What do you want to happen to you when you die? I’m not talking about religious or spiritual issues. I’m talking physicality; what happens to your physical body. It’s all a matter of personal decision. We decide how we wish for our loved ones to honor our remains through a will. Oftentimes, people choose traditional methods such as burial or cremation. However, there are other decisions made such as donating one’s body for scientific purposes or having ashes made into an eco-urn, which allows them to become the nourishment for a tree of choice.

The strangest one I have heard, however, is the latest fad of Artful Ashes.

The company, whose products have been circulating social media lately, utilizes no more than one tablespoon of a loved one’s ashes. Once received, the ashes are blown into a beautiful piece of colorful handmade glass. While these objects could be considered a beautiful way to commemorate one’s life, I could not ever bring myself to believe that it is appropriate.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate beauty and art just as much as the next art major, but preserving a loved one in a piece of glass just seems wrong. Instead of being released to nature like cremation or an eco-urn or aiding in the development of scientific discovery and enlightenment, the remains are trapped in glass.

Forever.

Not just trapped, though. They are left to sit on a desk and gather dust. Become diminished to that of a paperweight or bookend. Practical, yes; but endearing? No. I would rather be remembered fondly but rarely than become an object that forever reminds my loved ones of my lost.

Beauty does have its merits, but to become a slightly more meaningful household object that will eventually be packed away and forgotten seems like nothing more than an afterlife of misery.