Columnist Susan Snyder: In planning, you urn your keep

Friday, Jan. 9, 2004 | 8:46 a.m.

I am planning my funeral.

So far it's been a lot like planning my wedding except it's not as expensive, the aftermath is permanent and the company promises to be a lot more congenial.

It hasn't been the soul-baring journey of enlightenment one might expect, but it has unearthed some interesting information.

For example, did you know that a standard cardboard cremation box costs about the same as two wardrobe boxes from U-Haul? And it looks like something in which you'd pack away old blankets. I am thinking of buying one just to make some room in the linen closet.

The most challenging part has been trying to decide which type of service to pay for -- one in the big chapel or one in a smaller reception room.

If I die tomorrow, I could count on maybe a couple of hundred friends, relatives and acquaintances, some of whom will want enough room to dance while chanting, "Ding, dong the witch is dead."

But 30 years from now, who knows?

There are so many aspects to consider. Yet, many of us seem to not consider them at all. Planning a funeral has long been the purview of the terminally ill. Maybe it's because they actually "know" they are going to die.

Funny. We all are terminal. Someone with a catastrophic illness simply knows what's going to take him or her out and has a ballpark date of when.

In my early 20s I had a girlfriend who spent long hours looking through bridal magazines choosing dresses and rings and honeymoon spots. She had yet to choose a groom to complete the picture, of course. But she was just sure she would marry.

Would she have spent as much time pondering oak or poplar? Crepe interior or satin? Probably not. Funerals aren't as much fun to think about, mostly because we don't know what the trip afterward entails until we've boarded the plane.

Still, it's a "when" rather than an "if." When it happens, do you really want your children arguing over what kind of box to put you in?

What if you outlive them or you are among the 13 million Baby Boomers who chose not to have kids? Maybe a spouse, niece or younger cousin will be around to make sure you get the kind of burial or cremation you want.

Or didn't want. There are some truly scary possibilities.

What if they encase your ashes in a Pepto-Bismol-pink urn that's passed around relatives' homes like a dreaded fruitcake? What if they separate you into half a dozen little lockets and pass them out as wake favors? What if you're encased in a dolphin statue?

It's possible. I have the brochure.

Unless you come up with a plan and let others in on it, no one will know. And if you simply tell someone, you better hope his or her heart and memory holds out longer than yours.

Honestly, once you're over the mortality hump it's mostly an ongoing "paper or plastic?" proposition.

So far, I've settled on cremation with ashes spread over a location I do not care to disclose in this forum. I just hope houses aren't covering it when the time comes.

Probably I will choose a cardboard cremation box, although a handbasket is the vessel considered appropriate for the destination to which many readers have suggested I go.

But the brochure didn't offer one of those.