Ah yes, the great beyond, the afterlife, heaven, hell, Hades, Valhalla etc. etc. etc.
They're all places people believe your "soul" (however that culture describes it) will go. This blog...isn't about that it's about where your actual body goes! You know that big lump of mostly water and carbon held together by protons and neutrons and electrons and then quarks and gluons? Your very own chemical powerhouse if you will. What happens to that after you die? It certainly has a much more certain and concrete answer than where your soul (if people actually have them) goes.
Most people choose to be pumped full of formaldehyde and other preservatives, placed in a hermetically sealed, way too expensive for polished oak box, with that comfy interior and placed six feet underground to eventually become, well fertilizer.
Other people choose to be stuck into sometimes that very same, very expensive polished oak box (possibly embalmed, possibly not) and yes, lit on fire so their loved ones can keep the charred remains of them.
OK, I understand death can be a very uncomfortable and personal subject so please do not DO NOT take this blog to be persuasive and the aforementioned descriptions offensive. No one can really disagree with the above statements of burial and cremation, respectively, because after all this is what the people at funeral homes do, and to pardon the pun, they're making a killing off of it! According to the National Funeral Director's Association, "The average cost of a funeral, as of July 2004, was $6,500. That cost includes an outer burial container, but does not include cemetery costs." So that is $6,500 + bucks to basically be dead!
They're making an absolute fortune off of your grief and the fact that when someone you love dies your judgment is way too clouded to say hey maybe my (mom, grandma, brother, sister, dad, aunt etc.) doesn't really need this $8,000 dollar casket, after all he/she is dead! See, they're betting on you to opt for the nicest, most expensive items in order to feel like you're paying tribute to them. They want you to feel like crap because you didn't get the limited edition polished mahogany casket with a stunning and hand drawn replica of the Sistine Chapel painted inside of it in addition to the 1200 thread count Egyptian Cotton bedding.
I don't believe in all of this stuff, because after all that's essentially what it is, STUFF. Your friends/family are truly your friends and family if they want you to be happy and they want you to save your money for more important things like mortgage payments, your kid's college tuition or retirement, not what box to be placed in after they die. Everyone dies, the best way to say you love isn't to buy them an expensive funeral it's to tell them you love them while they're alive, do stuff with them when their alive, talk with them, laugh with them, cry with them when they're ALIVE. Truly the best way to show someone you love them is to plain out say it.
I challenge each and everyone of you to say that you love somebody today, be it a friend, a family member, or even a pet for a safe place to start. Doing stuff in this life, in the here and now is what really matters and what is really important.
I also want to take this time to acknowledge those that wish to donate their organs when they die to consider expanding it further and donate your whole body, then you will really and truly live on in this world through someone else. If that's not for you there are also green funerals and even donating your body to the famous Body Farm.
This blog isn't to force the idea that all people who work at funeral homes are money hungry sharks, or to force everyone to donate their body to science, it's simply my own opinion, like all my blogs are.
http://www.ehow.com/how_110893_donate-body-science.html
The dead and buried
become trees
who lift up their arms
to call the deaf.
With their long fingers
and green tongues,
they divulge the secrets
of the Earth's heart.
-Mevlana Rumi, Sufi Mystic-
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Interesting topic. But since nothing really happens with death, everyone just ends up decaying, can't everyone be content with the natural course of death. NO perservatives, no need to waste money.
Exactly! No matter how much preservatives you pump into someone they're still going to decay. I've even heard horror stories of caskets that are literally sealed so tight that when the gases your body gives off after it dies accumulate it makes the coffin literally explode. It's pretty crazy.
Oh and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach is a really really good book, just thought I'd mention it in this comment instead of going back and editing my blog lol
`lacey
There are no beautiful surfaces without terrible depth...
betty It is the fear of death and how we will be treated when we die that make us do ridiculous things with the body of our dead when in actual sense the dead know nothing and are food for worms so we give worms tasty morsels with the more decorations we put on the body and expensive coffins
R.Brian Burkhardt
Your Funeral Guy.
Author, Funeral Director
Excellent Blog Post,
Speaking from direct Experience: more than half who work at
Funeral Homes are
Money Hungry Sharks.
however you can take it a step further
and lower the cost of a funeral.
check out The Funeral Book:
The Low Cost Less Stressed Funeral
---How-To Tips from a Funeral Pro
Thanks for the book suggestion and I can't believe I didn't even think to mention ways to lower the cost of a funeral so thank you!
`lacey
There are no beautiful surfaces without terrible depth...
loved the blog and yes. some peopls/funeral homes go too far and are making money off of the dead and we are allowing this cycle to continue---quite frankly it's a part of our culture and society now ..
anyway, I signed the form donate my organs and they'll ask me once more when i get my license too if i am sure or something, (i only have a permit right now) I'm giving them liberty to take wahtever they need.
"Things have a life of their own. It's just a matter of waking up their souls."
--Gabriel García Márquez
http://www.progressiveu.org/231615-this-is-a-muslim-girls-plight
You're right it is a really big part of our culture and our society, and I think it's great you're an organ donor :)
`lacey
There are no beautiful surfaces without terrible depth...
If people new that when they pass from this life it matters not to what happens to the body, from out of dust it was formed and unto dust it shell return. There is a time appointed unto God that all who have died shell have there Bodies returned to there spirits and there shell not be one hair lost .Whether ye have done Evil or Done good it matters not .But if ye have chosen Evil great shell your torment be when ye shell be cast into the pit of hell. To suffer for the pains, that ye have caused to you Brothers and sisters. And those that chose to follow Good will have happiness for ever and ever. Amen
I chose to write this blog from a completely non religious point of view, I chose not to write about what happens to the soul if we have one because that's for another blog and another time. I'm not quite sure I understand what you're saying...at all....
`lacey
There are no beautiful surfaces without terrible depth...
Well, i could never be an organ donor, but i definitly don't mind being put a cardboard box when i die. My coffin doesn't need to be extreme but any means. It's such a waste of money.