What to do with my corpse
We’ve hit that age. The age of colonoscopies and regular skin checks and worrying about spots and not being able to eat anything you want. I mean, I say we, but I mean me. You might be in your prime and looking at me with dreadful fascination. God I’m glad I’m never going to be that old.
Believe what you gotta believe.
Anyway, we’ve had a few scares over the past couple of years and my daughter is now eyeing us both sideways and initiating conversations about what we want to do with our remains after we go.
And yes, I know that I could unpack that train of thought a lot more. But I choose not to.
One of the more interesting of these discussions was when she said:
“We could cremate your remains and turn them into gemstones and then have them placed in your skull and keep it on display.”
And now I can think of no other way I want to be memorialised than that.
I would absolutely flat out haunt that skull. It is a skull made for haunting. I would be remiss if I didn’t haunt it. I pointed that out to my daughter.
She no longer wants me to be a skull.
But we stuck with the remains being turned into gemstones idea. She suggested that I could be turned into a series of gemstones that could be bequeathed to my nieces and nephews (she specifically didn’t mention keeping one for herself). At this point, I am starting to feel Horcrux vibes. Either that or a quest in a few hundred years where a group of my descendants have to track down the gems and bring them together to… what? Save my immortal soul? Prevent an apocalypse? Power a robot me? I’ll think of something.
So now I am intrigued. Is it possible? Pause for research.
Well yes! Yes I can!
So apparently, a large cremation diamond will take 6-8 months. My family will need “200 g ashes or 10 g hair”. Wait a moment! I could get my diamonds done early! (hunts for clippers)
I can choose my cut (Princess cut, anyone?). How many ashes will I produce? Could I create enough diamonds for four niblings? And I feel like I should give one to my daughter, even though she doesn’t want one. Five is the magical number for remains diamonds especially if there is going to be a future quest.
OK, so about 6 pounds. 3 Kilos. More than enough for five diamonds. I’m not going to look up the cost. That is definitely someone else’s problem.
That’s two options. My wife wasn’t overly keen on having my skull cleaned. Maybe an Infinity Gauntlet?
My previous idea for afterlife eternal peace was to be turned into a tree. There are a number of companies that turn you into a tree, having your remains buried in the roots of a sapling which will absorb them and you and the tree become one. Haunting a tree sounds nice.
Both wife and daughter want to be scattered. Tasmania, Halls Gap, up in the mountains. If I was to be scattered, it would be at sea. But the haunting possibilities seem a bit slim. And the opportunity to become a sad drowned cursed spirit seem high. I am more and more happy with the skull idea.
When my daughter floated the idea I immediately thought that I could have the skull placed inside a teddy bear. Chucky and Annabelle eat your heart out! Do I even know a voodoo priest?
But honestly, I fully intend to be uploaded to the cloud when I die, and I can’t imagine being overly worried about what happens to my mortal remains after that.
Oh, just so that it’s on the record: the hospital gets to keep the useful bits before the rest gets turned into diamonds. Make sure you’ve ticked the organ donor button people!
Because the possibilities for haunting and possession go through the ROOF when we’re talking hearts being implanted into other people. I’ve never heard of a haunted liver. I could be the first one!
Finding Damo 