Wednesday, October 12, 2005

In the realm of the unusual are the various ways that people choose for their final send off. Wanting to have a great final good bye is probably at least some of the motivation behind the unusual memorial services and items chosen. After all today's traditional funerals which can be huge celebrations of life with lots of food and music and the practice becoming less common of having a loved ones ashes in an urn on the mantle were probably considered, at one time,unusual. So getting your ashes shot into space in a Memorial Spaceflight , sent up in a balloon , used as part of a fireworks show, sunk to the bottom of the ocean for a memorial reef, encased in a paperweight or made into a diamond may not seem to be too much of a stretch for those who look for the unique way to do things. James Doohan's, (Scotty of Star Trek) send off will be a space launch, a fitting final gesture which highlights another reason to choose an unusual memorial service.
This month's "What's the Story?" page at Therapy Resources has a Ukrainian folktale called "Why the Old are no Longer put to Death" on it. Talk with your group about the story and the values presented in it and segue into a conversation about funerals and memorials to take the discussion in another direction.