Roy Exum: What About The Ashes?

  • Saturday, January 31, 2015
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

I attended my fifth funeral in the month of January the other day and, while I wish a lot of my friends would hang around a little longer, I was amused by the conversation in the pew before the service began. The question was “ … then what do you do with the ashes?”

More and more people are being cremated and asking their loved ones to scatter their ashes -- more properly called cremains -- in the ocean or let the winds blow them into the Smokies from Mount LeConte. But the trick is to have the conversation of what each person wants before they croak.

For instance, when my Aunt Martha and my mother died this fall, I knew both wanted to be buried in our family cemetery where other members of our family have been buried for generations.

Mother was quite specific. She wanted her ashes poured into a freshly-dug hole, so her remains would return to earth. Martha, on the other hand, wanted just a few of her ashes scattered in the cemetery and then wanted the largest amount of her remains scattered in different places she loved on our farm. My dad’s ashes were returned to his boyhood home in Mississippi while my brother’s – who died some years ago – sat in mother’s closet until he could be interred at the same time we said funeral rites for mom.

The ashes of the great dog “Skippy” were also in mom’s closet – which my sister has since buried in her yard – but I used to tell mother we’d just dump Skippy in with her since she’d never know. “Yes I will,” she said with great indignation, “and, if you dare, I promise I’ll figure out a way to get you.”

Knowing that Mother had an inside with the Lord, I quickly decided not to mix any ashes.

Several weeks before Mother died one of the Hospice nurses woke me up about 2 o’clock to tell me Mom was upset. So I rushed downstairs and she was really worried. “What if I’m not dead? I don’t want to burn to death.” I assured her I wouldn’t let that happen but she was insistent.

Finally I told her, “You remember when Mammaw (her mother) died. I kissed her on the forehead and then you did too, right? How did you know she was dead?” Mother replied, “Oh, you can tell.”

“Trust me, we’ll be able to tell after your soul is on its way to heaven,” I said, giving her a hug, and the subject was never mentioned again. But we talked a lot about death and heaven and who she would get to see and it was the easiest Homecoming I can remember. She gave us a great lesson in grace and was actually excited about meeting Jesus.

The people at The Birmingham News had a great feature the other day on “What Do You Do With The Ashes?” One funeral home friend told me that almost every funeral home still has ashes that families have never picked up, if you can believe that.

I’ve been party – more than once – to discreetly pouring a very small amount of cremains out of a pill bottle at places like Neyland Stadium, Rupp Arena and Legion Field but these days somebody would think Uncle Alfred’s cremains were heroin or ‘meth’ or some illicit drug and that’s too risky.

Here are some clever ideas, courtesy of AL.com, that a family can do with the ashes, or cremains:

* -- EternalReefs.com uses human cremains to create an environmentally-safe concrete reef that serves as a marine habitat for fish and other sea life. (EternalReefs.com)

* -- Holy Smoke in Stockton, Ala., loads ammunition with human cremains, allowing outdoor and firearm lovers to go out with a bang. (MyHolySmoke.com)

* -- CremationSolutions.com creates an urn that is a three-dimensional, life-like sculpture of your loved one using pictures of the deceased and special facial recognition software. It’s worth the effort to go on the website and see the one they created for Barak Obama. (CremationSolutions.com)

* -- Several companies create customized jewelry using cremated ashes. LifeGem creates diamonds from the carbon in ashes, a lock of hair or both. (LifeGem.com)

* -- Vinyly … get it? It’s a play on “finally” -- makes vinyl records out of cremated ash. Customers can choose their favorite music of all time and even design the slip cover and record labels. (andVinyly.com)

* -- In The Light Urns sells an urn that looks like a Craftsman toolbox and can be engraved for free. (InTheLightUrns.com)

* -- Want to just float away? Florida-based Eternal Ascent Society sells 5-foot biodegradable balloons filled with cremains that ascend to a height of 30,000 feet when released. (EternalAscent.com)

* -- Transform your cremains into a family heirloom with In the Light Urns' hourglass urns. This one is made of see-through glass and you can flip it over so the ashes will be useful timing stuff. (InTheLightUrns.com)

* -- A "huggable" teddy bear is more than just a stuffed animal. A zipper is attached to the back to allow easy installation of cremains in a small plastic bag. (PerfectMemorials.com)

* -- Send off your loved one with a Peaceful Petal Flower Water Burial Urn, which is 100 percent biodegradable and water friendly for ocean, lake or wide-river. (InTheLightUrns.com)

* -- Journey into the final frontier by having your cremains launched into space. Celestis works with commercial space launch services to allow cremains to travel into space on a real mission. (Celestis.com)

* -- Turn the cremains of your loved one or pet into a tree using Urna Bios, a biodegradable urn that allows people or animals to return to nature. (UrnaBios.com)

* -- For the goofball or pizza lover in your life, consider a "Rest in Pizza" urn (that looks like a pizza box) from In the Light Urns. (InTheLightUrns.com)

* -- Celebrate the life of a loved one with a colorful light show in the sky. Angels Flight makes firework shells using cremated ash. This is another way you go out with a real bang. (Angels-Flight.net)

Me? I had always thought I would like to be scattered in one of our fields, my ashes to be plowed into the soil to raise a new crop of soy beans or corn or hay for the cattle. But if a big bare spot resulted after the rest of the field blossomed, people would talk. So, yeah, just pour my cremains down a newly-dug hole because that way I’ll be “absorbed” in something, which is an honorable trait.

royexum@aol.com

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