There’s a company out there called Eternal Reefs with an interesting product. When your relative dies and requests cremation, instead of leaving them in a jar on the kitchen counter you can have their remains mixed in with a special kind of reef-making concrete. The company forms a reef-friendly shape and plops your family member at the bottom of the ocean to be forever surrounded by cool fishies and used as a home by coral reef life.
Sounds weird at first but I think it’s actually pretty awesome. I bet it would spawn some morbid conversations though.
Friend: So what’s your dad doing these days?
You: Oh, he’s in Barbados.
Friend: WHAT? Lucky guy, I can’t wait to retire and fly off to the tropics.
You: Um, yeah, that’s what he wanted to do.
Friend: So what’s he doing out there?
You: Hanging out at the coral reef.
Friend: Cool. When’s he coming home?
You: Never.
Friend: He moved there permanently? Wow!
You: No, he’s dead. We had his remains made into an artifical reef.
Friend: Oh…
I am a female Marine currently in the Individual Ready Reserve. I like to sleep, travel, read, eat, explore, and take photographs. I read lots of news and I like reading about life in other countries. I am easily amused and my dream job is to be snoozing in a warm patch of sunlight, hopefully with a piece of tasty cheese nearby for when I wake up hungry.
You’re sick. I laughed though. We’re sick.
Gives a whole new meaning to “sleeping with the fishes” or “I’ll feed the fish, honey” or…well it just gets morbid after that…
Don’t you just love how calling me sick is totally invalidated by the fact that you laugh at stuff like that just as much as me?
I actually thought about mentioning something about “sleeping with the fishes” but I said, “Nah, somebody else will say it.” Ha ha…
I love this post. My mom asked to be cremated, and I asked her caregiver to spread her ashes at the beach where our family used to go. But a coral reef … wow. That’s, well … deep.
Love your journal, and, needless to say, I’m blogrolling you. Semper fi.
Not a bad idea when I think about it.Could have the navy drop me off some where in the gulf of mexico off Pensacola. Better then a hole in the ground or a niche in some wall! Yeah I like it.
You are right. You really have to think about this one for a few minutes but I agree that this would be better than a hole in the ground. Time to update the will…