Matters of Life and Death
KISS merchandising went to the grave a few years ago when they rolled out the KISS coffin, and now the band is capitalizing on the rising trend in cremation with the KISS memorial urn which will retail around $650.00
Paul Stanley tells Spinner magazine: “The truth of the matter is, we have pride in everything we do. At the core this is a rock ‘n’ roll band, but we don’t put our name on anything that we don’t believe in, or that the fans don’t believe in.”
When Elizabeth Taylor died, she left a fortune estimated at 1 billion, much of it from her perfume empire. Her jewels alone are worth $150 million. Each of her four children stand to inherit $100 million.
Elizabeth’s wish was to be buried near her beloved Richard Burton in Switzerland, but Burton’s widow has already purchased the grave site next to him. Liz decided to keep it simple and be buried near her forever young friend, Michael Jackson in Forest Lawn Cemetery.
Staying true to her life long reputation of chronic tardiness, she arranged to be 15 minutes late to her own funeral.
According to Jewish custom, Ms. Taylor was buried within 48 hours of her death on March 23, 2011. Her casket was draped with gardenias, violets, and lilies of the valley.
Source: Vanity Fair
Scott bought a biodegradable urn for an ash scattering ceremony he planned for his mother-in-law in the Bahamas. He explains the paperwork process of transporting the urn filled with ashes from Texas to the Bahama beach.
Prior to beginning you will need the death certificate and certificate of cremation. I have been told that sometimes they are one in the same however, most of the time they are two separate documents. You will need to contact the Bahamas Ministry of Health, or that country’s equivalent. All documents should be faxed to them (make sure to make a follow up call and get names). At that point they will send written permission that will be signed by, in my case, the Chief at the Ministry of Health. This document will have vital information on it regarding the deceased and in our case will mandate that you contact the Ministry of Health once there and make arrangements to have the burial at sea at least 10 miles off shore. Now this form should be attached in some way to the remains so that customs officials, should they become curious of the contents of the urn will see what it is and can make simple phone calls to verify. The last thing I wanted was for a customs agent to think it’s heroin or something and open it to test. I learned that customs has little or nothing to do with the process. Once we were there we went to my Mother-in-Law’s favorite beach and set her urn adrift. This was about 50 yards from the shore in a deep harbor. I would not suggest doing this in shallow water.
By the way the urns were perfect, thanks.
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Funeral for a Friend: Celebration at Sea
One of our clients traveled from Missouri to New Mexico to inter her brother who passed away last year. She’s from a big Irish family, 10 kids in all, and they coordinated a memorial service to be held over the long holiday weekend. He had been cremated and they planned to place his ashes in a niche at the cemetery in a wood urn.
Her brother was a poet, an earthy guy who liked to draw pictures of trees. At the memorial service they set up a small table and displayed his poetry, drawings, memorial cards, and an arrangement of a tree and potted shamrocks. A very simple service, a friend read a poem, family said a few words, they dismissed for lunch.
A memorial service can always be held at a later date and does not have to be an elaborate affair.
Other memorial service ideas we’ve discussed include:
Floral Wreaths for Cremation Urns
What Not to Wear to a Memorial Service
Purple Iris is popping here and we’ve chronicled our love hate relationship with the Iris. In fact, I’m ready to dig em up and pitch them…until I see the beauty that unfolds every spring. Irises come in a rainbow of colors, the most popular being the deep blue or purple variety. Their primary meanings include faith, hope, wisdom, courage, and admiration. Iris represents the February birth month and is the flower of our 13th state, Tennessee, and the Fleur-de-lis is the emblem for the city of New Orleans. The Iris flower dates back to Ancient Greek mythology when the Greek goddess Iris, who was a messenger of the gods and was the personification of the rainbow. Iris was the link between heaven and earth.
Purple irises were planted over the graves of women to summon the Goddess to guide the dead in their journey. Ancient Egyptian kings marveled in the iris’s exotic nature, and drawings have been found of the flower in a number of Egyptian palaces.
Urn Garden carries memorial urns that feature the beauty of the purple iris. Here it is as a cloisonne cremation urn.
Both urns are a purple and ivory combination, very soft and pretty for both male or female. I was surprised once when a lady shopping for a purple urn told me it was her son’s favorite color. She chose this Purple Iris Flower Garden Keepsake Urn to use as a container to hold a portion of the ashes reserved from a scattering of ashes ceremony.