Leslie Nielsen's tombstone is inscribed with a fart-inspired epitaph that he requested long before his death: Personally, I've always been a fan of the funny epitaph. I'd like mine to read something like "Roses are red, chocolates are brown, I wasn't dead when they lowered me down" Focus: What would you want your epitaph to read?
"I'm dead, and you STILL won't stay the fuck off my lawn." "And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those pesky kids"
As for myself I want a grand beech tree planted somewhere around crotch level with my tombstone inscripted: "Please watch out for my nuts, love." Or "Spent 115 years on this earth, drank countless bottles, did 2 cock push-ups, swam with the sharks, sired 20 illegitimate children in one night, killed a man over a game of Monopoly, brought the snow leopard back from extinction... and all I got was this lousy gravestone."
Slummin it with She-Girl. OR Pssst....Lean Closer....closer.....Put your ear right up to the ground. Hear that? It's me clawing my way up to your delicious brains! (Although this would require me to be buried with some speakers and various electronic devices to simulate me scratching and yelling.) OR The bitch did it. I don't care what the investigation said.
Off topic, but this thread made me think of it. Two of my nieces, from different sisters, are named after deceased relatives. At Eastertime this year some genius thought it would be a terrific idea to have these two children (ages 2.5 and 1.5) to be playing around the headstones of the side by side graves of their namesake's. They are really good photos, but they are creepy as hell.
I guess I'll break the trend of funny epitaphs (since 90% of you would not really want that bullshit on your tombstone anyway). I would want this quote on my tombstone: From Walt Whitman, by far my favorite lines from any poem. If there was an elegant way to get that much text into a tattoo without it looking like shit, that's a tattoo I would get.
For that matter, on a more serious side, what are your burial requests / funeral arrangements? Personally, I won't have a tombstone, because I want to be cremated. Viking funeral would be cool, but a good bonfire in the back yard will work just as well.
Leslie Nielsen's is awesome. Mine is a bit more serious, though: "unbeingDead isn't BeingAlive." I may have gotten the capitalization wrong because I don't have the book with me, but it's a line from an e.e cumming's poem that's the philosophy I try to live by.
I can't stand the depressing, mourning type of funeral. I want to be cremated and there to be a huge, fun party. Good food, good music, good people. Don't waste time being whiny and weepy.
Fuck that, I want people to be miserable, long mass, drawn out sobbing speeches, the works. Party with me when I'm alive.
Cremation. It's cheaper. Organ donation. Benefit someone, I guess. My brother nearly shat his pants when I told him I was going to be cremated, so I consented to a stone in the family plot, but that's about it. My Guy wants a viking funeral in Crater Lake. His dad crashed and died there, so he wants to be laid alongside his father. I'm pretty sure the park won't like that.
My great aunt was a fantastic, fun person. For her funeral, white Russians were served and we each spilled a little on her grave. We stood around and shared memories of Snooks for the rest of the afternoon. Her funeral was a celebration of her past life, not an agonizing memorial of her death. Each year after, at Easter, we have more white Russians and spill a little on her grave in memory. One year we had a bonfire. We each wrote messages on a small piece of paper, read it out loud to the group, and then threw it into the fire.