Buried Or Burned?

An excess of planning, perhaps

I fear that the younger generations are trying to tell me something.

The other day my wife and I took our oldest granddaughter, just turned ten, on a little road trip. A short jaunt to see a historic site we’d never visited before. She was in the backseat with the dog, we were just toolin’ along an old country road, when all of the sudden the question comes from behind us:

When you die, do you want to be buried or burned?

Photo by Carl Tronders on Unsplash

Now I didn’t mention that when I finally drive her grandmother to murder me, she’ll probably just throw me into the big chest freezer in the basement. One would hate to actually freak the kid out.

So, we settled on burned.

Guess the kid hasn’t learned the word cremation yet.

Then she wanted to know where she should sprinkle the ashes.

Alas, we didn’t have a good answer for her.

I’ve got my idea for that, but haven’t yet mentioned it to her grandmother, so figured it would be best to just gloss that part over for now.

But, I have to wonder:

Is the kid just curious?

Have I overemphasized the importance of planning when talking to the kid?

Or are we now so decrepit that the kid thinks she’d better start making arrangements now?

I mean, the wife’s pretty clumsy, and I’m not too sure about the old prostate, but I don’t imagine that we are on death’s door quite yet! Hopefully the kid doesn’t know something that we don’t!