Death.

The Dawn Patroller and I have decided to donate our bodies to medical science.  Just a cop out really for having to pay for a funeral, but if they have enough bodies to be going on with you can still end up having to pay for a funeral.  I havent seen any of the frugal blogs discuss this so far.  Death I mean. It is a very expensive event.  Plus it requires a lot of organising for those having to sort it out.   And for why?  If my body can be used to improve knowledge for the future treatments of all thats wrong with me.  Great.  You die.  You make a telephone call.  A respectful team come along and remove your body.  End of.  Two years later, if you have requested it you get the ashes.  No charge.



Donating your body to science is a concept most people are familiar with but few know how to go about. In fairness, those who do end up leaving their body to science don't talk about it afterwards, so the process isn't something that's become common knowledge. It's not a matter of having your carcass dropped off at the nearest laboratory; there are a lot of legal matters to attend to. But even if there weren't, there's not much a typical lab can actually do with a human body, not unless they urgently need a cumbersome and extremely morbid paperweight.  The Guardian.

Basically neither of us are religious.  Funerals I avoid where possible.  I prefer to stick with my memories of the person alive.  Not necessarily well, but alive. And there is the whole hassle and cost of organising such an event.  We had, and have friends who have gone down this route and they had nothing but praise for the way death was handled.  You have to discuss it with family and amend your will.  It is an easy thing to do. Just google it.

But then you or who is left has the problem of closure.  I went to a tea party today in memory of a friend who's body had gone off to medical science.  

Well I shall be earmarking an amount of money for everyone to get totally p****d. listen to 60s music and boogie the wheel chairs and the walking frames.  One can decide not to pay out for the funeral but a celebration of the life of the dead one should be just that.

A further point on death. On Friday evening there was yet another road traffic accident at the end of our lane so vehicles were diverted down and past our house.  One after the other and very fast came zooming down.  On the verge our new cat Martha was mown down and killed.  As the vehicles tried to squash past each other on a lane so narrow we have passing places and didnt see the cat as in their haste they churned up the verge where she was.  So that night I had the p**s up and the next night .  We celebrate a cats life with a tree planting.  Not a bad idea for all of us.