Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I just got my dad's cremated ashes in the mail today. I have no idea what to do with it. I have no desire to put it in an urn and move it around with me and pass it to my kids who barely knew him. Scattering it in an ocean is just not realistic. I don't even want to open the bag that contains the ashes. My siblings said they don't want it. Any ideas what to do?
You can usually buy a niche for ashes at a fraction of the cost of a plot and a monument. That's what I did with my parents' ashes as well as my husband's. I had room to put the urn, a framed photo, and a memento for each of them.
If it were me, I’d put it in a cemetery with a marker.
I've known a few families who went this route. Seems better than having the ashes sitting on the mantle or something. There was another couple who grew up living on farms next to each other. They told their sons to take their ashes back to their respective farms and spread their ashes there. That's what was done.
I've known a few families who went this route. Seems better than having the ashes sitting on the mantle or something. There was another couple who grew up living on farms next to each other. They told their sons to take their ashes back to their respective farms and spread their ashes there. That's what was done.
My dad wanted his ashes spread over the family farm and I did put many out there but I kept a small urn of them. When my mom died two years later, I bought side by side niches and put their urns in them. I liked the idea of them being close in death. When my husband unexpectedly died last year I bought a niche above theirs for his ashes too.
The fronts of the niches just have their names and the dates of their birth and death. But I like that. My grandmother wanted her body to be buried next to her mother's body. For decades the idea of her body moldering in the grave so to speak has bothered me. That's when I realized cremation was my preference and gladly it was that of my parents and husband as well. Since I am only 59 I didn't buy the niche next to my husband because frankly I want my kids to decide what to do with me - I'll be dead and don't really care though I do hope they choose cremation. Or I might be remarried, who knows? Anyway, I hope I have a lot more years on this earth but if not, oh well.
I don't personally like the idea of having someone's ashes in my house in an urn. I didn't even like having my cat's ashes, so I scattered them in the yard, which is where he liked to be anyway. I have known people who have an urn with ashes in it and to each his or her own, but I know my great uncle's ashes sat in the barn in a box for decades because no one wanted them in their house! I do have a little gazing ball in my garden and it has a few of my mom's ashes in it, because she loved gardening. I also have a little pewter heart with a tiny amount of my husband's ashes in it. It doesn't have his name or anything on it and doesn't look like it holds ashes, but it was very comforting for me to sleep with it clutched in my hand for a few months after he died. I haven't needed to do that in a long time though.
That's the thing about ashes - you aren't limited to putting them all in one place or putting an urn on your mantel! LOL I like it.
My daughter bought everyone in the family a small necklace with a few of my dad's ashes in them. Personally I didn't care for that but it meant a lot to her to give them to family members so OK. I have mine put up.
I had the undertaker cut a lock of my husband's hair before he was cremated and I have a few strands of it in a necklace though. I don't wear it but I like to look at the necklace sometimes.
So everyone is different but there are lots and lots of options. Get on Amazon and look at their memorial containers or whatever they call them.
A number of churches and cemeteries now have scattering gardens. You can scatter your father’s ashes at one of those places, I believe there’s a fee involved because there’s a marker of some sort, like a memorial wall or something. This is a newer idea so not everything place has this. But it’s becoming more common.
Most of our family has been cremated, and we buried the ashes and placed a marker. We bought several plots in a block where all of us can be buried together in an older community cemetery. My grandparents, both of my parents now, and a few aunts and uncles are there. Cremation makes sense and we can fit 3-4 urns with nice granite markers in one standard plot.
Last edited by Diana Holbrook; 05-08-2021 at 10:15 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Solly says — Be nice!
