How to die ....

[Bryn]

I hadn't previously realised how the pecking order was involved there...

Ouch!

[RichardB]

Those of a squeamish disposition are recommended not to do a Google search on "sky burial".

[vinteuil]

....yes but they usually have employ lowest and shunned caste to chop them up into raptor sized peices before dispensing....[I believe]

... not the case with the Parsi (Zoroastrian) practice. In the 1980s I lived in Bombay, not far from the main Tower of Silence -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Silence

The decline in the vulture population alluded to by oddoneout in #4 was already a concern : vultures clean a corpse rapidly, and Parsi friends admitted they didn't like the idea of being picked over by corvids over many days and weeks...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_vulture_crisis

.

[oddoneout]

....yes but they usually have employ lowest and shunned caste to chop them up into raptor sized peices before dispensing....[I believe]

Not in Tibet. The following link should come with a warning about material readers may find disturbing etc etc.

https://factsanddetails.com/china/cat6/sub34/entry-8427.html

[oddoneout]

This reminds me of a Radio4 series hosted by Joan Bakewell ; 'We need to talk about death'.

Everyone dies, yet in our sanitised society we don't like to talk about it: 'ooh, dont be so morbid' peopel squeal whenever I've alluded to the subject.

I think that the way surviving relatives have to pay for a funeral is as outdated as the old postal system where the recipient of a letter paid for postage . Surely any civilised society should have a sort of 'National Death Service' for taking and disposing of bodies.

It's reminde me that I really must get around to inquiring about leaving my body to Anatomy.

Well, there are arrangements for dealing with those who die without relatives or funds to do the necessary.
Funerals have gone the way of weddings it seems with the assumption that it has to be done a certain way, at considerable cost. Basic cremations are becoming more common as a way of keeping costs down apparently.

Yes, if you have specific wishes for your body post death they need to be sorted out and ideally discussed, or at least mentioned to whoever is most likely to be dealing with such matters and preferably written down. It's difficult because family doesn't generally like thinking about such things and may not react well - but the potential for difficulties when the event arrives and everyone's emotions are running high are so much greater. My mother had a paid-up funeral plan and had left instructions and suggestions for her death arrangements, but even so one of the family kicked off about having a cremation instead of burial which I, as the person who'd been acting as Attorney and then had to deal with the various post death admin, could have done without. Even with evidence that my mother had simply expressed a preference for, but not demanded, burial, and the logistics surrounding the place of her death in relation to the burial plot she and my father(deceased some 20 years previously) had bought hundreds of miles away in the village my father had retired to, it was a difficult few days. She was cremated, after a wonderful funeral in the tiny church of the community where she ended her days, and then 8 months later her ashes were sent south and a small gathering, including some family members and friends who hadn't been able to go to the funeral, attended a simple graveside ceremony to put the casket in the grave where my father was buried.
I am in a similar situation to my mother with regards to being at considerable distance from my children, and although all the various paper bits(will etc) have been dealt with, the matter of my disposal is proving more difficult!

[smittims]

Thanks, oddeoneout, I found that rewarding to read.

My father had long before his death made arrangements for his body to go to a local university anatomy dept. but when the time came we were dismayed to find they were full up and can apparently change their minds.

[oddoneout]

Thanks, oddeoneout, I found that rewarding to read.

My father had long before his death made arrangements for his body to go to a local university anatomy dept. but when the time came we were dismayed to find they were full up and can apparently change their minds.

If you think about it there is always the possibility that the donation may run into difficulties. If the establishment in question changes in some way - loss of a teaching or research department for instance, if they have too many donations at the time in question(an increasing problems I suspect as staff and facilities become ever more financially constrained), if their policy on such matters changes. Even where the donation is accepted there are still arrangements(and costs) to be sorted out - it isn't a full alternative to more standard arrangements. Another factor may be the delay between donating and having a funeral if that is what family wants rather than some form of memorial service.
This might be a helpful starting point https://www.hta.gov.uk/guidance-publ...nate-your-body
Also https://www.bereavementadvice.org/to...body-donation/

My mother was not averse to the idea of her body being of use after death and carried a donor card, which we all knew about, but she died suddenly in a part of the country where the logistics simply did not support going down that route unfortunately - just getting the post-mortem done in time for the funeral was quite an exercise. In view of the cremation upset I was glad in some respects that the decision was out of our hands.

[smittims]

There's also the feeling that cousins etc. are going to have their views about how you should have organised the funeral , emphasising the fact, perhaps, that funerals are for the living, never more so, of course than when it's someone famous. I shall never forget Henrik Vervoord's funeral, on a gun carriage (minus gun , I think) . I thought 'why a Gun carriage?'

[ardcarp]

A very long-standing and dear friend of ours died before Christmas last year. His daughter had the funeral all planned. It was in a village church, the village being where he had lived all his life. Daughter asked me to play the organ and two of my family to sing Lloyd Webber's Pie Jesu and Handel's Where'er you Walk. On asking about organ music before and after she said 'definitely Widor's Toccata to go out to. 'Er' I said,' that's usually a wedding piece; and it IS only a village organ'. 'I know' she replied, 'but you played it for my wedding at that church'. (I'd forgotten) 'And I want Daddy's funeral to be a joyful occasion'. Well, it was; but with all the music plus four speakers it lasted an hour and a half in a freezing church. (The churchwarden had forgotten to put the heating on that morning.) If anyone reads this, I'd like my funeral to be (a) warmer and (b) shorter.

[oddoneout]

There's also the feeling that cousins etc. are going to have their views about how you should have organised the funeral , emphasising the fact, perhaps, that funerals are for the living, never more so, of course than when it's someone famous. I shall never forget Henrik Vervoord's funeral, on a gun carriage (minus gun , I think) . I thought 'why a Gun carriage?'

I guess it's one advantage of a small family - fewer folk to cause ructions! Cousins weren't part of the scene, except very occasionally on holidays with grandparents, even when I was a child, everyone else is dead so it's just two siblings and my two children. One sibling is something of a loose cannon though, which is why post death wishes need to be recorded.