Coffins from Costco, or Postmortem Bling?

A friend posted on FB about an interesting find he came across while browsing the costco.com website: a "funeral" section, stocked with coffins and other funeral-related essentials. How about that! When Costco aims to be a one-stop shopping place, with its gas stations and fast food and electronics in addition to food and household items, they're really rounding things out with funeral accessories! I'm not sure how Costco's prices stack up against normal "retail" prices of caskets at your average funeral home, but I guess if you really find yourself in the market for one, and if a comparable coffin goes for price difference of at least $50, then it's worth a year's membership just for the casket ;-)

Of course, Costco sells traditional, run-of-the-mill funeral items: caskets, urns, flower stands. Stuff you'd typically find at your local mortuary. But that's assuming that you're going to choose traditional burial or cremation for yourself or for your loved one. But what if you don't want to go with the norm?

Back in January 2006, I spotted an article in the current issue of Popular Science that dealt with the various alternatives of body disposal (besides cremation and burial) available to the public. One environmentally-friendly option is dipping the body into a vat of liquid nitrogen, which essentially freeze-dries it and makes it so brittle that one zap of vibration shatters it into a pile of powder. This powder is then put into a potato-starch box and buried in the ground, where everything disintegrates within a year, returning nutrients to the soil. Pretty eco-conscious, not to mention cost effective (at $1000, about the same cost as cremation, and much less than the $8000 average price tag for conventional funerals and burials). And as they say... ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Very fitting, no?

But wait, it gets better (this is copied verbatim from the article):

LifeGem in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, has perfected a flashier type of after-death alchemy: transforming cremated remains into man-made diamonds. Technicians extract pure carbon from the ashes, then place the carbon into a diamond press that exerts intense heat (about 2200 degrees Fahrenheit) and pressures of up to 50,000 atmospheres for several days. The rough diamond that results-- which will be naturally colored yellow or orange but can, through processing, be made blue with trace amounts of the element boron-- can be faceted and polished just like an ordinary stone. In addition to choosing the color, you can specify the size of your LifeGem, from 0.2 to 1 carat. At $20,000 for a 1-carat blue diamond, though, it's a fair bit more expensive than a typical cremation, which costs around $1000 (small yellow gemstones start at $2700). Total turnaround time: six to nine months.

LifeGems have attracted a devoted following of thousands who prefer their deceased loved ones around their fingers, not underfoot. "The diamonds are tangible, they're beautiful, and they can be handed down", says the company's CFO, Mike Herro. "Family members say we've made their difficult situation a little bit better".

How's that for an icebreaker at a party-- stumped for something to say? Just show off your jewelry and explain how that's Grandma on your finger or Great Aunt Millie around your neck.

And in case you're wondering why I'm quoting an article that's almost 5 years old, it's because I did blog about it on my Grab.com blog back when that issue of the magazine came out. No doubt LifeGem was a fledgling company back then. I looked them up, and it appears that they are still around. Wonder how business is doing. Given the fact that nothing in life is certain but taxes and death, I suppose they'll always have a steady supply of customers, if people are quirky enough to consider it ;-)

Me? I actually like the sound of the more eco-friendly options. If nothing else, it saves money AND space. I always wondered what would happen when cemeteries ran out of room to landscape more burial plots or build more mausoleums.

How about you? What are post-life options would you consider?