Do you have cremains in your house? Is it creepy?

Yes, I have some ashes from my dear friend Brook. It is not creepy at all.

No but I wish I did have some of my grandfather’s ashes. It’s not creepy to me at all.

Yes, I have my grandparents’ ashes in matching urns. I don’t think it’s creepy, but apparently a lot of people do. My urns aren’t traditional, they are both shaped like hearts. I had them on a little corner table when I first received them and a good friend came over and picked one up. She shook it, because it made a noise.. and asked what was in my “paperweight.”
When i told her, she was really upset.

I don’t really relate to that, I don’t see what could be creepy about it, but she isn’t the first person that I’ve met to feel that way.
Also, I have met plenty of people that keep urns on their bedroom dressers. That probably sounds odd, but I did home health care for years… and home hospice for even longer. I’ve been in a lot of people’s homes, in their bedrooms, and particularly the homes belonging to people that are elderly.

When my partner’s aunt died, her ashes were divided into two, so both her brother (my father-in-law) and her son could take some. This dividing was done on the kitchen counter, with a spoon, into two plastic bags, while my mother-in-law was out, so she didn’t know. She would have been horrified, especially when some got spilled, and was wiped up with a dishcloth.

After all of that, there would be nothing creepy about having an urn in my bedroom.

Yes I do, and no it’s not creepy at all. I kind of like having them around. I have some of my mother’s ashes, I have my father’s ashes and both my cat’s (Bugsy and Casper) ashes. I have them all in a kind of shrine on the dresser in the spare bedroom. I also spilled some of each of my parent’s ashes in the piano (it’s a long story) so they’re in their too. I have yet to mention that to the piano tuner. I don’t know if it would bother him or not so I haven’t said anything to him.

Mom has Dad’s ashes stored in a box on a shelf in her bedroom closet. The plan is that when she goes, we are to mix her ashes with his and scatter them in the woods. The ashes don’t creep me out, but the first time or two I slept on the sofa bed where he died, I think I cried a little. It was more about being in the spot where he took his last breath than anything else.

I have a box of ashes on my fireplace mantle, not weird at all.

I’ll be going this fall to spread them at her childhood home, in the Boston Mountains this fall when the leaves start to change.

Having remains of dead family members, friends and or pets around our house is not for me (That’s a “yes” I think that it is creepy). They are gone now but I’ll always have their memory and their pictures. That’s good enough. I told my wife that when I die to burry my ashes under the old Monkey Puzzle tree in our yard so that perhaps part of my chard remains might someday become incorporated into the tree’s structure and seed production. Then for perhaps hundreds of years (Monkey Puzzle trees can live for a thousand years) animals and people will enjoy my beauty and seed yielding bounty. I do not my ashes to be given to family and friends to be picked though and put on display.

Yep, my wife has some of her mom’s ashes. We also have the cremated remains of a very beloved family dog (our first “child”) in a nice wooden box with an appropriate plaque on our bureau next to her favorite squeak toy and a picture.

No, it’s not in any way creepy.

When my friend Brook passed, her mother divided up her ashes into a bunch of tiny vials, so the people who loved her could either keep them or spread them in a place of their choosing. I spread a little of her in shaver lake, a little at badwater, and a little at the Grand Canyon. I have a tiny amount of her left.

I only have my dog. I found her in my front yard when I was 4 and she was a fat little puppy with a huge rope around her neck that was chewed off. We had to put her to sleep a few months back. She was too old and sick and I held her when they gave her the injections. She’s in a little metal flowered urn on a dresser.

I am a potter and some of my work has been used as urns.
It is an honor to me.:)

We still have my fathers ashes, they were in the china closet before my mother remarried. Then when she remarried she brought his ashes with her to my stepfathers house and they are in a book case that looks over the stair case. It never bothered me to have him in the house and I didn’t even think of him being at my stepfathers house in many many years.

I don’t have any people cremains, but I have my cat’s ashes. I haven’t gotten around to getting a proper urn yet, so they’re in an opaque black plastic box that’s in a plastic bag (just the way they gave her back to me). She sits on my dresser.

I want someone to do this with my ashes.

@redfeather I want that too, what a cool way to be stil around

I have the ashes of a bunch of dead pets. My husband can’t let go of them. I do not find it creepy.

I would give them back to your aunt. You do not have to have them.

I have the cremains of my first dog. She was with me from the age of 5, for 18 years. She went through high school with me, went to college with me, got married with me – all she ever wanted was to be with me, so she still is.

She’s sealed in a piece of pottery that I made for her, sitting on a bookshelf.

Ashes are just human remains, burnt.

Over a 24-hour period, you lose almost a million skin cells – that’s about 8 pounds of skin dust a year. We are are walking around – breathing each other’s dust anyway.

What’s a little more ash in the house.

I think at home is a much better place than a mausoleum. One of my grandfathers’ ashes are in a mausoleum and I just don’t get it. You’ve got him in a nice portable box. Why not take him home so you can visit at your leisure instead of driving all the way out to the cemetery and go through the creepy ass mausoleum (which I have a morbid fear of. Can you imagine being in there during an earthquake? It makes me shudder just thinking about it.)

Anyway. I think that if you’re going to cremate, home is a good resting place.

I have the cremains of my dog. Most of them are in a wooden box in my bedroom, but I have a small portion in a necklace designed for the purpose (see here). I have the triangular, pyramid one.

Keep in mind that I train search dogs to find human remains. You don’t even want to know what else I have around here! Ashes (cremains) are MILD by comparison!

I don’t have any in my house, but I do not find the idea of it creepy at all.

@all I thought a mausoleum had bodies in it? And a columbarian had remains from cremation, is that incorrect? I know very little about these things. All my relatives are buried intact in the ground so far.

I invited my friend to go with me to pick up my father’s remains. She showed up with a nice new gift bag such as you would give to a man- and placed my dad’s ashes in there. She said “Snowberry, relax. It’s just like he put on a new shirt!”

Then she took “us” out to lunch. While we were waiting for our food, she rummaged in her purse and tossed some Hershey’s Kisses in there and said, “Bruce, this is for you dear!”

We laughed and had such a wonderful time that day!

Moral: Relax and enjoy the memories you had with him!

@JLeslie They have bodies that line the walls in sort of giant filing cabinets (which is why they totally creep me out. I don’t like the idea that there are bodies lined up several feet above my head when I go in there) They also have things that look like bookshelves encased in glass with urns in them.

The one my grandfather sits in also has a creepy ass organ that plays all the time so it always sounds like a funeral home. It also always smells like Lysol and something else—and I guess formaldehyde but I’m probably wrong. I HATE that place. I feel bad but I try to foist of “grandpa visiting” on other people. I can’t stand to go there.

@keobooks I have never been in one. My MIL was just at her neices funeral recently and her ashes, in and urn, were placed in a columbarium at the church. She liked it. Liked the idea that when people come to church they cam also visit her if they wish, and I guess she feels comfortable at church. She said it was much nicer than having to go to a cemetary, which is more solemn and creepy. Or, she used similar words, not sure the exact translation, but I knew what she meant.

That’s kinda funny. I think cemeteries are very nice and natural. You can be with nature and stroll around in the older sections. I’ve always loved going to cemeteries. My other grandparents used to take me as a little kid and let me play and explore. My grandmother is really into geneology so she and my grandfather were always visiting ancient distant relatives so she could make rubbings and whatnot.

I looked at a pic of a columberia and It looked a lot like where my grandfather is inside the mausoleum. (At least he isn’t in a filing cabinet!) I wonder if where we are comfortable is a cultural thing, depending on how we were raised.

@keobooks Probably a lot has to do with culture and tradition. I find it really odd seeing flowers placed on graves row after row. I guess the relatives pay the cemetary to maintain bouquets of flowers? My MIL is Catholic, still goes to church, so I guess it feels very normal to her to have her remains there? She told it to me like she had not thought of it before though; not until she went to this funeral.

Only my dogs. Rooey died 2 years after we arrived in Australia so he is in a nice pot and resides on top of the kitchen cabinets wherever we live. Red died not too long ago so now he and Roo live on the top shelf together. I like to look up and see them there. Not spooky to me.

But I do like your idea of an urn rack. It could be on a lazy susan type spinning thing so you could twirl it around to find the right relative! You better get a patent on that one @laureth before someone steals your idea!

It doesn’t seem quite as creepy as when I first put him on the dresser. I think I’m more used to it now, or perhaps it was just the shock of having him be gone after knowing him all my life. Thanks for the insights, everyone. :)