Cremation

[avellana]

mariacristina
I would be interested to know the name of the company you are insured with.
Please PM me.

[gavilan]

This thread about cremations and insurance brought back to me the experience I had a couple of years ago:
My partner died in Charing Cross Hospital in London and his pension died with him ... (or at least until 3 or 4 months later after completing endless forms) ... my pension then covered mortgage, utility bills etc but we were dependent on his pension for daily living needs, groceries etc ... so I was completely broke ... I was being as frugal as I could be but still having to borrow from my son etc ... so ... ?how to pay for his cremation? ... I decided, as I could not afford a funeral company, I would have to do it myself! ... I then discovered that cremations are cheapest early in the morning, so booked a 9.30 slot one Friday in late May ... son said he would hire a Transit van ... then I discovered that the hospital mortuary was only open 10 til 2 ... so we would have to collect his body the day before the cremation and had to rent van overnight ... ?but what to do about a coffin? ... I went on the internet and found a bamboo one and very cheap ... when he was in Spain he had always liked the bamboo along the stream ... so it seemed appropriate and I ordered one ... on the Thursday morning my daughter came over and the 3 of us walked to the van rental place ... my son drove us to Ealing to collect the coffin ... where daughter and I nearly died laughing when we were told IT CAME IN KIT FORM and required a video to show us how to assemble it!!! At that time I lived in a 2nd floor flat and the thought of carrying coffin pieces up 4 flights of stairs and then carrying a fully assembled coffin back down again did not appeal to any of us! So we drove to a quiet road and son and daughter put the pieces together in the back of the van ... it was actually quite simple ... by then we were running late and had to get to the hospital morgue before it shut ... none of us had ever seen a dead body or a mortuary before ... we were dreading it ... (an added complication had been that my partner had had a defibrilator to stabilise his heart beat and the mortician said it needed to be removed otherwise it and the crematorium would explode in the burning!!!! but he said he had no authority to do the removal ... I said that was his problem and I was going to collect the body on the Thursday come what may!) ... we got there just before closing time and he was nicely wrapped up on heavy duty white plastic and stiff as a board but very very heavy!!! we got him in the coffin and into the van and drove back home for a strong drink ... ... it was also unseasonally hot that late May and we were all afraid he would defrost overnight and we would see water running out of the back of the van when we went to it in the morning ... but he didnt and we made it to crematorium by 9.30 next day and sent him off to Glenn Miller and 10cc and Sondheim's 'Send in the Clowns' !!! and then the 3 of us went for another drink ... my kids are great when 'the chips are down'!!!! I still do not have insurance but at least my kids know where to buy a cheap coffin and how to assemble it!

[anyroads]

After that story.

Let's bring the curtain down on this.........

anyroads

[oliveview01]

Gavilan, I am full of admiration for you, I don´t know if I would have been able to have done what you did!

My brother died a couple of years ago, no money or insurance, but with what he had we managed to scrape together enough money for a small on a budget funeral and a bit of a do after.

I telephoned the relevant department back in the UK about help available for a person who dies without any money to pay for a funeral- the man said it was the families responsibility to pay for the funeral (he had no wife/children) we would only get help if we claimed certain benefits, which we didn´t.

We pay 10€ a month each here (taken up when we were 56 and 53 years old) so we are covered! No way would we want to put our sons through what my brother put us through!

[peteroldracer]

Hilary - what a refreshing change from all the "who is going to take responsibility/pay for this" people -you really do have cojones - well done!

[fyfin]

Interesting stuff here and now that we have moved to Spain permanently we are thinking about one of these funeral plans but not sure whether to pay up front or take out a monthly plan. We are lucky enough to have some savings so could do it upfront. The problem is that there is always a bit of trepidation that when the time comes, hopefully many years hence, the Company may have disappeared and the guarantee was non existant. At least paying monthly I suppose if the Company ceased to exist you would stop paying!
There are various companies around and someone has contacted me re Avalon but it seems a bit of a hard sell i.e they employ agents to target their friends (especially the older ones like me) and I get the odd phone call pushing the plan.

[gavilan]

Thank you por and oliveview01 ... I would add that I brought his ashes back here and he is now in the Sierra Tejeda with a wonderful view of the Axarquia!.

[oliveview01]

We have friends who have purchased their funeral already. One died recently and the funeral company took over straight away. Our friend was very impressed with the treatment they got.

The other friends tried to get us interested in the ´pay up front´ funeral company, but when I tried to research the company on the internet I could find no information on who was backing the company, we too were concerned what would happen if the company went belly up with our money!

We have noticed all the plastic flowers in the shops/market now, I have warned OH that if he entertains the thought of buying me the nasty plastic flowers, be I alive or departed, I WILL come back to haunt him.

[fyfin]

Is anyone going to mention the names of these companies or is that against forum rules. I will do my own research but what can be OK now might not be in 10 years time so I suppose it's a simple "Do you go for it or not"?

[peteroldracer]

The artificial flowers make sense: a lot of the deceaseds' families lived far away, so coupled with the weather here real flowers would mean a cemetery full of dead and dying blooms within days or weeks of them being put there. Far better a reasonable bunch of plastic flowers and an annual donation to a charity. The dead don't need it and con't see it, and the living do and would.

[Lyric]

The question for us was would the survivor have access to 3000€ instantly, then it became a no brainer (hate that)

[fyfin]

Would a credit card work. My balance is over £8,000 and it's with Nationwide so a good exchange rate!

[oliveview01]

The artificial flowers make sense: a lot of the deceaseds' families lived far away, so coupled with the weather here real flowers would mean a cemetery full of dead and dying blooms within days or weeks of them being put there. Far better a reasonable bunch of plastic flowers and an annual donation to a charity. The dead don't need it and con't see it, and the living do and would.

I see where you are coming from POR, but hubby has only ever bought me fresh flowers once, in 37 years of marriage He is not romantic at all, so that is why I will haunt him if he puts plastic ones on my grave. I am being cremated, I have always said no flowers, but the insurance includes one ´round´ of flowers So I want my moneys worth

[Babby]

The plastic flowers are appearing plentiful in the shops now in readiness for "All Saints Day" when everyone puts flowers in the cemeteries (fresh or plastic).

[ValL]

If the rumours are to be believed then some compnay use the same flowers over and over and get paid for each use. I said no flowers for my husband so I could be sure they were fresh and to his/my liking. His cremation was the last of the day so if the rumours are right a sorry state they may be in by then.

[gavilan]

A friend, who read the story of my partner's cremation, wrote this to me recently:

'It occurs to me that you could do things really ecologically ie build your own coffin from canes growing by your stream, bound together with cord plaited from esparto. Start by making something simple like a footstool and work your way up to more complicated projects. From the photographs of the "artwork" you put together on your outside wall it is very clear that you have an eye for design and balance. What might be even more original, if you could manage to die at an appropriate time of the year when the stream is in full flood, would be to construct a mini Viking ship which you could be laid out on and then your children could launch it into the stream and fire flaming arrows after it.'

[katy]

I have been thinking of doing an eco funeral for OH. He too has a substantial pension that dies with him. I am thinking of burying him in the garden and saying nowt

[oliveview01]

I have been thinking of doing an eco funeral for OH. He too has a substantial pension that dies with him. I am thinking of burying him in the garden and saying nowt

[peteroldracer]

Remember that mining accident in South America? Why isn't there a smaller version of that drill they used, to sink a hole of say 3 metres, then drop the box in vertically?
There would be loads more room in the traditional cemeteries (but no help to Spanish ones!).

Edit: it has just occurred to me that a non-grieving widow/er could be a little spiteful and drop them in head first... For those who believe in all that tosh, they could at least see where they were going, rather than where they have been.

[oliveview01]

My Mum was terrifeid of spiders, they would send her into a real panic..... when she died (nothing to do with a spider frightening her) she wanted to be cremated and her ashes placed in the local cemetery. When the time came to put Mums ashes into the ground there was a nice hole dug, exactly the right size for the casket..... My brother put Mum ´s ashes in the ground and as soon as her casket reached the bottom a spider ran across the ground and jumped into the hole too. Mum would have been out of that hole like a rocket had she known anything about it