h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I knew someone in her eighties who, like me, had long willed her remains to the nearest teaching hosputal. They took them abd the family had a nice quiet evening together swapping tales of grandma's long life and quirky character. I'd like the same.

'My father is also of the "In A Plastic Bag off the End of a Pier" school - but it strikes me as a rather selfish attitude. ' I'm inclined to agree. I think you're right that funerals are for other people, not the deceased. I have two diametrically opposed viewpoints on this. I think it would be good to have something like a green funeral - low cost, low resource, back to the earth type and part of me likes the thought of a coach and horses and someone singing at my funeral. The part of me that wants the green funeral thinks that's selfish and silly.

So the hospital took the eighty year old's body 'for science'? Oh well, maybe there's hope for the putative nonagenarian uncle!

my grandad died a few years ago. He had a lot of cancer and after a very active life died peacefully in a hospice.

He wanted his body to go to medicine -so I assume it went to be used by students as a practice body. There wasn't a funeral but there was a wake, for very close family.

It was at my mum and dad's place - the stipulation was (since he loved bright colours):

no black
men in Hawaiian shirts (I nearly fainted - even my dad wore one)
ladies in the outfit he liked the best (for me, he even told me a few weeks before he died: purple docs, long straight purple skirt & purple t-shirt. With purple streaks in my hair)

We had a sing-along with my uncle's guitar, and we had a massively crazy Ludo competition (his favourite game) and me and my mum and one uncle smoked a joint in the garden, in memory of when he used to grow the stuff in his allotment and on his rather fab balcony, for my uncle & his band mates.

Actually, it was one of the best parties I've ever been to - and I insist that I won't go to any more funerals unless they are like that. A real celebration of a long, active and happy life.

and now you all know what I want for mine!

That sounds wonderful, Sho! The last really personal funeral I went to was my brother's (and quite a long time ago now). It was an unexpected death, so I was entirely unprepared for it. I wore black. I love the idea of Hawaiian shirts, though!

For a long while, I thought that it wasn't really important what happened to my body and I happily carried a donor card. Now, I have a different take, as I think the soul needs three days to leave the body and I think that after that, it doesn't really matter what happens to the physical body; it's just a shell.

o/±