Is it just me, or is this creepy?
A company called LifeGem will take the ashes of you dearly departed and bake them into a piece of diamond jewelry.
You can send this company fur brushed from your pet and they will make you a piece of clothing you can wear in memory.
I know everyone deals with death in their own way, but my personal take on wearing a piece of a dead loved one is....ewww, creepy! It seems somehow primitive. I suppose death is primal and elemental and scary and many people get comfort out of having something tangible - hence headstones and graves and all the rest. Even when I was a little kid, I remember saying I wanted to be fed to something, used for research, something useful, after I died. Never could see the point of taking up space with graves.
I am imagining wearing a scarf made from Bosco's dead fur. That dog was intelligent, Mr Personality, loved to run and hike and swim and play and eat. He would have hated being wrapped around my neck or hung from a peg! How insulting.
Or wearing my father on my finger? He wasn't a jewelry type guy and I'm pretty sure would've thought the notion of such a business ridiculous and some sort of bizarre example of conspicuous consumerism. I can imagine looking at a shiny little expensive rock and being unable to relate that to the wonderful man he was.
For the record, most of the pets I've let go, as well as my father, were cremated but I have not kept any of the ashes because I think that is creepy too.
You can send this company fur brushed from your pet and they will make you a piece of clothing you can wear in memory.
I know everyone deals with death in their own way, but my personal take on wearing a piece of a dead loved one is....ewww, creepy! It seems somehow primitive. I suppose death is primal and elemental and scary and many people get comfort out of having something tangible - hence headstones and graves and all the rest. Even when I was a little kid, I remember saying I wanted to be fed to something, used for research, something useful, after I died. Never could see the point of taking up space with graves.
I am imagining wearing a scarf made from Bosco's dead fur. That dog was intelligent, Mr Personality, loved to run and hike and swim and play and eat. He would have hated being wrapped around my neck or hung from a peg! How insulting.
Or wearing my father on my finger? He wasn't a jewelry type guy and I'm pretty sure would've thought the notion of such a business ridiculous and some sort of bizarre example of conspicuous consumerism. I can imagine looking at a shiny little expensive rock and being unable to relate that to the wonderful man he was.
For the record, most of the pets I've let go, as well as my father, were cremated but I have not kept any of the ashes because I think that is creepy too.
posted by Carina at 6:46 AM
12 Comments:
I read the beginning of your post before I walked my daughter to school and was having thoughts about it as I was walking. I was thinking the same thing that you thought, about people dealing with grief in their own way which I read when I got back. But finally I realized that this is just too wierd. Making someone into a ring? It just seems to me that the person who did that would have to be so disassociated or something. It's bad enough for me to realize that once life leaves the animated bodies I see before me that they will return to what they are made of without doing something that makes them even further away from what they once were. Okay....I just read over what I said....I am morbid. Oh well, that's how I feel. Yes your right...it is creepy...at least to me.
So a few posts down, there's a tribute to Steve Irwin, but on September 11th you couldn't do the tribute to Jude J. Moussa that you SIGNED up to do?
I'm glad I can be proud of myself for doing my tribute.
Yuck!!!!!!!!!!!!
I heard about this before and thought it was weird, sort of cannibalistic!
What about freeze drying your pet, now THAT is too weird for me!
i would like to freeze dry a couple of x husbands...while they were still alive..
i always wanted to be creamated but jamie my 17 year old granddaughter freaked out and begged me not to be creamated...now i dont know what to do...
Diana - I don't think you are morbid - it's a personal decision of course, no wrong or right.
"Anonymous", I feel badly about that. I searched pretty thoroughly through the entire list D.C. Roe had posted, emailed him too on 9/10 - guess I screwed up somewhere but for the life of me could not find the name I was to tribute. I was going to do a "shit I screwed up"/general tribute post, but decided that would be even worse.
Junebugg & Rhea...see, I'm glad I am not the only one to find it a bit weird. Hadn't considered the cannibalism angle...!
Oh, and now freeze-drying and stuffing pets....oh, that is really odd. No way is anyone going to stick glass eyes in my dead pets' eye sockets, ewww.
I could've freezedried a couple of guys too. Ha!
I wrote a blog entry maybe last year about a new type of freeze-drying provided by this company: http://www.promessa.se/index_en.asp I love what they provide, which is basically freeze-drying a dead body with liquid nitrogen, pulverizing it, and then using the remnants as compost to plant a tree or something. Unfortunately, the process doesn't seem to be available in the US, as it definitely appeals to me.
I've had all my deceased pets cremated, and they're all here in the house in their little boxes. I've kept them purposely because I move around so much, but when I finally settle on one final home, I'll figure out what to do with them. I guess I'm oddly sentimental, but if I spread a pet's ashes here in Las Vegas, I think I'd regret it if I moved back to Canada. When my parents sold our "family home" in Canada, the first thing which occurred to me was that my pet parakeet was buried in the back yard, and I felt sort of badly that she was left behind.
And to get back to your original topic, I don't mind the diamond concept, but think it's a waste of money for most people. I think it's scientifically fascinating rather than morbid.
I wrote a blog on this company about a year ago. I had had an extremely nasty very bad day at the office and this company struck my funny bone.
We are lucky enough to live here where there is space, so we bury them where they liked to hang out if we can....Tucker and Sparky on the top of the heifer pasture hill, Beethoven out on the front pasture where he held up blasting for the new road for hours....Campy way out on Seven County Hill. It is comforting to drive the tractor by these places and remember the good old dogs. Sometimes I feel like they are still cavorting along behind me when I walk the place.
Thank you all for the comments...I will sit down and consider them more fully, later!
I've had a house guest and between that & work & all I haven't had time to get to all my favourite blogs in almost a week.
There is a business in town that tans hides of animals and one of their services is to stuff and mount beloved pets. I interviewed them for a story I wrote and had trouble finishing the interview because they were so proud of this facet of their business.
Post a Comment
<< Home