Ok, that's it, no funeral, no "celebration of life", nada

[Dapper Dave]

I just came back from the celebration of life for one of my employees who passed away in a single vehicle accident. Very sad. So, I decided I should represent the Department in uniform, as I expected the staff who said they were going to show up would also be in uniform.

Nope. Just my dumb butt. Oh well, hand, meet sore thumb. Now mind you, I've been up almost 24 hours straight by this time - as I write this, I still haven't gone to bed because my loving wife is sleeping for her shift tonight. I will suck down some more coffee, pretend I am doing a 96-hour evolution on board ship, and drive on. So, what does that have to do with it?

When I am really tired, sometimes I focus on odd things, and I realized how many of the people there had no idea who anyone else was OR details about the deceased. I was told for a few years he had no kids, never asked, turns out he had four, two natural, two adopted. Ok, interesting, but understandable - work environment is not the same is off duty, and the number of coworkers who hang with me off duty is less than 1. 

The church is one of those new churches, with TVs everywhere, electro-gospel songs on the overhead, cameras on the preacher, (this room is NOT big), slide shows, and behind him was the band. Drums, keyboards, electric guitar...I grew up with organs in big churches, pianos in the smaller ones and choirs wearing robes with draped over goofy neckties. Ok, times change, I get it. 

People kept coming up to me after the service ended and thanking me for my service, (THIS is why I never ever, ever, wear a Navy hat), and I want to say, hey people, it's not about ME. I am just trying to represent for a good officer who suffered a terrible fate. We DID have the Honor Guard there who presented an Arizona flag to the widow with much ceremony; they looked razor sharp. There was lunch served afterwards that I apologized and excused myself from attending.

So, why is my barely awake behind pontificating with such sound and fury? 

Because I don't want anyone to go through this when I croak. Wanna get together? Two or three of ya go to The Irish Cowboy and have fish and chips while hoisting a pint of Guiness. Or meet up at the range and shoot a few rounds. Go to the library and read science fiction quietly together. Clean guns. Go fishing. Load ammo. Bake bread. Do something fun with the ones you want to. Speak up when you want to.

Case in point - during the sermon, (a sermon during a funeral trying to convert attendees?), the preacher says our lives are like vapors that dispel rapidly. I so wanted to say, no, mine's a fart. Can't say that in church, but you CAN do it while drinking a beer around a pizza with friends. You can even fart while saying it - nobody will smell a thing over the extra garlic anchovies...

I just don't want to waste anyone's time over my useless wrinkled behind. 

 

 

 

[Blackwater 53393]

I’ve decided much the same and have instructed those who would handle my disposal that I want to be done away with in the least expensive manner and any money that they have to spend is to be used to hire a good Blues band and an open bar and party their asses off in my remembrance!!

[Rip Snorter]

Dad, a guy who was very successful in a couple of careers, a hoot socially with lots of friends, wanted Nothing.  No wake, no Obituary in the paper, no party. His ashes came home from the funeral parlor in a cardboard box.  All at his request.  Believe I'll have the same.

Edited April 11 by Rip Snorter
Spelling

[J-BAR #18287]

Yep.

[Tooky Slim]

Same here...get me the cheapest way out, and  throw a party where everyone can talk about what a great guy I was.

     The Blues band sounds like a nice touch. Band with a piano and a sax.  

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

I've mentioned a couple times my friend of 50 years that died about 3 years ago. I went back to Ohio to "see him off" as it were. 

At the burial, there was just his family, his favorite Preacher, an old friend from the area, and me. They pretty much just placed him in the ground and that was it. 

They had a Memorial Service the next day at his Church. There were about 50 or so people there. His daughter had brought in a bunch of his stuff that meant a lot to him, and had created a slideshow, and there was "funeral Home" background music playing low. Now I'll admit, I was a mess. He'd been my friend, as I said, for 50 years. We'd talked on the phone just a couple days before he died. It was unexpected to say the least. The thing that tore me up the most was one of the pictures in the slideshow. It was one of him, me, and another friend, taken at my first wedding back in 1984. Like I said, it tore me up, but I'm glad they did it. 

I don't have a bunch of friends, about a dozen or so, mostly from the gym. I think that it would please me if they had a get together to remember and talk smack about me once I'm gone. And a Grumpy Lunch Bunch in my honor. (Yes' I "borrowed" the name from Uncle Forty).

I don't want to be buried, that always seemed to be a waste of real estate to me. Cremation and kept in a jar until my wife joins me, then maybe scattered around the back yard.

Edited April 11 by Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770

[PowderRiverCowboy]

Nothing for me been to to many (over 100 military) presented the Flag and well many after Beirut. after doing the last 11 family members in 10 months including my wife only have my kids so no reason to have anything official

 

[PowderRiverCowboy]

27 minutes ago, Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said:

 

I don't want to be buried, that always seemed to be a waste of real estate to me. Cremation and kept in a jar until my wife joins me, then maybe scattered around the back yard.

When wife died I have now decided that was my biggest mistake , I thought do a grave at National Cemetery (cremated per her wishes) so everyone can have a place to be with her  . I should have kept her with me at least its only a 20 minute drive but there have been weeks i have been there 4-5 times as other then kids only one that goes to see her.

[Rip Snorter]

I have scattered 4 dogs ashes on the slope behind the house - can't think of a better place to land.

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

I’ve been exposed to violent death since I was six years old, with the loss of a number my Navy pilot father’s squadron mates, who were also fathers to my classmates and friends. They were Cold War warrior deaths, that were not to be acknowledged, much less celebrated.

 

After my father’s death, my mother married another who has since passed. He’s buried in  the same St. Louis cemetery, a short stone’s throw from Gen. William T. Sherman. One has a large memorial, one has a marker. Neither knows they are neighbors, nor does it matter to them. 
 

Funerals and memorials are an indulgence for the living, but hopefully give the survivors a sense of peace and closure. I guarantee it doesn’t matter a whit to the deceased. 
 

 

 

 

Edited April 20 by Abilene Slim SASS 81783

[Dantankerous]

Some years back I came across what I thought was the perfect obituary. A picture, DOB and DOD, and this write up:

 

Gone Fishin.

 

 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

I want to be cremated, a small flag ceremony with taps, and Neil Diamond's The Story of My Life played to commemorate my wife.   I'd  like some friends to get lunch together at some little family restaurant and have someone put a brief notice right here on this website.  Dump my ashes on my roses and go on with your lives.  You'll get over it sometime, so why not now?   My son will try to make a bigger deal of it and that's why his sister, 2 years younger than he is, has been made the person to take care of all  this.  She loves her Daddy, but she will see to it that my wishes are carried out and it isn't  turned  into a circus....and if anyone  tries to do anything else she will go militant on them.

 

I don't go to funerals any more.  The last one I attended was a disaster.  It was a month or more after the man died.  There was a large  bunch of people who had  known him  and a preacher who wouldn't shut up. My Dad used to call guys like him a "carnival  preacher".  It was pretty obvious that he DID KNOW the man.  The widow was a study in over-dramatic carrying on with screeching, loud sobbing, that was frankly as phony as a three dollar bill.  I had not spoken to her in a few years, didn't much like her anyway, and I was embarrassed when she  hugged me and carried on for three or four minutes and then took  her show to the next  person

 

If anyone treats me that way I will do my best to come back and haunt the bejabbers out of them until they  die, hopefully years later, in a psych ward somewhere screaming in terror.

 

All this is academic anyway, because I'm going to live to 102 years old so I can be my own HighSchool reunion.

Edited April 13 by Forty Rod SASS 3935

[Lawdog Dago Dom]

If I should die in a highway crash, I already have instructed the family to NOT put up some cross, shrine, balloons at the crash site. Same goes for Shortcake.

They know what happened there and don't need a reminder every time they drive by.

Remember me how I lived, not how I died.

Buy some equipment for the kids that play at the ball diamond where our kids grew up playing baseball.

Bats, balls, benches, picnic tables, etc.

 

At my dad's visitation some old neighbors remarked, "He looks good."

I said, "He should look good, he just got out of the hospital."

They were stunned at first but started smiling.

"Your dad would have thought that was funny," they replied.

Yes, he would.

[Gracos Kid]

Three weeks ago I was requested to walk over to my neighbor's house to meet with his adult son, as the son couldn't get his Dad to answer the phone or come to the door.    I went in with the son behind me, just to find my 78 year old friend and neighbor of 40 years, lying on the bed with gun still in hand having shot himself in the head.......Felt like I was back at work as I have worked many murders over the years......

 

If you haven't heard the song by Mark Robin titled "When it's all been said and done"  please listen .......I want it played at my funeral.....

 

 

[WD Farren]

I want my ashes scattered over Los Angeles as air pollution.

 

my wife wants hers sunk on a miniature Viking ship by a flaming arrow.

 

We will have left the party.

Cleanup is left to those still attending.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

8 hours ago, WD Farren said:

I want my ashes scattered over Los Angeles as air pollution.

 

my wife wants hers sunk on a miniature Viking ship by a flaming arrow.

 

We will have left the party.

Cleanup is left to those still attending.

Maybe some lefty puke will get an ash in the eye just as an annoyance.  Go for it, my friend.

 

[J-BAR #18287]

My mother died (kidney cancer) in 2012, at age 95.   She passed in her home (7 hours away) under hospice and my sister's care.  I composed and read a 3 page obituary/memorial statement at her service after her cremation.  After I sat back down with my family, thinking the service was near its end, the preacher conducted an evangelical service,  during which I learned that my idiot sister and her zealous hyperreligious daughter-in-law had scared my mother into a last minute confession and conversion.  (My mother had been a church member all her life.) The preacher spoke for another half hour,  holding my Mom up as a shining example of last minute salvation.

 

My sister, her daughter-in-law, and the preacher were proud of themselves.  The congregation cheered.  I was appalled that they had frightened a 95 year old woman, heavily doped on morphine for pain, on her deathbed.

 

To this day I have no respect and have minimal interaction with them.  God will have to forgive them.  I won't.

[Trailrider #896]

I seriously doubt that my wishes will be observed for a number of reasons, but I would prefer to be cremated and a portion of my ashes sent into space by one of the outfits that do that sort of thing. The remainder of the ashes (if they won't take them all) to be scattered at or near the Cape.  If a memorial service is to be done, members of my veterans group to be invited.  Although I was not a military pilot, if a training mission was being conducted at a nearby air/space base, perhaps they could do a Missing Man formation. 

[Dapper Dave]

I told my wife to grind me up and use me to hunt great white sharks near the Great Barrier Reef. That way people can say I was their chum. 

[Eyesa Horg]

We put in our Will that after cremation, some ashes be loaded in shot shells and sent downrange! The attorney gave us an odd look! 🤠

[DocWard]

On 4/11/2026 at 10:36 PM, Abilene Slim SASS 81783 said:

Funerals and memorials are an indulgence for the living, and hopefully give the survivors a sense of peace and closure.

 

I could not agree more. This past weekend I went to my brother-in-law's funeral. It began with a mariachi band (he was native El Salvadoran, naturalized as a US citizen and loved the music). A brief service by a Catholic deacon, and eulogy given by his sons. It was one meant for those he left behind.

 

I've given two eulogies, the first for my father-in-law, the second for my father. Both were painful for different reasons, but I believe both allowed me to heal. My father-in-law wasn't religious, so that made a difficult situation at least a little easier. My father was supposed to be eulogized by a person of his faith (Jehovah's Witness), but he couldn't make it at the last minute so I filled in, and did the best I could to make my aunt, his only living sibling who also shares his faith happy with the outcome. Somehow I did. I may have one more, assuming I outlive my brother.

 

As for me, my wife and daughters know I want to be cremated, my ashes can be placed in the local National Cemetery if they so choose. Certainly no church service, unless they want to track down a Buddhist who can say something briefly. The one thing I have insisted upon is that everyone be told to think of at least one time they've laughed with me or because of me, and keep that laughter in their hearts and minds. I'm also good with an open bar. Guinness, Jameson's and a good single malt scotch (I'm partial to Glenfiddich) being front and center. A band wouldn't be a bad thing either. Or a DJ to play lots of my favorites, from classic rock to 80's new wave. I'm guessing most of the people will be too old to dance much, but hey, I hope they give it a try!

[Chickasaw Bill SASS #70001]

this thread makes me think of an old Farren Young tune 

 

  CB 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

My first wife, rest her soul, wanted no obit, no service, and her cremated remains sprinkled on her Daddy's grave.

Done.

My wife wants much the same, but her ashes into the Ohio River, at a particular place she used to sit and watch the sun set.

I'll arrange that very thing.
My ashes will be scattered in a particular patch of woods where I can listen to the native oaks whisper secrets to one another, where I can hear grouse drum and squirrels cuss.

Service?
Anyone wants to have one on my behalf, be my guest, but I won't be there.

[irish ike, SASS #43615]

My instructions are. Cremation with no service. Bring my ashes home and spread them over the grave site for 6 of our dogs. Thats it.

[watab kid]

On 4/11/2026 at 4:22 PM, Dapper Dave said:

I just came back from the celebration of life for one of my employees who passed away in a single vehicle accident. Very sad. So, I decided I should represent the Department in uniform, as I expected the staff who said they were going to show up would also be in uniform.

Nope. Just my dumb butt. Oh well, hand, meet sore thumb. Now mind you, I've been up almost 24 hours straight by this time - as I write this, I still haven't gone to bed because my loving wife is sleeping for her shift tonight. I will suck down some more coffee, pretend I am doing a 96-hour evolution on board ship, and drive on. So, what does that have to do with it?

When I am really tired, sometimes I focus on odd things, and I realized how many of the people there had no idea who anyone else was OR details about the deceased. I was told for a few years he had no kids, never asked, turns out he had four, two natural, two adopted. Ok, interesting, but understandable - work environment is not the same is off duty, and the number of coworkers who hang with me off duty is less than 1. 

The church is one of those new churches, with TVs everywhere, electro-gospel songs on the overhead, cameras on the preacher, (this room is NOT big), slide shows, and behind him was the band. Drums, keyboards, electric guitar...I grew up with organs in big churches, pianos in the smaller ones and choirs wearing robes with draped over goofy neckties. Ok, times change, I get it. 

People kept coming up to me after the service ended and thanking me for my service, (THIS is why I never ever, ever, wear a Navy hat), and I want to say, hey people, it's not about ME. I am just trying to represent for a good officer who suffered a terrible fate. We DID have the Honor Guard there who presented an Arizona flag to the widow with much ceremony; they looked razor sharp. There was lunch served afterwards that I apologized and excused myself from attending.

So, why is my barely awake behind pontificating with such sound and fury? 

Because I don't want anyone to go through this when I croak. Wanna get together? Two or three of ya go to The Irish Cowboy and have fish and chips while hoisting a pint of Guiness. Or meet up at the range and shoot a few rounds. Go to the library and read science fiction quietly together. Clean guns. Go fishing. Load ammo. Bake bread. Do something fun with the ones you want to. Speak up when you want to.

Case in point - during the sermon, (a sermon during a funeral trying to convert attendees?), the preacher says our lives are like vapors that dispel rapidly. I so wanted to say, no, mine's a fart. Can't say that in church, but you CAN do it while drinking a beer around a pizza with friends. You can even fart while saying it - nobody will smell a thing over the extra garlic anchovies...

I just don't want to waste anyone's time over my useless wrinkled behind. 

 

 

 

ive thought this all my life - told my wife to cremate me and spread the ashes in a favorite place , 

 

i have experienced a numbef of these recently tho - it was fun ta;lking to those that came and learning of their ties , their memories  , and hearing the things they said - tomorrow im going to a memorial service at the bursing home that my MIL passed in last november , they will remember all that passed their in the last six months in some ways im happy they are doing this - ill let you know after if its changed my mind 

[Pat Riot]

Since moving back to the area of my birth (I don’t call Pennsylvania my “home”. I was born and partially raised there. That’s it) I have attended 3 funerals. I truly dislike traditional funerals. 
The one thing I found to be hellaciously tacky and uncalled for were the ministers brought in to conduct the funeral services blathering on and all the while trying to get people to repent for their sins. I would go on about how I feel about that but I don’t want to offend anyone over this issue. 
 

My wife and daughter know my wishes. I want to be cremated with embalming and a funeral home viewing. As soon as I die and if my body isn’t evidence or needed for autopsy I am to be transported for cremation. 
At some point after I would like a party or get together thrown with food and drink and I would like my favorite music to be played. If Hard Rock and Heavy Metal offends anyone they can leave. I already have my playlist on my iPhone. It’s labeled “Favorites”.

I would love for my ashes to be dumped under a small tree. Ash is good fertilizer. The little bone bits can get gnawed on by the little animals for minerals if cremation doesn’t destroy them. 

The one thing I told my wife is if anyone attends my party and tries to switch the music to Country I will show up and haunt that person. If anyone decides to bring in a minister or someone tries to officiate a Christian ceremony I will haunt them and I will turn up the music to drown out their bullsh…

 

[Rooster Ron Wayne]

Im going to have my Brother. 

Text everyone at my funeral from my phone ,

Thank you for coming it was nice to see you there.

Rooster 😳

[Dapper Dave]

Have someone set your watch alarm to ring during the funeral, so everyone has to hear that "beep, beep beep" out of the coffin during the whole thing...

[watab kid]

1 hour ago, Dapper Dave said:

Have someone set your watch alarm to ring during the funeral, so everyone has to hear that "beep, beep beep" out of the coffin during the whole thing...

oddly enough my wifws phone did just that .......got everyones attention , its her daily reminder to call he brother , sorta got everyones attention 

[Rooster Ron Wayne]

15 hours ago, Dapper Dave said:

Have someone set your watch alarm to ring during the funeral, so everyone has to hear that "beep, beep beep" out of the coffin during the whole thing...

With a special ringtone  !

https://youtube.com/shorts/kjTGT-JtBdE?si=r2m6_EsNK7YrJV3e

[MizPete]

I'm with y'all, though I was raised in church and am comforted by hymns out of the Broadman Hymnal.  and some from Glory and Praise.  BUT I have asked my family to cremate me (saving some to be loaded into shot shells and fired over the lake at Ponderosa Pines) and have a party.  Y'all could talk nice about me if you want to.

[Dapper Dave]

On 4/17/2026 at 10:12 AM, Rooster Ron Wayne said:

With a special ringtone  !

https://youtube.com/shorts/kjTGT-JtBdE?si=r2m6_EsNK7YrJV3e

Life of Brian, "Look on the bright side of life!"

 

[watab kid]

i hear that dave every day is a blessing these days , i treasure each as it comes alone or with family or friends all are good - no0 , i never want one of those get togethers after im gone unless its at a tavern to enjoy the day 

[Chickasaw Bill SASS #70001]

IT AIN'T like ya is gonna be there 

 

   CB 

 

     

[Rip Snorter]

Flashback Bob Newhart, I think - pre recorded for visitors "Hey,don't I Look great?  How's the Wife & Kids?"  That would be a hoot.