This has kind of gotten derailed, so let’s throw it off the tracks altogether! I have a question that I’d prefer to bury in the this thread rather than posting a whole new public question:
My husband and I need to start making end of life plans. I’ve made mine, cremation, and informed all of my children. I haven’t put it in legal writing yet, though.
When I first met my husband 15 years ago he was dead set against cremation for some nebulous religious reason, although he’s never been particularly religious.
Since then my mother and father both passed, and they were cremated.
And then, about 2 years ago, a young adult relative of his died and became the first member of his family to be cremated. That really shocked many family members, but it finally got my husband to start reconsidering it.
He’s hinted that it would probably be the best thing to do, and he isn’t against it, but refuses to verbally give me a firm plan, in the event he should go before me. He also refuses to put it in writing.
My thoughts are, if he’s not going to tell me what he wants me to do, then I’ll make the decision, and that will be for cremation.
And that’s my problem.
He has a huge family. On average of twice a year a family member dies, and we almost always go to the funeral. They are always the same: Fairly lavish affairs, in a church, with an expensive beautiful coffin, open casket (which is hideous IMO, and I try to discretely avoid the viewing line) then a dinner afterward. I have neither the desire nor the money to afford that pomp and circumstance just to put someone in the ground.
So if the time comes, how do I approach the family? I realize that I have all the legal rights here, as his wife, but that isn’t my concern. I don’t want to offend anyone so terribly, which that might.
Do I just go ahead with my own plan and they can just deal with it, or tell the family what I plan to do and suggest if they want the pomp and ceremony that they can pay for it, and I will donate what it would have cost for cremation?