urn

What one does with one’s
cremains has never really been much of a concern for me.  Not until a few weeks ago, when I read a news
story about an Edmonton company offering to make you into a pencil and then
use you to draw yourself.  The subject
has been gnawing at me ever since.  I
have decided to come forth and declare my position on this.

 I do not want to become a
pencil.  I don’t think it’s clever, cute
or particularly useful.  Well, maybe a
bit useful.  Where on earth would my
daughters hang a portrait of me made of, well, me?  I once gave one of my daughters a perfectly
nice pastel portrait of me as a child done by Nick deGrandmaison, a well-known
Canadian artist, which she hung over the toilet in the small bathroom.  I hate to think where she might put a
portrait made of my remains.

 I also don’t want to be a
picture frame.  There are at least
several companies offering to pour a tablespoon or so of you into a special
vial that can be inserted into a specially-made picture frame which would, I
assume, hold a picture of you.  Now
wouldn’t that be something – a portrait of you drawn by a pencil made of you in
a frame of you. Perhaps a big egocentric.

I do not want to throw a party for my ashes.
That’s what some companies, like Party of
Your Life in Calgary, want to do for you. The owner used to be a wedding
planner and Lord knows what persuaded her to change her focus.  She will also help clients plan a pre-death
party, which sounds like a lot of no fun. I would think It would be a pretty
big strain on the guests.

I do not want to be fused into glass and
spend the rest of my non-life around somebody’s neck.  Actually, come to think of it, I’ve spent a
good deal of my alive life around many people’s necks.  I certainly don’t want to extend that indefinitely.

I do not want to be shot into space, made
into a diamond or poured into an expensive, hand-made urn that nobody knows
what to do with.  Nor do I want to be buried
in a green coffin made of bamboo or a luxury coffin in the shape of a Rolls
Royce.  And call me difficult, but I also
do not want to be scattered.  Just throw
me into a landfill somewhere and I won’t know the difference.

 I
recently discovered a website for a firm called International Ash
Scattering.  To my amazement, you can
shop online for the scattering location, the method of scattering and a whole
range of auxiliary services.  You just
load up the virtual shopping cart and pay through paypal.  How easy is that!  The Environment Assocation in Great Britain even has advice on how to scatter ashes in an
environmentally sound way.

I also don’t want to be visited.  I mean, really.  Taking flowers to a jar of dirt every
Mother’s Day just doesn’t make sense.

In summary, there are, I’m sure, many
creative things being done to ashes that I don’t know about.  Please don’t do any of them to mine.  It’s really not worth the trouble.  I’ve heard it said that a person dies three
times:  the first is the actual physical
death; the second is the burial or cremation; but the third doesn’t happen until
the last time their name is mentioned on this planet.  So forget about my ashes.  Just remember me.