This came up a couple weeks ago with my mom. I guess she and Dad are putting together living wills and she told me she wants to be cremated. (I do, too) I told her I was so relieved, because if I had to bury her, I would never visit. I just don’t go to cemeteries, and I certainly don’t make special trips just to visit them if they’re far away. It sounds like her ashes are going to be split up between me and Dad if he’s still alive, plus some scattered at their Lake House, plus some added to a bottle of Miller Lite, shaken, and spewed/poured into Lake Michigan from the North Avenue pier. I can’t really explain how comforting it is that her wishes and mine are agreeable, and I’ll really like having a box with her cremains that I can carry with me. Of course I hope that’s still decades from now!
I believe people do stuff like that with human cremains. If you really want to get fancy, I believe there’s a service that will make a diamond from the cremains, too.
If I don’t end up in an unmarked pauper’s grave, I wasn’t living hard enough.