Stacey C – Asheville, NC

My wife Barb and I talk about this because we want to be together. I don’t need my body to stay in this form, it can just go into the ground and be meat, but we talked about being together. I don’t believe in heaven and hell, I’m okay with my energy turning into something else. I don’t want to be buried in a box, but we haven’t done the research yet on all the options. We think most about how to get our paperwork together and rewritten so that we can get this all in order.

We originally thought we’d be cremated because we didn’t think they’d let us be buried in our bodies together. If Barb dies first and is cremated, I’m keeping her ashes before anything can be done with them. It gave me comfort to have my dog’s ashes after he died.

Where we go doesn’t really matter. We don’t have kids. Who’s going to visit us? Our friends? I don’t really think so.

Also, if I knew I was going to die soon and could plan things, I’d want to record messages to individual people and be videotaped. Then it could be played at my funeral party and it would be personalized to the people who showed up.

Side note:

I think Facebook is changing the way people mourn. I’ve found out about deaths on Facebook and also gone back and looked at people’s life chronicle on it. People now leave posts on a deceased person’s Facebook page to mourn them. When I think of memorializing a person now, I also think of pulling all that info off of Facebook—the events and photos and everything.

Age: 44 at time of interview

Religious Affiliation: Raised Catholic, now Pagan

Occupation: Language specialist helping kids with dyslexia

Location: Born in rural New York, now in North Carolina