I love you forever.....

Joseph E. Smith · Post by **Joseph E. Smith** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 6:15 am

Check this article out......

. LOUIS (Nov. 27) - Proving that diamonds indeed are forever, a widower got a gem of a keepsake made from his late wife's ashes this month: a 0.35-carat, round yellow diamond.

The synthetic stone, ordered by a man in his 40s shortly after his wife's death from heart disease in May, is the handiwork of LifeGems.

"It was beautiful, really pretty," funeral director Paul Baue said of the stone ordered by the widower, who requested privacy and declined to be interviewed for this story. "It's a great way to pay tribute to someone's life."

That LifeGem was the first sold in the St. Louis area, according to the suburban Chicago-based company. Three-year-old LifeGems estimates it has crafted nearly 1,000 of the diamonds - what it calls "the most unique memorial product ever invented" - for about 500 families.

"I think more people are looking for more-personal ways to remember somebody," says Dean VandenBiesen, LifeGem's vice president of operations. "Rather than having ongoing mourning for someone's loss, people are wanting to celebrate a life. The LifeGem is just another way to do that, versus having a weeping, somber occasion."

To LifeGem, the synthetic diamonds offer a choice in a funeral industry that for years, by nature, offered limited choices for consumers - bury a body in a graveyard or have the body cremated, with the ashes stored in an urn or scattered in the wind.

LifeGem needs 8 ounces of human ashes to make a diamond the company prizes for its "closeness and mobility," leaving the rest of the cremains to the family. Depending on size, LifeGem prices vary from about $2,500 for a quarter carat to about $14,000 for a full carat, VandenBiesen said.

"These remains are very precious and special to people, but they don't just have an aesthetic form and look," VandenBiesen said. "People actually really enjoy these, and that's really different from what you'd expect in the funeral profession."

As part of the LifeGems process that takes a few months, carbon extracted from cremains are subjected to the extremes of heat and pressure. The resulting diamond then is cut and faceted like a normal diamond.

Those behind LifeGems believe the market for the diamonds will only blossom. According to the Cremation Association of North America, the percentage of the dead that are cremated - nearly 28 percent in 2002 - is estimated to rise to 35 percent in 2010 and 43 percent in 2025.

Among more than 57,000 deaths in Missouri in 2002, 18.6 percent were cremated, the association said.

Beyond the synthetic diamonds, others in recent years have tried to think outside the box when it comes to options with cremains. Creative Cremains - based in California, long the nation's largest cremation state by volume - offers custom-designed urns, converting mementos - everything from sports equipment to photo frames and musical instruments - into places for loved one's ashes.

"The only limits are imagination and finances," the company's Web site says.

Not to be outdone, Georgia-based Eternal Reefs Inc. has catered to people who in life honored the environment, mixing their cremains into concrete and placing them in the water off any of several states, creating new marine habitats for fish and other sea life.

Other businesses will send cremains into space or place them in fireworks for folks who want to go out with a bang.

"I think different generations - the baby boomers and Generation Xers - are more open to making personalization part of their final journey in life," said Baue, vice president of Baue Funeral Homes, with four sites - and a crematory - in St. Charles County.

To him, turning loved ones into shiny ones is among the crown jewels of ways of being remembered.

"As they say, diamonds are forever," he said.

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How far will your love for the departed go?

amar · Post by **amar** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 6:17 am

in any case, this must be nicest name for a thread, ever.

Walden · Post by **Walden** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 6:23 am

Some pretty disturbing stuff.

Joseph E. Smith · Post by **Joseph E. Smith** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 6:55 am

Walden wrote:Some pretty disturbing stuff.

Yes, I equate it with having a taxidermist (sp?) stuffing a cherished pet...just a little gruesome. I hope that when it is my turn to be remembered, I am cremated and scattered along the shores of Lake Superior in Duluth.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 7:00 am

I don't find it disturbing. I wouldn't do it, but many people keep urns of ashes, and I'd prefer a gem.

Personally though, I'd prefer to be scattered, but it's not always all that legal to scatter everywhere, so one must be careful.

Whistlin'Dixie · Post by **Whistlin'Dixie** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 8:13 am

Wow, you could go off in a firework?!?!?

What if it's a dud?

M

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 8:31 am

I don't find it disturbing at all. In fact, if I had the money, my mom, dad, and brother would all be separate gems. I think it is a lovely way to both commemorate and still have ashes left to scatter.

I have a chest in my living room where the ashes of my dear and departed are honored. When and if I ever actually get to go to the grand canyon, that is where they will be poured into the wind.

As for the fireworks... well ... after my brother had suffered thorugh 10 months of battle with a brain tumor, and we had tied up all lose ends, said all there was to say, and knew that he would be freed by death ... when the moment came, we set off firecrackers to announce his journey ... kind of a 'twenty-one gun salute'... it seemed appropriate. He would have liked it, ... in fact, I'm sure he did.

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 8:34 am

emmline wrote:I don't find it disturbing. I wouldn't do it, but many people keep urns of ashes, and I'd prefer a gem.

Personally though, I'd prefer to be scattered, but it's not always all that legal to scatter everywhere, so one must be careful.

Once upon a time I mentioned to my son that when I kick it I want to be cremated and scattered at a particular location.He wondered what would happen if he got arrested during the ceremony.Tell the cops to go and get a vacuum cleaner was my considered response.After all,what can they do about it after the event,especially if its a breezy day.

Slan,
D.

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 9:27 am

My wife plans to have me stuffed and seated in
my LaZyBoy recliner. A whistle will be glued into my right
hand. This will wave automatically when people
come into the room (TV sensor) and a tape mounted
under the chair will go:

'Hi folks! Want to hear a tune?'

Joseph E. Smith · Post by **Joseph E. Smith** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 11:01 am

....scary, very scary.

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 11:06 am

anniemcu wrote:I don't find it disturbing at all. In fact, if I had the money, my mom, dad, and brother would all be separate gems.

I'm with you, I like the idea too. And it kind of makes parallel sense since the loved ones I knew were gems anyway.

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 11:17 am

I ran across this company in 2000 when I was researching a 1 ct. diamond purchase for my wife for our anniversary.

Then, as now, I wondered why the price of a LifeGem is so much more than the price of other synthetic diamonds, since the process is essentially the same? The only difference seems to be where the carbon comes from. I'm personally disgusted by companies that take advantage of those in misery.

http://www.lifegem.com/secondary/LG_Prices.asp
$14,000 for 1 ct synthetic diamond from LifeGem (from their website)

http://www.thediamondbuyingguide.com/diamondprices.html
$6,445.00 for a WS2 1ct real diamond (about the same quality that LifeGem purports to generate)

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8205 ... monds.html
$4,000 for a 1ct synthetic from another company that doesn't contain Grandma's ashes

So, it looks like LifeGem is adding a $10,000 markup just because they use ashes from your beloved.

http://www.jcrs.com/newsletters/2003/2003_11.htm
(Jewelry Insurance Issues online magazine)

In a bit of misleading “education,” the LifeGem site links to a page with prices for natural blue diamonds. Intense colors in natural diamonds are extremely rare, and such stones are valued in the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. The LifeGem customer is not getting a rare natural diamond, however, but a cheaply produced synthetic one.

OnTheMoor · Post by **OnTheMoor** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 11:28 am

Sounds like a pretty neat premise for a movie.

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 11:35 am

I'm thinking of memorializing my ex-wife in this way. Of course, she's not dead yet...

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 11:42 am

brewerpaul wrote:I'm thinking of memorializing my ex-wife in this way. Of course, she's not dead yet...

I'm reminded of a poem..

My ex-wife. I miss her sometimes.
I ran into my ex-wife the other day.
And so I backed up, and ran into her again.
My ex-wife. I miss her sometimes.