How to maintain control from the afterlife...
Mourning Becomes Electric
Cremation or burial? Maybe this is the start point.
It's a very personal decision, and each has its own benefits.
Cremation has the advantage of mobility. You can be scattered pretty much
wherever you want - from a favourite scenic spot in the New Forest - to
the dance floor of Turnmills! Post a plaque and you are immortal.
Yet a traditional burial and gravestone also have an allure. Cremation
can feel clinical to some, a sweeping of mortality under the carpet. The
idea of your body slowly becoming one with the earth in a particular resting-place
may feel more 'natural' and may allow a more complete kind of mourning
for survivors.
Burial supposedly guarantees a more permanent memorial, too, though it
seems you can get ground deconsecrated pretty easily nowadays, as when
Dame Shirley Porter sold acres of Westminster graveyards to property developers
in the 80s. A country as small as the UK fills up pretty fast. However,
new plots are being opened up in non-religious settings and sites of natural
beauty, and 'green' non-religious ceremonies encouraged. A call to a local
funeral director will inform you of the options and restrictions available
to you now and in the future.
You may want to bear in mind that the Co-op is not only the biggest funeral
service in the UK but also was the only one in the early days of HIV that
accepted the bodies of Aids victims and granted them a decent departure.
On a practical level, burial may be up to twice as expensive as cremation,
depending on what cemeteries charge. Burial is sometimes not allowed if
the person died of a very contagious disease - as was the case in the
very early days of Aids.
page 4 of 7
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