Nothing Says "Forever" Like a Dead Mother-In-Law Solitaire

momring

Original image via Flikr Creative Commons, courtesy of Stephen Durham

Ah, tax season spring! May is crammed with holidays, birthdays and weddings. Hint: Mother’s Day, which is bizarrely close to Cinco de Mayo when even white people drink tequila to celebrate something…um, regarding Mexico. I’ve been running a million miles an hour to prepare for DFWWWCon this weekend and after a week beating up the poor flashbacks, I figured it was time for something fun. And nothing lightens the mood like death :D.

I’ve recently hit 40, which means most of my mail consists of flyers for AARP, discounts on hearing aids and prepaid funerals. Yay. Nothing to make a woman still feel young and sexy like a prepaid FUNERAL.

Anyway…

My family is pretty strange when it comes to the subject of “death.” And not like anyone is, per se, “normal” about death, but my family takes weird clean OFF “The Munster Family Scale” and lands us somewhere into the domain of a cross between Rob Zombie and Monty Python.

“The Zombie-Python Scale”?

Likely, this laissez faire attitude stems from a number of primary causes (beyond the obvious answer “mental illness”). One? Occupational. Mom was a nurse and came from a medical/military family. Dad? All soldiers and farmers.

Yeah, talk about gallows humor.

The second factor? Genetic. I come from Vikings, and science has “proven” there is a genome embedded in our DNA that demands that, upon expiration, our bodies must be placed on a wooden ship in the middle of an All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet, then piled in gold, pushed out on the water and set on fire.

Fire, fire, heh heh. Heh heh. Fire.

Heh.

Sadly, I have yet to find a local government official who will grant me a permit to be set afloat in my cousin Randy’s bass boat into Benbrook Lake then shot with leftover fireworks. Just kidding. Not about the permit, but the leftover fireworks part.

We’re TEXANS and there NO SUCH THING as “leftover fireworks.”

Anyway, when I was in the fifth grade, my teacher died, which really sucked, not just because my teacher died, but that it was the WRONG teacher. MY teacher, Mrs. Emmet, was awesome. The Demonic Embodiment of Science Education I had to spend an hour a day with, however, DID NOT die. I think it was because she was feasting slowly on the souls of fifth-grade children…

…and the guinea pigs near her desk that kept dying under strange circumstances (which were never fully investigated).

No, Demon Teacher lived, and is probably still alive today because she likely possesses a painting that ages in her stead. AWESOME Teacher is the one who had the heart attack (and DEMON Teacher looked strangely younger the next day).

But I digress…

The school, being confused and benevolent, brought in a grief counselor. Though, looking back, I think the grief counselor was the same dude wielding a leaf-blower earlier that school year. Grief Counselor told us to go home and discuss the subject of death with our parents then write a paper.

Great idea.

THANKS. Thank you for scarring me even further for LIFE.

So, I go home and ask my mom how she wants us to handle her passing on. Her answer? Taxidermy. She wanted to be made into something useful, like a lamp. She was even gracious enough to allow my brother and I to share her. I could take Creepy-Mom-Lamp for six months and brother could have her the other six months.

Yeah, right on that, Mom.

My Dad? He wanted to be cremated then his ashes strapped to a rocket and spread in space, an idea which everyone thought was sheer lunacy until Gene Roddenberry made it “cool.”

And I imagine the only reason CPS wasn’t called when I turned in my paper was because it WAS the 1980s. This was back in a time when it was permissible to banish your kids who wouldn’t stop running through KMart to go sit in a 110-degree station wagon and fight over a single Slurpee.

Fast-forward to 1999 and my father passes away. Since NASA and I weren’t exactly close and their security people already knew what I looked like, the rocket idea was out of the question. This meant Dad’s ashes went on a high shelf in my closet until I could make another plan. Then one day, years later, I’m all cleaning out my closet.

WTH is that blue box? I don’t remember putting that….*reaches and box falls*

OH HOLY HELL!

Yes, it was my father. In…my…shoes.

You CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP, PEOPLE!

I had to vacuum up my father, and he’s now laid to rest with cremated flip-slops, cat fur, dust bunnies one of my favorite earrings, and I hope that makes him happy after being a smart@$$ about that “being blown up in space” crap.

And it is now 2014 and Mom is still intent on the whole “taxidermy” idea, though I’ve informed her that I’m going to have her stuffed in the squatting position so she can water my front garden. Strangely, that threat hasn’t bothered her enough to deviate from Taxidermy Funeral Course.

I’m happy I’ve broken the Cycle of Weird, though. My husband is Clean-Cut-Boy-Scout-Air-Force-Military and he wants to be buried in a graveyard with a tombstone where we can go talk to him and bring flowers and chocolate offerings like NORMAL PEOPLE.

Me? I want to be cremated and made into a diamond so my son has a ready-made engagement ring for his beloved. How could a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law be ANY closer? THAT is family (and being frugal—Hey, “waste not, want, not”). It’s also a great excuse to gain some extra weight. A skinny dead mother-in-law is good for little more than a tacky nose ring, which might impress some young Waffle House waitress from the trailer park, but not a gal suitable for MY boy.

But a mom-in-law with some MEAT? I might make a nice 2 carat solitaire. Not large enough to catch a Kardashian gold-digger, but big enough to impress a young lady with more than a G.E.D.

So, yes, I want to be made into a diamond (princess cut, of course), but NOT before my consciousness is uploaded into a microchip and implanted in Hubby’s head…so I can keep annoying him for eternity.

You know, *rolls eyes* NORMAL :D.

Okay, yes maybe I’ve gone off the reservation with this post (not the first or last time), but the whole “made into a gemstone” idea seems better than taking up space in a grave…that is later claimed by imminent domain and then the city builds something super-depressing over you like a Baby Gap.

***This is why all Baby Gaps are haunted, btw. It’s “science.” Don’t argue***

Then there is the made into a tree thing, which is a close second choice, but in Texas? With OUR weather? That’s just DELAYED CREMATION.

What are your thoughts? Well, maybe you don’t want to share those, unless you have some cooler ideas. Not “cooler” ideas, though cryogenics holds promise *rubs chin contemplatively*.

I LOVE hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of MAY, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

I will announce April’s winner after waking from the conference coma early next week.

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79 comments

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  1. Bwahahahahahaha!!!!!! I wrote a sinister Valentine’s Day story about a guy that kills his wives and has them made into jewelry and gives it to the next wife in line, By the time he get’s done he’ll have enough to open his own jewelry store

    I wonder…if they can make you into a diamond why not a high-powered rifle scope???

    1. Oooh, good idea.

  2. My family used to visit graveyards on vacation, so…you know…perfectly normal here.

    I’ve thought about the tree thing, but what if my husband dies first? I can kill ANY plant, and it would be pretty awful to kill him a second time. (I’m assuming my klutziness will be responsible for his first demise.)

  3. Extremely funny. Love the humor! Be sure to check out my humorous and silly blog at begoodorbgoodatit.com

  4. My wife has the ashes of: her father, her mother, my mother and my mothers dog all together on a special shelf in a closet. I pity my kids when we depart this earth.

  5. You are hilarious! Just what I needed this morning.

  6. Love this post. Being made into a gemstone is an interesting idea. Never heard of that before. Maybe I could be sprinkled over a horse pasture. Hmm

    • Phillip Williams on May 2, 2014 at 10:41 am
    • Reply

    What an interesting and witty post, Kristen! I”m probably different from your other followers in that I’m a free-lance newspaper journalist rather than an author (although I hope to write my memoirs someday about my fascinating experiences covering news). Your blog reminded me that years ago, I read in a mainstream newspaper of the funeral home employee–somewhere in the South, I think–who wanted his body displayed STANDING UP when he died. So they did it! Would have LOVED to have seen the looks on the faces of those who came to view the remains! LOL

  7. Nothing I can say could equal this.

  8. shame I have 2 girls, I love the DIL diamond 😀 I’m still using cupfuls of my Dad to improve my roses. My sister and I split him down the middle 😛

  9. Wow, I didn’t even know the being made into a diamond was a real thing. That’s way cool.

    but I want to donate all my organs ‘cept my heart and brain and be stuck in the ground. After all, my religion teaches we’ll all be resurrected and I wouldn’t want to have to go floating around as ashes collecting all the pieces. Okay, that’s mostly a joke. I’m sure my resurrected body will probably have nothing to do with my previous body, unless it happens to nab some of the same atoms I had at one point in my life.

    But, y’know. Just in case.

  10. I’ve been a lurker on your blog for a long time. Oh boy, is this post my favorite! Very funny. I’ve actually thought about the whole made into a diamond thing. I think that’s pretty wild. Who needs to visit you at the cemetery when you’re riding around on your loved one’s finger…or around their neck…or in their ear… 😉

  11. OMG I love this. Its refreshing to know I’m not the only one whose has a quirky sense of humor. This is GREAT!!!

  12. Um…what happens if you don’t like the girl your son picks? Have it made into a solitaire for HIS ear? Just wondering… 😉

    I like to do rubbings of old headstones so yeah, not too weird in my book.

  13. I still have my most of husband’s ashes (died early in 2012) He really had a problem with heights, so I have a plan to scatter him cup by cup from various high points. We started with the mountain near our house, but there are so many more. The ashes also make a great base for incense sticks. The tree thing is fascinating but in drought? Nah.

  14. You crack me up. This was an awesome post. My mom wants to be made into a diamond, too. We have a running gag in my family.
    Stranger: I LOVE your earrings!
    Me: Thanks! They’re my mother.
    Stranger: They were your mother’s? That’s nice!
    Me: No. They’re *literally* my mother’s ashes, turned diamond.

    My mother’s a portly woman, and she believes she can make two nice sets of earrings. One for me and one for my sis.

    My dad is slightly more normal on the matter. He wants to be buried in the cemetery on the hill near where he grew up, where his mother and aunt currently are.

    Personally, I’d like to be a tree. I’m a gardener. Goes with the territory.

    1. LOLOLOLOLOL. I love that!

    • Nan Sampson on May 2, 2014 at 11:18 am
    • Reply

    Love this post! I needed a good laugh and this was hysterical. Your wit is sparkling today – just think how much more sparkly you’ll be as a diamond! (But not sparkly like a vampire…)
    And don’t feel bad – my family is just as weird as yours when it comes to death. Must be something in the water down there – although I’m a Chicagoan now, I was born in San Angelo! Thanks for making Friday fun!

  15. Nothing to make a woman still fell young and sexy like a prepaid FUNERAL. Hilarious. You crack me up. And I recommend your book to all of my author clients! They said it is a huge help. And yes- I do ask them to all go write an amazon review for you. I’m just nice like that. You help me via my clients- I help you. This Prozac is working well.

    1. Wonderful ((HUGS))!!! I am not on any meds. Just one of my other personalities. Condition if her parole.

  16. Thanks for bringing the crazy and the silly and the funny on a Friday, Kristen. 🙂 Muchly appreciated.

  17. Your posts are always informative. Today was a different side of you and I loved it. I want to be frozen and fired from a cannon into a pretty mountainside.

    1. EPIC!

  18. I told my husband if he dared give me a “viewing” (a morbid reversal of a wedding line-up where everyone stands around the box with the deceased so little ones with snotty noses can touch a real dead person, while their parents hug the survivors and whisper condolences, only to walk out and comment on the mortician’s handiwork) he better have my boobs stuffed so big that they have to sit on the lid to close the casket. I don’t want “I’m so sorry for your loss” repeated when “Man, you are really going to miss her,” would be so much more appropriate. I’ve also requested a laugh bag and someone under the skirt hiding the girders holding empty dead person, with a fishing pole and string to raise my arm so I can shake the hands of those with twisted curiosity who came to see me. If they could record my voice saying “Thank you for stopping by. We should do this again, soon. Your place?” it would be awesome.

  19. Much need gallows humor. Thanks. Yes, if you don’t feel sufficiently old as you pass each milestone rest assured that there is a vast network of merchandisers out there waiting to send the ads that will age you ten years upon receipt.

    1. Love it! Harley, you always make me laugh. Thanks! Great post, Kristen.
      A good post gains comments and both of you have spurred us on to think and muse. Well done!

    • annerallen on May 2, 2014 at 12:00 pm
    • Reply

    Favorite post ever, Kristen. ROTFL!

  20. Kristen Lamb. You. Are. Amazing.

  21. My mascara is running…:)

  22. I wanna be a tree, but I figure I’ve got a pretty good chance as a tree here in SE Kansas.

  23. Great post! I’ve already told my kids I want to be cremated and put into a concrete reef ball. So something like this http://eternalreefs.com. Which is completely ironic because of my fear of water, but hey I’ll conquer that fear in death! I’ve read about traditional burial and am sad to say all of the embalming funeral preparations leach toxic substances into the ground which ends up in our ground water. (Even the concrete coffin vaults can’t contain) Now there’s a visual. With humans destroying the reefs, I’ll do my part in death bringing back life as a habitat for sea life.

    1. That is actually a super cool idea!

  24. All those who are fortunate (or like Kristen ) ,unfortunate enough to run into me on Facebook in the past couple of days ,have seen my desire for what is to be done with my “fluffiness ” when I pass on and I have to confess i think Kristen’s mom and I would get along just fine (tell her to just Google Mickey Easterling and New Orleans socialite) … I was thinking more along the lines of setting me up at their parties and perhaps ,giving the treadmill a rest and using me as a coat tree but there would have to be an equitable division of time ,wouldn’t want to spend ALL my time with my youngest(she does give the better parties however!)

  25. This is hysterical and I love your parents take. Gallows humor is the only way to deal with that bastard death.

  26. I have an unhealthy love of fireworks. They make me jump up and down clapping and squealing with glee. I’m in my fifties. It’s not pretty.
    One night at the Grand Hotel Villa D’Este, I was woken up by the sound of what was undoubtably THE most spectacular fireworks spectacular EVER. Trouble was, the window of our $800 a night room faced a wall. Those were the cheap seats.
    I threw on a robe and my glasses and ran barefoot, with bed head, through those grand halls, and down three flights of sweeping stairs to the lobby. There I stood, out of breath, with about one hundred other spectators….who were all in black tie and evening gowns. I was clapping and squealing with delight. It was worth it.
    All that to say, I’m going to have my ashes packed into a firework. It CAN be done.

  27. Kristen, you are funny, very funny. Your post reminded me of George Carlin’s comment “When I die I want to be blown up” I thought about it. I want my ashes mixed with Maggie the Cat From Hell’s ashes and in joint custody of my two nieces. A gift that keeps on giving. If I should be married, my widow gets me for a week during the summer. For old time’s sake, ya know.

  28. This was hilarious. Thanks for the chuckle.

  29. Lucky me, while everyone else out there read your post and laughed at how outrageous it was, I laughed and heaved a huge sigh of understanding. Brought up in a family of crazies, who also happen to come from Vikings (well, one half, the other half is French Canadian and that just speaks for itself!) the topics of death, dying and ‘phase 2’ were common place, although not ‘common’ in sense of normal. My parents would also like to be set afloat … while still living however, and have gone back and forth on whether it should be a raft or an ice-flow (Viking + Canadian compromise perhaps) which ultimately transports them into the great beyond… or further down the St.Lawrence River! We have had many deaths within our inner circle of family, friends and furry tenants over the years, but none as memorable to us kids as the first pet to go (fish don’t count): The elderly albino hamster named DIRT we ‘assisted on his way’ with a spoonful of crushed T3s and honey and laid to rest in a Pop-Tart box in the garden.

  30. Reblogged this on Live, Laugh, Lazenby! and commented:
    My first re-post, and once you read it, you will understand why! This woman, with a wonderful gift for storytelling, might also be a long lost family member… as her story definitely has Lazenbyish elements to it!

  31. My 12 day old son was cremated on my 34th birthday. We turned him into tree in our front yard, mixing him with bone meal, because 10 pounds of baby does not make lots of ashes.

    First, though, he donated his heart valves to a little girl I send many warm thoughts to.

    We also held a birthday party for him, rather than a funeral. Why? Because he was whisked off to the NICU, as soon as he was resuscitated, and lived most of his life in a coma. Put him in a tiny casket, and never celebrate that he was with us, however briefly?

    Now THAT would have been a lot more morbid than a pool party.

    His tree is a living part of our lives. A headstone that defines his life in 12 short days? Again, morbid.

    I’m seriously considering giving my body to science. I’ve never wanted a funeral, or to make my loved ones deal with what’s left of me…heaven forbid I land in their shoes, or something!

    Thanks for giving a light and humorous touch to what is too often treated with avoidance and “Oh, you can’t do THAT” weightiness.

    And I can totally see you as a solitaire, princess-cut!

  32. too funny! I want to be a diamond ring too 🙂

  33. My family is primarily Irish, Scottish, German, and Cajun. After doing some research on different traditions of burials, one stuck out that the Germans and the Gaelic/Celtic people did. Pyres. That’s right! I want to burned to ashes right in front of my family as they have a wild party in my presence. That sounds amazing!

  34. I think I had the same Demon teacher. She must have transferred, lol.

  35. So wait, why are you dying *before* Spawn gets married?! You’re not that old, Mrs Lamb 😛

  36. Your mum could be a water feature in your front yard.

  37. My plan has always been for a public cremation and weeny roast. The slogan “Come have a weeny on me.”

  38. I’m gonna be cremated, then made into five diamond rings of a different color and given to five of my descendants.
    Then, when their powers combine I’ll become reborn as
    CAPTAIN PLANET.

    • lccooper on May 2, 2014 at 4:53 pm
    • Reply

    well, my sister had irritated the mortician so much that they sent me the ashes in a box it wasn’t sealed, so when I opened it and all dumped in my lap in the car. Hence, another vacuum up your parents story.

    I like the idea of being made into a ring, but how do you get out the smell of formaldehyde? How about the smell of stinky old woman compressed into a link bring. My mother’s ashes made it as far as the local river; her plan was to be buried at sea after being cremated.

    >

  39. Not nearly as epic as some earlier replies (all my dead relatives had ‘normal’ burials or cremations (ashes dumped in the sea.) But my grandfater apparently decided he didn’t want your standard gloomy funeral, so he put together a cassette tape and left it with his will “Frank’s funeral.” So we’re all standing around trying to do whatever people do at funerals, and my dad passes the funeral director the tape, funeral director pps it is, and Big Band music suddenly blasts out of the speakers. BAD-DA BA-DADA-DOO-DEE-DOO-DA…

  40. Hilarious! When my grandmother died, she was cremated and my father had the “honor” of sprinkling her ashes. Well, a wind blew the wrong way and he ended up with a face full of grandma. Death is just not something you can take seriously. Might as well be made into a gorgeous ring.

  41. I was just reading this morning about an editor of an anthology of short stories, and her realization that a lot of them were about death, and quite a few involved people’s ashes. “Who would want to read that?” she asked.

    I said I’d read it if at least half were funny (remember the end of The Big Lebowski? Funny!).

    I’ll bet they weren’t funny, though.

    (At least I’m not the only one who sees the comic possibilities, though. 🙂 )

  42. I’m going old-fashioned. The ‘celebration of life’ is all very well, but I’d like to have a few mourners actually, you know, mourning.
    And then a nice quick burial without the aid of preservatives, make-up (don’t wear it alive, no point wearing it dead) or messy incisions. Natural.
    With maybe a small grave-marker for my devoted cat to widdle on as it passes through on the way to the next sucker.

  43. I once thought I wanted to be mummified, until I read how they pull your brains out of your head. No, thank you! So now I’m going with cremation and being tossed into the ocean inside a biodegradable urn. I’ll be literally swimming with the fishes!

    My one caveat for my death really, though, is no cushy euphemisms for me. I don’t anyone saying, “We lost Julie.” What? Like you misplaced me? Maybe you should have looked harder!

  44. Holy cow, Kristen! This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. Thanks! 🙂

  45. Funny! I think I’d rather be a tree than a diamond. Less likely to get lost, though no one would pee on a ring, hmm…

  46. This was frickin hilarious! My husband’s father is a funeral director and they often lived in the funeral homes…oh the stories. And pictures. Talk about a twisted sense of death.

    I’ve always thought about being cremated, but I’m also drawn to natural burial: http://bit.ly/1fY8gpY. I know for a fact I don’t want a traditional burial, no offense dad-in-law. I’m too claustrophobic to think about my body in a box, inside another box…icky!

  47. LOL! I love the bio-jewel idea. I’ve been contemplating that move myself.

  48. My family, including me, have some weird thoughts about death but it has nothing to do with the remains. We’re pretty traditional about that, either the grave or cremation not caring where the ashes are put. Our weirdness is about the basic concept of death and where, if anything, it leads to.

    The diamond idea is interesting (chuckle), but isn’t your son going to have to wait an awfully long time for the your processing?

  49. My son, Louie found out he could have me cremated and made into a reef in Florida. It’s only the Florida part of that…

  50. Some of my mother’s ashes were spread at the cemetery where her parents were buried. My father realized too late he didn’t have anything to put the ashes in…so he grabbed one of her empty prescription bottles, the irony was not lost on any of us…also we arrived at the cemetery with a dead bird lodged in the grill of our car…banner day…Mom was laughing

  51. This was hilarious! My dad’s sister is resting on the top of his storage cabinet, and I wondered today what would happen if it were to fall off! My sister wants to be buried in the last space in the family plot. Both my parents want to be cremated and I’m liking the whole be made into a diamond thing.

  52. I didn’t know what to expect when I first started reading this, but the more I read, the more I liked it! Is it wrong that I enjoyed this post more than your posts about writing?

    1. I like to keep it fresh 😀 .

  53. I LOVE the ashes made into jewelry idea, for humans, pets, whatever. Fabulous post, as always. You made my day!

  54. Hilarious post. I’ve always wanted to be cremated (because I just refuse to be slowly devoured by slimy worms. My luck, they WOULD get in the casket somehow.), but no way am I sitting on a mantel for the rest of my dead days. My love for Lord of the Rings influenced this one. Yep, burn me and spread me over New Zealand where they filmed Lord of the Rings. My dead self will be happy. My religion does believe in resurrection, but I’d rather float around as an ash cloud finding pieces of myself than picking worm droppings out of my teeth when God says, “Wakey, wakey, sleepy head.” It would kinda ruin the moment for me. “Yay! I’m alive again! Oh, what is that? Bleh!”

    Yep, New Zealand it is. Lots of fire. And sexy elves. 😉

    • Larry Caudill on May 4, 2014 at 7:43 pm
    • Reply

    Great story. I can’t relate, but I’m sure my kids will (both my parents have had traditional burials). Just want you to know I am becoming a huge fan.

    1. ALWAYS good to hear ((HUGS)). Great to meet you!

  55. This post made me laugh out loud!!!
    I like the BiosUrn… Basically the “turn into a tree” thing that you mentioned:)
    I like the idea of becoming useful to the earth once I’m gone, rather than (not) rotting in the ground… Though, I think that ashes can be used as fertilizer, no?

  56. This post made me laugh out loud!!!
    I like the BiosUrn… Basically the “turn into a tree” thing that you mentioned:)
    I like the idea of becoming useful to the earth once I’m gone, rather than (not) rotting in the ground… Though, I think that ashes can be used as fertilizer, no?

  57. I really did NOT mean to post that last comment twice… Sorry!

    1. Just makes me feel TWICE as special ((HUGS))

    • Roma on May 5, 2014 at 11:10 am
    • Reply

    I made the mistake of reading this at work and laughing so hard I couldn’t speak. Everyone wanted to know what was so funny….so I show them….now we all are having a hard time breathing lol. Thank you for making my morning!

  58. Ha ha ha! I have never given thought to what i want to do with my own remains. My 8 year old asked me last week though if i want to be buried or ‘Ashed”. She also used to refer to the act of others smoking as ‘cigaretting’. I did have the thought of cremating my husband and having his ashes put into a teddy bear so I could dress him up, take him to sporting events, sleep and cuddle with him and put him in a place of honor during my one sided conversations. Now that we are most likely getting a divorce, I can nix than plan.

    I like the diamond idea. I don’t think my mass will merit a 2-carat stone but perhaps enough for a full 1-carat. lol.

  59. I was secretly grinning about this post, Kristen… It reminded me of my former fiancé. With his proposal he gave me a ring he had said was worth five times more than it actually was (it took me two looks and I knew he was a liar)… I thought… oh well… let’s say, I took off before the wedding and never regretted it… and I left that ring behind me – together with some symbol above the entrance door and a note…
    I heard, he got married to another woman a few years later… And I’m still REALLY curious if he gave her the same cheap ring he once had handed me… ROFL

  60. Yes, my father-in-law is in a box at the moment, waiting for his interment on the island in Maine in August. Although as a hydrogen proponent/news journalist for years, he would have preferred to have turned into water as a byproduct of combustion instead of ash.

    I could see someone making a mint off the diamond idea.

  61. First off I love your blog! So glad to have found it 🙂

    Now on the subject….I want a white tomb right in front of Higwarts castle and then me in it….oh wait… anyway at 27 it is probably morbid to be ginving the thougth of death as much time as I do but I have a pretty good idea of what I want and have had it for a long time I want to be creamted and scattered all over some kind of water service, I want to be in water when I am no longer here, pirat funeral will do as well.

    or mabye drink me? :p

    • Kathy on May 10, 2014 at 3:10 am
    • Reply

    Well………
    My Dad never met his paternal grandfather, but I remember that every time we drove past his graveyard- usually on the way to visit relatives, Dad would say:
    “You can turn over on your other side, now Grandpa.”
    And my sister and I would always giggle.

  62. My dad used to be a marshall at the motor racing circuit near us and he wants to be cremated and have his ashes mixed with the concrete dust they use to mop up oil spills. Talk about nuts.

    Me? I want to be cremated and have the ashes buried at the bottom of a tree, in the hope that my combined ashes and the tree somehow make the first real Ent.

    • Kathleen Azevedo on May 10, 2014 at 9:20 pm
    • Reply

    I want to enrich the soil for sequoias and redwoods- my favorite trees. Let the trees be the monuments. Let them have name plates. I am happy just to be their nourishment.

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