A Few Words About Cremation

Yep, you read that right. I like to write about things that are happening right now so today's subject is cremation. The topic came about because nine years ago when my mother-in-law died, her body was cremated and half of her ashes went to the hubby and half to the sister we are staying with now. When the SIL was in Seattle last week she was able to pick up a Chinese-style altar that we left for her at her son's house (it's the first picture, above, and came from our house when we moved everything out). Anyway, the altar is now here and hubby was going to set it up for her then he noticed that his sister's part of his mom's ashes were still in the box they came in from the crematorium. So off we went yesterday in search of something to put the ashes in. What we found (which is similar to what we found for our half of the ashes) was a pretty box from TJ Maxx that you can see in the second picture. Which brings us to the few things I wanted to say about cremation:

• Most of the people in both of our families feel that cremation is a good thing. It is much less expensive than burial and much less hassle for all involved.


• The couple of down sides is that first, you have to decide who keeps the ashes (and then what happens after they pass?), and the second is that there is no actual place for loved ones to go a visit like a cemetery (although you can inter ashes in special places set up just for this at some cemeteries).


• You don't need to spend an arm and a leg on an urn. Obviously some people will feel differently about this and think that only an "official" urn is sacred enough for ashes but for us, finding a pretty box for the ashes and placing them on an altar (I learned about altars when traveling in Asia and thought it was a very cool idea) is reverent enough.