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Hot topic: A morbid financial thread
I'm usually not a doom and gloomer, but I have a few questions about funerals that I'm too embarrassed to ask anyone.   After burying all 4 parents, my husband and I are anti- funeral expenses. We both decided to get cremated. Please keep in mind, we have one daughter, and realize that some form of closure is needed.   1. When someone is cremated, do you have to pick up the ashes, or can we just say "keep them"? Someone once told me they picked up ashes, and it was heavy; also contained some bones. I don't want ashes anywhere near me!!   2. Is there a way to bypass the funeral parlor and still get death certificates, etc? From listening to other people, the funeral parlor seemed to be the middle man. Can we just say to the hospital, nursing home, or whom ever to take the body right to the crematory? And will they issue death certificates?   3. We thought a funeral mass would be nice. A real funeral mass though, not just one said like from a mass card. Will the Catholic Church hold a mass without a body? The ones I've been to always had the body, then they got cremated. We want the mass and no body.   4. Someone told me if you donate your body to science, it's all free. (not organ donating) Who do you contact to donate your body to science? Do they have certain criteria, such as age, health,etc.? And then how do you get the death certificate?

Happypro_se2, A morbid financial thread Posted in Your Money.