This is the way I want to go: the same way a bloke I heard about recently went back to the earth.
He was a country bloke, through and through. A sheep man, he'd lived on the land his whole life.
He was only sick for a little while before the Great Sleep came. When it did, the little country hospital where he'd died agreed to keep his body safe until his family could come for it.
They went to his land, and mourning, built a coffin out of left over bits of wood - old doors and such. A friend with a backhoe dug a hole. When the day of the funeral came, his sons took the home made coffin to the hospital. They gathered up their father's body, and, tucking him into a sheet, placed him carefully in the coffin.
They loaded him into the back of the ute, and drove their dad back to the land he'd loved. They were met at the gate by family and friends in their cars, and they followed the ute, like a muster, to the place of burial.
There, the family and friends stopped and, leaving their cars behind, circled around the sons as they unloaded their dad. They placed his coffin carefully over the sleepers they'd laid across the grave. On ropes they lowered him into it, with gentle mutterings of "give us a bit more here". Then they, his sons, his wife, his friends, they took shovelfuls of the earth which was his life and mounded it over and around him.
The next day, they gathered once again. The sons had taken two hand-made walking sticks belonging to their father, and placed them in a cross over the grave, to mark the spot.
A short distance away, was a bonfire the father had been building. The grieving family and friends surrounded it, and together lit the fire. With glasses of champagne, on a cold winter day, in the warmth of the fire the man they had loved had built, they toasted him.
This is how I want to go - returning gently and with no fanfare but the homespun love of those I love, to a land which is our heart.