When Do Urns Come into Use? 

My wife and I were on our way to a funeral convention when we stopped to get a cup of coffee along the way.  The barista was very friendly and inquired where we were headed.  After he heard, he gave us a wonderful story of how he was also a real estate agent and he met a woman who was interested in owning a home on the ocean.  This woman would get to the house, take off her shoes and walk outside in the sand down to the water.  After a few moments, she would return and get back in the car and do the same routine at the next house.  By the fifth house, the real estate agent was perplexed and asked her if any of the houses were meeting her needs and she said to try one last one.  Finally, they arrived and she went down to the water.  When she got back to the car, she told the agent that she didn’t like any of the homes and was no longer interested in that area.  Apparently, she had her husband’s ashes in her purse and would release handfuls into the ocean at each house that she visited because that was his wish – he wanted his ashes to return to the ocean.

More and more people are opting for cremation for themselves, their family members and for their pets as well.  The Cremation Association of North America (CANA) estimates that over 50% of cremations will occur by the year 2018.  It helps to know that cremation is not the final end of a person’s life but rather the foundation of remembrance. 

There are many ways to deal with the cremated remains.  Like the above story, some people wish to scatter the ashes over water.  There are many people who release the cremains over land and from the air and lastly there are those who wish to keep the cremated remains.  There is no right or wrong way on how a person chooses to deal with the cremains but the state laws should be researched and considered if ashes are to be released.  For those that choose to keep the cremains, an urn or a keepsake is the most likely container that is used.  Once an urn is chosen, then the decision needs to be made whether to bury the urn, place in a niche, or place on a mantel.  Some people have purchased urns to memorialize their loved one but released most or all of the ashes.