one point and left specific instructions that they wanted to be cremated and for us to throw a party at their favorite Mexican restaurant. Which is what we did.

I must say, having those written instructions sure made dealing with the funeral parlor easier. Knowing what to do made it much easier to say no to stupid stuff the folks wouldn't've cared about.