I definitely agree that everyone has a right to handle death and life in their own way. We have been having the discussion at our house lately. Hubby wants proper service... like they did for years. I ask him how will he know what actually takes place.

When Bob Hope was nearing the end of his life in 2003, his wife Dolores asked where he'd like to be buried. "Surprise me," he said.
That's pretty much where I am regarding any remembrance gathering when I'm gone. I'm not a member of a church and have no interest in a formal service at a funeral home.
I've pre-paid for a cremation. I'd prefer to be buried in a field or forest wrapped in a sheet if I hadn't already put money up for the cremation.
A party in a park, a pot luck in a back yard, a hike in the woods would all be fine by me. I think it's absurd to spend thousands of dollars on services. Before the funeral industry started early in the 1900s, it all happened at home.
So I've told my son and friends "Surprise me!" Just don't take me to a funeral home.

I am in agreement with janinsanfran, and as you know Ronni, I concocted my own ritual or Rite of Passage for my 80th last year, and did a a Celebration of Life while I am here to enjoy whatever people hd to say as I entered my 9th decade with a stepping across a threshold in the presence of my family and a few friends.

I will have a non-traditional "natural" burial with no monument in an age old funeral tradition with no poisons put in the earth, or hight energy cremation and be buried au natural by a attended by a death doula, a fairly new professional, and with no non-biodegradable items put into the ground with me. My family and friends already have what few instructions there are to my "ceremony", and they get to do whatever they choose to do, after they lower me back to the earth I came from. We do our laughing out loud now while I am here to hear it. Meanwhile I plan on living as much of my life "out loud" as i can, like I have so far.

My philosophy early in the morning.

In my country people don't talk about death, as if they think that they are going to live for ever. They have a superstitious feeling that talking about death will hasten it!
When I advised clients (and family and friends) to draw a will (testament) they would recoil in horror, as if I had threatened them!!
I don't understand it. We will have to go. So, let's go, if possible, as we would like, let's have that little bit of extra control on our «life» after we have departed.
I agree that in death rituals we should celebrate the life of whoever we are sending away, remember her/him as the sort of person we liked and loved, with virtues and shortcomings. When life is over, it is easier for the mourners to remember the departed as a full human being who shared life with them than just a body in a coffin.
After two years, I'm still having to deal with the belongings of my most beloved Son, who died unexpectedly. It still breaks my heart to touch and dispose of his possessions, documents, letters...
So i have already started my ritual of death: I'm getting rid of my personal stuff. Whether private papers or professional ones, I've been reading them, remembering other times and enjoying myself thoroughly!! I'm afraid I had already forgotten some events, and the younger version of me is reminding me of the life I had, it's ups and downs.
Clothes, mementos, books, everything my children don't want or need, I give away to people or charities I choose, family members, friends.
For me, I'll keep what I love most and gives me most pleasure, whatever it may be.

I'd prefer cremation, a tiny little memorial service if my son desires (please, no religion!), and my ashes scattered in some beautiful place in the mountains. I'd rather fertilize a tree than be left to rot in a coffin. But of course once I'm dead, I won't know or care what my survivors do. Everything done after my death is for their benefit, not mine. Prepaying a cremation might guarantee that part of it. As for my belongings, survivors can pick out what they want and put a figurative match to to the rest.

My mother, who died 8 months ago, wanted cremation, no service and said her surviving children should go out to dinner, drink as much as we like, and have someone else drive us home! Her ashes are still in a black box in the living room. We still haven't had that dinner.

My dad, on the other hand, who died 14 years ago, wanted to be buried in a military funeral, with my middle brother playing Taps on the bugle. We even had a drunken sailor standing at attention (well, sort of) , along with the rifle shots. The "service" itself was cobbled together by my mother and me--a little bit of Bennet Cerf, May Sarton, and words by the kids--ended with a reading of "Crossing the Bar" by Tennyson--a favorite of my Dad--all held at the grave site. The funeral director asked for a copy of our program as he had never seen a family put together something like that and thoroughly enjoyed it. And my bro did play "Taps" as my dad had said if he didn't, he'd come back to haunt him!

For my "disposal", I'd like cremation. Though already paid to the Neptune Society, I think I'd like my son and his kids to take the ashes for a hike and scatter them in their favorite place. Or if they'd like to keep me on their mantel, it's fine too!

A great topic, Ronni! What I want, if I'm close to the end and have the stamina and my wits about me, is a big goodbye party. I want to hear from family and friends about what they'll remember about me, or anecdotes, or what they've learned from me. It's always struck me that the most moving funeral services feature all of that, but that the deceased doesn't get to hear it (we don't think, anyway). Lots of food, lots to drink, lots of chatter. That's what I want.

I haven't thought a lot about a possible memorial for me--I think it's probably up to whoever might want to remember me.

But I am howling over "Families want to put the 'fun' in funerals!" LOVE it!!

Like Nana, I have already made a pact with my sons and paid for the cremation.

I bought a nice contraption that will hold my ashes along with a sprout of a tree which will enable my sons to plant them in the place I love the most -- the place I went to spend nearly every summer day of my childhood -- alone on a wild, tree-covered hillside near my home in West Virginia where a tiny spring rose out of the ground near the top of the hill and ran downhill for a half-mile or so to the creek. My sons have already been there with me and know where to go.

My sons also know where my parents and grandparents and many of our forebears are buried in a town nearby and will be given the plot's ownership papers shortly so they can continue to care for them. That's our family's traditions. The 'old fashioned' ways of West Virginia. Mine will be the first, I believe, non-traditional burial for a very long time.

Some time ago I read that it would be a gift to our survivors to present them with an envelope containing details of arrangements already made for our passing (especially great for our adult children if their father should call them some night in panic at two a.m.)
Nice mom that I am, I made pre-paid arrangements with a super funeral director I found. I paid for cremation, selected a lovely container for ashes, a burial plot to please my husband, and later a headstone bearing both my name and my husband's.
One day (prior to that) my better half and I had spent a full two hours (by the clock) with his refusing to hear nor respect my wishes for --> myself.
A few weeks later, he told me that he had consulted with a priest at the church where he attends Mass weekly. He came home assured that he could be could be cremated and buried beside me, under a headstone covering us both, and that he could rest assured that the cemetery (one with a delightful name) that I had selected would be just fine ~~ though not formally designated as a Catholic cemetery.
Our children are happy campers, well, in the sense that their dad will not be insisting on a casket burial nor a Mass, which none the children nor I have attended in many years. I think I can say that my husband is somewhat happy himself, at least in the sense that something is resolved. Not many years ago, he admitted he was finally able to face the fact that he would not live forever !!

I entered this life without fanfare and that's the way I intend to leave it. I've pre-arranged a fairly simple funeral. Dignified (closed) casket and burial in a plot near my parents as soon as possible after death. Although I'll be buried in a Jewish cemetery, I've requested a non-religious service. I figure a few words of Hebrew spoken over a hole-in-the-ground will not increase my chances of a better after-life.

Once I’m dead it matters little to me what happens to the body I have vacated — whatever is most convenient, giving my children comfort, since they may have to be coming from across country, or I may be with one of them, but they live distances apart — few, if any other relatives except their children will still be living. I have said I wish to be cremated so I expect they may well arrange for my ashes to be distributed in an area near where my husband’s were — by land, air or burial at sea is possible, too, if the other options are no longer feasible.

The disposition of his ashes was determined by us jointly when my son became aware this could be done from the air over a legally designated National Forest area at Sedona, Arizona — flight and Sedona, individually, had special significance to my husband and I, my son and thus our daughter. The poem “High Flight” by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. was read as the ashes were spread.

Unanticipated, later that summer friends in the midwest where we lived years earlier gathered, held a Celebration of Life we attended. A pianist friend performed a song I was unexpectedly asked to select so I requested “That’s All” — the unsung lyrics there speaking loudly to me of my marriage relationship. This occasion meant much to me, and allowed our children and my granddaughter to see an aspect of their father’s earlier musical life, meet so many of his old friends.

My mother, years earlier, had always expected a traditional burial, likely burial in a plot near where she was born and ancestors headstones were still present. After moving to the west coast, for whatever her reasons, she expressed the wish to be cremated but did not specify anything further. Few relatives were still living and those that were could not travel the distances to come here. My brother, coming from Hawaii, and I provided her a more traditional church service presided over by a minister of the denomination that had been a hallmark in her life. Subsequently, her ashes were buried at sea, off the coast, with Hawaiian leis and flower petals. My SIL has remembered our loved ones in the annual Hawaii Lantern Floating Festival.

My brother’s first wife who died of ovarian cancer was cremated, with her ashes buried at Punchbowl Cemetery on Oahu in Hawaii.

For us any services, or none, associated with each departure from Earth is unique, dependent on various factors. I expect no service with so many friends, including those mutual friends from my husband’s memorial, and family, including my only brother, gone — who was cremated, requested no service of any kind with his ashes retained by his wife — so defer to whatever my children choose is best for them at the time.

My possessions of any consequence will have long since been designated by who wants what, but there isn’t much. Disposition of anything else is immaterial.

Ever since reading Vagabonde’s blogpost following her husband’s death with what she shared here relative to cremation issues I have had second thoughts about that process.

I have prepaid for a cremation but am now having second thoughts. I’m interested in a green burial and there is a place just a few hours away from me. But I don’t think I can get a refund now. So the best I can do is have my ashes along with my husband’s scattered in my lovely yard...when no one is looking, I suppose.

I have no children and by then probably no relatives who will care and my friends are my age or older, so I could be completely alone.

I want no service, nothing religious..just a pretty place to symbolical rest.

I do like the idea of getting an auction company to do a fundraiser after any few friends or fewer relatives might want anything.

Another thought is that have collected screenshots of many quotes, poems, and sayings. I thought about doing something like Shutterfly to make some little books and I have done some paintings that are fairly good I would like not to end up in the trash...

I worry that my nice garden and landscaping will go to seed before my stepsons take ownership and get it sold. All my hard labor of love....gone.

Oh well I’ll be dead, so I won’t know about it.