In the words of one of America’s Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin, “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Only a few decades ago, funerals were somber, depressing occasions with little sense of personality and don’t even think of mentioning ‘fun’.
Nowadays, people are far more open to the idea of a celebration of life rather than an occasion to mourn. Cremation is rapidly becoming the most popular choice when someone has passed but the traditional storing of ashes in an urn is drab, boring and morbid.
A Loving Tribute knows that your memorial needs to be as unique as the deceased, and classic ways of storing or scattering ashes doesn’t always reflect the wishes or personality of your loved one!
Below are 5 weird and wonderful ideas on what to do with ashes to take inspiration and do something really unique to remember someone by.
1. Sown with a Drone
When someone is nearing death, they often voice where they would like their ashes scattered, such as a favorite park or frequented beach.
So, when this has been requested, it’s unlikely that we aren’t going to respect their wishes, but that doesn’t mean that the event of scattering has to be mundane.
Companies are now offering drone scattering services to scatter ashes far and wide, instead of the awkward gray piles you can leave around the area when hand scattering.
You can even add things to jazz the experience up, such as biodegradable glitter, petals or anything you think will represent the deceased (as long as it’s not harmful to the environment!).
You can even turn this into another memorial event after the initial funeral. When creating your order of services, you can announce this on one of the pages with details of where and when.
By using an online order of service template, it makes it super easy, as the emotions on the day of the funeral may cause you to forget. Click here to view examples.
2. Out of This World
Space travel is a fascination for many of us; humans are getting closer and closer to the idea of space exploration becoming available to the masses. Unfortunately, many of us will not be around long enough to see this dream become a reality.
However, this doesn’t mean we should still miss out on escaping from our own planet and drifting above our atmosphere. You can now send ashes to space via Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket.
Ashes are placed inside a custom ash capsule and will be launched into orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The ashes will then orbit Earth for roughly two years before returning as a ‘shooting star’ through our atmosphere.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t come cheap as prices to reserve a slot start at $2,490, but with limited space available and 100 slots already taken, it already seems a popular alternative.
3. Think Ink
Tattoos are a great form of art to express yourself. People typically choose images that mean something to them and after someone has died it is not uncommon to have a permanent memorial inked on yourself.
Portraits, names and quotes are popular choices but even images of the deceased’s favorite food, flowers or animal are chosen.
So, with all this being said, how can you make your memorial tattoo unique if so many others are doing the same?
Well, now you can have a tattoo of your loved one made OF them. That’s right, you can have ashes mixed with tattoo ink to permanently cement their remains to yourself.
So, the next time someone compliments you on your latest tattoo, you can respond with ‘thanks, it’s made from my mom!’
It is recommended that you seek someone with experience of mixing ashes and tattoo ink; if done improperly, it can have a disastrous result for your new ink.
4. The Final Vinyl
Music is one of the easiest ways to evoke memories, whether it’s a wedding song from your first dance taking you back to your special day, or an old club anthem that transports you straight back to your college day of too much beer.
It can do the same with memories of people. You can now have ashes pressed into vinyl with a song of your choice, either their favorite song or perhaps one they used to sing to you. David Bowie’s 1980 hit ‘Ashes to Ashes’ would also be very fitting!
This is a quirky option for the musically inclined. Adding ash to the vinyl will add a few extra pops and crackles to the sound quality, but this contributes to the charm; it’s almost like the deceased is singing along!
5. Give Them an Hourglass Figure
If you are looking for a more decorative item that will also remind you of your own mortality, as your time on Earth decreases, you can enlist the help of certain companies that will create an hourglass using ashes instead of sand.
While this idea is only recently becoming popular, it is not new. During World War II, people would use hourglasses to store the ashes of loved ones when serving overseas to mark time shared with them.
Nowadays, you can order DIY kits online to turn your ashes into an hourglass, these differ from standard hourglasses. To be very candid, human ashes are not as fine as sand, as human bones struggle to be crushed into something so small. In these new alternatives, the central hole is bigger to allow remains to pass through.
Other ideas that have proven quite popular are balloon releases with ashes inside or compacting ash into shotgun shells. For the avid aviator, you can even have ashes thrown out of a plane, although this would require the hire of a private plane as commercial airlines will not take kindly to you attempting to open doors or windows on your next trip.
So, if you are looking for a quirky send-off for yourself, or have recently lost someone who would have adored to be remembered in such an unusual way, why not give one of these a go!