How many of you have thought about how you would like to be remembered once you pass away?

There are so many different options today of how to dispose of ones remains and there seems to be little thought of how to remember the deceased.  I hate the thought of cremation or having a standard shiny headstone.  In fact thinking about it, I know that I will never have a headstone as the cost is too expensive.  There’s no guarantee that you will have a resting place for more than 100 years and the way the cemeteries are filling up, you would be lucky to have a plot to be buried in.

I’m a stickler for tradition and I love the old Victorian cemeteries and graveyards, because this was an era where the Victorians celebrated death and they created fancy tombs in magnificent parks so that the deceased could be remembered for an eternity.  Well, I say an eternity, but the idea was there.  They wanted a place to return to remember their loved ones and when walking through these gardens of death, so many old headstones have a story to tell.  Take a look at the photograph to your left.  This headstone tells the story of a man who was taken away in his prime as he unfortunately drowned, but if you click on the image to view a larger one, the headstone actually speaks to you, ‘All you that come my grave to see, prepare yourselves to follow me.  Repent in time make no delay, I’m my prime was called away’.  I cant’ tell you how much passion I’ve got for these old graveyards and how disappointed I feel with modern cemeteries.  They’re just becoming boring.

I’ve just read a very interesting article over at NewScientist that takes a look at how remains can and are disposed of in different cultures and this is what has prompted my article.  Click here to read.

A friend of mine passed away very recently and my 40th is coming up and I was sending out the invites on Facebook and there’s my friends name in my list so I invited him as I thought it would be nice to have him there in spirit.  On his wall, there are some who still write to him and I think this is the future of remembering people as so many of us have a permanent presence on the Internet.  My friend was cremated and I don’t believe that he has a final resting place as I don’t like to ask, but Facebook allows me to remember him and actually it’s nice to see what other people write.

What are your thoughts on remembering the dead and do you care how you’re remembered?