The thing about keeping cremains in an urn

Yeah, I don't want to haul around anyone or be hauled around by anyone.
I like the idea of cremation and then spreading the ashes.
I 'd like to be scattered in Paris but since I will not be around to ensure it, I am fine with just being tossed in the backyard.
And I have posted this elsewhere, but I told DD21 that if anything ever happened, I would scatter her at Comic-Con, and she approved.

I know most of my Grandma's cremains are buried with my grandfather (who passed in '97). A cousin has a small amount in a keepsake with a frame.

I've told my DH that if I go first, he is to hold onto my cremains and then when he passes, the kids are to mix them and possibly bury them or put them in one of those halls designed for urns (several of our cemetaries here have these buildings that is basically a big tomb). That way, there's only one burial/entombment expense.

Both of my parents want to be cremated and I don't plan to carry those urns around any longer than it takes to schedule "burial" at the columbarium at Arlington National Cemetery. Dh and I have both said we want our ashes scattered, although if the kids would rather have the ashes in a columbarium somewhere that's really up to them. 

I would think in general, the fact that families are more spread out geographically today makes burial an issue, too... except for my boyfriend, my family is all in the Midwest. and we don't have any kids. Where do we get buried, or what do we have done with our ashes if we get cremated?? I have no real 'ties' to Arizona... no reason to be scattered anywhere here, really.

not something I've ever thought about more than in passing before, but it's something we probably should discuss at some point.

(I have thought semi-seriously about donating my body to science, though...)


eta: we currently have one dog's cremains, and the remains of my first two cats. I need to get urns for them; right now they're only in the boxes they give them back in. (at the same time, I don't want to open those boxes very bad, either...)

I want cremation, but do NOT want to be stored in an urn somewhere.

My grandmother has been shuttled around in her urn until her feuding daughters (my mother and aunt) can get it together and do something respectful with her.  My grandfather is in his favorite park. My other grandmother is at Maverick's in Half Moon Bay.

It really is something to consider. Our portion of my MIL's cremains just made a 2300 mile road trip with us in my luggage. It didn't feel right sending them with the movers. We'll probably scatter them on her brother's wooded property near Seattle now that we're closer to him.

My parents, grandparents and great grandparents were cremated. No carting around urns for us. Their ashes are here:

Chapel of the Chimes

When I was a child my mom brought me there a few times a year to leave flowers. It was a beautiful place and I have only good memories of it. Whenever I'm in the area, I still bring flowers.

My ex-husband is in my garage.

He died about 5 years ago, and my kids just never seem to want to discuss what they want to do with his cremains and both of them rent with roommates, so there he sits, in a cupboard underneath the workbench in my garage.

He has no other relatives here in Canada, so it's up to my kids.

We did a few things:
a ) sister was cremated and we bought 3 little urns (one for DS, one for me and one for my parents). The parents' one will be put in my mother's casket when we bury her. 

b ) my sister's cremains were distributed in the green burial where it is all natural and we have a rock for her there. 

c ) the rest of her remains went into the ground near her rhododendron (there wasn't too much left after that, I think).

d) My dad bought 2 plots for our family. Mom will go into the ground 5' under. There will be soil and then my dad wishes to be cremated so the urn for him will go 2' under on top of my mother. The other plot will be where my casket will go as I cannot and wish not to be cremated. DS will have the choice of either being buried or cremated and his urn can go on top of mine or I will arrange for another plot for him to be bought further down the road in his life (when he is 50 or so). He may not want to be cremated. He may want to be cremated, though, as some of his ashes can go into the family vault in Japan and some here. I haven't talked to him about it as he is only 19 and I don't think the time is right yet (with my mom sick). 

So that is how we are handling it.

It is not legal to bury animal remains or ashes in human cemeteries in my state. I do not want a funeral, viewing or burial (just direct cremation) and since my pets could not be interred with my ashes, they are to be mixed with my ashes and scattered in a location my family is aware of.

My brother's ashes are currently in my sister's storage room. I'm going to drive 2 hrs away this weekend and go and pick him up. He will be interred with our other sister in a niche in a cemetery's columbarium. Their niche is just below our parents. It's what they all wanted.

(And the story of how his ashes made a trip to that cemetery for his funeral but had to return to the city he had been living in and why I am now going there to get him and try again to get him interred is a whole 'nother thread topic! )

Am I the only one who finds it a little uncomfortable that people's ashes are split up and in several separate places? I'm not sure why this bothers me, but I'd rather have all the ashes scattered in one location or interred in a columbarium. No way would I want to keep them and move them from place to place.

A couple were major donors to the university where I work, and their urns are encased in the wall, with a glass front, of a conference room. I always refer to that conference room as "The Urn Room."