From "Please. Stop. Spreading. Human. Ash. In. Public. With a huge rise in cremation rates, a sentimental ritual is turning into a gritty scourge" (WaPo)(free-access link, because it's full of amusing/horrible details).
Can we also stop saying "cremains"? I see the author put the term in scare quotes and the word "ash" is in the headline. I object to "cremains." The word, according to the OED, only dates back to 1950, and it seems to have been concocted like the name of a snack food. For example, Funyuns = fun + onions. Wouldn't it be more respectful to say "ashes"? Or do we think that "ashes" suggests the soft silky material left after a wood fire and thus has a whiff of false advertising?
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77 comments:
Carbon. Endangerment. Fertilizer. Green. Credit?
"Remember man that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." That's what Catholic priests say on Ash Wednesday.
Nothing about dumping ashes at Disneyland or on a golf course.
My late father-in-law's ashes were dumped (and dumped is the right word although people say scattered) into Cotton Lake in MN. His youngest said, "That is what Dad wanted." But there is a double headstone in the Detroit Lakes cemetery and no body next to that of his deceased wife.
My first thought was, "The hell you say! Why wasn't this in writing?"
Word to the wise in the Althouse community: pre-plan your funeral or write it down. Don't rely on oral instructions!
"Can we also stop saying 'cremains'? I object to 'cremains.'"
Althouse Wars: Rise of the Cresistance
Then spake brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth, Death cometh soon or late.
And how can Man die better, than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his gods?"
Wait till you find out how often people spread ashes on the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney. And THEN wait till you find out what the workers do with them when they find it.
Grok, what would Ann say?
That one about the golfer bribing the groundsman cracked me up. All of my family, for 4 generations, have done the cremation thing - then into the family plot with a small stone marking the spot. When we laid my mom to rest, we noticed my uncle's stone was badly tilted. When the cemetery guys went to level it, they discovered a couple of dozen golf balls that my cousins had stashed beneath it, just in case he needed a Mulligan.
On a remote corner of my summer-cabin property in northern Arizona, there is a promontory overlooking a small creek that tumbles through a mossy granite gorge below a willow grove, sculpting the rock over untold ages into waves and pools and small waterfalls. It is my intention that my ashes be buried there, not scattered, under a modest granite monument that will long outlast the memory of me in the minds of those who came after me.
I work Express Mail for USPS, so I see packages labeled Cremated Remains on a regular basis, mostly human but sometimes pets as well. There is a local company in the same industrial park where we are located that turns a teaspoon of pet cremated remains into memorial artwork.
https://everafterart.com/
Human remains are now required be placed in official USPS boxes to be shipped via Express Mail, but a few years back, someone sent some in a corrugated cardboard Little Debbie box, the kind that would have a case of the individual snack cake boxes. It made me think of what sort of a box I would choose to have my ashes shipped in. I finally settled on a box from some good Kentucky bourbon.
When I was in law school, I got to sit in on a trial against a crematorium which had at some point just stopped cremating bodies -there were hundreds of them stashed around the property, and families were given dirt, cement dust, and just about anything instead of their loved ones’ ashes. They had an expert to testify about how a crematorium should operate verses how this one did. So we got a large dose of the word “cremains” in all its uses.
Interesting fact - there’s no way to identify whether human ashes are actually what they say they are, or even whether they are really ashes of a formerly living thing at all. In this case, there was considerable evidence that the body wasn't cremated, but they never found it, and the family can just never know whether they got ashes of their loved one, ashes of someone else, or random waste.
I want to be cremated because (1) my kids and their families don’t even live in the same state and would be seriously inconvenienced to visit a gravesite, and (2) I have titanium knees and other titanium bits of metal inside me. Local funeral homes that perform cremations claim to be able to recycle them. I don’t know what the difference would be between a sand trap and a sand trap with my ashes raked into it, but I’d rather they were dumped in the ocean off my favorite beach. I’m sure there’s some fish of another that would be happy to eat those ashes and they’re welcome to.
Father Clancy told me you don't need mulligans in heaven because every shot is perfect. Must be the cousins thought uncle was headed to the other place...
"Goodnight, sweet prince" is the only proper utterance when releasing the ashes of the dearly departed. Best done from a Folgers can.
Interesting fact - there’s no way to identify whether human ashes are actually what they say they are...
If you embalm the corpse with a radioactive isotope before cremation that may make the ashes identifiable after cremation?
There’s waay worse things spread on a typical golf course than some duffer’s ashes..
The best idea I ever heard: the child of the deceased kept the ashes and, buying some of those once-ubiquitous grey plastic film canisters, would scoop out a small canister of ash whenever they went to visit the loved one’s favorite places all around the world. A global scattering, if you will. But discrete.
I keep my late wife’s with me, here at home. Bought a nice little wooden box and it’s on her home altar (she was into astrology and a little witchcraft!). I light candles every now and then and speak to her spirit. Might seem creepy to some but it works for me. And, hopefully, for her!
When Dad passed, the mortuary asked for a recent picture to verify we would get the proper cremains. Grim business, sorting through the freezer and comparing photos to cadavers in order to burn the right guy.
I got used to "cremains" as the name. It's awkward, but it seems to be the preferred term.
Reilly kept pounding that one dark joke idea over and over and over.
It got old after a few paragraphs.
I think "Cremains" is a more descriptive word than "ashes". Ashes can be wood, or paper, or a lot of other things. I like to think that we treat human ashes better than those from our fireplace. I also agree that they should not be scattered in public places. A river, or pond, or woods; fine.
"Luke, that is not your father....""
That's pretty funny for a prog.
Frankly, burial is a barbaric and thoughtless vanity. My kids are instructed to dump the ashes in the garden and then sell the house.
"...Must be the cousins thought uncle was headed to the other place... "
Well... That would be a good reason for a Mulligan.
I have spread ashes in the ocean. When I did it, the gusty wind blew them right back on me, as if the dear departed were giving me a final kiss.
Can I also say that I got a kick out of sending the remains through the machine at the airport, and replying in a very deadpan way "My relative" when TSA asked what was in the box.
My wife, in a very fitting sendoff to her deceased father, split her "share" of old Jack's ashes and put half at the base of his favorite ski run at Winter Park, and the other half atop Long's Peak, CO. I accompanied her with our kids to the first one. She and the kids did the Long's Peak cremains release without me, as I had climbed that sucker once already in this lifetime. My wife's sister, in a perfectly cromulent example of sibling rivalry, refused to give my wife any of their mother's cremains. We suspect this pettiness, so like her behavior the entire previous decade plus since their Dad died, was due to my SIL's jealousy over my wife's excellent disposition of their Dad's cremains. We may never know for certain, as they still aren't talking three years after my MIL's death. I intend to encourage this status as long as possible.
I'm going to have my remains scattered at Disneyland, but I'm not going to be cremated.
I have seen some videos, and heard stories from other pilots, about scattering ashes from airplanes. Hilarious and sometimes dangerous. Always messy.
“ Lyssa said...
When I was in law school, I got to sit in on a trial against a crematorium which had at some point just stopped cremating bodies -there were hundreds of them stashed around the property, and families were given dirt, cement dust, and just about anything instead of their loved ones’ ashes.”
Faux-mains?
SeanF said, "I'm going to have my remains scattered at Disneyland, but I'm not going to be cremated."
It shall prove henceforth that Ian Malcolm was incorrect and that "at Disneyland when the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' ride malfunctions, the pirates do eat the tourists."
Anyone else been to the burning ghats in Varanasi (Manikarnika Ghat) along the Ganges River?
So you can get your remains made into a faux piece of coral that you can dump in the ocean to help with coral reconstruction. Family is going to go on an ocean sail, have a party-eat well & raise a toast and dump me over the side!
So when Disney workers clean up the ashes at a ride . . . are the ashes just washed down the drain? If so, do the relatives realize this?
I'm now remembering what happened in the scene in The Big Lebowski when the Dude and Walter tried to spread Donny's ashes.
I keep my late wife’s with me, here at home. Bought a nice little wooden box and it’s on her home altar
Me too, but it creeps out the kids.
My headstone will have my Nebraska Bar number: 16795.
My favorite true-to-album version of Bowie's Ashes to Ashes
I never done good things
I never done bad things
I never did anything out of the blue,
Want an axe to break the ice
Wanna come down right now
Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
We know Major Tom's a junkie
Strung out in heaven's high
Hitting an all-time low
Well if you spread it around enough it shouldn't bother folks. I think the Nepture Society here in California will give you a boat ride to some distance off the coast==and you can dump the cremains and maybe a wreath in the ocean. I've got a friend who's a retired A&P mechanic. He and another fellow have a small plane set up (hopefully a low winger) with a box under the wing. Load the cremains in the box, pull the lever or switch and the ashes are spread from a height of 2,000 feet or so. That's just more grit and soot in Los Angeles.
”Goodnight, sweet prince" is the only proper utterance when releasing the ashes of the dearly departed. Best done from a Folgers can.
In the Bereaved Scene, Lebowski and Walter sit in front of a wall inscribed with Psalm 103:
As for Man, his days are as grass
As a flower of the field, he flourisheth
For the wind passes over and he is gone
These comments support the proposition (which I believe is undeniable) that how we dispose of, or think, or speak about our deceased loved ones reflects how we think about ourselves, not how we think about the deceased.
And that's as it should be.
Or go the Hunter Thompson route. Load ashes into shotgun shells and blamo.
Even the best crematoria can't reduce a corpse completely to ash often there are bone fragments left over. Once the cremation has been performed the actual ashes and bone fragments are collected and tumbled to break the bone fragments into dust. So what you're getting when you have grandma cremated is not 100% ashes, it's a mixture of ashes and bone dust. Hence the reason they're termed "cremains" and there are regulations about when and where they can be spread.
@J Severs, they get vacuumed up and put in the trash, essentially. Hardly dignified.
@natatomic, thank you. I agree completely on lack of dignity.
If you embalm the corpse with a radioactive isotope before cremation that may make the ashes identifiable after cremation?
I have some professional knowledge of this. It could be done as you say, as the nuclei that emit gamma radiation are not destroyed by any heat less than that found in a star or an atomic bomb. However, Federal and state regulatory agencies would definitely frown on it as it could release a significant quantity of radiation into the environment.
From time to time, a person who has received a large therapeutic dose of a long-lasting radionuclide and then expired may be kept in a far corner of the morgue freezer, and only cremated once four or five half-lives of the radioactive material have passed, which can be many months in some cases.
I'm sure Disney has cameras in the rides. A few bills for clean-up and lost ride time plus lifetime bans from all of the properties would put an end to that nonsense.
I'm thinking I should donate my body to the U of L medical school or any other science-type organization that will take it. I don't really care what happens to my body once I'm done with it and would like to save my children the bother and expense of having to deal with it. I'm not a grave visitor and I wouldn't expect my children to be either.
On second thought, maybe I'll have my ashes made into a gem stone and then mounted on a scabbard.
There’s waay worse things spread on a typical golf course than some duffer’s ashes..
Seldom do I enjoy a round of golf without contributing a bit more behind a bush or two, especially if we are patronizing the pretty young lady who goes around the course in a cart with an ice chest full of cold beer.
Is there a limit on views of the free articles? WaPo wants me to create an account to view the article.
natatomic - so many levels of horror.
rehajm said...
There’s waay worse things spread on a typical golf course than some duffer’s ashes...
I'm thinking... geese on a course in a flyway.
Don't ask how I know.
“ Hence the reason they're termed "cremains" and there are regulations about when and where they can be spread.”
Obviously not well respected.
We had an ashes party two years ago. For half, we hiked up above Loveland Pass a bit, and everyone (except for me) took a handful and threw them away in the wind. The other half went into Lake Dillon, by the big island there. We had a party barge, and everyone toasted one.
Partner’s first husband’s ashes went into the wind, off of Mt Charleston, by Las Vegas, over 40 years ago. She wants hers split between there and her 2nd husband’s ranch in MT. I feel a bit left out. If I am the one doing it, I may cheat, and dump that half by our house, 5 miles up river from the ranch.
Her mother died a couple weeks ago. I know that she wanted to be with her late husband, but don’t know where his ashes were scattered. We need to pop back to Vegas for it.
Finally, my family is more of the memorial type. When by youngest brother died in a climbing accident some 40 years ago, my mother had a columbarium built at our church. His urn was buried there, quickly followed by the remains of my paternal grandparents. This was the 2nd move for my grandfather. Then almost 20 years later, my mother’s ashes joined theirs, then my father’s 15 years later. With my father gone (as an attorney doing a bit of estate work, he was expert at this sort of thin), we had to put the cremation, services, intern, etc together. More complex than we thought. Oh, and get a lot of death certificates. And don’t bother with a casket, if you are doing cremation. They have one more slot in the columbarium, where the remains of their three remaining sons can go. I am thinking of splitting my ashes between there and our house in MT. Or maybe that half in the park by the hydro dam in town. We shall see.
“When I am dead and my spirit has flown,
My body will blacken and turn into coal ,
I’ll sit at the door of my heavenly home,
And pity the miner a diggin my bones.”
Once you're dead, the disposition of one's physical remains no longer matters to you. To my survivors, I say, "surprise me".
When a body is cremated, what remains aren't "ashes". Instead, what your left with is pulverized bone fragments. During cremation, the body is exposed to intense heat, which reduces the organic material to gases and leaves behind the skeletal structure. After that process, the remaining bones are crushed into a fine sand-like consistency using a machine called a cremulator. This results in material referred to as "cremated remains". It's more like sand and nothing like ashes.
I have in my office a skull of a fox found in Washington County, Nebraska. Bones are what remain of us. Enlighten-NJ is correct.
A ddash of carbon over the green helps the bereaved heal.
Like sand you say? So, if they dump you in the hopper for the topdress spreader whiny Wapoo golfer will never know the difference…
"and there are regulations about when and where they can be spread."
This is true about most everything, probably.
Told the wife to spread my ashes at a nearby park.
We have a family plot in the city cemetery.
I can go visit Mom and Dad and Grandma.
If I go missing for a month or more you'll be able to find me there. Feel free to drop by.
When I lived in Seattle in '02 some guy dumped cremains over Safeco field and it resulted in panic from the Mariners fans they rained down on. Sheesh. This nonsense is littering pure and simple. Show some respect and use empathy when you give the departed a final toss.
https://tinyurl.com/Cremains-bomb
"After that process, the remaining bones are crushed into a fine sand-like consistency using a machine called a cremulator...."
So it's a case of 'cremulated cremains', then. Sounds like a medical condition which, I guess, in a way, it is.
Find a nice beach like Whale's Head Cove in Oregon. Take Mom or Dad or whoever, drive down on a calm day at high tide, walk out and spread them on the water. Do not throw, shake or such. Just carefully spread them with the container as close to the water as you can get. As the tide goes out, so do they.
Or just get a really nice container and keep them on a shelf near a window with a view to nature.
I suppose if I choose cremation, I could get the Navy that my ashes out on a ship and bury them at sea.
Hassayamper said...
“…the pretty young lady who goes around the [golf] course in a cart with an ice chest…”
Just wanna confirm that the space between the two bolded words is in the right place.
I took my parent's and my oldest daughter's cremated remains and did a little private (just me) ceremony at the waterfront where my parents' marina/restaurant was. I did it on each of their birthdays and before I scattered the remains to the water, I sat for quite a while and thought about them. I didn't sob, but I certainly teared up. I don't respect or care about laws regarding this as I what I did affected no one. I didn't invite my siblings or my other daughter as none of them wanted the "ashes". I thought I needed to do that so if I died unexpectedly, the remains would not each meet a "dignified" end as I had planned it.
@Big Mike -- Not to be that guy, but the ocean is already alkaline, as are cremation ashes.
From the Wikipedia entry for Arthur C. Clarke:
On 8 January 2024, a portion of Clarke's ashes were launched on the Peregrine Mission One to the Moon.[77] The Peregrine spacecraft failed to land on the moon, and the spacecraft disintegrated in the Earth's atmosphere on 19 January 2024.
Just wanna confirm that the space between the two bolded words is in the right place.
"A nice chest" is also accurate.
Apparently burial at sea is a thing. Who knew. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/body-woman-caught-fishing-nets-was-buried-sea-massachusetts-coast-offi-rcna195806
Do you have a Big Lebowski tag? Donny’s ashes seemed like an almost inevitable link for this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W4zWXte73-k&pp=ygUNRG9ubmllcyBhc2hlcw%3D%3D
The concept of being dumped six feet down in the earth is creepy to me. Even if it wasn't, what's the point? At the rate people move around these days, who's gonna come by and say a prayer, or "Hi"?
Actually, once a year I drive 12-hundred miles to spend half an hour or so, sitting on the ground in front of a couple of stones with my parents' names carved on them. We talk. I ask questions. I forgive them. I ask them to forgive me. It's been 29 years since the last. I'm 82, so maybe, not that many more road trips. It is what it is.
Throw me in the ocean. Lots of things in there to recyle me. Plus, the possible final amusement of being on the evening news in Honolulu - "Several families were treated on the scene and offered counseling when their children encountered a 'floater' while snorkling at Haunama Bay, this afternoon."
Best for me would be into the breeze off the Gleckstein Hutte on the side of the Wetterhorn or similar (although, off the back side of #7 at Pebble, wouldn't be bad :-)
One old friend became an integral part of the bar at his favorite watering hole during a rebuild of same. His brother thought he would continue to enjoy our company, there.
People who loved Ron (that would be everybody) still raise the parting glass and toast him when drinking at that end of the bar.
If your golf course has Bermuda grass fairways and tees, the ashes can be used to fill divots.
Dad always told me that his Uncle, who was an unmarried highway engineer, had his ashes mixed in with concrete that was used in a bridge.
natatomic said...
@J Severs, they get vacuumed up and put in the trash, essentially. Hardly dignified.
Not true. . . As a funeral director and creationist for over 40 years and the former owner of several cremation businesses, all of the cremated remains are processed and returned to the family. Ashes, or human cremated remains (the legal term) “HCR” are the bones of the deceased. We are roughly70% water and any fat burns away in the process. What is left are bones and connective tissue. These are processed so they will fit into an urn. Crematories and funeral homes are highly regulated. While any line of work has their crooks and charlatans, the vast majority of crematory operators are honest and follow the rules. Regulations vary with what can be done with HCR from state to state, but it is no surprise that these regulations are violated by family members on a daily basis as they find sentimental places to scatter. As you read the comments in this thread, the more bizarre they sound is the less likely they are true.
"Cremains" is a so-called "portmanteau word" or "blend word." A portmanteau or suitcase or travel bag opens up into two parts, so the Victorians used the word to describe words formed from two other words. More likely perhaps, the words "portmanteau" and "suitcase" are themselves portmanteau words composed of two parts. Portmanteau coinages are often the result of writers trying hard to be clever and attract attention to their writing, but the language would be poorer without them.
"Remains" is actually more respectful (or at least more genteel) than the more literal word "ashes." What kind of remains? Are you dumping your granddad's whole corpse on my golf course or just selected limbs and organs? No, these are cremated remains -- cremains. "The Remains of the Day" made me think of the uneaten "remains" of dinner, but maybe the author wanted us to consider his main character a sort of living corpse?
As you read the comments in this thread, the more bizarre they sound is the less likely they are true.
Nothing I read here struck me as "bizarre". The human imagination is without limit and every death's final act ,- to someone - is deeply personal, and completely appropriate.
I'd wager most funeral directors are very discrete about what goes on at the office. Amongst themselves, many might tell tales we'd rather not hear.
I prefer "desecrated human bodies", and have no words to describe the revulsion I have of people disposing of their desecrated relatives on a Disneyland ride.
I'd wager most funeral directors are very discrete about what goes on at the office. Amongst themselves, many might tell tales we'd rather not hear.
Funeral directors, like doctors, attorneys, bankers, nurses, electricians, plumbers, clergy and any other number of professions are discrete about their work. I’m not sure what you are trying to imply, but I’m thinking you might be building bridges to places that don’t exist.
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