What Not To Do With My Remains

[dr_pretentious]

Until I started writing fiction, I didn't know I had an obsession with bizarre funerary customs. Grave goods, mummification, ritual grave robbing, cremation, burning boats, decorative ossuaries--bring it on, there's a place in the Big Book for all of it.

All of it except this.

It's not gross. It's perfectly worksafe. It won't give you nightmares. It might give you a good laugh. The basic premise isn't any weirder than mummification, really. Nonetheless...

I'm with seedmoon on this one. Whatever you do with me, don't do that.

Comments

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

That loud thumping sound? My jaw hitting ground.

[harlequinaide.livejournal.com]

That's awesome! Think of the possibilities...

"Sorry hon, I accidentally washed your mother."
"Are you kids, having a pillow-fight? Here, borrow your grandmother. I always wanted to hit her."

Imagine the dreams you'd have. Actually, this concept would be a really interesting spin on ancestor worshiping societies. Sleeping on the remains of your ancestors brings you their wisdom in your dreams.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

"Sorry hon, I accidentally washed your mother."

This is totally what would happen in our house.

Oh, I am all about the ancestor worshipping societies. Trouble is, the pesky dead aren't any wiser than they were in life. Hijinks ensue.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

For pets, it kind of makes sense. But putting the remains of a human in one of those teddy bears...

[anghara.livejournal.com]

I'd second THAT.

I love plush toys, I have an entire collection of them, but having one of 'em sitting there with someone's eartlhy remains behind those button eyes would freak-me-out.

Ew.

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

It's that they're so nauseatingly twee, to be honest, more than anything else.

you know it's what you want

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

no, silly, not a teddy bear. we'd preserve your body intact, cremate everything in you, and prop you up at your writing desk, dressed the the hammer of the your authority.

you would be accompanied in the afterlife by carefully preserved pen and paper, along with purple, so long as we could keep it running. we'd provide freeze-dried fru-fru caffeine substrates from your favorite pusher.

you've wondered how your offspring might benefit from your glory. if they have the sense to charge a few bucks a head to visit your shrine -- and sell refreshments and suitable things to leave as votive offerings -- they could do quite well for themselves.

Re: you know it's what you want

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear. If I ever have offspring, no doubt they'll inherit my willfully perverse streak and take their Uncle Twoeleven's suggestion to heart.

Hm. I've been wondering what the Birin tribe's funerary customs are. (They're the tattooed guys, one of Lel's conquered peoples, in Volume 2--you haven't read them in a long time.) Heck, it's no weirder than skinning your ancestors to make drums so they can keep talking to you.

Actually, for myself, I prefer a sort of reduce-reuse-recycle ethic. Organ donation may be problematic, since I've never been in stellar health, and I've spent long enough in Europe to be considered a mad cow risk and long enough in Korea to be considered a hantavirus (?) risk. Even Bethesda Naval Hospital wouldn't take blood from me, and goodness knows they've got enough broken Marines there to get rebuilt, they could use some. Anyhow, I'm thinking I could be donated to a university with a forensic anthropology program. I could keep teaching, compost in place for a while, and help people learn how to build cases for the prosecution of crimes against humanity. Everybody wins except war criminals.

Re: you know it's what you want

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

ah, the old carbon to carbon, tin to tin approach.

actually, the most popular of those sorts of people (an outfit generally refered to as "the body farm") has a waiting list. gotta sign up early to benefit humanity. :)

Crafts with the dead!

[tracyandrook.livejournal.com]

How much ashes do you get from the average person?
That's not a joke question, I guess I'll look it up....The picture here suggests about 6 cubic inches.http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/10/31/abandoned_cremains_piling_up_at_funeral_homes/

You can add cremains to concrete. So that anything you can make out of concrete could be a memorial. You could make a small concrete votive object and incorporate it into any sculpture in the medium of your choice. http://www.creativecremains.com/home.html

Oh..Folks had not used that word yet "cremains": http://www.wordspy.com/words/cremains.asp

Years ago Rook had to build a crematorium. He said that after the process they still have to grind up the bones.

Re: Crafts with the dead!

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

To get the cremation scene in the Bob novella right, I spent about an hour on the phone with Michael, picking his brain about the funeral biz. He was Extremely Helpful.

One of my parents' neighbors had her late husband cremated, and the crematory people didn't grind the bones. Very upsetting for her when she scattered the ashes in her garden. Later, when she was too old to live alone anymore and had to sell the house, the next people to live there dug up the garden and thought they'd found a crime scene. Oops.

In general, I think it's a bad idea to scatter people's ashes on the premises of a private residence. It becomes even more than usually traumatic, then, if it becomes necessary for the family to sell the property. I suppose if one really wanted to lay a heavy geas on one's survivors to hold onto a piece of land, that would be an effective way to do it.

Re: Crafts with the dead!

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the word "cremains" kind of bugs me. I'm used to various industries coining words by squashing together perfectly serviceable existing words as a way of coming up with something they can brand or trademark, but in this context, it seems kind of tacky. New, improved cremains (TM), now with silky texture! Smythe brand cremains (TM) stay crunchy even in milk! See what I mean? If nobody's done it yet, somebody will soon.

I do kind of like the idea of incorporating the remains into the memorial. For one thing, it eliminates the problem of having to move graveyards for highways, reservoirs, etc. You just pick up the whole sculpture garden and arrange it somewhere else.

[wayzgoose.livejournal.com]

Just knowing what happens to stuffed animals in my house with a 90 pound greyhound who thinks they are all squeaky toys... Well, let's just say it's a whole new meaning to the phrase "Scatter my ashes."

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

::squeaks and snorts with laughter::

[amheriksha.livejournal.com]

It's interesting how the site mentions that the teddy bears and other plush toys hold "smaller portions", while the pillows are big enough for an adult human. Does this mean you can put different amounts of your ashes in different bears?

Also, I want to see a zombie movie made about this. The bears come to life, craving braiiiiins...

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I don't want to see that movie, but there are writers who could write that story in a way that I'd want to read. I haven't read Harlan Ellison in a long time, but he's suitably twisted, I'm sure he'd do something surprising with it. Michael Swanwick would do something light and lyrical with it. He can make anything light and lyrical, especially materials that shouldn't be.

I have a friend who has expressed a desire to be cremated so that her ashes can be divided among as many of her friends as want them, and that we should keep or scatter them as we each see fit. It's a very trusting approach. She can absolutely trust me, however, not to put any of her in a twee stuffed bear.

[tokeiwakamidesu.livejournal.com]

I think the biggest problem is really the name. 'Huggable Urns' sounds too much like something I read in a poetry workshop last year.

That, and I agree that the teddy bears are kinda dull. But I think this has real potential... I think one of those smiley dragon plush things, or maybe a dinosaur? C'mon, that would be AWESOME.

Personally, I want my cremains in a Snuffleupagus.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

But a Snuffleupagus would be awfully large. A conventional urn takes up a few square inches of mantelpiece. A snuffleupagus takes at least up half your living room. And if the snuffleupagus isn't actual-size, what's the point?

An unwelcome image insinuates itself into my mind. I found the Tickle Me Elmo doll to be disturbing enough. Now I envision the Cremate Me Elmo doll. And that's just wrong.

[tokeiwakamidesu.livejournal.com]

Awhile back, I knit a Keith Haring figurine with a voice chip inside.

Squeeze its tummy, and it says a little prerecorded message.

I think that could really take Huggable Urns to the next level, no?

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Don't tell the Huggable Urns people! I think you just became their competition.

I have to know what the prerecorded message in your Keith Haring figurine says.

Oh, and wow, you're a person who would think to knit a Keith Haring figurine. I delight in you.

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

I just find that ... that ... disturbing. I can get the idea of keeping ashes around as a reminder of some sort of the dearly departed, but hugging your dead mother/spouse/child? Eeech!

I did hear some time ago about some company that would make your deceased's ashes into a synthetic gem, which I thought to be interesting.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Now that I see all the different things that bug other people about these urns, I have to ask myself what exactly it is that bugs me. It's not the idea of keeping my dear ones in the house with me--it's not what anyone in my family wants done with their remains, but I can see how that would make sense for some people. It's not the hugging thing--I get the hugging thing. A lot of my objection is, as vgnwtch points out, the nauseating tweeness of the teddy bears. I wouldn't want anything that twee in my house, and I certainly wouldn't condemn someone I cared about to wear one for eternity.

My other objection is that a container for human remains really should not be mistakable for anything else. I can picture these teddy bears turning up in estate sales, flea markets, etc., and going home with innocent shoppers who don't know there's a dead person in there. That's so creepy, I have no desire to write a story in which it occurs.

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

I suppose the main thing is just makes the concept of death so ... cute. I've heard of many things that death can be thought of, from phobia inspiring to welcome, but cute seems so antithetical to me. No matter what you think happens after death, it is too dramatic a change for all involved to be reduced to a teddy bear.

chum

[elphaba-of-oz.livejournal.com]

When I die I want to be cut into pieces, taken outside US coastal waters and thrown into the ocean as shark food

you promised no nightmares

[jaime-sama.livejournal.com]

I'll have you know I was up in the wee hours the other morning thinking thoughts about death and funerals. I think 31 is too young to start that. I'd blame you, but I had already heard of these teddy-urns on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on NPR. You know their game, where you have to guess which of three stories is true? ;)

I know I'm in the minority on this, but keeping a person's remains around in any form kind of bothers me. I may not know where my grandpa went when he died, but I'm fairly sure he didn't go into that little canister.

I like to remember him by the set of tiny screwdrivers he gave me one Christmas. He was big on tools. One year he discovered the set of tiny screwdrivers and nearly all of my family members on that side got a set of them that Christmas. Good for the screws on sunglasses, and on woodwind instruments. ;)

Re: you promised no nightmares

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the insomnia.

My grandfather was big on tools, too. At the funeral last month, one of my uncles told the story of how my grandfather went to work for GE to build satellites during the space race: "He taught all us kids to solder to NASA specifications, because anything worth doing is worth doing right." He didn't teach me to solder, or shingle roofs, or jack houses up off their foundations, or any of the other manly skills he taught his sons and daughter, but he did make sure I got his craftsmanship ethic. It can be hard to tell in the rough drafts, but I'm soldering Part 3 up as cleanly as I'm able.