What do you want your tombstone to say?
8So… I’ve been out to the cemetery to take a look at our family plot. Great Grandma bought it years and years ago. Some of our clan are buried there; some chose to have their final resting place somewhere else.
Grandma got a great deal on our plot. Maybe it’s because we are right off a road that has a lot of traffic. Dad always said that he liked the thought of being able to wave at all of the traffic. Well, one more widening of the street and he will be in the traffic.
Anyway, I was looking at some of the grave markers. This is an older cemetery; there are both above ground markers, and the kind that are almost level on the ground. And some of them have pretty interesting messages on them. My favorite is, “Peaches, she was quite a dog.” Huh? This is a people cemetery, not a doggie one. Then again, maybe the message was about a human.
So this got me to thinking, what I would like my tombstone to read. Have you ever given any thought about yours or have you seen any interesting or humorous epitaphs?
Yeah, I know this is a weird topic. Humor me.
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I think I want my epitaph to read, “She just didn’t get it.” Yep, it pretty much sums up just about my whole life.
@Barney that would suit me too… Well other than the She part…
Don’t care as long as my tombstone only has minimal typos.
@medz Uh-huh, got it, minimal tpyos.
@medz he’s got it right on the highway too.
@RiotDemon a bomb spot to have a plot to be sure
@medz
The idea of having maximal typos on my headstone has some appeal.
/image typo
I had a conversation with a friend the other day about this. Apparently mine would say, “She was nice.”
I don’t want to be buried in the ground to be forgotten. I’m going to be cremated and scattered so no headstone for me.
I love the tombstone from Harry Potter for Thomas Riddle. If I could pick a headstone, that would be mine. (I can’t imagine how expensive that would be.)
I don’t like it because it’s from Harry Potter, I like the grim reaper. Have I pointed out on the forums yet how much I like that image?
Spoiler from Goblet of Fire if you haven’t watched that yet. (If you haven’t, get on it already!)
@RiotDemon I hate to tell you this, but you are nice. And I think the grim reaper headstone would be way cool.
@Barney when I become a millionaire, I’ll buy one similar and have it reside over a bench (instead of the headstone) next to a waterfall/pond in a garden.
That won’t be weird.
@RiotDemon Nope, not at all.
I don’t go to cemeteries and I don’t plan on dying.
@PlacidPenguin Congrats on both of those.
@PlacidPenguin You have a back up plan for the not dying plan?
@Kidsandliz
I’m a millennial. I don’t need a backup plan because whatever I think will happen WILL happen.
Duh.
@Kidsandliz It don’t matter
“Hey, so far so good, amiright!?”
I just wana be stuck under a tree somewhere. Then if someone ever cuts down my tree I’ll seep out and wreak havoc.
@Pantheist And continue with your life’s mission, but from the grave.
I’m actually going to my Father’s stone tomorrow in memory of him having passed a year ago. He had served in the Army and Vietnam so there are lot of his commendations listed with a few nice words.
What I realize is that tombstones are for the living. I’ll leave it to my family to hopefully leave a good representation. Or toss my remains into the sewer and spit on them. However it makes sense for them to remember me.
@denboy I’m very sorry for your loss. My dad died when I was in high school, which was many years ago, and I still miss him very much.
@Barney missing our Dads is sad but shows how much they positively affected us. What was your dad’s name? Did he have any nicknames?
Mine was Dennis, earlier people from his life called him Denny, it was Chef Boy r D in high school.
@denboy My dad’s name was Larry; his close friends called him Butch because he had a butch hair cut, but to me he was just Daddy. Yep, I was a Daddy’s girl.
I’ll be thinking of you today.
@Barney Butch is a great nickname to pickup but I bet his favorite thing to hear was Daddy.
I think we should all have a pact that our tombstones will say: “It was a mediocre life. Meh.”
@pitamuffin Do we do a blood oath?
I don’t have an exact plan but I would love for my skeleton to be left somewhere bizarre such that it might confound anyone who happens upon it far in the future. Beats being stuck in the ground at any rate.
@nogoodwithnames Hanging by the Mediocre headquarters back door?
@nogoodwithnames I used to want to be stuck in a tiny shed in the woods with a lock that could easily be broken on the door, sat in a rocking chair with a shotgun across my lap. Then I realized I’d just be a pile of bones on the floor next to a shotgun, and it lost some of its appeal.
What you need is a good taxidermist.
“I liked my cats more than any of you”
@meh Aw, that hurts my itty bitty feelings.
@meh my dogs ate your cats
and thusly reads @denboys dog’s tombstone:
“died trying to eat a german shepherds best friend”
@meh you know what they say about keeping your enemies closer
@denboy Oh, you’re one of those. Good to know.
@Pantheist I’m not what you don’t think I couldn’t be
@denboy
But what if @Pantheist KNOWS there’s something you couldn’t be?
@PlacidPenguin you mean like being clever in the forums?
@denboy
Perhaps.
“Here lies Sohma, Fuck that guy”
@sohmageek Is there any way to give you more stars?
I don’t want to be buried, but old style tomb/crypt decorations are fascinating art.
If I were to die tomorrow and had to have one I’d like it to say Trump sucks Putin’s Dick
The ground - ugh. Cremate me, mix my ashes with my cat’s (which currently sit in a pretty little box on my tv stand) and spread them all over a ski mountain please.
@cinoclav thought that was “pretty litter box” lolz
@cinoclav aside from the ski mountain, that’s essentially what happened with my mom’s parents.
Grandpa(Retired Minister/Missionary) died first, was cremated, then after the memorial, his ashes stayed in a box on their local pastor’s desk.
that pastor just happened to be a grandson-in-law. his father in law (my uncle) kept “forgetting” to pick them up for 4 years…
eventually grandma dies as well, she gets cremated, and her ashes get added to his. now they are “together for ever” and the box/urn gets buried.
turns out you can legally bury 2 sets of cremains in 1 grave plot…
at grandma’s memorial, the pastor made a remark on how he’ll miss having Andy(grandpa) there with him in the office to confer with/ bounce things off of/ etc.
@earlyre beats a rubber duck
Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.
Finally, she may rest uninterrupted for more than 5 freakin minutes…
Doesn’t have to be on a gravestone. Once I am gone, I have no need of this crappy body. Told the kids, whatever is cheapest at the time…do that…cremate, bury, stick a hambone up my ass and have the neighbor’s dog bury me…(stole the last one from my mil’s threats to my fil!)
@mikibell I’ve done the same thing told them to throw me in the south fork river
@cranky1950 careful…with your sense of humor, they may throw you in still livin’
Mine would probably say something like, “She shopped 'til she dropped.”
I’ve known what mine will be for years.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Not a Peep out of me”
A 6ft-3in tall, 2ft diameter tungsten-iridium alloy cylinder with no markings on it.
“I’m a claustrophobic”
Died from not forwarding that email to 20 people in the next 5 minutes
I thought I paid for a better view!
Down in this hole lies Dave.
He’s laying below in this grave.
He’s dead as a doornail,
And no longer gets junk mail,
If you visit me, remember to wave.
“Finally”
Same thing I tell my wife if anything ever happens to me. “Do what makes you happy.”. Don’t worry about me or what I’d think; I’m dead.
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
(Not seriously: I don’t want one.)
Fooled you, not really dead
Huh, I never thought about getting a talking gravestone, but OK. At the rate we’re going, though, I guess you’re right: Alexa probably WILL be installed on mine.
Mine should read,
Get out of here and enjoy your life.
You’ll join me soon enough.
Screw that. I dunno why we bury people at ALL, waste of land that it is.
Me? I wanna be scattered across Wrigley Field. I hate baseball.
I’m going to be cremated and scattered under the Golden Gate Bridge. I can’t wait!
@SSteve
I could live happily in any number of places. But I am quite fond of where I am now (Texas), despite much here that is ridiculous, harmful, and/or stupid.
Assuming that for some reason or other, I wind up with a tombstone in Texas:
I could echo Davy Crockett (after he lost a Tennessee election to the US Congress):
… you may all go to hell and I will go to Texas.
(Texas is considered by most to be preferable to Hell, tho a vocal minority thinks that Texas and Hell are the same place.)
Another possibility, assuming I wind up here:
The sun is riz
The sun is set
And still we is
In Texas yet.
Apocryphal, said to have been scrawled inside a boxcar by a freight-train hopping hobo riding across Texas in the early 1900’s.
Riding the rails