Enchantment: Ashes, Diamonds and the Transformation of Funeral Culture [1 ed.] 9783666670213, 9783525670217

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Thorsten Benkel » Thomas Klie » Matthias Meitzler

Enchantment Ashes, Diamonds and the Transformation of Funeral Culture

Thorsten Benkel » Thomas Klie » Matthias Meitzler

Enchantment Ashes, Diamonds and the Transformation of Funeral Culture With 40 figures

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

The Brilliance of Life vs. the Brilliance of Death

This sculpture consists of the platinum cast of a real human skull, presumably from the 18th century. The surface of the bone structure is filled with some 8,600 diamonds of varying sizes. The resulting production costs were 14 million British pounds or about 15.5 million €, securing this artistic work a special place in art history, not the least because of its purely economic value. The title “For the Love of God” seems to imply a religious connotation, also seen in the death motif of the skull itself. This in turn would suggest a connection to vanitas imagery, also situating it within a specific art-historical tradition. The use of precious stones may refer to the literal “value” there is in caring for the dead, also reflected in the title itself – an indication of divine reference that rules over life and death, that determines both our existence and our passing. But “The Love of God” may also determine whose bones are of value after death and whose bones – unlike the hard diamonds – eventually disappear and become dust.

Damien Hirst, For the Love of God, 2007 © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved DACS/Artimage 2019. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020

Preface to the English Edition

The translation of this volume into English is a plausible venture since the phenomenon of cremation artifacts has become an international affair. The ongoing changes in the burial culture, the newest technical possibilities, and the rituals surrounding funerary practices are no longer parochially limited to a single cultural area. Rather, the social transformational processes reported in this volume are symptoms of a worldwide tendency toward empowering the individual as active agent, which, of course, manifests itself differently within the respective cultural context. Our focus here lies on connecting dying, death, and grief with materiality, which we discovered exists in two inseparable dimensions: First, the end of life is still a very physical phenomenon, inasmuch as the physiological substrate of the human being becomes a corpse in the moment of death. Many cultures deal with the unavoidable materiality of death by creating diverse traditional rituals, all steered toward making the corpse invisible, be it through a coffin, cremation, or other methods. Yet newer procedures surrounding the dead body provide feasible alternatives. Second, we are interested in the concrete materiality, in the form of a treasure removed from its original cultural roots. We treat this as a means of enchanting the dead body to become a gemstone, to which end technical mechanisms are necessary. But, especially, it is based on the express desire of the relatives to initiate this transformation event in the first place. So, when complex machines are creatively combined with changing approaches to memorializing the deceased, something brand new emerges. In our example, it is a diamond that comprises human remains and with its radiance outshines death. For international readers, it is likely informative to learn more about the framework of our research efforts, particularly the legal background and the dissatisfaction repeatedly expressed toward that background. These aspects do not form the focal point of this volume, even though they repeatedly appear on the horizon – especially in the subtext of the extensive interview passages quoting the conversations we had with relatives. A few words are necessary on this matter.

Our study was carried out in the German-speaking countries of Europe, that is, in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Most of those who decided to have a so-called “ash diamond” (a term we like and stick to) made are German citizens. Germany today is divided up into 16 states, all of which have their own laws governing burial. Thus, there are no longer uniform regulations for funerary matters, as was the case before 1945. Rather, there exists a disparate hodgepodge of in part very different legal perspectives concerning what is to be done when burying the dead body. What is common to all 16 German state legal frameworks is that across the board they demand that all corpses (and any parts thereof) be buried in official burial grounds. There are only very few exceptions to this rule. These legal terms severely restrict the latitude of survivors to grieve for their loved ones – unlike the rules in effect in many other European countries or the rest of the world. In Germany, this institutionally robs survivors of the “power of disposition” regarding their decedent (at least what physically remains of the person in question). This rigorously enforced practice stems from the need to preserve order at all costs. Yet, in times of ever-greater social individualization, people are prone to want to exert more power themselves, particularly regarding their interests, norms, and emotional states. And they are sometimes willing to dodge the legal specifications if they have the feeling that they are morally justified in doing so. The ash diamond is squarely located in just such a gray zone and for many today clearly represents a way to skirt official limitations. Thus, an illegitimate procedure becomes a means of emotional support; the effect is nothing less than to create a physical proximity that extends beyond death – at least to whatever the jewel physically memorializes. Thus, briefly, the bureaucratic background to our concomitant research project. What interested us the most in this volume will quickly become clear to its readers: What do people who have had a diamond created from the ashes of their loved ones do with that object – and what does the diamond do to its owner?

Table of Contents

The Brilliance of Life vs. the Brilliance of Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

4

Preface to the English Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

6

1 Artifact and Commemoration: Transforming Materiality in the Context of Grief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11 Thorsten Benkel, Thomas Klie, Matthias Meitzler 2 Case Analysis I: “She didn’t like the idea of being buried” . . . . . . . . . .  27 Thomas Klie 3 Levels of Inorganic Life and the Human. Metamorphosis Between Sociality and Materiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  33 Thorsten Benkel 4 Case Analysis II: “He still protects me” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  57 Matthias Meitzler 5 The “Invincible” Brilliance of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  65 Thomas Klie 6 Case Analysis III: Letting Go. A Story of Artifact Abstinence . . . . . .  77 Thorsten Benkel 7 Autonomy as Legitimization.Professional Dealings in the Context of Ash Artifacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  83 Matthias Meitzler

8 “So that’s my wife …?” The Presentation of an Ash Jewel . . . . . . . . . .  113 Thorsten Benkel and Matthias Meitzler 9 Living with the Diamond. Voices from Everyday Life . . . . . . . . . . . . .  121 Thorsten Benkel, Thomas Klie, Matthias Meitzler 10 Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Insights and Outlooks . . . . . . . . . . .  189 Thorsten Benkel, Thomas Klie, Matthias Meitzler

Appendix “That is true love.” Interacting with the Ash Diamond from the Perspective of a Survivor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 “Yvonne wanted it that way.” Letters from Survivors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 “Get up, child, get up!” The Document of a Loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  231 Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  237 The Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  239

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 Artifact and Commemoration: Transforming Materiality in the Context of Grief

Thorsten Benkel, Thomas Klie, Matthias Meitzler Well, if this house were to be burning down, I’d first let the cats out, then get the diamond and run for it. All the rest, forget it [laughs]. A female interview partner (26M)

If you were to run into her, you would not notice right off the jewelry hanging around her neck. Upon closer inspection, however, this jewel would come to strike you: The polished light-blue stone draws your attention to it and becomes a topic of conversation. Yet, it was not purchased in some jewelry store, and its value cannot be weighed in money, for the diamond this woman wears around her neck day and night is a unique piece of jewelry. It didn’t get mined somewhere from the earth but was created in a factory. She paid a price for it befitting a diamond. And yet the real price was paid long ago, by someone else. The jewelry she is wearing was created from human remains, the cremation ashes of her husband from which the carbon was extracted in a technically elaborate process, and which was then pressed into a diamond under very naturalistic circumstances. It was then handed over to her during a ceremony, and she has not let it leave her body since. She does not – this is her conviction – have something dead hanging around her neck; rather, she wears the remembrance of the time she and her husband spent together in the material form of jewel nearly the size of one carat. For her, this artifact is a gem that represents what physically remains of her beloved husband. She enjoys that nearness to her body.

1.1 Corpses “to go”? What role do diamonds play in the grief process survivors go through who decide to have the cremated remains of their deceased loved ones turned into a crystalline object to be preserved? That, in short, is the question that motivated this volume. As part of an empirical research project entitled “Artifact and Commemoration,” the authors (two sociologists and one theologian) decided to address this matter – and discovered many surprising answers. But before the

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owners of such “ash diamonds” reflect on their specific experiences, the special type of mourning they went through, and the impact of their living with these glittering relics, we would first like to study this rather recent phenomenon of creating objects of jewelry from human remains, especially in connection with the newest changes going on in the funeral and burial culture. In modern society, it seems to be of particular relevance to give one’s memory of someone a special, material form. The desire to retain a memory or memories is clear and present, and yet we are all aware of how fleeting memory and how painful the undesired effects of forgetting in fact can be. For this reason, humans have come up with any number of objects and rituals. The feeling of living in an ever-faster-moving present, of dealing with unstable relationships, of being confronted with the contingencies of life itself has moved people to desire some material form of remembrance. We seek things and scenes that have staying power, that are exempt from the cycles of coming and going. And what better way than to create a diamond that imparts to its owner some sort of eternal splendor. At the same time, it reveals the need to “go public” with one’s existential cares and feelings without exposing any true intimacy. Death and love enter here into a visible and tangible union, expressed in private rituals not privy to others (cf. Fechtner/Klie 2019, pp. 14 f.). The creation of a diamond through high pressure and high temperatures is without parallel among the many facultative ways death and burial are celebrated. Nevertheless, this development takes place within a complex social context that goes far beyond this rather unusual form of nonburial. The novel part lies in the deceased person retaining materiality in the form of an artifact that triggers memory. But it is also novel in that it is a form of grief and remembrance that significantly attaches to wearable and flexible signs of death, even though death often involves a multitude of memory artifacts (photos, items of clothing, everyday objects, souvenirs, etc.). Yet, these things only represent the deceased person; theologically, they are simply so-called “contact relics.”1 There is nothing new to the religious exaltation of bodily parts as relics, which can be traced back in Christian history to the 2nd century AD. However, in contrast to relics taken from a body part of someone who died a natural death (largely bones) and imbued with a special sort of sacredness, ash diamonds are artifi1

The Catholic Church differentiates between three different classes of relics: First-class relics consist of bodily parts of saints, particularly of their skeleton (Latin ex ossibus – from the bones), but also hair, fingernails, and blood. With martyrs who were burned at the stake or cremated, their ashes are also considered first-class relics. Second-class relics (“contact relics”) are objects that saints touched while alive (e. g., garments, instruments of torture). Finally, third-class relics are objects that have had contact with first-class relics (Angenendt 2000; Laube 2011).

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cially estheticized artifacts that substantially, technically, and ideally symbolize the deceased in the “second derivation.” The metamorphosis of the human remains takes place in a transformation not only of the material, but also of the form. Esthetically, it is a complete transformation: Nothing remains of the original physical form; nothing reminds us of the person represented by the diamond. Rather, that person effectively is the diamond.

To some extent, from an art-history perspective, such transformations are not really new. When cremation first became technically feasible at the end of the 19th century, a new and dynamic phase in burial culture commenced, which was to change the way the dead body was viewed in some very long-lasting and irreversible ways (Uhrig 2017). The accelerated metamorphosis of the body through cremation “objectified” the practice of caring for the dead: It allowed human remains to be physically handled and re-formed (Klie 2017). What is new is that, when ordering the diamond compression, the customer can accumulate and mix different options. Since the creation of industrial diamonds generally requires only part of the cremated ashes, the following variations are possible: (1) Creation of several diamonds, (2) creation of a single diamond (the remainder of the ashes are then scattered in Switzerland), (3) creation of one or more diamonds, with the family taking the remainder of the ashes with them (this is presently the case in Germany, where it is demanded that the ashes be buried according to the respective state laws). Ash diamonds (as well as rubies and sapphires, which are created with slightly different tech-

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nical means from ashes) thus do not necessarily contradict traditional means of burial in a cemetery. All of the above-mentioned methods are also possible using only the hair or other carbon-rich artifacts of the deceased. The spectrum of services offered even extend to the living, who can donate their hair in advance. Should the amount of carbon mass be insufficient, one can complement it with other materials important and dear to the deceased. Even the deceased’s diaries have been known to be used for this purpose. A presently unsolved legal problem (at least in Germany, though not in Switzerland) is the particularization of the ashes. The obligation to bury human remains demands that they be placed securely at some specific and immobile location (mandatory cemetery burial, violation of graves) and stands in contrast to the mobility necessary to create a diamond: One first has to commission the creation of a diamond and then retrieve it in order to wear it on one’s body as jewelry, meaning the remains are no longer located only at one place or even on one person. The desire to circumnavigate or somehow avoid the (German) demand that burial take place in a cemetery has been the topic of discussion for some time now (Benkel/Meitzler 2013; Benkel 2016a). The individualization of modern lifestyles and the pluralization of life paths have generated a reality that fails to see the necessity and suitability of disposing of human remains in an immobile cemetery. The more mobile society becomes, the more restrictive and overreglemented this static method of immobile arrangements seems. And this has long included how we perceive the cemetery. In this regard, Aleida Assmann concludes: “In an age of modern mobility and constant renewal, the idea that the memory of a place is necessarily connected to some certain piece of real estate is obsolete” (2010, p. 326). Yet, even if one does not share this opinion, it is still clear that visiting the cemetery is losing its social character and may in fact be rejected precisely because of the compulsory nature and the inflexibility of the rules that characterize it. In turn, more dynamic places of burial are enjoying growing attractiveness since they offer alternative approaches and remembrance formats. Burials in natural settings, virtual cemeteries on the internet, urns as jewelry cases, receptacles deposited at interim locations – these and other concepts lie within the gray legal area, much like the creation of diamonds from ashes.2 Add to that tree burials, ashes being integrated into paintings or glass 2 On the borders of legality lies the practice of some funeral homes to provide part of the cremation ashes in a “mini-urn” (to take home) or in a “ash pendant” (such as jewelry for private purposes).

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sculptures, or pressed onto the surface of a record album and we can see how far the burial culture has been forced to adapt. The traditional cemetery is not only losing its role as the place of mourning, it is no longer considered even the place of burial. Of course, any such development creates its own antagonists and repercussions: Contradictory developments occur parallel; traditions and innovations overlap. The broad differentiation of such possibilities means that traditional forms seen antiquated, especially when, in the experience of those affected – the mourning survivors – no institutional offers are being made to assist in the grieving phase, only prescriptions. Scientifically speaking, it becomes clear that this creates dissatisfaction, not the least in light of a critical look across the border to the more liberal approaches in neighboring countries. The desire to experience autonomy has long become part of the modern lifestyle and is today integral and popular. This trend will increasingly also extend to the realm of death, dying, and grieving. Large parts of the population have come to think that how and where one chooses to mourn the death of a beloved person (if at all) should not be dictated by laws or moral directives laid down many decades or centuries ago. Rather, any such actions should occur in accordance with one’s own individual preferences, at most in consultation with the deceased’s family or their immediate social environment (cf. in detail Benkel/Meitzler/Preuß 2019).

1.2 Pluralization and Forced Decision-Making That burial culture is going through major changes is evidenced in the basic tenor found in many publications on this topic over the past two decades. Even a couple of generations ago, burial seemed to be a hard and fast rite that appeared to be able to withstand the phenomenon of cultural acceleration. Today, the opposite is the case: There is hardly another segment of culture where changes in form and habit, interpretation, and behavioral motives of moral and taste have so clearly changed as our attitudes toward the dead. Today, people are no longer satisfied with outdated approaches and are on the outlook for more contemporary forms of funerary stagings for their deceased loved ones. Instead of normative conventions, we find the Janus-faced seduction of other options. With great self-confidence, modern mourners skirt perceived and factual specifications. Gray areas become green areas; the interplay between esthetics and the lack thereof is on the increase. Opulent earth burials, anonymous spreading of ashes, common burial spots for urns, woodland burial sites – all these alternatives and more give the impression that the rules are being revised from burial to burial.

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In light of what is both imaginable and doable today, burial culture is learning to adapt to the laws of the marketplace. Various ideological horizons are on the increase and becoming networked to boot. The role of economics has always been a factor in dealing with corpses, but for many centuries it stood largely in the background. Today, that is no longer the case (Akyel 2013): Relatives have become customers to be courted, since both in families and in society in general the cultural knowledge about how to approach both the dead and their survivors is rapidly disappearing. The rituals of having someone lie in state at home (“wake”), of washing and dressing the corpse have become seldom. Yet, when traditional approaches lose their ritual plausibility, they make way for the rise of uncertainties. It is “impossible to escape this dilemma, nor can you simply retransform [these feelings] into a silence you can live with. […] Considering, regarding, planning, choosing, negotiating, determining, revoking […] those are the imperatives of engaging in the ‘risky freedoms’ that modern life confronts us with. Even deciding not to decide, the blessing of just enduring, is not available” (Beck/Beck-Gernsheim 1994, p. 18). Today, one can choose from a multitude of possibilities – indeed, one must choose. The decision described to engage in bold self-determination seems logical against this background, but it too remains somehow attached to overall social developments. This does not mean that the survivors have more reflexivity, but rather a strange sort of continuity: The inner attitudes emerge in the context of the end of life where they particularly strongly reveal their independence – not detached from the dominating patterns of the culture in which they developed. Seen in this way, individualization is not the opposite but the modern equivalent of earlier approaches that celebrated collectivity.

1.3 Cemetery Obligation and Cemetery Exodus In Germany, by law, every deceased person must be buried – in one form or another. The dead are thus disposed of in a very traditional way. Burial systematically and dutifully withdraws them from the sight and the access of the living (Benkel 2013a; Meitzler 2017a). This generally happens in a cemetery, where the corpse must remain in the grave for a set period of time – regardless of whether it is an earth burial or a cremation. This formalized period is explained (biologically) by the time it takes for a corpse to decompose and (culturally) by the traditional legal tenet of caring for the dead. Minimum burial times depend on the type of burial and the cemetery in question; urn burials often demand shorter times than earth burials. This period is set by the local cemetery operator, the

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respective municipality, or the local church. Because the respective federal state has been responsible for legislating burial rights for many decades, burial times can vary widely. Local circumstances (such as the soil conditions of the burial field) can also account for differences in this regard (Roland 2006). Theologically speaking, cemetery burial stems from the idea of still lying in one’s grave on Judgment Day. The sounding of the “last trumpet” (cf. Rev. 8–9 and 11,15; 1 Cor. 15,52) serves to awaken the dead and transform the living. Thus, headstones may be removed and the graves leveled, but the mortal remains should not be removed from the grave. In Jewish cemeteries, on the other hand, no graves are supposed to be disturbed or reused; this means “eternal peace,” with the burial plots being permanently “fraught with reverence.” The same is true for the graves of Muslims, which sometimes means transferring the dead to their homelands to avoid conflicts with the German graveyard restrictions. Today, however, the latter two groups receive some concessions representing a compromise between religious and administrative necessities. Of course, compromises always mean that those involved – both sides – would in fact prefer something else. The burial obligation has been in force in Germany since the Middle Ages. Originally, the Church was responsible for burying the dead, which meant every individual church had its own graveyard surrounding the church building, the so-called churchyard. The Church was also responsible for burying the destitute. But over the centuries, the cemetery business changed; especially the Reformation introduced a new and innovative spirit to things. The administration of the cemetery was no longer monopolized by the Church but gradually shifted to the responsibility of the municipality. The dead were no longer buried in the churchyard – likely the middle of the respective village or town – but instead in areas lying outside of the city walls.3 In 1806, the State of Prussia issued its “Allgemeine Preußische Landrecht” (General Prussian Land Law), which included statutes governing burial grounds. For example, for hygienic reasons, it was forbidden to bury someone near inhabited locations. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the other German states have issued their own burial laws. The central “Feuerbestattungsgesetz” (lit. fire burial law = cremation) – an Imperial Act – is from the year 1934; for the first time, it declared that earth and fire burials (cremation) were equally possible, which addressed the fact that cremation had been forbidden since 785, when 3 The various “compass point” cemeteries, still found in some large cities, are witnesses to this movement and their present innercity location the result of city sprawl. The congruence that long existed between Church, burial spot, and place of mourning thus successively dissolved.

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Charlemagne officially banned the ancient practice from the burial cultural repertoire. During the Renaissance, at the latest during the 19th century, however, the call was increasingly being made to allow this space-saving, cost-efficient, and above all hygienic alternative to earth burial (Thalmann 1978; classical: Caspari 1914). In 1878, the first crematorium on German soil was erected on the grounds of the Main Cemetery in Gotha, followed by similar facilities in Heidelberg (1891) and Hamburg (1892). Cremation then advanced to become a sign of progress, pragmatism, and cleanliness – although the overall number of cremations remained modest. Today, the situation is very different: The high number of cremations may be considered the “funerary signet of a modern society” (Fischer 2011, p. 132).4 Although cremation has become a highly standardized method with few deviations, it does mark the beginning of manifold developments for handling the ash remains of the dead (cf. Benkel/Meitz­ler 2013, pp. 252 ff.). The law regulating cremation is still relevant today, though not completely binding. Despite the upgrade cremation has received (see above), the law still requires a second postmortem medical examination immediately before the actual cremation as well as the relatives to bury the urn in an approved cemetery. Yet there are some exceptions that, upon closer inspection, do seem to be somewhat more modern than many stipulations still on the books in the state burial laws (Spranger/Pasic/Kriebel 2014). This was the legal background and the social “common sense” solutions valid up until about the year 2000. From the vantage point of cultural history, it seems reasonable to take the turn of the millennium as a sort of saddle period of funerary customs in Central Europe: Shortly before the year 2000 and thereafter some extraordinary innovations in this field appeared. In 1985, the Cemetery West in Rostock allowed the anonymous scattering of ashes. This occurred before the fall of the Berlin Wall and was still part of East German burial culture, reaching the general German consciousness only after 1989. Other German states soon adopted this practice as well. Around 1990, the first headstones appeared in cemeteries with pictures of the deceased person, who had otherwise been made physically invisible to the viewer. This slowly revived a practice used since about 1840 in Central Europe, frowned upon during National Socialism and in the time thereafter still considered undesirable in many cemeteries. It would appear that especially photos of 4 Depending on the respective region and the sociostructural characteristics, the number of cremations varies widely. Nationally, some 70 % of all burials in Germany (2017) are cremations (according to the Gütegemeinschaft Feuerbestattungsanlagen e. V. = National Association of Crematoriums, data from July 2018). In some parts of former East Germany, the rate exceeds even 90 %.

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deceased children in their special graveyards were the vanguards of this development: Since the time the children had spent with their loved ones was limited, at least their place of rest should be adorned with their countenance. In addition to professionally produced formats (oval-shaped porcelain frames), we also find improvised and replaceable images, including at some point everyday snapshots. The breakthrough came when travelers began to experience the burial and cemetery customs in Southern Europe or South America. Today, adding photos to the burial sites is among the most common, well-known, and also intimate means of posttraditional remembrance (Benkel/Meitzler 2014; Meitzler 2017b).

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Since 1995, the initiative Memento offers common burial grounds for AIDS victims at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg. This meant that, instead of the biological family, for the first time a posttraditional community – a self-determined community of fate – became the common theme. And this community tended to take leave from their dead in special ways: by sipping prosecco and using balloons as part of the funeral or memorial service. This new development was soon imitated in other settings. An invention of the 1990s is the internet cemetery. With the click of a mouse, so-called virtual burial plots can be garnished with digital flowers or receive

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condolences. Parallel to the physical burial spot of the deceased, this creates an alternative address for “immaterial” mourning, including the online posting of photos, videos, and music as well as links and all other sorts of interactive elements. These contributions in turn can be reached from anywhere in the world – as long as there’s an internet connection (Stöttner 2018; Offerhaus 2016). The first Körperwelten (Body Worlds) exhibition was opened on 30 October 1997 in the Landesmuseum für Technik und Arbeit (aka the Technoseum) in Mannheim. This exhibition relativized the concept of not violating a grave in an open and esthetic way. The dead body became visible and accessible (Schärtl 2011), albeit in a rather solemn and sober atmosphere devoid of the show effects that later came to characterize this kind of display. On 7 November 2001, a part of the Reinhardswald, a 200 km2 stretch of forest in the northern part of the State of Hesse, became the first German “Friedwald” (burial forest, also called green burial, natural burial, or green cremation). This made it the first legal alternative to conventional cemeteries, a phenomenon well known in Switzerland: burial in natural surroundings, initially without any markings on the trees. Since 1 January 2004, the so-called Sterbegeld (death benefits) is no longer part of the customary catalog of benefits of the statutory health insurance companies. This makes any funeral and burial more expensive to the relatives, which in turn made the cost factor a prominent criterion in the burial behavior of many citizens. The same year saw the dedication of the first modern church columbarium. The pioneer in this area was the Old Catholic Parish Church Erscheinung Christi (The Appearance of Christ) in Krefeld. A relatively simple columbarium wall was established during renovations to the lateral chapel. Initially, it was foreseen as a space for public viewing, but the lack of demand caused this plan to be discarded. Then the decision was made to create an inexpensive but personal form of safekeeping urns as an alternative to anonymous burials (cf. Sparre 2017, p. 71). Also in 2004, the firm of Algordanza in Switzerland first began manufacturing so-called “memorial diamonds” from cremation ashes. Here, industrial processes imitate the complex methods nature normally needs to create diamonds. The production of mobile remembrance artifacts to represent the deceased in very special ways to their relatives is both a technical innovation and a revolutionary step in dealing with cremation ashes. There are several other indications that support the thesis that the year 2000 experienced an acceleration in the changes to the Central European burial culture, culminating in a long-lasting and gradual development that was already in progress: the withdrawal of direct interaction with a dead body from the private

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sphere and its delegation to the professional sphere. Whether in a hospital, in a nursing home, or in a hospice – the deceased are handled primarily by hired personnel, picked up, dressed, and put into a coffin by undertakers. Today, in earth burials the coffin remains largely closed, for “reasons of reverence”; with cremations, the relatives rarely ever actually see the ashes. Even pastors generally never come into contact with the corpses they are ritually blessing and burying. To enable relatives to create a distance between themselves and their dead loved ones, modern society has outsourced and institutionalized the work steps involved. Except for the (relatively rare) cases of accidents, death appears on our immediate horizon only when it affects our own age group. Such moments of the “proximity of death” (Benkel 2017, p. 277) are then felt to be tragic and painful precisely because they so acutely interrupt out daily routines – much different than the situation in the Middle Ages, for example, where confrontation with the end of life was, for various reasons, not uncommon (Ariès 1982). Today, death and dying are culturally invisible acts. The higher life expectation goes, the lower child mortality sinks, the more the harbingers of death, aging, and disease are displaced from everyday life, the more we late-modern subjects are irritated at experiencing the fact of human demise (cf. Drehsen 1994, p. 204). Non-life has experienced a great loss of reputation: Instead of imagining that death provides life with some meaning, and that life is lived from the end backward (cf. Psalms 90,12, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”), an end that, according to some religious beliefs, is only a transitional state, today we strive to avoid any interruption of the “ego-hunt” (Gross 1999) and the resulting confrontation with the productive aspects of the end of life. Perhaps that is the problem with modern society: It fails to include death in any meaningful way and thus loses sight of its value.

1.4 The Diamond as a Commemorative Artifact Analogous to the biological transformation of the corpse in the grave, the process of creating a diamond is removed from the direct observation of the relatives. This metamorphosis occurs on several levels since, before the carbon content of the cremation ashes can be turned into the “raw materials” necessary to create a diamond, the dead body must first be oxidized to a heap of ashes. Yet, only the invariant final product – the diamond – is available to our sense of touch and sight. Quite different from the case of the immobile grave in the cemetery – and even quite different from the ashes from cremation – this piece of jewelry is an object of remembrance that can be held and handled by the rel-

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atives. It is, in the truest sense of the word, presentable: It can adorn the body; it can be stored in a representative container; it can be integrated into daily routines. Thus, relatives become owners. More than just an idea and a production commission, purchasing the diamond becomes a formalized way of reappropriating the deceased. The dead come home once again, albeit not to their Heavenly Father, but the owner’s private quarters. They are present not just as thoughts and memories, but as an acquired object in the possession of those who used to be their friends, family, and partners. When, as part of the diamond creation process, the survivors choose refinements to setting the stone, they increase the complexity of the relationship between the person and the object, opening up new forms of coordinating artifacts. In the interviews we carried out, it was of special interest to discover how and where the diamonds were worn, which arrangements were preferred, and how these concerns influenced the mourning process. We also paid close attention to whether safekeeping the jewel at home caused any unusual practical concerns (e. g., keeping it a secret from guests, hiding the presence of the deceased at home, fearing fetishism). Does the home environment become a private cemetery? Does the mourning person wear the piece of jewelry close to the body now as some sort of “burial custodian”? By eliminating the fixation of a name, life data, and place (e. g., on a headstone in a cemetery),5 by eliminating all identification and all localization, the survivors themselves become the living sign of death: They are the only ones who can provide information about the unburied deceased person. Our study showed that persons confronted with the diamonds create their own interpretations that sometimes change over time, even up to the point of precipitating individualized or ritualized “disposal.” The presence of memorial diamonds generates in any case new (familial) contexts where the artifacts can exist in their own special space and be put in relation to other objects, behaviors, and perceptions. Most customers foresee the diamonds being passed along to their children and grandchildren. But what forms of personification are chosen? For example, is the diamond still a “he” or a “she” – or rather a matter-of-fact-like “it”? What is obvious is that the clear interest in not leaving the mortal remains of loved ones to some public space such as a cemetery or forest grave is creating new forms of private funerary rites. For some time now the idea that death is a public event has been disappearing from our consciousness (Benkel 2013b; Meitz­ler 5 As it turns out, every ash diamond carries an industrial marking that reveals its origin. In addition, if the relatives choose to, they can have the name, life data, or any other desirable information engraved within the diamond. This is done with the help of very precise laser technology and is invisible to the naked eye.

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2013). One’s death, mortal remains, and the whereabouts of those remains are increasingly coming to be seen as an intimate issue. The dead and the preservation of their memory in a ceremony, in a burial rite, and at the place of death are generally now considered to be concerns of the “relatives,” the “survivors,” those in “deep sorrow” – and no one else. Public processions from the final residence to the final resting place, in which the community collectively takes part (or at least where this is simulated), occur, if at all, only in rural areas. The production and reception of death announcements have always been things that depended on the available time and the mentality of the survivors, but today neither condolence nor wrench are fitting public expressions. Against this background, who would be surprised to see that modern obituaries, if they appear at all, often contain the request that “expressions of sorrow and sympathy” be avoided at the gravesite, inasmuch as the burial does not take place solely in the presence of the “close family” or the deceased are “quietly laid to rest.” Mourners no longer enjoy a special status; some may in fact wear black only on the day of the funeral: “What has been lost and irreversibly severed in bereavement is also in great need of being exhibited only discretely, out of the sight of others. That may be the reason behind the increase in anonymous burials, as it were, the sailor’s grave within an urban ocean” (Drehsen 1994, p. 206). One might presume that the individualization of death means alienating it from the surrounding society. But the new means of appropriating and participating in the mourning context described in this volume are nothing more than the echo of very “vibrant” social relationships. Despite the presumed withdrawal to individual privacy, they have the potential to unfold macrosocial effects; whether this potential can be exploited remains to be seen. In October 2018, a project was initiated by the University of Rostock (Practical Theology) and the University of Passau (Sociology) to examine the relationship between artifact and remembrance using the example of jewelry created from or related to cremation ashes. The memorial objects thus constructed represent, one might say, the counterpart/continuation of the physical presence of those whose loss is being symbolically compensated for. In addition to field research in the production facilities of such artifacts in Switzerland and Austria as well as interviews with experts, the database of this publication relies on conversations held with 49 persons who chose to realize this unusual but apparently increasingly popular form of coping with their bereavement. Further, we had at our disposal some in part very extensive written descriptions of cases and experiences of other affected persons (cf. the Appendix). What do they report about their expectations, their motives, and their interests? We think any scientific analysis cannot ignore the perspective of

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those affected, even if grief is a highly private and subjective emotion. To this end, in Chapter 9 we let people who have gathered their own experiences with ash diamonds speak directly. Three particular case examples illustrate specific approaches taken from the spectrum of possible approaches. This is framed by considerations of the cultural concept of the term “diamond,” of research into the mindset of the diamond manufacturers, and of reflections on the intrinsic value of the symbolic resource that lies at the center of this study. That the carbon content of cremation ashes can be pressed to create a diamond, and that there exist diverse ways of handling this object which not only do not correspond to traditional burial practices but in part also cross the line to a legal gray area, does not mean breaking completely with conventions. Rather, the transformation described above in the context of death, dying, and grieving creates space for new forms that society desires and demands – despite all legal and political directives that dictate the opposite. Not the mourning individuals will have to adapt to social institutions, but in the long run, the institutions will have to adapt to the feelings of the population (and the clearly manifold different approaches they take). The social change described here and elsewhere cannot be stopped by mere concerns about life or the end of life. Forming a diamond from cremation ashes may sound rather avant-garde, but in fact it is nothing but an interim step on the way to greater developments that will most certainly come – and that we perhaps cannot even envision today. *** We would like to thank everyone who took the time to tell us about their experiences or to present documents from their personal history of mourning. We received valuable support from Leonie Schmickler (University of Passau) and Juliette Strößner (University of Rostock), who provided reliable collaboration as part of the research project. We further thank the firm of Mevisto for the revealing information they provided. Our thanks also to the firm of Algordanza, in particular Frank Ripka and Rinaldo Willy, for their extensive commitment and willingness to provide us with insights into the actual production of diamonds.

2

 Case Analysis I: “She didn’t like the idea of being buried”

Thomas Klie

2.1 Even After Death – Always There Vera Kraft1 is 54 years old, a physiotherapist, living near the town of Kassel in central Germany. When her mother died at the age of 87 years, she had the cremation ashes transferred by the undertaker to Switzerland, where two diamonds were pressed. Since for this the entire reservoir of ashes was not necessary, she had another company make part of the remaining ashes into a glass sculpture.2 The latter now stands in her garden during the summer and is brought in during the wintertime (“since otherwise she would freeze … she didn’t like the cold. And during the summer, she goes back to the garden”). Ms. Kraft returned to Germany with the diamonds, the glass sculpture, and the remaining ashes. The family refused the offer made by the Swiss diamond company to scatter the rest of the ashes on a meadow on the company premises. All of these matters had been discussed and negotiated with the mother during her lifetime: “We often talked about death and such with her in advance […] She didn’t like the idea of being buried and was not much excited about any other form. She didn’t want to just be cremated, nor did she want to put in the ground. She thought being cremated was just too hot, but what else are you going to do? Being put out to sea in the water she considered really daft. So, among all the shitty choices, she chose the best one – and that was cremation. We talked to her about it, how we could make a diamond out of her, and I 1 All names and personal information that would permit retracing the persons in question have been changed to protect their identity. The telephone interview took place on 2 February 2019 and lasted 28 minutes. 2 On the homepage of this company we read the following: “We are certain: You are entrusting us with something extremely valuable to you – the ashes of a beloved human being. You can be assured that we will treat them with the utmost reverence and care.”

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think she liked that one best. Also, the idea that we could take her around with us wherever we go, by putting her in a jewelry box. My mother liked to travel to all ends of the Earth. And, so, we said ‘OK, then you’ll just come along with us, some way or another, however we can carry you along with us. Then we’ll be able to show you the territory.’” Although her daughter frankly discussed with her the various burial alternatives, the mother couldn’t decide on any of the usual options. Being buried in a coffin was definitely a “no-go” for her. Yet cremation is the prerequisite to creating a diamond from the ashes, and for the corpse to be cremated, it first has to be put in a coffin. So, there had to be a coffin. To esthetically relieve the mother of her aversion to being put in a coffin, the family decided they would make the coffin themselves and paint it. Yet, the “closer death came, the less inclined she became to deal with the whole matter. She thought she still had decades to live [laughs] …” Although – or perhaps because – the mother herself had once managed a nursing home, and the death among the home residents she had so often experienced was now becoming her own, she came to resist the planned family creative action. Actually building and then colorfully adorning the casket would have confronted her harshly with her own finiteness: “In the end, it was just all too strange for her, building our own coffin […] not that she didn’t want us to, but the idea alone of building something she was going lie in, well, I guess that just didn’t agree with her.”

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Ms. Kraft had left the Protestant Church many years ago, but because her mother was still a member of the Protestant Church, the family arranged for her to have a Protestant burial service. (The pastor who did the ceremony was not informed about what was to follow.) Once the mother had died, through concerted actions the family did proceed to very affectionately paint the coffin for the service (see figure). That, however, was the only normal part of the burial rites: Immediately following cremation, a new chapter began in the family history book. The service was the last tribute to convention. Once the urn with the mother’s ashes had been transferred to Switzerland, the multiple allocation of the ashes could take place, something that was not possible in Germany. This allowed the daughter to combine several different desires. First, she brought small traces of the ashes to places special to the mother and thus symbolically marked them. Since the family did not want to use just one location for burial (the cemetery), and since the ashes could effectively be partitioned as desired, they added several such locations, which allowed the deceased to be strewn and thus remain “present” at a number of her favorite spots. Also, her daughter and son-in-law got what they wanted by creating a glass sculpture to put in their garden. Finally, the two grandsons received each a remembrance diamond that they wore in their wristwatches as mobile “jewel graves.” The daughter took along with her the rest of the ashes, as a reserve of sorts. Thus, the entire mortal remains stayed within the private sphere of the family, in various aggregate states and at various locations in various ways of remembrance. The church rite and the burial (or partial nonburial) received a new connection. The public ceremony, where the relatives and acquaintances together take leave of the deceased, was not followed up by a conventional burial, but rather by a memorial practice geared to the different needs of the family members. The mortal remains were thus methodically removed from the public arena. The survivors had the say over the whole affair. That this involved crossing legal lines was consciously accepted by those involved.

2.2 Commemorative Diamonds as an Object of Value and Creator of Postmortem Presence When a commemorative artifact is created in the form of an ash diamond, the question arises not just concerning the uses for such an object, but also what should happen after the death of the original owner. Ms. Kraft was also aware of this problem. She did not want a diamond for herself, preferring instead the glass sculpture or some other, not yet determined object. For her two sons, however, she had commemorative diamonds made to be integrated into expensive wrist-

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watches. That at least was the plan at the time of the interview: “Our sons have each had a diamond made for themselves […] which are to be put into a watch, or maybe in something else, we’re not sure about that just yet. But that was the plan: to be put in a wristwatch. So, since I have two sons, I said to myself that I didn’t want another diamond made for me since, in the end, somebody has to inherit the thing […] and then one of them would have grandma twice, which would have been stupid.” She clearly had considered the option of bequeathing the diamonds from the beginning. Passing such pieces of jewelry along to the next generation became a part of the family history: If one or both of the sons were to “die before getting married, we’ll take it back. […] And if they have children, then their children will inherit it … So, it will be passed on and on as long as someone wants to.” The brilliance of the grandmother becomes the inheritance to be handed down from one generation to the next. The commemorative artifact becomes an emotionally supercharged heirloom. A jewel that has been produced through such an elaborate process is a valuable object to the family on several different levels. First, even an artificially pressed diamond has a rather large commercial value; second, this piece of jewelry is valuable in the sense that it’s “well, somehow” actually the deceased person, though “it’s just ashes, I know, but it’s the carbon left from my mother.” When asked whether the commemorative diamond is in fact the mother, that is, whether she still sees some identity in the object, Ms. Kraft answers: “I would say there’s a sort of presence in it.” To express what she somehow can’t express, she draws on an interesting comparison: She compares the diamond to the gravestone of her grandparents, the Krafts, which she had “cleared off ” once the initial burial period had expired and put into her garden: “Of course, my grandma and grandpa are not in the gravestone themselves … and my mother, too, is not in the diamond, although she is certainly more in the diamond than my grandparents are in their gravestone.” But it is not the material or the ideal identity that mean so much to Ms. Kraft. Rather, the grandparents’ gravestone and the mother’s diamond are important signs of their respective postmortem presence. The deceased are present everywhere and have become a fixed part of her daily communication. The mobile diamonds (the wristwatches) and the partially mobile artifacts (glass sculpture and gravestone) serve as ever-present representations of beloved persons. You can converse with them, and such conversations are in fact facilitated by the very presence of the artifacts. “That’s just the way it is, you talk with them. I go to my garden and say ‘Hey, how you doin’ today?’ or such things. Or whenever I go to my mother’s old apartment, downstairs in the same house, then I say ‘Hey, momma, how are things?’”

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2.3 The Multiple Grave That Ms. Kraft’s mother does not have a grave (at least none the public is aware of) resulted from her very calculated actions. Choosing a traditional burial spot would have meant sacrificing the privacy of the family’s own special way of honoring their dead – and it would have obligated them to long-term, costly grave maintenance. “To me, what we did seems very logical […] Think about it, for our children’s sake, too. My mother is now gone, and if I had decided on a normal gravesite, which would have been the case for the remaining ashes, we would have been bound to maintain it for 25 or 30 years. I would be over 80 years old then. And our children would have to assume the burden and take care of matters. That’s just stupid! You never know where your kids are going to end up or whether they will have the money to pay some cemetery gardener. That’s stupid, too! But a sculpture or a diamond, well, you can just take it with you, and it keeps its value, more or less. With a grave, you’d only be paying with no end.” In short: A grave in a cemetery is an inappropriate, expensive, inflexible piece of real estate that is barely compatible with the social practices of modern changing family systems. The multiple uses of the ashes, on the other hand, offered them several different alternatives to the traditional visit to the cemetery: The family can go to the favorite places of their mother/grandmother where part of her ashes has been scattered and they can be near her at home in the form of a glass sculpture and they can be creative of their own accord (“we mixed the ashes in such a sculpture … That’s something we wanted to do on our own”) and they can catch a glimpse of their loved one by simply glancing at their splendid artifact (the wristwatch) whenever they want. Dividing up the ashes multiplied and stimulated the commemorative actions within the family by distributing them to both mobile and immobile locations. The case described above does not, of course, represent the entire burial culture. But we can recognize some tendencies and patterns of interpretation that reflect on the rapid changes going on in this segment of culture. For the relatives, it was clear from the beginning that they would retain the power over what happens to their deceased loved one. From the onset, they ruled out other entities or actors playing a role in the burial process. The private nature of their familial relationship was seamlessly extended to beyond death. To be sure, there was a certain realization of acting illegally, but they chose to assertively ignore this aspect. The family had no qualms about dividing up the ash remains postmortem – at least they didn’t hint at this in the interview. The more colored and varied the lifestyles of modern life become, the more imminent the need for creating greater mobility throughout – including after one’s demise.

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The funerary balance of interests was produced by creating various commemorative artifacts. The mother/grandmother thus lived on not just “in memory” but also in the form of multiple relics. The dead “to go” in the place of graveyard real estate. The most important thing was to maintain communication with the deceased person, to which end the mortal remains had to be privatized. A public burial plot was neither desired nor necessary, so it was, for pragmatic reasons alone, eliminated from the calculation. In this case, the individual wishes were simply added to a Protestant burial ceremony. The church ledgers surely contain nothing hinting to posterity the true dimensions of this material (ash) splitting. In this case, “life after death” takes on a truly remarkable and life-serving meaning: The deceased person is granted a postmortal presence on Earth; she is part of the living world; communication lines are held open. The now undead family member is taken along wherever life leads.

3

 Levels of Inorganic Life and the Human. Metamorphosis Between Sociality and Materiality

Thorsten Benkel “Doesn’t the rock become my very own You when I speak with him as such?” Novalis

“Yeah, that’s my problem. As far as my feelings are concerned, it is him, of course. Somehow. Because, you know, he’s not physically there anymore, since he was cremated, and a diamond was formed from his ashes. My mother said I should try to free myself of that thought since there were really fragments. I get it. But with earth burials, there’s no body anymore either, that’s the physical side of things. […] I think there’s more to the human soul than just the bodily shell. But at the moment I still can’t separate the two, or maybe I haven’t thought about it enough. I think I am trying to avoid thinking about it since right now I’ve got enough other things on my mind.” (Verbatim statement of female interview partner 29M) From body to corpse, from corpse to ashes, finally from ashes to diamond – that is pure metamorphosis. The special feature of such metamorphosis is that natural events and cultural principles can hardly be strictly separated. The world we (apparently) experience and the world humans create for themselves have long become the same. Whenever new models are added to the established rituals and behaviors, this may create stress and, if only for a short time, give us the feeling of a new state of confusion. The quote given above is an example of just such a state. In the following, we proceed from the idea of the Janus-faced nature/culture in an attempt to demonstrate the social background innovations of such things as ash diamonds as well as their chances and challenges – and how to best approach this phenomenon from a social-scientific perspective.

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3.1 The Opposite of Life, Love, and Sociology One can conceive of the world as something with great order. There are humans, and there are other living beings, from large animals to protozoa. This includes, of course, all plants as well. The rest of the world consists of “things,” that is, products we humans artificially create or items that nature has created from the “objects” it has at its disposal – rocks and water as well as planets, moons, suns, etc. Except for more abstract creations, such as ideas, what humans create represents the reforming of things that more or less lie around as natural materials. This is a relatively straightforward matter; it is also easy enough to imagine that any individual could assign what belongs in what category. Of course, some special matters might be more difficult, and differentiating between animals and plants is not always easy: The fallen piece of tree bark feels of course much like an object and not like a living thing or part of a living thing (Ingensiep 2001). It is also difficult to determine whether, for example, a human body part no longer attached to its organic subject is still “alive” or already a “thing” (this thought is also extremely relevant for an entire dead body). The question gets really tricky if we think about what happens when organs are donated (Benkel 2016b; Kahl/Knoblauch/Weber 2017): Is it living material that is being transplanted into a living body? Or are we dealing with something removed from a dead body which in the meantime has become a “thing”? And finally: How are we to assess within this panorama the status of artificial (mechanical) implants in human bodies? The debate about abortion is also relevant here: Are we are talking about aborting a fetus, that is, a bunch of cells, or a human being, each of which can be considered slightly more or slightly less “living”? The differentiation mentioned above between human – animal – plant – thing (admittedly a simplification) implies a ranking. This construct is based on a hierarchical system that clearly places living beings at the top and then goes down to, well, to what actually? To “nonliving” beings/things? What spot does the “system of objects” (Baudrillard 2005) take in this gradation? Is it possible to talk about objects without implicating the difference between living and nonliving? The latter question seems to be legitimate since there are approaches that exclude objects from being worthy of discussion in the hierarchy of living things; they are simply irrelevant, to be ignored, as though it were the “opposite of life” – as though life is not surrounded everywhere by just such objects. The fact is that human life (and likely also that of most domesticized species) can no longer be imagined without recourse to the things that populate our daily lives.

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In this regard, Helmuth Plessner, a scientist who worked interdisciplinarily between zoology, philosophy, and sociology and was a major figure of 20th-­ century research, did a study oriented toward the overarching field of philosophical anthropology. This branch of science slowly arose around the mid-1900s and was hotly discussed especially in the 1920s and 1930s (as well as later in the 1950s) (Krüger/Lindemann 2006). One of the early works of Plessner, presumably his most famous piece, was entitled Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch (Levels of Organic Life and the Human), written in 1927 (Plessner 2019). In this book, Plessner discusses the differences between the various life forms. For him, the lifeless world of things is the lowest level of existence. Things have external borders that differentiate them from what they are not (i. e., from other things or, generally speaking, from their environment). Human beings, Plessner said, would thus also be just things if they consisted of nothing but their bodies; humanity, in turn, would be present in its material circumstances, which can be touched, measured, and eliminated. In fact, however, humans are considerably more complex than the inanimate things sometimes labeled as “dead” which accompany human life. The human body, of course, is material, but at the same time, it is also the carrier medium of what has been called – depending on the era and circumstances – soul, character, mind, or consciousness. That is what differentiates the living, the bodily human being from the living, bodily being called plant. And that is what differentiates the living body from the dead body, the corpse. Consciousness (to stick to our vocabulary) is apparently available only to living human beings.1 Thanks to Plessner, within the German sociological debate, these thoughts resulted in a differentiation between Körper (the physical body) and Leib (the lived body), that is, between the material aspect of someone and the entity that results from a living body and its consciousness. Put more simply: Körper is what you have, Leib is what you are. More than 90 years have passed since the first edition of The Levels of Organic Life. In the meantime, sociology has brought forth several different approaches that have carefully studied the role of the living in social environments as well as the meaning of artifacts (Appadurai 2003). It acknowledged the above-­ mentioned fact that social life in modern societies is virtually impossible without the employment of things. It is not an exaggeration to claim that things 1 This truth, confirmed billions of times since the beginning of human history, at some point in time had to result in an anthropological conclusion: the idea of the separability of body and soul at the moment of death. Christianity (and other religions, too) took this narrative from its originally ancient context and launched a new path of discourse that continues to this very day (cf. Mickan 2018, pp. 233 ff.).

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(whatever one may think they are specifically) have come to play a larger role in our modern lives than animals or plants. That was different in earlier times in which agriculture and livestock were vastly more important to large portions of the population. Today, however, things have assumed a dominant position in our lives, especially concerning how individual lifeworlds are equipped (some would say: prepared). We humans have never possessed so many things as we do today. It thus cannot be surprising that we are having to come to terms with the consequences of an objectified world (Preda 1999; Daston 2004). A closer look shows that objectification has now become a rather ambivalent category that can be further differentiated, one direct example being to speak of the “obstinacy of things” (Hahn 2015). The “factuality”2 associated with such an expression raises some questions, such as virtual things or images that can be viewed on a movie screen but (as everyone knows) do not really exist, for example, a futuristic alien spaceship in some science-fiction film, the lava streams from a fictional volcano, or photo manipulations intentionally executed to create false impressions of some alternate (but certainly material) reality.3 How “real” are unicorns on my computer monitor or in my inner eye, since we know they don’t exist “in reality”? Is the world in which I perceive such things not also part of “reality”?4 The examples given above are constructed ones, but they are not necessarily “material” in nature. Rather, they are, in some sense of the word, “living,” at least to the extent that movies or internet videos are indeed able to create borderline emotional situations in some people (along the continuum from laughing to crying). Not by chance was Plessner the one who devoted a whole book to the phenomenon of the “exceptional situation” that is accompanied by laughing and crying (Plessner 2020). Therein he explains that the short moments of laughing and crying – however different they may be in nature – have one thing in common: If just for a short time, they return people used to self-control, order, and routine (and by this he means the entire person, not just the body, but “heart 2 That, by the way, is the ambiguous title of the festschrift for Helmuth Plessner on occasion of his 80th birthday (Dux/Luckmann 1974). Material illustrating the plurality of the idea of objectivity may be found in Hans Linde’s analysis (1972) of circumstances and practical constraints. 3 The latter would presently be considered “fake news” if one were to dig a little deeper and transfer the need for truth to the esthetic sphere. 4 It has been proposed to differentiate between Realität and Wirklichkeit (i. e., reality that exists independent of humans and reality constructed through human activity), but to date this idea has failed to establish itself – probably because this linguistic subtlety in German cannot be properly translated to other languages (Kleinstück 1971; Benkel 2007).

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and soul”) to a stage in life where physical needs held a greater place than reason, a time when the suppression of basic instincts was not yet so vehemently executed: when humans were closer to the animals. If, when sitting in a movie theater or in front of a television screen, we are touched or excited by things that, strictly speaking, are not even things, that means the following: We are attributing meaning to individual images moving so quickly before our eyes that our sensory system deduces movement – meaning that goes far beyond the technical nature of the images themselves. Social relevance is not just a matter of materiality (Henkel 2018); it cannot be quantified in categories such as mass, expansion, and aggregate state but rather extends beyond such literal “fact”ors. You don’t have to dive deep within the world of the transparent and nontransparent (image) fictions (Benkel 2020a) to discover the various levels of materiality and the associated attributions of the social relevance of such things. Addressing the interaction of visual impressions and emotional states is at least one way to do so (Stiglegger 2006); it reveals that meaning can become attached to facts that have no palpable quality. That should not come as a big surprise: Such a stirring and socially relevant theme as love has never stuck to the “facts.” Whatever presents one may bring along, and regardless of how pretty the flowers are and how sparkly the ring on the finger is – love has never been amenable to being translated into factual terms. For that reason, sociologically speaking, love remains an extremely fragile matter (Luhmann 1986); it is volatile since there is nothing material about it: It literally lacks “evidence.” We are condemned to relying on statements about love and to properly deciphering the signals. (Which is why some people get upset when their partners so rarely interject expressions of feeling into the dyadic communication – the communication is all there is.) When loving relationships change, this does not automatically trigger changes to the material world: It suffices that a person’s thoughts change (Illouz 2019). And finally: People can even simulate love by carrying out the actions that would appear to express love without actually meaning it. And, of course, people can fall in love with others they don’t even know but only have observed from afar, examples being celebrities. Thus, to a certain extent, love is painful because of – and not despite – the missing factual basis.5 As mentioned: We can symbolize love through actions or through objects, but neither actions nor things actually comprise love. 5 There are some neuroscientists who claim to know which areas of the brain and which biochemical mechanisms are involved when humans feel something or talk about what they call love. How little this presumption has to do with the reality of love is known firsthand to all lovers (and not just them).

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Thus, we are dealing with a phenomenon called love that does/does not exist. It’s everywhere human beings live together in groups (i. e., everywhere where humans live at all). But no one can see it, and no one can hold onto it. Whenever humans refer to love, they are referring to something symbolized. This aspect is also important whenever we are dealing with the emotional attribution of feelings toward things.

3.2 Symbolic Connections A completely different way of thinking about meaning, esteem, and things on the social level is to turn the usual everyday schema on its head. A few years ago, the French sociologist Bruno Latour took the view that humans are not alone in tending toward common social relations. If Latour were interested solely in the relations between humans and animals, that would not be a very deep or innovative insight. It is not unusual but now indeed socially well established that (domesticated) animals can assume the role of social partners, sometimes even as real partners or substitutes for children (Benkel 2017b; Meitzler 2019). But that is not what Latour meant, at least not primarily. Even for plants, he does not consider it particularly relevant, although there now exists a (albeit disparately situated) branch called plant sociology (Hobohm 1994). Rather, what Latour claims is far more revolutionary: His theory says that even objects can have a social relationship with their owners (Latour 2004). According to Latour, things are actors as well because they are actionable: “Being is existence, and existence is action” (Latour 2006, p. 487). He understands this approach neither metaphorically nor in the sense of some animistic “charge” bestowed upon things (see Dörrenbacher/Plüm 2016). Humans and the things that surround them, but also the things they wish to have around them and create for just that purpose, enter what Latour calls a “network existence,” so that subsequently all things human and all things nonhuman become ensnared in the form of a collective. He speaks of “translations” and “shifts” that occur in this relationship upon closer inspection. The knife that cuts the meat in the kitchen, the kettle that heats the water on the stove – those are all network phenomena that connect humans and things in a process leading to a goal. Latour offers the famous example of the gun that cannot shoot on its own without the human hand, but without the gun, the human cannot be a shooter (and thus a potential sportsman, murderer, policeman, etc.). Under certain circumstances, an object becomes a murder weapon, its owner a murderer. Only this combination enables the action to

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occur, in this case: killing someone. The weapon does not act on its own, nor does the shooter. Rather, the gun and the shooter become a “hybrid-actor” (Latour 2006, p. 488). Sometimes, things become active even without signs of (human) intention behind it. Chemical substances react; even the hole in the ozone layer affected human life without our expressed intervention, so that we had to take precautions against the sun rays penetrating the ozone layer – with the help of sun lotion.6 In this sense, according to Latour (whose overall complex theory in the original text cannot be expounded on here in more detail), things can even develop a sort of valence (in academic circles also called: affordance). This means that, within the network they build together with human beings, the things may accelerate certain (common, network-oriented) outcomes (Latour 2002; for general information, see Fox/Panagiotopoulos/Tsouparopoulou 2015). Of course, Latour’s considerations are not evident to everyone,7 if only because the experiences we humans have in the real world full of objects are largely not considered to be networked ones – if we disregard such things as cell phones, where valence is rather obvious: If it rings, you pick up or you refuse. Yet, who is triggering this action: the human or the device? Smartphones are apparatus that can be used in many ways to increase the breadth of our communication, and for at least a large part of the population today it seems they have become something like attached artificial limbs, an artificial body part that “supplements” the organic body and without which everyday life would be considerably more limited. In other words, the cell phone acts as a prosthesis,8 much like an artificial hip-joint, false teeth, or a pair of glasses 6 Latour (1995, p. 14) writes: “Yes, of course, these things are real, but they resemble social actors too much […]. The hole in the ozone has too many social and too many narrative aspects to be just nature.” 7 Latour (2006, p. 504) emphasizes that it is necessary to take a sociological standpoint here: “An object is a subject only sociology can truly study, albeit a sociology that is willing to deal with both nonhuman and human actors.” 8 One could go further and study whether and to what extent devices such as smartphones have taken on a certain “liveliness.” Today, they are such an integral part of our everyday life that their absence would be catastrophic to us, not just for economic, but also (perhaps even more strongly) for lifestyle reasons. Such a development would shut down the most common means of communication with others we have. Even symbolic verbal communication is now possible using the smartphone, that is, you can address the device as though speaking with a human being. The experts in the major manufacturing companies apparently know how to evoke “living things” (Kimmich 2011), and the producers in Hollywood understand that they can make money with stories about the emotional ambivalence of these very relationships. In the commercially very successful “dramedy” entitled Her (USA 2013, directed by Spike Jonze), a man falls in love with his adaptive and communicative PDA (personal digital assistant).

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are prosthetic solutions. The ability to use technology to construct apparatus? that extend natural human resources to provide simplifications and conveniences is, in the definition of philosophical anthropology, one of the innate characteristics of the human race. Still: The close connection to one’s cell phone could represent an exception from the rule. The counterargument refers to clothes, which on the one hand have a clear pragmatic purpose: to keep their owner warm, to reduce (or sometimes to enhance) erotic stimuli, to prevent intimate glimpses, but above all to contribute to “impression management,” as the Canadian sociologist Erving Goffman (1969) called the conscious way humans present themselves in social situations. In such moments, humans sometimes put greater effort into planning what they wear, sometimes less effort; they know that their clothes are not somehow detached from their appearance but considered part of their social performance. But do we truly feel “networked” to our clothes? Only a few of us would make that connection if we were queried independently of Latour’s studies, even though most of us do wear clothes most of the time, at least on certain parts of our bodies. For Latour, there is a network-like relationship, whereas Plessner sees a delimitation between things and human beings which is evident even upon closer inspection. Any connection between humans and things reminiscent of conflation and social partnership nearly always concerns the body, even though it is largely a symbolic matter. Here, too, clothes and especially examples of specific fashion types provide good examples. People tend to agree when asked whether their clothing decisions (at least those made for public appearances) are calculated ones; getting dressed means taking at least some consideration of the imagined glances others might take, which is also true for cosmetics, hairstyles, and other physical attributes. So, we plan, for example, how to make us look pretty, respectable, casual, youthful, sexy, etc. (Degele 2004; Villa 2001). The central meaning of (if not our dependence on) the mirror in modern life proves that getting dressed – at least for the public arena, thus ignoring the sweatpants worn around the house – is rarely done without some sort of conscious decision-­making. We can look at ourselves in the mirror as though we were someone else. This is how we turn our Leib into our Körper. When we choose a blazer or a blouse because we think it “looks good on me,” we are emphasizing how we think they support our personality (or rather: those visible elements of our personality we want to project through our clothes). At this point, this foreign object pressed up against our body no longer seems to be foreign to us at all. It seems to express exactly what cannot be said with other means: who we are.

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The same is true for jewelry. Adorning our body with decorative accessories occurs without any true necessity. Yet, it is strongly anchored in the rarely discussed, but continually adhered to, canon of social mores. Jewelry emphasizes, it flatters, it stands out, it provokes. In short: it ensures that situations occur differently than they would have without jewelry. Earrings, necklaces, and rings can be exchanged at will but are always worn with great fidelity. They are sometimes “real” (i. e., made from valuable natural materials) or are reproduced using technical means. The main point is that jewelry plays a role in social interactions.9 It serves to enhance the public event beyond the purely subjective feeling of private valorization. Of course, one can wear jewelry just for oneself. But the encounter with others confers on a piece of jewelry the symbolic effect for which very purpose it was created: It turns the human body itself into an enhanced piece of art that is not left to its natural state but extends far beyond that, projecting straight to the heart of culture. An interesting component of jewelry is the (seeming) emphasis it puts on individuality. A short detour: Let us compare the situation to that of perfume. When in the past it became clear to the ladies of European aristocracy that bodily odors could be concealed with artificial scents, their bodies profoundly increased in attractivity and elegance. The paradox is (and this is true especially today, since these scents are now created not individually but industrially) that these perfumes hide the natural (and individual) bodily exhalations in favor of a scent now shared by many. So, a perfume effectively equalizes its users. Is that also true for jewelry? The idea that decorative objects suffer when many people possess them or similar objects does not seem to carry much weight. This might indicate that it is not the “materiality” of the object that counts but its conflation with the person who possesses that object or has made it part of their body or outfit. Human lifeworlds are exactly not what one might accuse perfume and jewelry of being: They are not “created.” Today, a human life is neither programmable nor foreseeable nor more than superficially comparable to the life courses of other humans. In 24 hours, every human being makes countless decisions that no one else can or need consider. If a piece of jewelry, say, a diamond, were inseparably connected with the

9 Georg Simmel did pioneering sociological work on this matter in his “Exkurs über den Schmuck” (1907, A Note on Jewelry), a passage from his work Soziologie (Sociology), where he discussed the external effects of a body adorned with – and thus modified by – jewelry (see Simmel 1999, pp. 414–421). It is telling that even Simmel saw the decoration of the human body as a form of enhancement through materiality, which includes precious stones.

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very specific ways of an individual lifeworld, then in that person’s consciousness, there exists a singular constellation corresponding to the uniqueness of life itself. Of course, such a combination is largely symbolic. Rarely do we spill our biographical details to our jeweler; rather, intimate details remain largely unspoken. The same is true for our visits to clothing stores or hairdressers: What differentiates us from others who might buy the same blouse, the same slacks, or wear the same hairstyle is of no consequence since the individuality of individuals is assumed from the beginning. In fact, it would make for very complicated situations if it were always necessary to ask a lot or reveal a lot. Smalltalk can sometimes be positive since it allows you to say a lot without saying anything in particular. The power of symbolism lies not the least in its connection to the human body, which stands in for the whole person. During direct interactions, we generally talk with others and look them in the eye, even though, if we truly wanted to be understood, we would talk into their ears. But who would do such a thing, except in very loud surroundings? So, the face serves as the central “social address” of the ego, and the body, one might say, is the overarching “material realization” of our identity. What I do with my body (embellish it, disregard it, change it, stabilize it, destroy it, etc.) is something I do just for myself. How I treat my body is the performative expression of how I “care for myself ” (Foucault 1988). The body represents the person I am. Vice versa, the feedback my body creates affects the allegedly separate personality. To say something about the body of X means talking about X, since X is not something separate from X’s body. For good reasons no one glancing in the mirror claims: I see my body; rather, what we see in the mirror: that’s me! A diamond is a foreign body that can be connected to one’s not-foreign own body. Yet, that does not make it a part of one’s body: It remains in the truest sense of the word an object – something “contradictory” (from the Latin obicere, literally undisciplined; cf. Kohl 2003, p. 118). Yet the body can be considered the “bearer” in the sense of physical proximity. Set in a ring or a necklace, the diamond is certainly worn close to the body – close enough to elicit a reaction even from others. Diamonds make an impression on others because they stand for values (sensu valuable things; see below). They are considered different from the human body, since, as discussed, the latter is not a “thing” but a living being. Thus, however close a diamond may come to the body there always remains a certain distance between the two, when cold material hits the warm skin. But what happens when such “dead” material has a symbolic meaning indicating that it is not dead at all?

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3.3 Economic Capital and Symbolic Capital as Value Levels We have arrived at the point we wanted to reach from the very beginning: at ash diamonds, the postmortal – and some would say postmodern – version of a commemorative body. But what in this scenario is the function of the jewel formed from the carbon content of human ash remains, of what the leading European manufacturers call “memorial diamonds”? At first glance, it would appear to be a “thing,” far removed from the organic level that – despite all their differences – humans, animals, and plants share. Such a strict approach, however, precludes any other symbolic power and does not do justice to this piece of jewelry. To gain a deeper understanding of this, we need to differentiate between the two value levels of the diamond. On the one hand, the diamond is a valuable artifact. In order to wear such a “rock” as a bodily decoration, you have to pay a considerable sum of money, from mid- to upper four-figure sums (in euros). The value of the diamond can thus be expressed according to the respective standards for such objects. Money is a socially determined “medium” that allows us to compare and exchange objects, services, even ideas on a value level. The money itself has no intrinsic material value; it is practicable (and coveted) as it is because there exists a social consensus that money is something valuable. Put another way: The economic value that money appears to represent in numbers is a social construction (Searle 1996) that functions only because so many people have adopted it. In the biotopes of plants and animals, on the other hand, money is useless, and the bills and coins probably don’t even taste very well. The price of diamonds can fluctuate. There are also many ways to grind and cut them, but in the end, the weight (in carats) is decisive. Supply and demand have a specific relationship to one another, one that can theoretically go in either direction at any time. But, in Western societies today, a diamond represents an “objective” value, namely, the economic monetary value as determined by experts, dealers, potential customers, etc., when they evaluate, buy, or sell such a product. The material item objectifies a (calculable) value that is not independent of the object itself. In sociology, there exists a category for such values, which Pierre Bourdieu (1986) labeled “economic capital.” This designates values that either have a monetary value (a billfold full of bills) or can be turned into money. With some or sometimes little effort, a diamond can be sold nearly everywhere in the world (albeit not always with the same profit for the seller). It is the embodiment and at the same time the equivalent of a relatively high economic capital value – “relatively high” because the costs of procurement differ, for example, with respect to the average income in various countries.

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Thus, diamonds are not just decorative accessories used to adorn the human body, especially the neck and the fingers: They are also investments. You can procure diamonds and use them as material “expressions” of economic capital. To this end, you don’t even have to like their esthetics; their economic value, being “objective,” that is, based on a stable social construction, is a given independent of any subjective viewpoints. You can throw a diamond away, but that does not render it worthless. The only loser is the one who parts from it. However, ash or memorial diamonds are endowed with an inherently special value that catapults them into a different category entirely. In keeping with the sociological terminology of Bourdieu, the “symbolic capital” supersedes the “economic capital.” The diamond takes on a higher inner value that may even induce transcendental realms. The central value of such a diamond is determined less by what can be measured, weighed, and calculated than by what cannot be seen and what only few insiders know, namely, the almost secret, deeper meaning of this piece of jewelry, dissociated from all objectivistic pretensions.

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In this regard, symbolic capital means that the diamond, created from the almost alchemical-like metamorphosis of bodily parts to become an extremely stable, esthetically pleasing artifact, becomes more than what it would appear to be. Put simply, symbolic capital can stand for many things, though it is especially a code denoting prestige and a positive reputation concerning certain lifestyles. The personal valorization is symbolic – but one some people seem to feel, for example, when they drive an expensive sports car (particularly if others notice this act), independent of whether they are in fact allowed to drive that car as fast as it can technically or theoretically go. The most important factor is the combination of the specific individual and the social value of driving certain sports cars.10 We are also dealing with symbolic capital when, for example, a woman looking to find a partner falls back on traditional (some would say “outdated”) patterns and wants a man who is taller than her. The taller a woman is, the harder this task becomes. Having a partner who is taller than oneself is of no financial value. However, for some people the difference created strengthens the important feeling that one is adhering to optically stable gender roles. So, the woman is smaller than her male partner, which doesn’t masculinize her nor feminize her partner.11 As the last example of symbolic capital, we note the term “honor.” For most people, honor seems like a rather antiquated concept that recalls more Medieval knights than modern social life. In some cultures, however, even today honor plays a major role, as became apparent in the extreme and rare cases of so-called “honor killings” (Yazgan 2001; Schiffauer 1984). Here, honor is the externally perceived reputation a family enjoys. Blemishes on that honor violate the (self-) image, such as the behavior of (generally younger) family members who fail to subordinate themselves to intrafamilial regimentations and are considered to have inflicted massive damage on the social status quo of the family. In extreme cases, this understanding of honor looms larger than the fear of criminal consequences that incur when a violation of honor (of all types) is “resolved” through vigilante justice (Oberwittler/Kasselt 2011).

10 Such a value, by the way, depends strongly on the particular scene one moves in: There are social environments where sports cars are considered superfluous as well as those where they represent considerable values, albeit not necessarily in the sense of fulfilling a practical value, but a symbolic one. 11 Bourdieu even wrote an entire volume about the background of such considerations, see Bourdieu 2001.

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Honor is basically nothing more than an intangible value that is difficult to calculate in economic capital – but one that, in some circles at least, because of cultural and traditional mores, can become more important than other value concepts. In other words, wherever the concept is still held in high esteem, the loss of honor cannot be outweighed by monetary values: The symbolic capital goes deeper and contains greater social obligation than the impersonal value of money. As mentioned, Bourdieu developed the differentiation between economic, symbolic, cultural, and social capital, originally based on the idea of “social capital,” defined as the most important relationships and interconnections that determine one’s own social position (cf. Bourdieu/Wacquant 2006, p. 198). For Bourdieu, symbolic capital held a very special position: Unlike economic capital, social and cultural capital12 is not convertible, that is, it cannot be exchanged for something else or be synchronized with other forms of capital, that is, if you have a measure of one capital, you generally have a measure of the other as well, so that appreciation for these different forms of capital goes hand in hand. Thus, people who have much economic capital also often have great cultural and social capital (and vice versa), whereas people with little of one type of capital generally (but not always) are blessed with little capital of the other type. Symbolic capital, on the other hand, works completely dissociated from this effect. It may represent the underlying values (e. g., the expensive sports car, brand-named clothes, or an attractive partner) but in itself has no value. Like honor, it remains a relatively independent dimension, separate from all other forms of capital. After all, someone who assigns themselves honorability does not need economic or cultural or even very much social capital. The vocabulary says it all: Something symbolic clearly lies outside of any direct practical value. Symbols are the vehicles for transporting meaning members of a society do not have to continually take into account. The philosopher Karl Jaspers wrote, the symbol “promotes community without communication” (quoted acc. to Schütz 1971, p. 400): Instead of words, it uses gestures and signs but is still understood by all. Wherever symbolic elements are involved, the matters concerned 12 Examples of cultural capital are certificates, diplomas, university degrees, etc., as well as pieces of art or the ability to speak a rare language or play an instrument. This is not like owning a thing, such as a cello in one’s living room or a Chinese novel on one’s shelf. Rather, it is the competence to properly implement these culturally value-laden objects. Such competences deem someone admirable who is willing to invest their time and energy in skills that in principle anyone could learn or acquire but in fact doesn’t learn or acquire.

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do not assume the meaning associated with these symbols in any literal sense, but only because the respective meaning is culturally anchored. People apply such meanings proactively, they recognize them immediately, and they pass them on to the next generation. In other words, symbolic is what has meaning to a circle of initiated. For example, for Bourdieu state power is symbolic. It is “magical” in that it is present everywhere but effectively invisible (Bourdieu 1997, p. 83). The state is efficient but without any physical potency: You cannot feel that it is everywhere we are. Therefore, symbolic capital also means that something is there that is in effect not there: an impact, an effect, a meaning that lies beyond all materiality in the world. That leads us back to the ash diamond, whose symbolic value should now be somewhat easier to judge. It represents the decedent, inasmuch as it stems developmentally from that person (or parts of that person), even though this cannot be seen straight away. We may become aware of the background, which certainly would change the way we look at the piece of jewelry, but we are unable to objectively understand the circumstance. The number of carats and the cut – two of the most prominent features of diamonds – may indicate its economic equivalent value, but they say nothing about the special meaning of the ash diamond itself. Seen as a “thing,” such a diamond has a different quality than as a symbol. And yet the symbolic level of meaning is inherently connected to the factual background: its origin. Were it not a memorial diamond, as a symbol it would not exceed its basic concrete nature.

3.4 Life in Nonlife The specific duality of an ash diamond – the interweaved nature of materiality and immaterial symbolism – is what makes it so attractive in the context of modern burial culture. It is possible, and this is what our interview partners repeatedly mentioned, that the personal meaning a survivor attaches to the diamond is not just as a symbol for the deceased partner, but that the diamond in fact is the partner. Here, the loved one once again takes on a material form, after the body has become invisible through the normal burial procedures. The person can be addressed once again, since they have now been rendered identical to the diamond. (And, indeed, some interview partners admitted to personally talking to their diamond.) But this connection too should be seen symbolically, since it establishes the lineage from living body – dead body – corpse – ashes – diamond.

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In order to fully comprehend this situation, we need to understand how the transition occurs when a human being dies. While death is commonly considered a “counterproject” to life, from a sociological viewpoint it would seem to be more logical to view death as a transition. In this regard, Michel Foucault (1973, p. 155) said a “vertical and narrow line” delineates the complementary areas of life and nonlife (Benkel 2018a). In the living condition, as noted above, we humans can be seen as having a body as a “Leib” – the lived-in body as opposed to our physical body as “Körper” – with consciousness. The latter can be measured, touched, weighed; it has dimensions in time and space. The human body has to be different from that form if it wants to be more than just the sum of its physical, perceivable data. That it in fact is more than that becomes obvious at the latest at the end of life: A person’s corpse is, at least largely, identical regarding the key parameters (weight, size, etc.) that existed during life (the exception being perhaps temperature). And yet, everything is different: The dead body no longer moves, although it is still going through biochemical changes. The person identified with this body is no longer there, even though that person’s body may be lying directly in front of one’s eyes. When conceived of as a “Leib,” the living body can be easily differentiated from the dead body. In the former, consciousness is continually present (even when asleep, during dreams), whereas in the latter it is irreversibly gone, dissolved. Nevertheless, according to existing European burial culture and despite any subtle differences between countries and language communities, bodies are usually buried. The argument that dead bodies are nothing but useless shells that have lost their original social function (i. e., as a carrier medium for human beings) is considered valid only among the very hardnosed materialists (Preuß/Hönings/Spanger 2015). The idea from the Early Modern Period that, because of their bodies, humans were in fact some sort of machines (La Mettrie 1960) that in death become irreparably defective has no disciples today. Clearly, the corpse cannot be completely differentiated from the person it was just a short time ago. And because It still reminds us of the clear similarity with a living person, the corpse plays a very special and somewhat strange role in the realm of medicine (e. g., in autopsies), where is it neither human nor thing. When someone dies, they are not really gone. The corpse is the material proof of their having lived, since life is attached to the body. Since the dead body (i. e., the “Körper” and not the “Leib”) remains present in most (but not all) cases despite being dead, it is necessary to treat it differently than some inanimate object. As mentioned above, Central Europe has a long history of making the

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body disappear, of which cremation is one variant: It serves foremost to “dispose” of the dead body by transforming it into a completely different, body-unlike form. Once the body has been localized to where humans no longer have access, it finally reaches the state of nonlife. Death is in principle the split-second transition that differentiates between life and nonlife. What exactly happens at this moment remains a matter of controversy, which is why the death line depicted in the illustration is not a straight line. Rather, depending on how a person’s death is determined, the transition may be very different according to the respective cultural mores (Schlich/Wiesemann 2001).

The illustration shows that the so-called “social death” can be suffered even while still alive (Sudnow 1967; Elias 2001). This means that people may be constrained to a hospital bed because of a serious illness or have no realistic chance of ever getting out of the hospital. This turns the palliative ward or hospice into an extended act of taking leave from life (Goebel 2012). And if, in addition, an intact social environment is missing, one may be biologically and medically alive, even though, socially speaking, death has already occurred. Vice versa, the extension of social life is possible through elaborate enactments of social presence relatives may instigate following the death of a loved one. If a

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person retains a long-term presence in videos or photos (both offline and online), then the newest internet technology may even allow them to reach out after death (Seibel 2018). They may be formally and bio-medically dead, but socially they remain powerful. Today, the internet is perhaps the most interesting and active marketplace for suspending conventional attributions of life and nonlife. And the future will continue to bring many innovations – in all directions regarding life, nonlife, social death, and parasocial survival.13 We can already detect the first inklings of these developments on the digital horizon (Benkel 2018c). There is good reason to believe that the ash diamond and related concepts will become part of such a social survival movement (Benkel 2020b). The brilliance of a diamond says nothing about its technical and material origin, although the transformation it has undergone is in fact its most decisive characteristic. In addition to the major milestones in life of birth and death (“status passages”), in the course of a lifetime, there are many smaller passages; transforming someone’s ashes into a piece of jewelry is in any case a passage that occurs in the “afterlife.” It does not reify the person, as some skeptics worry or others imply who fear the commercialization of corpses. Rather, the production of a diamond succinctly offsets the act of rendering the body invisible as well as the loss of materiality a dead person suffers. The lost human being – the lost body as “Leib” – takes on a new physical form and, as mentioned previously, remains present, addressable, touchable, preservable. Of course, it may now be just a material thing, but it is never a “product.” There is no need for associations with commercial goods since something very different is paramount here: “We impart things with a sort of dignity not by owning them but by caring for them. We thus offer them a stage on which they can connect us with the past” (Böhme 2006, p. 364). The brilliant commemorative body is the largest possible antithesis one can imagine to the horror-tainted image of a decomposing corpse – an artificial purity that magnetically attracts our attention juxtaposed with detested natural processes withdrawn from the sight of modern society. On several levels, the ash diamond repudiates the classic materialistic vision that “nothing remains” after death (cf. Benkel/Meitzler 2019, p. 234). Here emerges, as it were, a certain supernatural quality as the concentrated manifestation of memories of the deceased person – in a clearly material form. Consequently, one might say that the diamond is directly connected to the religious sphere. It easily slips into the cultural history of “holy things,” inasmuch as 13 “Parasocial” in this context means the incomplete, one-sided interaction or communication that – according to all appearance and subjective emotional involvement – seems “authentic.” Examples are how we verbally address our pets, engage in discussions with internet bots, or interact with decedents at their graves.

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the catalog of criteria contains such key terms as sublimity, conveyance, overwhelm, and even a certain fetish character (cf. Thiel 2018, passim). In contrast to its usual everyday connotation, generally relegated to intimate obsessions, the idea of fetishism points to stages in the development of religious history, where we find things such as talismans, amulets, and the like (Endres 2017; cf. further Apter/Pietz 1993). Against this background Latour cleverly introduces the play on words “faitiche” (the French combination of fact and fetish), which reveals the mutual dependence of facts and beliefs (cf. Latour 2000, pp. 327 ff.; Voss 2006). This term could certainly be expanded further in the present context, but that is also true for the fetish in light of its religious meaning: During the 19th century, Auguste Comte (2017, p. 173), the founder of sociology, decidedly called it “a material individuality.” Nevertheless, the commemorative jewel is not reflexively concerned with itself, as a religious fetish certainly is, which, in the end, represents “nothing more than itself,” so that it becomes at once “the note and the denoted all in one” (Kohl 2003, p. 28). Rather, the precious stone has a different reference. It can be considered the result of a “transfiguration” of not just the corpse but – taking things one step further – of the deceased themselves. This is how the diamond is effectively used by many, namely, by all who wear one. As a result of this transfiguration, the person symbolized by the diamond is not confined to a grave, and in the process of death, their soul has not entered some other sphere. Thanks to technological (or techgnostical? – see Davis 2015) methods, both are preserved. It is certainly possible to look at things this way, and it is a very widespread approach among the customers of the service providers, as our interviews revealed. They are quite apparently able to adapt the simultaneity of life and objectivity (the representation of human life in the inorganic) to their commemorative jewels. Could one perhaps speak here of “transcendental materiality”? Or better of “material transcendence”? Whatever – one cannot speak of a relapse to a “lower” level of existence, as Plessner’s ranking might suggest. The material nature of the ash diamond does not lie below that of human beings, animals, and plants, but rather belongs in a special category all its own, marked by greater symbolism than the prosaic characteristics of the jewels might imply. That is what differentiates it from a “transition object” from early childhood, which on the psychological level serves as a material “replacement for the beloved person” (e. g., a teddy bear or cuddly blanket), and which puts up no resistance to any type of treatment (Bosch 2014, p. 71; see also the classic article by Winnicott 1953). The true meaning of the ash jewel is that it can be experienced equally as a symbol and as a thing. Its “reality” puts it in a row with “reified ecstasies,” with “forms of presence […],

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through which a thing characteristically emerges” and at the same time becomes “forms of self-presentation” (Böhme 1995, pp. 167 f.). The purely diamond-like objectivity is thus not the main point, and the inorganic nature of the diamond is no longer the opposite of its organic nature. Latour (and other authors as well) point this out on a social-theoretical level. In practical terms, the ash diamond clearly becomes a “hybrid partner” of the person wearing it on their finger or around their neck; within this “network” it develops its full material commemorative function. Said human incites behavior in the diamond – and vice versa! Latour’s statement fits this special type of collective very well: “This is not in-formation, it is just trans-formation” (2007, p. 257). The common actions on the part of the human owner and the diamond represent the “creation of remembrance” using real physical proximity to bodily particles of the person being remembered. The commissioning of the diamond could, in light of this view, be the practical twin to the dry theory, even though these very different siblings grew up separated from one another, only to reunite when a text such as this one imagines it. How challenging the further existence of the carbon particles in the diamond is may also be seen in the fact that model constructions that seemed plausible even just a few years ago must now be revised based on recent events. This is true for all theoretical considerations surrounding burial culture, their practices, and their technical procedures (Spranger/Pasic/Kriebel 2014) as well as for all scientific results. To use an example: The above is also valid for what I previously published elsewhere (2017a, pp. 296 ff.), namely, that in modern burial culture we must speak of the “two bodies of the deceased.” Death turned the body (“Leib”) into two bodies (“Körper”): the biological one transported by society through the rear door (removal and concealment of the corpse since these days there are rarely any forms of public viewing but rather major visual and haptic distancing) and the commemorative body that continues to live on in photos and videos. These may also be found, among other things, on the gravestone, on webpages, in photo albums, on one’s laptop, etc., and are generally included in any future references to the decedent. Remembrance is something you do in the presence not of the corpse but of the living body – even if that body is only figuratively (and thus rudimentarily) present. So, how does the diamond fit into this differentiation? It contains a little bit of biology, but it’s not truly the original body; it’s a commemorative object but lacks recognition value, which even photos have (in the context of death, see Barthes 2010; Benkel/Meitzler 2016). Here, too, the ash diamond forces us to realign – or at least provokes engrossing thoughts. And that is certainly not to the detriment of the matter at hand.

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3.5 Thoughts on Estrangement One could perhaps compare the relationship between the human body (“Leib”) and the diamond body (“Körper”) with a schizophrenic relationship typically found among comic heroes. In addition to their everyday appearance (Clark Kent), they possess a heroic but secret identity (Superman) that is used to regularly save the world (Morrison 2011). In moments of safety, Clark Kent is a mild-mannered, reticent reporter, but when danger lurks, he turns into a super being – now hardly a human at all, but rather a being admired as the “Man of Steel.” He’s a superhuman being, nearly invulnerable, immortal – like a diamond. Here, we are dealing with two variations of sparkling brilliance: In the mythical world of Superman, solar power enables him to be transformed; with ash diamonds, having been ground and sanded to reveal extreme reflections, the brilliance is most effective in sunlight – and then there’s the symbolic power to boot! Yet in all of this, the “substance” of the diamond decisively depends on its function.14 What happens in the laboratories when the ash carbon content is turned into a jewel is comprehensible and scientifically transparent down to the last detail. During the field phase on location, we, the authors of this volume, witnessed the various stations between ash and jewelry; like all the normal customers interested in this matter, we were shown the apparatus, their functions, and their possibilities. And yet, there remained some portion of mechanical magic. Laypersons can only understand part of what goes on in such laboratories and certainly not all the details, regardless of how precise the explanations may be. The excitement, the unfamiliar surroundings, the whole “feeling” of the situation experienced, causes the facts to melt into one blob; the chemical and physical facts become thoroughly mixed with wishes and desires that are clearly not very scientifically grounded. That substance X causes this reaction or that reaction, in turn precipitating reaction Y, which leads to Z – well, you just have to believe it. There is no way you can “perceive” it based on the tour and the explanations given. The transformation of ashes to diamonds, much like under natural circumstances, is not a visibly or haptically available event. There is no developmental history to follow. One could, to quote Adorno (1986, p. 82), almost speak of the “masking of production through the appearance of the product.” This also reflects the secretive nature that even surrounds crema14 In a classical work devoted to the relationship between substance and function (albeit with a completely different accentuation) we read: “We know things not by what they represent on their own, but by their respective relationships: That we can only discover the relations of persistence and change in these objects, occurs automatically” (Cassirer 1980, p. 406).

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tion. We may know, more or less, what happens when a coffin is inserted into a muffle furnace, but you don’t actually feel it; your hands don’t feel the fire. Even though the same hands may have touched the person in question many times during their lifetime, you rarely, if at all, touch the corpse. The oxidation that occurs is infinitely more abstract than our everyday experiences with technology and warmth. And for the survivors, the final product – ashes – feels both familiar and strange. We are well aware of who that person is (was), but we don’t actually feel it. The production of a diamond continues this process. This might even lead to the suspicion that the diamond production is the (perhaps temporary – who knows?) product of an act of estrangement that reaches it culmination in the moment of death. The conversations we had with persons who chose to have diamonds created revealed especially one thing: It is not the piece of jewelry, created in a laboratory under natural-like conditions with a result that is barely distinguishable from the natural product, that causes the estrangement, but the burial regulations that force the relatives, sometimes under rather clandestine conditions, to strive to obtain a material souvenir of their loved one. The estrangement is not the effect of but the trigger for the desire to mourn the decedent differently, to be and to act differently than traditional models would demand. In some countries, this circumstance has been registered and legally remedied, though Germany is not one of them and lags starkly behind. Put somewhat provocatively: The “sex appeal of the inorganic” (Perniola 2004) regarding ash diamonds is not yet universally recognized. And when the desire does sporadically crop up to do this extraordinary, unconventional, personally comforting alternative act, it is largely the result of social individualization (for more details, see Benkel/Meitzler 2013; Benkel 2015; Meitzler 2016; Benkel 2017c). And to be clear: The fulfillment of this wish, whether you deplore it or love it, cannot be checked in the long run. We are not talking about exceptional psychological states that lead people to want to create ash diamonds. Rather, these are just normal social circumstances that some people have perceived earlier than others, that go beyond any subjective disposition because they address the individuality of human beings. Estrangement, on the other hand, emerges when one’s thoughts and existing behavioral possibilities are not reflected in the repertoire of sanctioned practices, and when emotional motives are suppressed by structural constraints even though no true damage is being done. Estrangement is thus present wherever the game rules no longer make sense to those playing the game because there are ways and means of doing things differently – of playing the game with better results. The moral objection – that you sometimes have to keep people from doing what they want (freedom can be dangerous, and some people may

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not be able to properly adjudge the situation they are maneuvering themselves into) – becomes evident in this thematic thicket. Putting up such arguments means clinging to a worldview that adheres more to past and present collective obligations than the power of autonomous convictions. And such a world­ view will disappear faster than the corpse in an undesired grave. The opposite is true: Nothing is less alienating than the feeling humans have when, at the juncture between life and death, they make a decision that benefits both the living and the dead.

4

 Case Analysis II: “He still protects me”

Matthias Meitzler

At the time of the interview, Brigitte Perschbach1 is 68 years old. She lives in northern Germany and works as a volunteer in adult education. She grew up as a Protestant, was long “strong in her faith,” but eventually left the Protestant Church together with her husband. She doesn’t think this act represents a fall from faith; instead, her decision was the result of a prolonged dissatisfaction with the monetary aspects involved with church membership in Germany.2

4.1 Experiences with Mourning and Cemeteries To date, Ms. Perschbach has been confronted in various ways with dying, death, and grief. While still a child, she was completely unprepared to see the corpse of a girl about her own age lying publicly in state on the street. When she looks back at this event (“that was just horrible for me”), she wishes the adults had been more open about such matters. Except for this traumatic instance, as a child, she was completely shielded from and uninvolved in “such things,” something she today considers highly problematic. She thinks it would have been better “for the child’s soul” to have “gone through all the rituals.” The situation was similar when her grandmother died: “They kept me at a distance. I wasn’t allowed to see anything, not a thing … If they had

1 All names and personal information that would permit retracing the persons in question have been changed to protect their identity. The telephone interview took place on 5 February 2019 and lasted 88 minutes. 2 In Germany, mere membership in one of the official churches, regardless of one’s personal faith or attendance record, means compulsive payment of so-called church taxes on earned income. These can be escaped only by officially leaving the church [translator’s note].

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let me in and included me in the whole procedure, well, I think it would have been better in the long run.” She also tells the story of how her grandfather died, how she viewed his corpse once again, and how it was when her father died of a heart attack more than 30 years ago. The path leading to the chapel where he was lying in state led through a cemetery, whose atmosphere was “mystical” and sometimes “spooky.” “That was the worst thing I’d ever experienced. To have to go into the chapel and then bury my father, you see. And the whole time I’m thinking: ‘I really don’t want to experience this again.’” This unpleasant experience completely changed her future opinion about cemeteries and in the end brought her to the conviction that she didn’t need this or any other place of mourning and remembrance.

4.2 Decision to Have an Ash Diamond Made Four years ago, Ms. Perschbach’s husband died at age 64 of a stroke. At this point, she was already long aware that there were alternative methods available besides the classic means of burial – such as having a diamond pressed from the ashes of the decedent. This idea appealed to her from the beginning (“a very nice way of having one’s loved ones near”) and even spoke to her husband about it (“he was okay with it”). A traditional burial in the cemetery was an option neither for him nor for her. While driving home from the hospital after her husband’s death, she happened to come upon a cemetery together with a good friend. The visit to the cemetery only served to strengthen her resolve to put the decision about her dead husband’s body into action: “My mind was made up: My husband will become a diamond.” On the very same day she began her search for an undertaker to fulfill her wish – and soon found the right one: “I left the clinic at 2 pm and by 5 pm the same day everything was set up.” She also made all other necessary arrangements for the memorial service within a few hours. According to her wishes, following the cremation, the ashes of her husband were brought to Switzerland to be made into a diamond in the manufacturing facility. On her birthday, Ms. Perschbach went “to visit my husband.” This very carefully chosen expression signifies the central motive to her action, one that would determine her further dealings with the commemorative artifact: The ash jewel clearly meant more to her than just inanimate matter and more than the symbolic representation of a life now lived. Shortly before Christmas, Ms. Perschbach visited the Swiss company once again, this time to pick up her finished diamond. For this occasion, she even

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bought herself a new purse so he could “go home in good style.” She especially remembers the moment in which the diamond was presented to her in the obligatory black box and she could hold it in her hands for the first time: “Now he was back with me again.” The thought of having one’s loved one come back home during the delivery of the diamond cropped up repeatedly in our interviews, not just in this one. That is also something we had the privilege of experiencing firsthand, namely, that the handing over of the diamond is a situation replete with symbolism and often great emotions that go far beyond the usual sober logic of the marketplace. From the vantage point of most relatives, this is not just an act of transferring an object to its new owner; this event is more like a “postmortal reunion” of two or more persons under special circumstances: Someone who had been missing temporarily has now returned, albeit in a different form.

4.3 Two Types of Physical Proximity After returning to Germany, Ms. Perschbach had her local jeweler set the diamond in a necklace, the socket of which had been formed from other old, melted down pieces of jewelry she had wished and received from other survivors instead of flower arrangements. So, now she wears the necklace close to her body – so close, she says, that “it can’t come off.” Physical proximity here has a two-fold meaning: The artifact is literally close to the body of its owner by being worn in the proper place; but it is also close to the other body – namely that of the deceased, whose “material” was used to create the artifact. It is important to Ms. Perschbach that she now has something that not only reminds her of her husband but also provides space for further, extended projections. By wearing him close to her own body, her crystallized spouse is everywhere she happens to be (“I also had the diamond set so that he has the same field of vision as I do”). This allows him to take part in her daily and less daily activities. “If I do something special, then I take him out and say: ‘Hey, are you seeing what I’m seeing?’ He’s always with me when we walk through town. Or when I’m in a museum […] and I say: ‘Look, isn’t that a beautiful exhibition here?’” From Ms. Perschbach’s statements we note that not only does she talk to her diamond at times (this was not an unusual phenomenon among our interviewees), but she also allows the jewel to become a social being within her imagined world – one that is capable of its own perceptions. Furthermore, “if I’m out in a store and feel unsure of myself about something, then I’ll ask him to take a look and then I decide.”

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In stark contrast to this approach stands the conventional method of a casket burial, whereby a dead body, as Ms. Perschbach said it, is put “in the cold, dark ground.” “Cold” in this context takes on many connotations: In human interactions, we often use temperature metaphors, for example, when we want to characterize someone specific or our social relationship with them. There, warmth is something positive (empathy, openness, security, solicitude), whereas coldness has a poor reputation (distanced, withdrawn, emotionless). In the interviews we held as part of this research with people in mourning, they often described the coldness of the grave or the graveyard. This likely refers less to the measurable temperatures in these locations than to the subjective atmosphere a cemetery radiates toward its visitors. Concerning the past experiences of Ms. Perschbach, we note that she discovered in the ash diamond an alternative approach – one that bridged for her both the geographical and the social distance a cemetery burial would have created for her. Instead of interring her husband in the cold, dark earth of the graveyard, she now carries him around with her; the jewel provides her with a presence, now and forever, and gives her the feeling of security. (“He still protects me,” is her interpretation.) That lessens the painful loss and enables her to mourn less. For this reason, she is unable to compare the diamond with a grave and the creation of the diamond with a burial. Rather, she

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points out, again and again, the inherent quality of the diamond that enjoys a much different treatment than all other forms of burial. This interview partner made the conscious decision against having the remaining ashes after the creation of the diamond buried in the local cemetery. It would have been possible and, as our data suggest, is in fact often done. But in the case at hand, a grave in the cemetery would not have had an advantage for her (“It’s not my thing”). The often discussed problem regarding the private custody of ashes or the explicit rejection of a cemetery burial, namely, that these alternatives fail to provide other relatives with a freely accessible place to mourn and pay tribute to the dead, played no role for Ms. Perschbach, since there was no one left in her husband’s family to make such claims. The remaining ashes were buried on the private burial grounds of the Swiss company, at some distance from the main headquarters of the diamond-making firm. However, this location seems to have played no true role in her mourning or commemorative actions: Neither did she feel the need to personally go to this burial spot, nor could she, at the time of the interview at least, imagine doing anything differently in the near future. In light of what is discussed above, this posture seems plausible: Why should she take the long trip to visit her husband’s grave in a faraway, unknown place when she’s got the material proof of her grief, remembrance, and communication hanging around her neck? “He’s always with me,” she reiterates.

4.4 The Artifact as Object of Communication For Ms. Perschbach, the diamond is not some secret private affair; rather, as she says herself, she wears the necklace proudly in public for anyone to see, even if they are not in the position to identify it as the commemorative artifact of a human being. Since the diamond is not a “normal” piece of jewelry, she sometimes does tell its story if people take notice of it. Despite the surprising reactions that her revelations generally occasion, Ms. Perschbach says she commonly garners positive feedback. Most of the people in her immediate social environment can understand her decision, and some of them even see their situation in hers and concede: “If I had known you could do that, I would have done it, too. I can’t always be going to the cemetery.” Others, of course, are more skeptical: “No, I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t want to stick out among my friends.” Ms. Perschbach has nothing but scorn for this expressed worry about suffering social sanctions from transgressing traditional behavioral norms. In support of the increasingly broad desire to establish “autonomous mourning” (Benkel/

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Meitzler/Preuß 2019), she rejects the conventions and pressures of normality, preferring rather to uphold the individual needs of the grieving, which may or may not correlate with previous social norms. The idea of creating a diamond occurred once again in Ms. Perschbach’s life when her mother lay dying. In this case, she would have had two diamonds prepared – one for herself and one for her brother. But here it was the dying mother who deflected this possibility by giving her daughter the well-intended advice to save her money, whereupon they chose to bury her in a natural cemetery beneath a tree. Despite her dread of going to cemeteries, this path proved to be acceptable to her, especially since her mother’s wish was stronger than her own desires and intentions. This method also had the advantage of relieving her of the need to regularly take care of the burial plot. Now, two years after her mother’s death, she irregularly visits the grave, even though it doesn’t represent a place of mourning to her or make her feel any closer to her mother. “At home, I feel closer to her than when I’m standing there at her grave. […] Of course, I know that the urn with her ashes is down there, but I still wouldn’t ever go there to mourn her.”

4.5 Postmortal Symbiosis Most of the relatives who shared their experiences with us think of the ash diamond as more than just an abstract connection to their loved one. Nevertheless, in hardly any other interview was the ensoulment of a crystalline artifact so clearly expressed as in the case of Ms. Perschbach. When she spoke of her diamond, then it was not a lifeless object to her, but “my husband.” She reinforced this view with, among other things, an extraordinary analogy in which the coloring of the jewel becomes a signal: “Some days it’s very bright, some days it’s rather dark. That’s strange, don’t you think? As though it were experiencing different moods.” As the material embodiment of her husband, the diamond raises his perceived social presence. The closer she wears it to her own body, the more intensively she feels his presence. This everyday experience gives her comfort, so much so that her grief has actually been attenuated: “I don’t need to mourn for him – after all, I’ve got him with me all the time, just in another form.” As long as the diamond is there, he is there (once again), and when you’re there, there is no need to mourn your absence. How the necklace is worn projects some ambiguity (to have someone at your throat may also intend their choking off your air supply) as well as the mate-

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rial realization of the desire for symbiotic fusion (“He has become a part of my body”). The diamond as an “incorporation” means it is not just the remains of the decedent (or materialistically expressed: of the extracted carbon content of the ashes) but is also part of the person wearing the diamond. Thus, the diamond is neither completely an “it” nor a “he” but a “we”! Ms. Perschbach notes: “We are a unit.” By (re)creating this unit, the artifact functions as a medium, as a mediating agent that unites two bodies long term. Apparently, the mathematics of love has its own rules, with neither division (“You can’t split us up”) nor subtraction (“We used to be two persons but one, and now there’s only one person and we’re still one”). “When we went anywhere,” Ms. Perschbach says, “we did as a unit, even though we were two bodies.” The emotional attachment in life (“We were like Siamese twins”) is not only retained symbolically even after death, it was, so to speak, made physically perfect through the transformation of a living body (“Leib”) to a dead body (“Körper”) in the form of cremation ashes, from cremation ashes to pure carbon, from pure carbon to a portable diamond worn on a necklace. In life, their time together was characterized by many sometimes short sometimes longer separations (death being the final separation), whereas now Ms. Perschbach has the power to decide whether separations occur by taking off the necklace. Still, the motive of inseparability has become so profound that she is unable to exert her power: “The necklace is so strongly attached to me, I can’t even remove it.” So, she has, of her own free will, brought herself into a situation where she once again need not decide at all.

4.6 Conclusion By commissioning the Swiss firm to create a diamond from the ashes of her dead husband – a decision she says she has never regretted (“I never had a doubt in the world”) – Ms. Perschbach expressed her desire to do things differently. Her renunciation of the traditional mores began when she chose the coffin to be cremated, which was not one of the usual types but had been made from old “ship planks.” In her interview, she repeatedly noted that she differs from others regarding matters of burial and mourning. Her childhood experiences – where anything to do with tragic events and death were kept from her, where she was not involved in decisions about rituals, where she was confronted with results determined by others – likely contributed to this attitude. But now things are different: In contrast to her earlier life, today Ms. Perschbach experiences her grief as a highly self-determined matter that is not part of some public collec-

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tive but designed according to her personal needs. The diamond may be seen as a symbol of that sense of autonomy and her desire to escape conventionality, not the least because in Germany there are indeed very few alternatives to a cemetery burial. Yet, in hindsight, not just her let’s-do-it-differently attitude would seem to have been the guiding light, also the specific quality of the diamond that first had to be attributed to it for it to display its full potential. By projecting onto the artifact various characteristics of life and social interaction, and by integrating this object into her body image, Ms. Perschbach was able to build a bridge to her deceased husband. She overcame something that the traditional grave intensifies: the physical and spatial separation of the mourning and the mourned. The latter is physically absent, unable to communicate or react – and yet he is simultaneously materially still very much present. This shows how materiality can be transformed, from a carnal, vital body to a diamond, without losing its essential presence. Carried to the extreme, one might say that the delivery of the diamond is like the delivery of good news: Death is not the end.

5

  The “Invincible” Brilliance of Life

Thomas Klie

A diamond is a special thing. It is not just some serendipitous creation from Earth’s historical past, it is the hardest crystal known to nature which, once polished, offers a radiance and elegance like nothing else. Rough diamonds are polished by gem cutters into the forms we now associate with the finished product: The cut is what causes an otherwise inconspicuous mineral to become a prestigious jewel. Diamonds were first polished some 600 years ago, but only since 1910 have we had the ability to use highly precise methods to create facet cuts, to enable the “fire” of diamonds, their fascinating refraction, to assume its optimal effect and become what they truly are: a jewel born from the power of mathematics. Modern diamonds are creations that adhere to an absolute symmetry of exactly determined relations between angles and surfaces. This unique mixture of form and color, material and light reflects the origin of its name: diamas – unyielding, invincible.1 That is one of the reasons why the diamond has become a symbol for the 60th wedding anniversary: Love that has held for 60 years is simply “invincible.”

5.1 Marilyn and Pink Floyd: The Myth When, in 1953, Marilyn Monroe eroticized the filmset and lasciviously sang “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” in a pink dress, she created a myth that has lasted to this very day. The success of the musical Gentlemen Prefer 1 Etymologically, the word diamond goes back to the late Latin word diamas (accusative case: diamantem), which is the Latinized version of the Greek word adamas (unyielding, cf. the English word adamant). In classical Latin, adamas signified extraordinarily hard materials, used for example by Pliny the Elder to describe a sapphire in his work Naturalis Historia.

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Blondes made this song famous around the world and the refrain a modern metaphor.2 The text of the song ironically plays with the consumer credo: If a woman’s charms vanish over time, then the only hard currency to survive lies in the form of diamonds: A kiss may be grand, but it won’t pay the rental. If one’s lover, the gentleman of old, grows older and eventually returns to his spouse, then the castoff woman still has the eternally valuable material gift to call her own. Men grow cold as girls grow old. Wise women have foresight and in good times claim for themselves the truly valuable things in life. Though they may grow old, their back may hurt and their knees may grow stiff, the once idolized girls can still walk tall into expensive shops like Tiffany’s with their heads held high. For this reason alone, diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Whether square-cut or pear-shaped, this bling never grows old and never loses its original form. The provocative nature of this song, put in the mouth of the iconic Marilyn Monroe, has since been sampled by many different artists and bands. That alone is certain proof for how such motives that run parallel to the precious things such as diamonds can outlast time. Thus, Kylie Minogue sang the song in 1995 and performed it in 1999, now dressed as Marilyn Monroe, for the opening of the Australian film studios of 20th Century Fox. In 1998, Anna Nicole Smith also provided a version of the song and, like Kylie Minogue before her, in 2004 dressed as Marilyn Monroe to promote PETA’s anti-fur campaign: Gentleman Prefer Fur-Free Blondes. Further, in 2001, Nicole Kidman, in the film version of Moulin Rouge, sang an adapted version under the title Sparkling Diamonds. If Marilyn Monroe’s song reflects the material fascination of diamonds that retain their immortal value after being gifted to mistresses, there are other, more disquieting, and quite contrary associations attached to another style icon from pop culture: In 1975, the group Pink Floyd issued a suite of songs dedicated to their ingenious, then already ill frontman and spiritual leader Syd Barrett: Shine on You Crazy Diamond (text by Roger Waters, issued on the album Wish You Were Here).3 The once so creative founder of the band Pink Floyd had left the group in 1968 because he could no longer control his increasingly unstable mind, 2 The song Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend was composed by Jule Styne for the Broadway musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (text by Leo Robin), which premiered in 1949 in New York. Four years later, the show was turned into a film by the director Howard Hawks. The starring roles were played by Marilyn Monroe (as Lorelei) and Jane Russell (as Dorothy). Different from the musical, which was set in the Roaring Twenties, the film is situated in the 1950s. 3 For further information on this album, see Broackes/Landreth Strong 2017 and Schmidt-Joos/ Kampmann 2009.

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which had led to uninhibited drug consumption. The previously extroverted and bright young man began to hallucinate and became increasingly depressed. He slipped away from his friends and entered his own psychedelic world. The band members suffered greatly because of the collapse of their friend and wrote their feelings into songs such as Wish You Were Here and Shine on You Crazy Diamond. Just while they were recording the latter song, Syd Barrett chanced by in the Abbey Road Studios. He had not been seen for 7 years, and the others in the band hardly recognized their former leader.4 Grossly overweight and marked by his drug consumption, he had become another person indeed. In 2006, he died of cancer at the age of 60. Shine on You Crazy Diamond was a programmatic title for Pink Floyd, which is witnessed by its length. At the beginning of the recordings, it was even planned to fill the entire side of an LP, but was subsequently cut up into two parts comprising the beginning (sections 1–5, 13.30 minutes long) and the end (sections 6–10, 12.22 minutes long) of the album. Right off, the first lines of the text metaphorically reveal the subject: Remember when you were young? You shone like the sun. Shine on, you crazy diamond. The physically and mentally visibly degenerated Syd Barrett is remembered at the beginning of his career where his music sparkled in him like rays of sunshine. That was the truly diamond-like radiance his friends now missed: Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine! The crystalline-ethereal brilliance of the polished diamond is employed here as means of remembering life “before” – before Syd Barrett’s social (and soon to be physical) death. As much as his fellow band members were once fascinated by the elementary luster of their frontman, now they were shocked at this shadow of a man who stared at them with eyes like black holes in the sky. When the album came out in 1975, the critical reactions were lukewarm, even though in no time it became a major bestselling album. Today, it is rightly held as one of the classics of rock history. The desperate appeal to the once so inspiring and now moribund founder of this legendary group likely contributed to this fact.

4 Theologically speaking, there exists a parallel to this episode from everyday life, namely, the Biblical passage of the Emmaus followers (Luke 24): The apostles failed to recognize their Lord when he suddenly appeared to them following his resurrection.

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The broad themes included in these two songs represent the semantic poles of the concept behind the term “diamond.” Culturally, this gemstone is a symbol of intrinsic value, of eternity, (feminine) jewelry, transience, and celestial brilliance. A diamond, especially its metaphorical nature, is something special; its brilliance changes with the light. The classical cut with its 57 facets captivates us with its glistening glamour and makes everything in its surroundings seem bland and fleeting. Things that are shiny and sparkly attract us; we take delight in their expensive and unattainable nature; we pay homage to their perfect form. The iridescent play of the light reflexes nearly convinces us of a dematerialization. “A crystal embodies the utopian idea of being alive and dead at the same time, of being subjective and objective, of splendid sparkle and rational regularity, as it were a both physically and purely spiritually ideal” (Pauser 2009, p. 41). The special affinity of brilliance, love, and remembrance may also be found in the many ways these motifs are expressed in advertisements. The website of the Swiss diamond dealer Walter Muff (“fine diamonds”), for example, contains the following love story (“another brilliant story”): “It was Vanessa’s big day. One she’ll never forget, how he went down on his knees before her. At a place where they had enjoyed their first real kiss. Both understood the meaning immediately and were speechless for a moment. And since then she has always worn the solitaire, without which she would now feel naked. For their 10th anniversary, they hired a babysitter to look after the kids, since they wanted to take a long walk. When they arrived on this warm spring evening at the large square in the middle of the city, Vanessa cuddled closer to Sebastian’s shoulder. She held his warm hand, and the two of them felt connected, happy. In the midst of everyone around them, right next to the bubbling fountain, Sebastian bent down and presented her with a small box. This time he spoke a few words: ‘Will you marry me – again?’ When Vanessa put the white-gold ring with the sparkling diamond on her finger, she happened to see her mother standing close by and then her father, who had hidden behind a newspaper. One after another her loved ones and best friends emerged. The surprise was a complete success.”5 5 See at www.fine-diamonds.ch/ueber-uns/tradition (retrieved on 15 July 2020). In the advertisement for Emporio Armani’s Eau de Parfum Diamonds we read: “Diamonds combine the essence of complete femininity with glamour and elegance. The flacon in the form of a diamond contains a fragrance that combines the delightful aromas of lychee and blueberries with the passion of the rose. The note of this homage to the nature of a woman is sexy and warm, with a mixture of cedar and amber.” See https://www.douglas.de/Sale-Giorgio-Armani-­EmporioArmani-Emporio-Diamonds_product_2010007118.html (accessed on 15 July 2020).

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Condensed into this extremely stylized scene are many conventional approaches to diamonds. The diamond is the ultimate symbol of proof of eternal love, verified as permanent alone by the fact that it is stereotypically projected onto the feeling the gift-giver has for the recipient upon presenting the ring. A performative gesture that needs no words to express what is true: a reminder of the realization of mutual adoration that promises commitment. The infinity symbolized by the round form of the ring only serves to intensify the shining presumption of the eternal nature of the gemstone in the middle. The declaration of love that imparts form and credibility to the surprise gift serves as the prelude to a jubilee: the 10th anniversary. In the slogans from the worldwide “Ad’Age” (Cöster 1990), we find bold use of such exuberant metaphoric imagery. For example, in 1981, the undergarments company Chantelle Satine used the slogan “Decorative as a diamond, flattering as a mink: Satine from Chantelle.” The real-estate company Baier praised itself in 2013 with the words “Competent in stone – strong like a diamond.” In 2010, Belo regarded its wood flooring to be “The diamond under your feet.” These and many other advertising slogans reveal how the diamond allows some of its other-worldly performance to shine on that of some mundane consumer or industrial product. This strategy of purposeful exaggeration and glorification feeds off the reality of the beautiful appearance, hoping some of the immeasurable meaning of the diamond will rub off on other wares.

Yet, like all stereotypes in modern everyday culture, the diamond also carries a tinge of hypocrisy. The promise of a diamond also insinuates that another side is being overshone: darkness, imperfection, wretchedness, shadow. Every type

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of deception tries to impress the eye of the beholder through massive brightness and brilliance, in order to maintain its visual acuity. The blinded are just that: blind to anything else. If a jewel like the diamond esthetically combines the elements light, form, color, and material in great perfection, then it relegates its owner to walk a tightrope between glamour and camouflage, brilliance and reflection, overload and meaning, appearance and reality. The Viennese cultural scientist Vitus Weh (2009, p. 7) commented on the economic situation of gemstones in modern culture as follows: “Perhaps the ubiquitous narrow concentration on eternity and transience is in fact a way to hide the unconscious incantation to direct a magic spell against the ever-present and much-lamented flexibility of modern society.” That was a short but multifaceted look at the background of commemorative gems. But what is the material basis of this cultural aura? What are diamonds and how do they come to be?

5.2 The Careers of Carbon A diamond is indeed something special. One could say it is the geological child of volcanos. Diamonds are created 150 to 200 kilometers under the Earth’s surface, in the Earth’s mantle, under great pressure and at high temperatures. They were formed at all times during the history of the Earth, so that some diamonds may be up to 2–3 billion years old, whereas some younger ones are “only” a few hundred million years old. When volcanos erupt, they transport material from deep under the Earth’s surface to the top, heaving up previously deep-layered diamonds within just a few hours. This “birth” is done at temperatures exceeding 1,500 degrees Celsius. And, depending on where they appear, that is where they are later mined: in the funnels of extinct volcanos. Diamonds are mined by digging straight downward, then the diamonds have to be extracted underground by grinding up the bedrock. Chemically speaking, diamonds consist of pure crystalline carbon with a Moh’s hardness6 of 10 – thus, they are the hardest known mineral in the world.7 The second hardest mineral, corundum (rubies and sapphires), are softer by a 6 This hardness scale is named after the German-Austrian mineralogist Friedrich Mohs (1773– 1839). It is based on the fact that hard objects can abrade softer objects. Mohs rubbed different types of minerals together and then ordered them according to their level of hardness, creating a hardness scale that is still used in mineralogy today. 7 For literature on the following, see Sauer 1902, Schwarz 2000, Helzberg 2005, Neukirchen 2012, Hochleitner 2019.

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factor of 140! The diamond cutter profits from the fact that the hardness of this gemstone varies depending on the individual surfaces. Otherwise, it would be impossible to cut one diamond with another diamond. Diamonds are not actually that rare in nature, despite the reigning impression to the contrary. In 2009, for example, 121 million carats were mined, with a total weight of 24 tons. Many gemstones are even rarer, such as the red beryl, the benitoite, and the grandidierite. Yet no other gemstone fetches such high prices, is in such demand, and precipitates such high costs for its storage facilities – all because of the worldwide exclusive marketing done in its name. The availability of diamonds, like that of oil, is artificially regulated. Large syndicates, in particular De Beers with its headquarters in Luxembourg, strictly control the supply. De Beers provides not only one-third of all rough diamonds worldwide, it is also the originator of the ad slogan first used in the 1940s which even today is securely lodged in our consciousness: A diamond is forever. The high price of diamonds thus results not just from its rarity, but also because of the artificial scarcity and extravagant advertising strategies that surround it (Lerch 2009, p. 26). About half of all rough diamonds stem from Africa (Angola, Botswana, South Africa, Congo, Sierra Leone, Namibia). The political instability in many of these regions, however, also enables the illegal mining of diamonds, which are then used to finance violent disputes in conflict regions. This is the theme behind the adventure thriller Blood Diamond (USA 2006, directed by Edward Zwick). Other major producing countries are Russia and Australia, in addition to smaller finds in Brazil, Canada, India, and China. The largest rough diamond ever, weighing in at 3106 carats (621 g), was found in South Africa in 1905; it was named Cullinan and was eventually divided up into 105 different jewels, 9 of which form the largest pieces of the British Crown Jewels. Natural diamonds, however, cannot by far cover the global demand for this mineral. The ensuing gap of about 80 % is filled by so-called industrial diamonds. In 1953, with the help of a high-pressure/high-temperature method (HTHP), the Swedish physicist Erik Lundblad succeeded in creating an artificial diamond. In this process, graphite is inserted into a hydraulic press at up to 60,000 bar and 1500 degrees Celsius, causing the graphite to turn into a diamond.8 Industrial diamonds are needed above all for tool-making purposes – for grinding, surgical instruments, and the diamond bits used in the dental branch. The naked eye cannot differentiate natural from industrial diamonds; whether a diamond 8 For the sake of comparison, at 100 meters below the surface of the ocean, a deep-sea diver is exposed to “only” 100 bar pressure.

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is “real” or “unreal” can be determined only with the help of a spectroscope. Laypersons are often told to use the “fog test,” that is, to breathe on a diamond: If the diamond remains fogged up for a few seconds, then it is a synthetic diamond; if it immediately clears up, then it is a natural diamond since natural diamonds repel heat and do not fog. Different from other gemstones, diamonds are classified according to a precise and worldwide valid system, which considers the color gradation, purity, cut, and proportion as well as weight (in carats9). The sum of these parameters determines the current fair value. The most valuable color on the scale is the superfine white (nearly colorless) “river/blue white”; stones designated as “flawless” can be viewed at 10 times magnification without any sign of inclusions. Also, the age of a diamond can be determined based on the number of inclusions present, since they grow simultaneously with the enclosing diamond.10 Gem-quality diamonds are created by creating the so-called facet or brilliant cut, the latter being the most common form. This cut is characterized by a round girdle with 32 facets, the 8-sided table in the upper part and the culet with another 24 facets and pointed tip at the bottom. Cut and polished in this manner, such a diamond is called a brilliant. The facet cut has been practiced since the 15th century and is employed primarily with transparent (i. e., blue white) gems since they diffract the light in many directions as well as dispersing light in many colors. This effect creates innumerable inner light reflections. As mentioned, diamonds are tremendously hard, but that does not protect them from burning. At temperatures above 800 degrees Celsius even the largest diamonds eventually burn up. Thus, a simple room fire (with temperatures exceeding 1000 degrees Celsius) can be their doom – nothing but carbon dioxide remains. This circumstance should be considered carefully when choosing the proper place to store diamonds: Heat is not only the element that creates diamonds, it can also destroy them.

9 The carat was first introduced as a metric convention in 1875: 1 carat = 200 mg = 0.2 g. The largest diamond ever cut was the Star of Africa with 530 carat. 10 Inclusions are small imperfections within a diamond created from the extreme pressure and heat diamonds experience when they form.

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5.3 Polished Transcendency A diamond is a special thing. It is not just a valuable piece of jewelry and an extremely hard material; it is also an esthetic artifact embedded within an enormous excess of interpretations and attributions. Even though a diamond is but the “result of a natural transformation process, it inherently has something magical about it, something indestructible, detached from nature and thus something artificial as well” (Jäger 2009, p. 57). In a largely secular modern society that has exchanged belief in immortality for intensively living and experiencing the here and now, the aura of a diamond represents a calculable generator of transcendence. Culturally, a diamond is worth much more than the standardized product of a skillful gem cutter. The esoteric marketplace prizes “light crystals” and “light diamonds” that promise “spiritual development and daily energy work.” The “pure and high energies” are “manifested by angels, by descendent masters and other illuminated beings.”11 That such unsightly, formless, pulverized ashes of the dead, free of any individuality and beauty, can unexpectedly spawn the rebirth of burial culture in the form of a diamond should come as no surprise. “When things lose their shimmer, they are readied for destruction. Human beings who are set for annihilation first lose their honor, then their rights, and finally they are turned into a pathetic, ugly manifestation. The counterexperience is the light that shines in the face of children or the propitious luster of the new day […] Fearfully we register the disappearance of brilliance from our world. With an appalling speed, everything seems to be used up; humans seem to irrevocably be consuming everything around them” (Gestrich 1996, p. 1). This quote is the beginning of a theological treatise on sin, which the late systemic theologian Christof Gestrich entitled “The Return of Brilliance to the World.” There, he reformulated his rejection of the moralizing and narrow interpretation of the Christian belief in sin in conjunction with the Biblical idea of “glory” or “splendor” (Hebrew: kabod, Greek: doxa, Latin: gloria). This term denotes in the Bible a genuinely God-like quality attributed to very special people who have received the splendor of God’s pleasure (cf. Isaiah 11,2–3). In contrast to the inner-worldly brilliance of diamond valuables, in the Christian-religious context splendor stands for a mysterious quality conferred by God on mankind. The splendor and glory of human beings are, as it were, a reflection of the glory of God. Such splendor is not the natural state of humankind; you cannot create it or confer it upon such artifacts. Such splendor is an act of grace that 11 This language gives examples for the phenomena discussed here (https://www.litios.com, retrieved on 15 July 2020).

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lights up wherever humans who have sinned in accordance with their nature are granted forgiveness. Against this background, it is hardly surprising that the diamond has been invoked as a metaphor of transparency also in religious poetry. In 2006, the journalist and author of religious songs, Ute Passarge, wrote a four-verse praise of the godly Trinity: “Oh God of all the universe, ground and force / and stock of love, whose form we cannot see. / Among us since eternity, by many undetected, / home to thousand secrets, like a rough diamond.”12 Religion and theology see in the “bright and morning star” a “light of light without beginning.”13 The archaic notion of an ethereal purity that is evoked again and again when expressing interest in ash diamonds, is, from a theological perspective, the prerequisite for the nearness of God and for receiving His blessing. Especially in the Christian Old Testament, purity can be endangered by coming into contact with the dead and with an animal carcass – a remarkable contrast to the need for a postmortal purity of the artifact expressed in the creation of a diamond. For gemstones, purity defines how visible the inclusions are that occur in nearly all diamonds. That is one of the four “C’s” used to adjudge the quality of a diamond: color, carat, cut, clarity. A look at the competing concepts surrounding purity confronts us with the question of what the owners of commemorative jewels see in their brilliant splendor. Do they see a reflection of the sunlight, so to speak the reflection of a heavenly star? Or are we dealing only with the normal human memory of a late loved one? The first case is clearly a sort of theological interpretation, the second case more of an anthropological one. The answers given in the interviews (see Chapter 9) seem to tend toward the second type, though the material properties of a diamond (extreme hardness, nearly infinite durability) may somewhat be romanticizing the purely anthropological interpretation of the commemorative jewel. No one lives forever (and certainly not in the memory of other mortals), no one can look back on a completely splendid biography (guilt and unfulfilled potential are the “inclusions” of human life) – not even the saints lived “flawless” lives. And no one can be pressed into a mathematically exact cut pattern. The metrics of humankind are, alas, fluid. 12 Music by Jochen Arnold. Verses 2 and 3 describe Christ as the second and the Holy Spirit as the third godly beings. The diamond metaphor culminates in the fourth, the final verse: “Three times one form are you and yet but one: / God, our Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. / You are love, beauty, enigma, dearest diamond, / Come and shine into our hearts with your rays.” 13 “Come, Thou Bright and Morning Star,” from the Lutheran Service Book #872 (= German Evangelisches Gesangbuch, Liednummer 450).

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The psychologically dark question must be asked: What do relatives openly ignore or suppress when choosing to have a diamond made as a memorial artifact? No doubt about it, it is a voided (dead) body that has been transformed into a splendid and sparkly artifact. So, are such ash gemstones the first signs of a new form of ancestor worship? One thing that would support this theory is that the interview partners by and large regarded their jewel as a family heirloom to be passed on. Empirically, there can be no doubt that eventually bequeathing it was a hard and fast part of their initial thoughts (see Chapter 2). We would need a long-term study to get clearer evidence on this. Yet the “crystalline nature, the light-emission, the forced shallowness are all metaphors for a new artificiality, the transference and the outshining of the natural body. Yet the question remains: Are brilliance or deterioration part of the dissolution of the real world and the increasing abstraction of reality?” (Loschek 2009, p. 23). What do ash diamonds mean to the mourning? An idealization of lived life, a postmortem artificialization of a natural existence? Or even the transformation of mortality into immortality?

6

 Case Analysis III: Letting Go. A Story of Artifact Abstinence

Thorsten Benkel

If the ash diamond is not just a valuable possession but the deeply guarded representation of a loved one, then theoretically it can be distinguished from its “worldly” value, making the costs and capital involved irrelevant. And, in a further step, it can be discarded. What such a jewel represents does not simply disappear, regardless of where it is preserved, whether in a drawer, a necklace, prominently presented on a private altar, in a little box or elsewhere. The production process has been completed, and the connection to the deceased person has become hardwired. That is, so to speak, the “objective core” of the object (the diamond), and it does not change even if the diamond were to be thrown into a lake in South Tyrol. During his active work life, Mr. N.1 was employed in the teaching profession. His wife, with whom he was together some 36 years, had to have a tumor removed while still a young woman. This led to complications and eventually to a disability that affected their daily life considerably. She eventually succumbed to the late sequelae of this illness. Mr. and Mrs. N. were in the special and certainly not enviable situation of seeing her demise coming, which because of the particular circumstances of her disease could occur at any moment. On the other hand, the ever-present danger of imminent death led to their inability to discuss death or the necessary burial details during her final years without creating great stress. Mrs. N. became so ill that she was unable to even talk about such complex themes: She understood what was being said, but she was hardly able to answer. And, her husband said during the interview, she really didn’t want to talk about the whole affair.

1 The interview was done on the telephone on 6 February 2019 and lasted 67 minutes.

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It was all the more surprising to him when, one day, out of the blue, she talked about her wish to be buried at sea. Up until then, it had been assumed that she would get the usual burial rituals at the local cemetery; Mr. and Mrs. N. had few real connections to the sea, except for a handful of vacations. Mr. N. took her unexpected statements to heart and did some research to see what was possible with sea burials. That is how the option popped up that both had not been aware of before: the ash diamond. Mrs. N. was agreed to the new variation. It was not the usual associations of surface luster or polished esthetics that convinced Mr. N. to discuss the theme of death with his wife, but rather the more pragmatic aspect of simple handling. In the meantime, Mr. N. had come up with a plan that resolved one wish but created a problem in the process. During the period of their life when the tumor had not yet been noticed, Mr. and Mrs. N. had spent their vacations by traveling to the southern parts of Africa for several weeks at a time. Once, while they were hiking in the mountains, Mrs. N. mentioned that a visible place about three valleys into the hike would be the perfect place for scattering her ashes. Now, however, after her death, Mr. N. didn’t think trying to get through customs with an urn under his arm would be a very good idea. So, neither the African highlands would be a good choice for the remains of his wife, nor would the local cemetery he had earlier considered proper. The logistically less challenging and symbolically much more meaningful place, Mr. N. thought, would be another favorite vacation spot of theirs: a lake in the South Tyrol area in present-day northern Italy. The ash diamond seemed to correspond to the “fitting form” for the chosen burial spot, since you couldn’t very well sink a corpse into a lake – and even distributing her ashes on the lake might meet with some complications. Sinking a jewel to the bottom of the lake, on the other hand, may have seemed to be a great waste, but the actual effort was limited. Depositing the diamond in the lake would also correspond to – and be a good alternative to – his wife’s initial wish to be buried at sea. Mr. N. mentioned an interesting biographical footnote in passing: In her early years, his wife had been a novice in a monastery, and because of her experiences there she had come to distance herself from traditional beliefs and thus also from traditional burial models. Despite her disability, Mr. N. says, she was a person who was very well able to articulate and assert her will, especially perhaps when they ran counter to normative mores that cropped up in her life. This trait could be easily coupled with the specific power demonstrated by the diamond: Symbolically, it had more than just an esthetic aspect; its splendor

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was not just that of its economic value but the splendor of life channeled into the diamond. Despite the increasing popularity of the notion, the decision to use the material “remainders” to create a gemstone after the end of life is truly the sign of obstinance. The diamond made from human carbon is not a traditional object and is particularly attractive to people who reject – sometimes less, sometimes more – traditional taxonomies. Ms. N’s disease thus may have unconsciously contributed to her motif of choice, that is, to the decision to make a diamond and to not have her buried in the traditional manner (though that was considered for a while). Sometimes, but not always, she could sense an epileptic seizure coming over her. They are what caused the accidents, the falls, and the bloody facial wounds. The diamond represents the opposite of her physical vulnerability at the mercy of a disease. It is the hardest material known to the world, glistening and glittering in the sunlight, materially and optically the complete antithesis to the soft, endangered, perishable human body. The jewel guarantees a certain measure of stability the body (“Leib”) it is made of could not.

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Looking back, Mr. N. thought that above all the aspect of their common decision was of elementary importance: “I made this decision together with my wife. It was important to me that she too wanted it that way … everything else was of no importance.” They grabbed more detailed information on ash diamonds from the internet, and in the end, their discussions led to a consensus and to their contacting a funeral home that made the arrangements for having the diamond prepared. The local funeral director had had some experience (a single case!) in negotiating between a customer and the Swiss firm. That was at least a small margin of experience and certainly not a matter of course. The research material gathered for this volume shows that sometimes the customers are the driving force and have to instruct the local funeral homes about what is available since such particular arrangements do not (yet) belong to the canon of traditional burial offers. The decision whether or not to go with a diamond is thus, in marketplace terms, defined by the “end-user.” Mr. N. did not concern himself with all the details of creating gemstones, quite the opposite: The “processing” of his wife’s death was left to a professional player, the undertaker, who assumed this task for a fee and engaged other professional players in another country. Effectively, the transferral was largely done by the undertaker, who acted as Mr. N.’s agent and from whom Mr. N., after waiting a few months, finally got his gem made from the ashes of his wife. The instrumental relationship, whereby the undertaker became a service agent (and not some “ritual designer” or secret “grief counselor”), meant that Mr. N. got his first glance of the jewel at home. After seeing the nearly all-white diamond for the first time, he announced very clearly: “That diamond is not my wife.” Rather, it was a “product” of his wife’s ashes. The subtext of his response reveals that Mr. N. knew very well how different feelings can be in such a situation. He sent his wife’s sister a picture of his wife and of the diamond. Only after a while did the sister understand the connection, namely, that both photos were of the same motif, as it were. His sister-in-law then recognized that the diamond “was” her sister – those were the words Mr. N. used. It was important for the Mr. N. as survivor that the diamond not be treated as a fetish nor as a relic, which is why it was not difficult for him to eventually give it up. Despite all the efforts on the part of the Swiss technicians, in the end, the gemstone was just a dead and somehow foreign object to him. Material mementos did not play a major role for him, which also explains why he had no problem getting rid of his dead wife’s clothes: He claimed to have had them removed “immediately” after her death. Photos, too, were of no value to him (“they’re just lying around in some drawer”); he doesn’t make a habit of

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looking at them much. And, by the way, soon after her death he moved away from the town they had lived in. If we carefully ask what the reason was behind his “artifact abstinence,” considering the fact that many other people seem to find consolation in holding on to such objects, we discover that Mr. N. acted as he did precisely for that reason. What belonged to his wife – clothes, photos, everything associated with her – reminded him too much of his loss and caused him painful feelings. And that is not what his wife would have wanted, he presumes. She coped with her illness with great fortitude, on her own, not without humor, and from a certain point onward didn’t want to be operated on anymore. The two of them discussed these matters together. To give in to the dark world of grief seemed absurd to him. Such individualism did not fit the relationship he and his wife had had, and it also did not fit his self-image. The way it is now is fine: He can allow phases of grief and mourning to occur. He refuses to wallow in his grief, but rather understands and sees that such attitudes may change over time. The identity of his dead wife cannot be “grasped” in any material sense: That would be a “belated reduction of her personality,” he said. Such an “object fixation,” if at all possible, would not bring him any closer to his wife but on the contrary take something from him. Despite the basic aversion he feels toward commemorative objects, he did have the diamond made, which, in Mr. N.’s words, has “dignity.” Nothing about it seemed cheap or improvised.2 Until the time comes to sink it in the Italian lake, the diamond is kept in a sideboard, where it has gradually moved up a couple of “stories” over time. Specifically, it is now placed on top of an elephant statue from Africa, not in the sense of an altar but rather as a pragmatic solution. After all, you have to put it somewhere, right, so why not there? Sometimes he goes over and looks at it, since it’s “beautiful.” But the diamond does not stir up any “deeper feelings” in Mr. N. At the latest in about a year it won’t be in the apartment anyway but at its chosen destination. He plans to sit on a rock ledge beside the lake and let the diamond slide from there into the water. The final goodbye is to be accompanied by a small ritual, though he himself doesn’t see it as such. The permanent foreseen resting place for the ash diamond – the Italian lake – is a place Mrs. N. never saw during her lifetime. But it resembles places where they had spent their vacation, for example, in France. The lake is so to speak the “ideal-typical” spot representing various other places meaningful to the couple. It wasn’t important to Mr. N. that the jewel be “put somewhere I think 2 Money didn’t seem to play a major role for him since he was “financially independent,” so any such consideration would have been foreign to him.

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is nice”; the lake was not to become a place of mourning or remembrance – a notion he rejects with a laugh. Mr. N. foresees for himself “certainly not a classic earth burial – that much I can tell you.” The idea favored many years ago, one corresponding completely to traditional forms, is now no longer acceptable to him. Like many others who have chosen the ash diamond method, he too advocates a liberalization of the burial laws in the German states. For his wife’s memorial, he hired a freelance eulogist, something he wants for himself as well. Religious concepts of departing from life do not appeal to him, likely because of the experiences of his wife. The story of Mr. and Mrs. N.’s marriage reveals that the ash diamond served as a way to renunciate ideals and models that, as in this case, are viewed as outdated or unfitting. Because the idea of transforming ashes into a diamond is not (yet) a well-known concept and is not (yet) anchored in a long cultural history, it comes to stand symbolically for a new beginning: an alternative that is truly an alternative. Mr. N.’s story also shows that a diamond need not become a vehicle for preserving memories, but rather can be something one can consciously and willfully dissociate oneself from. If death is an act of dissociation, then a gemstone need not be kept forever either. You very well may have to “let it go” in the truest sense of the term. So, what does the diamond containing the remainders of his wife mean to Mr. N.? It certainly does not mean, as in many other cases from our interview materials, the continuation of her identity in another form. It is neither a symbol of her not does it point to her nor does it represent what Mr. N. sees in his mind’s eye when he thinks about her. And yet: it does somehow bridge the living present with the transpired past. Husband and jewel can’t quite be separated. Thus, when asked, Mr. N. says it’s best to describe the diamond as operating as a “medium” – the material mediation between what was and what is. Materiality is not everything in life; that is the moral of this case history. Beyond those things that we can take in our hands, touch, grasp, store, and literally throw out, lie the images we carry with us wherever we go. Mr. N.: “Memories – well, that’s a whole other story.”

7

 Autonomy as Legitimization. Professional Dealings in the Context of Ash Artifacts

Matthias Meitzler

“I’m always surprised that families allow themselves to be so constricted by the state in such personal matters.” These words can be interpreted as a protest against normative concepts that have characterized the funerary culture of Central Europe for decades. The quote stems from the founder of the Swiss company that has been creating diamonds from the carbon rest of ashes for the past 15 years. This procedure is not the result of some chance development that in some form would have possible in earlier days; rather, it is a product of technical and – inseparably connected – social change. Something that occurs naturally some 150 to 200 kilometers under the surface of the Earth at very high pressures (ca. 60,000 bar) and very high temperatures (ca. 1,500 degrees Celsius) – the growth of a diamond – can today, with enough technical know-how and the respective apparatus, be imitated within just a few days. Such technology and the continual improvements thereof are embedded in a changing societal environment that treats such innovations as desiderata, tailors solutions, and then legitimizes them (Rammert 2016). Yet not everything that is principally possible eventually becomes socially acceptable. For example, let us assume that the technical requirements for the synthetic creation of such ash artifacts had been available 100 years ago. The actual application would likely have remained modest since the burial culture at the time would not have had a legitimate place for such an approach. In the meantime, however, the social climate has changed considerably, and what long had no relevance in funerary matters is today pertinent. Even though it may represent only a small niche in the market, the ash diamond is nevertheless a hands-on offer that delivers answers to many questions that crop up in modern mourning and burial culture, questions to which conventional proposals fail to provide adequate and convincing solutions.

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This volume is concerned primarily with the experiences, actions, reflections, and attitudes of persons who have positively decided to turn the cremated ashes of their loved ones into a memorial artifact. It serves to reconstruct the socially relevant motives that enabled these approaches in the first place. This chapter, however, looks at things from a different perspective: We are not focusing here on the theory or the customers of particular products and services, but rather on the providers of those products and services.1 To do justice to the entire complex process involved in creating gemstones using cremation ashes, we need to clarify some important questions, such as the following ones: Who are the professional stakeholders active in this field? What concrete demands do they attempt to satisfy? How do they understand their own role in the process? What objections are being voiced by other stakeholders and what communication strategies do the providers employ to deflect such protest? How do they legitimize their own activities? The empirical basis for the discussion given below rests largely on two extended interviews2 held with the Swiss company founder quoted at the beginning of this chapter. In addition, we added insights gained in the course of further research activities, among other things, an interview with a manager responsible for a natural funeral forest, a conversation with a (female) German artist who paints pictures using cremation ashes, a visit to a company in Austria that creates sapphires and rubies from the remains of cremation ashes, as well as numerous interactions we had at various congresses and undertaker fairs with experts from the funerary field. In the following, we try to show that the perspective of the providers cannot be seen completely isolated from (anticipated) motivations of the recipient. An offer will work only as long as it meets people’s real needs – and sometimes that interest is created only after learning of the existence of corresponding offers.

1

This change in perspective runs parallel to the postulate of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1996), according to which many mistakes in the art field occur by concentrating on the vantage point of the recipient and ignoring that of the creator. We think the application of this approach to our subject matter is legitimate since an ash diamond is an artifact that oscillates between bodily associations, materiality, and esthetics. 2 The first interview took place in May 2017 as part of the research project Die Pluralisierung des Sepulkralen (The Pluralization of the Funerary Sector, University of Passau, Benkel/Meitz­ ler, 2016–2018). The second interview was held in March 2019 during a research visit by the authors of this volume to the grounds of the Swiss diamond factory over a period of several days.

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7.1 The Cultural Background of Burials There is no need to point out that society never rests but is subjected to continual change, which in turn leads sometimes to slow and plodding, other times to rapid developments in various areas, precipitating new social phenomena and new challenges. This is also true, in addition to other concerns, for the funeral business, a field long considered the “conservative abutment against the zeitgeist” (Klie 2008, p. 7). Thought to be the very embodiment of collective consciousness and the preservation of order, since the beginning of the 21st century it has experienced a remarkable upheaval. Traditional customs and behavioral expectations that long went unquestioned (examples are services according to Christian rites, interment of the body in a family burial plot, public viewing of the corpse, the strict black dress code during the so-called “year of mourning”) are in the process of losing their meaning as well as being the object of expressed criticism. In the shadow of this development, alternative approaches and interpretations are gaining traction since they offer a high level of noncommitment as well as a sensitivity for and consideration of the personal situation of those affected. For some time now one can observe an increase in new and different solutions, tending toward greater individualization and autonomy. These tendencies are also present in the data gathered for the study on which this volume is based. Whether and how people prepare themselves for the end of life and how rationally or emotionally they approach the loss of a loved one has thus become less a matter of corresponding to collective expectations and more one of searching for and finding a self-determined and independent path. The question of who is demanding autonomy from whom results in very different, sometimes very controversial answers. The institutional guidelines are often the source of great discomfort (e. g., when a cemetery stipulates/forbids a certain type of grave design). In other cases, the attempt to bridge divergent interests (e. g., the method of burial and the place of burial) can lead to intrafamilial discord (Meitzler 2020). Earlier research on these topics (e. g., Benkel/Meitzler/Preuß 2019; Benkel/ Meitzler 2017a, 2017b) revealed that the discontent with rigid routines, outdated regulations, and insufficient flexibility relates especially to the cemetery. The loud and unmistakable protests are directed, among other things, at the exacting behavioral conventions that govern social control, at the financial burdens involved in purchasing/renting a gravesite, at the paternalism revealed by excessive regimentation, at the physical distance of cemeteries to one’s home, and at the temporary usage rights granted in the form of limited “resting periods.” All of this creates resentment that is no longer being suppressed

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but expressed openly and translated into concrete actions and decisions. For a while now, the cemetery has no longer been the “sure-fire success” it once was, filling up with one burial after another. Today, people are giving greater thought to their own end-of-life situation and that of their relatives as well. In modern society, very different value systems exist parallel to one another both with and without creating conflict. This factor becomes visible in burial culture especially in the pluralization of solutions, in the fact that there is no longer just one single concept for burying the dead but a multitude of different interests to be considered. Of course, some cemeteries are now in the process (albeit with considerable delay) of differentiating and expanding the classical offers to include more or less innovative variations. And for many survivors, cemeteries still fulfill important psychosocial functions. Yet, the cemetery is no longer the undisputed place to bury, mourn, and commemorate one’s loved ones. Rather, alternatives have gained in popularity, not the least burial rites that have nothing to do with cemeteries – such as the ash artifact. Despite all differences, these new approaches do have one thing in common: They all stem from the rejection of conventional burial rites and the search for solutions to the problems created by such rites. Needs that a cemetery inherently cannot (or doesn’t want to) meet have become the rallying point for the corporate philosophy of novel providers. For example, a look at the public image projected by forest burial organizations in Germany (Friedwald or Ruheforst) demonstrates how explicitly they see their role: The classical cemetery stands for interdictions, obligations, a dark and stifling atmosphere; the forest is a place of withdrawal, rest, unconventionality, natural surroundings – all positive connotations. Legally speaking, forest burial spaces are also cemeteries, but their public relations efforts depict them as the exact opposite. This may be seen in the statement of a company representative who knows the situation from the inside out: “The important realization was that the decision to choose the forest for burial was at the same time the conscious rejection of the normal cemetery. People no longer associate themselves with the cemetery; they’ve just drifted apart, and the cemetery is no longer a place where people want to be. The forest, on the other hand, is considered a good alternative.” Despite all critical objections that may be brought forth – how “natural” is a forest burial? how liberal are the rules of burial? – corporate communication can be summed up as follows: The natural forest burial method provides the support people want that they are not getting from a normal cemetery. That people feel abandoned does not necessarily result from cemeteries having lost their quality, but rather from the fact that their offers have remained unchanged and

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unreformed for such a long time, whereas the overall mentality of the population regarding mourning and burial has experienced a great change. At first glance, the ash diamond might seem to be a different thing indeed. But the zeitgeist that spawned this new approach is very similar.

7.2 The Ash Diamond and Its Relevance A company today does not necessarily need to have a “foundation myth” to legitimize its existence and its role in the economy. But, of course, it doesn’t hurt either, all the more when the services it offers are situated at the periphery of society because of their presumed “difficult” nature. Our interview partner, Mr. J., did not have a scientific background or training in all matters funerary that led to his coming up with the idea of starting a company to create diamonds from the extracted carbon of cremated ashes. Rather, it was a serendipitous meeting with an aspect of the undertaking culture that spawned his interest. When asked about this original scene, he reports how, a few years ago, because of a severe disease he was forced to look intensively at the end of life. During a private visit to a cemetery, he observed a grave been dug up by a backhoe, revealing “a not-quite-yet-decomposed body”. This shocking sight demonstrated quite clearly to him that not only is life finite, so is one’s grave. No longer does it offer the dead the famous “final resting place,” but rather a temporary repository for one’s physical remains that, sooner or later – and apparently far from the eyes of the public – would require another sort of treatment. His knee-jerk and irrefutable conclusion was clear: “I do not want to end up that way.” His subsequent research into the decomposition process of human bodies and the resulting soil pollution only served to strengthen his resolve to be cremated. But the cemetery was also not to become the final resting place for his ashes; he was thinking more of having his ashes strewn on a mountaintop meadow. Yet that, too, was not an optimal solution, since it would have created another problem: What if his mother, who someday may not be physically able to go to the Swiss mountains and visit the very spot, were robbed of the much-needed place of mourning? While still a student, he had read an article by a Russian academic who had developed a method for creating synthetic diamonds from ashes. As it later turned out, there was a misunderstanding: The article had not been about cremation ashes at all. Nevertheless, it spawned in Mr. J. a fascination about this process: He now saw a way to gracefully combine his own funerary contemplations with those he attributed to his mother.

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Whether, and to exactly what extent, this event actually happened as recounted is less important for the corporate identity of his company and the commercialization of his product as the fact that this narrative makes for a great story. It enhances the credibility of his goods that the founder is not acting from an uninvolved perspective to understand the needs of his potential customers, but rather that he himself had had such experiences and “thinks similarly.” Surely in the course of a lifetime, the memories of what we have experienced ourselves become mixed with reflections on what we experienced; current reports on the past are always a blend of fact and fiction – which does not change the authentic and plausible part of the story. So, what is an ash diamond? This volume looks at that question from several different angles. Depending on how the question is posed, different answers emerge. The artifact does not obtain meaning on its own but needs someone to bestow that meaning upon it and to treat it accordingly. Many of our interview partners who had a diamond made consider it the crystalline reincarnation of their loved one; for others, it is just a “thing,” an object that somehow reminds them of their loved one; others still think it is neither but something completely different. The shift in emphasis from the user to the provider means widening the perspective: In this chapter, we are not concerned with whether the diamond more than symbolically embodies the deceased person, but how a company introduces a product to the market and creates enough demand to be successful. How much a particular product is in demand depends, in turn, on whether people see some additional value in owning it, regardless of what that value may be. Mr. J.’s original intention was nothing less than his desire to establish a “third form of burial, an alternative to earth burial and cremation.” Thus, the diamond was not meant merely to be a nice souvenir people purchase following the loss of a loved one, but rather “a real and true means of burial” that plays a role in the funerary marketplace. The additional value of the gemstone pressed in the Swiss production facility should lie expressly in being the result of a bodily transformation. But in order to literally speak of a “flawless” burial, Mr. J. didn’t think it sufficient to simply use something “physical”: You can form a diamond from hair alone using less complicated technical means (this is presently also one of the alternative offers3). Rather, it is important to use and transform the 3 “If I only use hair, then what results is nothing but a means of remembrance […], a commemorative object. However, if I take ashes, the essence of the human being in question – their carbon remains – and transform them into a diamond, then that was that person. Sure, we’re talking about no more than 2 g, but the symbolism weighs greater, and it is also a true alternative means of burial,” Mr. J. said. If we follow his argument, then making a “hair diamond”

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entire ashes and leave none remaining. Only after including the totality of the dead body do we achieve what is understood here as a true burial artifact and not just a commemorative artifact. This approach can be seen as an alternative approach, or rather: an unconventional approach, because it contrasts with established definitions. If we understand burial to be the “transferral of the mortal remains […] back to the four elements of earth, fire, water, and air” (Sörries 2010, p. 54), then the creation of a diamond doesn’t fit the bill. Cremation, euphemistically designated (in German) as a “fire burial” and semantically treated as such in public discussions (Spranger/Pasic/Kriebel 2014), remains the primary burial act and the prerequisite for all further actions. An ash diamond is created from cremation ashes, not from an “untreated” (i. e., an uncremated) corpse. If earth burial is the only way to deal with an untreated corpse, then the ashes cannot be part of another burial act but can only be part of an act of interment.4 In this scenario, turning the ashes into a diamond is not so much a burial as a postburial transformation of the material cremation remains. If we disregard this objection for a moment and declare the act of diamond-making to be a form of burial, then we must note that even using the entirety of the cremation ashes for that purpose is at best a partial burial. Can the totality of the bodily form be guaranteed if the cremation ashes consist of only a fraction of what the uncremated corpse actually comprised? And, against this background, how are we to judge the circumstance that, in the end, it is not possible to differentiate between the carbon stemming from the body and that stemming from the clothes on that body and the wooden casket surrounding that body? We must also remember that only a small part of the carbon content is extracted from the cremation ashes, the rest being filtered out or dissolved in acid and thus handled differently. is not a form of burial since hair, in contrast to cremation ashes, could in effect stem from a living being – and something that is alive cannot by definition be buried! 4 If we understand “interment” to be some form of placing mortal remains (whether as a corpse or as ashes) in some specific location, then the ash diamond would not fit this category, since its inherent portability clearly causes it to deviate from this definition. The same problem would also apply to storing cremation ashes on one’s living room shelf or depositing them in a medallion. Of course, you could “bury” a diamond, say, in your backyard, but the process of creating the diamond would still not suffice to speak of a burial. In this sense, the apportionment of the ashes – which is technically forbidden in Germany, but still possible – does not a priori exclude creating a diamond and carrying out a burial. The diamond is merely one of several possibilities for “whatever can be done with ashes” (Gernig 2011). This is where the “multioption burial culture” (Benkel/Meitzler 2013, p. 250) meets its material equivalent, and what makes it special is that we are dealing with the cremation ashes of a single individual.

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The question of whether the diamond represents a burial or just a commemorative object is relevant not only to the personal position of the company’s founder and that of the consumer, it has also led to broad public controversies. For example, the Bundesverband Deutscher Bestatter (Association of German Undertakers) criticized the Swiss company for using the term “diamond burial” in its advertising materials, thus – their allegation – misleading customers. In the meantime, this terminology has been removed from the marketing vocabulary, though that of course does not change the basic intention of Mr. J.

For a trouble-free economic exchange, such hair-splitting over definitions is less decisive than the fact that people want to partake of such offers. The manufacturer would likely not be doing himself a favor to explicitly market the product as a form of “burial,” choosing in the process a term that connotes negatively to most people since it associated with attributes not typically used for diamonds. A closer look at the interview material provides such examples – by the way also for the fact that the “authenticity” of this means of burial only plays a minor role in the decision to accept the offer and often emerged only in the course of the interview. A look at the process underlying the creation of an ash diamond clearly shows that both the production process and the resulting product are extremely

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artificial matters. For that reason alone, the gemstone created is an artifact, because it does not automatically arise from the cremation ashes but requires complicated technical apparatus (a so-called high-pressure/high-temperature compactor) as well as people who can construct such machines and use them to create the physical conditions necessary to produce a diamond. Even if the technical equipment could enable the imitation of natural processes, the final product, a gemstone, remains a cultural product, not a natural one. Put differently: The origin of this object is the simulation of natural processes in accordance with cultural premises. Technically speaking, one differentiates between “natural” diamonds created in the Earth’s interior and “cultivated” ones, that is, synthetically produced diamonds. The supposed natural origin is in actual fact a “mechanical nature” that cannot exist without the cultural circumstances. Yet Mr. J. does not share the view of the preeminence of artificiality or the idea of cultural dominance over nature. Though he does not deny that cultural forces are active in what we call nature, the decisive event in the whole process, namely, the growing of the diamond, is basically “a natural form of growth we are just accelerating.” One can summarize his position by saying that his company only makes the (technical-cultural) conditions available so that nature can run its (controlled!) course of action. Since Mr. J. sees ash diamonds less as a human-made artifact and more as a natural product, he does advocate keeping the artificial interventions to a minimum. In principle, the technical feasibilities needed for diamonds to be created and later modified go far beyond what his company offers. An example: Mr. J. explains that no purposeful effort is made to influence the later coloration of the diamond during the production process, although this would be easily possible by adding various elements (e. g., sulfur creates a yellow tone). But that would reduce the authenticity value of the diamond as a natural product. The firm has stuck to that policy, rejecting customers’ wishes concerning the resulting coloration of the gemstone. As we also heard in the course of our interviews with customers, surprising moments are not rare during the initial visual inspection of the jewel. This, in turn, has now occasioned the company to note in advance that they do not exert any influence on the color and “leave it solely to nature.”5 But, of course, such a “naturality imperative” cannot be implemented with complete consistency. In the early days of his company, Mr. J. considered making no effort at all to refine the diamond emerging from the growing cell, that 5 How much “nature” is actually present behind the color of the diamond may be doubted if one is to believe the rumor that the intake of powerful medicines such as chemotherapy drugs subsequently leads to a more intensive blue coloration of the diamond.

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is, neither polishing nor lasering it, only to discover that this concept did not chime well with the actual wishes of his customers. Most of them did not want to get a rough diamond but a honed and smooth one. Had his company chosen to completely deny such wishes, they would have done exactly what was being criticized about the traditional burial providers, namely, ignoring the needs of the survivors. Although Mr. J. initially also pushed back against having an identification code inserted into the diamond by laser (something now more or less obligatory), which he considered a cultural act against nature, even though it cannot be seen with the naked eye, after a while he had to concede that it did represent an effective means of labeling useful in case of theft. A further aspect that characterizes Mr. J.’s attitude was that he crafted his offer less as a product and more as a service, a service he did for the customer because his role goes beyond the production and sale of an ash diamond. Rather, Mr. J. noted, the conditions under which someone approaches his company – a loved one has recently expired or the family is dealing with their certain death soon – make additional services imperative. Thus, it is not just a matter of carrying out a skilled act and selling it well; it is especially relevant to do justice to the psychosocial facets such a situation demands, such as empathetic attention (taking the necessary time, listening, etc.), expert counseling, thoughtful support as well as the reliable organization and coordination of the resulting workflow. Put somewhat pointedly, we are not dealing here primarily with the sale of some material object, but rather with the associated emotions and memories. Of course, such a spin is not a new thing, and what company would resist being called out for offering not just a product but an “experience”? Such an approach may sound a little dramatic, but it is also plausible if you recall the vote of confidence and level of trust required in this market segment. Before the survivors are handed over the crystalline by-product of their loved one, they must first entrust the ashes for a certain period to a stranger who is unknown to them personally and whose activities take place on some backstage and out of the public eye. That is why, from the corporate perspective, it is important to impart to potential customers the feeling that their decedent is now in good hands, and that there is no cause for concern.

7.3 On the Esthetics of Decomposition, Ashes, and Jewels How providers themselves view their own product (in this case, as a means of burial, as a natural product, as a service) greatly affects how they market it. What does the ash diamond have that other funerary options do not? What is the rea-

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soning behind rejecting traditional earth burial in favor of cremation and subsequent preparation of a diamond from the ashes? In this regard, Mr. J. introduces several arguments that reflect, in part, the statements we also heard from the diamond owners. (We had requested the latter to recapitulate the most important steps in their decision-making process.) That the jewel is, so to speak, the antithesis of classical burial practices is clear by now. But what characterizes it? The first step in answering this question may lie in looking at the burial culture from an esthetical vantage point. There are very good reasons why Western society deals with dead bodies by imposing “irreversible invisibilization.” When someone dies, their corpse is generally buried within a reasonably short time, in other words: put in a coffin and then laid to rest 6 feet underground. What we know about what happens with the body in the next days, weeks, months, and years is more theoretical than practical. That the decomposition of a human corpse occurs in the absence of any visual contact – that such events are quite consciously allowed to take place under and not over the surface of the Earth, and that most people have no real opportunity to directly observe and discover what goes on – is not seen as a somehow culturally deplorable practice, but quite the opposite as a hallmark of cultural development (Benkel 2013a; Benkel/ Meitz­ler 2013; Meitzler 2017a). However, should such a direct interaction nevertheless occur, then it largely proceeds calmly, rooted in routine professional trajectories. The empirically much rarer case is that it suddenly and temporarily causes a crisis experience that interrupts our everyday life, which generally runs low on such extraordinary surprises. It may even influence us in the long term. Although we do harbor a certain curiosity about the successive decay of the human body, something very well addressed by diverse media offers, such fascination quickly gives way to repulsion, shock, panic when the object (subject?) of our observation is no longer a depersonalized unknown being but the familiar (albeit dead) body of a loved one. The desire “not to be eaten by worms” is a well-known platitude often used by people asked about their ideas of their own burial who wish to express distaste at the thought of earth burial. This debatable conception of the body, more myth than truth, can elegantly be circumnavigated these days by resorting to cremation, which is touted from all sides as a hygienic, “clean” method of “fire burial.” Instead of going the route of the biological inevitability of decomposition, we take a shortcut by using oxidation in a muffle furnace. But this process, too, although it produces the “end product” much more quickly than earth burial, typically does not occur under the eyes of the relatives. What remains, depending on the extent of the original body mass, is a more or less small heap of ashes. As

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with earth burial, the principle of irreversible invisibilization reigns, though in this case, the body loses its visibility not because of burial and decomposition, but because of having been cremated: Once incinerated, always incinerated. Soon thereafter, the ashes disappear in a “black box” (the urn). Of course, one could, both principally and factually, take a look at the product of cremation – after all, you can open the urn at any time. Different from the rotting underground corpse, however, such ashes, because of their optical affinity to the well-known ash leftovers of cigarettes, wood briquets, or charcoal, have a better “everyday visuality and connectivity.” Taking a peek incites general irritation only if the observer were to suddenly realize they are looking at cremation ashes. It is not the factual presence of a heat-transformed corpse that causes such irritation, but rather the applied attribution. Someone not in possession of (self-trained or professionally educated) expert knowledge would likely be very hard pressed to identify ashes as those of a human being. And how often are we put in such a position of having to make that distinction? Nevertheless, the cremation ashes and how they come to be are not free of negative associations. Because of their attributes, ashes are the funerary equivalent of the “worm narrative.” For some people, even the very thought of a close relative (or one day their own body) being offered up to the fire causes considerable consternation. And putting the urn on the living-room mantelpiece (notwithstanding any legal arguments against it) is not a pleasant thought for everyone. Some of our interview partners did expressly prefer the in-house presence of their loved ones’ ashes, claiming that this physical proximity creates a social nearness to their beloved decedent, whereas others thought such an arrangement would only create additional stress for them and not be helpful (see Benkel/Meitzler/Preuß 2019, pp. 146 f.). The esthetics of the ashes are rarely addressed. Yet, in the funerary field, some providers offer products conceived as esthetically pleasing to the eye. Here are a few examples we encountered during our research: • An artist from Germany, as a small part of her overall artistic work, produces paintings that use colors mixed with cremation ashes. For her, this method was not completely new: She previously had painted pictures using wood ash and coal ash, when one day someone asked her whether she would consider using human ashes. In her interview, she said that, at first, she was rather skeptical about the idea: “My first reaction was, well, no, you can’t do that, absolutely not. A film immediately started to roll in my head […] It was initially just a no-go matter, but then the idea cropped up again and again, in sometimes funny ways.” Eventually, she overcame her reluctance and was reinforced by the positive experiences she had in her dealings with

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grieving relatives. Such a painting represents the counterweight to the conventional treatment of cremation ashes since the ashes don’t disappear by being integrated into a painting but become a lasting element of a piece of (admittedly unusual) art. The most important thing for the esthetic quality of the material is a feeling for proportions. The artist herself noted that she did not use the entire quantity of ash for a painting but only a relatively small amount (ca. 20 g): “It’s supposed to be esthetically pleasing.” A German company manufactures hand-made glass sculptures of various sizes and forms. The special thing about them is that a very small amount of ash (no more than 1–2 teaspoons) is worked into the glass – that is, enclosed by the glass and visible. Because of the existing German laws concerning cemetery burial and the proscription of dividing up or processing the ashes, such sculptures are presently possible only in non-German glass factories (e. g., in the Czech Republic and The Netherlands), though they are sold mostly to German customers. Another player on the market of ash artifacts is situated in Austria and creates rubies and sapphires. To this end, they also use a small amount of ash (ca. 50 g)6 from which various elements (e. g., calcium, phosphorus, iron, magnesium, titanium) are extracted. In a chemical procedure lasting about 24 hours (a homogenization with aluminum oxide at temperatures above 2000 degrees Celsius), the recovered elements are melted to form a gemstone. Once the jewel has cooled down, it is polished according to the wishes of the customer. Finally, a short look at a few very seldomly used methods around the world that make all other methods look rather conventional: The ashes are used to create a vinyl record album (LP), to make an ammunition cartridge (the latter of which can be shot from an appropriate hunting gun), mixed with tattoo ink and injected under the skin, loaded into fireworks, to decorate a coffee service – or inserted into objects that serve to sexually stimulate.

Although the objects mentioned above differ in their make-up, their features, their marketability, and the conditions required for their creation, they all have one important thing in common: An otherwise “unesthetic,” literally intangible material generally kept out of the sight of most people is formed into an esthetically pleasing, palpable, demonstrable product. Often the term “refine6 As the company says in its various advertising brochures, on the company’s website as well as in conversations with the authors of this volume, the creation of such a gemstone does not necessary require cremation ashes – one can alternatively use 10 g of hair or a mixture of hair and cremation ashes.

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ment” is used to describe this process. Yet the esthetics of the ash product does not automatically result from the production process but rather follows from different types of intervention (mixing with color, enclosed in glass, extraction/ filtration, etc.). Otherwise unprocessed, the cremation ashes offer few true usability options. One can sink them into the ground, put them under a stone plate or into a wall, scatter them at some location, seal them in an amulet, or just leave them in the urn in which they were delivered somewhere in your living quarters. All of these methods, however, have one basic purpose: to hide them from sight and thus to reduce the chance of their being recognized for what they are. Because of their characteristic consistency, cremation ashes cannot be handled very well. And what would be the point of opening the urn in regular or irregular intervals and putting your hand inside? This would likely tend to cause feelings of impurity (ashes on your hands) or impiety (hands defiling the dead). But that you can do a lot with processed ashes that you couldn’t do with unprocessed, “pristine” ashes is exactly where the Swiss diamond-maker becomes active. The founder says on this matter: “Ashes are not appetizing. What are they doing sitting on my shelf? The first generation may have some relationship, but the next surely won’t. They ask: What do I do with this now? It makes me confront my finite nature and loss.” A diamond is different. Although formed from ashes, this esthetically pleasing artifact is the antithesis of everything said up to now about conventional approaches to the dead. In contrast to ashes, the diamond is not abstract; it is approachable; you can relate to it; it has a self-explanatory form; you can touch it and handle it; it won’t slip through your fingers; it won’t get your fingers dirty. Nor is it a memento mori: It does not remind us of death and the inevitability of death, but rather instills in us a certain providence of eternity. It is made of robust material and would appear to be everlasting. Its owner has a life-long right of use: Unlike a corpse and unlike ashes, one can “own” a diamond. This jewel will probably still exist after its original proprietor and its maker are long gone. And as part of an inheritance, it can be passed on to the next generation. Nothing about the diamond suggests transience, impurity, revulsion – quite the opposite: It radiates timelessness, beauty, purity. There is no need to hide it, rather because of its shining brilliance, it often draws inquisitive, astonished, excited glances. Again Mr. J.: “The diamond speaks positively to us, not negatively; the attributes of a diamond – that at least was our goal – should remind us of the happy moments in life we spent together with this person. And as long as these moments are being remembered, the person stays near to one’s heart.”

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The dichotomy of beauty and ugliness is important in another context. Mr. J. reports that a large majority of his customers who have contracted with his company to have diamonds made are cancer patients. He explains this phenomenon, among other things, that people with severe illnesses are more intensely confronted with the end of life than others, and that they are already in the process of making plans. In addition to the practical arguments, there is the so to speak “symbolic” argument: “In conversations, I often hear that the process of dying is really ugly especially among cancer patients. Ugly, messy, awful. And when I ask such people ‘Why did you choose this form?’ they often say: ‘Listen, in the end, I want something beautiful to become of me. I don’t want them to remember how I was during chemotherapy, what I was like near the end. They should have something beautiful to look at.’” The ugly decay of the living state to the dying state and finally to a dead body as well as the no less ugly decay of the dead body as part of the decomposition process gets an esthetically beautiful counterpart through the postmortal transformation into a diamond. To what extent this symbolic framework applies to the true reasons entertained by the customers remains an open question; in any case, our data does provide some evidence that the beauty of the gemstone is consciously contrasted with the ugliness of death. Both esthetically and practically the diamond scores higher than ashes and decomposition. Its specific characteristics provide alternative management approaches and thus appeal particularly to people who are more likely to reject cemeteries (for whatever reasons). Except for options that do not demand constantly tending to the grave, “renting” a burial spot usually requires some regular caretaking responsibilities. Our interviews reveal that tending to the grave is not considered part of the grieving process, but is quite simply felt to be a mandatory act: the satisfaction of conventions that only serves to soothe one’s conscience – not toward the deceased but toward one’s social environment! “The existing traditional procedures are rather brutal, since you have to bury someone within a week’s time. And then that person is gone, disappeared, and can no longer comfort you,” Mr. J. observes. In this perspective, you are dealing with a two-pronged loss: not just with the death of a loved one but also with the distance created by burying that person in a cemetery grave sometimes far away. Further, the cemetery may be accessible only during certain hours of the day, so that survivors cannot determine on their own when to pay their respects. And since the burial spot is situated in a public space, one is potentially subjected to the looks and comments of more or less uninvolved people, who may be making judgments about the state of the grave and socially sanctioning those responsible.

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Because the diamond is not truly a grave in the strict sense of the word, it requires no “maintenance efforts” and generates no social control. What happens with or to the jewel is left completely to the sovereignty of the person who commissions and owns it. Different from the immobile cemetery plot, the diamond is permanent and, if desired, permanently present. It may always be kept directly in one’s vicinity, for example, in a piece of jewelry worn on the body. Of course, this means first “surrendering” the decedent (first the corpse is brought to the crematorium, then the ashes are sent to Switzerland for a few weeks or months), but this is a temporary separation that is eventually rewarded by their returning as a crystalline memento. Mr. J. even sees a positive effect in this waiting period: Whereas critics (some of whom are real or self-appointed psychologists) see the possession of and attitude toward the diamond as a failure to cope with the loss of a loved one or an obstacle to “letting go,” this phase of “detachment” actually does take place: while the diamond is being created. In addition to the essential criticism of the classic path, whereby grief serves to distance oneself from the decedent, as well as of all generalizing grief models, in Mr. J.’s opinion the true separation phase is completed when the relatives get the diamond. This is a remarkable reframing: The waiting period, previously subject to negative connotations as a “passive phase,” now comes to be considered a psychologically healthy mechanism.

7.4 Piety, Valence, and the Rejection of Panaceas That the subject of dying, death, and grief lies squarely in a morally sensitive area is especially true when seen from an economic perspective (Akyel 2013). Reconciling expectations of reverence toward the dead and the need to maximize profits is tricky at best for any commercial firm working in this field – especially if they want to avoid being labeled the black sheep of the branch. As a producer of ash diamonds who is already deemed suspicious because of his “posttraditional” offers and, more than his funeral peers, is subject to accusations of commercializing grieving relatives, Mr. J. has come up with the solution of legitimizing his pricing policies by ensuring piety throughout. When asked about his attitudes toward piety, he points out the company-wide treatment of cremation ashes and their components: “We are dealing with human remains, and we handle them like we would the remains of our grandparents, our own relatives.” This means, for example, that “anything done with the ashes or the diamond is not done with the naked hand” but “exclusively with gloves and tweezers. It is our motto that the intimacy of touch remain the privilege of the rela-

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tives.” Further, the ashes are “never put down on the floor or poured into bags. Rather, we have special Japanese urns with covers, so that the ashes are always shielded from sight. Family members, journalists, and guests are not allowed in the production rooms when we are working with ashes, both for reasons of piety and out of respect toward the decedent. And above all, we don’t reveal in any way, shape, or form the name of the decedent, who is registered only with a reference number and not a name.” Dealings with the “residual material” are also subject to their piety guidelines: Whatever remains after the carbon filtration process and the grinding and polishing of the diamond is not considered waste but expressly treated as remains of a human body and given a “second cremation,” the ashes of which are buried in the company’s private cemetery. The procedures described above demonstrate that (and how) a piety code becomes attached to a highly technical operation, from the moment the ashes enter the facility to the completion of the gemstone. The process may be less prosaic, but it is also more complex and the final product more expensive than otherwise the case. Customers pay a large amount for the diamond but also – the company argues – get more than just the bare service: They also receive the assurance of a diligent and pious treatment of the bodily remains of their decedents. “I stand by my prices. They are not cheap, but they shouldn’t be cheap either,” Mr. J. emphasizes. He is convinced that he is not offering some “cheap mass-market product.” The costs involved, however, represent only one aspect of the decision: He points out the sums necessary to buy and maintain an earthen grave in a cemetery, so that, in the end, a diamond is not actually all that expensive – and even has the advantage that its owner can do with it as they please, and that there is no artificial usefulness period. Mr. J. describes his exchanges with his customers regarding the conventional burial logic as follows: “The people complain that they are being forced to do something, that they can’t choose for themselves, that they have to bite the bullet and pay the prices set before them. Those are things that as a service provider I can use.” How the company implements its understanding of piety may be found in more places than their internal procedures. In light of the very evident increase in the relevance and breadth of the market for the burial of pet animals (Meitz­ ler 2017c, 2019), it stands to reason that the next market lies there – after all, diamonds can be formed from more than just the ashes of human cremation but also from the corpses of animals (or from their furs/plumage). To this end, the company founded a subsidiary in Germany especially for such jobs. That diamonds formed from human and animal remains are not offered by the same company, even though the two belong together, is less a pragmatic or legal consideration than primarily one of “symbol communication” (= the respective

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corporate image). As close as the relationship is between humans and their pet animals, as much as recent scientific research has served to deconstruct the long ignored, naturalized demarcation line between the two (Chimaira 2011), and finally as close the funerary practices for humans and animals have become (including burying the one with the other) – Mr. J.’s company still insists on separating the two ventures to better project its promise of pious consideration. Some customers, he presumes, might see their diamond somehow “devalued” if they were to discover that the same facility was producing diamonds from the remains of dogs, cats, etc. Every once in a while, the company does get requests to mix the ashes of a loved one with that of the loved one’s pet animal to create a single diamond. Here, Mr. J. has made his position clear: Not everything technically possible is also morally acceptable. Cremation ashes are thus first tested to see that their composition and suitability fit the further procedures. This reveals, among other things, whether they are dealing with human or animal ashes or a mixture of the two. If animal ashes are found to be present (which has happened a few rare cases), the order is not carried out but passed on to the German subsidiary. The approach applied in this and other matters touching on concerns about reverence, Mr. J. contends, enables his company to remain the market leader in the field of ash jewels and demands that he stick to his technical and moral standards. This is how he sets himself apart from other providers that apparently have fewer scruples in this regard. Whether he could imagine that – someday, somehow – he himself could become a diamond? Mr. J. counters with the argument that is a decision his family would have to make. He still prefers the solution of cremation, but what should then be done with his ashes is not his doing. Yet, nothing would speak against his becoming a diamond, though there is no compelling reason to do so either. “Of course, it would be a little strange if the inventor of this service were not to end up as a diamond. […] But, again, if they don’t want to do it, then I guess they won’t.” His basic affinity toward various means of burial – and thus implicitly toward competitors in the sector – may surprise at first and could all too easily be construed as mistrust of modern burial culture, where ever fewer people are convinced that there should be one and only one approach to the death of a loved one. “My intention is not and never was to convince everyone that this is the proper way. Rather, and this is probably a Swiss thing, everyone should be able to choose for themselves.” This self-reflexive distance toward his own product is what lends him his authenticity: The diamond is not always the solution nor for everyone. This insight remains despite the fact that he is professionally involved in creating diamonds. Acting as if he had discovered

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a panacea for the pain of the bereaved, which only needs to be prescribed to everyone who doesn’t know any better, would go against his personal belief in individualization and multioptionality. And it would only serve to further collectivism – the very opposite of what he so vehemently criticizes about burial regulations.

7.5 The Urn Is Not the End The subject of this chapter are funerary products and services that have tested and in many cases stretched the envelope of traditional burial culture. Crossing such borders means creating irritation, insecurity, provocation: Questioning familiar mores shakes the safe foundations we are so fond of, while also making us aware of the fact that nothing stays the same forever. That is surely how it must have felt at the end of the 19th century when the first crematoriums were established in Germany, accompanied by the growing demand for alternatives to something that had long been considered without an alternative. Within the already rather meager funerary offers of the time, during the first few decades of the 20th century, cremation held a very minor position. By its very presence, however, it did succeed in creating an alternative to traditional earth burial, but it did not attain a truly competitive role. The opponents of cremation, in particular the churches, thought that this phase would not last long and be only a temporary bump in the road, if they were only able to keep such breakout enthusiasts and individualists in check and return them to the well-trodden path. But they were mistaken: The development of the status of cremation in the following decades is an excellent example of how, in the end, social change cannot be delayed, stopped, or reversed. No one today, except for some very conservative circles, would view cremation as an avantgarde movement keen on testing limits. Rather, what was once considered a taboo and a break with a widely accepted tradition has developed its own tradition and in the meantime has become a distinguishing feature of modern burial culture (Meitzler 2020). “Posttraditional,” “avantgardistic,” “alternative” – these terms no longer describe the cremation of a human body, the end product of which is often only a temporary state since further treatments are foreseen and whose final resting place is not necessarily a cemetery. Right now, the market niche providing the services discussed above may seem to be narrow and peculiar, but that is largely the result of present restrictive burial regulations in Germany, which prevent more aggressive advertising. Nevertheless, in this segment, the most important thing is to establish a unique

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selling point that differentiates one’s product from that of the competition. A closer look at the predominant slogans reveals that the idea of physical presence is the great distinguishing feature. The providers we studied emphasize that the fact that their respective ash artifact is a real product made from the bodily remains of the decedent, and that these elements are closer to the essence of the human body – and thus implicitly closer to the body of the deceased person than what other manufacturers claim for their product. And because the ash artifact is not just a product made by humans, but a product made from humans, this closes the gap between the (presumed) individuality of a personality and the (presumed) individuality of the product. Yet, in this regard, since physical presence is not the same thing as physical similarity, we are dealing with an extremely ambivalent situation. The artifact must have a physical origin, that is, it must consist of elements of the human body if we are to assign to it the attribute of being the deceased person. How else could something be someone if that something does not consist of elements of that someone? The intended physical affinity, however, cannot be directly seen in the artifact, which is why it is important to strengthen the trust of survivors in the advertising claims of the product, likely more so with gemstones than with ash paintings or glass sculptures. Put differently: Because of the optical difference, the provider must be able to prove the affinity present in the materiality of the product. The companies contacted did that, among other things, by allowing interested customers closer insights into the production processes and by providing detailed information on the respective method using various communication channels. This is sometimes supported by the statement that the authenticity of the artifact (i. e., the “bodily correspondence”) is not a matter of belief but can be scientifically proven. Of course, on the other hand, the physical affinity cannot be too explicit to prevent notions of optical physical similarity, and to prevent projections on the part of the customer from being defeated by radical physical evidence. Thus, trying to sell diamonds, rubies, or sapphires under the name of “corpse jewels” would likely create doubts among persons not acquainted with such business practices. Remember that, if the preparation of funerary objects were solely a matter of preserving a maximum of bodily similarities, maintaining the honor of a beloved one’s thigh bone (if not the entire skeleton!) would be the most ruthless and honest form of remembrance one could have, much better than a diamond. This gives rise to any number of questions that provide cause for conflict: Is the calcium extracted from the human cremation ashes to be put into, say, an art piece on a canvas more physically relevant than the carbon used to press

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a diamond? Would the deceased person be “more present” in the ash jewel if three, four, or even five different chemical elements were used rather than just one? Is the individuality of a human being truly expressed by the individual combination of substances in their ashes? Can the “true essence” of a loved one be reduced to the specific composition of abstract substances hardly identifiable to most people in everyday social life? And, against this background, what is the role of the optical presentation of the gemstone (coloration, polish, etc.) for its authenticity? Or are all of these concerns moot since, in the end, it is not a matter of how much human potential the manufacturer entrusts to his product, but rather how much customers want to see it in the product and include it in their decision-making process? Despite all competitive aspirations, in the end, the market players are dependent on one another and can only profit from their mutual efforts. In a market that is extremely difficult because of the cultural connotations of its subject, giving a manufacturer the benefit of the doubt is a constitutive moment in customer relations. Debunking the competitor’s product as a “sham” (inasmuch as there was a concrete reason to do so) would create doubt not just about the other guy, but toward the entire product segment: The specific differentiation – “a diamond is not a sapphire, a sapphire is not a ruby, etc.” – may not be all that relevant to survivors. A “nonaggression pact” among providers lies in the best interests of the entire market segment and effectively increases the sales prospects of one’s own product. Further, the old saying that “competition is good for business” is true inasmuch as the promotion of one’s service has the unintended but pleasant side effect of making the whole category of ash artifacts better known in the funerary marketplace. That some of these products have now found their deserved place can be attributed to changes going one in the attitudes, mentalities, constraints, etc., of the stakeholders. One first needs a fertile (funerary) cultural breeding ground if the fruits of these approaches are to grow. It is worth remembering that the original meaning of culture (Latin cultura) concerns just that: cultivation. As might be expected, the various players pitch their products and services in very similar ways. The focus lies on their claim of serving individual wishes concerning grief and burial, and that they are willing to invest in pushing up against anything trying to block that route. Clearly, these companies have a great interest in seeing a liberalization of the German burial regulations. More precisely: in having the rule of compulsory burial in a cemetery for cremation ashes repealed and in the legalization of ash distribution. One should bear in mind, however, that, precisely because of the German legal situation, most of these non-German companies presently enjoy a monopoly.

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Either way: The urn is not the end, and the existing products are only the beginning. This does not automatically mean that all traditional forms are doomed: Some have been relatively successfully clothed in modern attire. Yet, time will tell what happens if the number of cremations continues to increase, if the bastion of burial laws is cracked open, if people who have grown up to be self-determinant individualists reach an age in which they are confronted with personal losses. Much like social change generally does not have an endpoint in its development, the funerary culture too will continue to develop and to discover ever new facets – that in turn will be complemented by and produce new ideas.

8

 “So that’s my wife …?” The Presentation of an Ash Jewel

Thorsten Benkel and Matthias Meitzler

The following field notes were prepared during a one-week research visit in March 2019 at a Swiss company that produces ash diamonds. During this time, we (the authors of this volume) had extensive occasion to see the workings of a company and the people involved in the processes. As to the social dynamics, seeing that they experience everyday routines despite their dealings with a critical background (the death of a human being), it was especially important to us to observe the situations in which the gemstone was handed over to the relatives following its production. This act is done by an employee of a company whose customers often, but not exclusively, show up personally at the place of production to collect the jewel. The place we are talking about is a brick-walled room, painted all white, hardly bigger than 15 m2 (ca. 150 ft2) in size. A 92-year-old man, evidently still very sprightly, who reports that he originally wanted to come alone, is accompanied today by his daughter. They drove to Switzerland from southern Germany by car to retrieve his deceased wife in the form of a diamond. The “customers” (in the vocabulary of the company they are referred to as “welcomed guests” and are not seen solely as paying clients) sit on one side of a large table that takes up nearly the entire space in the room. Next to the door, in a wall unit, is a large monitor; on the other side, along a large window, is a landline telephone. Cables can be seen coming out of the wood paneling. To the side, and thus not directly in the field of vision of the protagonists, stands a wooden box about the size of a hatbox. In more ways than one, it is the most valuable utensil in the room. Once the German guests, Mr. S. and his daughter, Ms. T., have been welcomed into the room, Ms. A., who is responsible for the transfer, leaves the room for a short time. Yet this time she doesn’t leave the visitors alone in the room since two scientists (the authors) are also present. The two survivors had

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previously given their expressed consent to Ms. A. after their arrival for us to be present. Shortly thereafter, she returns with a tray and two cups of coffee. This does not stop any conversations; the relatives and the scientists had remained silent in her absence. Her setting the tray down on the table, however, does unleash a round of forced small-talk concerning, among other things, the trip, the traffic situation, the weather, etc. Ms. A. eases very well into the situation; she clearly has done this dozens of times. Yet, what she has to say does not sound rote but rather conveys, at least to the scientific observers, the feeling of sincere and heartfelt empathy. Unlike all other persons in the room, Ms. A. is the only one for whom this situation is not unusual or unique. Because the roles were set out in advance and the central difference between them lies between routine and exceptionality, neither the guests nor the scientists can fall back onto any previously reliable knowledge regarding this specific and highly unusual encounter. For the two clients this is the first, and perhaps only, opportunity in their lifetime to be on the receiving end of a deceased person in crystalline form. Their decision to do this could not have been made without the uncertainties that now come to the forefront: What happens next? What will the jewel look like? How will what happens affect the feelings of those involved? In addition, when they began their journey the two protagonists couldn’t have known that they would suddenly become the objects of scientific observation – the relevance and implementation of which they could also not properly judge. The two scientists in turn endeavor to do the impossible: to make themselves invisible by avoiding any semblance of actively engaging in the course of the event. Their seats at the long end of the table serve to purposefully signal this, although they know that their very presence changes the setting. Although they are well aware of the assumptions involved with methodologically and systematically prepared observation, they still view the situation with some trepidation: they are about to participate in a highly intimate event in the life of two strangers they have just met. Seen neutrally, what happened in the next few minutes almost gave the impression of attending a performance. Throughout the entire time, even during the introductory statement, Ms. A. wore white gloves; she was otherwise clothed in a discreet outfit that did not remind one too intensely of a mourning garment. Mr. S. and Ms. T. were dressed casually. The atmosphere was not particularly solemn or ceremonious, and the surroundings too did not exude a reverential glow. Our observations of the behavior of the guests did not suggest that we were witnessing an unusual affair that in some circles would be frowned upon, in oth-

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ers considered at the least legally tenuous. They were quiet and composed listening to what Ms. A. had do say. Then, after about 5 minutes’ time, the moment had come, when Ms. A. said the words: “So, let’s see how she turned out, shall we?” With this, the moderator of this strange constellation turned our attention to the material core element in the room. The implicit question of whether the diamond is graced with a soul is answered by her words: One can easily conclude that equating the jewel and the deceased person is not something that would upset or irritate customers.

Whether Mr. S. and Ms. T. were even thinking about this matter is of no concern at the moment. They nod their anticipation to the master of ceremonies, who pulls the wooden box to her and opens it with a grand gesture of revelation with slow and certain gestures. The upper box-like cover is removed and placed to one side. “Now it’s getting exciting,” Mr. S. says with a grin. What we see inside is a foldable contraption, which Ms. A. now precisely opens up. Therein lies a small box containing the ash diamond of Ms. S. During this procedure, Ms. A. is smiling toward the two guests on the other side of the table, who react somewhere between moved and astonished. This is the moment in time when competence is transferred from professionals to persons who are clearly inexperienced and unfamiliar with such a situation

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and who for a while seem rather helpless. “So, that is my wife …?” Mr. S. says, partially in disbelief and partially with great emotion. He adds: “… with whom I was married nearly 60 years.” He too has now endorsed the narrative of the identity of the diamond with his loved one. But no sooner do these words leave his mouth does he begin to softly cry, giving the entire ceremony a very deeply emotional component. For a few seconds, everything is quiet. Then Mr. S., now visibly more collected, begins to tell about his plans for the jewel. He would like to have the diamond set in his wife’s wedding ring and then put the ring on a necklace to give to his granddaughter (the daughter of Ms. T., who remains silent during this statement). “That’s nice,” Ms. A. comments gently, “then the grandmother is always present.” She then points out that the diamond can be removed from the box and touched; it is only important that the little box not be put on the table but opened over the larger box, to prevent the diamond from accidentally falling on the floor. Ms. T. is the first to touch the jewel, to which she says: “Oh, it’s so tiny.” She is amazed and carefully holds the gemstone up to her face and takes a good look at it. The ash diamond now becomes the object and center of attention of all present, except for Ms. A., who is preparing the next step in the process. Mr. S. and Ms. T. receive a certificate that includes biographical data from the life of Ms. S. as well as a photo of the jewel and details on its weight, cut, and color, including information on the production process. The lower edge of the document includes a description of the company’s assurance concerning the transferral of the cremation ashes and the proper creation of the diamond. Ms. A. reads through the certificate and the individual sections together with the relatives. During this time, the jewel never leaves the access of Mr. S. or his daughter, always situated near them. Mr. S. had decided in advance to have only part of his wife’s ashes turned into a diamond, opting to take the remaining ashes with him in the car when he returns home. That is the plan, and Mr. A. fulfills this plan in the next step with a simple gesture: She presents the urn, which up till now has been covered by a white piece of cloth. This receptacle, the original urn used after cremation, cannot be handed over, but it is possible, she says, to have the contents “emptied into a neutral vessel,” namely, a provisional one. This “disguised” form, which raises no associations with ash remains to the untrained eye, is then used to transport the remaining ashes for the trip home. The two guests have to sign a standard form demanded of all customers in this situation that they would dispose of these ashes following existing legal guidelines. A further part of the procedures, lasting from several minutes to several hours according to what Ms. A. reports, is a tour of the facilities. This is offered

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to all customers, but not everyone is interested in discovering exactly how a diamond is formed from the cremation ashes. Mr. S. and Ms. T. are interested. To that end, they have to sign a further form, which provides certain information, such as the ban on taking pictures or touching the apparatus during the tour. It is also revealing that the document contains the explicit note that the visitors will not be confronted with any human cremation ashes in all production facilities, and that all diamonds on display were created from the remains of animal ashes. The strict separation of human and animal ashes and production lines reflected in these words results from the prevailing funerary culture: Humans and animals may be inseparable while alive, but after death, they are generally kept apart. Ms. T. finds this point of interest, and she asks Ms. A. for a brochure and gives the reason for her curiosity: “I don’t know how much longer my big boy is going to hold out … Right now, he’s getting chemotherapy.” Her father adds: “You know, you do kind of get attached to the four-legged creatures.” Then there is an interruption in the plan to leave the presentation room to take a tour: Ms. A. officially asks for the name of a close contact for the (unprecedented) case that something should happen to someone during the tour of the company’s grounds. She notes the name of the granddaughter mentioned above. Here, too, as during the entire exercise, we experience the basic juxtaposition of formality and emotionality. Now, once the last formal and practical duties have been ticked off, all persons in the room stand and go to the door. Mr. S. sets a positive note at the end by pointing out his own future: “When it’s my turn,” he says to Ms. A., “I’ll be back here with you.” Then the three of them leave the room, go down the hall and into the production hall. The situation described above took no longer than 15 minutes. As unusual and uncommonplace it may have seemed, it is repeated in very different variations many times a week. The room is always the same one, the ceremony is generally (but not always) led by Ms. A., but otherwise there are many variations in what occurs. For example, the largest number of visitors in the room was 13 from a motorcycle club; some customers come alone to Switzerland to pick up their diamond. Extremely diverse in any case are the expectations and wishes on the part of the guests, their sociocultural background, their relationship to the deceased, level of mourning, emotional consternation, and much more. All of these factors are decisive in how the transferral of the diamond goes down; they form the framework for the interactions between the professionals and the emotionally involved relatives. Jean Paul Sartre (2001, p. 934) once wrote: “To be dead is to be a prey for the living.” That quote properly describes the situation surrounding the ash diamond.

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The decedent is alone subjected to the living since the latter can do whatever they want with the body, for example, cremate it or make a diamond from the ashes. Furthermore, the jewel is not just commissioned by the living, it is subsequently delivered to them. The dead are always at their mercy. The setting described needs surprisingly few rituals. The choreography is sober, contrasting sharply with other burial settings; the feelings of the survivors clearly come to the fore. Tears in the transfer room are the norm. A couple of times, Ms. A. reports, there were conversations afterward where relatives explicitly asked about other optional rituals, most of which concerned the normal acts of saying goodbye. In one case, the wish was expressed to put flowers on the grave, in another case a candle. Sometimes the guests bring things with them, such as photographs of the deceased person for draping. Sometimes a prayer is spoken or songs are sung. In short, the well-known elements of secular memorial services sometimes appear in this otherwise rather profane location. So, what is going on here? Generally speaking, this is not the simple, prosaic execution of a business transaction; the emotional potential present in the act makes that clear. Nor is it a burial service. It resembles more a … birth. In a burial ceremony, what was once a human (the dead body) becomes invisible by disappearing into a coffin, then put in the ground or deposited behind the doors of a cremation furnace, irrevocably removed from the sight of the grieving. The Swiss “chapel,” on the other hand, is exactly the opposite: A closed box is presented and opened in front of the survivors, who get to decide whether and when this takes place. They even have the privilege of touching. No one before them has ever touched the diamond with their bare hands, and the little box remains closed until the relatives are in the room. It is not a matter of faits accomplis but rather the exclusive power held at the threshold of overcoming death through the creation of a diamond. The possession of a machined gem can (if desired) be celebrated in the transfer room as the readmission of the decedent into the circle of the family. Or it is just the simple handing over of an artificial souvenir that commemorates the life of a loved one. What happens next lies completely in the hands of the survivors. Then, at the latest, they become ritualists of their own design. Thus, this is a highly intimate and – in this constellation – oneoff situation where everything pertaining to the ash diamond comes together: the location, the time, the social environment. Within a very few minutes, we see how the parties involved define the situation, their roles, and their attitudes toward the crystalline commemorative artifact. One question can be asked again and again, even if there is no answer at hand: If, as in the example quoted above, grieving people come to hold a diamond in

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their hands, how many people have left the room when all are gone and the room is empty awaiting the next transfer? Only the scientists, who discreetly leave last, Ms. A., who has opened and closed these doors many times over, Ms. T. and Mr. S., who may not have visited this location for the last time? Or was someone else in attendance to whom the enchanting situation was revealed – enchanting because, despite the technical and rational transformation of ashes into a diamond, the whole thing remains somewhat incomprehensible?

9

  Living with the Diamond. Voices from Everyday Life

Thorsten Benkel, Thomas Klie, Matthias Meitzler

This chapter reproduces excerpts from the interviews held as part of the research project “Artifact and Remembrance” which took place between December 2018 and June 2019. In total, we held 49 interviews, the longest of which lasted 137 minutes, the shortest 15 minutes. The target persons were people from Germany who had commissioned an ash diamond at least once in their lifetime. The interviewees were recruited largely from the customer files of a Swiss company that creates such artifacts; a few further persons were collected through personal contacts. The basic format was as follows: We prepared a preformulated letter to be sent to the relevant target group describing the most prominent goals of our study and informing them as prospective participants about their role. Anyone interested could get in touch with us by various means – by telephone, letter, or email. There was no need to further publicize the names or addresses. This method is not the most promising one for garnering the greatest response rate, yet we did not expect any distortion to occur in the results of our survey: Both satisfied and dissatisfied customers would have the opportunity to reflect on their experiences and their decision. We did not expect to attract many “indifferent” customers. The first contact – largely by telephone, but sometimes also in writing – was followed up by arranging an appointment for a longer conversation. These initial, generally rather short conversations served to establish the interview conditions but were often marked by very interesting statements and details. Not a few of the people at the other end of the line would have preferred to have begun telling their stories immediately but had to be consoled to wait a few days for research-relevant reasons. In the time between scheduling the appointments and the beginning of the actual interviews, some of the prospective interviewees were “lost,” either no longer being reachable or interested in participating despite our repeated attempts.

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The very first person contacted was, by chance, an 80-year-old man, though most of the persons we interviewed were women – not a surprising fact for anyone working in the field of death/dying/grief (cf. Benkel/Meitzler/Preuß 2019, pp. 110 f.). A widow commissioning a diamond to be prepared from the ashes of her deceased husband was the most common case in our group, though many other types of relationship were represented as well (e. g., from the ashes of a wife, of parents, of in-laws, of children, of siblings, etc.). Not surprising was that in all cases the person interviewed had a very close and emotionally charged relationship to the “diamonded” person, particularly in light of the conditions under which such a wish had to be realized. Further, it did not surprise us that some of those we queried did not prefer to remain anonymous, though we had guaranteed this from the beginning. Much in keeping with their role of possessing a “shameless” conviction about their actions, some actually requested that we use their names, since they expressly believed in what they were doing and definitively wanted to take a stand in the ongoing public debate.1 Yet after much internal discussion, we decided, for methodological and ethical reasons, not to disclose the identities of the interviewees and informed them accordingly. Most of the conversations we held were done by telephone. With the consent of the interviewees, we recorded the interactions and then transcribed them. From these transcripts we extracted sequences which we thought held much information and which were especially relevant to our research goal, categorizing them according to a special scheme. The quotes chosen thus reflect various appropriations and dimensions of the phenomenon of ash diamond/ ash utilization. Clearly, the various cases include both similarities and divergent perspectives. To present the interview excerpts, we had to reduce the complexity, that is, we carefully adapted the language and did some smoothing as well. Any locations mentioned were changed to protect the protagonists, and their names were replaced by pseudonyms.2 The categorization was not always clear; some of the statements would have equally fit in another category. The following statements are intended to illustrate the breadth of the various interpretations and attitudes toward the ash artifact. By reading between the lines, one can also surmise the social implications of their actions.

1 One person interviewed described her position as well as the expected reaction of certain circles with the words: “I am willing to do anything.” 2 The codes attached to the excerpts are internal codes from the project.

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(1) “Oh, God, Mama’s gone crazy once again!” – Coming to a Decision The central question at the beginning of every interview concerned the original motivation: How did it come to be that, of all the different possibilities offered in modern funerary and memorial culture, you happened to choose the ash diamond model? Where did you get your knowledge about this possibility, and what were your reasons for choosing it? Was the main motivation simply to avoid the classical burial forms and rituals (e. g., a grave in a graveyard)? Or were you focused more on the symbolic values of the artifact? Further, what means did you avail yourself of to fulfill this wish? Whose interests were foremost in the decision? Did you have to override any objections? Who was involved in the decision-making process? Did you consider any alternatives? And if so, what were your reasons for choosing the diamond in the end? Were there conflicts or disagreements among the survivors? Did the decedent know about the option while still alive? Did the decedent voice any tendencies on their own? Or did the relatives act on behalf of the decedent and make the decision, safe in the knowledge that they were acting in the decedent’s best interests?  1  “I saw it once on television. I had a very close relationship with my husband. We were like Siamese twins. And I always said to him: ‘If you die first and I don’t die with you, then I want you to be a diamond hanging around my neck.’” (4M)  2  “My husband often, well, he read a lot online … on his tablet or computer, he read a lot of different newspapers. He was very well read, formed his own opinions about everything – politics, everything that interested him. One day he said something, he said: ‘Hey, you know I could really imagine that one day that I would live on with you as a blue diamond.’” (5K)  3  “That was shortly before my wife died. She had wanted her ashes to be scattered, so I said: ‘Hey, why don’t we have a diamond made!’ She liked the idea. […] I had already seen the like on the internet, so I did some research and had it done through the funeral home.” (10K)  4  “I already knew that you could make diamonds from ashes. I can’t really tell you where anymore, but I had seen it somewhere on TV or read it somewhere. I don’t really know how I knew, but I did a search for ‘make diamonds from ashes.’ And that’s when it popped up: cremation diamond.” (17K)

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 5  “About 20 years ago I heard a radio program about it and […] I probably didn’t think much about it at the time. And then when our daughter died in an accident in 2016, well, then everything … what should we do? […] I thought, I just listened to my thoughts – what do I really want? What is right for me? And then I remembered that program I had heard. […] And so I said, ok, part [of the ashes] can be buried and part of them I won’t and will have a diamond made from them.” (2K)  6  “A few years ago, I read in a newspaper about such a thing. That’s how I learned of it. That’s how the idea came to me. Up to the very end I said that I wanted to have a diamond made from my husband, and I have two children … And then, when the time came, I said, I can’t afford to do it, you know, we’re not talking about a couple of euros here. So, my son, without even letting me know, went to the undertaker and got things rolling. ‘That’s what you wanted, so that’s what you’ll get!’ Yes, that’s how it happened.” (13K)  7  “When my daughter died, a friend of mine … she had heard of it by chance. Her son had died, and they used part of the ashes to make an aquamarine. Then I heard that there were other alternatives possible. So, when my daughter died, I asked the undertaker who told me that you could also get a diamond made. Then my mother told me she would give it to me as present – and to my daughter in effect.” (7K)  8  “I had the idea a long time ago, before there were any notions about death. That was in the early days, when I was married for the first time […] we had a dog. […] After about 11 years the dog got sick and had leukemia and we had to have him put away and I said to my husband: ‘I’d really like to keep his fur. […] And then I said: ‘Hey, I’d like to have the fur removed and then put on a chair or something … […] ‘What?’ he said, ‘you’re crazy! You can’t do that!’ […] Everybody was so upset at me, my mother-in-law, my own mother, all of them wondered how I could even have such a thought. So, I let it go. […] And then, after I’d married for the second time, to my now deceased husband, […] he was my one big love of my life, you understand? […] So, I always had in the back of my mind that, if my husband dies someday, I want to have him with me, sorry … [begins to cry]. And the undertaker, I’d read in a newspaper and heard it on the radio as well years ago, that you can do that. […] And then I said, ‘Yes, that’s what I want to do.’ I had an insurance policy on my husband, and I used the money from it for that.” (19K)  9  “We learned about the idea […] from a customer of ours who had taken hairs from her cat (that was still alive at the time) … You can have these commemorative diamonds made just from hairs. […] Otherwise I wouldn’t have known about

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it. So, when we realized in the end, it was about two weeks before my father died, that things were not going to get better, that’s when we first started thinking about things like his burial, etc. That was when the matter with the diamond occurred to me again.” (42B) 1   0  “Well, we had a time, you know how things happens – we were together for 20 years but married for only 4, a long time, so, you know, you talk about death and how you’d like to be buried and all. It was clear from the very beginning that he wanted to be cremated. He wanted that when, after an accident, his car went up in flames, so he decided what he wanted. He took the first step and showed me too that it was the right way. It was kind of weird for me. A few weeks earlier I’d seen a report on television about the possibility of turning ashes into a diamond. I knew that they did that in Switzerland, but I didn’t know that it was possible via a normal funeral home. So, when I had to decide, I knew relatively quickly what to do. And I found right off a good undertaker here who supported me and said, ‘I can get that done for you, no problem!’” (18K)  11  “Actually, it was relatively easy to do in the funeral home we had chosen for my husband. They had a wonderful display case in the entryway with a couple of different diamond forms and colors. When we were deciding on everything, I said: ‘What are these diamonds doing in your case here? What’s the deal with them?” And the young woman who was taking care of us told me about how they use the ashes to make a gemstone, and that you can choose your own form. So, I thought about it a little and then decided, hey, that’s a great idea. I can then wear my husband’s wedding ring and have him set in the middle.” (9K) 1   2  “When I went there with my case, the undertaker immediately said to me, ‘Brian, I’ve got something here for you. Maybe it’s something you’ll like.’ I took a look and said, ‘Yes, of course! Is that possible at all? That’s just amazing! I was just about to ask you if there was any alternative to cremation and burial in the graveyard …’ […] It was a very sad day for me, and yet I had joy in my heart.” (33M) 1   3  “I had read about it somewhere, years ago. At that time, it wasn’t all that popular. But I kind of liked the idea, and later I stumbled upon it once again, through a patient of mine who had also done that. […] We had talked about death and dying many times before. […] She didn’t like the idea of being buried and was unable to find an alternative – she didn’t want to be cremated or buried. Cremation was too hot for her, but what are you going to do? She didn’t like the thought of water burial either. So, among all the shitty possibilities, she chose the least shitty one:

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cremation. We talked to her about it, that we could have a diamond made from her, and I think she found that quite nice. She liked the idea of being carried around everywhere as part of a piece of jewelry. You see, my mother liked to travel to all parts of the world. And then we said, ‘Okay, then we’ll put you in something we can take along with us. Then we can show you what it looks like there.’ So, that’s how we got that idea.” (27K) 1   4  “I had to do something! And then for me, I know that sounds absurd but still comforting, that he’s somewhere near me, not in some natural funeral forest, maybe 300 kilometers away, buried under some tree. No, I’m claustrophobic myself, so I couldn’t imagine, regardless of what state I’m in [laughs], being buried under the earth.” (35B) 1   5  “One morning there was an article in the newspaper. My husband was still alive at the time. He was still in perfect health […]. It was our idea together, we said to one another, ‘Hey, if anything happens to us, regardless of who goes first, let’s do that!’ […] Then, when my husband became sick, where he knew for sure that he was really sick and wouldn’t live through it, he said to me, he’d like to always be with us, not leave us alone. And he didn’t want to be somewhere else, where it’s cold and dark. The worst thing for him was to be underground or in some urn, since it’s cold and dark there, too. That’s not what he wanted, he just wanted to be with us. So, the only real solution was a diamond.” (26M) 1   6  “Yes, exactly, and then I had the idea – he had already been put in an artificial coma, and then I thought, things went back and forth and back and forth, and then I thought: You know, I don’t really want a grave.” (16K) 1   7  “I discovered it while on the internet. I was at home, and I thought that was an interesting thing. And then I read where you can have it done in Switzerland. […] And when my husband died and the undertaker came the same evening, I decided for myself that I didn’t want to have him buried. My husband loved the sunlight. […] And also, I thought, going to a cemetery all the time to tend to a grave, rake it and plant flowers on it and all, well, that’s just not my style.” (32M) 1   8  “My mother was the one who had the idea, it was her wish that we should do that with her when she died. […] How did she get the idea? Her cousin owned a funeral home in the city […] and he was very innovative and did lots of modern things, not just your standard old burials. That’s how she got wind of it, she had heard about it and told us that’s what she wanted, what was best for her. […] We’re all spread

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out, all over the country. […] We don’t have one place where everyone can come together. […] And she had always said she didn’t want to lie underground and rot and get eaten up … She didn’t want anyone to have to come to some cemetery. […] She just wanted to be close to us when she dies. So, that was all it was, it was her wish.” (27K) 1   9  “If we hadn’t known about these alternatives […], well, we probably would have done it like everybody does […]. That’s just what you do, right? […] We talked about it, how we’d have a rock made [i. e., a diamond] – or maybe three? First, we had the idea to have just one made, since it seems strange to divide Dad up, you know, in three parts. But then all of us seemed to understand that we each had different images of him – so that’s how we came to each have a rock to have with them and not have to go visit him somewhere. It also lifted the burden from our mother and kept us from fighting about it when Mom is gone, you know, who gets the rock, right? You get Mom and you get Dad – that would be completely bonkers.” (37M) 2   0  “A couple of years ago – 2008 to be exact – a member of our family died, and his wife had a commemorative diamond made, and I remembered that. So, I said to myself, if something happens to my parents, then I’d like to have that done as well. […] My parents traveled for years to the island of Föhr and had expressed their wish that they should be cremated and their ashes strewn in the ocean there. […] But since one of my brothers is a marine biologist, he had to shatter that dream and tell them that you can’t just have a funeral anywhere in the ocean. There’s only certain places where that can take place. So, that was that for my parents.” (6K) 2   1  “My wife, well, one time, for reasons I’ll never understand, spoke about it, more incidentally than anything else, saying she’d like to be buried at sea. And I said – at first I was really flabbergasted – since I’m more of a conservative in that respect. For myself, if I thought about it at all, I reckoned on a normal earth burial. […] But then we didn’t talk about it at more length, except once, where I said to her: ‘Hey, how did you get the idea of a sea burial? That’s not really my thing, and I didn’t know you had any real connections to the ocean.” It was a real mystery to me. So, I thought about it, wondered whether there were any alternatives. Because my wife had wanted it, the sea burial, I came upon this idea of a having a diamond made. […] I told her about it, and she said, okay, that would be fine with her. So, this whole idea of a diamond was basically just an alternative to a sea burial. I liked it much better than that of a water burial.” (12M)

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2   2  “The situation was that I’d spoken with my husband about it beforehand, and he had said he wanted to stay with me. So, I thought about how we could do that. We had lived for a long time in Spain, where you’re allowed to keep the cremation ashes at home or on your shelf or whatever. You’re not allowed to do that in Germany, where there’s the burial regulations and such. So, I thought about it a little, maybe a sea burial. But he didn’t want that. And he had said he wanted to stay with me. Then I remembered that you could have a diamond made.” (29M) 2   3  “It all went very quickly with me. I went home and thought about it for a day, since it’s not cheap, you know, but then I thought, okay, maybe my kids won’t like that or think it’s baloney.” (22M) 2   4  “At the beginning, we thought, ‘Oh, God, Mama’s gone crazy once again!’ [laughs] She was so excited about this idea. […] At first, I thought it was weird, odd. But then I thought about it for a while, and since we had lived for a few years abroad, I knew there were different ways to think about how to, let’s say, confront death. […] And the longer I imagined making a diamond or what it would look like, the more I thought that it was the most beautiful thing that could happen, to have a commemorative diamond made from a relative.” (27K) 2   5  “It took a while. […] With me it was such that I first said ‘No! That’s just too strange.’ The thought had to work its way up, so that I could get used to it. At that time, my husband wasn’t so sick yet. He said, ‘I think the idea is pretty good, I like it. But, of course, it’s your decision.’ […] So, he put the ball back in my court. [laughs] The actual decision came much later, when I got the brochure from this company out again which I had ordered.” (48M) 2   6  “My third sister was the one who least liked the idea, wasn’t very interested in it, said she couldn’t wrap her head around it. So, we were all together at the undertaker’s office, and she said she didn’t want it, but the rest of us said we weren’t going to override her [the mother’s] wish. It took over 6 months for her to even get the diamond. She didn’t come get it from me, since we live in different cities. I was there over New Year’s and brought it along, but she didn’t even want to look at it. She put it away somewhere, didn’t want to deal with it at all. But a few days later she wrote to tell me that she and her husband had now looked at it and found it beautiful.” (27K) 2   7  “We talked with my husband about it early on since we already knew we wanted cremation and an urn burial, though we didn’t get into details. We got the cancer diagnosis in 2015, and he fought it for two years. You think, maybe we’ll beat it,

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maybe it’ll work … So, we didn’t think about it anymore, I’m sorry to say. You tend to push it away from you.” (21K) 2   8  “My husband, if he were here and if we could discuss it with him, I’m sure he would have said, ‘For God’s sake, don’t do that!’ Maybe, I don’t know, we didn’t talk about it, I just decided on my own. I don’t think I would advise anyone to do it; everybody has to make up their own mind. That’s why if my children or maybe myself – I’m turning 40 this year, so I hope I’ll have a man again at my side, a new partner, and maybe he’ll want to do it, too.” (18K) 2   9  “I just assumed my wife would be agreed, so I took the liberty of having a diamond made since I thought, ‘Otherwise I won’t have anything anymore.’ A beautiful diamond, now that’s a good thing.” (47M) 3   0  “I had found a place where I said to myself, there’s where you could scatter the ashes. It was in South Tyrol in Italy, and then there was the diamond. That was kind of decided, but then I got to thinking, you know, that’s crazy, part here and part there. So, I did some more research and discovered that you could use all of the ashes to have a diamond made.” (12M) 3   1  “We talked about it before, when things became acute, with the whole family present, the children. For example, if my son had said, ‘Mom, you can’t do that! I need a place where I can go to,’ then I probably wouldn’t have done it.” (20K) 3   2  “My sisters, they just wanted to have her [the mother] cremated. But I didn’t want that, and my mother didn’t want to be cremated either. So, I said, ‘If you all want to have her cremated, then at least I’ll try to have something practical made from her ashes, okay?’ That why, and because I didn’t want her to be forgotten. […] I don’t have any children, and I wanted to do something that would last a while. I believe in paradise and in life after death. And that’s why, if my mother were put in a necklace […] that I could later give that to her – personally.” (24M) 3   3  “Well, what should I say? I owe it all to someone from the nursing service who took care of my husband who told me about it. He spoke with the funeral home, with the woman in charge there, and thought it was a good idea and introduced me to it. My husband was already in such bad shape at the time. […] And when my husband died, it all went so quickly, and I didn’t have the opportunity to talk to him again, so I just decided on my own together with our daughter, and we were of the same opinion that we should do it that way.” (21K)

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3   4  “My mother-in-law, we never talked to her about it. We only said one time, ‘Hey, if we had the chance to have your ashes at home with us, would you be agreed to that?’ ‘Of course,’ she answered, ‘then you wouldn’t have to keep running to the cemetery.’ So, from then on it was clear. […] Yet it would have been nice if she had known about it, that she was going to be turned into a diamond.” (33M) 3   5  “In the end, it all went very quickly, something I had not expected, nor had he. We still had so many plans for things to do, but now we couldn’t do any of them, and we didn’t even have time to talk about a lot of things. I also wasn’t able to tell him that I had decided to have a diamond made. That still hurts me to this very day that I wasn’t able to discuss it with him beforehand. I would have liked to have told him. I would have liked to know what he thought about it.” (35K)

(2) “… I don’t know if I really need to know that.” – Dealing with Remaining Ashes Creating an ash jewel is not the same procedure for every type. For example, in some cases, all of the ashes are used, whereas in others only parts thereof. In the latter case, the customer, generally the relatives, are handed over the remaining ashes once the process has been completed. The Swiss company mentioned above also offers its customers the alternative to have the remaining ashes buried or scattered on the company’s own mountaintop cemetery located at some distance from the factory premises. In most of the cases where the customers choose this latter method of burial, it becomes apparent that the survivors attach little importance to the place of burial. None of the persons we interviewed had made the effort to visit this cemetery, and none of them even mentioned the need to do so. Moreover, many relatives explicitly chose not to even know where the remaining ashes had ended up going and considered this matter secondary. So, whereas a certain part – in fact, a rather small part – of the original cremation ashes were bestowed with great meaning, if not considered to be “animated,” the remaining ashes were deemed irrelevant. The deceased was thought to be present in the diamond and, as a rule, also found there; the leftover ashes, on the other hand, had lost their “anthropogenic potential” by not becoming part of the jewel. A further way to deal with the remaining ashes is to have them returned to the customer together with the diamond, so that the relatives can then deal with their burial. Exactly how that is done is generally left completely to the relatives; there is no later follow-up since there is no institutional interest in this

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process. The remaining ashes could be buried in a normal cemetery or scattered at some other location (e. g., in a forest or a waterway), or they could be stored at home or in the garden. Yet, only relatively few of the interviewees chose to go this route. This suggests that the decision to have the diamond made overshadows any other corollary phenomena of this decision, regardless of whether one could purposefully interact with the ashes or not. The following quote shows how differently the opinions were about what was considered the “main part” and the “remainder.” 3   6  “Only part of the ashes was actually used to make the diamond. The other part was buried in an urn, in a collective grave with a stone column in our hometown. We knew from the beginning that my daughter wanted to be buried that way. The thing with the diamond was added to it.” (7K) 3   7  “We then had a little urn burial with just the family present, in addition to the huge memorial service held with the coffin with the corpse in it. We have a lot of friends, a really large group of friends, so the service was huge, some 300 people all in all.” (18K) 3   8  “My husband … everything went so suddenly. We had read about it in a brochure not more than two weeks earlier, and then my husband passed away so quickly. When the matter of the remaining ashes came up, I wasn’t ready for that. I simply let the funeral home, which had given me the flyer, take over everything. They talked about what to do with the remaining ashes they had brought back to Germany and somehow had to be buried. But that was what we really hadn’t wanted to happen. My mother-in-law’s ashes were buried in a meadow in another city, and my sisterin-law lives elsewhere, so I called her and asked her what we should do, whether we should bury the ashes near his mother in the meadow. […] I’ve only been there once since, together with my daughter-in-law. […] We were visiting my sister-inlaw and wanted to go see the place. Out of respect for my husband I decided to go along. […] Otherwise, I wouldn’t have done that.” (20K) 3   9  “I’ve been living in the state of Hesse now for about 19 years. So, we thought about it – what do we do now? Okay, my husband’s children from his first marriage were living in Hesse as well. But I know from my own experience that taking care of a grave is not what it used to be. My grandmother, and my parents as well, went to the graveyard once a week to tend to it and such. So, we said, let’s do something simple, so that his children wouldn’t have to take care of the grave. First, we thought about having him buried in a natural forest cemetery […] but then, in

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effect, we decided to have him buried in a meadow in the normal cemetery. There would be a small urn burial with a small memorial slab on it. […] Thus, you didn’t have to plant anything on it, though you could place things on it if you wanted, you know, directly on the slab. I do that regularly but it’s not like having to take care of the grave.” (19K)  40  “They [the remaining ashes] were scattered in Switzerland. […] We were told that, in the end, the firm had scattered the ashes. We could have taken the ashes back with us to Germany, but then we would have had to decide what to do with them. […] We thought about, since my father had children from his first marriage, that they might want the ashes so that they could, you know, do something with them in a natural forest or whatever, but that never panned out. So, we did it differently then.” (42B) 4   1  “We left them [the remaining ashes] in Switzerland. I don’t know what they did with them, I can’t say. […] It wasn’t really very important to me, since we didn’t want the extra …” (6K) 4   2  “The people from the funeral home said that some ashes may be left over since the gemstone wasn’t all that big. And that the remaining ashes would have to be buried somehow or disposed of, whatever. I have no idea what happened to them, and I don’t know if I really need to know that [laughs].” (29M)  43  “I didn’t bury them [the remaining ashes], but I did […] you might say find another way and just did it that way since that was what I wanted. I have it all in a chest, where I also keep all his memorabilia and things.” (5K)  44  “No, we took the […] ashes along with us since we wanted to have them made into a sculpture at home. […] I mean, we did scatter the ashes at a few places that she especially liked being, some of them abroad even.” (3K) 4   5  “While they were working on creating the diamond in Switzerland, that takes a while, you know, I took the rest of the ashes along with me to Greece. That was what she had wanted. So, together with some good friends who were there, I scattered the ashes in the ocean.” (47M)  46  Were the entire ashes used to create the diamond? “Yes, completely. He wanted it that way, he didn’t want even a single gram of his body to be anywhere outside the family.” (26M)

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(3) “I would have sold the farm to get one.” – The Costs The on-going changes in funerary culture are also making waves in the economics of burial. Previously, how and where a person was buried and how the grave was subsequently kept up reflected the direct and visible expression of the economic status of the deceased’s family. Especially during the 19th century, even in the face of bereavement, the middle class (“bourgeoisie”) liked to celebrate their social reputation, something that was presumed to outlast even death. This approach has largely been lost in modern Central European society, on the one hand, because the blatant staging of one’s wealth in times of greater sensitivity toward social inequality has earned a negative connotation; on the other hand, because dying today is increasingly threatening to become a financial burden. Since 2004, the statutory health insurance companies in Germany no longer pay the earlier usual “death benefits.” Parallel to that, there has been an increase in cases in which burials must be paid for by welfare or public offices, which has necessitated the creation of cheaper burial models (including anonymous burial in graveyard meadows). All of which has concurred with the overall prioritization of “predeath concerns” in society, that is, investing one’s time and money in the secular affairs of everyday life to the detriment of farewell rituals, including the material outlays they precipitate. This change in perspective emphasizes the overall secularization effect in society. Money and burial suffer from a difficult relationship today. Again and again, the accusation is voiced that commercialization has taken over the procedure, something the more innovative providers seem to be better at addressing than the undertakers who still offer rather conventional solutions. This discussion points to a deeper level, namely, one where ideal and economic values are implicitly squared off against each other. Our study showed that our interviewees are not as such better off than the average. That they nevertheless choose to commission a relatively expensive product as an ash diamond would seem to suggest that a negotiation occurred between the poles of “can afford” and “want to afford.” The result of that debate is clear. Some of those interviewed had to make great financial sacrifices, which they justified by noting that a conventional burial in a graveyard (including the yearly upkeep) was not that much cheaper. 47  “Money was not my first priority. Thank goodness, I don’t need to worry about that, nor did I have to do without anything because I allowed myself this wish. So, it didn’t matter all that much to me, I wasn’t interested in a cheap burial. Rather, I needed something that could help me, regardless of what it cost.” (14M)

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 48  “Yeah, sure, I said to myself, ‘Can I afford that or not?’ Of course, totally, it was a matter of costs. But I didn’t care. I wanted to have a diamond, so I paid the price for it. And then, of course, there was […] the ring to set it in. […] If I’m honest, I really didn’t know what was coming at me, regarding the costs. […] But, whatever, I needed it. […] And if you want to have such a diamond and you’re lacking the loose change, well, then you should first find out what it costs and then maybe get a smaller one. […] But with me, it was secondary, since that’s the way I am: If I want something, then I’ll get it.” (47M) 4   9  “Well, to me it was worth the money. I didn’t think about it a lot, whether to do it or not. It was all rather clear to me. We also had a memorial service – that cost money, too, but it was not the main point.” (21K) 5   0  “I would say I was in the fortunate position that it didn’t really matter what it cost. That was not my problem. I mean, let’s say I were not able to pay for it, that I would have to pay in installments or whatever, then maybe I would have thought it over more, I don’t know. But I wouldn’t be able to claim that the cost played a role for me.” (11M) 5   1  “Yes, of course, it was an expensive thing for me, that I’ll admit, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care at all. I had the money, and I didn’t have to go hungry for it. First, because of the insurance, and second, I had some gold jewelry that I sold and used the money from that. It all went into the diamond.” (19K) 5   2  “The costs didn’t really much bother me at the time since we had made provisions for our old age, so the money was there. And that’s what we wanted, that was all we had wished for – to find a nice way to live afterward. So, the costs at that moment were not decisive to me.” (20K) 5   3  “That’s just the way it is with diamonds, they cost an arm and leg, and not everybody can afford one. But I was lucky, since my mother paid for it. Alone, I likely wouldn’t have been able to afford it.” (42B)  54  “Well, to be honest, I didn’t have the money for either the burial or for the diamond. I had to loan it from someone, and I’m still paying off the loan. But that wasn’t important to me. I knew I couldn’t get the big one for 17,000 €. If I had had the money, I probably would have gotten a big one. And if there had only been one available for 17,000 €, then I would have gotten it. I would have sold the farm to get one.” (17K)

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5   5  “Oh, it didn’t really play a big role for me, you know. You might as well ask: ‘What role did it play that you didn’t have an earth burial?’ Now that would have easily been more expensive than this virtual grave in Switzerland. It really wasn’t a financial decision on my part. I reckon, if you’ve got the money, then you don’t have to think about it much. It was more an emotional decision.” (31M) 5   6  “Let’s just say that it really is an expensive thing, depending on the size. But then I sat down and did the math that it would be worth it within 10, 20, 30 years or so. I would have had the same costs – and all the work to boot.” (26M)

(4) “Now I can hold my wife in my hand.” – The First Impression Ash diamonds reach their final destinations in many ways. In our study period, the most common path chosen was having them handed over to the relatives via the undertaker. The funeral home was generally the primary link between the family and the production firm, so that the transfer could be done in the offices of the local funeral home or even at the family home. This transferral, however, was not the final stage of the process in all cases: If several diamonds were being prepared, they were often passed on by one family member to another. In other cases, the diamond was picked up directly in Switzerland. This creates an interesting situation of particular relevance to our research. We were particularly keen on experiencing the moment when the survivor first held the diamond in their own hands. Of course, it is understandable that, among all the moments involved in the transfer process, this moment was often the most emotional one. Many tears were shed; some survivors were speechless, overwhelmed by the situation; some were so moved they went silent. But there were also surprises, for example, when the diamond did not look like what the relatives had expected, particularly when the color was different. Clearly, this is a situation very different from visiting your local jewelry store to pick out a “normal” gemstone. Even the material basis is different, though laypersons often fail to notice the difference. But the emotional impact that emerges in such transferral moments would be hard to find in regular transactions in a retail store. This highlights the uniqueness of the moment: The delivery of, and the physical contact with, the diamond represents a sort of “homecoming” of the decedent, the first “reunion” since the moment of loss, a moment of loss that is generally considered final. Many interviewees do not view this moment

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just symbolically: For them, the diamond is their loved one, the material it consists of is the transformed body of their relative. In this new brilliant form, the body cannot be transformed any further – it will shine throughout all eternity. 5   7  “It was … how should I say it, it was – when it was handed over to me by the undertaker … they came to me, at home, brought it to me. That was a very, very pleasant moment for me, it was like: Now he’s here, with me.” (20K) 5   8  “It was indescribable, I can’t describe the feeling, and the color – it was so beautiful. […] When I opened the little box for the first time, I … I didn’t know what to say. I don’t know how to describe it … The only thing that happened, well, I cried. That moment was so beautiful for me.” (7K) 5   9  “Oh, yes, it was very emotional for me. I thought, my God, what you can do with ashes! Such a little thing … it was, it was emotional and at the same time … strange, that feeling …” (35K) 6   0  “But then, when it suddenly was there, shining in the sunlight … How it sparkled, that was really touching. For a moment I just stopped and thought of Mom, I could see her there in front of me. And now she shines in this diamond, it was a crazy and strange feeling. I can’t describe it.” (33M) 6   1  “I was speechless. At that moment you really don’t know what to say. We were all so impressed how beautiful it glimmered in the light. It was so delicate and radiant … We were all fascinated with it, and we still are today.” (43B) 6   2  “It’s really indescribable. It sparkled, it had completely different colors. The funeral home said that everyone makes a different color, obviously, since the composition is different. Yes, it was a moving moment when I first saw the diamond.” (21K) 6   3  “Well, you have the choice of ordering the rough diamond or having them cut it. I wanted a brilliant. […] Yes, and what I especially noticed was that it had such a beautiful color. It’s completely white, although, apparently, a lot of diamonds have a blue-like color to them from the process. But I liked that, the way it looked, and the thought passed my mind: Yeah, that really fits Leonie.” (12M)  64  “I was pleasantly surprised at the result. They had told me, or maybe I had read it somewhere, that you couldn’t predict the color of the diamond. You never know what it will look like. So, when I got the diamond, my husband comes from Bavaria,

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and look what happened: The diamond is blue. Oh, I really liked that [sighs], it really touched me, since blue is the color of his homeland.” (32M) 6   5  “We got white diamonds, which we hadn’t expected at all. […] We thought they would have some color to them. But, apparently, there are only very few completely white ones. […] It really didn’t matter to us, whether it was blue, black, or whatever. […] We all had thought, since my mother had cancer, which didn’t actually kill her, but she had taken a lot of drugs, we thought maybe it will be black or some other dark color.” (3K) 6   6  “He [the undertaker] left a message on my voicemail, saying, ‘Call me back, I have a surprise for you.’ In the meantime, his own wife had died. So, I called him back and he asked, ‘Can I come over later to see you?’ I said, ‘Sure, come on over.’ He said, ‘I’m returning him to you.’ So, we sat at the dining room table and he said, ‘Can I be present when you first look at it? I’d like to know what it looks like since I may want to do that with my late wife, too.’ Yeah, so we both had to cry then. And then he said, ‘I think you’ve made a good decision, and I want to do that with my wife as well.’ […] That was a very, very moving moment for me, truly stirring, it meant a lot to me. From that moment on I slept much better. Believe me. That’s how it was. It quieted me.” (32M) 6   7  “It was a really surreal time. I had been in a rehabilitation clinic in the summer for three weeks […] when I got the call that the gemstones were ready. It was the perfect time for them. So, when I went and picked them up and took a look … I don’t know, everything was so completely strange to me, completely removed from me somehow. I quickly closed the box and put it away. Later in the evening at home, I thought to myself, ‘Well, what were you expecting? What did you think would happen now? That it goes bling-bling in your head or something?’ That surreal feeling eventually went away. Then I realized and understood that the diamond is him, that it’s part of him, but that he’s not in there somewhere. That’s how I see it … So, when I was home, in the evening, alone with it, I discovered it was beautiful. […] Then I knew that it was the right decision.” (18K) 6   8  “I just let it glide over my palm, and all I could do was cry. Of course, I was sad, but there was also joy mixed in. I had the feeling, now I can hold my wife in my hand. It was a reunion, that’s how I saw it back then, now I finally have my wife back again.” (47M) 6   9  “Yes, I was very happy that I could, as it were, hold my mother in the palm of my hand.” (24M)

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7   0  “And when I got the diamond, […] that is at least somewhat the embodiment of your husband, your father … That is tremendously moving. And despite everything – it makes you happy. It’s really bittersweet.” (34M) 7   1  “It was in a little box, yes … That’s hard to say, really hard to explain. I knew more or less that he had now come home and was not somewhere underground, that he had kind of come alive again. Sounds crazy, I know, but that how it was, he was there once again. And since I could wear him around my neck every day and he’s rather robust – I don’t know how else to say it – that he’s always with me whatever I do … Whether I’m writing something, reading, visiting someone, meeting with my children or grandchildren, he always goes along.” (9K) 7   2  “It was beautiful. I thought to myself, finally he’s come home! It took almost 6 months, and you really didn’t know what it would look like. What color would it have, what form? You don’t know in advance. But I found it really beautiful, and now I can take my husband home with me, which is where he wanted to be. He always wanted to go home again.” (26M) 7   3  “When you hold in your hand for the first time, that’s … you know, it just goes through your whole body. […] I was really delighted about the whole thing, finally he’s home, since he really wanted to be home again. So, I thought, ‘Ah, yes, he’s come home again.’ Though, at first, I cried a lot more than is now the case, over time.” (28M) 7   4  “The diamond came by mail from the undertaker. And then I just told everyone, ‘My Max has come home.’” (4M) 7   5  “It was comforting to me, though I wasn’t euphoric or anything. But I thought, ‘Felix, now you’re here, where you belong, with me.’ That was it.” (35B)

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(5) “Essentially, those are my parents.” – The Status of the Diamond Formally speaking, a diamond is an abstract thing. It reminds us of nothing that occurs in nature – except for itself. Morphologically speaking, it has nothing to do with a deceased human being. That a diamond can nevertheless come to be attached to a human being, even equated to a human being – literally: “It’s him” – is not based on secure knowledge but on projection. Strictly speaking, the fact that this particular diamond was created from these particular ashes is not even the decisive factor; nowhere is the origin apparent in the diamond itself. The only relevant thing is the assumed connection. Verification, hard-core facts play a subordinate role in the world of deeply felt conviction. Thus, how a diamond is treated depends solely on the level of identification and symbolization of artifact and person. As mentioned, the mindset that the diamond represents the embodied extension of the life of a deceased person is widespread, but it is not exclusive: The opposite conviction, namely, that the idea of a purely material rock pointing to a decedent but not actually embodying that person is also found among some persons we interviewed. This quite clearly apparent ambivalence in the approaches taken by our interviewees is consistent with the pluralization of funerary rites in modern society. Burial culture has long become a heterogeneous field in which a multitude of often very contradictory beliefs coexists. Anyway: The decisive thing for most of our interview partners was likely not whether the diamond is the crystalline miniature form of the deceased social partner; the critical thing is whether the presence of the diamond precipitates a positive effect. The fact that an ash diamond stems from “bodily material” gives it a higher, more privileged position vis-à-vis other potential commemorative objects. It enables the decedent to assume a (para)social presence that is even addressable. Especially informative in this regard is that even those interviewees who expressly do not see a material continuity of their loved one in the diamond nevertheless resort again and again to formulations expressing just such identity: The jewel and the decedent are considered identical after all. 7   6  “Well, I thought about it a couple of times … It actually is my husband, for me it is my husband, since it was formed from his atoms. So, I guess for me it is my husband, though, of course, it’s no substitution for a living person.” (16K) 7   7  “For me, the grief I feel for my mother is not connected in any way to some sort of material thing. For me it’s just … carbon and […] inasmuch as the carbon stems from my mother … It’s not easy for me, when I wear the diamond, I mean,

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it’s a form. Other people go to the cemetery, I have my necklace. It’s just a form of remembrance, of thankfulness, of respect. […] Rationally, of course, I know it’s just carbon matter.” (30M) 7   8  “I still have my wedding ring [in which the diamond is set]. I don’t wear it as a ring but wear it as my husband. That’s him, clearly, totally. It doesn’t symbolize him – it is him.” (13K) 7   9  “… my memories of his spirit, the inspirations, the experiences, which were passed along, the gifts you can talk about. The external appearance is ok, thank you, and we will treat it with respect. But that is not the essence of his being, that is the remains of his body, and he is no longer in his body, his spirit is no longer contained there. That is a commemorative gift for us.” (49M) 8   0  “That’s him. I always have the feeling, since I don’t ever take him off … He’s always with me, he’s always present, wherever I go, whatever I do, I take my husband with me.” (9K) 8   1  “No, the gemstones are not my husband. They symbolize him, yes, okay. But they are not a memorial to him. It’s not like I run around everywhere and he’s always there with me and decides things for me. No, definitely not! They are there for me, I like them, I feel good about them, but it is not such that if I need help in my everyday life that they would be of much help. Or that I would let myself be dominated by them … They are simply … there, and it feels good and I’m fine with that.” (18K) 8   2  “It’s him. Those are parts of him. It’s not just a symbol. Because the diamond was made from his ashes, I know that it’s him, right? For me at least. […] When I touch it, I know that I’m touching him. Not symbolically, but as a part of him.” (17K) 8   3  “… this sort of object fixation, if it were to occur with me, it would take something away from me. So, it would be really a fixation on this diamond, on this object, and that would be a belated reduction of my wife’s personality.” (12M)  84  “It [the diamond] is a part of her … In the end, yes, it’s a part of her remains. And in the end, a part of her is always here with me. That’s what it means to me.” (7K) 8   5  “Ah, I don’t know how to express it […] since I don’t really see it as a diamond. I see it as something … It’s so difficult to express, if I say that it’s […] well, a part of my husband – that’s not it exactly, what I want to say. No, it’s just, it’s just him. […] I

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didn’t say to myself, hey, I’m gonna get my diamond soon; rather, I said, I’m gonna get Mirco. And the undertaker even said, ‘I’ll bring him back over to you. Now you have him back again. Maybe in a different form, but now he’s back with you forever.’ I don’t see it as a piece of jewelry, not even as a diamond. I see it simply as my Mirco.” (10K) 8   6  “I thought about it a lot, but it’s not just a jewel that somehow represents him, but it is him, for me at least it is.” (10K) 8   7  “I’ve made that my goal now quite consciously to adorn myself with my husband. I emphasize my clothes at that moment, it has to be fitting, it has to work. So, it’s a piece of jewelry, that can […] be combined with my clothes. I invested a little more than usual, okay, but I wanted to accentuate the gemstone since it is my husband I’m wearing around my neck.” (34M) 8   8  “Well, to myself I think: ‘That’s him.’ That’s the way I see it. That is my husband, yes.” (21K) 8   9  “Yes, I think so, that is my husband. And whenever anyone wants to see the diamond, then I said, ‘That is my husband.’” (15M) 9   0  “Well, to me it is my husband. I touch the ring and the diamond a lot, especially when I’m worried or when I feel good. And when I am thinking of him, then I touch the diamond automatically and get the feeling that I’m touching him.” (14M) 9   1  “I know, of course, that the diamond was made from the body of my wife. But the state of this diamond, I’ve thought a lot about it, doesn’t have anything to do with its origin, not anymore. […] The important thing is what goes on in my head.” (47M) 9   2  “With me it’s already come so far that I say the soul is somewhere else. And I have the feeling […], I imagine that the soul of this person is inside this diamond, you know what I mean? […] A miniature version of the person in there [laughs].” (11M) 9   3  “No, that’s not him, for God’s sake, no, that would be an awful thought that he’s caught inside that little diamond!” (49M) 9   4  “Synthetically-genetically speaking: It is my husband, it’s the body of my husband. And by that, I mean the complete body. Everything that was left over is in this diamond, right? Just quite a bit smaller. I always say to my friends: ‘Look, that’s little Christoph now.’” (26M)

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9   5  “She is not the diamond. To me, the diamond represents her sparkle. […] But it is not such that I have the feeling – how to phrase this? – that she’s been shrunk down or anything. Rather, it’s the glow that accompanies me. That’s why I decided on a diamond that is cut and not uncut.” (2K) 9   6  To the question of whether the decision to have the diamond cut was clear from the beginning: “Yes, that was clear to me, since that what gives it the brilliance, and that means a lot to me. I have the feeling, depending on my mood, that it shines sometimes more and sometimes less. So, somehow, it’s for me, how do you say it, a proof of life, somewhere, that the form it takes on for me.” (6K) 9   7  “It was my wish that it remain a rough diamond, simply because my husband was like a rough diamond who couldn’t be cut and polished. The diamond is just the way he is.” (5K) 9   8  “And then we said, let’s let Mama get all polished up, since she was her whole life a polished diamond. My Papa, on the other hand, was a rough diamond who was always uncut and unpolished [laughs].” (11M) 9   9  “… although I don’t have any contact with the relations of my wife, on my wife’s birthday […] I did send them a picture of the diamond and a picture of my wife to my wife’s sister – without further comment. And I did receive an answer, saying that the picture was very nice. I thought, ok … And then a while later I got a second note, saying ‘Oh, my God, now I understand – the diamond is Leonie!’” (12M) 1   00  “Essentially, those are my parents. […] Yes, because it somehow reflects the value of my parents. […] The diamond is valuable to me, and, of course, my parents were valuable as well.” (6K) 1   01  “The diamond has its own value, for sure, since he [the decedent] is the diamond.” (4M) 1   02  “For me, the diamond is this person. Now in a refined sort of way. And if you loved someone […] – for me that was a refined person, in the truest sense of the word. That’s why he’s now been refined.” (33M) 1   03  “Well, I would like to believe that it’s him. Let’s just say: It’s something very, very beautiful. A gemstone that hangs around your neck […] is a piece of jewelry, and that is something beautiful. And beautiful things can warm your heart, right?” (4M)

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1   04  “Both, I would say. It is my mother, but let me explain shortly. After I went to the funeral home and picked up the three diamonds, I went home and sat down and, well, it was really hard for me. I mean, I could hardly have them there, even though they were still in their little boxes. I couldn’t have them sitting next to me, it just moved me so much. It suddenly became clear to me that they were my Mama. And at that moment I decided for myself that I wanted to have a ring made and the diamond set in it … It symbolizes my mother since she too was such a diamond, that’s the way she just was. I needed a couple of days before I could open the little box again because I knew: that is my mother.” (27K) 1   05  “Imagine only needing two thimbles full of ashes to make such a diamond! I must admit that I thought to myself ‘So, is this really my husband or not? … Or is it something else?’ The thought occurred to me, but I do have trust since I got a certificate and stuff to go along with it.” (35K) 1   06  “I believe what you interpret in the ring is what your wish for it is, and what connects you to your partner. Also, the fact that you know that part of it [the ashes] is now in this ring. My husband, for example, wanted to be cremated in his wedding suit, although it was much too big for him, and in his shiny shoes and everything else that goes along with a tuxedo. That didn’t use to be possible, you had to put them in a paper gown, but today you can do that. And what people being cremated wear affects the carbon in the ashes. For me, the ring was something I could touch and know it was made from what my husband had consisted of. So, when I look at the ring, I see him, on our wedding day in his tuxedo. […] It is a visible sign that this human being once lived.” (23M) 1   07  “The way this diamond shines and sparkles, that was the way my child was. That’s why I say you can’t really describe it. That such a small thing [cries] exactly reflects what she was in life. Although it’s only … although it’s only made from part of her.” (7K) 1   08  “Yes, that’s my problem. For me, my feeling is: that’s him. Somehow. Because, well, he’s no longer here, he was cremated, and they made the diamond from his ashes. My mother said I should try to break free of those thoughts, since they are, in fact, only fragments. But when you’re buried in the ground you don’t have a body either, that’s a physical thing. […] I believe that a human consists more of the soul than of the body. But right now, I can’t separate the two very well, or maybe I haven’t thought about it enough. But I think I like to avoid it since right now my plate is rather full.” (29M)

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1   09  “Yes, sure, it’s part of, I mean, it’s ashes, it’s the carbon taken from my mother. […] We got the headstone and brought it here from the grave of my grandpa and grandma, when they cleared it away. We put in the garden, where we can talk to them, although I know it’s not actually my grandma. My grandpa and grandma are not really in the gravestone … and my mother is not either, although my mother is more in the diamond that my grandpa and grandma are in the gravestone. But that’s what you do, you talk to them. I go to my garden and say, ‘Hey, how you doin’ today?’ And such. Or when I go down to my mother’s old apartment – she used to live here in the house – then I say, ‘Hey, Mom, what’s up with you today?’ It’s not … I know it’s no longer my mother’s apartment. Whether it symbolizes my mother, I don’t know. I would say, it somehow has her presence.” (3K)

(6) “He has become part of my body.” – Postmortal Presence Through Spatial and Physical Proximity One motif that appears repeatedly is the continual presence of the diamond and thus the deceased person in one’s life: “He is always with me.” A beloved person, considered lost, now returns home in a little box. Here, we are confronted with the close connection to the theme of the previous section: How close the recipient comes to feel to the deceased with the help of the diamond depends largely on whether the gemstone serves as a commemorative object or represents more the tangible, physically based survival of the beloved person. It is not surprising that many of the interviewees wore the jewelry near their bodies: It was their expressed wish to permanently feel the renewed presence of the decedent. The proximity to one’s own warm body may be understood as the conscious counterconcept to the vision of a distant, cold grave. Thus, the diamond becomes a focal point for anyone who doesn’t want to, or can’t bring themselves to, be separated from their loved one. Because the diamond is not just worn near to one’s own body, but in certain situations is also purposefully touched, stroked, and kissed, the physical proximity creates social proximity. Further, the central point is the one-sided power of interpretation: Unlike during interactions while the partner was still alive, now no permission is necessary. The diamond can be handled at will and can at all times remain close since there is no conflict potential to be negotiated (at least not from the deceased person). Ambivalence gives way to certainty and sovereignty. Therein lies perhaps also an element of power politics that can be activated since the partner is no longer alive. Such claims to power are probably not consciously

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but rather unconsciously staked out, not the least because the diamond permits such actions. In some cases, the physical proximity extends to a nearly symbiotic fusion. The necklace or ring with the diamond becomes an inseparable part of the body, a living appendage. The haptics of the diamond is palpable at all times. The (literally) hands-on presence sometimes means asking whether, in some cases, the symbiosis between body and artifact has not been extended beyond the metaphorical. Indeed, some of the people we interviewed see themselves as physical “carrier mediums” of two different people. The blending with the diamond makes two individuals from one – or vice versa too: one individual from two. Part of such intensive feelings is that, sometimes, the one-sided proximity is felt to be too strong. It may become necessary to take off the jewelry for a while, an act of relief – all the more the case as the reconnecting is always done voluntarily and of one’s own accord. As some of the statements from the interviewees below demonstrate, the desire for nearness is not universal. There are cases in which the gemstone has its own particular spot in one’s surroundings (or sometimes elsewhere) and is thus available at all times but does not automatically end up having a dominating presence in everyday life. There is also a very small group of survivors who place little value in materiality and physical proximity, and eventually decide to distance themselves (sometimes permanently) from the ash artifact.  110  “Back then, when I brought him to another city, in 2017, where he was supposed to get a new liver, I said to myself, “I hope the operation goes well. And if it does go well, then I’ll bring him home for Christmas.’ But he died four days before Christmas, and I brought his casket home on Christmas Eve. And then I had to do without him for a whole six months. And then I finally could bring him home permanently.” (26M)  111  “Let me say that, when I found my husband in his office, I found him there, and the same evening the undertaker came and took him – well, I would have preferred his just staying with me. […] Really, I don’t think I should have let him go, […] it wouldn’t have been that bad for me, to have him with me, just a hull, a corpse. […] I just needed for them not to take him away, you know … I thought, for all I care, he can just remain sitting there. The feeling then, that he was gone and such … Oh, man, that was really unbearable.” (32M)  112  “I think, what I wanted was … I loved my husband so much and he loved me, a really harmonious affair, and 18 years go by so quickly … That’s why I’m happy that I’ve got him here with me now.” (19K)

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 113  “It [the diamond] is part of me. […] When we were together, we were inse­ parable, and now we are one again. I always have him with me. Just in a different form.” (8M)  114  “That the diamond turned out to be so beautiful, that has made it easier for me to imagine it, you know? I’ve seen diamonds that are not so brilliant. But for me, when I have this ring on, I don’t feel so alone.” (23M)  115  “For me, it would be strange […] to simply leave the diamond in its little box, put it somewhere. […] I want it to always be with me. That’s why I won’t have a box and open it up and look at the diamond. No, I want it to be wherever I am.” (2K)  116  “For a while I entertained the idea of having him buried in our garden, but then I said to myself, ‘No, I don’t think so. If I were to move somewhere else … But now I can practically take him with me. […] It’s really easy to transport, and then he’s always there.” (31M)  117  “It was always my wish that he stays with me, and that’s the way it now is. […]. I know, some people will say, the old lady’s gone crazy, you understand? Why does she carry around his compressed ashes […], so why do I really carry around a diamond with me? […] It’s just for me, it’s like he’s with me.” (32M)  118  “I’ve got him in a necklace that I wear around my neck. It’s so tight, I can’t even take it off. […] He has become a part of my body.” (8M)  119  “It’s the only thing left from her and her body. So, that’s a wonderful thing for me. Something has remained of her, something that’s shiny and brilliant. That’s so much more beautiful than decomposition. […] And I have said to many people, the ring with this diamond is the least painful thing for me.” (47M) 1   20  “We swore we would stay together for now and eternity, and that no one and nothing would ever keep us apart. And that’s just the way it turned out.” (26M) 1   21  “My husband is with me, we are one, like it used to be, in two different bodies. We used to be two persons and one, and now we are one person and also one.” (8M) 1   22  “He is at home and he is there. There’s a different energy in the house. I know the boss at the crematorium rather well, I’ve talked with him about it. And I know a

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lot of people, even some professors and well-educated people, who have lost their loved ones. We talked about these things, the other dimension … I’m very sure that it is there. I sometimes feel things that cannot have happened by chance, as they say.” (5K) 1   23  “And when she called and said the diamond is ready, I knew she would be bringing him. It was, I thought to myself ‘Patrick, you’re coming home now!’ And I had said to him, when we had to turn off all the machines and he died in my arms, I said, ‘I won’t leave you, I’ll make sure you come home again.” That was the moment in which I thought to myself, now he’s back again, in another form. He may not be living anymore, but when I touch the diamond, on my neck, well, I know it’s him … He was always so cold because his heart wasn’t pumping enough blood. I have to think about that all the time, now you can have it really warm here. And the diamond is for me since I always know I can touch him.” (17K) 1   24  “For me, it is such that when I’m lost in my own thoughts and have the necklace on, that I put two fingers on it. So, I think, hey Mama, hey Papa? I’m holding you tight, you’re here with me. Or when I touch my husband’s ring and put a finger on it, on the diamond. […] That’s how I communicate with them. We’re back to being close again, see what I mean? They’re not really there, but somehow they are there.” (11M) 1   25  “Yes, when I’m sad, then I look at it [the diamond] and touch it, and then I’m reminded of my mother.” (24M) 1   26  “It happens to me quite a bit that I just take my own hand … it’s set in a medallion made of white gold, you don’t actually see the diamond the way it’s formed. […] And, so, I take my own hand and touch the medallion. And there really are situations in my life, even now, where I, let’s say, am in danger, where things could have turned out differently, and maybe I could then have been with my husband drinking a cup of coffee.” (5K) 1   27  “Of course, I look at him and kiss him, too. And every time I do, it just quiets me that I still have him here.” (32M) 1   28  “He is just with me. And […] if he’d been there for the soccer world championship, well, I’m sure I would have put him on the couch, and we would have watched the tournament together. I can do anything, I can take him with me on vacation – or I could take him along when I buy shoes, he really hated that!” (26M)

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1   29  “I say I take him with me everywhere he would have like to be. It doesn’t matter whether I’m going to see a big-band concert or fly to Africa or visit a friend. Those were places he loved to go to […]. But if I were to do something where I know for sure he would have rather died, then I don’t take him along with me. For example – something really stupid – say, I’m going to go to a fashion show, which he would have hated, right? I mean, I’m not going to one, but if I did want to, then I wouldn’t take him there. […] It’s also my decision whether to leave him on at night or not. That I decide spontaneously.” (23M) 1   30  “When I wear a deep décolleté – not that I’m that way all the time, I also wear turtlenecks or high-necked blouses – but when I do, he’s sometimes on the inside and sometimes on the outside, it depends. … If I do something special, then I move him to front and say, ‘Hey, look at this with me, ok?’ And then he goes with me through the streets and sees everything. Or, say, I’m in the museum where I do volunteer work, I’ll say, ‘Look, we’ve got a new exhibition today.’ […] So, I let him really take part in certain things. Or when I’m shopping and I’m unsure about something, then he can look too and help me decide.” (8M) 1   31  “Especially when I pass by them [the diamonds] and look at them, I have the feeling that they are with me. Although they are there all the time in the house, still it’s something special to me … It’s different.” (28M) 1   32  “In our living room is a sort of display case with her picture in it and in front of that the diamond. That’s how we set it up, that you don’t see it immediately but have to take a second look, takes a little effort. We didn’t want it to become an ordinary daily object. […] But when you do walk by and see it, then a memory pops into your head and makes you happy. That’s where the associations come from: Oh, that is just beautiful! You’re home, we don’t have to go to the cemetery.” (33M) 1   33  “I keep her in a little drawer, in a special drawer at my bedside. And sometimes I get her out, not all the time, though, I don’t look at her all the time, or I don’t look at the diamond all the time, but if I’m in a situation where I’d like to talk to her … then I get the gemstone out, the diamond, and just put her down beside me. I think personally that is much better … For me, it’s more pleasant than going to a cemetery.” (27K) 1   34  “That’s just the thing, it’s a different feeling now. It’s a different form, but he is still there. He’s not anywhere else, I didn’t have to put him somewhere, in some grave, at some spot, where I would have to go.” (5K)

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1   35  “Of course, logically speaking, he’s gone, completely, and in this diamond are just a few ashes, a little bit of carbon, taken from a few his ashes. The fact is he’s not lying 500 km away from me, somewhere underground and has just disappeared. With this diamond, you get to hold on to a little bit.” (42B) 1   36  “The diamond is, yes, of course, it is made from the cremation ashes of the deceased person, but that is … well … I can’t say for sure yet what I feel about it. It’s just […] really, really hard, because if we’d had a normal earth burial, then you can go to the cemetery, speak to him, since he physically somehow there. And then you can leave and go home again. That creates a distance. But with this rock [the diamond], when it’s always with you, then it’s difficult to gain any distance. I’m 44 years old, and I thought that it was just too early for me to always wear him around with me, it was too … I guess, too extreme … maybe I can’t do that yet or don’t want to do that yet – I don’t know what to say.” (29M) 1   37  “In the end, it’s a diamond, even though it was artificially created, it is still part of or is something that was created in a natural form, from atoms. I like that idea more that something wonderful was created, and that memories are captured in that material thing. Thoughts and images fade, but you can hold on to something that you can look at every day.” (37M) 1   38  “Well, I don’t really need to have a necklace with a diamond made from the ashes of my dead wife, that is not my intention at all. And it’s not the case that I’m preparing some sort of altar here in the apartment for her and want to keep this ash diamond of my wife here with me. That not what it’s about at all. I mean, that would be, if you will excuse the expression, more like a fetish – I’m not condemning that, if people want to do that, it’s fine. But I don’t.” (12M) 1   39  “I don’t need a ring right now to grieve, but I do think it’s a nice way to remember. It gives me the feeling that he’s not being excluded from my life. And I absolutely do not think it’s a, how should I say it, a shackle, a link that can’t be broken. I can take it off anytime I want.” (23M) 1   40  “We had three [diamonds] made since my two children and I wanted one each. We have a family coat of arms, and we plan to have it inserted in the track on the side. […] But I can assure you right now that I want to wear the ring every day, though I wouldn’t panic if I discovered I’d left it at home. And I can separate myself from earthly things, no problem. My husband is present whether I have the ring on my finger or not.” (35B)

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 141  “… that I simply had the feeling that he was somehow still living on in this form, and sometimes that makes me really so sad that I have to take it [the jewel] off. […] Sometimes I just have to free myself a little bit, simply let things go. Being able to let go, although I … although I don’t like doing it.” (5K) 1   42  “It occurs to me that sometimes I even have phases where I think, ‘Now would be a good time to take off the ring.’ I mean my wedding ring and the ring with his diamond. And then I run around for a few days without the rings. That gives me a feeling of freedom. I mean, you sometimes think to yourself about what you want in life, right? Do you always want to live with this grief? Or do you want to be able to allow another human being to come into your life? I can’t really say what the future holds for this ring.” (47M) 1   43  “I know this sounds harsh, but I’ve got to say that I don’t want any of that around me right now. I think I’m just too young for all that. And I would like to get rid of, you know, this continual brooding, the whole stress, the worries, just leave it all behind me. I’m afraid if I had the gemstone here with me, it would somehow hold me down. Somehow.” (29M)

(7) “I even talk to the thing.” – Interaction with the Diamond Generally speaking, communicating with the deceased is not a rare phenomenon. A look at modern approaches to grief and commemoration shows that there are many variations in the field of postmortal dialogue. Some conversations occur only in one’s thoughts, others are spoken out loud at the grave, still others happen in other environments. Sociology designates this “parasocial communication,” that is, we are dealing not with conventional but “incomplete” approaches where only one party is active. Against this background, the question is whether an ash diamond is addressed similarly. Here, too, this likely depends on the meaning ascribed to the artifact (see above). Someone who views the diamond explicitly as the manifestation of a deceased loved one is likely to be more motivated to converse with that person verbally than someone who views it solely as a symbolic link. Some of our interviewees, however, emphatically pointed out that they had never ever spoken with their jewel. Speaking with the deceased, on the other hand, can take place without the direct presence of a diamond, particularly, one would assume, in times of great stress or crisis.

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Yet such a parasocial discourse can take on a ritualized character and become a routine. Typical of such situations are cliched greetings (“Hi,” “Good morning,” “Good night,” etc.). A closer look reveals that there are numerous other categories of interaction: seeing advice, reporting the news from one’s own world, spontaneous emotional outbreaks, but also accusations. In one case, the decedent was informed that he, too, was now being studied for scientific purposes. Communicative moments often go beyond verbal exchanges, for example, when something is showed to the ash diamond in the direct environment. There are many variants here, all of which open the door to the diamond becoming part of one’s everyday affairs. This effort must be practiced since generally, up until then, the world of artifacts had not played a major role in the lives of the persons interviewed. In this respect, it is interesting to note that the dialogue is not exclusively parasocial: The conversation is not solely with the artifacts, sometimes it is about the artifacts, for example, in our interviews, thus implicitly underlining their social relevance. 1   44  “I even talk to the thing. […] I often tell him – I shouldn’t really be telling you this, but I’ll tell you anyway – I often say to him: ‘You asshole, was that really necessary, so early?’” (29M) 1   45  “When I’m sitting around or when I hold him in my hand and such, then, sure, I talk to him. That’s just what I do, yes. So, I guess somehow he is present.” (29M) 1   46  “It happens quite often actually, that I feel like I’m talking with her … or I ask for her advice: ‘I need some help here, I need your opinion’ [weeps]. And when it happens … it gives me the feeling that she belongs to me, that she’s controlling something. I don’t know whether I would say that’s a monologue, but in the situation, it probably is a monologue, although somehow … it’s also a dialog.” (27K) 1   47  “Whenever something new happens, something with the relatives … Recently, a good friend of ours died, one day before my, before our anniversary … I mean before the anniversary of my husband’s death. And I said, ‘Look here, Lukas is dead, too.’ Yeah, yeah, I do that sometimes. Not every day, but whenever something special has happened, something in the family or to good friends. Just last week, a very good friend of mine died, and I told it to the ring.” (9K) 1   48  “I recently went skiing, something we always did together, and then I told him how it was there. My husband is still very, very close.” (19K)

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149  “When I tell my husband something, then I touch the ring and tell him what happened to me. […] We used to, when my husband was still ok, ride his motorcycle. Then we didn’t for 25 years since his health was so poor. Well, last year I bought a motorcycle, an old BMW. And when I sat on that bike [laughs], well, then I had him back again, then I touched the ring and told him, ‘Look at the crazy thing your Roswitha did! Now I’ve started riding a motorcycle again, to remind myself of all the places we went to.’ […] everything I experience I share with him.” (14M) 150  “Yes, I do tell her things, like when I’m going to light a candle and ask her what aroma she’d like, whether strawberry, or garden herbs, or better raspberry. Of course, I already know what she preferred: strawberry. Yet, just recently I had to tell her that strawberry was sold out, and that she would have to make do with orange. […] And when I buy her flowers once again and put them on the table and when I, just last Christmas I put some Christmas decorations on the table, then I ask her if she likes them, since I don’t want to put anything there she doesn’t like. Or when other people, just recently during my grief group at the hospice, someone gave me a little angel for her corner. Of course, I told her who had given me the angel. And that everyone misses her something bad.” (7K) 151  “Yes, there are very different moments in my life. We have a dog, so I’m out with the dog a lot, walking through the woods. And oftentimes I will describe to her what I’m seeing. Or sometimes I think … Please forgive me, but the thought makes me cry … Sometimes [sobs] when I’m sad I tell her so. Yes, it happens a lot, that I’m so mad about her dying and mad at the guy who caused it [the accident], then everything just boils up in me … I just have to let it go and then I talk to her, I talk to her through the diamond.” (2K) 152  “The diamond has its own specific place. So, I opened it up, the little box, and looked at it, and then I actually started talking to it, to my husband, I said, ‘How beautiful you’ve become.’” (15M) 153  “No day is the same as the one before. But there are days – usually it’s a Sunday, that’s just the way it is, when I come out of the living room, then I see it and I say, ‘Good morning!’ […] Or, for example, on New Year’s Eve I was alone, that’s how I wanted it, but I toasted him and wished him a Happy New Year.” (20K) 154  “In the morning I greet him and then during the day go back and forth. I go by and glance but usually don’t stop or anything. But when I leave and come back, then I go over to him and say, ‘I’m back home again.’” (28M)

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155  “I just said to him a while ago, somebody’s going to call soon [laughs], and we are going to talk about the diamond.” (35K) 156  “I catch myself doing it all the time [talking with the diamond], but when my rational brain sets in again, then of course I know that is dumb. […] Sometimes I scold the diamond, yeah, that happens, too [laughs], although rationally I know that is even dumber. But it’s a form of attachment.” (30M) 157  “Yes, I then I have to cry. You talk to the diamond, and, of course, it’s a little strange, right? Maybe that’s something you just have to get out of your system, you know, that it’s all somehow personal.” (29M) 158  “… and there was a remembrance candle matching the urn. It was hollow inside, so you could put some of the ashes in it. I light the candle up every day since there’s a little bit of Patrick’s ashes in there. And the picture of him that I’ve got there, and regardless of where I am, I talk with him a lot. I know, in myself, of course, that he can’t hear me, but …” (17K) 159  “Yes, well no, not directly with the diamond, that’s not where he is, that’s not him, he’s not in there, you know? But I don’t really actively talk to him. On the other hand, I am convinced that my husband is here somewhere and is still haunting around here …” (18K) 160  “Well, I don’t stand there and actually talk with the diamond [laughs] or believe that his soul or anything is in there, that I don’t do.” (42B) 161  “It never really occurred to me to talk with the ring, no. Nor do I have any type of running conversation with him. I can take off the ring without feeling guilty, if I need to do something, you know. […] I wouldn’t go so far that, let’s say, have a spiritual relationship with it. It’s more an emotional thing.” (23M) 162  Talk to the diamond? “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no [laughs], no, no.” (4M)

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(8) “… ever since I’ve just kept the little box shut.” – Safekeeping and Daily Handling One thing that also interested us in our study was what happened to the diamond and how it was treated after being handed over. As with many other aspects we looked at, this one too was very diverse. One frequent method was to have it set in a ring or a necklace, generally done by a jeweler, which prompted the question of whether the jeweler was aware of the background and origin of the diamond. Sometimes the diamond got a fixed place in the living quarters – sometimes a more temporary spot when it wasn’t being worn. Some of the people interviewed were still unsure about how to interact with their diamond, and some of the “storage locations” were merely interim solutions. A further motif we found in connection with this matter concerns storing the diamond in a safe place out of fear it could somehow get lost. Similarly, though in a different direction, was the approach to always having the gemstone on one’s body, precisely because of the fear it could someday become the object of a robbery. 1   63  “I believe that you need to see something in order to work through it and to properly grieve. […] The idea of having such a beautiful diamond, that is … it’s somehow gratifying. […] Ashes are gray and dusty and … not something that really moves you. But a diamond, a diamond is just beautiful […]. So, if you can take it along like a piece of jewelry, then you have the feeling that he’s always there. I wouldn’t put an urn under my arm and go out to eat with my friends, now would I?” (37M) 1   64  “The urn has a lot more ashes in it than they needed to make it [the diamond] for the ring. I didn’t like that there were larger amounts left over, more than now in the ring. So, I wouldn’t, it’s simply … it’s the same. But I thought that would be a good idea. […] On the other hand, we didn’t wear our wedding rings very much […] so now they are being used, now that the marriage is over, they are being worn again.” (31M) 1   65  “My mother loved jewelry, so I had a necklace made with her diamond. That is, I now finally have a reminder of her always with me. And I chose the diamond such that the cut and the size would be fitting for setting it in a necklace. […] I’m planning on wearing the necklace when it’s finished, it will give me a good feeling.” (30M)

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1   66  “You know, I wear this necklace all the time and, what should I say – I just feel good about it. If I want to show him the sun, then I wear it when I’m outside, I mean, who would know?” (32M) 1   67  “I always wear it [the necklace]. I take it off only when I take a shower and put crème on or a facemask, or a décolleté mask or such, then I take it off. But, otherwise, it [the diamond] is around my neck day and night.” (19K) 1   68  “I wouldn’t want to just have it lying around the house when I go on vacation or whatever. I have it with me day and night.” (6K) 1   69  “We talked about it, since I wanted to have a ring made with it so I could carry it with me all the time. […] A friend of mine, she’s a little esoteric, she said, ‘Wearing it continually on your body, I don’t know, he was a very sick man, that may be too much bad energy, don’t you think?’ But, to be honest, it was my feeling, too, I didn’t really want that. So that’s why I decided to have it worked into a picture frame with a photo of the two of us in it, one he really liked. […] Sure, I see the advantage of having the other person there all the time, if you want that. […] In the beginning, I talked to my son, and we agreed that we would first bring it to our bank safe, which was kind of strange. […] So, now I’ve got this picture, and I don’t really know what to do with it. Should I put it up somewhere, make it a sort of altar? I think, I just didn’t think things through, what I wanted. […] I think, at that moment I didn’t want it in the house. […] And now I’ve got a new partner, but he didn’t have a problem with it at all, he was ok with it. But I don’t know whether I want it or not. And my son doesn’t care one way or the other, he doesn’t want it at all. Really difficult … Right now, I’m doing ok, because I know that he’s in a safe place.” (29M) 1   70  “I have … my son gave it to me as a Christmas present, that was really cute of him, it’s a little braided wicker basket, almost a doll basket really. He gave it to me for Christmas because he said, ‘When you take it out, you have to have someplace to put it. Mama, look, I really liked this, so I bought it for your earrings.’ And I’ve got it here … I have a vitrine in my hallway where I keep all sorts of little rocks and shells and other memorabilia. And there’s the little basket, so if I want to take it out, which hasn’t happened up to now, then I can put it back in there again.” (18K) 1   71  “I have a big picture of my husband hanging in my apartment, and next to it … are orchids, he loved orchids. […] So, that’s my little corner, reserved just for

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him. There, back when the diamond was just a diamond, that’s where I put the little box. And I still put it there […] you know, the necklace with the pendant, when I go to the gym and such, where the necklace doesn’t necessarily belong.” (34M) 1   72  “First of all, a girlfriend of mine was there, and we put him in a little chest, so that he wouldn’t be directly in the room and all, and I thought, maybe I shouldn’t put him near the bed.” (29M) 1   73  The diamond is kept in a shrine: “He’s at home with his family and is not alone. We have the feeling it’s better for us that he’s here with us. And I think, if it is as some say that there is a soul or life after death, then maybe he notices that we still love him, that he’s still here and participating in our lives, that he’s still seeing what we’re doing … For example, we recently just renovated …” (26M) 1   74  “I put […] either a real candle […] or if the candle goes out, we sometimes, on Saturdays, mostly my wife does that, I’m not so good at it, my wife puts an electric candle there … one of those flicker candles. I look at it from a distance, it flickers, and I know my wife was longing for her mother again. She sort of visits her there, in the vitrine, and puts the candle on.” (33M) 1   75  “We brought an elephant from Africa made by a local artist, it’s not very large. It’s also a little weirdly done, doesn’t really look like an elephant. At some point, my wife turned it on its side and put up two pictures of herself on its trunk, one taken before the operation, one afterward, small pictures. […] Then she taped them on, so I just didn’t change that, let it be. So, the elephant is still standing there where it always stood, and I put the little box with the diamond right between its ears.” (12M) 1   76  “I have it all at my home, there’s a corner, a sort of cozy corner, where both of them, my husband and my mother, are. It’s there for us, when we come together as a family, it’s incredibly comforting to see the diamonds and on certain special occasions to touch them, put them on the table and to invite them to be with us on birthdays, Christmas and whenever we’re sitting together. And what I find most comforting is the fact that I invited our friends and acquaintances, when my husband returned to us as a gemstone, to get together. I dressed up and then we all had a glass of champagne and toasted him.” (20K) 1   77  “Yes, and then also our friends, when we’re celebrating at home […], they are interested as well and say, ‘Hey, can I see that? Can I look at it? Would that

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bother you?’ But no, it doesn’t bother us. So, we get it out and put the diamond on the coffee table [laughs]. […] It’s still in the box, of course, wouldn’t want it to roll off the table, you know what I mean? That would be rather disrespectful.” (33M) 1   78  “When I first saw the jewel, I thought to myself, I’d like to have something that stays near to me, a piece of jewelry that’s near to my heart. One night I thought, no, no, what if I lose the necklace, then I’ve really got a problem! That’s really distressing. I thought better a ring. So, I talked to the man [jeweler] and he said, ‘Well, then, I’ll make you a new wedding ring and put him in it.’” (2K) 1   79  “I sometimes take the little box in my hand, open it up. But once, since the diamond is pointed at one end, […] well, it just bounced away from me. And I thought, ‘Oh, God, what if I’ve lost it?’ And when I found it once again, […] ever since I’ve just kept the little box shut. And now it’s still that way, when I hold it it’s as though I’m holding him in my hand, that’s the feeling.” (28M) 1   80  “I carry it with me … I had a pretty little box made, with a glass insert at the top so you can look into it. I put the heart into the box when I’m not wearing it. For example, when I go on vacation, I don’t take it with me – I would be too afraid of losing it … I’ve got a place where I keep it, where no one would find it if my place were ever broken into or such. I don’t have anything of any value anyway.” (17K) 1   81  “It [the diamond] is hidden in my wardrobe since I’m afraid that […] someone might break in someday and steal it, you know what I mean? […] I’m totally afraid that a burglar might look through the window and see the diamond and take it. That is, unfortunately I had to hide it away in my wardrobe, in the hopes that it can’t be found […]. You’re always afraid with such valuable objects. But now I’ve decided […] to have it set in a piece of jewelry. I don’t get to see the diamond very often, and I really don’t think about it all that much since … I don’t see it that much. But I believe that would then change, and it would be a lot more present […] more full of memories and more within reach.” (37M)

(9) “Catastrophe, end of the world!” – Losing the Diamond As can be seen toward the end of the last section, some of the people we talked to think intensely about the possibility of theft while deciding what to do with the diamond. We asked about such scenarios and hypothetical behaviors in the interviews. The loss of an ash diamond (as seldom as it actually is) certainly

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means more than just the material loss of a jewel; coping with that loss is thus correspondingly much more difficult as well. Even imagining being confronted with such a disagreeable situation caused great discomfort in some of our interviewees. They don’t even want to “think about that.” It is not surprising that “catastrophe” and other such terms often pop up in this regard. Those people interviewed who keep the diamond physically close to their own bodies (in the sense of a fusioning) even speak of imagining a physical break, an amputation, should the jewel be lost. It resembles a renewed separation, with all the horrible connotations that in many cases there would then be no alternative place available for grieving purposes. During our field research, we encountered no one who had, in fact, lost an ash diamond, but we did hear anecdotes of such incidents, whether through mishaps or criminal activity. Whoever steals such a gemstone would presumably have no idea that the symbolic value for the owner by far outweighs the material value. In this regard, it became clear how strong the connection is between the human being and the artifact, which sometimes actually means between human being and human being. Losing the diamond would mean losing a part of oneself and would represent a severe blow. The downside of experiencing a reunification is feeling abandoned after a loss that cannot be materially compensated. Only a few of our interviewees were composed at the thought of possibly losing the diamond. Occasionally, the comment was made to the effect that “then that’s just the way it is.” Decisive for such an attitude is likely the social significance attested to such as jewel. The only ray of hope was the fact that some firms are willing to retain the remaining ashes (if they are available at all) for at least a certain time after the diamond has been handed over, in order to create a replacement, if need be. 1   82  “Yes. End of the world. […] My parents are no longer alive, but it would be really awful for me … catastrophe, end of the world!” (6K) 1   83  “It would be a catastrophe, I don’t even want to imagine it, a catastrophe. I would be losing the most valuable thing I have. I can’t even imagine it. I don’t know, awful, just awful. I would be losing my husband! You know what I mean?” (13K) 1   84  “This gemstone is for me the expression of how much I appreciate my husband. […] If I were to lose a … glove, well, ok, then I lose a glove. I can go to a store and buy a new one. But I can’t buy myself a new Max.” (4M)

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1   85  “Oh, I don’t even want to imagine that happening. Yes, don’t want to imagine it. That would be the worst thing ever that could happen to me. I don’t want to lose that part of my child again.” (7K) 1   86  “With a piece of jewelry I would always fear losing it. It would be gone, and I would be so upset I would have no peace and quiet, always thinking, ‘What happened to it?’ That’s because I see the human being behind the diamond. […] So, if the diamond were gone, that would be just awful.” (28M) 1   87  “I don’t want to think about that, no. That’s also the reason why I don’t wear it around with me, since I’m afraid that I’ll lose it. […] I have thought about it, of course, you always have that fear. I hope it doesn’t happen.” (5K) 1   88  “That would be dreadful. I don’t even want to think about that happening. I guess it would be the worst thing that could happen to me. That’s why I thought about it long and deep, whether to even have such a diamond made … The danger that I might lose it somehow, I don’t know … Right now, he’s at home, so the danger of losing it is not very big.” (21K) 1   89  “Oh, I won’t lose it [laughs]. No, I don’t think there is such a danger … But it would be really, really horrible if I were to lose it … I mean, I wouldn’t go out and hang myself, but still it would be painful.” (9K) 1   90  “I wouldn’t panic, but it would be a greater loss than if I were to lose one of my other rings.” (35B) 1   91  “That would be tragic, but, of course, there’s nothing you can do about it. It would be permanently gone. Yet I do have everything in my own mind’s eye and in my heart. It’s just an expression of a physical manifestation.” (10K) 1   92  “I’m a sort of an esoteric kind of lady, you know [laughs]. I believe that I would then think, well, it must have been the right moment for that, that it’s gone and maybe the end of a chapter in my life. But, of course, at first, I’d be shocked, but in the end, I think I would say it probably was meant to be. That it is just the way he was saying goodbye.” (18K)

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(10) “I would do it all over again.” – Retrospective Evaluation For most of those interviewed, the loss of their loved one lay at least a few months back. We asked them to recapitulate the time passed, both concerning their grieving process in general as well as specifically to the role of the ash diamond. Had their expectations been met regarding the artifact? Or did things crop up they had not envisaged? Often only in retrospect is it possible to determine what should or could have been done differently. Or did they actually regret having decided to have a diamond made? And for those cases where this applies, do they miss having a “normal” grave to visit? In consideration of the social environment of those interviewed, we also asked: Is the diamond an option you would recommend to others? Or do you have any reser­vations? The answers to these questions were in fact rather unambiguous. This leads us to conclude, on the one hand, that the product they had received corresponded rather well to what had been promised or expected. On the other hand, we can presume that the satisfaction they felt at having found an alternative to traditional burial and commemorative procedures was just as large. Even in light of the subjective effect, the ash diamond did represent a sort of escape route for all those survivors who were unhappy with the various external rules of the respective state burial laws in Germany (and elsewhere). 1   93  “It’s such a pretty thing, so intimate, too. Those are the most important feelings to me since I was having to deal with my mother’s death … So, for me, it was a wonderful thing that you can do that, you know, make a diamond from ashes.” (27K) 1   94  When asked about ever having regretted having a diamond made: “No, never. Never have … Because now I have something from my parents. If I had just had their ashes spread in the ocean, of course, if that would have been possible, then I would have respected their wish, no problem. Also, with an underground burial or cremation and such, it’s all gone. But now I still have my parents … I have the feeling that they are here with me.” (6K) 1   95  “No, quite the opposite – every time we talk about it, we’re happy that we did it that way. It was the perfect decision on our part. We’ve said that again and again, it was the right decision.” (42B) 1   96  “Would I do it all over again? Yes, I would do it again, what I did and how I did it. It’s something where I wrestled with the decision, of course, since I said, ‘Wow, that costs a lot, right?’ In that respect, I was overwhelmed and had to first borrow

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some money […]. But I would do it all over again, since you only get one chance in life.” (5K) 1   97  “I would do it again, yes, though if I had known it earlier, I would have talked it through with my husband beforehand.” (9K) 1   98  “I am content with what I decided. It was the right decision, though I never would have made such a decision if I hadn’t talked to my husband about it while he was still alive. That would have been too much of an intrusion into his body or what was left of it.” (14M) 1   99  “When the time came to make a decision, we sometimes thought: ‘Is this right what we’re doing, I mean, what does it look like to others?’ We didn’t know anyone who had done it before … So, sometimes I thought: ‘Oh, God, is this the right way? I don’t really know what it will look like.’ […] But when the diamond arrived, it was all clear to me that it was exactly the right decision.” (20K) 2   00  “When All Souls’ Day came around, I said to my children honestly: ‘Hey, what do you think about this now? Do you miss having a grave?’ Or: ‘Would you rather go visit a grave, now on All Souls?’ You know, everybody has their own rituals. But all three of my kids said that it was not a problem for them. They do not regret the decision, which of course makes me very happy.” (16K) 2   01  “… my daughter already told me that she thinks it’s a great idea. If something were to happen to her, before we … die […] and we had to bury her, then we should do that with her, too.” (33M) 2   02  “It was a really good feeling when the diamond arrived, I really liked it, and I showed it around since it was so pretty. But I would be sad anyway, whether I have a diamond or not. And I would think about her just as many times as I do now, and I would have the same respect for her, and I would love her just as much. I don’t think it really has much influence on things.” (30M)

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(11) “… as though I had thrown feces on her.” – Communicating with the Social Environment It’s hard to hide a death in the family. Often, in conversations within the social environment prompted by expressions of condolence, the theme of the burial spot comes up, with close acquaintances even the concrete details of typical farewell rituals. The existence of an ash diamond can disrupt traditional patterns and processes. Besides, it can be a difficult legal situation. Under these circumstances, is it expedient to even talk about the jewel? What reactions could such a message provoke? Of course, the missing grave is a further problem: A grave is available to anyone to see, whereas a diamond is not. Thus, it is imperative to determine in advance whether someone directly involved in the grief environment explicitly wants “contact” – proximity and encounter – with the diamond. As it turned out, in most cases the social environment is not familiar with the concept. Overall, the reactions were positive, with a few skeptical or openly negative comments. Yet, such opinions seem to have little effect on the survivors, creating negligible irritation, since their conviction is very strong that how they deal with their grief and the burial is their own matter of private self-­ determination. In some cases, there was no social environment to accommodate, and the diamond owners were the only close relatives. From the above, we can conclude that the survivors who decided to have an ash diamond made it without feeling any shame. They expressed no regrets – and that is how they faced their surroundings, too. Many in fact even tried to recruit others from their family or friends to consider an ash diamond, and not a few requested explicitly that we use their full names to give the idea more thrust. We encountered no bashfulness or denial/concealment of the decision in our interviews. 2   03  “I have a close neighbor who just lost his daughter three weeks ago. So, I gathered up my courage and said, I’m going to go and tell him about my diamond. Especially I wanted to tell his wife since I felt that this was probably more of a female thing. That was my feeling anyway. Maybe I’m mistaken, though. Anyway, I went over to them and said they should also think about what they really want. I mean, what path they want to go down since for me it’s a good thing to have her with me.” (2K) 2   04  “Many of those with whom I’ve spoken among my friends and acquaintances when I tell them: ‘Here, this is my parents,’ they react by saying: “Huh? What? Your

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parents?’ And when I then say, ‘They’ve been turned into a diamond.” Most of them had no idea and say, ‘Wow!’ and then ‘That’s really fantastic, you know I’m going to think about doing that, too.’” (6K) 2   05  “I have experienced again and again when I tell people my story … Many of them become quiet and thoughtful, some even start to cry. A lot of them say to me, ‘That is true love.’ Mostly women, I should add.” (47M) 2   06  “My colleagues at work, I told them right off from the very beginning, about the jewel and that I always wear it. Now I usually wear a scarf on top of it, but during the summer months, of course, I don’t. They were all very curious when I told them what I was going to do and asked every once in a while, ‘Is your diamond ready yet?’ And then, when it arrived, they all wanted to see it, and they all said, ‘Oh, that is so beautiful!’ So, they were all really excited about it.” (17K) 2   07  “A couple of times people have asked me about it and I say, ‘You know what kind of jewel that is?’ – ‘Oh, it could be this or that.’ And I say, ‘No, it’s not. That is … my husband.’ They look at me kind of funny and then I say, ‘I just couldn’t bring myself to bury him. I wanted him to be with me all the time.’ Sometimes they then say, ‘If I had known … that’s a great idea.’ That happened to me just before last Christmas. We were invited somewhere, and there was an elderly lady who had heard about my diamond, her husband had died about 6 months before, said to me, ‘If I had known that was possible, then I would have had it done as well.’” (8M) 2   08  “I was networking with other mothers who had contacted me after having also lost children. One of the mothers said, ‘Hey, if I had known that back then, when my child died, I would have done it as well.’” (17K) 2   09  “It’s not so well known … I had a friend who became a widow last September, and she said to me, ‘You know, if I had known that, I would have done it, too.’ As I say, it’s not all that well known, but everyone I tell it to says, ‘That’s a really fantastic thing you’ve got there.’” (4M) 2   10  “Well, we talked relatively open to each other. […] My personal background is that I want as many people to learn about it as possible, that you can do that. We are just so thankful that we had the possibility. And in the end, everyone has to decide for themselves what they want to do. But first of all, of course, you have to know what’s out there.” (42B)

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2   11  “They just stand there, with their mouths wide open, astounded, ‘Huh, that’s possible?’ […] So, now we tell everyone about it, and people pass it on to others. It’ll probably be a pretty big circle someday when everyone has learned about it. Then they don’t have to wait for the funeral director to tell them, but they’ll go there themselves and ask. But I could imagine that there’s a lot of people, in your own environment, your family, friends and acquaintances and relatives, who are thinking about doing it.” (33M) 2   12  “… since I had already told my dearest friends about my plans and that there would only be a memorial service since we didn’t want to bury him, I said: ‘Don’t be surprised if you don’t see a coffin.’ I got a lot of surprised faces over that. ‘Huh? How does that work?’ […] There was a lot of interest in what was going to happened. In the beginning, everyone was amazed when I told them, but then most of them thought it was a good thing.” (32M) 2   13  “My relatives are also pretty modern, you know, down to earth type of folks. And today kids are spread out everywhere […]. No one said to me, ‘Oh, that’s too bad, now you don’t have a place of mourning.’ Mostly just agreement: ‘Yes! In a mobile society, you now have mobile grieving.’ We didn’t have just one diamond made, we had three made, so that both of my daughters could have one of their own. So, I would say, my closest family is taken care of [laughs] in their grief. And my other relatives wouldn’t go to the cemetery much anyway. […] I never heard anything negative from anybody, such as ‘Oh, now we don’t have a place to go to grieve.’” (34M) 2   14  “When people ask me where my husband is, I say, ‘Right now he’s in Switzerland.’ You know, like he’s off on a short vacation. Then I say, ‘But he’ll be coming back soon.’” (32M) 2   15  “You know, that I wear this diamond around my neck is known to only my closest relatives, my sister, the children, my sister-in-law, and a good friend of mine. I didn’t tell anyone else that I have it.” (19K) 2   16  “I haven’t had it very long yet. Maybe someone will someway ask me about it. And then I’ll have to decide whether to say, ‘Yes, I really like it’ or whether I’ll find some other explanation. That depends on who it is and what relationship I have to the person asking.” (31M) 2   17  “If anyone asks, I would tell them. […] But if they don’t ask, then I don’t mention it. Since it’s a really new thing. I mean, we haven’t had all that many burials around us … But up to now, that was a no-go.” (10K)

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2   18  “I told my children and my sisters-in-law, I mean my husband’s sisters, as well as a couple of friends where I know that they’ll say, ‘Ok, if that’s the way she wants it.’ But if I get the feeling that I have to defend my decision, then that’s where I draw the line. I do not want to do that. And I do not have to do that. Who do I have to explain myself to?” (22M) 2   19  “A friend of mine said, ‘I can’t imagine that, every day, when you get up in the morning and have that jewel around your neck, that you think of your Max.’ To which I said, ‘Yes, but that’s the wonderful thing.’” (4M) 2   20  “Some people said to me, ‘Ok, I think it’s great what you’re doing, but I wouldn’t want to do it.’ An acquaintance of mine really said to me, ‘I would not want my husband to be wearing my diamond.” Others have said, however, ‘I don’t want to have a conventional burial, better in a forest burial ground … although a diamond like that, that might not be a bad thing.’ Some said very directly that the only thing possible for them was a normal burial, maybe for religious reasons. Even my Greek friends, who usually reject these things outright, have come to accept the fact that I had a diamond made – and they now admire it outright. Some people want to touch it. People who knew my wife touch it and caress it and say, ‘Hello, Alexandra!’ That’s amazing.” (47M) 2   21  “Some of my mother’s girlfriends asked, ‘Where is the urn buried now, where can we visit her?’ And then I said that there is no grave, only a diamond, and that it would take a few months until it arrives. They were taken aback at first, but then after a moment said, ‘Oh, how beautiful, that really befits Sofia,’ my mother. […] I think I only have one girlfriend […] who said that she thinks it’s horrible, and that she couldn’t imagine doing such a thing. […] Many ask me, ‘Can we see the diamond?’ For that, however, I need some time. I don’t want to carry the box around with me all the time. If someone visits me, well, then I guess it’s ok, I would show them the diamond. But I don’t want to have it with me everywhere I go, just so people can have a look at it. I know too that, when I’m wearing the ring with the diamond, that there will be people to whom I wouldn’t say, ‘Hey, this was made from the ashes of my mother.’ They might keel over with shock. […] A lot of people have never heard of the possibility. I hadn’t either at the beginning, and when you first deal with it, you hear, ‘Oh, God, what is that all about?’” (27K) 2   22  “It didn’t always meet with approval. There were a lot of people, also when I went to the jewelry store and there were people there, who shook their head in outrage at how anyone could think about doing such a thing as have a diamond made from the ashes of my husband. ‘That’s just crazy!’” (14M)

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2   23  “So, I told my mother about it. She’s very religious and, you know … comes from a little village … That’s just the way it is there, they want a grave where they can go and cry their eyes out and […] well, I don’t need that. I can do that at home if I want to, I don’t have to walk or drive a couple of miles to a cemetery to talk with my loved ones. That’s just old-fashioned and outdated, if you ask me.” (26M) 2   24  “I experienced that with my mother-in-law, she thought it was just awful. […] They were against it. She looked at me as though I had thrown feces at her when I asked the undertaker. She had gone alone and couldn’t come to grips with it at all. But what do I care?” (18K) 2   25  “My father helped me out financially, but the others, my relatives, they couldn’t understand my move at all and thought it was stupid not to have a grave somewhere to put flowers on. Some of them even broke with me, but I say to that, well, it’s his decision, it’s my decision, and it doesn’t bother me one way or the other what you think or want. It’s our life […]. We wanted to do it, and you have places you can go to, you can go to where the accident happened, and if you don’t want to or whatever, well, that’s your problem.” (5K) 2   26  “We told my parents’ best friends about it, in order to explain that there would not be a place for them to go to and place flowers on. I guess that is sort of egoistic of us. For example, we sent the children from the first marriage and the relatives […] nice photos of my father, in a frame and all, so that everyone had something at home and could find the right place there to remember him or grieve for him, if there’s no grave. We can deal with that, but there will likely be some who think it’s stupid [laughs]. Yes, of course, you rob everybody else of the possibility of going somewhere, a specific spot, to mourn the loss or to place some flowers on. But that the way it was, we think that grief is something that is in your heart, you don’t have to go somewhere else and place flowers to feel grief. You don’t mourn at the cemetery; you mourn for someone in your heart. And you always take your heart along with you [laughs].” (42B) 2   27  “Our friends say, ‘Hey, now we don’t have anywhere where we can go to mourn Patrick’ […]. So, I said in return, ‘Yes, that is correct.’ We then made a little commemorative box and held the memorial during the summer. We fired up the grill and set up a grave under a tree, a wonderful place.” (17K)

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(12) “ I still have the tree where the accident happened.” – Other Commemorative Artifacts Remembering the dead has always also been connected to material things, for example, relics. In the private sphere, this usually consists of photos that serve as reminders of deceased persons, though not necessarily in the context of death and grief. Photos are very well suited to this task since they are a concrete way of preserving situations as well as persons with whom interaction is no longer possible. The idea of preserving has been part of photography throughout its history, since the mid-1800s. But commemorative artifacts can also be things that are not primarily contemplated, such as everyday items or pieces of clothing the deceased wore while alive. To a certain extent, the diamond resembles this type of funerary materiality, albeit with a special status: Metaphorically speaking, it is not completely artificial, since it is not completely “dead” but created from living matter. In the interviews for our study, we asked about other objects the interviewees included in their commemoration of the dead. If they had such artifacts, we also wanted to know where they were kept, what role they played in everyday life, and their relationship to the ash diamond. We also thought it instructive to ask whether some things had purposefully not been saved, things that were not just obsolete because of the death of the loved one, but that had been downright banned from the relative’s subsequent environment. 2   28  “Well, I’ve got pictures of my parents here in my living room. One is from when they got married, another is from their 50th wedding anniversary. In the middle is a candle that I light on the anniversary of their death or wedding anniversary and sometimes at Christmas …” (16K) 2   29  “This is what I did: I interviewed my father 14 years ago about his life. I asked him about his childhood, about the time during World War II and such. I recorded him speaking on a cassette recorder and then I digitalized the recordings. I just didn’t want to lose them – cassettes can sometimes get broken. It was really weird the first time I heard his voice again. It was as though he was sitting right next to me, very strange […]. But I’m happy that I have that of him. Otherwise, some things … hm … nothing occurs to me right off hand. Of course, photos, you always have photos, but you don’t look at them every day.” (42B) 2   30  “He was a lawyer, so I kept the gown he wore in court. And I’ve got the Bible verse he chose for his confirmation as well as a couple of medals he received

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during his lifetime. But I will have to get rid of them since my kids don’t want any of it. […] Otherwise, well, I’ve got some photos, photos of him, of course. But objects … I’ve still got his watch, I wear it in fact since it wasn’t so terribly big, not so thick, you know, not like many men’s watches. I had a simple leather armband put on it.” (9K) 2   31  “My husband was a fanatic soccer fan and collected soccer jerseys. I had a blanket made out of the jerseys for my son which is still on his bed when he comes to visit. For my daughter, I had one made from his t-shirts and shirts. That way he always there for our children. Those are his most memorable items I have here in the house. Otherwise, just a few little things that lie around. But they are becoming ever fewer.” (18K) 2   32  “Mostly old clothes, jewelry of course, books, photos, letters. I also still have a lot of her old papers. I wear about every day something of hers, whether a ring or an earring, a t-shirt, whatever. She’s still very much present here since I took a lot from her apartment with me. They’re not commemorative things as such, just objects that are part of my daily life, that show me that Mama is still there.” (27K) 2   33  “He had a large closet where most of his clothes were. It’s still not empty. I can’t bring myself to get rid of them. There were a lot of good things there, too, high-quality, valuable pieces of clothing. I gave a lot to the thrift store, and some of it I sold at a flea market or garage sale, shirts, and such. But a lot of the clothes that were very valuable both for me and for him are still in the closet. I can’t give them away just yet, I just can’t do it, just put them in a sack.” (19K) 2   34  “Up to when I discovered the idea of a diamond burial I always kept all sorts of things from relatives who had died, for example, I’ve still got some dishes from my mother-in-law which we use when we drink coffee together or to put sweets or pastries on. Then you have the feeling that they are also sitting at the table …” (20K) 2   35  “My husband always wore a gold chain – as long as I knew him, he always had it on. It was still there after the accident, I got it back from the police. I had it cleaned and refurbished, but I can’t wear it myself, it just takes my breath away from me.” (18K) 2   36  “I’ve got a little candle on my breakfast table, it’s an angel where you put a tealight in the middle, with a photo of my husband. I light it every day when I get up in the morning, that’s where I see him.” (19K)

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2   37  A “remembrance box” with personal items was buried in the garden: “… and we put this box underground, put a little rock on top along with two slates, two hearts, one with a photo engraved on it and the birth and death dates, the other with a saying I liked. Our garden is open to all, so that anyone who wants to can visit Patrick for whatever reason. You just go down there, and you can light a candle if you want. We go there every evening and light a candle for him, and sometimes there’s something there, a little angel or sometimes it’s a mess, with flowers or a laminated picture.” (17K) 2   38  “We’ve got everything here at home with us. I built here at home a stele from sandstone blocks, and I still have the tree where the accident happened. He veered off the road, hit the wall and then the tree […] I had to set all the wheels in motion to get that tree, an ash-maple tree, the trunk of it and the roots, it had to be extracted […]. And then I had to see to it that I […] got the trunk after they had cut down the tree. So, I planted it in my garden you might say, and it sprouted. […] It was just there for a while. I wanted to have something made of it, carved from it, something nice, a nice artifact. But when I saw that it was sprouting again, I said, ‘Ok, then it wants to live, so I’ll plant it and now it’s in our garden.’ I put a commemorative plaque on top. And where the accident happened, I planted a new tree, had a new tree planted.” (5K) 2   39  “Everything reminds me of him. My husband built this house, every inch of it reminds me of him. There are also a lot of photos there, where he climbed the Kilimanjaro, lots of pictures – we were together in Africa, things like that … Every day his memory is there. There’s something everywhere.” (2K) 2   40  “No, to be honest, I have a big house where I lived with my husband for 35 years. Of course, the house if full of memorabilia. I am very happy that I’ve been able to keep the house, that I didn’t have to move out … Since now I have my memories and I don’t have to get rid of things that remind me of him.” (16K) 2   41  “I have other jewelry from my mother, from my father, too, a couple of things since we had to clear out the house, my family home, before selling it. So, of course, we took along some memorabilia.” (6K) 2   42  “Of course, of all the things I chose an old fountain pen. When I use it today to write something, I always have to think of Jan who also wrote things with it. […] But that is an everyday object for me. The ring with the diamond is something different since I feel a deep connection to it. If the fountain pen were to break tomorrow or

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if I were to lose it somehow, I would be sad. But it would be something altogether different if I were to lose the ring. The ring is connected to my feelings, connected to a deceased person. […] Jewelry that I got from my husband as a gift, when I put it on, I think, ‘Jan gave me that, when I turned 50 or whatever.’ […] That happens in my head, you know, and the ring is something I feel with my heart, if you know what I mean. That’s something completely different.” (23M) 2   43  “We still have a few everyday objects that belonged to her […]. If we hadn’t done that with the diamond, the everyday objects would probably have more of a meaning to us. But now they don’t mean much at all. We know they were hers, but the diamond, well, that’s just the real thing.” (33M) 2   44  “The diamond is for me something of great significance. It is part of my husband. The other things are just things he used when alive. But the diamond was made from his body. At some point in time, you should probably free yourself from the thought and say, ‘How much is it really?’ It’s just 500 grams of ashes from the 2.5 kilograms that were there. Of course, you have to let go and say, ‘Yes, he’s been fragmented, he’s not completely in his grave.’” (14M) 2   45  “For me, it’s different than other pieces of jewelry. When it’s turned around on your finger, you turn it up back upright, you wouldn’t do that with some other ring, wouldn’t even look […]. But with the diamond, you’re more careful. You pay more attention to it. […] You know, it is made from my husband’s body, so that makes it something very, very close to me.” (48M) 2   46  “The diamond is very sturdy, so I can have it with me all the time, right? A photo is a good thing, but a photo always represents the past […]. You say, oh, that was then and then, but you can’t project that into the future. But the diamond, I have it with me 24/7, it’s on my body, I take it everywhere with me. […] Wherever I go, it goes along. You wouldn’t do that with a lock of hair, you don’t take it along with you. Or a photo, you don’t take it everywhere you go […], I don’t take it anyway.” (11M) 2   47  “I can wear it permanently, which is not possible with other things. I can’t very well wear my mother’s clothes [laughs] all the time.” (30M) 2   48  “My husband died on a Wednesday, and on the following Sunday, we had a memorial service for him. On Monday, his clothes were all gone. […] It was just that his smell was everywhere in them. […] I couldn’t stand smelling him everywhere, it was awful. […] The only thing I kept is a bottle of aftershave since I thought it

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would be a shame to throw it out. I don’t really know who can use it, but it is not a memento.” (13K) 2   49  “We had some problems with the crematorium, that was a real drama without end. It made me think that maybe that wasn’t even Felix’ urn or ashes. They couldn’t find them for a long time and then sent us something. I thought, ‘Well, does it really make a difference?’ When I think about it, I have to say, well, that I wouldn’t want that so much. On the other hand, my husband lives on in my heart. Everything else is just memorabilia, like when I wear his watch these days.” (35B)

(13) “A grave is a sad thing.” – Approaches to Classical Rituals This study would be incomplete if we were to leave out a central concern, namely, by failing to address the aspect of traditional burial and ritual variations. In many ways, the ash diamond, particularly because of how it comes to be and the claims of ownership it creates, represents an alternative that strengthens aspirations of autonomy. Or should we simply assign the transformation of the carbon portion of cremation ashes into a jewel to the existing category of expanded funerary forms, albeit with a special component of bodily materiality other forms lack? But perhaps the different concepts can be applied parallel or serially, resulting in a sort of independent cumulation of possibilities. The question is whether dealing with grief needs such “objective” factors like a place; of course, this question may also be applied to the materiality of the diamond. From the common “objectivistic” facet, we can easily construct a contrast, if you think of where burials take place as something immobile, the diamond in turn as a mobile artifact of grief. In summary, most of those interviewed evaluated the classical burial models negatively. The normal cemetery, the relatively strict regulations and standards, the physical distance from one’s main residence, but also its dark, spooky, scary, and sometimes oppressive atmosphere serve the customers for ash diamonds as a stark contrast to their artifact, which is not extremely individual in nature but clearly represents an alternative and different approach. The moral duties emanating from the cemetery (forced maintenance, costs, claim to exclusivity as the only “true” place of mourning) are completely absent with the commemorative diamond. There, moral considerations become largely a self-determined category. The criticism of the entire death care industry expressed by our interviewees is not new; it extends far beyond the feelings expressed about the cemetery, to

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the nature of the farewell rituals, the role of religion, the commercialization of the whole affair, the equipment used, etc. The sadness expressed – that burial in a cemetery is “cold,” that the beloved person is being “hidden from view” – contrasts with the “airy” esthetic of a shiny, sparkly diamond. Also, the ability to always interact with the diamond overrides fears of separation, which are directly counteracted by immediate contact with the jewel. 2   50  “Maybe it’s a little spooky for you, but you probably have heard a lot of weird stuff, so why not this: The situation is this – a body consists of certain elements: earth, water, fire, air, space. And at some point in time, these elements get separated once again. People have different favorite means of burial – you expose the body to a certain element. […] Some people have more water energy, or a special connection to things that flow, so they want to be buried at sea […]. Cremation is a very efficient way to bury someone, whereas sky burial is not possible in our part of the world. So, if you ask me, every era has its own preference, and every element has its own advantage […]. For me, everything is legitimate, and we are living in a phase of great human freedom, where we can experiment with and try out various different ways. Isn’t that great!?” (49M) 2   51  “We all return to being just atoms again, we all become part of nature once again. I find this thought soothing since I don’t belong to any religion. For me, it’s just the […] well, the most beautiful thing I can imagine. That, when you die, you dissolve into a thousand different parts. And you can enjoy every flower and every blade of grass because you know that there’s a person in there somewhere. That’s why it would be somehow strange for me to have a grave.” (37M) 2   52  “Since we had spoken about it beforehand, we both thought that the cemetery just wasn’t the right place for us. […] We don’t really know anyone here, and it felt very anonymous to us, very impersonal. The idea of lying in a grave somewhere, that just didn’t cut it with us, and it’s not my wish now, either.” (5K) 2   53  “I don’t need some place I can go to, that just doesn’t work for me, it doesn’t. That has become so clear to me that I have to say ‘no,’ won’t do it. […] Maybe that comes from my childhood, something that has followed me all my life. […] I just couldn’t bring myself to put him in the ground, I need some piece of him.” (8M) 2   54  “I don’t need that, I avoid it in fact. I don’t want to be continually reminded when I’m there, planting flowers, see all the other mourning people … I don’t want that. It’s always bothered me, even as a small child.” (33M)

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2   55  “I just don’t have a connection to the cemetery. It’s just somewhere, I don’t know … Yes, my parents are in a cemetery. My father died last year, but you mourn a person in your heart. Some people may need a place where they can go, but I don’t have to have such a place.” (21K) 2   56  “I’ve always been a little afraid to go to a cemetery, always. It always felt a little spooky to me. Not a pleasant place to be. A diamond, however, that is something pretty […]. It’s as though my mother is not really dead.” (24M) 2   57  “I really didn’t want it that way, you know, that they dig a hole in the ground and put him down there where it’s dark. Or that they cremate him and put the urn down where it’s dark. I didn’t want any of that. I wanted him to be with me, I wanted to show him the sun. […] No, a cemetery is not for me […] never was even considered. Many people have their own little altar at home. That I can imagine more, before running to the cemetery and having this name carved onto God know what type of stone, and to stand there and grieve – no, that was not even thinkable for me. I don’t like cemeteries … That people stand in front of the graves and weep, I don’t know … Grief is something very, very private to me. If I want to cry, then I’ll do it within my own four walls, or I’ll cry together with some close friends. But I couldn’t go to a cemetery and stand there and cry, won’t happen.” (32M) 2   58  “I was raised as a strict Catholic, but today I have nothing to do with the Catholic Church. But the Christian philosophy we were brought up in, you have it in you, and I wouldn’t want to be without it. I believe, or rather I live according to such things. But it’s not my religion, it’s my philosophy, to live that way. And I think, well, you withdraw from all worldly things, from all material things. Why should I bury someone’s complete body or even their ashes? That person is no longer there. Life after death, that’s something that exists only in the memory of people who have something nice to say about me or remember me … but that’s it. Not in some physical way or manner.” (35B) 2   59  “We couldn’t get our minds wrapped around a funeral, putting something in the ground, in a grave, we just couldn’t. […] You know, you get rid of something by burying it […]. We had the feeling that something must survive after death, to have something that means something to the family […] which is why we asked ourselves how to best deal with it, what do we really want when we think about our loved one? Of course, you want to think good thoughts about him, but the next question that immediately pops up, both with our children and our grandchild, is: We really won’t have the opportunity to take care of a grave. And immediately you have pangs of conscience, which is not good at all.” (20K)

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2   60  “She didn’t want a real burial, an urn, an earth burial. […] That was all too dark for her, so no sea burial either. And then she said, ‘Be careful that you don’t always have to take care of things, you’re too young for that. We should do things differently.’” (10K) 2   61  “So I figured, hey, think about the children … My mother just died, and if I had gotten a grave for her in the cemetery, which I could have done for the rest of the ashes, then we would have to care for it for the next 25 to 30 years, when I’ll be 80 myself. And then my kids would have to jump in and care for the grave. That’s just stupid! I mean, you never know whether children are going to stick around or whether they want to pay for someone to maintain the grave, which is also crazy. And a sculpture or a diamond, you can just take it with you, and it has a certain value to it. For a grave, all you do is spend money.” (3K) 2   62  “Doing the upkeep on a grave, that’s a real commitment, you know, going there. I didn’t want that my kids would have to care for my grave. For example, my parents are buried in another state, so I don’t get there very often. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think about my parents or that I don’t grieve for them. That’s why it doesn’t really mean anything to me, you see? But the diamond has a meaning to me and to pass it on down the line also has a meaning to me. But a grave site – they level it after 25 years anyway … And I don’t care where my other son moves to, whether I’m alive or not, but he can always take Patrick [the deceased son] along with him. But a grave, maybe you can have someone reburied, I guess, but that doesn’t seem very pious to me. This way he can always come along to where the family is.” (17K) 2   63  “It was my husband’s own wish that we shouldn’t have any obligations to care for a grave or to go somewhere specific […]. I travel a lot, and I think he didn’t want to become a burden to me, that I feel responsible for maintaining his grave and such. I think he didn’t like the way it was with his own parents, and that this was the main reason he chose this path.” (29M) 2   64  “The only person I visit or even want to visit was my father, his grave. But I don’t go there to talk to him but because I have to plant or water something. Those were more obligatory visits than anything else – to see that everything was okay.” (31M) 2   65  “That was never our thing. We always said, ‘No, we don’t want that!’ I always said to my daughter, too, ‘No grave, no big fuss about things and … then the jewel, and that’s good, and then Mama and Papa are always with you.’” (15M)

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2   66  “A grave is a sad thing, dreary, bleak. It really pulls you down. You go there, but why? It doesn’t help at all. It’s just ghastly, if you ask me. But here, such a beautiful and esthetic diamond – that’s something beautiful that I can be happy about again and again, that something so wonderful became of it.” (26M) 2   67  “I would not have made it through a classical funeral. I could not have stood there. So, this diamond was a good thing for me. I was able to avoid these burial ceremonies altogether and sought something positive, no gravesite, where I can have my husband with me all the time. It worked out well for me, if I may say so.” (16K) 2   68  “For a long time I’ve said I don’t want to be put down into a grave. Do whatever you want to with me, I will not go down there. So, my husband and I were so happy when we saw it on TV and I said to him, ‘Hey, look at that, that is the solution for us!’ And my husband said right off, ‘Yes, that’s what we’ll do! That’s exactly what we were looking for.’” (28M) 2   69  “All in all, I think all of that [different forms of burial in a fixed location] is just awful, in my eyes, not nice at all. But here, with this diamond, it’s like winning the lottery that you can do that.” (33M) 2   70  “For me, it’s something completely different, has nothing to do with a cemetery or funeral. Honestly, you know, because you have to go to a cemetery – or rather you should go to the cemetery once you’ve decided to go that route. But this diamond, I can grieve when I want to, you see? I can hold on to it. I can’t lie on the grave or […] embrace the gravestone. That’s not a real alternative for me.” (32M) 2   71  “When you go home from a funeral and a burial, you have nothing, nothing but a memory, that there was a grave and there was a memorial service. But for me this is much more since you get something. You don’t give up something, you get something.” (48M) 2   72  “I still have part of him with me. I couldn’t have put him in the cold earth. But this way I always have him with me, and I can always consult him when I have problems. I really can communicate with him … He still protects me.” (8M) 2   73  “I have a part of him with me, my mother has a part and my sister has a part. We decided to go this route so that we wouldn’t have to make a ‘pilgrimage’ every time to visit the grave. Or that, every time you come to town, you are required to

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visit the graveyard … This way, each of us can find a way to mourn on our own terms.” (42B) 2   74  “Well, my sister gave us the idea, but I was immediately fired up by the idea since I really didn’t think that someone who had lived his life in lots of places should be buried in just one single place. […] Then we all would have had to go there, and my Mama would somehow think she was obligated to take care of his grave […]. So, after we talked and discovered that each of us had our own memories of him, we came upon this idea … So, we split it up, the diamond, each of us has a little one. That was actually the best solution of all, so that we don’t have to make a pilgrimage to some shrine, but everyone gets a piece of him.” (37M) 2   75  “For me it’s just my Mama and my Papa, I have them here. I always say, I don’t need a tombstone, I have my parents with me, that’s how I see it. That is my tombstone, that is my cemetery, you see? […] I mean, you go to the cemetery and say, ‘So, now I’m going to the cemetery since that’s where so and so is lying …’ At least that’s where what remains of that person is lying […]. But this diamond is in effect also the rest of a person.” (11M) 2   76  “It’s not a grave, is the way I see it, it’s a storage place. A place of remembrance. ‘Grave’ is too … well, outdated – and hideous. Completely undignified. That’s how I see it: undignified. A grave, there’s a person down there, whether as a whole body or as ashes. […] They’re gone, hidden away! That’s what I associate with a grave. Oh, that is really just awful [laughs].” (33M) 2   77  “The place of interment is like a classical grave […]. I have problems with graves, doesn’t matter where they are or for whom, whether for my parents or my in-laws or whatever, and that’s just such a place. You can go there, but it doesn’t really do anything for me. But my diamond, that is my diamond and it’s my husband and that’s the way it is. There’s nothing in between, beside, below. And it’s nobody’s business but my own. So, that is really my own intimate thing with what is left of my husband. And it’s simply … you can’t compare to anything else. […] At a gravesite you can do all sorts of things, too, but then I wouldn’t have him with me all the time, the whole day long.” (22M) 2   78  “For me, those are two different things. The ring represents for me the life we had together. […] And the cemetery, that’s basically a place where you grieve. The cemetery represents death, the ring is a reminder of life. I can separate the two very strictly.” (23M)

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2   79  “You can’t compare the two since from the beginning the grave is there and it [the diamond] comes later, after 9 months or so. And after 9 months, the greatest part of the grieving period is over. The grave itself was extremely important to me since I tried very hard to keep my grief out of the house. That is, if I wanted to cry, I went to the cemetery since I have to live on in my house. That’s why I didn’t want to have an altar erected in the house.” (4M) 2   80  “Now, if I imagine having some place, maybe with a bench near it, somewhere you can go to think about the deceased person and somehow be together with them – that would be a good thing. It feels right to me since you then stand up, say goodbye, and go about your business once again. I think it’s important to somehow keep those two things apart. That’s why I still have a problem with having the diamond in the house.” (29M) 2   81  “I don’t need some specific place. Still, I do go rather often to the cemetery, at least once a week, sometimes twice a week […] and I think it’s a good thing to have it so close. It’s something that brings me peace.” (14M) 2   82  “On the anniversary of his death I was there, but otherwise I’m not the person to go to the cemetery all the time. It’s just not the place where my husband actually is. I know a lot of people find some consolation there, since they think that’s where the remains are. They think that a human being is there, but for me that’s not the case. For me it’s just a place I created since I didn’t know how my kids would react, a place where you can go, where the kids can go. […] That was important for me, and for my mother-in-law it was extremely important to have a place to go to when she’s here on a visit. That’s why I said we should bury the remains of the ashes conventionally.” (18K) 2   83  “I would differentiate between the cemetery as an institution where you have to pay your dues 20 years in advance [laughs] and the cemetery as a place of burial. On the day my father died, we visited the cemetery to see where we could hold the ceremony. We thought it was such an awful place, so dark and spooky and scary, that we had to get away as soon as possible. So, we drove some more and came upon another cemetery we thought was a lot more friendly, pretty, somehow nicely done, and we decided on that. A cemetery can be a beautiful and peaceful place. […] I’m just not the person who likes for other people to tell me what to do. And this ‘You’ve got to go to the cemetery three times a year and put flowers on the grave … and you’ve got to bury your father in a cemetery like the law says.’ I don’t like that. I like to go my own way.” (42B)

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2   84  “I don’t think a grave is a negative thing, although I don’t understand the burial culture in Germany, where you have to go to the cemetery. I would prefer, as is the case in several other countries, that you can take the urn home with you, after fulfilling a few formalities. I would like that better. […] And all the rules and regulations, that’s a difficult matter, and every town has its own cemetery guidelines. I wanted to have a little bench set up […] on the grave […] under a tree, where I could sit down, but my wish was denied by the cemetery administration. The regulations you have to adhere to, they make it difficult to see the cemetery like it maybe used to be seen. […] The cemeteries are no longer a pleasant place since everything is so regulated, so inflexible. The headstones can only be this high or that wide, made of a certain material, everything looks the same, so devoid of meaning, so orderly – just awful. Don’t like it.” (14M)

(14) “It makes you feel a little bit like a criminal.” – Criticism of the Legal Situation The final two statements from the last section are clear: Not everyone rejects the cemetery as a potential place of mourning; individual approaches are possible. The dissatisfaction is rooted more in the way the cemetery is administered and above all regulated. We know from other studies in which people with grief experiences express their opinions that, because of their (over)regulation, cemeteries are often the object of criticism. The many restraints are considered paternalistic and an unnecessary limitation to realizing one’s own needs and plans. Instead of having to deal with these bureaucratic demands during a critical time of great loss and sorrow, people wish there was more freedom to live out their own mourning wishes. Germany, however, has the strictest burial regulations in all of Europe. It still demands that the dead be buried in a cemetery and knows only very few exceptions to this rule. The great popularity of so-called “natural burials” in the forest, possible since 2001, says a lot about the desire for the sustainable and growing interest in alternatives to traditional cemeteries. Creating a diamond from human ashes is presently not allowed in Germany, the only legal exception being the creation of a diamond from the fur or ashes of an animal. According to the German Federal Burial Act, the need to divide up the ashes makes it difficult to impossible. That is why the cremation ashes must first go to Switzerland (or somewhere else) to be technically treated. Recently, there were a few campaigns in various states to liberalize the burial laws, albeit without much success. Little easing of restrictions has occurred, and in some cases, laws even became more restrictive.

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We wanted to know from our interviewees how they dealt with the legal ramifications when making their own decision. Was the legal situation even a consideration? And if it was, how much uncertainly or stress did it create during a time of great grief and loss? Was one’s own wish or that of the decedent more important from the beginning than implicit compliance with the normative provisions contradicting their needs? There is presently a tremendous gap between the institutional requirements (based on the ideal of an orderly society) and the personal wish to shape one’s own approach to mourning. Our material shows that those affected see an enormous need to reform the laws. They look to other countries in Europe where, for example, there is no cemetery obligation and considerably greater freedom in designing the funerary context, whether as part of or completely outside of conventional rituals. By the way: The situation in the burial culture of Germany’s neighbors reveals that liberalizing cemetery rules does not generally lead to the complete downfall of burial culture – as many (pessimistic) commentators had predicted. In fact, quite the opposite has happened: It led to an overall easing of tensions and a rethinking of the relationship between grief and social order. “Bringing home” the diamond is an individual and autonomous decision. Most of those interviewed made the impression of being able to experience a different mourning behavior thanks to the diamond. And their relationship to the decedent took on a new quality as well. 2   85  “I think it’s great that you are doing this study since I believe that it’s outdated, a completely outdated approach in the existing burial business. Other countries are much further than we are in this respect. In Germany, there is still an extensive prohibition […]. I would really like to see the laws changed. That you have the right to do it your own way, you know? […] It just can’t go on like this, that the state can interfere or think it has the right to interfere.” (5K) 2   86  “I am very, very thankful to the Swiss for what they are offering. And I am, in fact, rather disappointed that it’s still not possible for us in Germany. […] It makes you feel a little bit like a criminal … that’s a feeling that you don’t want to have in such a situation. I’m very happy, as I mentioned, I’m very thankful that the Swiss are more liberal and allow more things … I could just give them a big kiss [laughs]. Really, I was so happy that I had found a way for me, a way that was so well suited to me.” (16K) 2   87  “In my opinion, the legal situation in Germany should be modernized. […] I think it’s time that it was liberalized and also brought more up to par […]. So, in

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that sense, I was very happy that there were ways to get around it, and that we could do what we did in such a beautiful way.” (34M) 2   88  “Well, I think, if you’ll excuse my French, that it’s really bullshit that Germany is so strange about it. That surely has to do with some political decision-making. There must be some lobby again, maybe a cemetery lobby behind it […]. And I think, you can say what you will, I think having to bury someone in a cemetery, whether in a coffin or an urn, that is bullshit, too […]. It is so much better when it’s about someone you really liked, who was a grand person […], when you can have that person with you at home.” (33M) 2    89  “If someone wants to take the urn home or wants to have a diamond made out of the ashes, well, I think they should be the ones making the decision. It’s a very private matter, death is.” (32M) 2    90  “I’m usually a law-abiding citizen. I don’t park in the handicap spaces [laughs], I don’t run red lights. I respect the rules […]. But here, well, here it’s just, you know, it just excessively formulated. It’s become a rebellious act just to say, hey, I’m going to do things differently. […] Actually, everyone tries to find their own way to mourn the loss of someone, but there is sometimes also the desire to blaze the way for others who come after us. And the more people who skirt these rules, the better the chance that the regulations will someday be changed or at least eased. I don’t like it that they made such rules in the first place, about how and where you have to bury someone and how you have to express your grief.” (42B) 2   91  “I think it’s too bad that you are practically forced to visit some cemetery, and that, if you are unable to do so, it becomes a real burden to. For example, if you live in a nursing home and just can’t get around anymore, then you’re unable to get to the cemetery, too, and can’t visit your beloved dead husband anymore […] or even speak with him. So, I would wish things were a little bit more flexible, that you could decide on your own, for example, if you want to take the urn home with you. […] You have to make a thousand decisions in life, fill out a thousand forms, and do this and do that. Maybe they could just say, ok, like when I decide which bank to go to, I could decide what to do with the urn or such things.” (29M) 2   92  “To be honest, I have to say, if there were no stipulations about burying someone in a cemetery, I would have buried my husband in my back yard. The compulsory burial in a cemetery is something that really gets me riled up […]. I think it’s really important to have more choices about how to bury someone. I mean, I know you

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may not want to bury the whole body in your garden … But an urn in the garden? That would not be a problem, if you ask me.” (4M) 2   93  “I would like to see some changes in having to bury people in the cemetery. […] There are a lot of different opinions out there about how to bury someone, and I think it should be possible to allow them, at least in part. These alternatives, like burying people in the forest or at sea, that’s a beginning at least. But if it were up to me, I would change the whole system radically. I wouldn’t make things so hard and fast. […] There should be more alternatives available, if people adhere to certain rules. I understand that you don’t want everybody just doing what they want, but there could be more alternatives, so that people have more ways to realize their personal opinions and ideas.” (12M) 2   94  “There has to be some regulation, ok, but not the compulsion with all the laws. Some regulations you have to follow, some very basic guiding principles. Take, for example, a tree: You have the trunk and you have the various branches that go off. That’s how I would see it: There has to be a basic line the branches go off of, depending on how someone decides – depending on which branch is right for you. […] There has to be some structure to the whole thing … Can’t be just uncontrolled chaos, as it were, there’s got to be a trunk from which the branches grow. That’s how I would describe it.” (8M) 2   95  “Yes, that everyone just does what he wants, that’s not what I would endorse, but that you have some leeway to design your grief and the way you deal with the deceased, yes.” (15M) 2   96  “The legal side never interested me at all [laughs]. Even if they were to come at me today, I’d say, ‘Pfff, you’re off your rocker!’ I’d go to court for that, yes. […] That’s fine with me. Let ‘em come!” (22M)

(15) “… since my husband is then complete again.” – The Future of the Artifact Once the diamond has made its way into the possession of the interview partners, the question arises as to what to do with it, for example, if the owner were to die in the near or distant future. Should the diamond be buried with the owner in a sort of “eternal conjoining”? Or should there be an heir – perhaps even the necessity of speaking with the potential heir in advance about the whole matter?

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It could also be conceivable, however, that such complex decisions are delegated to the later survivors. They would be the ones who own the jewel, so maybe they should also be the ones to decide about its fate. All of this presupposes that the respective contemplations have been made. But perhaps the aspect of one’s own death has not been fully recognized by our interviewees? Sifting through the interview material, we realized that in fact there is more clarity than confusion regarding this point. The diamond is rarely seen as some “interim depot” for which no real plan exists. Most, but not all, persons interviewed have already thought about the future of the artifact, and often the option of passing it on to heir(s) has been taken into account from the very beginning (similar to what may happen when purchasing a piece of jewelry at the jewelry store). A family-internal transmission is generally foreseen – though not just of the diamond itself but of the associated responsibility. One can imagine this as a sort of inheritable means of burial (a mobile family tomb?) that emphasized the aspect of “ownership”: If you “have” something, you must/should/will/can pass it on. Now, at the latest, the diamond once again has become a “thing.” 2   97  “To be honest, I’ve never given it much thought. I hope to be around for a little while longer …” (18K) 2   98  “That’s an interesting idea, I’ve never thought about that. […] Since I believe – I hope – that I’ve still got a couple of years on me. And as to the diamond, well, I haven’t really examined that yet. […] If I had children, it would probably be a different thing.” (35K) 2   99  “I haven’t thought about that at all, but it’s a good question, I must admit. Probably it’ll lie in my own urn, I reckon. Since I’ll likely be in the same stele as my daughter, or just below her. That’s what I hope at least.” (7K) 3   00  “It’s already in my own power of attorney that the ring should be buried along with me, since my husband is then complete again. It’s not something I would want to leave to someone else, it’s something […] that should go back into the ground, so that all of my husband is once again in one spot. Sounds crazy, I know that’s not really possible, but … Yes, that’s what connects us, and it should go under when I go under. Doesn’t matter what the value of it is.” (14M) 3   01  “Yes, I’ve thought about that. I want to keep it, to be buried with it. Or, whatever, cremated with it … We only have sons, three sons all in all, so what would they do with it? My daughters-in-law don’t have much a relationship to it, either, I

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would presume. I could ask my sister, but I doubt that I will. I’ll just take it to my own grave.” (19K) 3   02  “Yes, it goes into the ocean. Together with my own ashes. […] I’ve already got that put down in some documents and informed my sisters. […] I say to myself: I don’t want it to end up someday in some drawer and disappear from view. No, I’d like for it to be thrown into the sea, quite deliberately. I can’t imagine why anyone else would want to wear my wife’s diamond. If you keep diamonds, the survivors have to be agreed, you can’t just force it on anyone. The worst-case scenario would be if someone were to sell it for money. The diamond may be worth less since there’s an engraving in it, but the gold in the ring is, there’s 50 grams of that.” (47M) 3   03  “I’ve looked at it a few times. Because I like it, it’s nice. But it didn’t really stir up any deep feelings in me […]. In the beginning, it was more than it is now, where I know that in August I’ll decide whether to throw it into the lake or wait another year […]. I imagine myself standing on the shore of the lake. There’s a rock there you can sit on … and somewhere near there is where I want to throw it in. […] What’s important to me is that it not be just anywhere but somewhere dignified, somewhere I think is beautiful.” (12M) 3   04  “That question I’ve often asked myself: What happens to it [the diamond] then? But I’ve taken care of that: I asked my brother to take care of it and store it somewhere in the daylight and then to pass it on to someone in the family […]. I also have a nephew, my husband’s favorite nephew, and when […] my brother is no longer around, he should get it. And then it should be always passed on further.” (32M) 3   05  “Yes, I have given that some thought. Well, I’d prefer not to take it to my grave with me, so likely I’ll give it to my daughter. I’d like for it to be passed down within the family.” (6K) 3   06  “Hm, my diamond will be added to the collection, and I have a son and a daughter who are involved in everything, with whom I talk about everything, and who knew everything about what happened to my husband. So, we’ll just continue going from one generation to the next.” (26M) 3   07  “And someday, there will be, whatever … 10, maybe 15 such diamonds, and you could string them up to make a necklace and someone could wear it around their neck in the fifth or sixth generation and say, ‘Hey, this is my great-great-greatgrandfather.” (33M)

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3   08  “Lea, she was his favorite grandchild. And she says to me, Grandpa Günter, he’s looking down on us. That’s my secret hope, that Lea in any case will someday […] get the diamond.” (16K) 3   09  “I could […] imagine that each of my children gets an earring. I’d say to them, ‘You get the left one, and you get the right one.’ […] Since of course being parents, being a couple also combines a part of the love between my husband and myself. I think that would be a good way to do it, for each to have one earring. What they will end up doing with them I don’t know. Maybe they won’t see the sentimental value in it all.” (18K) 3   10  “The sentimental value for me is, of course, very different than it will ever be for my children. My son is 11 right now, my daughter is 6. They never experienced their grandfather as I did when I was a child. That is, for them the diamond may have more of material value. Of course, they’ll see the sentimental value, but a lot less than I do. […] But I don’t know what I could really do that the next generation continues to remember.” (42B) 3   11  To the question of whether the daughter would be interested in getting the jewel made from ashes of her dead father: “Young people today, I don’t know. I mean, she’s still got the ashes there and someday maybe she’ll bring them to their proper place, but she has yet to do that. […] And later, when I’m gone, she’ll get a diamond of her father and her mother. That’s likely enough for her. […] It’s also a matter of money, right? I mean, a diamond is not cheap. And you say, ok, then another diamond and another or two or whatever. At some point, we said, ‘No, we’ll make just one and that’s it.’ It shouldn’t be something for the whole family. I don’t know, she’s living with her partner now, but whether he’d like for her to wear a ring from the ashes of my husband?” (48M) 3   12  “I’ve already spoken about everything with my son, and my daughter-in-law will take care of things, you know, that they make a diamond out of me, too, and then the kids get both diamonds.” (20K) 3   12  “My son said to me, ‘Mama, forget it! We’ll make you into a diamond just like Papa. And Martin gets Papa, and I get you.” (13K)

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(16) “Do the same thing with me.” – Burial Wishes What later happens to the diamond depends partly on how the survivor wants to be buried. So, the obvious question is whether the survivor can imagine also being turned into a diamond. Some of our interviewees were sympathetic to this idea, whereas others have not only considered it but also already set it out in writing. Here, it would be important to determine whether the existing ash diamond functions as a sort of “memento mori” (literally “remember death”), that is, something that serves to remind us of our own finite nature and signals that death – at least in the material sense – is not the end and need not precipitate a process of decay: The path can be one of transformation. Thus, finally, we wanted to learn about the perspectives our interviewees had regarding their personal end-of-life plans. To this end, we queried them about their wishes concerning their own death as well as how clear or binding they had implemented these wishes, if indeed present. Who did they talk to about it? Who was in on their plans? Or did they adopt the model of “absolute independence”? Is it really a matter of realizing one’s own postmortal interests – or did they prefer to leave the whole matter to their survivors, since death is rather a matter of the living? 3   14  “And then I said to myself that I’m more the type for a standard earth burial […]. But, of course, the whole matter with my deceased wife has kind of mixed things up. […] So, I’ve been talking to […] the person whom I’ve asked to take care of things, and it will certainly not be a classical earth burial, that much I know.” (12M) 3   15  “That would be great. I would have my husband made into a diamond. […] But in the end, the survivor always makes the decision. The survivor determines what happens to you. We [she and her husband] talked about it, and he said he’d prefer to be divided up, which I think is pretty stupid [laughs]. He’s sitting here right next to me, laughing.” (3K) 3   16  “Become a diamond myself? Yeah, I can see that. Though I haven’t really thought about it much.” (6K) 3   17  “Now I’m going to get the necklace and I’m really excited to see what it looks like. It’s a sort of ‘life tree,’ where the diamond is being set. My daughter promised me that when I’m dead that she’d put me in the necklace as well.” (15M) 3   18  “I said to my kids, ‘If anything happens to me, do the same thing with me.’” (26M)

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3   19  “I thought about that recently many times, and I think I’m going to put it down in writing and stash the money away for it, too, so that they can make a diamond out of me as well. Then the children can decide who gets Papa and who gets Mama.” (9K) 3   20  “Yes, that’s already been taken care of. […] I already arranged for it with the funeral home, and my son is also aware of my plans and that he won’t be able to do anything different.” (28M) 3   21  “Yes, since […] I don’t really feel attached to any specific place in Germany. I don’t think I’d like to spend my last days or my no-longer days here. I don’t want to end up here. I like the idea of being together with my daughter later on after all.” (27K) 3   22  “I asked my brother […] to please also make a diamond out of me. […] I think that’s a better plan than being put in the ground. […] They all […] agreed with me when I said, ‘So, is that what you want and can you imagine not putting me in some drawer but perhaps having me next to Mirco?’ And they said, ‘No problem, we would be happy to do that.’” (32M) 3   23  “What woman would not want to become a diamond? […] I would, too […] yes, I think I could wrap my head around that […]. I mean, I wouldn’t say that it has to be that way, or that I would force my kids, you know, write it down somewhere … For me it’s not a burden, though for many people it is, having such a thing. Maybe later they can’t stand it anymore. That they may have the feeling they’re being watched the whole time or that they feel cramped.” (18K) 3   24  “I would probably just leave it up to my kids. If they want to have a diamond made in order to better live with their grief, if that’s what they want, then ok, why not? But I could also imagine, there’s a forest burial place near us where you bury the ashes under a tree. But it’s done anonymously, so that in the end … I wouldn’t want my kids to feel obligated to go somewhere and maintain my grave. […] I think, I would be agreed to whatever is good for my kids for dealing with the loss.” (42B) 3   25  “I would want to, as it were, be united with him once again. What our children do, whether spread the ashes or something else, well, that’s their business.” (5K) 3   26  “I think I would let those make that decision who have to decide. For my part, I found out that death is not so hard for the dying person. But for those who survive – they’re the ones who have to determine how to deal with it.” (7K)

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3   27  “My husband and I told our children very clearly that they are the ones who have to decide, to see what’s best for them. What the right path to take is. […] We are going to leave it to our children. It’s fine for us whatever is fine for them. We noticed that this gives them the freedom, the freedom to decide on their own. If you’ve got to get through it, then at least you should have some freedom to act.” (2K)

10

 Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Insights and Outlooks

Thorsten Benkel, Thomas Klie, Matthias Meitzler

“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” – the classic Beatles title from 1967 on the album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was written by John Lennon. Depending on which legend you tend to believe more, the song is either about ideas taken from the world of Alice in Wonderland, the iconic British fable from the 19th century; or – the more profound explanation – it represents a drug trip (the abbreviation of the title is LSD!). The compromise solution is to emphasize the common ground of the two interpretations: Whether in wonderland or a drug frenzy, in both cases everyday events are unlike what they really are. Regardless – the title is to be taken metaphorically. “Diamond” refers to a sparkly brilliance; to a stable factor that has always been exempt from external influences; to a wondrous and ecstatic esthetic impact a far cry from everydayness. Seen culturally and not scientifically, these are the very characteristics that distinguish a diamond: esthetic charm, material permanence. But does a diamond shine, sparkle, even function independent of the person who owns it? Independent of those who want to own it? And independent of those (we must mention this group of people now, toward the end of this volume) who have become a diamond? Apparently, a diamond gets its value only if there is a human being who applies value to it. As an ash diamond, it can be an artificial bearer of symbolic energy much as it can be the new incorporation of a loved one. At the same time, as many survivors mentioned, it can be only a gemstone and nothing else. And, in fact, they are all right. Is it even possible to be wrong when you remember your own father, your mother, your partner, or your child in the form of a diamond? If remembrance becomes something material in nature and goes far beyond the stock grieving things such as photos, clothes, or everyday objects? It is, in any case, remarkable to see the vivacity an inorganic object assumes. There was a time when one saved a lock of the deceased’s hair, which is to some

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extent an “organic” souvenir – one that decayed over time but still implied the promise of intimacy. Today, locks of hair have become rare specimens. No one today would get the idea to shave a corpse and keep the stubbles. Today, physical proximity to a dead person borders on fetishism, transgression, certainly something in need of a good explanation. The clinically “clean” corpse no longer needs to be touched. A naked, dead body – is there even a greater taboo around? The ash diamond, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite of a corpse. It has an invisible message written on it: “You know that I am a human body (part), but you also know I am not a body. I have become something different.” This jewel is a “product” in two senses of the word: not just the technically created result of pressing, in this case with a huge machine, but pressing also bears the association of pregnancy and birth if the context is unclear. They belong together: The technical apparatus “bears” the diamond, the successive and parasocial reincarnation of a presumed lost individual. What happens within the Swiss factory building (to stick with the metaphor) is a synthetic pregnancy lasting less than 9 months. From this complicated event a product emerges that takes on social meaning. If you choose to go that route, then the diamond can become almost anything the survivors care to discover in it: an object, a subject, a project. In the ash diamond you see – indeed you ought to see – more than what meets the eye. In the research project that spawned this book, we did not concentrate on the epistemological and certainly not on the technological elements involved in transforming ashes into a diamond. Of much greater importance for us was the concrete integration of the artifact in the everyday life of the grieving survivors. People who are constantly but perhaps unconsciously involved with “things” in their social surroundings approach this “thing” – that is quite apparently not just a “thing” – in a manner that only superficially reminds us of how they handle other artifacts. The owners of ash diamonds act as though they were carrying with them the proverbial “raw egg,” as though their task was to safeguard a valuable treasure more important than the sum of all other material goods. The individuality exhibited in dealing with the diamonds may be inferred indirectly, whereas the inner attitude toward this commemorative artifact is not immediately revealed. Only the concrete applications transform the normal jewel into an openly invaluable, precious stone. Only then, when the knowledge of the diamond owner has precipitated into concrete and describable behavior, does the inherent ambivalence of the diamond become visible.1 1 Reversing this claim may serve as an illustration. We know from reports from people working in the creation of these diamonds that not too long ago in Germany an ash diamond was stolen as part of a break-in. The robber saw only the economic value of the diamond but not its central peculiarity, namely, its ash origin. An astute staff member of the police, however, was

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Furthermore, we were interested in how this object changes the nature of mourning as well as how mourning changes the nature of this object. The very presence of the diamond changed the mourning process and mourning practices for most of our interviewees. Sometimes it even triggered rather strange psychosocial processes that would otherwise not have taken place (at least not in that form). The ash diamond is not just a “thing” but is nearly always personalized, sometimes to the extent of anthropomorphizing it. The relatives attribute to the glittering commemorative object a nearly social rank generally not reserved for things. And this attribution occurs with all due consciousness, that is, utilizing the psychology of the respective owner. Dealings with other people (the social level) are adapted to and generally do not precede such associated meanings. Despite this psychosocial component, the diamond develops its very own “momentum” independent of the position of its owner. Materially speaking, it can stand on its own. One could thus take the object-biographical perspective, to the effect that, based on its presence and the meaning attached to it, the diamond reflects on the people who romanticize it. The environment that takes possession of it thus assumes an ambivalent power position: The diamond lies in the hands of the relatives, and from that position of proximity it best radiates its social energy. The quotes from our interview partners reproduced above unexpectedly exposed to us as researchers how intense the appropriation efforts were as well as the implications of self-control and the tensions that exist between the nearness and distance to a little box with a diamond in it. The answers they gave revealed the semantics of “homecoming.” Whereas this term is traditionally often understood religiously as returning to God in the heavens (that may fit the “… in the sky with diamonds”-motif), homecoming in this particular context means the literal shipment to the private environment. The difference to the classical concept of death is evident: Heaven was where transmortal survival took place, making death a phenomenon of distance. Brought back home, to private spheres, the deceased enters into the proximity of the living and is revived through their attributions.2 The home becomes a private cathedral; individual interior design gets a sacred note stemming from the placement of the little box. aware of the typical coloration of the Swiss artifact. Thus, in the end, the jewel was returned to where, from the vantage point of the robber, a “reevaluation of values” dominated. 2 Along with several other things, we should note the contrast to lying in state: This ritual tradition allows the corpse to be displayed as such, largely unchanged, even touchable. That, however, is also the moment of final goodbyes. The ash diamond, on the other hand, no longer has anything to do with the status of corpse, making it a tangible thing within the living space – forever.

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One of the results emerging from research at the University of Passau (Benkel/Meitzler) is the following: How the general population views the mobility of cremation ashes, for example, in the form of commemorative diamonds or rubies, is inconclusive. This more or less evenly balanced scale fails to produce a clear majority, which points to the need to extend the discourse on this matter in the future.

Only a long-term study would be able to answer the question of the stability of the parasocial behavior demonstrated toward this jewel with its “postmortal flair.” It is at least conceivable that the relationship between a human being and a commemorative artifact changes over time and makes way for new behaviors. Maybe, after a while, the diamond ceases to be viewed as a “quasi-human”; or maybe the attributive approach actually increases over time. It is, in any case, remarkable that diamonds have become a mental “formality” – regardless of how they are viewed. With this, we mean that there is no technical way to exactly determine what body the raw material comes from. Whereas the remains of bones can be identified based on DNA analysis, even after hundreds of years, an ash diamond divulges no such revelations. The rather discrete procedure used to create ash diamonds is thus reflected in the end product. We are left with the knowledge that this diamond is exactly what it is believed to be. This is not material analysis; this is promise and projection. The ironic component of the undestroyed artifact is its unstable “objectivity.” Morphologically, nothing in a diamond reminds us of the deceased person, except perhaps for the special coloration which some survivors conclude reflects “their” decedent. Whereas any jeweler could easily point out the “objec-

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tive” value of their collection, the surviving diamond owners (or should we say: social partners?) are “subjectivistically” connected to their jewels. The subjectively sensed and experienced “togetherness” lies at the center of the artifact relationship, which, after a months-long wait during the production time, takes over from the interpersonal relationship. Further, we should note that the unique gemstone is not reproducible. Of course, you can make several diamonds from a certain amount of cremation ashes, and in fact some of our interview partners did “supply” their whole family with diamonds. But, once created, a diamond cannot be copied since its original source material is lost forever. It is literally “suspended,” that is, negated, while simultaneously being preserved within the diamond. This, of course, is also true for any other objects prepared from ashes, such as sculptures, paintings, or other more bizarre artifacts such as bullet cartridges and tattoo ink, which use a previously “untouchable” substance like cremation ashes. But such objects, like the body they subsume, cannot be copied. So, we are clearly dealing here with commemorative objects that, in our era of universal reproducibility, can only once come into being – until at least the scarce source material runs out. In light of the repeated form originality, the specific value-added nature of ash diamonds cannot lie in their owners being envied by others for possessing this object. In this regard, the lust of others for a valuable commodity is not a meaningful concept, certainly not one that reflects the true meaning (cf. Kohl 2003, pp. 127 ff.). In the end, what provides us with great insights into the funerary context are the paranormal relationships of the survivors with “their” diamonds as well as how these relationships produce insights about burial traditions. In agreement with the sociological perspectives concerning the “delocalization of grief ” (Benkel/Meitzler 2013, pp. 287ff; Benkel 2018d), many of our study subjects appear to have been able to dispense with fixed grief locations precisely because of the presence of the diamond. The mobile jewel is the material proof that grief does not take place solely in the head or the heart of the survivor, but – with the help of tactile materiality – can transcend all geographical limits (Benkel/Meitzler/Preuß 2019, pp. 19–74). A symptom thereof lies in the survivors not always insisting on burying (or even transferring) the remaining ashes not used for carbon extraction. Some bury these remains very traditionally, without informing the responsible cemetery administrator, someone from the clergy, or anyone else for that matter. Others forego this completely, with no great thought, since they now have accepted the diamond as the only true piece of memorabilia and prefer to see it as a “social object.”

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What the future holds for ash diamonds and their various possible offspring is unclear at present. The reason lies not in the material itself; diamonds will continue to keep their economic and thus also their symbolic valuation for a long time. But any predictions about the future success or failure in this regard are limited by the fact that burial culture has been in particular flux for many years now, and that, like many other social realms, the status quo is subject to rapid turnover. In part because of legal decisions, in part because of changes in the attitudes among the citizens which convert to legal norms with some delay3, in part because of the respective changes stemming from economic pressures, and in part because of political negotiations, the funerary sphere and everything associated with it is continually changing its shape. New components spring up, old ones become superfluous, and the delimitations between what is demanded and what is implemented can no longer be selectively determined. Rules are long flouted and deconstructed, whereas their repeal lags behind; new practices are established long before they have even formally become considered as extensions to the legitimate canon of activities. But the signs of the time point clearly toward more autonomy, that is for certain. Depending on the respective jurisdiction, the ash diamond is an object left to autonomous decision-making – or an object squarely in the gray zone. The most likely prospect for the future is that the discussion will come to a head and force a ruling to the one or the other side, completely and universally. Perhaps other, symbolically better situated artifacts that better or more intensively reflect life will someday take over its role and demote its brilliant impact to a mere historical footnote. Over time there have been so many different variations on the idea of a material “commemorative body” (the best known being the old-fashioned relic) that it would be reckless of us to embrace the diamond as the final signum of this developmental line. There will surely be (other) future, creative memorabilia where ashes play an important role – or perhaps even some noncremated bodily part (it wouldn’t be the first time). More probable is that grief and remembrance, which originally describe emotional states and mental processes, will also in the future continue to find their way into materiality. An era in which objectivity seemed to be dissolving – not in “reality,” of course, just in having a deeper meaning – was the early 20th century, when x-rays, photographs, artificial lighting sources, etc., generated new accents (Asendorf 1989). But the material survived the skepsis. Regarding survival: By being inde3 Bourdieu (1990, p. 59 ff.) considers this delay – which he calls the “hysteresis effect” – as a structural component: The environment surrounding the regulations no longer fits the objective environment.

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pendent of human actions, materiality is able to secure its own existence. Where this relates to the end of life, something permanent occurs. And, in fact, the “substance” associated with it does play a different role than the content of the associated consciousness after the death of the beloved person. The substantive replaces the subjective in the thoughts and feelings by adding an irrefutably “objective” component – a factually valid existence that reminds of the preceding existence of the decedent. The material component is decisive. In the end, to put it succinctly, as part of the technical creation of the diamond, an artifact is created from human remains. Through the actions of the survivors – through their profound attribution of meaning – the artifact is transmuted back to a human being. With these two transformation steps, one can almost completely skip addressing the material detour via the corpse. The path from body (“Leib”) to gemstone dispenses with the terrifying appearance of the dead and decaying body (“Körper”). If the ash diamond were a “corpse jewel” created directly from the material of “still-present unliving” (Heidegger 1993, p. 238), the outlook for its being accepted and recognized in the everyday life of the survivors would be poor indeed. In fact, however, the corpse disappears into a little “black box,” which does not resemble the traditional coffin or urn. The crematorium and the diamond-pressing machine mercifully do not provide visual impressions. Repression is easy enough to manage. In the end, which for the owners of the jewel is not the real end at all but only the beginning, the mobile diamond now attached to their own bodies serves to replace the immobile cemetery plot. A storage site is no longer needed to hide the dead body once the valuable human being has been magically transformed into a valuable object. The diamond thus embodies the final social gift.

Appendix “That is true love.” Interacting with the Ash Diamond from the Perspective of a Survivor

The best impression of how people interact with ash diamonds and similar gemstones can be gained by looking at what survivors themselves report. From the multitude of interviews held during the research project, we would like to use one conversation as an example of the dynamics that occur when talk turns to such an intimate subject as death and the symbolic survival of a loved one. This conversation was held between two people in quite different positions: At one end of the line was a trained interviewer with a social-scientific background who had chosen to address this theme based on his own personal interests. At the other end was someone who had experienced a life-changing event, had made a personal decision that catapulted them into a new role, and was about to be queried. The diamond client is by definition always a survivor; the researcher doing the questioning is likely not in an acute state of grief, so that one may assume an asynchronous constellation. Nevertheless, the interview results in an alliance between the two partners that breaks the trivial scheme of Q&A and results in a real conversation to which both sides contribute. The relatives, speaking about their grief, thoughts, experiences, opinions, and relationship to the jewel, should be seen as the active part: Without their express willingness to speak with the social scientist, neither the interview nor the written record thereof would have occurred. Mr. W. was born in 1957, presently lives in southern Germany, and is self-employed. He used to go to a Protestant Free Church but presently considers himself to be an agnostic. The person he is grieving for is his wife, who died in 2016 at the age of 59 years. The conversation took place on 26 April 2019 and lasted 137 minutes.

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Interviewer (I): Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Before we start, do you have any questions about the project or about the interview – or are we ready to go? Mr. W. (W): If I have understood it correctly, you are conducting a study about new and modern methods of burial, in particular related to commemorative diamonds. That is my understanding. I: That is correct. We are largely interested in the subject of grief and burial in modern society, that is, we want to discover what grief really means today, what exactly people do when they grieve, what is important to them, maybe also what is unimportant to them, and to what extent their feelings and thoughts have changed over time. Those are the questions that define our research, in particular regarding what we call commemorative artifacts … W: Artifacts, right … I: Artifacts that play a role in how people grieve when they think about their deceased loved ones. In the end, the interview should be more of a conversation than anything else, and you determine how long we speak and what we speak about. W: I’d like to say from the beginning that I have lots of time. You can ask me anything you want and need to get answered. The openness with the death of my wife and of course also with all the crying, it’s connected … It occurred to me, right from the beginning, that it helped me a lot to speak openly about it, with others, my friends and acquaintances, and also my relatives … So you can be open with me at all times. I: That’s good to know. So, I would first like to simply ask – you know that our study is about the subject of grief. Perhaps you can tell me a little bit about the extent to which you have been touched by this theme in your lifetime. W: Yes, I was, when I was younger. My first encounter with death and grief was, let me think, oh, I was probably about 10 or 11 years old. My best friend had died while playing. He somehow hanged himself while playing cowboys and Indians or whatever, that’s what I was told anyway. That was my first run-in with death, also the first time I saw a corpse. This experience was really terrifying for me, since back then not much effort was made to make things pretty. You could view the body, and someone asked me whether I’d like to see him, so I said, ok, no problem, but then, of course, it was awful for me … His eyes were still open, his head turned toward the door … There was a plastic sheet over the coffin … That was pretty alarming, back then, and it disturbed me. I couldn’t sleep in my own room anymore. Although I was, I think, at least 11 years old, it really hit me hard. And that wasn’t the only one. There were more deaths in the family or among acquaintances, where I made a point of looking at the deceased if

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at all possible. But the greatest grief I ever felt was when my wife died. We had been together for 36 years, 35 of them married, and everybody said we were always doing everything together. That was the worst part for me. There have been other deaths since, and about a year ago a nephew of mine died at age 40 in a climbing accident in the mountains … I: May I ask how old your wife was when she died? W: 59. I: And could you tell me what happened to her? W: You can say, it’s been about 2.5 years now, that her death came rather suddenly. She was very sick with cancer, which had been discovered about a year before. It was a very difficult year, and yet also full of hope. We had hope right up to the time she died, when they told us that they couldn’t do anything more to treat her. She was sent back to our local hospital. But even there we didn’t give up hope, until a few days before her death. And then everything went really fast. The worst thing for me, that still gets to me even today, was witnessing how my wife suffered so much. That’s much worse than having to deal with the actual loss, although that is bad enough, too. … But again and again, these feelings of, well, of pity actually. You feel with her, although it’s all over. Really devastating for me was when she, on the day before she died, said to me: “Let me die.” I: Mhm. W: For the doctors that was like giving them a living will. It was clear, she had said herself that she didn’t want any more procedures, which in the end means: give her morphine and nothing else. I: When you look back now on the past 2.5 years, how would you say you dealt concretely with that loss? Was there anything that you would, upon looking back, say helped you? You mentioned at the beginning of the interview that you were very open with everything, that you spoke to others about it … W: Yes, that is true. We didn’t have any children, as I mentioned. I come from a large family, six siblings, who helped me a lot. My sister came to stay with me for a few days, so that I wasn’t alone. But what helped me most: My wife died in the early morning, at about 10 to 5, I remember it exactly. A couple of hours later I went home … I couldn’t stay there anymore. I went into our apartment all alone, lay down on our bed, maybe 2–3 hours. That was probably the thing that helped me the most to go on. I: And thereafter? W: Of course, it was always trying to have to see the empty bed. For a long time, I left her the bedding on her side of the bed, until sometime, that must have been about a year later, I decided to get rid of it. But it still took a while. What’s

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still there are all her clothes, and her shoes, which I put away. – But to get back to the beginning, I know, of course, my wife had always said it, that she didn’t want to be displayed in any way for others to see, which would have been difficult anyway with her disease. But she didn’t want it, and she didn’t want a conventional burial either. Sie wanted her ashes to be strewn into the Greek sea. It was pretty clear to me that I had to do that, and that gave me strength by knowing that I would be fulfilling her wish – and that we would have a different type of, I don’t know, memorial or whatever at her favorite Greek restaurant … I invited our dearest friends, which helped me a lot. And a singer and an actress from another town, friends of mine, came and brought two Greek musicians along. They sang at the memorial, and I had a fantastic funeral speaker who did a great job. We even became friends after that. Everyone thought we were already friends. I told everyone they should not wear black, and they didn’t, so it was a very moving event. And after the memorial was over, after the music was over, anyone who wanted got an ouzo. I: Mhm. W: During the memorial, the urn with my wife in it stood there the whole time on a table, which had been very nicely decorated. We put up an extra table, and it was a very dignified and fitting farewell. The funeral director – I was very lucky to have found such a good funeral director, he went along and then took the ashes away after 2 hours. So, we all celebrated together, we were cheerful, we ate and drank together … And then came the difficult matter of the ashes. Originally, we had planned to have a sea burial. But while at the memorial, I felt the urge to talk to the funeral director again. That’s where he offered me the alternative of making a commemorative diamond. And I said to him, “Hey, why don’t you make me such a diamond!” So, we divided up the ashes. I: In Switzerland? W: Yes. In Switzerland you can take your ashes, that is, the ashes of your decedent, along with you and bury them nearly anywhere, or scatter them, whatever you want. That was something that has really been on my mind: If it is the wish of the deceased person, why can’t you do that in Germany? I: And where did the connection to Greece come from? W: We’ve had a house there, for a long time, I think since 1996, and my wife always wanted to go there. We had always traveled there by car. Shortly before she died, we had made a final trip there. That’s when I decided: We’re going to fly there for Christmas! So, I guess we did make the trip together, except my wife in a different form than I had originally imagined … That sounds a little sarcastic, sorry! But the situation was as follows: The diamond was being made in Switzerland, which takes a while. So, I went to Greece with the remainder of

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the ashes. That had been her wish. And then I scattered her ashes in the sea, together with some dear friends who were there. I: How was that for you? W: It was a wonderful experience. I did it such that I scattered the ashes with my own hands – I didn’t just turn the urn over and spill them. I did it with my own hands. I had to feel it, the ashes … how they floated away into the sea. And, of course, I cried my eyes out … But I don’t regret it, I have never regretted that I did it. I: Was there a special place where you wanted to scatter the ashes? W: Yes. That was my wife’s real wish – and mine, too, by the way, when I die – to be scattered near our house. Into the open sea. My original intention was to go out on a boat with some friends to scatter the ashes in the sea. But, you know, that is not exactly allowed … Normally, with a sea burial, a ship goes out to sea with several urns to a certain area, where the urns are put in the water. You get a card afterward saying that you were there, a map of the sea, saying where the urn was sunk. But I did it differently – and now it’s over [laughs]. I: Did the fact that you knew that you were strictly speaking in, let’s say, a legal gray zone in any way bother you? W: Not at all. It doesn’t bother me to this very day, not at all. That’s the least of my problems [laughs]. I: And taking the urn along with you in the plane was not a problem? W: None whatsoever. I went through check-in where they x-ray everything. I had a small child’s urn since there wasn’t that much ash left – the other half was for making the diamond. They asked me, “What is that?” and I said, “That’s the urn with my wife’s ashes.” And it was ok. They x-rayed it and that was that. I: And, in the meantime, a diamond was being made in Switzerland. How was it for you to hold it in your hand for the first time? W: Assuming my wife’s agreement, I allowed myself to have a diamond made since I thought I would otherwise have nothing for myself. A nice diamond, that would be a good thing … And, in the end, it has such a beautiful blue color to it. I just let it glide over my palm, and all I could do was cry. Of course, I was sad, but there was also joy mixed in. I had the feeling, now I can hold my wife in my hand. It was a reunion, that’s how I saw it back then, now I finally have my wife back again. I was very happy that I was able to go and get it right in time for my wife’s birthday; at the end of June, she would have turned 60. When I was in Switzerland, I stayed a night at a wonderful hotel and then I celebrated her birthday with her diamond, which I put down in front of me on the table. I: Did anyone react to that gesture? W: I told the waiter before I came to the table. First, I had some champagne, and after a while, the manager came who had also helped serve me and said, “My

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colleague told me that this is the diamond of your wife. I want to say quite honestly that I think that’s a wonderful thing to do, it really touched my heart.” I: Is that a typical reaction? W: I have had this experience many times, especially when I tell someone the whole story … Many people become very thoughtful; some even start to cry. Many say to me, “That is true love!” Mostly women, I might add. I: When you tell other people, are they already aware of the possibility of creating a diamond from the cremation ashes of someone – or is that completely new to them? W: Some people have indeed heard of it. But not everyone. Some say to me, “Really? You can do that?” And they are fascinated. I: In the end, it is an artificial diamond … W: The only difference to a naturally grown diamond is that today it is possible to use very high pressure and temperature, etc., to make it. But then you get nothing more and nothing less than a real diamond. I am totally happy with my decision to have it made. I: May I ask whether the costs involved played any role in the decision-making process? W: To a certain extent, they did, but for me it was clear that I wanted to have a diamond made. So, in the end, the price was not the crucial factor, but rather the size. I asked a goldsmith about it, and we found a nice size. But that’s a money matter, too. I must admit that I did not know what was coming at me in costs, but then it really didn’t matter since I needed it. If you don’t have the money to get what you want, perhaps you can do some research and get a smaller jewel. That is possible! I: Did you hear any negative comments from your friends and acquaintances? Were there people who had to get used to the idea that there was no conventional grave? W: There were, indeed, though they didn’t reject it outright. Some said, “Ok, I think it’s great what you’re doing, but I wouldn’t want that myself.” A good friend of mine actually said, “I wouldn’t want my husband to wear my diamond.” However, others said, “I don’t want to be buried conventionally, preferably in a funeral forest … But a diamond, well, that wouldn’t be a bad thing, either.” Others were more direct about there being no alternative to a conventional burial, maybe for religious reasons. Even my Greek friends who rejected the idea completely in the end accepted the fact that I had a diamond made – only to admire it. Some wanted to touch it. People who knew my wife would stroke it and say, “Hello Alexandra!” Pretty amazing! I: Does the diamond have a religious meaning to you?

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W: My wife and I were never really atheists, but more agnostics … I still am, I guess, I stuck to it, so the whole matter only has meaning as a commemorative piece. Nothing mystical about it – that’s just not my style. I: What would you say is the relationship of the diamond to your wife? Is it more of a symbol, or would you say the diamond is your wife? You just described how it is sometimes stroked and called by her name. W: The latter. It’s a real memorial piece, not just a picture of her or something important to her that I have around the house, clothing or whatever, something she used to wear … I was aware that a diamond was being made from my wife’s body. I’ve thought about it a lot, and the present state of the diamond doesn’t really have much to do with its origin. I: It comes from bodily material … W: It’s all that is left of her and her body, so for me it was a beautiful thing. It is something left of her that shines and sparkles. It’s so much more pleasant than decay. The most important thing is: It’s all in your head. I: Do you always carry the diamond around with you? W: I need it to be with me, always. I’ve said to a lot of people the ring with the diamond in it is the least painful thing in my life. It is a part of her in a very, very different form. I: Does the diamond trigger memories? W: Yes, it does. And memories are all I have left, and photos, of course. By the way, when we held the memorial, I needed some photos, so I had 20–30 framed and put them all around. Some of them I took with me to Greece. There was a phase in which I needed them, before I got the diamond. I: At that point you still had the urn? W: It was in my house in Greece, yes. Of course, I cried a lot during that time and held the urn to my breast. It stood there almost 2 weeks on the table, with the Christmas decorations. I ate at that table, drank there, smoked my cigars, heard music, cried … The urn was there the whole time. That helped me a lot. Yes, I know, it’s not my wife anymore, she doesn’t exist anymore, it’s only her remains. But I had the feeling, the urn there, that it had to pass. I had to get rid of the ashes, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get over it all. I: Would you say that there was a particular trigger for that? W: Just knowing what was rational and logical. I thought to myself, “Geez, you’ve got to get over this!” Besides, the weather was horrible, the sea had huge waves … I asked my friends in Greece for advice, and they said, “Just let the urn stay there until Easter when you return, then you can still do whatever you want to do, it’s not going anywhere.” I answered, “You’re right! But then I’ll have put the problem off for a while year.” At some point, I said to my friend, “I’ve got to do

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this right now.” It was the day before New Year’s Eve, we drove to a beautiful spot. In the driveway to the port we climbed over the rocks, sought and found a nice place. On the next day, on New Year’s Eve, I returned with my friends to this place and scattered the ashes in the sea. That was a very moving moment for all of us. It was easy enough for me since I knew that I would still get a diamond. That made it easy to let go.

I: What does this place mean to you now? W: That is no longer so strong. But I now have a place there where I can go anytime I want. At first, I went there quite often, but now I don’t even go every time I’m in Greece. I like to go there and eat a meal, since there’s a restaurant not far away, where we sometimes celebrated, and it’s nice to meet friends there and have a good time. And sometimes I get up on the rocks, cry a little, of course. I still cry sometimes, but it’s getting better. Maybe I’ll smoke a cigar there and think about my wife, just enjoy the view, and once in a while one of those large turtles comes around. Sometimes people fish there. That’s what my wife loved so much: being where there is lots of life. I: Is that a sort of grave for you?

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W: No, I don’t see it as a grave … It’s just symbolic for me. It is not my wife’s final resting place. That is just where I fulfilled my wife’s final wish to be returned to the ocean. For example, when I go to the gravesite of my parents, very near where I live, they were buried conventionally, in a coffin. When I go to their grave, then I’m reminded of earlier life. But then I imagine what they now look like, down there: Are they maybe just skeletons now? Or is nothing left of them at all? It’s not a nice experience for me. I: Mhm. W: When I go to this place in Greece, then I know that my wife is here, not just symbolically. Her ashes are here. I don’t imagine what she like lying in her coffin. The whole normal process of burying someone really has no similarity to the process of creating a diamond. I: Do grief and remembrance need a certain location in your opinion? W: I’ve always said you don’t need a certain location to grieve. But now, I would say, if there is a location, it might be a good thing. I feel very close to my wife when I’m there where I scattered the ashes into the water. And, generally speaking, it’s Greece, so I feel close to her anyway there. And the other “location” is on my finger – you can say that, can’t you? I: Yes. W: Basically, you can carry your grief around with you like a memory, but I think it’s important to somewhere have some place (or create one yourself) where you can go to grieve. I discovered that mourning is an extremely important matter. You shouldn’t avoid it. When I felt like it, I sometimes cried out, especially at the beginning. And in Greece, after we had scattered the ashes, it really got quite intense … I had to cry a lot … and then I truly came to understand the loss I had experienced. I: Do you still have photos of your wife around? W: No, I took them all down, in the meantime. There’s maybe a couple still there, but not that I can see them all the time … It was almost like an altar, on the table, here in Germany as well, but one day I said to myself, “This has got to go.” That was the moment – it came all of a sudden – when I stood up and put the photos away. It was a liberating feeling for me. I already had the diamond then. I: Was that the final moment of grief for you? W: Life goes on, and the grief stays, that’s for sure. Only the intensity changes over time. I: Would you say that clearing out the photos had something to do with the diamond? W: Yes, I would. It just occurs to me that I sometimes still have phases where I think that I should also get rid of the rings – the wedding ring and the diamond as well.

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Every once in a while, I run around for a few days without the rings, which gives me a feeling of freedom. You know, you have to think about the future: How do I want to live in the future? Do you really want to live your life in mourning? Or do you maybe want to allow another person to become part of your life? I can’t really say right now what will happen in the future with the ring. I: That is interesting to me since it shows that the diamond has a different effect at different times … W: Yes, absolutely. My favorite sister said not too long ago, “That’s just great when you don’t wear the ring; and when you need it, just put it on again.” I: When you are not wearing the ring with the diamond, where is it stored? Does it have a special place where you put it or does that vary? W: It’s always with me on my bedside table. I put it in a little box where it’s safe. But it’s always somewhere near me. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I couldn’t leave the house without it. I have the greatest problems at home, since that is where I feel the greatest loss. There are times when I think to myself, “It can’t be, it just can’t be that this person is gone and isn’t experiencing anything anymore.” Many of my friends say, “But she’s always with you, she sees everything.” I don’t see it that way at all. For me, she’s just gone. I: Was that how your wife saw it, too? W: What was very moving for me was when she was on her deathbed in the hospital. A nurse sat at her side, she even sat on the bed, and they talked for a long time about death (the nurse told me this later). At that point in time, my wife didn’t know how quickly she would die. We thought she might even get out of the hospital. My wife said to the nurse, “You know, I don’t believe there’s anything after death. So that’s why I’m not afraid of death.” I: That is not true of all people. W: When I think of my own mother, who was very religious. She fought to the death in the same hospital. She struggled with her faith. We had to read to her from the Bible, but her agony wasn’t with the pain, which no one could take from her, but with the actual act of dying. I: And with your wife it was different? W: Yes. The good thing is that I was with her the whole time in her room till she died. We couldn’t talk with each other, but I talked to her and in the end, she died in my arms. I: And that is much more important to you than anything else, these final few moments where you were together … W: Yes. Although it still hurts, despite everything … although it was a peaceful death, all in all … I: What would you say: What would your wife have thought of the idea of making a

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diamond? Would that have seemed logical to her? Or do you think that, ultimately, the survivors have to deal with the death of a loved one? W: I don’t know what she would have thought, since we never talked about it. At that point, we didn’t even know you could do that. But, vice versa, if it had been me dying, well, I think she would have had a diamond made from my ashes. This whole act of burying someone, the many different ways – that’s something the survivors basically have to decide on. I die my own death, but the others have to live with my death. I: I hear that sentiment a lot. The sociologist Norbert Elias once wrote, “Death is a problem of the living.” And that’s basically what you’re saying: In the end, the living must deal with death, not the dead. W: That’s right. I think of it as follows … May I express this a little vulgarly? I think to myself: After having experienced so much shit, I want to have something good like this diamond. I think it’s important that you take care of your own funeral while you’re still alive. I: For the sake of the survivors? W: Yes, but your wishes should also be respected. You have to take care of business beforehand. While still alive, you have the right to determine what happens to your body when you’re no longer alive. As long as it doesn’t fail for money reasons. Of course, if you can’t afford it, then there’s nothing you can do. I: Did you develop over time any rituals to celebrate the anniversary of her death or her birthday? W: There are certain things I do regularly. For example, I don’t work on her birthday and the anniversary of her death. I’m self-employed. I don’t necessarily stay at home on these days, but I try to do something where I can think about her. Last year on her birthday I visited the [diamond] company since we have a pretty good relationship, and they said they were interested in people coming around again. So, I visited it and then went on to South Tyrol in Italy. I didn’t fall into a hole and get depressed but had a wonderful weekend with many interesting conversations and many happy moments. I: And I assume you had the diamond along with you? W: Yes, it was along, in a ring. I: I have often heard that especially birthdays and death anniversaries are difficult, the anniversaries particularly so since that is when you feel the loss so deeply … W: Yes, the anniversary of her death is not easy. On the first anniversary, exactly that day, the goldsmith finished making the ring. I was very pleased with it. I: You mentioned that you picked up the diamond yourself in Switzerland. Was that important to you to be where the diamond had been created? Was it important that you didn’t just get the diamond from your undertaker?

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W: It was, yes. That was the main reason for going directly to Switzerland. I: And could you please tell us how that went in Switzerland? Was it anything like you had imagined it would be, going there and having the diamond delivered to you? Did you ponder in advance what the whole affair would be like? W: I had expected there to be some sort of solemn ceremony. They had a nice reception for me, Ms. A. came out to greet me. She had heard that I drove by car and welcomed me to come to a very nicely furnished, quiet room where the diamond would be delivered. We had a pleasant conversation, and then it began. The diamond was in a wooden box, they put on a show surrounding the whole thing, the box was opened, she put on white gloves, and then this little box appeared in which the blue diamond was. The light came from above, and it sparkled in all its glory. I: What was that moment like for you? W: It was a very moving moment for me, even though at the time I didn’t really know how to handle it. Ms. A. said then, “You can remove and touch the diamond if you like.” As I mentioned, it lay on the palm of my hand, and I had to cry – from the joy of holding it in my hand. My feeling was: My wife is back again. Of course, that feeling became weaker over time. Eventually, reason wins out [laughs]. I: What happened next while in Switzerland? W: Ms. A. took some time with me. We were, I’d guess, together about 90 minutes in that room. Once the transfer was over, we just talked for a while. Today, I wouldn’t necessarily want to go there again, but at the time it was what I needed to work through things. Everything we talk about is part of the grieving process. I: It sounds like you actively approach your loss. W: Yes, I do. Especially on the anniversaries of her death you tend to think a lot about your own death. That occupies my thoughts, but on such days, I also experience some distraction. I: One question that would interest me: You scattered the ashes in Greece with the thought in mind that the diamond was underway, right? W: That’s not completely true. Scattering her ashes in Greece was actually my first priority, being my wife’s wish, independent of the diamond. I would have done that regardless, even if I hadn’t decided on having a diamond made. I: That would have been my question: Would you have done it without the option of obtaining the diamond? W: Yes. But then I would have emptied all the ashes in the sea. I: That’s what you would have done? W: Yes. I did, by the way, also think about something else, this just occurs to me: taking the ashes from Switzerland and having them here with at home. But the undertaker discouraged me from doing so.

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I: And do you have any ideas about how you should be buried someday? W: My wife’s wish was to have her ashes scattered in the sea in Greece, but together with my ashes. So, in truth, it was her wish to be kept somewhere until my ashes were added to her ashes. I talked about this with the undertaker, but he said, “If you’re no longer around, how is anyone to know where the ashes of your wife are?” Of course, you could say the same thing about the diamond. I: Have you ever thought of what should later happen to the diamond of your wife? W: Yes, it should also be thrown into the sea. Together with my ashes. At the same place in Greece. I’ve already got that put down in some documents and informed my sisters. I: So, becoming a diamond is not an alternative for you? W: Theoretically, I suppose you could have a diamond made from me, but then I say to myself: Who is going to wear it? And, also, I feel a little responsible for my wife’s diamond. I say to myself: I don’t want it to end up someday in some drawer and just disappear from view. I’d like for it to be thrown into the sea, quite deliberately. I can’t imagine why anyone else would want to wear my wife’s diamond. If you keep diamonds, the survivors have to be agreed, you can’t just force it on anyone. The worst-case scenario would be if someone were to sell it for money. The diamond may be worth less since there’s an engraving in it, but the gold in the ring is, there’s 50 grams of that. I: Yes. W: And, anyway, how should I even know what happens later on, when I’m dead? Then, I mean, who cares? I: Presently, a discussion is going on in a number of German states about how and to what extent the burial laws should be reformed and liberalized. The idea of dividing up the ashes is one point. However, there are also voices critical of this, particular the allegation of commercialization … W: Yes, I know. I: … or some people emphasize that others are being robbed of a place to mourn if, as with ash diamonds, there is no grave. W: Let me put it this way: There is nothing more private than one’s own death. And there’s nothing more personal. Where I am buried may be determined by the public, but the public does not have any claim to a grave, only the person who dies can lay claim to a grave. And as to commercialization, every burial is commercialized, just look at the prices for coffins – the sky’s the limit. If you’re an undertaker, you can, forgive me, fix up the corpse all you want. You can’t just die; rather, your earthly remains have to be carefully and expensively disposed of. I: Mhm.

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W: If someone says, I will make your wife or your husband into a fantastic, beautiful relict, something that shines and sparkles, well, why shouldn’t they earn some money doing so? They make an offer, and you accept it or not. Who do you harm by making a diamond out of a dead body? Yes, of course, there have to be rules about disposing of a dead body. You can, of course, keep it in your house for a couple of days. But then you can’t just say, well, now I’m going to move it to the basement. The dead body has to be removed somehow, but today there are several different alternatives available. Why does anyone have to control that process? In Switzerland, for example, it all works out fine. And if someone wants to keep the ashes of their partner at home with them, then that should be possible. The matter with my wife led to my speaking with many people about it … When I hear, “Hey, I’d like to have it done this way or that,” then I answer, “Well, did you already get that down in writing?” I: And what sort of reaction do you get? W: “Oh, I can do that later!” to which I say, “You could be dead in a couple of hours.” They look at me kind of funny and often say, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I: Yes. W: I have no problem talking about death. I’m not going to make my life difficult by doing so – but talking about it actually makes things easier for me. And if I can manage things while I’m still alive, then it’s difficult just that one time, then it’s over and done. And I can sleep well at night. I: We’ve come to the end of the interview. Is there anything else you’d like to say in this regard that’s important to you? W: In conclusion, I’d like to emphasize that I think it’s incredibly important that you have a choice. It was in any case a fantastic choice for me.

“Yvonne wanted it that way.” Letters from Survivors

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8 February 2019

Re: Your letter of 28 January 2019 Yvonne, our oldest daughter, wanted it that way. The jewel should be put into a necklace, so that every one of us could wear it. That way she’s been along with us on every vacation we’ve taken so that we can show her everything. We talk to her, which makes it easier. We still miss her so very much. We have two other daughters who are both younger. We go to the grief meeting once a month, which helps us a lot. Sincerely

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Dr. Thorsten Benkel University of Passau Dr. Hans-Kapfinger-Str. 14 94032 Passau

8 February 2019 I received your letter about your scientific study and would like to say the following: My husband died on exactly his 88th birthday. We both knew that he was nearing his end and talked extensively about his final wishes. He was thus agreed to having his ashes made into a diamond. I had heard from my daughter that this was possible. Since I have also passed the age of 80, it is too strenuous for me to care for a cemetery grave, and I did not want to delegate that to strangers. I had the diamond set in a white-gold fitting at the center of a bloom. So now I have my husband always close to me on a necklace. When I’m worried or fearful or have problems, I can touch “him,” which gives me the strength to go on. I somehow then feel sheltered. We had a wonderful life together for 58 years, and our three children respected our wish. The thought of my husband having to lie under the cold earth just pains me, so I am very happy that we made this decision together. If you need more details from me, you can give me a call, but please not before 10 am. Sincerely

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Dr. Thorsten Benkel University of Passau Dr. Hans-Kapfinger-Str. 14 94032 Passau



8 February 2019

Re: Your letter of January 2019 Dear Dr. Benkel, I am very willing to give you a statement about my purchase of a commemorative diamond. When my wife and I saw a report about the Algordanza Company, my wife’s decision was clear. Since I had, among other things, been the owner of a firm that sold gravestones, I too thought the idea of creating a commemorative diamond from one’s own ashes an ingenious solution. When she died in 2016, I did not hesitate for a second to get in touch with Algordanza. The jewel, now set in a ring, has become a part of me, just like my wife was in our over 50 years of marriage. I see my wife in the diamond since it was formed from her remains. You can only feel this way if you have truly loved another human being. From a financial vantage point, in the long run, such a commemorative jewel is certainly the most affordable method of burial and grave management. After all, you have to go to a commemorative stone in a cemetery, also called a gravestone, whereas the diamond is a commemorative stone that is always with you and can always comfort you. If you have never loved another human being, then of course you don’t need the services of a company such as Algordanza. Sincerely

“Get up, child, get up!” The Document of a Loss

Every ash diamond and its counterparts have a life history behind them. No case is exactly like the other, and yet they all have something in common, namely, that the transition from life to nonlife has already occurred. The living are the ones who reflect on this transition; they are the ones who observe the loss of life of persons near and dear to them. Dying as a more or less long process and death as a transitional event that takes place in a sliver of a second are no longer relevant when the heavy machines in the pressing plant commence doing their job and make a jewel out of carbon remains. Dying and death are then only things of the past, albeit ones that remain fresh and painful in the minds of the survivors. The social-psychological coping strategies the grieving employ to survive are not the focal point of this volume (see Spiegel 1973; Cleiren 1993; Müller/ Schnegg 1997). Yet, it seems appropriate to present a short portrayal of one person’s experience, which does not begin but rather ends with the creation of an ash diamond – as a representative example of the many narratives of loss. As unique as it is in all its different aspects, it may stand in for the great variety of strokes of fate experienced and the mournful emotions felt. It brings to the forefront the life-world of a mother who has lost her son and the socially relevant approaches that describe her subjective ordeal. The hopeful and at least partially comforting outlook expressed at the end corresponds to one related by many of our interviewees. The crystalline grief artifact enables survivors to cope with the pain differently than is possible in traditional burial and remembrance culture. The following document was sent to us in writing. It is a self-reflection that describes the loss of a son using highly emotional language. Remarkable is, on the one hand, the way the deceased is addressed and, on the other hand, the existence of such a document in the first place as well as its expressivity. In these revealing sentences the author directs her feelings not primarily to a reading

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public but to herself. (She expressly agreed to having it published in this volume.) The text is given verbatim; we only used some abbreviations of persons and places to ensure anonymity.

Email of 31 January 2019 Dear Dr. Benkel, I am quite willing to help and support you in your scientific studies. Please see the attached. I don’t know for sure whether what I wrote back then is of any real importance to you. I can only speak for myself, but one thing is certain: NOTHING is BETTER than knowing that the ones you lived, loved, and built a future

for are WITH YOU RIGHT NOW!!! I feel a sort of “contentment” and “PEACE” when I am home since I know that everything I loved from the bottom of my heart is right here, and that someday when my time comes, we shall be together once again. Many cannot imagine this sort of “burial.” But when I tell them that it is so much better for the personal peace of mind of the survivor if you are unable to physically have your family with you, then they understand what I am talking about. Sincerely, Z.

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Attachment: A Sunday in 2014 7:00 am – I am sitting in the kitchen, listening to the radio. Everything has changed, but in my heart, I still recognize a lot. Every half hour the news is repeated. They always say the same thing: Yesterday there was a serious accident on Route XYZ. A car traveling in the direction of ABC, shortly before the exit to DEF, ran off the road and rolled over several times. A father and his son were brought to the hospital, and the driver of the car was declared … at the scene of the accident. I see the video over and over again, which appeared the same night on Facebook. The medevac man who gave the interview, the other firemen at the scene of the accident, the emergency vehicles, the policemen, all the rescue people. They are all moving around and are close to you. I stand there and look. And look and look. You’re still in the car. The other two are already gone, it’s mentioned at the beginning, when H. came to me. My call to the state police: Yes, there was an accident. Two people are alive, one is still in the car and has died … Bamm! My brain tries to deal with what he said and only then understands what was said. EMPTINESS!!

Maybe it was a mistake. The chances are 50:50 that it was not my son who was still in the car. Then I remember the beginning; the statement of H. about who is still in the car and who is not. Still: It can’t be my child! Still hoping.

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No! the policeman says at the other end of the line, don’t go to where the accident happened. I won’t let anyone tell me what to do, where to go, and where not to go! I’ve got to help you. Water, a blanket, plastic bags – I put it all in the car, like when I always used to pick up you and your friends. Let’s go! Whether alone or with someone, I HAVE to go. The TWO OF US will make this work. We have always made it work. The two of us have been through so much together. 2005 your grandma (my mom), 2007 your dad (my partner for 22 years), 2009 your uncle (my brother-in-law), 2013 your grandpa (my father-in-law) – all gone. Papa, Uncle, Grandpa – they were not alone when it was their time to go. So many low blows for one human being, so much suffering, just as you think you’ve gotten over the last one. “No one ever goes completely away.” All of our loved ones are always there, we just can’t touch them anymore. We wanted to start over again. A new office, for you, my son, you wanted to be with me. I was so proud of you. You almost had your master craftsman diploma in your hand, like your father. You were ready to start off, go your own way. First, get some experience and references, and then, when you feel ready for this world, you wanted to climb the mountains (America) and start a new life. Then I was expected to “pull up my roots” and go through Eastern Russia to America, where we would leave everything behind us and begin anew. You with your family and, of course, your American bulldog, I with my family and K.’s dog and our L. Just go, leave all the jealousy, all the accusations behind us and just live a nice quiet and fair life. No life without “Mautz” (that’s what you called me whenever you wanted something). And that’s a good thing. YOU were the child we had always wanted. YES, that was the plan. That’s why we rented the office for 5 years, which was

supposed to suffice. We talked about EVERYTHING. The death of our “family patriarch” was a tragedy.

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It’s funny – your thoughts always agreed with my thoughts when it was about Papa. Unfortunately, we recognize too late what is important in life, and that death is an important theme while alive, one we must talk about. Everyone has a final wish, no one wants to leave the other behind. We approached it in our own way, and both of us didn’t want others to “get their fill” after our own demise. Especially not if we were dealing with people who begrudged us everything, whose relationship while still alive consisted mainly of deceit and backstabbing. As your Mama, I was happy to be able to always speak openly with you, that makes everything easier, when everything is out in the open and you are pleased that your final wish has been accepted and shared. Our own “experiences” with death caused us to share many things. That makes mourning easier – if you can share and communicate over these common “experiences.” In times of grief, I was very careful about what I could experience and what I could tell others. That did not always generate acceptance. One theme, for example, was how to approach the final journey. I understand it when people prefer the conventional way of burial. For that, you need a cemetery. But must that be the final place? But what does this “law” do to survivors? Why is our grief so huge when we lose a family member, especially when it was not their time or when they weren’t READY to go? Ripped out of everything they love – so, what is the meaning of life and the meaning of this family life? Why are we so overcome with grief and longing. For me, it’s because this person is no longer there, with us, in our midst, where they always were, where they lived and loved their life. A cemetery is a place of mourning and certainly a place where, depending on your beliefs, you can be if the deceased had some connection to it and desired it – if the family had spoken about it in advance. NOT just because THAT IS HOW IT IS! We all speak about the soul. Only the physical remains, not the soul, reside in the cemetery or in some other place. We speak about the souls being where their loved ones are. So, the souls are where those are who have to go on alone. We drag our exhausted bodies through time, and we drag ourselves to someplace where no one else is. But we have to go there because that is the place where

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there’s a cold piece of stone, a stone plate, a large grave, the place where we left our loved one – because IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY.

The Evening of the Incident We (H. and I) come closer. On our way, I call a friend who lives nearby and ask her if she can also come to help us if need be. She takes off immediately. She, too, has a close relationship with D., she was his first “mother-in-law,” and they still have a good relationship. D. always helped her when she had problems with her heating. Many, many lights in blue, orange, yellow illuminate the darkness. Here’s a piece of tire, a large broken road sign, parts of a car lying in the ditch, firemen everywhere, policemen. H. doesn’t want to stop; the police tell us to move on. But at home he had said to me: D. is still sitting in the car, they had lost a wheel. So, hey – it can’t be so bad, right? My head is quiet. I tell him to stop and let me out and to drive on. I go to the edge of the highway toward the place, near some trees, where the helpers have congregated. They have devices in their hands, lamps light up the scene. I come nearer. When I get there, I see something resembling a car. But I am startled, since it’s on its roof and looks very damaged. Where is D.? He can’t be sitting in there. A policeman comes over to me and takes me to the side. I am calm, very calm. He wants to know who I am. I answer his questions and say to him again and again that I want to go to my son. He doesn’t seem to understand me. He says I can’t do that, that the person first has to be identified. WHAT??? Now I say quietly and calmly that, as his mother, I can do that best. They are looking for his cell phone, but why? In the dark, that’s crazy! I can call him, then they’ll hear his telephone ring. NO! You can’t go over there. I say again and again that I need to go to my child, he’s only a few meters away, over there. Why is that so bad? I try to go down into the ditch, but he holds me back. He says: If you don’t quiet down now and follow my orders, I will have you removed from the crash site. I don’t understand his words. We go over to the police car. It is standing in such a way that I can’t turn and look toward D. They want the usual information. I look toward D. and the car. Then I look shortly at the policeman and turn back again. D. WAS THERE – MY CHILD – in his blue and white checked jacket, his jeans, his white shoes. They laid him down in the mud. He was there, I wanted to go to him, but I wasn’t allowed. Why are they doing this to me? I thought. Why? This is my

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child, my D., my boy. They brought me his cell phone. They brought me his wallet. A woman stood at the transporter. G. had also arrived and came over to me. I told her what I was feeling and that they wouldn’t let me go to D. She spoke with the woman, a pastor. I said I didn’t need that, and that I wouldn’t leave without seeing my child. My friend knew one of the policemen from her work, he was also there. She spoke with the two of them. I should have been let to D., but I was also terribly afraid that the policeman would really have me “removed,” that I might be sent to a madhouse. I tried to talk with them again, tell them what was waiting for D. and me at home. On my way home, I had seen that the light was burning in D.’s apartment, but that his car wasn’t there. Well, he’s probably just out getting some cigarettes and we’ll meet up again soon to walk his dog. Like every evening. I told the woman that right now, in this moment, it was IMPORTANT for me to be with D. I wanted to hold him and ask him to come back, that it all didn’t matter, that everything would be fine. He shouldn’t worry about his car, I would take care of his dog, after all I was his grandma (D. had always said as long as he didn’t have children, his dog would be my grandchild). Mama, K., S., and Grandpa should bring him back to me and give D. courage. But the lady pastor said that was not going to happen. I asked her if she knew why hospitals, when someone leaves their bodies, open the windows. She didn’t know why. That said enough about her, about someone who presumed to extend pastoral care. So, I would somehow have to get there on my own, regardless. Again, I said to her that I was not going to go away without having held my child in my arms. G. talked with her. They decided on a compromise: I was allowed to see D. that night after he had been examined and “prettied up.” They would bring him to a funeral home in H. So many people were touching you. On television you can see how they took a coffin away, and what about ME??? Me, who bore D., who held him in my arms in the first second of his existence, when he was not yet “prettied up.” Why are all these people doing this to you? Why do they ignore me? I’m not doing anything awful, I’m not crying hysterically, I’m not in shock, I’m not running around on the highway, I’m not even CRYING. I’m very calm and have just this one final WISH.

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My thoughts: D., my D., please, please don’t be angry with me. They won’t allow me to come to you. Please D., come back on your own. Please try to. PLEASE. Yes, I would have given my life at that moment for one touch, one hug, one kiss. Always the same thought runs through my head, who is waiting on US at home. They broke me, their ignorance broke me. Around 1.30 am we finally arrived in ABC. G. is my trusty companion, my unseen angel who is there for me. Time passes much too slowly. The doctor comes. He gives me the key to D.’s apartment. He talks about the injuries, and that D. was immediately … “Immediately!” Again, doubt and despair. “Immediately,” what kind of word is that? When and where is “immediately.” WHEN AND WHERE??? D., what happened? Finally, the lady from the funeral home comes. I finally get to see you. There’s a room, candles, chairs and there YOU are. On a gurney, a white sheet covers your body up to your neck. There are plugs in your ears. You look peaceful, and I can only see YOU. YOU, your body. Just stand up and come along with me. You are so calm. NO “Hello, Mautz, nice to see you. Thanks for picking me up.” It is completely silent. Your right arm is injured, your head is injured. But otherwise? Get up, child, get up! Is that now reality? Are you really the other 50 % I don’t want to hear about? Why are you so damaged and the others are not? Why are you not in the hospital, why are you here? On Monday I called S. We know each other for many years now through the work at the garage. He took over the funeral home from his father. The first time we saw each other under these circumstances was when my mama died. In 2005 (the year she died), in 2007 (when K. died, 41 years old), and then again and again.

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S. was so good with the relatives, and how can I say it – D. and I knew he was “good” at it. And then the worst of all: my child. Whenever I went to see you in S.’s cold storage, I could only think: I’m going to VISIT D. Your … is to this very day unacceptable, incomprehensible. You are always with me. In my dreams, I cry whenever we meet (you and Papa). We talk, I ask for advice, and cry a little bit more, then I wake up and am alone. S. was aware of our opinion about “burial rituals” and knew that they were out of the question for YOU and for ME. He asked me whether I’d like to make a diamond out of you. S. hadn’t even finished the sentence, when I said “YES,” doesn’t matter what it costs, the main thing is that he’s with me at home. I had three diamonds made: one for your N., one for me to be near my heart, and one to stay home. It was so endlessly difficult to let you take that trip to Switzerland and not to know when you would be returning. A more trying time than ever before. But then the call came: D. is back. I am “happy” to take you with me everywhere I go every day, to have you near to my heart. IT MAKES EVERYTHING A LITTLE BETTER.

“I am always there where you are.” My son as a diamond, embedded in an old tooth he brought home from Egypt in 2011, which he wore EVERY DAY since as a talisman. Also on the day of his accident.

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Adorno, Theodor W. (1986): “Versuch über Wagner,” in ibid. Die musikalischen Monographien, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 7–148. Akyel, Dominic (2013): Die Ökonomisierung der Pietät. Der Wandel des Bestattungsmarkts in Deutschlands, Frankfurt am Main/New York. Angenendt, Arnold (2000): Geschichte der Religiosität im Mittelalter, 2nd ed., Darmstadt. Appadurai, Arjun (Ed.) (2003): The Social Life of Things. Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge. Apter, Emily/Pietz, William (Eds.) (1993): Fetishism as Cultural Discourse, Ithaca/London. Ariès, Philippe (1982): The Hour of Our Death, New York. Asendorf, Christoph (1989): Ströme und Strahlen. Vom Verschwinden der Materie um 1900, Gießen. Assmann, Aleida (2010): Erinnerungsräume. Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächt­ nisses, 5th ed., München. Barthes, Roland (2010): Camera Lucida. Reflections on Photography, New York. Baudrillard, Jean (2005): The System of Objects, London/New York. Beck, Ulrich/Beck-Gernsheim, Elisabeth (1994): “Individualisierung in modernen Gesellschaften. Perspektiven und Kontroversen einer subjektorientierten Soziologie,” in ibid. (Eds.): Ris­kante Freiheiten. Individualisierung in modernen Gesellschaften, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 10–39. Benkel, Thorsten (2007): Die Signaturen des Realen. Bausteine einer soziologischen Topographie der Wirklichkeit, Konstanz. Benkel, Thorsten (2013a): Die Verwaltung des Todes. Annäherungen an eine Soziologie des Fried­ hofs, 2nd ed., Berlin. Benkel, Thorsten (2013b): “Das Sterben der anderen. Trauer – Gesellschaft – Öffentlichkeit,” in Bestattungskultur 65, Issue 9, pp. 14–15. Benkel, Thorsten (2015): “Todesrituale. Zur sozialen Dramaturgie am Ende des Lebens,” in Gugutzer, Robert/Staack, Michael (Eds.): Körper und Ritual. Sozial- und kulturwissenschaft­liche Zugänge und Analysen, Wiesbaden, pp. 335–360. Benkel, Thorsten (Ed.) (2016a): Die Zukunft des Todes. Heterotopien des Lebensendes, Bielefeld. Benkel, Thorsten (2016b): “Partikulare Vitalität. Postmortale Körperpräsenz und die Ungewiss­ heit des Lebensendes,” in Groß, Dominik/Kaiser, Stephanie/Tag, Brigitte (Eds.): Leben jen­seits des Todes. Transmortalität unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Organspende, Frankfurt am Main/New York, pp. 127–151. Benkel, Thorsten (2017a): “Strukturen der Sterbenswelt,” in Keller, Reiner/Meuser, Michael (Eds.): Alter(n) und vergängliche Körper, Wiesbaden, pp. 277–301.

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Illustrations

Page 5

Motif Damien Hirst: For the Love of God

8 13

Inscription on a gravestone Ashes as a jewel: a melancholy review of life Two examples of oval pictures on a gravestone Inscription on a gravestone Painted coffin as final greeting Diamond in a ring Schematic depiction of life and nonlife Inscription on a gravestone Diamond set in a necklace Variations of the ash jewel Inscription on a gravestone Ash diamond in a black box “Freeing” the rough diamond from its growth cell The urn is not the end

19/20 26 28 45 49 56 60 69 76 79 90 105

Source/Copyright Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2019. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020 Benkel/Meitzler Benkel/Meitzler Benkel/Meitzler Benkel/Meitzler Kraft family Algordanza Benkel/Meitzler Benkel/Meitzler Algordanza Algordanza Benkel/Meitzler Algordanza Algordanza Algordanza

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The filtering of carbon from the ashes Isolated carbon before further processing 108 The growth cell of the future diamond 109 Growth takes place in the diamond compactor 110 The final touch 111 The brilliance of the diamond 112 Holding memories in one’s hands 115 First encounter 120 Inscription on a gravestone 188 Inscription on a gravestone 192 Survey graphic: Acceptance of the ash diamond 196–198 Inscriptions on gravestones 206 Scattering of ashes in the sea 213–219 Letters of survivors 220 Inscription on a gravestone 230 Lucky charm with diamond 239 Author photos

Illustrations

Algordanza Algordanza Algordanza Algordanza Algordanza Algordanza Benkel/Meitzler Algordanza Benkel/Meitzler Benkel/Meitzler Benkel/Meitzler Benkel/Meitzler Mr. W. Private collection Benkel/Meitzler Ms. Z. Private collection

The Authors

Dr. Thorsten Benkel was born in Kaiserslautern, Germany. He is Senior Lecturer for Sociology at the University of Passau. He has headed several research projects concerning dying, death, and grief. His ethnographical work was done, among other things, on the context of private religion, burial culture, drug scene, prostitution milieu, autopsies, and prisons. He studied sociology, philosophy, psychology, and literature, receiving his doctorate from the University of Frankfurt on the concept of reality in sociology. His research focus lies on microsociology, qualitative social research, and the sociologies of knowledge, medicine, the body, and law. [email protected]

Prof. Thomas Klie was born in Northeim, Germany, and is presently Professor for Practical Theology in the Faculty for Theology at the University of Rostock. He studied protestant theology, protestant religion, and russian. He received his doctorate from the University of Göttingen on the didactics of promise and did his postdoctoral qualification at the University of Bonn on aspects of pastoral theology. His research focus lies on religious hybrids, liturgics, and matters related to the power of interpretation. Further interests include pastoral and religious esthetics, late modern religious culture, performance theory, and burial culture. [email protected]

Matthias Meitzler, M.A., was born in Groß-Umstadt, Germany. He is presently a research associate and lecturer at the University of Passau. His doctorate theme to be completed at the University of Bayreuth concerns postmortal individualization. He has done research in, among others, the fields of hospice, cemeteries, and the BDSM context. He studied sociology, history, and psychoanalysis at the University of Frankfurt/Main as well as psychology at the University of Hagen. His interests include qualitative social research, sociology of knowledge, thanatosociology, mediatization research, and human-animal relationships. [email protected]

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek: The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: https://dnb.de. © 2020, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Theaterstraße 13, D-37073 Göttingen All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. This is a translation of “Der Glanz des Lebens – Aschediamant und Erinnerungskörper” Translated from the German by Joseph A. Smith Cover illustrations: © Algordanza Typesetting by SchwabScantechnik, Göttingen Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage | www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com ISBN 978-3-666-67021-3