s/o Ashes of a loved one

Half of my mother is with me, in a lovely wooden box with gold inlay, which I picked because it reminded me of a similar box I'd once bought on a family vacation. She's on the bottom ledge of a glass top coffee table with a couple of photos and related trinkets, but it's out of the way against a wall behind my dining table. The other half of her is with my sister, except for a small spoonful one of my aunts came to take with her to Vegas. LOL.

I have 3 little urns of cat ashes...they are in the corner of a cabinet and the large cat scratching post is in front of it and you can't really see them. I don't really have an over all plan of what I want to do with them, but I wasn't just going to let them be 'disposed of" and I don't have a garden to scatter them in either. Maybe when I pop off all the little bags can be put with me.

My Mother has my Dad in a cabinet as well. He always joked that when he died he wanted to be put in the vegetable garden...he loved growing veggies. Mum was always horrified by that idea. Then out of the blue a few weeks ago she said when I come home at Christmas she thought we should scatter his ashes in the garden. I suggested we plant some flowers in his veggie garden and then his carbon atoms could become part of nature again. So that's the plan at the moment...although I have been looking at a local option that uses the cremains as a basis to grow a tree which then get planted out in nature.

I just googled and found this USA one - now on the hunt for an Australian version


ETA: found one 

I have my dog’s ashes in a wooden display box with his picture and a gold plate with his name and birth/death dates on it.

Some of our public cemeteries have small Sanctums, where you place the urn of ashes inside them. They have a "door" at the front that can be opened with a key so another urn can be added at a later date if needed. Similar to these.We have one for DH's parent.

When FIL passed away, I went and bought some small ceramic boxes at Michaels - the lids have a heart on them. After the service, the funeral director transferred some of the ashes to each box - those went to all of the kids to do with them what they chose - ours are in a shadow box in our living room along with all of FIL's military medals, one brother had a friend travelling to Ireland, so he had the friend scatter his portion there, another brother may or may not have scattered them in the Chicago River on St Patrick's Day. The remainder were in a box. The brother with possession of the box was supposed to scatter them in a large lake, but we don't know if he ever did that. Should probably ask.

My husband’s cremains are in small urns each of his sons have, in a necklace I wear, in a bracelet my SIL (she met him when she was 16 and they were very close) wears and the rest are in a box inside a velvet bag on my bookcase. In the spring I plan to scatter some of them at the beach. I will keep some in a small box or urn as well.

Dd has her Dad’s in a necklace, ds has some in a key ring and the rest are in a box in my living room at the moment. She hasn’t decided when to scatter him. 

My Mom’s are in an urn on my Dad’s dresser. The trip to scatter them got postponed when my dh fell off his brother’s roof and we never managed to reschedule it. Now I assume we’ll wait until my Dad passes and scatter them together, in Nova Scotia. 

My two cousins have their father's ashes in two sealed Budweiser cans. Apparently my uncle loved Budweiser.


I always wonder what future generations will do with the ashes/urns that are left hanging around from relatives they never knew.

I have a beautiful crystal necklace with my parents ashes made into it. I wear it to family occasions or milestones so my parents can be there.

I get tons of compliments on the crystal but then if I tell people what it is they seem horrified by it. I just don’t tell people anything more than it’s a crystal anymore. My sister had it made for me.

Whatever, I like it

I have the ashes of my son and my husband's adopted father on a shelf in my office. My son's ashes are in a wooden urn with a cat woodburned on the front. He really loved cats and it was just so fitting.

My husband's adopted father. There is a tale. This man adopted my DH when my DH was a pre-teen. He (adopted father) had cancer and I believe that the adoption was finalized either close to his death or right afterward. Well in Michigan apparently the laws are such that my DH's Mom had to give up her parental rights to him in order for the adoption to happen. So my DH was adopted by his birth mom.

Anyway back to the ashes. About 5 years back or so DH gets a phone call asking if he is DH. DH has a very common name so this isn't an odd thing. He says yes and the person on the phone says that they work at a funeral home and DH's adopted father's ashes were found all these years later still at the funeral home. He says well you need to talk to my Mom. The funeral home person says Oh we just assumed that she was no longer living. (She is currently 81). So after much craziness we ended up with the ashes. DH ordered a wooden box that you would use to ship a bottle of wine and there he is - in the box on a shelf in my office. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction!

My mama rode my daddy's ashes around in her car for a time until he was placed in the columbarium at their church. His ashes will remain there until mama dies. Their instructions to me are "take us on vacation someplace fabulous and just leave us behind." In the meantime, he died in 1994 and mama is now 94 years old. She periodically jokes about not intending to have kept him waiting for so long.


While I like the idea of some type of gathering to 'say goodbyes' to the deceased, I quite agree about many of the other rituals. I am completely against embalming bodies and encasing them in over-priced caskets and waterproof vaults. What the heck are we trying (futilely) to 'save' them for?!?

we thought we would spread my mom's ashes but 10 years later, there she sits, on top of my sister's piano. my sister decided that when she goes, so too shall my mom. i'm ok with that.