A head-turning urn

Terrible picture, but that tiny green Connemara marble urn, flanked by that pretty little pinecone lidded vase and the Russian nesting doll I've had since college (50+ years!) holds a bit of my husband's ashes - the bit that went on a flight into space, which was one of his final wishes.

Most of Jim's ashes are resting in an ash plot in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, where my ashes will be joining his at some point - I'm hoping in the more-or-less distant-y future. Although I visit my parents' grave a couple of times a year, I've only visited Jim's ash plot a couple of times in seven years. That's because a bit of him is with me, in my living room, on the mantel, where I see him/them every day.

In addition to his space shot on my mantel, Jim's ashes have been around, scattered, teaspoon at a time, in a bunch of places that were on his request list. These include the graves of his parents and his aunt and uncle, Central Park, Galway Bay, and Sky Road in Connemara. I have a small amount in my credenza in a plastic container that I want to scatter in the remaining places on Jim's bucket-y list. As it involves a trip to Paris, I really do hope to get around to it at some point.

Anyway, I'm not averse to talking about/dealing with the death of loved ones. It does not creep me out to have Jim's ashes nearby. On the contrary...

Still, I was weirded - if not creeped - out by an article I recently came across on Cremation Solutions, a company that sells all sorts of, well, cremation solutions (i.e., things to do with those ashes). The company's product portfolio includes all sorts of urns - marble, stone, ceramic, glass, wood - many of them quite lovely. Some which look a look like my Connemara mini. 

I am not, of course, weirded, let alone creeped, out by any of this. But I was by one of their offerings:

...commemorative urns shaped like the severed heads of deceased loved ones.

The Vermont-based company, which specialises in memorial events and cremation products, has made the containers using 3D imaging techniques that combine a number of different photographs. The full-sized urn is around 28cm high, and can hold the ashes of an adult. There is also a smaller 15cm “keepsake” option that fits just a portion of the ashes.

The Vermont-based company informs customers on its website that the urn does not come with hair although it can be digitally added or wigs can be used. It writes: “Personal urns can be designed to look like anyone. We just need good pictures. We prefer one picture from the front and one from the side. Complexions can be adjusted in the final stages and customers get a chance to proof the results.” (The ur source for this is a vintage - 2012 - article from UK Wired, but I saw first saw the mention on Print Media Centr)

Don't know how I missed this one back in the day, other than to say that in 2012 I was not yet in the market for an urn.

Anyway, the urn doesn't actually have to be personal-personal. "You just need good pictures" of anyone: Barack Obama. Meryl Streep (with or without a wig). 

Ah, no thanks. But to each his/her/their own. And I laud this company for all they do to help folks out in what's always an awful time. 

Jeff Staab is the owner of Cremation Solutions. He told UK Wired:

"I came up with the idea because as a whole products and services are becoming more personalised and if you look through history, the Romans and Greeks had memorials made out of brass and they were popular for hundreds of years."

But the businessman said that the urns looked almost too real, adding: "I don't sell a lot of them, they look so real. They are also very expensive but I cannot help that, I would like to sell more."

He said that he didn't find the urns creepy but admitted that he doesn't have a loved one made as an urn, and maybe if he did and had to walk by it, he would. He described them as "really good sculptures" saying one customer -- although still alive -- was currently designing his own urn. "He wants it to be black and white and he is having glasses put on it. He also wants his hand out holding his chin like Rodin's sculpture The Thinker. This man's wife and family have had input into it and they are looking at send copies digitally for them before it is made because once it is done we cannot change it."

Somewhere around here - unless I finally gave it a toss - I have a plaster dental mold of my husband's uppers and lowers. If I still have it, that's plenty weird and creepy enough for me. Much as I loved my husband, I would most decidedly not want a full-sized bust of his head staring me down. Plenty of photos of Jim in my living room. That and my tiny urn that holds his space shot ashes will do me just fine.