Tag Archives: funeral

Want to come back as a tree?

170424132824-capsula-mundi-three-eggs-exlarge-169The traditional coffin litters the earth.  It is not biodegradable and remains buried in the ground for thousands of years.  The same can be said for the tombstone which stands above it.

Now there’s a new option.

Capsula Mundi is a project out of Italy, “which envisions a different approach to the way we think about death. It’s an egg-shaped pod, an ancient and perfect form, made of biodegradable material, where our departed loved ones are placed for burial. Ashes will be held in small egg-shaped urns while bodies will be laid down in a fetal position in larger pods. The Capsula will then be buried as a seed in the earth. A tree, chosen in life by the deceased, will be planted on top of it and serve as a memorial for the departed and as a legacy for posterity and the future of our planet. Family and friends will continue to care for the tree as it grows. Cemeteries will acquire a new look and, instead of the cold grey landscape we see today, they will grow into vibrant woodlands.”

The urn for ashes is available now.  The one for the body is still in development.

For more information about green burial options as well as other funeral choices, go to www.diesmart.com.

 

 

Don’t want to go into the funeral home – try drive-thru viewing

drive thruIt is not a new concept but now Ryan Bernard of Memphis is joining the drive-thru visitation service trend. 

When Bernard bought an old bank building in Memphis to use for a funeral home, he found a unique use for the drive-thru window.  Guests can view the deceased’s body through a bullet-proof window.  If they don’t want to fuss with parking and getting out of the car or are afraid of funeral homes, guests can just drive up and pay their respects.  They can sign an iPad guest book and spend approximately 3 minutes alone with the body.

The drive-thru concept is a free add-on offered to people when they are planning a funeral.

According to Bernard, he’s gotten a mostly positive reaction although some people have said they find it disrespectful.

His facility, R. Bernard Funeral Services, has already added live streaming of funerals and will continue to add innovative concepts.  He said, “The funeral industry is always changing every year. I keep the old traditional funeral stuff and try to add new stuff to it,” Bernard said. “I am 41 years old. I am not out just to market to the grandmas and grandpas, I am trying to get the millennials and the Baby Boomers too.”

Whether you want to add non-traditional elements to a funeral or just plan an “old fashioned” one, for more information go to www.diesmart.com.

Do you think this is a brutal obituary?

cemeteryWe read this article on CNN and decided to share it with you exactly as written.   Did you ever have a relative you absolutely detested and yet you wrote a flowery obituary?  Not the person in this story by AJ Willingham

Story highlights

“(CNN)This is not one of those funny-yet-terse obituaries that often make headlines. This one is kind of upsetting, and the author of the shocking screed has a very specific reason for her harsh words.

Leslie Ray Charping of Galveston, Texas, recently died at the age of 75, and his obituary posted on the Carnes Funeral Home website quickly went viral. It is no longer on the site, but has been widely reported and corroborated by Charping’s daughter, who wrote it.

The words, wholly un-minced, speak for themselves:

“Leslie Ray ‘Popeye’ Charping was born in Galveston on November 20, 1942 and passed away January 30, 2017, which was 29 years longer than expected and much longer than he deserved.”

“At a young age, Leslie quickly became a model example of bad parenting combined with mental illness and a complete commitment to drinking, drugs, womanizing and being generally offensive. Leslie enlisted to serve in the Navy, but not so much in a brave & patriotic way but more as part of a plea deal to escape sentencing on criminal charges.”

“Leslie’s hobbies included being abusive to his family, expediting trips to heaven for the beloved family pets and fishing, which he was less skilled with than the previously mentioned. Leslie’s life served no other obvious purpose, he did not contribute to society or serve his community and he possessed no redeeming qualities besides quick whited [sic] sarcasm which was amusing during his sober days.”

“With Leslie’s passing he will be missed only for what he never did; being a loving husband, father and good friend.”

” Leslie’s passing proves that evil does in fact die and hopefully marks a time of healing and safety for all.”

According to the original obituary, Charping was cremated and is currently being kept in the family barn.

If the idea of speaking ill of the dead disturbs you, Charping’s daughter, the obit’s author, assures you you’re fortunate to miss the point.

“I am happy for those that simply do not understand, this means you had good parent(s) — please treasure what you have,” the woman told CNN affiliate KTRK in a statement.

“I apologize to anyone that my father hurt and I felt it would have been offensive to portray him as anything other than who he was,” she also said. “This obituary was intended to help bring closure because not talking about domestic violence doesn’t make it go away!”

She asked not to be named in the KTRK report.”

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We certainly hope your relatives are nicer than the father described above. If you need help writing an obituary or planning a funeral for one of them, check out our website http://www.diesmart.com.

 

A unique way to preserve your loved one…

holding_heart-300x214 img_1179-768x1024I came  across a company in Seattle, Washington called Artful Ashes.  They have come up with a unique way to hold the memory of a loved one – a piece of glass art.  All you have to do is send them about a tablespoon full of ashes and they will turn it into art.  Their designs are in the shape of hearts or spheres, measure approximately 3 ½ by 3 ½ inches and weigh about 14 ounces.  The ashes you provide are swirled through the design and can be seen in the finished piece.  If you like, you can include a short inscription on the memorial.

Some people I mentioned this idea to thought it was creepy; others liked it.  Regardless, it’s a beautiful piece of art and something to be considered.  There are many unique ways to preserve the ashes of a loved one.  This is just one more new one.

For more information about cremation and funeral planning, check out our website diesmart.com.

Do celebrities make money after they die?

michael jackson

In one word “yes”.  Following is the article recently released by Forbes that lists the highest paid celebrities who died this year.

While the Pearly Gates seemed to welcome an unusual amount of celebrities in the past year (David Bowie, Prince and Arnold Palmer, to name just three), the long-departed King of Pop had the time of his afterlife.

The March sale of Michael Jackson’s half of the Sony/ATV music publishing catalog, famous for its library of Beatles tunes, for $750 million puts him at the top of our annual ranking of the top-earning dead celebrities, an ironic finish given that many critics and even advisors once derided the catalog as a badly overpriced investment. Jackson’s total pretax payday of $825 million ranks as the biggest annual haul by any celeb dead or alive.

“He was always doing stuff that was the best, the greatest, the biggest,” says Jeff Jampol, who manages the estates of Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and others. “That was a big fight when he wanted to buy that catalog … it turned out to be one of the greatest investments ever.”

In 1985, Jackson paid $47.5 million ($140 million in 2016 dollars) to buy the Beatles-packed ATV publishing catalog. Ten years later, Sony paid him $115 million to form a 50/50 joint venture, then purchased his remaining half in March. In all, the sales (and accompanying distributions) gave Jackson’s estate, which is overseen by lawyer John Branca and music exec John McClain, a 30% annualized return on investment.

Peanuts creator Charles Schulz claims the second spot with $48 million. The cartoonist died of colon cancer 16 years ago, but lives on through the franchise—and its licensing revenue, boosted by last year’s well-received 3-D Peanuts movie. Golf legend Arnold Palmer rounds out the top three with earnings of $40 million, most of which was accumulated in the mortal realm, as he passed away just days before our cutoff.

Our set of 13 Halloween-spooky estimates are for pretax income from October 1, 2015, through October 1, 2016, before deducting expenses for agents, managers and lawyers. Sources include Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen BookScan, PollstarPro, IMDB and interviews with estate experts.

Michael Jackson: The King Of Pop–and celeb earnings–dead or alive (Photo: Mike Powell /Allsport).

Recently deceased superstars Prince and David Bowie also rank high on the list. The Purple One passed away while still at the top of his touring game (grossing nearly $2 million per show) and sold more than 2.5 million albums over the past year, more than any other dead musician. Bowie, meanwhile, released his final album, Blackstar, just two days before his death; the ensuing sales spike helped him outsell Jackson and Elvis Presley (No. 4, $27 million) in the last year.

Presley’s total represents a 50% drop from last year’s figure (a change in how we accounted for Graceland ticket sales, not plummeting demand, accounts for the change). The King of Rock n’ Roll still moved more than 1 million albums on the year—most of them physical, not digital—remarkable for someone who’s been gone for nearly 40 years.

As for Jackson, the Sony/ATV payday gives him the last laugh over doubters. But a decade ago, he already knew what a good deal he’d made, as detailed in my book Michael Jackson, Inc. On a 2007 conference call, the King of Pop reminded Sony/ATV chief Marty Bandier of the acumen that had earned him a nine-figure return on paper by that point.

“See,” he told Bandier. “I told you I knew the music publishing business.”

13. Elizabeth Taylor ($8 million)
12. Steve McQueen ($9 million)
11. David Bowie ($10.5 million)
10. Bettie Page ($11 million)
9. Albert Einstein ($11.5 million)
8. John Lennon ($12 million)
7. Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel ($20 million)
6. Bob Marley ($21 million)
5. Prince ($25 million)
4. Elvis Presley ($27 million)
3. Arnold Palmer ($40 million)
2. Charles Schulz ($48 million)
1. Michael Jackson ($825 million)

You may not be a celebrity and you may not have an estate worth millions of dollars but you still need to do some planning for what you want to have happen to the assets you do have.  For more information about this topic, check our our website www.diesmart.com.