Not uncommon up here to spread ashes from a plane. Nice to specify ahead of time where you want to spend eternity.....IMO

Couple thoughts,
from one who will be standing with a family next week, (just haven't met them yet) discussing final arrangement services.
It happens over and over and over again.

If your plan is to save money to shortcut grieving ceremonies, counselors and therapists thank you. You keep them in biz because there is a difference between healthy grieving and unhealthy grieving and it rears up after the dearly beloved is gone and the family hassles remain. We have gone from funeral >>> to no funeral >>>> to a memorial >>>> to no memorial >>>> to not a dime >>>> to I don't care in less than a century. Wow. Tossing out the dead like we toss out plastic cups. Quickly. Faster the better so we can back "to it," whatever it is.

I supported 92 bereavements this summer alone, and I'll say up front, the lack of family gathering (Covid rules) and the impulse to save a dollar, even as you leave this life, is wreaking havoc on our folks.
Big time.
But don't worry, we have DSM-5 categories and meds to give people so who cares if they aren't given a chance to grieve properly. Get over it and takes your pills! Quit crying and get back on social media and tell folks you're 110%. Smile!

Biblically, most theologians (Christian) don't squabble over ashes or burial ceremonies. The believers in our age known as the Church age - from 33 AD until the Rapture starts, will get gathered to the skies according to Scripture, and we assume Jesus can sure enough find his children, alive, buried, or eaten by sharks. We'll all, by His Grace, be cleaned up and we'll stand before the Bema seat in judgement and all will be well.

The unsaved will be resurrected also, to die a 2nd time the Bible tells us, at the Great White Throne judgment. You do not want to go to this family reunion. And Scripture assures us, Christ will find ever last one of his created for this judgment. Revelation tells us none will escape this judgment, no not one.

Just PLEASE have the memorial ceremonies. Please.
If I have one more person cry sincerely to me, saying, "I never even got to be with them." or "They wouldn't even have the decency to let me say goodbye," I'll throw a D-handle across the pond. It messes people up. With good reason. We're relational persons and births and deaths were meant for us to attend. Physically. Not remotely. Not because they are sad and I don't want people to remember me that way." What way? As precious in their life? A piece of them?
News flash from this vantage: The dead don't die and I am forever giving people, as a minister of the God of the Bible, literal permission to "remember" their loved ones in a society that screams "get over it!."
Memories are God's Mercy to us and the more we love someone, the more we remember them, harder it is to let go at death, and all that.
Let it be and let it be is my pastoral counsel. Cry. Touch them. Say whatever you wish. Say goodbye if need be.

America is really getting a lot of bad advise from a lot of angles lately and the tempter is behind most of it. I give hospice patients counsel all the time that a gift they can give if they wish is the gift of healthy grieving to those they'll say goodbye to. Love in action when it's really important. It's called a legacy.

Bottom line, honor the dead and say goodbye in person to their legacy as best you can.
It'll heal broken hearts.
The rest, not so much.

Blessings,
Mark

I was just talking with my kids about this last week. In Maine there is no need for embalming and you can be buried on your own land as long as the plot is recorded in the county records. You don't even need a coffin or casket and no concrete chamber. This one is going to be loitering in my garage for when the time comes. It comes with a matt filled with straw. That's it, pretty basic. I want to be be buried near my cabin. I need to get this drawn up so they don't have to worry about it when the time comes.

Burial here!
I spent two decades working on/in heat treat furnaces very close to the type used for cremation.
Be danged if my last moment will be having the door close.
Roy

I think it is illegal to spread ashes in some states . Talked to my lawyer when I did my will said dump me in lake cumberland so the buckeyes can run over me all summer lol. She said if it happened no one can know .

Nothing like a good quote !

Death is a debt to nature due which she has paid and so must you. Read that on an old headstone.

Throw me to the wind ,stream and swamp. I feel no need in taking up a space for eternity. Sarge

I told my kids to take me as far north as they can and dump me in a trout stream. I don't care if they cremate me first or not.

Told the misses I want an open casket, face down and naked. Then I want to be cremated and dumped in the grotto of the playboy mansion, so that I can have a smokin hot bod and be all over the bunnies.

She wasn't amused.

I will be buried in the old Cemetery , where most of my Relatives are buried. No long, drawn out Funeral for me. Just a Casket, and direct burial in the ground. Got my plot picked out. Behind my Father's grave to the right of an old Sugar Maple. I frankly can't see spending money on a big Funeral, when the Guest of Honor will not be there to enjoy it.

Wife and I will be cremated. My mom decided 30 years before her death that she would donate her body to the university medical school. I honored her wishes. After about a year she was cremated and I spread her ashes on the Blue Ridge Parkway outside of town.

From the Cremation Association of North America (CANA);
Scholars today quite generally agree that cremation probably began in any real sense during the early Stone Age – around 3000 B.C. – and most likely in Europe and the Near East.

In the Mycenaean Age – circa 1000 B.C. – cremation became an integral part of the elaborate Grecian burial custom. In fact, it became the dominant mode of disposition by the time of Homer in 800 B.C. and was actually encouraged for reasons of health and expedient burial of slain warriors in this battle-ravaged country.
Following this Grecian trend, the early Romans probably embraced cremation some time around 600 B.C.
By the time of the Roman Empire – 27 B.C. to 395 A.D. – it was widely practiced, and cremated remains were generally stored in elaborate urns, often within columbarium-like buildings.

Prevalent though the practice was among the Romans, cremation was rare with the early Christians who considered it a pagan ritual.

However, by 400 A.D., as a result of Constantine's Christianization of the Empire, earth burial had completely replaced cremation except for rare instances of plague or war, and for the next 1,500 years remained the accepted mode of disposition throughout Europe.

Modern cremation, began only a century ago, after years of experimentation into the development of a dependable chamber. The first crematories in Europe were built in 1878 in Woking, England and Gotha, Germany. In North America, it began in 1876 when Dr. Julius LeMoyne built the first crematory in Washington, Pennsylvania.

Crematories soon sprang up in Buffalo, New York, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Detroit and Los Angeles.
In 1900, there were 20 crematories in operation.
In 1913, there were 52 crematories in North America and over 10,000 cremations took place that year.
In 1975, there were over 425 crematories and nearly 150,000 cremations.
In 1999, there were 1,468 crematories and 595,617 cremations, a percentage of 25.39% of all deaths in the United States.
In 2019, there were over 3,000 crematories and over 1,500,000 cremations...and 54.6% of deaths in the United States were handled through cremation.

The 21st century North American crematory practice - including the use of urns - mirrors the Roman Empire practice of 2000 years ago.

Blessings,
Mark

I would prefer to be buried. However, I will most likely end up in Davy Jones locker.

Like in the movies…

An Uncle of mine passed away a few years back. Lived all his life in the community and 2 people attended his funeral. Needless to say he didn't spend a lot of time being a good neighbor. When my Aunt died they didn't bother with a funeral.

^^^^
That is sad.

You might already be!
Ha

I’m going to be cremated, no calling hours or funeral. much cheaper than traditional burial and funeral. Average funeral costs $10,000. Don’t need to enrich some already wealthy funeral director, and then have some archeologist/ grave robber, dig my body up 1000 years from now.

Like the song says, “all we are is dust in the wind,”.

I've told my kids throw me on a brush pile at the farm and burn me.

Service should be just long enough for Freebird and My Way to play. Then end it.