Life After Mother: Cost of Cremation

My parents both willed their bodies to science, and both cared little about any arrangements for their final resting places beyond that. They shared the attitude, “I’ll be dead, so it won’t matter anyway.” Such an attitude, though, simply transfers the burden of making decisions to one’s survivors.

My father’s body was willed to the University of Southern California, and they offered me the option of having his ashes returned to me after the scientific study was done, or having the school dispose of them. I chose the first option, reasoning that the decision regarding his final resting place should be mine.

When I claimed the plastic container containing my father’s ashes, with the package came a burial permit, a legal document that acknowledges the registration of a death and allows the disposition of human remains such as burial, cremation, or scattering. The permit has a time limit of one year — after that, if you want the remains placed in a cemetery, they’ll assist you with a refiling of the permit.

My father didn’t want a funeral or memorial, so I considered three options: to keep his ashes in a private place (such as a family shrine or memorial garden), scatter them, or inter them in a columbarium or other designated place within a cemetery. I had no suitable space on family property — so that left the other two choices.

There’s at least one company in southern California that scatters ashes at sea, and I found the company charges different rates depending on the location (as well as such considerations as whether the scattering is “observed” or “unobserved”). My father wasn’t a seaman, though, he was more of a mountaineer, so I next considered the possibility of scattering his ashes in a favorite wilderness spot. I’d need to choose a specific place, though, and factor in the cost of travel, and work around any legal or official restrictions.

Then, too, if I did a scattering myself, I’d have to dispose not only of the ashes but also their plastic container. So after weighing all considerations, I decided to let a cemetery handle the job. 

Next I called two cemeteries in Oregon where members of my father’s family are buried. One, in Portland, gave me a price in five figures — just for interning the ashes, not for anything extra such as a service. The other one, in the smaller city of Medford, charged roughly half as much, a price in four figures.

My father was a veteran, though, and the National Cemetery Administration provides cost-free burial for veterans. I made arrangements with the Willamette National Cemetery in Portland, and I was even able to mail his cremated remains to the cemetery, saving myself a trip.

When my mother died, after I gifted her body to the University of California Irvine in accordance with her wishes, they explained they handled disposal of the cremated remains, and I agreed with complete peace of mind.