Thanks for the update Tom. I''ve been sending the ~ma this morning.

Yay successful surgery.

My dad just texted me and asked if I would prefer if her were buried or cremated. Evidently there are some family plots someone is trying to figure out how to divide and asked if he wanted one.

So that was an interesting text to receive. In that there are excess cemetery plots and dad asking my preference

That's classic. But I love that he's asking your preference! I feel like usually these things go by the dead person's preference, and really, what do they care at that point?

Also my grandmother's whole family got in one plot thanks to cremation.

I am torn because I like the idea of a family plot and the various family members all together but if he's cremated he could be sprinkled in the water at the beach, and have some ashes in an ien or something there at the cottage and also me and my brother could have urns as well

Ah -- in my family we've just buried the cremains.

and really, what do they care at that point?

This is my mother's stance, that that's our (me and my siblings) problem to figure out it won't matter to her anymore.

One consideration might be how often do you expect to be in the town where your family plot it. Now that my folks are dead, I never go back to my hometown - there's very little family left there. So I would never visit the family plot.

The flip side of that is why I kind of insisted that we put my father in the (columbarium at the) fanciest, most local cemetery -- if I'm going anywhere, it's going to be there.

My mother knew I'm not a fan of visiting cemeteries (if I want to talk to her, I talk. Visiting family gravesites just makes me cry), so she paid for her cremation, but not any "resting place". We scattered some of her ashes (completely illegally, SSSSHHHH!) off the Ocean Beach Pier because she loved it. And the rest will, eventually, be in the backyard, with the cat's, under his favorite tree (which was her request).