In the news yesterday, I saw a story on turning ashes from loved ones into diamonds. A woman about my own age posed in front of her dead mother's painted portrait, wearing a ring with a blue stone. "I think she'd rather be a diamond than ashes," she said, with a sad smile, emphasizing that she feels she is closer to her mother now, that somehow she is still with her.
I don't know why this made me feel so uneasy. Clearly the daughter is right - better diamonds than ashes... I too, would rather be a blue diamond than grey ashes:) But.. I can't imagine carrying someone dead on my hand. Just thinking about the weight of a person's presence, body and personality compressed into the lightness of a ring is impossible to me. The transformation from person to ashes to diamond, from alive and always in change to something fixed, set in stone and cold... doesn't that sound scary? Death is a difficult topic. Thinking about it, perhaps I'd rather be a blooming flower in a yard than a diamond!
