So I am an atheist. So, in theory I should not care. I will be dead right... But I want a freeken sweet tombstone. I dont want kids, So my plan in to spend the money it would of taken me to feed a child for 18 years and send it to collage and stuff and buy a really nice tombstone. I love tombstones. They are the little pieces of ourselves that we get to leave.
Having your child build a collage tombstone is a neat idea. Kinda weird and possibly traumatizing, but neat.
I love grave stones and tombstones etc, so few of my ancestors have anything marking their spot. I did however have a few stone masons in my ancestry so they do and I love pointing them out to my children,
The idea of being buried freaks me out. I'd like to be cremated, I think. However tombstones are incredibly cool, IMO. They don't have to be elaborate. They just serve as physical reminders that hey, this person did exist. There's a graveyard around the corner from my house. Right near the fence there is a tombstone of a soldier from the war of 1812. I think that's incredible.
Through a small path in the woods beside our house leading to this grove where my grandmother lives is a small clearing with the grave of some confederate soldier. It's kind of awesome. I too want to be cremated but I do want them to save my heart if they can and put it in a box and bury it under this great tree outside of my grandmothers. It's humongous, and beautiful and reminds me of the Mana Tree or Yggdrasil or something, so I want my heart buried there, sort of like where the Sword of Mana would be. . . but I'm a major dork that way. I also wanted a mousoleum <sp?> that was identical to Daryls tomb from FFVI so. . . this is all a bit tamer. I also had some thing about a tombstone resembling the Mana Goddess but that woulod be way too expensive for a dead person. . . . Is it weird I have more planned for my death than my wedding? Or life in general?
I'm content to make an ash of myself. But I hope I leave something behind to be remembered by -- like novels in my name.
Oh, you'll be remembered more than that, my friend. =D If I ever publish a book, and my children and my children's children ask me who taught me, I'll say: A wise man from Massachusetts...Cogito."
I officially hate this thread. Well, the subject anyway. It makes me think about death too much and I get all meloncholy, even if I don't look at the replies. Plus people's answers scare me. Excuse me, I resemble that remark! =/
It's probably just me, and I know a lot people think I'm creepy, but I have my whole funeral planned out. Maybe it's just because a lot of people in my life have passed on, and it's just been on my mind quite a bit. I wont go into the funeral, but my views on what I would like done with my body are as follows: So many people create elaborate burial plots. What is more beautiful than Mother Nature? Burial plots, tombstones, and coffins are expensive though. To me, they seem cold and depressing, and I dont know anyone who visits a cemetary regularly. It's not really honorable or respectful --just conventional and expensive. You dont have a soul; you have a body. Your body is for rent; when you die, you should give it back to Mother Earth. I would like to be cremated, but I would not like to be kept in an urn. I guess if my family wants to keep part of me with them, I wouldnt mind much though. I would like to be cremated, and then I would like most or all of me to be mixed in with the soil to help a beautiful zinnia bush grow. Zinnias are my favourite flowers and they hold a lot of meaning to me. Plus, they're annual (or perennial?), so it's like I'm never gone. It's much more personal and much happier than a tombstone, I think. I like it.
It's true tombstones are a way of being remembered but they aren't the only way of "living on" in others. After all, I'm an organ donor I say this because after every funeral we go to (and most of my family is quite elderly, so it's usually at least one or two a year) my mom always talks about how my dad's "boring" by her standards and wants the standard coffin and tombstone and how she instead wants to donate her body to science and then have her remaining remains (ha) cremated. There's also cryogenics, doncha know. I personally like tombstones, I like to look at them. But I don't know if I really want one for myself. The most I think I'd want marking where my ashes lie would be a tree or shrub, maybe a nice weeping willow or something. Also, this brings to mind a story a professor of mine wrote, involving the ashes of a deceased friend of the main characters and several bottles of whiskey.
I completely agree with Merc's view--cremation is what I want and have wanted for a while. The only cemetary that I think is beautiful in any way, the one I would love to revisit over and over, is Arlington National Cemetery. Other than that all cemeteries kinda creep me out. Probably because I watched Thriller at a young age. :/
Arlington is beautiful, the whole city, but especially the graveyard. I love most graveyards, they all have their individual charms and such, we have three in our small town and one in particular is quite lovely. There's one out in Richmond I think called Hollywood cemetary and that's where alot of my family is buried and it's gorgeous. Huge, and I mean huge, it's like feilds of nothing but perfect green and stone and there are so many strange tombs there-- giant statues and masoleums. There was one, it was above ground, and it was three brothers, and it was a pyramid like structure but it was made to look like three coffins stacked upon eachother. It was unsett;ing but so cool looking.
I have seen some pretty cool masoleums, but I think Arlington just tops all. I'm usually creeped out in cemeteries, but when I was there I never wanted to leave. I could've stayed there forever and ever, it was just so incredibly beautiful and solemn. The view from Arlington House, overlooking all of DC and where JFK once said "I could stay here forever", was especially beautiful. I could definitely agree with him, I wanted to stay there forever.
Mm, I agree, I love that place, actually, if I stop wasting time and go for it, I may be going to school in Arlington/DC, and I'm pretty sure the school is right by the cemetary practically and I find that pretty exciting. I find something oddly comforting about cemetaries. . . I think it's the quiet, the beauty and the dead people, there is something comforting about being surronded around people who lived but are finished with it-- with all the worry and fear and heartache and have gone on to something larger. It's nice. Or I'm a total creeper. Maybe both.
Ignoring everything thats been said thus far in this thread, and to answer the original question: I think it's useful for those who want to remember you at specific times. =)
I don't think of it so much as something to "remember" someone by, but more so to have an idea where they're buried at. Kind of like those little plastic markers people use in gardening, so they can tell which part of the dirt will have carrots growing under it and which part will have potatoes. The tombstone lets everyone know which part has grandpa sitting under it, and which part has grandma.
