“Slowly decaying isn’t much better, if you’re conscious of what’s going on.”
What’s that smell?!
Memorializing and archiving family information and stories and facts is all moving, like all information, to the internet. That way, you can have a centralized family “plot” even if you are cremated and scattered in the ocean, your great grandfather is buried in Ireland and your Mother is in an urn in California.
I have always loved the beauty of cemeteries and yet, felt the stories of the people were hopelessly hidden. It no longer has to be that way!
We discuss these issues and more at InRepose, and offer multimedia online memorials too.
By the way, there is a facinating new form of reducing the body to ash in a cleaner way, its called resomation. See my blog post here:
http://inrepose.typepad.com/in_repose_blog/2007/08/resomation-is-n.html