funeral preparations

[Mr. Rumples]

Being Jewish makes some things easy; the ritual and burial are pretty straight forward, but it's the little things. In some things I am specific, in others I leave it up to my heirs. I want the least expensive pine casket without looking cheap. Cardboard caskets can be OK, I hear tell, but I don't want to be buried in cardboard as if Amazon is shipping me to the hereafter; however, a shroud instead of the casket is fine. When my mother died, the question was "the wig." She hated it, she had cancer. We decided not to have her buried with the wig. I will pay extra for the Shomer, who sits with the body until burial, I will not pay extra for soil from Israel. It's the little things which when spelled out make it easy especially under the burial timeframe; 48 hours is acceptable, but I still want a burial within 24 hours. In my library is the family Bible and Haftarah. It's falling apart, they are to be buried with me.

[yankees60]

Being Jewish makes some things easy; the ritual and burial are pretty straight forward, but it's the little things. In some things I am specific, in others I leave it up to my heirs. I want the least expensive pine casket without looking cheap. Cardboard caskets are acceptable, but I don't want to be buried in cardboard as if Amazon is shipping me to the hereafter; [/b]however, a shroud instead of the casket is fine. When my mother died, the question was "the wig." She hated it, she had cancer. We decided not to have her buried with the wig. I will extra for the Shomer, who sits with the body until burial, I will not pay extra for soil from Israel. It's the little things which when spelled out make it easy especially under the burial timeframe; given current burial guidelines, I still want a burial within 24 hours, though some stretch it to 48 even more.

Thank you for providing us with humor in the midst of this serious issue ...

"Cardboard caskets are acceptable, but I don't want to be buried in cardboard as if Amazon is shipping me to the hereafter"

[hiduplex]

This is an interesting thread. My mother died about a year ago. My dad and me also got a prepaid cremation plan. We had one for Mom too and I'm really glad we had that paid for and taken care of.

The cremation was a limited direct cremation. It cost about $2,000 when we got it per person.

We bought a number of burial plots so each of us have one. My parents got a nice granite headstone for about 3k. That was the most expensive thing out of everything.

We spent another two grand for the celebration of life between renting a facility, food, newspaper, obituary listing and just other miscellaneous costs.

But it was a secular celebration of life held at a community center in the town I grew up in and a place that was meaningful to my mother. I'd seen other family have funerals and all these other elaborate celebrations and they would easily spend 50k or more where this really felt like a celebration of life. It was a lot of people in the town and different people that it impacted my life and also my mothers and our family in generals that showed up to this. Their were several hundred people and that was cool. Was not a happy time but it was interesting to see how it all went.

I'm into computers and technology and I had an old computer that I played on loop a video. I shot of my mother before she got sick asking how she wanted to be remembered so people seem to enjoyed hearing her voice and to see something like that.

So for fairly decent setup, it cost about seven Grand. I'm glad we had this nice celebration. I think it was good closure and I'm glad they have a nice headstone I'm into genealogy and history and it's cool to have a place like that to someone's final resting spot

[LotsaGray]

The article says to name a power of attorney so that they can write a check for the funeral after your death. Isn’t this incorrect? I thought my memory was that POAs expire upon death.

Correct. You die and immediately any POA terminates. There are some exceptions for inprocess but not to write a new check for funeral expenses.

[AlohaBill]

I really have procrastinated on this one. I know the funeral home I want to use. I want to prepay for cremation. My parents took out a whole life policy in case of my demise when I was 18. I still have it and it’s paying about 4% per year. However, it is just too hard to get my bum in gear. My mother and father both had plans. One of these days…
I definitely don’t want a funeral or mass gathering. I’d like my family to have a get together at John’s Incredible Pizza or Great Wolf Lodge or a trip to Oahu even. Scatter my ashes in the American River surreptitiously or on top of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire (or just at the base along the road).

[cs412a]

I'm considering natural organic reduction (aka human composting). I'll be revising my will in the next few months (new grandchild) and will talk to my attorney about how it might be possible to arrange for this. It's currently not legal in my state, the state legislature is still kicking it around
(https://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/get ... gislation/). However, it might be possible to make arrangement for it in another state (e.g. Minnesota) where it is allowed.

A video on human composting by Caitlin Doughty of Ask a mortician: https://youtu.be/_LJSEZ_pl3Y