What are you going to do with your body?

              I think about what I want done with my earthly remains after I depart this mortal coil, maybe more than I should.  It’s not a scary or morbid line of thought for me, more along the lines of amusing, or interesting.  I’m still young and healthy enough that it seems like a rhetorical question.  But every year brings me closer, so I should probably give it some serious evaluation.

There are the two classic routes, burial and cremation.  Both have their pros and cons.  Burial bothers me for a simple reason: land use.  There is a large beautiful cemetery in my home town, one I drive by on my way to work, and it always evokes a sense of peaceful melancholy, like the inevitable tragedy has happened, and we manage it, and remember our loved ones in a respectful way.

              Then I think about how much land is being used.  If this cemetery weren’t here, perhaps this land could be used to build houses or apartments, and I could live there, and I’d be a lot closer to work.  Furthermore, how much land will be filled by the time I kick the bucket, hopefully in my late 150’s?  A lot of people are going to die between now and then, and this cemetery might even be full.  What happens then?

              A mausoleum is being built in the middle of this cemetery I have been discussing.  It’s basically a little weird-looking stone building which will house hundreds of caskets, stacked in shelves, rising to the ceiling.  In a way, I like this idea, both because it precludes being buried alive, and because it makes me think of ancient catacomb tombs, like in ancient Egypt.

              What happens when we fill up all the usable land in the country with cemeteries?  I guess the mausoleum thing will become more popular, but it’s got to be expensive.  Maybe they can convert all the old Toys-R-Us stores into mausoleums.  The building is already there, and we just need to put in some shelves, and probably a souped-up air filtration system to purge all the products of decomposition.  Can’t smell worse than Toy-R-Us, when it was in business.

              Cremation solves the problem of using up all our precious land, in addition to giving a punch in the arm to the urn-manufacturing industry.  However, it’s kind of terrifying.  I realize that I’ll be dead when this happens, and therefore unable to scream, but what if I retain some sensation or connection between my soul and body?  Being burned up is a personal pet peeve. 

              Also, what about the pollution issue.  Are you telling me that I can’t burn leaves because of pollution, but burning a human body is totally ok?  At our core, we are hydrocarbons, like gasoline, and the hippies hate it when gasoline is burned.  Why is okay to produce greenhouse gases by torching Uncle Fred?  Do crematoriums have a catalytic converter?  I probably should have done some research before sitting down to write this post.

              There is a product from a couple of Italian designers called the “Capsula Mundi,” which is a biodegradable egg-shaped container into which you can stuff your ashes or even your whole body after death.  This is then buried with a tree on top of it.  The idea is that your nutrients nourish the tree, continuing the great circle of life.  I like that idea, but what happens when your survivors move?  Or decide to redo the landscaping?  Are you going to leave grandpa, or pay a company thousands of dollars to dig him up and replant him somewhere else?  Or if you’re like me, every tree you plant ends up dying and then you have to chop down grandpa and burn his tree-body in the firepit.  Everybody can roast grandpa hotdogs and smores.  So, even this beautiful, environmental problem raises its own issues.

              There are a few companies out there that will take the cremated remains of your loved one and compress it into a diamond.  This amazing, and seems like a win-win, right?  However, even this has a few problems.  You still have to cremate the body first, with all the problems we have previously discussed.  An even bigger problem involves the portability of the remains.  When you are buried, there is a very low risk that your remains will be misplaced, stolen, or pawned.  Not so with a colorless, VS diamond.  It doesn’t take too much imagination to come up with a scenario in which someone might find the inclination to hock grannie in order to make the rent payment or buy a used Toyota Camry.

              I have long dreamed of being stuffed.  Not like at Texas Roadhouse, on delicious rolls.  No, I want to be stuffed like a price deer head, by a taxidermist.  My insides will be replaced with cotton or a wooden frame, and my skin will be treated and stretched to look just like I did while alive.  Maybe even better.  My eyes will be replaced by glass ones, made to order with an ice-blue twinkle.  I’m picturing kind of a Marlboro Man look, with my skin darkened by the chemicals.  Maybe I can be wearing a cowboy hat and boots, and one of those four-quadrant shirts Garth Brooks used to wear in concerts.  I can be hoisting a rifle, or have my hands on my hips, my head thrown back in a hearty laugh. 

              To prevent my family from hiding my taxidermied corpse in the attic, or worse, selling me at a garage sale, I’m going to have a clause in my will that requires me to be placed in the foyer, ready to greet guests or to frighten off any burglars or UPS guys.  In order to receive their inheritance, each day, the grandkids will need to come give grandpa a big hug and a kiss. 

              I suppose I’m going to need a lot of inheritance to make this happen.  I should probably go to work.