*** I thought I should put a little disclaimer that this post may be offensive to some...but I have some real questions and things to get off my chest. ***
Just wondering...this may be a touchy subject for some, and if it is, please don't read this. I'm having a rough time in the last week or so because I found out the my daughter's estranged father passed away at 46 years old. Although he was a great aggrevation to me in the last 13 years or so (since my daughter was born and during my pregnancy) and I haven't seen hide nor hair of him in over 7 years, I'm having such a hard time with the fact they cremated his remains. I don't know why it bugs me so much...probably that I was intimate with him and we were once VERY close, not only as boyfriend/girlfriend, but as close friends, as well. I mean, we didn't hit it off as a couple, for reasons I don't feel like getting into here, but we went through lamase classes and childbirth together and I can't tell you how long he practically stalked me when I was 19 years old until I finally conceded and went out with him and had a blast with him. It was all SO long ago, but I'm having such awful images in my mind of him in a furnace and being burned to ashes...envisioning the father of my child lying on a slab, looking much the same way he used to look while sleeping and keeping me up all night with his incessant SNORING (!!), but that same profile (I loved his nose...very Italian) being engulfed in flames and turned to dust. Its just bringing up such emotions, I can't even tell you. And I haven't even seen him in seven years!
So, my point is...why do people cremate their loved ones' remains? I'm not trying to be gruesome or macabre...I just really want to know...is there a spiritual relevance? Is it to save money and/or space? Is it that maybe someone was so destroyed by cancer or other illness or destroyed to a point they wanted to destroy the body?
I suppose I'm ultra sensitive, as well, as my daughter looks EXACTLY like her father and it brings it closer to home...but I don't see the effects of this cremation on my psyche goign away any time soon and maybe some insight would help from those with opposing views. My daughter's father is the first person I've really known that has been cremated...everyone else I've known was buried in tact in a coffin and that didn't have any effect on me at all except to know they had passed on...I jsut feel like they mutilated him and its kind of bugging me...maybe mutilated is a bit strong, but its just BUGGING me.
My mother in law was cremated, as well, but she died before I could meet her and my husband says he has feelings that are the same.
Any help please?