Chicago company turns cremains into gems for survivors
Billie Tucker's husband, Kenneth, died suddenly in August 2006, but a part of him is with her all the time - literally.
The 64-year-old widow from Hoffman Estates had a small portion of her spouse's ashes turned into a blue-colored, half-karat diamond. A private Chicago-area company, LifeGem, handled the transformation for a little more than $6,000. The diamond is now mounted on a ring that has replaced Tucker's wedding band.
"I felt I was once again complete," she said, describing her reaction to the piece. "From the time he died, I felt that a part of me had been ripped away. There was somehow just this feeling of peace and that we were together again."
The relatively new LifeGem is banking on the notion that bereaved survivors want something more than a traditional burial or cremation for their loved one. One of the company's founders got the idea of turning "cremains" into gems after watching a documentary about lab-created diamonds, according to Dean VandenBiesen, LifeGem vice president of operations.
"The one thing that they kept stressing on this documentary … was that diamonds are made of carbon and carbon is the building block of all living things," he said.
He said the company's first successful diamond was made in 2002. With support from investors, the Des Plaines-headquartered firm has refined its manufacturing process and steadily grown, generating $7.5 million in revenues last year, VandenBiesen said. It is the only company of its kind in the United States, with manufacturing sites in North Dakota and Pennsylvania, he said.
To date, LifeGem has produced nearly 3,000 diamonds and has 700 orders in various stages of progress, he said. The diamonds range in price from $2,200 to $25,000 and take an average of six months to produce.
In the company's manufacturing process, carbon is extracted from cremains that are heat-vaporized in a vacuum. The remaining dark powder is put in an industrial press and intensely pressurized to create a diamond - similar to the way diamonds form naturally, but quicker by eons. Though the system is unregulated by government, the company employs tight controls to ensure that cremains are clearly identified and not co-mingled, VandenBiesen said.
LifeGem has proven that diamonds can be made from the dead. But a conversational question looms: Is the product going a little too far?
"Whether you're talking about caskets or burial or cremation in general, there's a lot of people out there who really don't want to talk about (death) and confront the issue," VandenBiesen said. "For those who just don't like the (diamond product), we say it's just another option among probably thousands out there of personal choices that people can make."
"This isn't something for everybody, obviously," he added. "If it was, we probably wouldn't be able to keep up with demand."
The latest "innovative memorialization" options in the funeral industry have included laser etchings that decorate headstones with realistic portraits of the deceased and digital biographies - mini-documentaries with photos and narration - that can be viewed at cemeteries.
The option of "cremation jewelry," in which a trace of cremains are placed in a vial for a necklace or ring, has been around for years, said Arvin Starrett, a Paris, Texas funeral director who is a spokesman for the National Funeral Directors Association. Cremains have even been blended into memorial paintings or statues, he said.
"LifeGem is the only company that actually makes a stone or piece of jewelry from the cremains," Starrett said.
The idea of preserving a keepsake from a deceased person is not new, says Cynthia Gano Lindner, director of Ministry Studies at the University of Chicago Divinity School, which teaches pastoral students how to comfort the bereaved. She cautioned that elaborate memorials are not a substitute for grieving but agreed that different individuals and cultures have their own way of dealing with death.
"The caution is always when we go past wanting to show our value for someone by these sometimes elaborate, sometimes expensive procedures," Lindner said. "You get elaborate funerals that people can't afford. I think one has to be careful with the equation of honoring a loved one and spending a lot of money to do that."
Tucker, the widow from Hoffman Estates, said she and her late husband talked about LifeGem a few years ago, as they discussed their desire to be cremated, rather than buried. She said she waited a few months after Kenneth Tucker's fatal heart attack before making arrangements to have a portion of his ashes transferred to the company.
She commissioned a jeweler to make a ring that combines the resulting blue LifeGem diamond with the clear diamond from her engagement ring, she said. While the new ring has been comforting, Tucker said it has taken her months to get beyond her initial grief.
She said people have reacted positively to her memento - not that she wants anyone's approval.
"The death and the grief process is very, very personal," Tucker said. "Whatever is right for you is right. You can't worry about (whether) other people feel that your decisions are correct or not."
Mike Ramsey can be reached at (312) 857-2323 or ghns-ramsey@sbcglobal.net <http://us.f812.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=ghns-ramsey@sbcglobal.net> .
Also a possibility: diamond from hair
You don't have to be dead to be the source of a diamond.
LifeGem, the Des Plaines-based company that creates diamonds from the ashes of cremains, now offers an alternative method: using a lock or clump of hair.
This solves the dilemma for people who want a diamond made from their loved one but who wish to bury, rather than cremate, the deceased. And, obviously, a customer can provide hair from a living person.
"We've had some people make what I would describe as a family heirloom-type diamond, where they'll take a lock of hair from each family member," Dean VandenBiesen, the company's vice president of operations, said. "We had a guy who took a lock of hair from his wife and two kids and had one blue diamond made. He had this sort of personal diamond that's just a reflection of the entire family. We've seen a couple come through for weddings."
To date, only about 100 diamonds have been made from hair, a fraction of the company's output, he said. Most of the hair source material has come from deceased people, VandenBiesen said.
- Mike Ramsey, GateHouse News Service