Life in the Garden

Matters of Life and Death

mental health

Allow 3 to 5 Weeks Delivery

Back in the day if you ordered an item, whether it was advertised on t.v., magazine, or catalog, you expected 4-6 weeks before it arrived on your doorstep. One of the earliest examples of direct advertising I can remember was for the product Didi 7 on the television.

The disclaimer specifically states to allow 3-5 weeks for delivery.  You could call a free number, an operator was standing by and it shipped from the middle of the country.  Why did processing take so long? Was the product made to order? Not long ago, I recall seeing this product on a store shelf and noting that it had the familiar warning that it has been known to cause cancer in the state of California.

So now we have a continuous stream of marketing on the internet and you can buy anything you want and in most cases get delivery the next day. It’s magical, a couple of clicks and tomorrow you’re problems are solved. Or further complicated, depending on your purchase and what time of day you ordered. We have urns for sale. An item that no one wants to buy. Buying an urn can be an emotional experience and if you are making a purchase under pressure on Friday for a memorial service on the weekend, you should probably call the vendor and check the details of delivery. Sadly, we find that customers that have grown up in a 24-7 culture expect instant if they place the order at 2 AM on Saturday morning, the item will arrive on Sunday.  In the not too distant future, it will happen as Amazon begins to open distribution centers around the country offering same day delivery.

Because I’m paranoid, If I were making a time sensitive purchase,  I’d call ahead to make sure the item was in stock and available to ship right away, and if it does ship, when could I really expect it? I’d leave good contact information and make sure that my voice mail isn’t full.

Urn Garden stocks most of the urns and memorials that we sell. Usually,  your purchase is in transit within 24 hours, or at least on the next business day. If you have a question, we’re available to take your call. If not? Leave a message, we’ll return your call right away. We’re centrally located and here to serve, but we have to comply with the courier’s shipping schedule, how much you are willing to pay, and occasionally Mother Nature factors into your delivery.

Urn Garden Cremation Urns

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger. Oh, Really?

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Seems like I hear this phrase a lot lately. I don’t use it, because I’m not sold on it. But for years, I’ve heard others say it with conviction.  Kanye squeezed a hit out of it.

Toyota is using the Kelly Clarkson tune for the 2012 Camry campaign.

Christopher Hitchens confirmed my uneasiness with his essay on the subject in Vanity Fair. “Before I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer a year and a half ago, I rather jauntily told the readers of my memoirs that when faced with extinction I wanted to be fully conscious and awake, in order to “do” death in the active and not the passive sense. And I do, still, try to nurture that little flame of curiosity and defiance: willing to play out the string to the end and wishing to be spared nothing that properly belongs to a life span. However, one thing that grave illness does is to make you examine familiar principles and seemingly reliable sayings. And there’s one that I find I am not saying with quite the same conviction as I once used to: In particular, I have slightly stopped issuing the announcement that “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

Memorial Tattoos As An Art Form

vintage forget me not postcard

Ink has become so mainstream that now it seems that if you don’t have a tat, you’re in the minority. One trend we’ve seen is the memorial tattoo. So many personal styles, we like to collect them as an art form.

A couple of local examples:

My nephew got one to honor the grandmother who payed for piano and guitar lessons. The music has stayed with him his entire life and he wanted to honor her legacy.

Memorial Tattoo

vials for ashes

My tree trimmer who got a tree of life inked to remember his brother who was also a tree trimmer, they worked together as a team for many years. His brother has been gone a long time, this tattoo was done shortly after his passing and needs to be touched up according to the owner.

faded memorial tattoo

And full-on canvas covering back piece to as a Vietnam war memorial:

memorial tattoo, full back tat

In Ohio, Travis Green wears a vial of his father’s ashes. Literally! In addition to the container that Travis wears around his neck, Travis got a memorial tattoo with his father’s ashes in the ink. Father and son had discussed this before his father’s death.

Whatever you decide on, remember this:  It’s a commitment.

bad tats, bad memorial tattoo

Oregon’s Unclaimed Dead, Lost and Found

vintage postcard brother

An Oregon newspaper, “The Oregonian”  has created the country’s first searchable database of the state’s Indigent Burial Fund, with the names of people whose bodies were unclaimed and cremated or who’s bodies were donated to the OHSU anatomy lab from January 2000 to the present. The Oregonian is releasing this information so that families may find lost relatives — or at least learn the final chapter of their history.

As families are able to locate their missing loved ones, bittersweet stories are emerging.