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The ashes aren't like fly ash. They aren't light or prone to just fly around everywhere on the lightest breeze. If buried, the ashes would fit into the soil totally in no time, and a new home buyer would never know a thing about it if they weren't told.
Really, none of the drama I see anticipated here would be anywhere as large as folks think. After going through cremation twice, I think it actually cuts down the drama that's in a funeral and it's aftermath.
Since the dead no longer care at all, I see no harm in allowing their final wish to be acknowledged with no quarrel or fighting about it. The living can do how they please after the person passes, and most often that's how it goes.
I think it's very important to start thinking about what will make the survivors content instead of worrying about the dying's wishes. The funeral and what follows will always be the last memory of the person all the survivors will have, and that memory's impressions will be permanent.
The survivors will remember a good, dignified funeral as a good thing, no matter what the compromises of the moment were, and they will always remember a funeral that became a bitter battle just as clearly.
One could heal old family wounds and the other could infect those same wounds and make them much worse.
In my family's case, during the plans we realized we needed an urn that all the other folks who would come would appreciate. Our Mom knew really a lot of people, and was locally prominent when she was younger.
She was a colorful personality.
So we chose a red urn with silver strips for her ashes, and since she had a unique signature folks remembered, we had her signature engraved on the urn. I saw surprised at how pleased these two small decisions made us all. They made her last public appearance on earth a lot more personal and less remote and cold.
Our mother died of dementia, and before she died, she mess a lot of things up badly due to the dementia. Her death left us with a lot of problems, and we are still disagreeing over some of them.
But our feelings were a lot stronger before the funeral than after it. Due mostly to how good the funeral was. When we laid her to rest in a proper fashion that pleased us and would have pleased her, it softened our hard feelings toward each other afterwards.
Bad decisions could have intensified those hard feelings. So it is important to think of the living as much as the dead, and to keep all the thoughts in their proper balance. All every one will be left with in the end are those moments and their emotions for the rest of their lives.
I don't think her request is too extreme. After all, I couldn't begin to count the hundreds of Ohio State Buckeye fans whose ashes are scattered in the football stadium. True story.
Dad was in the steel business. His close friend and colleague wanted a portion of his ashes included in a heat (batch) of steel- so someone left the funeral with a portion of his ashes and complied with his wishes!
Dad was in the steel business. His close friend and colleague wanted a portion of his ashes included in a heat (batch) of steel- so someone left the funeral with a portion of his ashes and complied with his wishes!
That one building support just collapsed for no reason -- it was weaker than the rest!
This whole discussion reminded me, if anyone here has more specific questions about dealing with "unique" last wishes when it comes to funerals, cremains and other assorted memorial activities.....
The mortician Caitlin Doughty has a series of videos on YouTube that are both highly educational and entertaining.
She also shares current info about legal issues and funeral industry trends on other social media sites (Twitter, Facebook.)
She's a literal breath of fresh air when it comes to a part of life that many of us struggle to deal with.....& "Knowing is half the battle."
My mom lives with me in a house that has been in our family for a long time. She grew up in the house. I now own the house. When she dies, she insists she wants to have her ashes scattered or buried... in the back yard. (She's not dying any time soon. She just has her heart set on this.)
This is not some grand palatial estate with lots of places to scatter ashes picturesquely to the wind. It's a small suburban house. She wants them buried in the garden.
I've told her that I am highly likely to sell the house after she dies, in fact probably quite soon after she dies. She doesn't care. I explained to her that our town doesn't allow ash scattering and that whatever way it was done, would probably not be legal. She doesn't care. I tried to tell her how disconcerting it would be to drive past the house and know her ashes are there and that the new owners of the house would have no idea. (Or that they might come across an ash cache when digging in the garden...) She doesn't care.
I have largely kept my feelings to myself about this, but I am very upset at what I feel is an unreasonable request. It's MY property, and quite aside from the fact that I would like a place to visit my mother for remembrance after she is gone (my parents will have both deprived my brother and me of this, since my dad also opted for scattering at some faraway location), the idea that some other family is going to be living over her gravesite really bothers me.
This doesn't feel the same as an ash scattering in some picturesque generic place like at sea, or at a national park or whatever. It is super specific and puts a very weird burden on her children, me in particular. Am I wrong?
Has anyone been asked to carry out a final wish by their parents which seems unreasonable or problematic?
I think you should do what she wants. I would mix her ashes in with some potting soil and plant a beautiful perennial there, so every spring you will remember her when you see the flower, it will be like she's part of it. Maybe a butterfly bush, so the butterflies will flock around it (her) and keep her company. You can always dig it up and take it with you when you move, knowing she is part of it.
OP says they *did* point that out, and Mom didn't mind if someone else owned the house soon after.
And if OP is worried about the new owners digging and finding the ashes (how? They'd be mixed in with the soil)... they're only ashes. Not like digging a whole big grave. Borrow a post-hole digger, go deeper than anyone is likely to do when gardening, toss them in, put the dirt back.
It isn't that she's be pointing out something new, but that the OP would frame it in terms of affection.
How did you do that with both quotes?
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