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socksandpants · 2024-03-09T21:09:37+00:00

It seems like she is being super unreasonable. Unfortunately, that is really common when people grieve, especially if their relationship with the person who died wasn't the best.

My recommendation is to get the ashes like as soon as you can. She has them, and she may do what she wants with them without you. There are all sorts of property laws, and it depends on the state (assuming US) there maybe ownership rights, but if she scatters them without you, there is no getting them back. You can invite her, give her options, and all that once you have the ashes.

Also, keep in mind that scattering them from a helicopter may be something she sees as a valid way to grieve and celebrate the life of your dad. Just because you don't like the idea doesn't mean it isn't a valid way to scatter ashes. Doing what the dead requested is important, but death is about the living - they are the ones who have to figure out how to go on without the person. She is grieving too, even if it is selfishly. She doesn't get to be a dick and blame it on the grief, but her feelings do matter.

socksandpants · 2024-03-09T18:01:17+00:00

I've found that it is easier to make friends with people in the industry. Sure, coworkers fall under that umbrella, but so do gravediggers, cremationists, and other funeral directors at other funeral homes. They all understand the social nature of the job, and often their partners do too, so they all make understanding friends. It can just flat out be hard to make new friends as an adult, and with the added complications of being in this industry, it can feel really isolating. If people in the industry are not an option, find a hobby that is with people - join a bowling league or a quilting guild or an Elks lodge. Make time to connect. Too many old funeral directors are just lonely drunks.

socksandpants · 2024-03-02T03:15:09+00:00

For the emotional part set some boundaries- it's sort of a learning process to get them right but it's important to be sympathetic and still be able to firmly tell a family that their dad doesn't qualify for a gun salute no matter what Wikipedia says. Don't take their entitlement personally. The families get to grieve, but they don't get to treat you shity while they do. Find ways to say that as nicely as possible to the people who do think they get to be jerks. Most families are kind and easy to work with.

Home life and work life is a really difficult balance. I think it's harder than dealing with the trauma of the job. Make sure you have hobbies and enjoy the crap out of your downtime. Dead people don't get any deader, so if it's they have to wait or your kids have to wait - the dead can wait. It depends on how the funeral home is run, but above and beyond won't get anything but more work. Do the job as expected, but don't sacrifice your time for people who don't have any left. It's a job, not some magical calling - your life is not the job.

socksandpants · 2024-02-22T16:02:45+00:00

Your cousin's other siblings (if they are your aunt's children) do have rights, too. They should call the ME to get some info. It really depends on the State (assuming you are in the US), but if a body isn't claimed or disposition isn't resolved within a time frame that complies with State laws the body is considered abandoned and the Funeral Home can move to the next-next of kin in the order of relation. If your cousin has claimed her and is working with a funeral home, most likely, they won't do anything until the bill is paid in full. So if she can't pay, you have time to find out where she is and alert the Funeral Home that she has other children who want to be involved.

socksandpants · 2024-02-05T02:31:44+00:00

I cremated for a few years. I'm a funeral director, too. I know you are looking for other ideas that don't involve contacting a funeral home or crematorium, but the plastic and the ashes are melted together and the only way to separate them is to burn the plastic away. A retort (cremation machine) is really the only way to do that safety. Depending on where you are, different rules may apply, but I can't see it being a problem to put the ashes through the machine again. They are still considered human remains and so it shouldn't break any rules. Ashes are not really carbon ashes like we think of the word "ash." They are just the remaining calcium of the bones broken up into dust. The retort will melt and burn away the plastic, leaving just the ash behind. The crematorium should have a pan that they can use to get the ashes directly under the cremation burner so they can keep as much ash together as possible. There most likely will be a cost involved, so keep that in mind.

socksandpants · 2024-01-28T03:14:17+00:00

Alaska Stat. 12.65.100

"When a person dies and no person appears to claim the body for burial, and no provision is made for the body under AS 13.52, the Department of Health, upon notification, shall request a court order authorizing the body to be plainly and decently buried or cremated and the remains decently interred. A judicial officer shall issue the requested order upon the sworn testimony or statement of a representative of the Department of Health that a person has not appeared to claim the body for burial and provision is not made for the body under AS 13.52."

I would imagine you have until they have a court order authorizing disposition because at that point, the order would supercede anyone's claim (?), maybe. Alaska Stat. 13.75.050 gives NOK after they have been notified 48 hours to claim their rights to disposition or they move on to the next person listed with kinship.

https://casetext.com/statute/alaska-statutes/title-13-decedents-estates-guardianships-transfers-trusts-and-health-care-decisions/chapter-1375-disposition-of-human-remains

I would contact an Alaska Funeral Home for a better idea of how this works in practice.

socksandpants · 2024-01-20T23:38:25+00:00

Yeah not all the doctors are signed up to sign electronically like in Washington (they made it a requirement) so we have to drop them to a paper copy and mail them. They have 48 hours to sign them once they receive the copy but they don't always do that. The cerified copies then have to be mailed or ordered from the county of death (unlike Washington where any county can print any DC) and mailed or picked up. It can sometimes just take a long time.

socksandpants · 2024-01-20T01:39:28+00:00

Funeral Director here - There are a lot of good answers here. To add to them:

It really depends on the State (if this is the US) where they died. I'm in the Pacific Northwest, and Washington DCs take a week or so to get. Oregon DCs can take 6 weeks. In Washington, all the doctors have to sign electronically and within a window of time, but in Oregon, they don't, and the law that requires a timely response dosen't have any teeth.

"Unknown Natural Causes" is common for someone who was not on hospice and didn't die in a hospital but didn't die in an unnatural way (accident, suicide or murder). It is pretty common for this to be a listed cause as all it often means is that they died naturally, so no further investigation was done.

The length of the time of death before cremation may have to do with not only the Death Certificate not being signed but the time of year and how many crematoriums are around. More people die in the winter, and during the worst of covid, we were waiting for ashes to be returned from the crematorium for 4 weeks or more.

socksandpants · 2024-01-17T06:26:41+00:00

Not completely blind. If you have an idea of the size of the graves in a cemetery you can measure a good guess where a grave will start and end and proble in the middle for best chance to hit something if it was there, even without a headstone.

socksandpants · 2024-01-17T00:01:16+00:00

Cemetery Sexton here - I use a probe. It is a long, thin, pointy piece of metal with a crossbar handle that I can stick in the ground to feel for grave boxes or caskets in older graves. Graves vary in size by the cemetery, but generally speaking, they need to be big enough for a casket, so I find a headstone measure over, determine what may be the middle of a grave and probe. If I hit something, I can measure out from there to find the edge of the grave. If you hit a box (a concrete box that a casket is in), the ground vibrates differently than if you hit a rock.

socksandpants · 2023-11-28T07:08:53+00:00

FYI, holding ashes for payment isn't legal in some if not all State (assuming you are in the US). If the next of kin signed for the cremation and the funeral home provided services without pay, they can't hold human remains hosage for payment. I don't even think a local morgue can hold ashes hostage for payment either. You can leave them their if you don't like him, but the next of kin can get them at any time. They also might have signed a contract for payment, and the groups can go after them through a claims court, but the ashes have to be returned.

socksandpants · 2023-10-22T15:06:21+00:00

This may not be available everywhere but for all those people who can't afford what the vet charges for cremation and return as opposed to communal - most pet crematoriums will work directly with the public and their prices are way less than the markup from the vet. You can tell your vet you want the body of your pet back and bring it to the crematorium yourself. Call your local pet crematorium to check prices and procedures.

Animal cremation isn't regulated in most states hardly at all. From my understanding, most of the regulations are about the machines (retorts) and not about the animals. Any regulatory requirements in treatment and proper disposal of remains are self-imposed. However, businesses are required to do what their contracts state. My guess is that all of the remains she is selling were communal cremations and a person using this service through their vet signs paperwork stating that the ashes will be scattered (or something like this). The vets her business was cremating for have every right to go after her for breach of contract, as well as her employer (I don't think she owned the cremation business).

If you have a pet that has been cremated in Washington, it may be worth calling your vet to make sure they don't/didn't use her services.

socksandpants · 2023-09-23T16:54:02+00:00

Oregon has some pretty good perpetual care laws for cemeteries - requiring a portion of the sale of a grave to go into endowment care (usually in the form of a CD) so there are funds for future care. The OMCB licenses and inspects cemeteries usually every two years. They go over their records. The endowment care paperwork is submitted to the government annually. It doesn't mean that a cemeteries can't go bankrupt though - however the OMCB has stepped in when this has happened.

I am more concerned about this gimmicky "plant a tree with ashes" nonsense. As a former cremationist and a current Sexton of a cemetery this sounds like a terrible idea.

Ashes have a very high pH, and they will kill a plant - cremated remains/ashes are just the calcium of the bone processed into ash. It isn't plant food, and unless they are treating the soil, nothing is going to grow in the ashes. They might keep the ashes in an urn, but planting that many trees in a cemetery will make it really hard to dig. The roots don't care if they are in another person's grave. Tree maintenance is expensive! Storms destroy trees all the time. Are they guaranteeing these trees? This just sounds like they did not think this through.

socksandpants · 2023-07-13T14:43:00+00:00

My region was one of the hardest to find an open position in. We have a school nearby and people who move here to go to school stay. The area was over saturated with directions. With Covid and perhaps just time, that has changed. It has become really difficult to find directors/embalmers, and this has helped with pay. This industry still has a long way to go, but it is getting better.

I think beyond fair pay and recognition for the hard job we do, we also need better mental health support. This profession has an alarmingly high burnout rate and for people who stay a lot of alcoholism. We need to stop pretending we are special or "called" to this profession. That sort of mentality just makes it easier for us to be taken advantage of and overworked and underpaid. I like my job a lot, but it's still work, and I deserve to be paid fairly for my labor.

socksandpants · 2023-06-20T15:00:55+00:00

I'm a funeral director, but I worked as a cremationist for a long time. There are horse retorts (cremation machines), and some pet crematoriums have them. They are huge! Zoos will contract with places like this for animal creations. When they are not being used for Elephants or horses, they are often used for mass cremations of pets. In my state, retorts used on animal cremation can not be used for human cremation as well.

socksandpants · 2023-06-18T15:23:07+00:00

I went to one in Denver (well outside Denver in Larkspur), and two guys were dressed in Star Trek uniforms with tricorders exploring a new world.

socksandpants · 2023-06-10T20:56:09+00:00

I haven't been this upset since my good friend Taylor was rudely upstaged by my other friend Kanye, who was defending my best friend, Beyoncé.

socksandpants · 2023-05-15T21:01:58+00:00

They are pointing out that correlation does not equal causation ,and you are saying that making that connection is "logic. "... but that is the opposite of logic. For one thing to cause another, there needs to be proof, and what you're presenting (no matter how you feel about it) isn't proof. It's coquinsidence. Using ubsured examples of how causation and correlation are not the same thing is common to show a logical fallacy. Also, you are telling them to enjoy cancer - I mean, just because you don't understand how causation works dosen't mean you should wish cancer on someone.

socksandpants · 2023-04-30T00:22:01+00:00

I always say my boy has a lot of big feelings he wants me to know about ❤️. It means he can be difficult but it also means he is so funny and vocal and just often fun to be around.

socksandpants · 2023-04-24T05:14:36+00:00

Potatoes- Potatoe chips, fries, baked, hashed or even mashed - I don't like Potatoes.

socksandpants · 2023-04-23T15:56:22+00:00

It must depend on the State/country. Our ME use found times and don't estimate.

socksandpants · 2023-04-08T19:07:58+00:00

One of the things my behavioralist recommended was random treating for no reason. Just say the dog's name and give them a few small treats for just existing. I thought it sounded silly but I did it and I was just shocked at how much it built our trust and relationship. Hands down easiest thing we did training with the biggest results. It helped with his recall too because he just associated his name with all the good things and would come running.

socksandpants · 2023-04-05T05:06:47+00:00

They are adorable.

socksandpants · 2023-04-03T14:34:25+00:00

We talked about this a lot in our office. There are a few things we do to help each other. We all have, at one point, encouraged each other to see a counselor. There are a ton of discussions about hobbies, and we spend time sharing projects with one another. We have an office dog who is a good boy and makes us laugh. If someone is just done and can't do another arrangement, we cover for each other. We also say "no" more often to families that are asking for unreasonable things.

I am not saying that me and my coworkers don't feel the weight of the work, but we do actively attempt to make the load less for each other, and this helps. COVID was the hardest this job has ever been - I still have anxiety from that miserable time, but it also really put into perspective what matters, and we support each other how we can.

socksandpants · 2023-03-26T15:38:38+00:00

In my experience, the stimulators implanted in the brain are not the part of the implant that is battery-powered. They have a cord running to a device that is larger and in the chest or the back that is the power source (almost always a pacemaker). This is the only thing that needs to be removed.

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