Cremation is a popular way of caring for the body of a loved one after they pass away. How to prepare for cremation will depend on your loved one’s wishes and what you will be doing for memorial services. But ultimately, you will be responsible for the cremation containers and their contents when it is over. So, make sure you talk to your loved ones about their wishes before they die. This will make it easier to plan everything.
Cremation rituals vary greatly. Some people have elaborate ceremonies while others simply bury the ashes and urns. Your culture and family preferences will likely determine what you do after the cremation.
There are many ways to honor your loved one after their cremation, including creating cremation items to remember them by. This should be something you discuss ahead of time. If you know your loved one’s wishes, you can apply them with the help of your family and friends. However, if you don’t know, you can still find a meaningful way to honor them. It will just take a little more planning and work.
Few people relish the idea of talking with family members and friends about what they want to happen to their body after they pass. The irony in that is when asked by Harris Polling, nearly 90% of respondents say they believe having these conversations is something they view as important. Moreover, when asked, about 70% of respondents say they would like to talk to funeral homes about making planning a funeral before they die. For more and more Americans, cremation is their wish leaving loved ones to decide how to best honor their life. There are a number of ways to pay your respects after a cremation has been done.
- Take the ashes out to sea and scatter them there. Now, the “sea” does not have to be the ocean. Any body of water that is special to the person will do. Lakes, rivers, creeks, and other water can all serve as a great place to honor the person’s life. The main expense associated with this is the rental of a boat. If you already have one, you lose that cost. Be advised that even if the person loved going on cruises, most companies that offer them really do not want people tossing anything into the water.
- Go to a special place and scatter or bury the ashes there. This is one reason that many people look to cremation services for themselves or their loved one. There is no reason to only get a cremation urn and place that in a mausoleum or some other spot. If you are going to put them on someone’s private land, make sure you have permission from the owner before you do your ceremony. You can, of course, keep them close to you by putting them on your property. This way, you can have a marker. Just make to take them with you should you sell your home and move away.
- Buy a plot in a cemetery. Many people do this after the cremation of a loved one. The spots for cremated remains are smaller than for full coffins so that will bring your cost down a bit. If you have another loved one at the cemetery you are looking at, you can also use that space.
- Get a nice cremation urn and display it. You may have a spot in your home where you want to display a nice urn with your loved one in it. That will give everyone who loved that person a chance to reflect on that person’s life and their connection to them. The only real downside is that if it is placed in a spot where the urn can be disturbed or broken, the cleanup can be painful and upsetting. You can also get small urns and distribute them to many of the people who loved the person who has passed.
- Use the remains to create something to share. After cremation, there are things you can do beyond scattering or saving the ashes. Some people take the remains and have them made into jewelry, decorative works of art, or other keepsakes. Some people find this kind of morbid, to wear a piece of the person but for others, this provides a way to have something that reminds them of the person and allows them to keep the person close although they have gone.
- Build a reef. This is a new way to take the cremated remains of a person and create something new. You can work with a service that will take the ashes, combine them with a concrete substance that will be used to form the basis of new reefs. These can be visited by anyone who loved the person.
- Turn their remains into a monument to their life. While some people find this unseemly, many do not. You can take the remains, combine them with concrete and make your own statue that can be placed anywhere you like.
The rates of cremation in the United States are on the rise. At a quickly increasing rate, families are looking to cremation when a loved one passed. There are a lot of things that can be done when this is the option selected.
