Bury, Keep, Or Scatter? 6 Things To Consider When Deciding What To Do With Your Loved One’s Ashes

As the popularity of cremation increases — due to concerns about land conservation and the environment, geographical expediency, and its generally lower cost — so does one important question: what do you do with a loved one’s ashes?

The way you and your family answer that question will likely depend on a number of factors.

First, you need to be thinking about whether or not the deceased had specific wishes as to where they wanted their ashes to be spread and what budgetary constraints you might have.

But no matter how you and your family decide how to handle your loved one’s ashes, there are going to be a variety of logistical — and even legal — factors that you’ll need to consider.

Here are six of the most important.

1: For most people, spreading ashes is a very sentimental thing, and conversation about it requires respect and consideration.

First, it’s important to lend this topic the sensitivity it demands: laying loved ones to rest is a sad and momentous occasion.

That means spreading ashes can be a sentimental, often painful, process.

It can be difficult for reasons exemplified on shows like This Is Us, in which one character scatters his father’s ashes in the ocean — a final, metaphorical goodbye.

This is especially true when the ashes you’re spreading are the remains of a young person or the victim of something unforeseen like a car crash.

However, it can also be a celebration — a ceremony of love and remembrance for a person who passed peacefully in his or her old age.

Whatever the circumstances, discussing, planning for, and even thinking about what to do with the ashes of a loved one can be extraordinarily difficult. So it’s important, for that reason, that we talk about it with respect and sympathy.

2: There are laws prohibiting you from scattering ashes wherever you want.

A favorite way of scattering ashes is at a spot to which the deceased person was sentimentally attached. But if you don’t know the laws regarding spreading ashes in your desired location, you can face legal trouble.

For example, two years ago, an opera lover from Australia scattered a friend’s ashes into the orchestra pit of the Metropolitan Opera during an intermission.

The result was small-scale chaos.

It caused a terrorism scare as concertgoers thought he was spreading anthrax, and the Met had to cancel an entire performance. Police were close to pressing charges.

The man apologized, saying that he’d simply wanted to lay his friend to rest in a place that was meaningful to him. He also didn’t know that spreading ashes inside an opera house was illegal.

When it comes to logistics like where ashes will be spread, families often think first and foremost about the wishes of the deceased and don’t necessarily consider legal realities. The truth, however, is that laws governing where and how remains can be spread do exist, and they vary from state to state. Bodies of water are often off-limits. So are national parks and other public spaces, like tennis courts or neighborhood gardens.

Ultimately, if your loved one has requested that his or her ashes be spread in a meaningful yet public space like this, it pays to research whether it’s legal first.

3: Keeping the ashes at home is not technically considered final disposition.

As cremation has become more popular, so too have urns. And rather than burying the urn or spreading the ashes, many people keep the urns of loved ones in their homes. But placing an urn on a mantel or shelf at one’s home is really only a means of temporary disposition. At some point in the future, the urn will need to be moved to another location.

It is not hard to foresee that families could begin to accumulate several urns over time containing the remains of loved ones. And it is plausible that families will sometimes lose track of these urns. It is very common they can be misplaced or forgotten in an attic or a closet.

Burying the urn or scattering the ashes accomplishes true final disposition.

4: Burying the ashes or the urn is an option.

If you decide not to scatter your loved one’s ashes, burying them is another option.

This might be especially preferable for families who have family plots and find closure in a burial ceremony. A burial can be in the ground or in a columbarium, which is essentially a mausoleum for urns.

5: Technology has given us many options with cremated remains.

Due to the wonders of technology, ashes can be fashioned into memorial jewelry, mosaic art, glass and other objects, as well as fused into ocean reefs for an underwater burial of sorts.

6: You should use your funeral director as a resource to help you decide the best avenue when choosing how you’ll dispose of the ashes.

Lastly, it’s important for families to remember that they’re not alone in this process.

Funeral directors can prove helpful resources when you need answers to questions like where to spread your loved one’s ashes. Responsible funeral directors can help with those questions of legality, since they should be familiar with where ashes can be spread in your state. They’ll also know how cremation services in your area differ in terms of things like price.

When you’re in the thick of making these kinds of important decisions — when your thoughts are complicated by shock and grief — it pays to understand who and what resources you have at your disposal.

It also pays to be informed. After all, that’s what will make the logistics easier to untangle when the time comes.