Today, a co-worker sent me this link, and everything changed.
Yes, that's right. For a mere...well, okay, for several thousand dollars...you can have "the carbon from your loved one" made into a synthetic diamond and...you know...wear pieces of your dead friend or family member.
The process is simple, really. You just have your beloved cremated, ship the ashes off to LifeGem with a small boatload of money, and the company uses its "patented process" to press your loved one's carbon into a synthetic diamond just for you. You can also buy settings, of course, and cases, and everything else you might need to go with your
The LifeGem website contains testimonials that I can only hope are faked. Here are a few excerpts:
"I've requested in my will that my children turn me into a diamond when I die."
"Knowing that my mother is in the stone and I can take her with me is an awesome feeling."
Some are even more...disturbing. I don't want to recreate those here because these letters, if they are real, were written by people who have suffered terrible losses and evidently are finding some comfort. Unfortunately, that comfort is being offered in a way that is not only disturbing, but extraordinarily expensive. The least expensive loved-one-turned-diamond that I was able to find on the website was $2,699. That's just the diamond--no setting or anything--and there's only one that comes that cheap.
Our loved ones, of course, are more than their carbon. It's unfortunate that a company has sprung up to capitalize on the pain of people in mourning by pretending that crushing a bit of their organic matter into a diamond is what remembrance is all about...and that if you REALLY loved your husband (or mother, or child, or wife, or cat), you'd go with the SEVEN thousand dollar diamond....
5 comments:
I don't know - I think it is neat. My dad *lives* in my craft room on a shelf in a marble urn he bought as a young man in Turkey. At least, most of him is. The rest is wrapped around the roots of a young tree.
While it is expensive, I'd rather see people make diamonds rather than claw the ones that already exist out of the earth.
*shrug* To each his own, I suppose! Have you seen the company that is sending ashes to the moon? :)
Hmmm... Cold~hearted manipulation or genuine remembrance?
I'm one of those pathetic people who who cremates pets... but it was only one, honest!
I don't think it's necessary. I know my mother will never leave me alone!
I live in the country on acreage so when my pets, including horses, died I had them buried on high ground and I got a tree from the nursery and planted it on top of their burial sites.
When it comes to my own remains I find burial abhorrent. I can't imagine having my body filled with embalming fluid and left to rot in a casket in the ground. Nor can I imagine making diamonds from the ashes of the dead.
I'm not a sloppy sentimentalist and I ahbor ostentatious display.I specify in my will that my body is to be cremated and my ashes are to be returned to the soil. The modestly priced memorial service is prepaid and planned by myself. A small plaque with my name and date of birth and death is to be placed on memorial wall and that's that.
I think it's rather gaggy.
This just boggles my mind. Yuk! Turning your loved one into an expensive keepsake and possibly wearing them?
And why is there always someone willing to prey on people when they are at their weakest?
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