Sunday, June 20, 2010

Here and now

I was driving one day when Adam Lambert came on. Hearing him screech the first lines of If I Had You* filled me with such manic glee (or depthless despair? I don't know) that I felt like putting my foot down and driving straight into the nearest immovable object.

Death, like your dream wedding or how many children you want to have, is one of those things people don't talk about unless persuaded with red hot pokers or Lady Gaga's Alejandro (once is bad enough). I guess it's taboo because you'll jinx yourself somehow, and die on your wedding day or while making said imaginary children.

In any case, I want a cremation when I'm daed. There's no need for me to lie in state like Uncle Ho or get a ridiculous granite gravestone so that whoever's left behind has to think of something pithy and brief to put on it, because I didn't expect to die so soon and hadn't thought of anything memorable yet. Did you know that "pithy" and "brief" mean the same thing?

Anyway, I don't intend to sit in a jar in a crematorium, forgotten until it's my birthday or death day. No, if I can't be a star while I'm still alive, I want to be sparkly in death. Like a Stephenie Meyer vampire, but more deader.


So, yes, I like the idea of a company like LifeGem. It may not appeal to some people, but having a dead loved one in portable form and always close by sounds like a nice idea. Besides, if you really cared about that person, you'd get over your squeamishness and fork over the minimum of $3499 needed to turn them into a 0.2-0.29 carat blue diamond (above).

They don't even need the entire body; just 200g of ash or a lock of hair and you're set! That means you can donate the rest of the junk to science and/or organ banks (if everything is still in working condition, that is).

For an Asian slant (ahem), I believe there's a Taiwanese company that does something similar, but it turns you into jade instead.

* "So I got my boots on, got the right 'mount of leather/And I'm doing me up with a black color liner/And I'm workin' my strut but I know it don't matter" … I think the video will be the visual equivalent of driving ice picks into my ears. It could be a good thing…

2 comments:

Snuze said...

I want to be sparkly in death. Like a Stephenie Meyer vampire, but more deader.


I'm going to steal this line and post it on my FB for revenge!

*wipes tea off monitor screen*

Debra Stang said...

I work at a hospice, and I have clients with all kind of unique requests about what to do with their bodies after they're gone. Being made into a diamond sounds pretty cool to me.