I think I've posted one photo this month. Shamefull! My excuse is I have a very exciting new job I started in the middle of December during finals week. It kept me busy for a whole month and now I'm doubly busy with a new semester of mortuary school.
This new job is in a crematory/funeralhome, and a busy one at that. I work hard and I'm learning all aspects of the business and have become quite skilled at loading and transporting dead bodies. Yes, I've seen some pretty gross stuff but nothing so bad as to curtail my appetite for very long. But there is one thing I find very disturbing.
Why are so many boxes of cremated human remains abandoned at our funeral home? Mind you, this is not a problem in just my place of employment. Walk into any funeral home in the country and ask someone there how many boxes of abandoned cremated remains are on hand and I gaurantee there's a closet somewhere, probably in the basement or prep room, stuffed with boxes of ashes no one has bothered to claim. Those are someone's father, mother, daughter, brother, sister, son, daughter.
It's not like these cremations aren't paid in full. Where I work we require payment in full before completing the task. I have a theory that in some cases the next of kin feels that it was enough to pay for the cremation. The old bastard can just sit on the shelf in the funeral home closet until the rapture as far as they're concerned.
While I would say that's an unfortunate attitude, and one I don't hold against anyone for whose disposition of remains for which I might be responsible, I can understand it. I wouldn't have any problem with someone writing us a check and saying, "Here's for uncle Fred's cremation. What you do with that asshole's ashes afterward is up to you."
Truth is we can deal with that. Our instructions are clear and we don't feel bad about disposing uncle Fred's ashes.
Legally a funeral home has to hold unclaimed cremated remains for 30 days after which time it can dispose of the remains in a suitable fashion. This includes scattering at an appropriate place, or a mass burial in a grave containing a couple hundred random boxes of other unclaimed ashes.
So, if you've had a loved one cremated recently and the funeral home called a while ago to let you know the remains are ready, and you just haven't gotten around to it, the least you can do is pick them up.
One last thing. Our company also operates a pet cremation subsidiary and it does a brisk business. Can you guess how many unclaimed cremated pet remains we have sitting around the place??...... None.
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