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

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.