Yesterday, I attended the viewing of a neighbor from years ago when I lived in the old neighborhood.

1-I was surprised that the funeral was not held in an LDS church, but a funeral home. I didn't stay for it.
2-I was surprised to see the person in temple regalia. I did not know she had ever been endowed.
3-There was no mention of the buriel place, so I asked her son. He told us she is being cremated and he was NOT happy about it. Said he was "outvoted".
4-So, my question...what happens to the casket? Do the temple robes, veil, etc get taken off before cremation or not?
5-I know LDS policy in the past has been to discourage cremation. Is this still the feeling?

The handbook states that the Church does not normally encourage cremation, but it is the families decision and notes that some countries require cremation.

It also states that if the member has been endowed the body should be dressed in the temple clothing when it is cremated.
(17.2.2)

I guess the cloth will be resurrected too? Can have them showing up in paradise naked.

I made a promise to my dear dad (who passed in 2000) that I would not be cremated when I died. Having a real struggle with that now. Paying the exorbitant prices funeral homes here charge for a burial goes against my frugal nature. Shake n' Bake is fine with me.

RB

Your dad is no longer with you and would have no knowledge of your choosing to be cremated. Another option is family preparation, home funeral, and green burial in a natural burial ground inside an inexpensive, simple box. Here's a Canadian green burial website for you:
http://www.naturalburialassoc.ca/

I'm fully aware of my father's current status. It's about honoring a promise I made. Nothing more, nothing less. Will be doing some funeral pre-planning in a few months and the discussion will no doubt be wide ranging.

RB

Sorry, Ron. I shouldn't have suggested it. Consider the last option, though. Saves bucks.

Thanks.

Not close enough to here. Hopefully someone will start one here. If I had more land I'd consider it.

RB



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2017 12:12AM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

Hi, Ron -

My cousin passed young due to congenital disease. He had made arrangements prior to his death to donate his body for scientific study. When the University was done with his body, they cremated it and returned it to his wife. I may be wrong, but the cost, if any at all, was minimal.

Maybe if you donate yourself and the school does the cremating, you would be doing a service to humanity and it might not feel like you were reneging on a promise made to your father?

-Sunny

Ron, You have written with great love and respect for your father. If you can afford it, put your mind and heart at peace and spend the money to keep your word.

You don't have to go top-of-the-line for any of it. Whatever you want.

I'm also of the mind that funerals are a major rip-off, but who cares about the blood-suckers? Not you, not me. You care about your dad.

I hopefully will be in a position in a few months to do that. My promise to my dad is pretty important to me regardless of my personal feelings about what to do with my carcass. Thanks.

RB

People change their minds, Ron. I never would have suspected that my elderly, Catholic mother would have opted for cremation. Yet that was her choice.

Your dad's request has been frozen in time. Yet here you are, 16 or 17 years later. He might have changed his mind about it had he lived.

Your primary duty is to your wife and kids now, not your dad. Just a thought.

I find that the cremation option varies. I've seen instances where the body went to the funeral home and straight to cremation, where the body was driven by the family straight to the crematory (allowed by almost all states and at least some provinces of Canada if the family does the paperwork correctly), and times when the body was embalmed, dressed, placed in a coffin, then removed and sent to the crematory, and times when the body was embalmed, dressed, placed in a coffin, and the coffin and body sent to the crematory. Boy, what a waste of money. And obviously, the casket would have to be made entirely of wood, and many are not. And I think the wooden ones are more costly than the stamped steel variety.

I don't know what drives the big differences in how you choose to cremate. Truth is, though, if you're going to cremate, there is no need to pay for embalming and dressing, as it's expensive enough already. The church actually has no real problem with cremation, even if your bishop says otherwise; it is (supposed to be) entirely up to the family.

My very TMB sister-in-law recently really broke LDS tradition by giving her body to University of Utah for dissection. They came and retrieved her body for free, and packed it off to the school in the back of a van. Then she got a brick bearing her name placed into a memorial. That was enough to satisfy her. I mean, if people can somehow use your remains--otherwise a useless and expensive burden for others--why not get rid of them like that?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2017 12:27PM by cludgie.

I had a friend who had her father cremated and she rented a casket from the funeral home for viewing and service.

Another case where LDS ambiguity & dilution of "doctrine" rule the saints!

What I don't get is why they would spend all that money on embalming and a nice casket to have a viewing and then do a cremation. One of the big pluses of cremation is not having to do a viewing.

Went to a wonderful memorial service last Saturday of one of the most incredible men I have ever known. They did a photo montage and this is the song that played:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6bZ37nexSY

Everyone was smiling through tears because it fit him so perfectly. I was so glad there was no casket, body or rituals with the body and putting the hat on and all that shit. It was a true celebration of his life. Instead of spending money on all that, they had a reception afterward with nice catered finger-type food so that we could all sit around and visit and tell stories about our friend, Ray. We didn't need to see a body filled up with goo with a half-inch of makeup to make him look "at peace." Cremation and real memorial services are the only way to go in my book. With the technology now and the ability to do a wonderful photo montage, you get all you need of seeing them. In happy times. And going home with sweet memories.

Not having to see the body is a big perk, indeed.

NormaRae and Cludgie...these were my thoughts, exactly! I was told the reason for the cremation over burial was the cost. So why the embalming, the open casket etc? It just was all so confusing to me.

Maybe they did rent the casket. That would make sense. But then I wondered if the rented casket is sold to another family or is it kept as a rental and then it seemed kinda weird to think about.

My friend Dennis, who lived in Alaska, lost his son due to overdose. Many of us in WA state know the family, so he shipped his son's embalmed body and casket down to WA where we had another funeral. Afterward, he had his son cremated. His son's body, discovered more than a day after he overdosed, was discolored and bad looking despite the embalming job, but we all had to file past and have a look-see. I always wondered why, if he intended to cremate his son in the first place, pay for embalming and cargo shipping of the body and casket? Why not bring the remains down in checked or carry-on baggage? And why make the tragedy worse by making us file by his son's body?

People do odd things after a death, and sometimes there is no accounting for why we do what we do after any tragedy. But there is also a need to plan and to be pragmatic. To do, in the face of tragedy, those things that will lessen the impact. When my BIL passed away, even though he and his wife had pre-paid funeral expenses, his widow still had go around the family with hat in hand because the funeral and burial costs ran $8,000 beyond what the pre-paid amount covered. It just made things worse for her and the family. Cremation, DIY home funerals with green burial (in a shroud or simple wooden box), or giving your body to the university * are the best alternatives.

* Giving your body "to science" does not necessarily imply that your corpse will be dissected in gross anatomy classes. They do all kinds of stuff with dead bodies. If, per chance, some study needs to find out happens to a person's body when it falls 30,000 feet to the desert floor, they will drop a cadaver to check out the damage. Science.

when the bottom line is a business for money. I don't want people remembering me that way. Food and drinks and photos for those who put themselves out for a celebration of life.

One of my desirers is that at my funeral, my remains would be in a casket and the casket would have a crank handle on the side.

At the appropriate time, after any songs, speeches, etc. are done, someone would go up to the casket and turn the crank handle to the music of "Pop goes the weasel".

At "Pop", the lid would snap open, I'd sit up waving a sign that read "That's all folks".

My wife has said that if any of our kids carry out my wishes, she would not go to my funeral.

Awesome!!! I'll go instead!!!

I am to be cremated. But....my ashes are then being sent to a company that turns them into synthetic diamonds. I will be turned into 6 stones of 1/2 carat each.

The stones will be given to my children and grandkids.

Diamonds???

Diamonds are pure carbon. Carbon and hydrogen in any organic material are gone from a cremated body. What's left is mostly calcium compounds. I suppose you could make quartz out of that, but diamonds? I'd be very skeptical.

My hope is to die in the jungle (we live a couple hours from the Amazon). I want my corpse to feed some critters--a jaguar, maybe, and her cubs. That would be ideal. My wife's not too keen on the idea but I can probably talk her into it. She used to work out there and has some contacts--when my lymphoma starts getting uppity I can hop a bus, go rent a room, then wander into the jungle, lean against a tree, gobble some sleeping pills and end up as a big kitty's main course.

As for cremating Mormons, I think they should practice first on inanimate objects. Torching a few (empty) temples would be a good start.

My father's friends and relatives want an open casket viewing, funeral mass (Catholic even if they have not be inside a church for years) and then to the cemetary for a short service inside a chapel (and coffin). After the family leaves the deceased is brought to the crematorium. The ashes are delivered to the funeral home. By law his coffin cannot be used again. I suspect that varies by state. I never thought to ask what happens to the casket. I was so pissed that my sister put that d amn dog's ashes in my father's coffin. Oh, this method is very expensive. Fortunately for us he had set aside money for this purpose so we could afford to do him proud. Navy honor guard too.

who isn't mormon, was cremated last year. He chose to not have an obituary, funeral, viewing, etc. They had a big party for family and friends, drank his favorite beer, smoked cigars, etc.

We were talking about it just last night. I can't remember why I asked about no obituary. My boyfriend said so that nobody would bother his mother after his death, seeing her as someone elderly that they could victimize. Oh, yes, he started the conversation as we were talking about my daughter hasn't been doing baptisms for the dead since she has been here for the winter. She used to do them once a week at least. I just realized it last night. His father's extended family is ALL mormon and they have been watching and waiting for his death. The first anniversary of his death is coming up and the family will be really angry if someone decides to do his temple work.

I, myself, can't imagine being cremated and I don't know why I'd prefer being put in the ground??? Other than not being cremated, I plan on nothing more than a graveside "service" for my family and any friends who may have survived me.

My sister, who is LDS still, is going to be cremated and have her ashes put in her husband's coffin.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2017 07:45AM by cl2.

No option is perfect. It all amounts to waste disposal, and all waste disposal is tricky. But American burials with their requirement for cement vaults, cheap steel caskets, and embalmed bodies are absolutely the worst alternative:

- American funerals are responsible each year for the felling of 30 million board feet of casket wood (some of which comes from tropical hardwoods), 90,000 tons of steel, 1.6 million tons of concrete for burial vaults, and 800,000 gallons of embalming fluid.

- Embalming fluid is so toxic, that technicians wear hazmat suits as they do it.
- Bodily fluids and excess embalming fluids are vacuumed out of the torso with a trocar and blown into the normal sewer drain, before plugging the hole in the person's belly with a large, threaded plastic screw.

Even cremation is far from perfect, and is an environmentally harsh alternative. The incineration process emits noxious substances, including dioxin, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and climate-changing carbon dioxide. The average fuel required for the cremation of a normal corpse is roughly equal to the fuel required for a 4800 miles drive.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2017 08:34AM by cludgie.

Im thinking cremation...then ashes placed in a large brown envelope and sent to revenue canada with a nice little note that reads...now youve got it all...ya bastards...death and taxes boy...just a side note...mediums claim they cant commune with the cremated...another good reason for cremation...think of all those silly inane questions you wont have to answer while your trying to rest peacefully and some joker keeps paying a medium to rattle your chains

I assumed temple clothes would only be worn in the temple and the clothes were part of the super secret services. I don't understand. Is this the same for the Masons?

The temple robes, sash, veil, hat and apron ARE worn only in the temple when a person is alive. BUT...at death, somone, usually a family member, puts them on the deceased in the casket. Right before the casket is closed, the veil is put over the woman's face. It is creepy in my mind. Non-members are often curious, surprised or freaked out by it and it leads to lots of uncomfortable questions, believe me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2017 11:42PM by gemini.

Masons are also buried in their ceremonial get-ups. A Mason funeral was my first tipoff that the LDS ceremony was appropriated from Masonry.

Thank you for responding to my question.

Kind of an odd story that happened to a friend of mine. This guy's father was a rancher in Wayne County, Utah. Him and his wife went on a trip to one of the casinos in Laughlin, Nevada. While there, the old man had a heart attack and died. His son,my friend,went down to pick up his mother and arrange to have the body returned to Utah. He quickly learned from the mortuary that it would cost about $10,000 to have his body embalmed and shipped back home.

He did not have the money so he called the Nevada Highway Patrol and asked what the law was about taking the body home himself, they said that as long as he had the death certificate and the body was in a body bag it would be ok. So he packed the body in a body bag covered in ice sandwiched between two mattresses and drove the body home to the family ranch where he buried his father. He only paid the cost of the mortuary storing and picking up the body from the hospital and the supplies to transport the family.

Such it is with home funerals and green burial. In all but 4 states, you can do everything by yourself as long as pull the right permits at city hall and pay the small fees. Admittedly, there are many without the stomach for all that. Sometimes you can get a "death midwife" (might be a guy!) to help with it all, for a small fee. No sense following the burden of loss with the burden of debt.