Neil deGrasse Tyson (my very own personal astrophysicist) says there are basically two ways to dispose of yourself when you’re finished with your body.
Burial or cremation.
He prefers burial.
His reasoning is rather beautiful.
We spend an entire lifetime assembling ourselves.
We eat plants and animals. We borrow molecules from cows, carrots, chickens, potatoes and, in my case, probably several thousand bottles of wine.
Eventually all those molecules become us.
If we’re buried, Tyson points out, bacteria, worms, plants and assorted tiny creatures get them back.
We become part of the Earth again.
Cremation takes another route.
Set fire to the old carcass and much of its stored chemical energy becomes heat. Eventually that energy radiates outward.
In a very small way, you become part of the universe.
Not bad.
But I think Neil has overlooked The Third Way.
Give the body away.
Donate whatever organs and tissues are still useful, and give the rest to medical science.
I’ve spent a lifetime assembling this equipment.
It seems a shame to throw it out.
If the corneas are still any good, give them to someone who would like to see Paris.
If the kidneys still work, give them to somebody who has spent enough of his life getting intimately acquainted with a dialysis machine.
And if anybody wants my knees, they’re welcome to them — although I think there should be a 30-day return policy.
After that, let the medical students have what’s left.
There must be something educational in there.
Perhaps a future surgeon can learn from me.
Perhaps a researcher can discover something useful.
Perhaps an entire class of medical students can stand around a table and try to figure out how I made it this far.
Eventually, whatever remains can be buried or cremated.
So everybody wins.
The living get first crack at me.
Science gets what’s left.
The worms can wait.
There is, unfortunately, one aspect of me I haven’t figured out how to donate.
My wit.
But I’ve been working on that problem for years.
You’re reading some of it now.
