I have a friend whose funeral plans involve floating her corpse in a boat into Long Island Sound while her friends and family gather on the shore. Once the boat is at a safe distance, it will be detonated as John Lennon’s “Imagine” serenades the bereaved.
Best of all, I have been given permission to press the button that will set off the explosion.
I have tried to convince my friend to have her body cremated first, lest portions of her body come splashing back down into the ocean like the pieces of shark that come crashing down around Roy Scheider in Jaws, but so far, she has balked.
For people like my friend who desire an explosive ending to their life, I may have found an alternative to dynamite and a rowboat. For $4000, a company called Angel's Flight will build 210 rockets from the ashes of the deceased and facilitate a funeral firework display in your backyard.
For an extra $1000, family and friends can watch the fireworks display from a yacht.
Despite the 1998 aesthetics of Angel’s Flight’s website, this option appeals a great deal to me as well.
Currently, my funeral plans (if I were to ever die, which is obviously never going to happen) would be for my body to be cremated and my ashes spread on Yawgoog Pond at Camp Yawgoog, the Boy Scout camp where I spent much of my childhood.
But instead of simply spreading the ashes on the water, perhaps a more fitting end would be to explode my ashes over the pond in a brilliant pyrotechnic display.
The Boy Scouts would most assuredly enjoy the display, even if it means they’d be swimming in my remains the following day.
