I love going up to Michigan.

The drive is like decompression; arrival is like landing.

We climb into our pod (aka our Toyota Matrix, aka "Neo") close the doors and we’re off, shuffling through half-a-dozen CDs (carefully hand-selected). With one stop for gas etc., (all off-ramp gas station/bathroom/foodmart/rest areas feel eerily similar) we arrive in under four hours.

I stretch mightily, shaking off the vaguely catatonic hypnosis from the road (driving is so much like sleepwalking).

Inhale.

I love the way Penny and I talk during the trip. We share space so well, a lucky combination of disposition, circumstance (man, we’ve had some small apartments) and pheromones.

The route feels like time travel. We leave our tightly packed neighborhood - rows of statuesque three flats between squat and sturdy six and eight unit condoplexes. We turn onto what is, for southbound traffic, the beginning of Lake Shore Drive.

The City eventually gives way to some of the most industrial parts of the Midwest. Gary, Indiana still smells like what a lot of the rust belt communities experienced before the advent of clean air standards: Ash, sulphur, sewage, god-know-what else strong enough to make you stick your face in your shirt.

Indiana becomes Michigan, and the hills and trees look manicured, even when leafless. They have the craziest things out there, things from centuries ago, like vineyards, orchards, farms - with very large animals!

Completing our journey back in time, after 180 miles of pavement, the road evaporates, becoming dirt, then gravel.

Inhale.

 

Penny and I spent our first Christmas eve eve as betrothed walking through the Lincoln Park zoo and checking out the zoo lights display. Neither of us had been before. It's actually really cool, and nicely done.
 

From Uncle Jim.

Yes, well that does bring up a conundrum for the eccentric confronted with a new problem, and lacking the determinism of a well worn rut. Of course true eccentrics always travel in ruts, but sooner or later, there comes a fork. Do you turn your loved one into jewelry, or call a taxidermist? Compress their carbon into a crystal, or stretch their skin over an heroic form? Diamonds offer perfect molecular order, but taxidermy has possibilities that plastic surgeons can only dream of. Consider the Jack-a-lope.

And consider the room: is it right for a discreet head mount, a showier shoulder mount, or, as favored by Mediterranean cultures, the whole body mount? The latter offers many more creative choices as one can pose one’s loved one in action. Perhaps on the stair climber, or cooking breakfast, or flopped out on the couch watching a game.

A mind is a terrible thing.

Jim

From my spiritual guru "Uncle" Art (aka Rabbi Lavender):

What will people think of next! Jewish tradition would be dead-set (sorry, couldn’t resist) against this. For one, Jewish tradition is unanimous that the cadaver should be

1) buried whole and untouched
2) as soon as possible after death, usually the very next day (except for Shabbat and holidays)

I think most of us want to believe that we will somehow live on after death. In Jewish tradition we live on in the memories that people have of us, and the good works we have done while we are alive.

Thinking that one’s remains can be turned into a diamond, which according to DeBeers and Ian Fleming are forever, strikes me as an exercise in vanity. So on behalf of Jewish tradition , I thusly proclaim it to be an act not only of vanity, but futility.

I love this time of year. I know, I know...secularist, Jew, liberal...and I still like Christmas time. Well, I guess I didn't get the memo about the "war against Christmas."  

And the plot thickens.

Robert wrote to me and said, "This is from a buddy of mine who is G.I.A. certified, holds a degree in geology from Skidmore, and who's family has owned a very successful jewelry business on Jewelers Row for years. If he says this is bullshit, it’s bullshit.”

While discussing this at work (yes, it has consumed my entire life over the last 72 hours or so) someone brought up the religious implications and we all wondered what different faiths (and sects within those faiths) might have to say about it. I couldn’t help but wonder what this might mean for people who believe in eternal souls…having your “spirit” captured in a rock, like those bad guys at the beginning of Superman II. I’m thinking about going into the cremation diamond business. Maybe I could call it General Zod and Co.

Robert's friend's conclusion was, "What a crock!!"

Curiouser and curiouser.

In one of my recent conversations at work about our upcoming wedding, the topic turned to rings, then diamonds. Someone mentioned that they were going to be turned into a diamond after they died, then made into a necklace so that their dearest (whomever that may turn out to be) could wear her next to their heart.

I was skeptical, then amused, disgusted, fascinated, then sketpical again.

I know they can make artifical diamonds, but from people?

A series of emails began (and continues) among my well informed and very imaginitive friends and relatives. This is why I love them so.

My initial thought was the same (or nearly) as [Jim's]; this has to be a scam. Not one to leave well enough alone (and fueled by a fit of post-work insomnia) I did a little research, most of which will bore everyone. (Except for maybe Jim...and that's one of the things (among many) I appreciate about him.)

Here's the link on the LifeGem site about the process.

For those who don't want to read all of the (admittedly, vague) info, here's the most important part. "After extensive research and development, [whatever that means] we have discovered how to extract the carbon from existing cremated remains." "Once captured, this carbon is heated to extremely high temperatures under special conditions. While removing the existing ash, this process converts your loved one’s carbon to graphite."

Like I said, vague.

Another thing that makes me leery is that it says, "LifeGem diamonds are individually inspected, graded, and identified by world-renowned gemologists trained by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA)."

A careful read here indicates not that they are GIA certified, but that they are "identified" (whatever that means) by gemologists "trained by GIA," which is not the same as being certified by GIA itself.

Searches for "cremation diamonds" and "cremation" on the GIA site turned up nothing.

From Corporate Information Officer magazine titled, “Diamonds (and Grandma) are Forever"
"Carbon leaves the body in the form of carbon dioxide during the cremation process, says Mark Bouffard, a LifeGem spokesman. But a patented process that manipulates the oxygen level in the cremation oven allows the carbon to remain.”

According to wikipedia:
LifeGem claims to use a "carbon curing" container to collect the human remains halfway through the cremation process. The carbon is supposedly converted to graphite after purification, from which point it is sent to a diamond synthesis facility. As of spring 2003 the task of synthesis was given exclusively to Lucent Diamonds of Colorado. The diamonds were made via the thermal gradient method by a team of Russian scientists using iron alloys as a flux at pressures of 5.0–6.0 GPa and temperatures of 1,600–2,000 °C. The entire process, from cremation to finished stone, is said to take about six months.

The wikipedia article also states:
It is important to note that, at present, there is no nondestructive method of testing the origin of carbon used in diamond synthesis: It has yet to be independently verified that LifeGem products (patent pending) are indeed composed—either in part or in whole—of human remains, or if the carbon is from another source.

Interesting tidbits:

Apparently, they originally created the process from pigs. I guess you can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear after all.

A Yahoo! search for"cremation diamonds" returned 183,000 hits.

Lifegem is a member of the Cremation Association of North America (CANA).

From About.com:
Getting the Carbon:
Carbon released during cremation is captured as a dark powder, then heated to produce graphite. The graphite is sent to a lab where it is synthesized into fancy colored diamonds. (I guess if the diamond thing doesn't work for you, you can always use the graphite and make someone into a gross of #2 pencils.)
Skeptical?
LifeGem says it has an open door policy, allowing you to inspect many aspects of their tracking system. The system follows all remains throughout the entire process, from cremation to faceting. They also offer a more advanced type of system that uses special markers to track remains.
Diamonds From Pets?
Yes, the company will produce diamonds from your pet's remains.
Diamond Quality
LifeGem says that its overall quality target is to produce gems at the VVS clarity level (very, very slightly included; very, very slightly imperfect).

So there you have it.

The general consensus among those I emailed is that this process runs from weird to creepy to just plain "sick." Though one friend of mine said she would turn her family into a tiara.

Good luck with that.