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Post by scrappintoee on Jun 29, 2021 20:40:46 GMT
In my country, their ashes won’t be handed over to you. Spreading ashes is illegal (with two minor exceptions), and your can’t keep them at home either. That's interesting....what are the two minor exceptions?
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Post by PolarGreen12 on Jun 29, 2021 20:54:48 GMT
We had dinner with friends tonight and they are looking at purchasing burial lots in a local cemetery and prepaying as much of the mandatory expenses as possible. Seems like the cheapest Jewish funeral in the Chicagoland area will set you back $28,000!!!!!! Nuts! I told them I want a plain pine box. Well...apparently those go for $1800. My hubby could build one for $100 tops. Gonna have to rethink my options and talk to the kids. Maybe burial at sea. I do own some land in Scotland my son gifted me. It's 1m x 1 m but maybe they can go on vacation and scatter my ashes there. I have one of those mini plots of land in Scotland too, maybe we can be graveside buddies.
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Post by Blind Squirrel on Jun 29, 2021 21:44:58 GMT
My DH died unexpectedly in 2016 and I was astounded at the cost. I remember sitting at the table making the arrangements and seeing a sign that said payment was expected day of...thank goodness my mom had a large credit limit on her credit card, because my credit card didn't have enough of a limit (with no balance!). It was about 11K for the "funeral"; viewing, prep, etc. THEN, I realized we had to go across the building to buy the grave plot/marker. About another 6K. This was nothing fancy, either.
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maryannscraps
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,731
Aug 28, 2017 12:51:28 GMT
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Post by maryannscraps on Jun 29, 2021 21:55:02 GMT
I'm lucky that the town where I live has a lovely town cemetery and plots are only $600. It's a really pretty and peaceful and tree-filled place.
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Post by Lexica on Jun 29, 2021 21:57:50 GMT
Lexica .... Wow! I cannot even imagine !!! Did you have nightmares after that? No, no nightmares. But when I was awake and I would think about it, it bothered me. Not so much what my neighbor asked me to help her do, because she was really bothered by what she saw in the box and wanted help figuring it out. But the fact that the woman's son came home and saw this and his wife just said that the mess he saw on the kitchen table was his mother. That still bothers me to this day. If had had gotten upset and cried or something, I know I would have absolutely lost it too. The fact that he just grabbed a soda and left to go sit in front of the TV in the family room bothered me too, but not as much as if he would have reacted. I think the fact that it didn't bother them, bothered me.
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Post by librarylady on Jun 29, 2021 23:48:00 GMT
In the 1950s a perpetual care cemetery opened in the community were my parents lived. They purchased 12 burial plots. The salesman must have been remarkable because my grandmother also purchased 12 plots. Having those extra plots has been handy when various family members died.
In 2019 my niece died and was cremated. That cemetery wanted to charge the same fee as if it were a casket etc. for her remains to be placed there. If we scattered her ashes, we could put a headstone, but the headstone could not give her actual date of birth/death, just the year. Her brother chose to have her ashes put in a rural cemetery where the rules were more reasonable as well as smaller costs.
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FurryP
Drama Llama
To pea or not to pea...
Posts: 6,976
Site Supporter
Jun 26, 2014 19:58:26 GMT
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Post by FurryP on Jun 30, 2021 2:19:33 GMT
There are actually a rules about human remains and ashes in the US as well. When you get your loved ones ashes, they really are not just ashes. Many times small bits and pieces of bones and skull are in the ashes. I've heard vague rumors that some crematoriums will sift those and break up the bigger pieces. So what you end up with is more like sand than ashes.
My neighbor's mother-in-law was cremated when she passed. My neighbor called me to come over and look at the ashes with her. She felt something was wrong with them. When I got there, she had them spread out on their kitchen table and was going through them with a spoon! I admit, I was a bit weirded out that she didn't put down a disposable plastic bag first or anything to keep them from being in contact with the table top where she fed her family. She wanted help spooning through the ashes and pulling out anything that she didn't think belonged in there. There were large metal staples and I explained that these were undoubtedly from the box that her MIL was put into before being placed in the cremation chamber. They don't just put a bare body in there. She accepted that and we removed them. That was the extent of my knowledge though. Then she found these bits of hardened blue blobs. We pulled them out into a pile and she wanted to know what they were. I had no idea so I ended up calling a funeral home that performed cremations to ask some questions for her. It turned out that the blue blobs were because her MIL had artificial breasts. The blue bits were what was left of them when they melted. She also wanted to know why they were more like sand and not actual ashes. The funeral home explained that the remains were more sand-like because of the bones in our bodies. People hear "ashes" and tend to think of the ashes in their fireplace, but they are more like beach sand. My neighbor's husband came home as we were pulling out the blue bits from the ashes. I was horrified that he had to see this. He asked what we were doing and his wife just said that the stuff on the table was his mom and that we were pulling out any weird stuff. He just nodded and got a soda and left the room. After we had removed anything my neighbor objected to from the pile, she tossed those into the kitchen trash and used her bare hands to scoop the remaining ashes back into the container that she had purchased to put on her mantle. There was residual matter left on the table and she just grabbed a wet cloth from the sink and wiped the table down, then rinsed her MIL off the cloth and into the sink. I went home a bit dizzy from her nonchalant attitude. It was my first experience seeing human remains that had been cremated. I would have walked out the minute I saw what she was doing.
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Post by hookturnian on Jun 30, 2021 3:13:00 GMT
In the West, people seem to be very squeamish about death and dying, and the rituals and processes around it. In other cultures it's seen as just another part of the circle of life. People are much more hands-on. In India, family members will normally wash and shroud the deceased themselves. Hindus cremate on an open pyre. Wood is stacked under, around and over the deceased with just the head remaining exposed. The eldest son will then pour ghee on the pyre, and set it alight with a torch. Mourners will watch as pyre burns. There are also rituals around what happens at the end of cremation, but I won't mention them here, as they may traumatise some. Google at your peril.
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Post by miominmio on Jun 30, 2021 6:11:17 GMT
In my country, their ashes won’t be handed over to you. Spreading ashes is illegal (with two minor exceptions), and your can’t keep them at home either. That's interesting....what are the two minor exceptions? Spreading the ashes «to the wind» (as the law says, that will usually mean high up in the mountains or at sea) or, in some rare instances, people have been allowed to bury the cremains privately (a few families might have private cementaries). You will have to apply for that to happen, and there will be conditions so that the local authorities will know that the ashes have been properly scattered within the allotted time frame.
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Post by mikklynn on Jun 30, 2021 12:10:02 GMT
I believe the U.S. average is $10,000. We already have our plots, and they were $2,000 for both. We will be cremated, and our ashes in memorial plots at our church. Cremation is certainly cheaper. I’m wondering what the plots are for if you’re being cremated? Our ashes will be interred at a military cemetary, with a gravestone.
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Post by librarylady on Jun 30, 2021 14:33:14 GMT
Here is a book that is great for planning the end of life issues: Grave Expectations: Planning The End Like There's No Tomorrow By Bailey and Flowers
It has humor but covers almost every situation.
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Post by lisacharlotte on Jun 30, 2021 14:53:12 GMT
My mom died in 2019. Her cremation cost $1,500 and additional official copies of her death certificate were $10 each. I ended up not needing additional copies, everyone just copied the one I had. There was no service or funeral. I released her ashes into the ocean at sunset. Unfortunately it was low tide so she took a while to go. She would have loved that story about refusing to go quickly. She was stubborn to the end.
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Post by lisacharlotte on Jun 30, 2021 14:56:21 GMT
If you think real estate is expensive in California, you should see the price of funeral plots. It's been a long time since I had to deal with purchasing one, but the cost was outrageous. my parents divorced when I was a kid and my mom got the funeral plots in Los Angeles. I really need to find the paperwork and call. I can sell them since I’m never going back.
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TankTop
Pearl Clutcher
Refupea #1,871
Posts: 4,779
Location: On the couch...
Jun 28, 2014 1:52:46 GMT
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Post by TankTop on Jun 30, 2021 15:37:14 GMT
My mother in law passed on the 17th. For direct cremation, no service, no urn (my daughter made one and glazed/fired it herself), 8 copies of the death certificate, and newspaper notice we paid $2700.00.
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TankTop
Pearl Clutcher
Refupea #1,871
Posts: 4,779
Location: On the couch...
Jun 28, 2014 1:52:46 GMT
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Post by TankTop on Jun 30, 2021 15:47:26 GMT
If you are on Instagram please go to Jami NATO’s page and watch her Incle Ben highlight. 😂😂😂
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julieb
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,845
Jul 3, 2014 16:02:54 GMT
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Post by julieb on Jun 30, 2021 20:46:41 GMT
I want to be cremated and use that burial money for my three kids to travel to a few specific locations and spread my ashes. Switzerland is one of the places and Bryce National Park is another. I'm sure they will have to sneak me in.
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jayfab
Drama Llama
procastinating
Posts: 5,521
Jun 26, 2014 21:55:15 GMT
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Post by jayfab on Jun 30, 2021 22:50:43 GMT
I've told family I want direct cremation with no showing/funeral home involved. It's 800 bucks in my state and 35 bucks for each death cert. I told them to have a party instead of a formal anything. I don't care what they do with me after that, spread a few oz's secretly in my favorite places or throw me in the trash. I need to put it in writing so they do it.
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Post by worldwanderer75 on Jul 1, 2021 3:44:04 GMT
My dad died in March and his very moderate funeral was $22K. It was crazy. I couldn't believe the prices just for caskets. My parents had already prepaid for their plots so this was literally just the funeral cost.
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Post by lesserknownpea on Jul 1, 2021 7:02:37 GMT
When my mom was terminal the hospice nurses warned us that the price for cremation varied widely and gave us several phone numbers and urged us to call and price shop and be prepared when mom died. We were so thankful for this practical help. The difference between the cheapest place and some of the others was four fold.
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artbabe
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,045
Jun 26, 2014 1:59:10 GMT
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Post by artbabe on Jul 1, 2021 14:32:17 GMT
In my country, their ashes won’t be handed over to you. Spreading ashes is illegal (with two minor exceptions), and your can’t keep them at home either. I'm in the US and the funeral home told my dad that they have to return the ashes to the family- the funeral home wasn't allowed to keep them. Dad actually apologized to me that I was going to have to deal with his ashes. My mom's funeral cost $12,000. I'm not counting food in there because everyone that came brought food. I thought that was what everyone did. Huh. My mom had a funeral and is buried in a nearby cemetery with a simple gravestone. My dad has only been there 3 times- when mom was buried, again to check that they actually delivered the headstone, and once when her sister wanted to put flowers on the grave. I haven't been there since the day we buried mom, and I doubt my sister has been there either. We just don't care where mom's body ended up- mom is in our head and hearts, that headstone means nothing. The only reason we did it was because mom was very proper and would have wanted everything to be done the proper way. My dad has paid for his cremation already, and all other expenses. He has told us he doesn't want a funeral, so we probably will just have the get together that usually comes after a funeral. I haven't put any plans in writing yet and I probably should. I don't want a funeral either. My dad has already prepaid for everything.
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Post by simplyparticular on Jul 4, 2021 15:41:57 GMT
My father died unexpectedly 2 weeks ago, and his basic wake/service/cremation were $8,000. This included a plain casket for cremation - renting a nicer one was actually more expensive. In order to keep the time at the funeral home to a minimum, we did a 2-5pm public visitation and a 7pm private funeral service. I paid $1,100 for the funeral dinner for 42 at a local banquet hall. Cremation overnight and family-only burial the next afternoon.
The plot in a perpetual care cemetery, which can hold 4 urns, was $1,250. We (accidentally) picked a basic urn that didn’t require a vault, which reduced burial costs substantially. Interment of the urn was $1000. Which turned out to be a small hole dug about 2 feet down. We watched them close it up - a couple of 5 gallon buckets of soil and the tiny square of sod put back into place. We were surprised it wasn’t deeper, but the idea of the 5 gallon construction buckets struck as very Dad-like. We have not picked or paid for a grave marker yet - that will run $800-1200 through the cemetery, so I plan to research outside options first.
Mom needed the wake/funeral to process his passing and she visits her parents’ graves (45 min away) annually on Memorial Day, so a plot was a must. I was happy to know about a closer cemetery - our family will need the ability to visit, and the cemetery is much nicer than the one her family has used for generations because her great-grandfather helped found the (Masonic) cemetery.
ETA - the funeral home had a nice scrolling photo video option, which we used. Those same photos went into a Walmart same day photo book, and my husband designed the “prayer” cards and we printed them at Walmart, too. The cost for those same services was way over-priced through the funeral home and ugly/overly ornate.
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Post by longtimenopea on Jul 4, 2021 16:02:58 GMT
There are actually a rules about human remains and ashes in the US as well. When you get your loved ones ashes, they really are not just ashes. Many times small bits and pieces of bones and skull are in the ashes. I've heard vague rumors that some crematoriums will sift those and break up the bigger pieces. So what you end up with is more like sand than ashes.
My neighbor's mother-in-law was cremated when she passed. My neighbor called me to come over and look at the ashes with her. She felt something was wrong with them. When I got there, she had them spread out on their kitchen table and was going through them with a spoon! I admit, I was a bit weirded out that she didn't put down a disposable plastic bag first or anything to keep them from being in contact with the table top where she fed her family. She wanted help spooning through the ashes and pulling out anything that she didn't think belonged in there. There were large metal staples and I explained that these were undoubtedly from the box that her MIL was put into before being placed in the cremation chamber. They don't just put a bare body in there. She accepted that and we removed them. That was the extent of my knowledge though. Then she found these bits of hardened blue blobs. We pulled them out into a pile and she wanted to know what they were. I had no idea so I ended up calling a funeral home that performed cremations to ask some questions for her. It turned out that the blue blobs were because her MIL had artificial breasts. The blue bits were what was left of them when they melted. She also wanted to know why they were more like sand and not actual ashes. The funeral home explained that the remains were more sand-like because of the bones in our bodies. People hear "ashes" and tend to think of the ashes in their fireplace, but they are more like beach sand. My neighbor's husband came home as we were pulling out the blue bits from the ashes. I was horrified that he had to see this. He asked what we were doing and his wife just said that the stuff on the table was his mom and that we were pulling out any weird stuff. He just nodded and got a soda and left the room. After we had removed anything my neighbor objected to from the pile, she tossed those into the kitchen trash and used her bare hands to scoop the remaining ashes back into the container that she had purchased to put on her mantle. There was residual matter left on the table and she just grabbed a wet cloth from the sink and wiped the table down, then rinsed her MIL off the cloth and into the sink. I went home a bit dizzy from her nonchalant attitude. It was my first experience seeing human remains that had been cremated. I remember after my father-in-law died, my mother-in-law had purchased some memorial jewelry so that his ashes could be put into a necklace or other memento for the grandchildren to keep. My husband and his brother were trying to fill the little containers with this absurdly small funnel and the ashes were going everywhere. They were laugh-crying and we were trying to figure out how to get the spilled ashes out of the carpet. Then they took the rest outside to spread them in their parents' flower garden, and it was windy, and the ashes got all in their hair and their beards. What else was to be done but go wash the bits off and let them go down the drain? They also had a bit of a nonchalant attitude about it. I think they just acted as though the ashes aren't really the person anymore though, which I suppose is true enough. I was initially very uncomfortable with the whole thing but now having been through it a couple of times, it feels a bit less horrible to handle ashes.
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