A story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reaffirms the importance
of talking to one’s family about end of life decisions. I never gave this much thought until
now. When a person requests cremation, I
assumed the family or designated person would either take the cremains in a
container, make arrangements to bury the container, or spread the ashes in a designated
place. Nationally, in 2018, 15,000 containers
were not picked up; that’s 1% of all cremations. While the percentage is not high, funeral
homes have boxes going way back…even for 40 years. Some funeral homes may decide to bury the
containers in a single grave after a specified period of time.
One solution may be to request payment from the family for
burying the cremains and if the family claims the container, the family will be
reimbursed. Asking for a fee, according
to one funeral home, has led to a decrease in abandoned cremains.
There are no easy answers.
And family members who were deemed responsible for handling end of life wishes
may themselves take ill or die before they can carry out their responsibilities. So, it
is important for us, as responsible citizens, to make our wishes known to our
family, including what we want done with our ashes.
Thoughts? Please share and start a conversation in your
own community.
Fascinating stats! I recently decided I wanted to be planted among the grannies in a family plot here in Austin. However, upon further thought, I realized that the plot has been long neglected and there's no obvious place for another headstone. Besides which, the man who obviously bought the plot in 1900 in not a direct relative, although most of the people in the plot are, including the first wife he bought to plot to bury. The cemetery has no record of ownership going that far back, and ... things are complicated!
ReplyDeleteAs I pondered how to approach this hurdle, a friend mentioned that she has saved her husband's ashes and her children will mix hers with his, scattering them together in some lovely woods of their own choosing. I like that idea!
So now dinner conversation often includes where we might like to be scattered together. I suspect the survivor will choose.
More to the point, we are talking about this.