Judith Wigren-Slack selects: March 23, 2006

I loved how she wanted to be sat in a chair until the undertaker arrived and that she wanted something sitting next to her ashes, like maybe the picture she made out of macaroni. It makes of death more of event to be planned with humor and tenderness than of sorrow and dread. Macaroni picture. Love it.

Describe what to do with your body when you die. Cass Daubenspeck New York, New York USA

When I die, I want you to take extra care with my body. If I die peacefully, in bed, without any awful wounds to the head or without having fallen badly or been shot first, I should think it would be quite easy for you to just pull me up---two of you, of course, so long as you are both feeling healthy and have eaten a decent breakfast---right under my shoulders and right around my ankles, and set me in a chair somewhere by the window until the people from the funeral home can come and get me. I'd like to be in the sun, by some flowers, if it's possible. If it's at night, or in the winter, however, I'd still like to be by a window, and if you could just put a little blanket over my legs and a vase of daisies on the windowsill or even without a vase, that would just be as nice. Once the people from the funeral home arrive, just go ahead and let them take me away but I'd prefer to be cremated instead of pumped all full of formaldehyde and embalmed like an Egyptian. I don't want my body in an open casket, anyway. I think that's awful and morbid to have my family go and see me like that, after I'm already dead and not even human anymore without a drop of blood left in my veins. I should like it much better if instead there was a little hand painted urn full of my ashes put up somewhere and a portrait sitting up nearby with a nice peaceful looking picture of me or maybe just a picture I made out of macaroni when I was in preschool. I'd much rather have my family and friends remember me looking at something like that. I want them to know that I'll be in peace, and that's the best way, I think, to remind them. Just make sure that if you do decide on a portrait, pick on where I'm smiling at least a little bit. Or if you pick the macaroni, make sure that it isn't falling to pieces. Actually, no, make sure you choose a picture where I'm laughing. I do enjoy laughing so very much. Really, I know I'll be happy, or at least I'm pretty sure, because it usually happens that people seem to always just finish doing something important before they die. Like they just got a chance to see an old friend they hadn't seen in years, or they just make up with their parents, or tell the truth about a big huge lie, and then a few weeks later they die. So on account of the general truth of that, I'll assume that by the time I die, I will have gotten the most important things done and out of the way, and it shouldn't be much of an issue for me of being unsettled and restless, tossing around with unfinished business and all of that morbid psychobabble. So nobody should worry. After I'm all neat and sitting in my hand painted urn, and after everybody realizes I'm just fine about being dead, I'd like it very much if my ashes were kept around for a little while until everyone was sure they've had enough of me. I'd say maybe about a year or so, just sitting up there on the bookshelf or something next to a copy of Out of Africa. It should be a high bookshelf, too, since I should probably like my ashes to be kept somewhere safe, out of the line of action. I wouldn't want to get knocked over and spilled on the floor and trampled by the dog, and all. Eventually, when it's time to spread the ashes, I would probably like it if my ashes were spread in the woods somewhere, probably near our house, in a peaceful spot. I'm also very fond of our family's house in Cape Cod. It might be very nice to be out there, by the sea, close to Aunt Mary, and getting to watch everybody who goes out there to stand on the cliff looking out at the sunrise for a little peace and tranquility. That's all anybody is really looking for while they're alive, anyway, I think. I would like that very much, to be in a spot like that.