Not long ago it was fashionable for loved ones to spread Ashes from cremation in San Francisco Bay.  It was actually quite serene as The Neptune Society would allow a family to bring 5 or 6 mourners aboard and they could cater up to four or five "burials" per trip.  The yacht would move to one area and the family would be on deck and the ashes would be scattered in the Bay by the family while the Neptune Society provided chrysanthemums also to be tossed overboard.  Then the boat would move to another spot in the Bay and the second scattering of ashes would occur.

There is also wine served aboard ship.  We were the last to scatter my father-in-law’s ashes …. and we gave him a less than sobering send-off! He would have been more than pleased and grateful that we didn’t add song to the occasion for which we were tempted. 

I remember a very elderly lady with another group telling the Captain as we disembarked that she would be seeing him in the not distant future!

Nowadays, the yacht has to go out beyond the Golden Gate.  It is no longer legal to scatter human ashes in the Bay.

My burial plot delima is that my sister at age 50 pre-deceased my parents.  My parents purchased a double cemetery plot for my deceased sister and her husband near their own double cemetery plot.  My sister’s husband had three wives prior to marrying my sister.  After her death he remarried and is still married.  My father approached him and offered to purchace the spousal plot, that my father had purchased in the first place, and give it to me, where his two daughters could be buried next to each other.  Gruesome I know, but true.  My father’s offer was declined.  This happened many years ago.  My father is now 92 and suffers Alzheimer’s and we frequently visit the cemetery on holidays with flowers etc.  Come on folks, how many activities are there for a father and his only surviving primary family member, me?  Mom is deceased also. The question is who should have the plot next to my sister? Me or her then husband?  It is legally his and only on those visits with my dad to the cemetery do I think of this issue.  It would be a comfort though to think when my time comes I would have a place with my family.  I have only been married once many years ago and I have two children in their twenties.  I have advised my children to cremate me and be done with it!!  The jeweled urn does have a certain appeal though, I could hang out in my kids homes and creep out any future grandchildren!!!

My mother, in her 80’s, has two burial plots…one in the ground and one in the cremation burial vault.   She vacillates weekly about which one I am to deliver when she dies.   I asked her why she has two and she quickly responds that "the weather" has alot to do with it.   If she dies in the spring or summer she states "Put me in the ground."    If she dies in the winter months when it is cold she states "Put me in the above ground vault."  

Even though she now has noticeable dementia, she remains the funniest person I have ever known.