When I Die Send Me to the Four Corners of the World
Evolving the Concept of Last Place of Resting
People just aren’t getting buried like they once were.
Call it what you will – Deathcare, Funeral Services – it’s an industry that prides itself as the very epitome of stability and tradition. Yet Deathcare is itself subject to seismic underlying shifts.
In the 60’s about 95% of us were buried once we passed away.
Fast forward 60 years and 75% of us are now cremated.
Cremation is being driven by changing consumer preferences, but accelerated by a cost-of-dying-crisis.
The issue is many have no idea what to do with ashes.
A US study found 1 in 4 households had a family members ashes stored at home.
It’s likely much higher than that and indicates a lack of decent options.
Urns on mantelpieces aren’t exactly high fashion and we’ve all heard the horror stories of scattering ashes.
But challenges give birth to creative solutions and one of the best we’ve seen is treating the world as one’s resting place.
It’s a fundamental rejection of the notion that we are forever tied to one place once we pass. A hole in the ground that few will ever visit or a scattering spot that could one day have a housing development built over it.
Increasingly people are choosing to have their ashes split up and placed in multiple locations.
Often in different countries.
In places that were meaningful to them. Places that have special significance, maybe even locations they couldn’t get to when living.
We see it like a Bucket List for the departed.
And we’ve seen a dramatic increase in demand for Reterniti Pebbles.
A Reterniti Pebble is about the size of a flattened golf ball, it fits neatly into the palm of ones hand and uses about 100grams of ashes.
Numerous Pebbles can be created from one set of ashes.
And families are taking and sending Reterniti Pebbles to the four corners of the earth.
It’s a neat idea.
Family & friends can visit and commune with a lost one at that place they loved.
David Bowie’s ashes are scattered on a beach in Bali.
Inxs’ lead singer Michael Hutchence is in Sydney Harbour. If they’d had the option, would they have chosen to rest in many places?
Obviously we’re not endorsing one of Dad’s Reterniti Pebbles being thrown into Rome’s Trevi Fountain or left in the middle of his golf course’s 18th green.
Just like ashes scattering we’d suggest seeking the landowner’s permission first, but unlike scattering, a Reterniti Pebble is discrete, handleable, transportable & moveable and isn’t going to blow back in your face!
Reterniti Pebbles have allowed a new level of creativity and global association with place that a singular hole in the ground could never do.
Reterniti is a leader in a new start up sector aptly named DeathTech, innovating within one of life’s oldest institutions, one that along with taxes is one of life’s inevitabilities.
