What happens after you die?

In one sense, only the dead know.

In another sense, you can have some say in what happens to the body you leave behind.

You can have it sealed up in a heavy-duty, highly varnished, waterproof, rot-resistant, brass-latched box padded on the inside for maximum comfort and encased in a concrete vault, a home-away-from home for the several centuries it will take for your remains to come back to life.

Or you can have 28 gallons of fossil fuel burned to reduce yourself to a sand bereft of anything that would support life, a sand so alkaline that if dumped in a clump under a plant, you’d end up killing it.

Or you can expedite your return to life by being buried naturally: no formaldehyde in your veins, no casket to endure the centuries, no vault to keep the grass above you nice and level for the grim lawnmower.

A burial can be simple: just you in denim and flannel, a shroud of cotton or a casket of plain pine. In no time at all, you join your mother, Earth, and live again.

But you aren’t likely to get that simple, natural burial unless you ask for it, and if you’re going to ask for it, you’d best do it before the big day. Loved ones are reluctant to opt for the simple, unadorned dispatch. In a gesture of misguided respect, they may try to do everything they can to make your discarded corpse look alive. They will want to give their beloved deceased the best of real estate for eternity. Or they’ll opt for cremation, not understanding that sprinkling decarbonized ashes does absolutely nothing for nature.

If you want a green burial, you need to tell people soon. You can download a “Final Wishes Form” at nllibrarium.com/finalwishes.

and give your folks a written document they will dare not ignore.

The form lets you specify your disposition, be it green or other. You can name your container, request your cemetery, donate your organs, list your contacts, specify your memorial music and readings, write your epitaph, even request a certain species of tree to be planted over you.

This might take a little research on your part. If you want to go out green, you may have a hard time finding a cemetery that allows it. There aren’t many places that will let you become a tree. Connecticut does not yet have a burial ground exclusively for clean, green burials.

If you’d like to make a New Year’s resolution that you can easily keep, filling out the Final Wishes Form is a good one. Your time is running out. You’d better do it now.

Glenn Alan Cheney is a writer, translator, and managing editor of New London Librarium. He is on the Board of Directors of Connecticut Green Burial Grounds. He can be reached at glenn@nllibrarium.com.