More On Love And Death: The Life Gem
7 Comments Published by Alex February 8th, 2007 in DIY, Romance. Share This
My wife is nuts. I mean, duh—she married me, so clearly she has a few bolts loose. Here’s an example: she seems to feel that the services provided by the people at www.lifegem.com are a great idea for dealing with earthly remains.
While not just a repositry for the remains of the deceased (they are offering a red LifeGem for Valentine’s Day), these folks claim that they will receive your loved one’s hair, and/or ashes in the case of the post-living, extract the carbon from them, and create a diamond from it. I personally don’t trust this service one bit. I do not doubt that it is possible, I just find it unlikely. It’s not verifiable that they’ll acutally use your loved one’s bits, but even so, how will you know, beyond doubt, that the essence of the donor is in there? More to the point, I think it’s kind of a huckster’s idea to begin with, and it’s ridiculously expensive.
More rant, and an alternate proposal for keeping the dead with the living, after the jump.
First off, in the case of making a gem from the living for the living, fantastic. If you have that much money to throw around, God bless you and so forth. I guess it’s better than letting her drink your blood.
In terms of dealing with the remains of the deceasd, however, let’s first deal with some terminology. Life insurance is inappropriately named—it should actually be called ‘death insurance’; you get a payoff when someone dies. It’s a finite amount and should be used sparingly on the incidentals. Cremations aren’t cheap. In fact, nothing dealing with a body is inexpensive, unless the body has been blown up or eaten. No matter what route you choose, you have to pay someone an astonishing amount of money to do something with the corpse because Uncle Sam has a lot of weird rules on the matter. [Let's save responses to that issue for a different post.]
The Life Gem expense is in addition to these costs, and the prices are obscene. Check them out here.
Bear in mind the small print: “Prices shown are for loose diamonds only.” So in addition to everything else, you have to choose a mounting, adding another fee. Then shipping, taxes, etc. In the end you’ve got an off-color man-made diamond on the smallish side for an astronomical fee that looks and feels no different than a piece of cut glass.
The best testament to a loved one’s passing I’ve ever heard of, and one I will likely take part in when my next loved on passes on is this:
I met a woman a few years back with whom I wound up comparing our tattoos. She saved the best one for last – it was a slightly rough looking calligraphy job on her inner wrist. I wasn’t particularly impressed until she told me that her mother had died five years earlier; she’d been cremated, and the woman took some of the ashes on a trip with her to some island in the south seas, where her mother was from originally. While there, she found a local tattooist who performed his art the old fashioned way—with a stick, a sharpened fishbone, some thread, and ink he made himself from squid’s ink, ashes, and urea. Okay, maybe not the most hygienic situation, but plenty natural, and hundreds of years of practice suggests it’s just fine.
Anyway, The woman used her mom’s ashes to make the ink with this guy, and threw the rest into the ocean. Then the artist tapped out her mother’s name into her wrist. Thus, her mom’s with her forever, in a sense. Can’t lose it, can’t fall out of a setting, don’t have to go someplace special to visit her resting place. I think that’s a pretty beautiful way to memorialize someone.
7 Responses to “More On Love And Death: The Life Gem”
- 1 Pingback on Apr 11th, 2007 at 10:30 am
The only thing wrong with the LifeGem is the price. (And that’ll come down as synthetic diamond production increases.) Otherwise I think it’s pretty nifty. I’d rather have an artificial diamond made from a loved one’s carbon than a “real” one mined from a mountain by an African’s bone stump.
I just had this conversation with Joel and Susie last night! In fact, i was going to ask him to suggest it to you ;) I think it’s a great idea, but i’ve also been very interested in alternative disposal methods lately. There are some interesting things being done, but I think i’ll save the rest of what could turn into a lengthy reply for less lovey-dovey week ;)
On the matter of mined diamonds vs man-made diamonds, I have to agree with you Joel; the deBeers family needs to be brought down and hard.
I have had a Life Gem made from my husband’s ashes – 1crt yellow diamond. It has been mounted into his wedding ring and I wear it instead of my engarement ring. Until you have lost your soul mate in life do not assume you will ever ‘get over it’. My husband died one year ago and the comfort I get from having him so close to me is decrribed as undescribable. It is a comfort to have him ‘living’ with me daily. Yes, I am not stupid not to understand the griefing process but this has helped and as each day goes by it gets better – well two steps forward and one step back but I am OK as long as I have him with me. I am not an ‘old foggie’ just someome who had a life partner who enhanced my life and now do not know which way to go.
Jacqui: Anything that helps us get through (not over, but through) the passing of a loved one is a good thing, in that the passing of a loved one is the hardest challenge any of us can face. If the Life Gem you’ve had made of your husband’s remains gives you comfort, you are blessed. It strkes me as a novel idea, but the cost is such that I cannot help but feel as though the providers are preying upon mourners in their time of suffering.
I suffered my first significant loss three months ago. She had been the love of my life and my wife. Nothing prepared those of us around her for her sudden death. We cremated her, and before she was buried, we cut off locks of her hair to be braided and fastened wth silver wire. Not the kind of thing one can wear every day, but they’ll be actual parts of her, intact, in the original state. Should last quite a while, I think.
The grieving process as I’ve come to understand it is that it never hurts less; it only hurts less often. The saddest thing I can imagine on the matter is reaching a day where the thought of her doesn’t elicit any feeling at all. That’s when she’ll truly be dead. I wish you peace, Jacqui, but hold on to your love and the pain.
Sandman
My thoughts are with you at this time of your loss. I agree the saddest time would be not feeling anything so I take comfort in the pain. I wish you peace also.