Final Resting Places
Where should you request your remains to be left?
This is a difficult question as it has both legal and moral implications.
I haven’t yet worked out where I want my remains to be left, but I have had to deal with my late wife’s requests.
She asked me to divide her ashes into 4 parts and leave them in 4 specific places. Her objective was two-fold – to create places where people who knew her could visit to remember her, and to send me on a quest to places she wanted to take me but didn’t get the chance to, and where I would come to know her better.
So far I have carried out her wishes and I will complete them over the next few months. However, her wishes have caused me to be conflicted – some of the locations were not legal places. We both knew this would be the case because we had some legal advice while she was alive.
I didn’t see any moral issues at the time, but now that I have begun to carry out her wishes I’m starting to understand that there are some.
The first place I left some of her ashes was in a place that it was not legal to do so – the law didn’t bother me but I did realize a moral problem as I did it, if someone discovers human remains then a police investigation will be launched and time and resources will be unnecessarily consumed by the authorities.
I went ahead knowing what the moral and legal implications were.
I don’t have an answer for the question that applies to others, but I felt it was important to raise the question so that those of you grappling with similar questions will know you’re not alone.
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February 17th, 2009 at 8:49 am
What a trully beautiful thing to do.
If only those things that had the masses approval were done we would be in a very different world than we are now.
A bleaker one too I imagine.
I really am no expert on human remains ,I still remain using mine at the moment and hope they will one day be dispersed with love, joy ,and a sense of adventure.
What a way to honour Jessica.
I think that having been placed with love that is the only way they could be found.
Maybe by now some local animal may have rolled his thickly furred body on them and they together are running, galloping or hopping accross some wilde pastures.
Blessed be and in peace she is free.
February 6th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
My brother died in 2000, aged 68 and wished for his ashes to be spread on a Sydney beach. Given the texture of ashes, that was not possible without offence to others, so with his partner’s consent, he now resides in a dam at the back of my home. I trust he is assisting in the regeneration of the local water birds.
I say this with no sense of facile humour, but a true belief that this is what nature is all about – in the end, the world is its own recycler.
I wish I had met Jessica during her life. She would have been a joy and an education to know.
Frank
April 17th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
I think I will join my brother if it is OK with my wife. I think my kids will be OK with that.
I know a man who distributed his wife’s ashes to the winds from a high point in a national park. To me it is only an issue if it is obvious and offensive to others.
Frank
June 11th, 2010 at 3:06 am
I have instructed my son’s when I have have no use for this earthly body to have me cremated. I also want all three of them to get together and drive to where I want to be planted.They know the location well. We used to vacation there and I feel in love with this State Virginia there when I was 16 years old . I like the thought of all of them alone with each other talking about me laughing at my faults and things I thought them. I have no thoughts of leaving soon but it gives me peace knowing they all know my wishes. It will prevent arguments like I had with my sister because my mother made me promise I would not do what my sister had proposed to her with her ashes.My older son did not like my wishes at first because I am a veteran. This is just like writing a will. Why leave things up in the air.My grandmother prepaid for her burial because there was things she did not want.I look forward to joining her and all my other family members someday that can wait until it is time. I obeyed my mothers wishes people came up to me and cussed me out.I did not do what they thought I should do. Can you imagine their surprise what her wishes where Since I will be living in eternity with her I thought it was best or she will make it hell.