Remembering a Loved One Using Their Cremains

After Bassett, VA cremations, the cremated remains – cremains – are returned to the family to keep. Traditionally, keeping the cremains in beautiful cremation urn at the family home or simply taking them to a favorite place and scattering them around have been how some families remember their loved ones. 

However, as cremations become more popular, the ways that cremains can be used to remember a loved one have expanded. There is enough variety in the options available that everyone should be able to find one that best memorializes their loved one. 

One option is to bury the cremains. Many times spouses and other family members are buried in the same cemetery. As the surviving spouses and later generations of family members die, they may choose cremation as their final disposition. Cemeteries often allow the urn or container with the cremains of a spouse to be buried in a plot next to their predeceased spouse. Cemeteries, increasingly, are creating spaces called urn gardens within the cemetery where cremains can be buried. 

Another option for remembering a loved one using their cremains is to store them in columbarium. This a monument structure that has niches in it where the cremains and even a few keepsakes that were dear to the loved one can be placed. A gravestone covers the opening of the niche. 

Families may also opt to turn death into life by creating tree or plant urns and memorial reefs. Tree and plant urns have a seed planted in soil mixed with some of the cremains. The cremains have nutrients that can help bring about the new growth of a plant or a tree. With memorial reefs, the cremains are turned into an artificial coral reef and place at the bottom of the ocean to restore damaged coral reefs and to create a nurturing environment for ocean life. 

Memorial jewelry is become a very popular choice for remembering loved ones by using their cremains. A small portion of the cremains are used in lockets, bracelets, rings, and other types of jewelry that can be worn all the time. For something even more elegant and much more expensive, cremains can be used to create diamonds that can be inset into rings, pendants, or pins. 

The more unique ways to remember a loved one using their cremains are fireworks, tattoos, and paintings. 

There are specialty fireworks companies that will mix the cremains with explosives and then create and produce a fireworks show that will light the night sky and give a loved one an opportunity to go out with a bang. 

Cremains can be mixed with tattoo inks and oil paints to create art. 

Some people get tattoos to memorialize their deceased loved ones. This may simply their names and date of birth and date of death, or it may be a more elaborate design that includes an image of their loved one. The cremains can be mixed with the ink for these tattoos to keep the loved one close by. 

There are companies that will take some of cremains of a loved one and create a painting, with the cremains mixed in with the oil paints that are used. The painting can be the deceased's image or it can be something abstract. The sky's the limit. 

For additional information about Bassett, VA cremations, our caring and knowledgeable staff at Lynch Conner-Bowman Funeral Home is here to assist you. You can visit our funeral home at 140 Floyd Ave., Rocky Mount, VA, 24151, or you can call us today at (540) 483-5533.