Our Weekly Tip: Send Your Loved Ones Ashes Up To The Sky In a Biodegradable Balloon

Credit: eternalascent.com

Our Tip of The Week: “I don’t care what you do with me — just have me cremated and send me up in a balloon,” said Clyde to his wife Joanie as they sat around the gift balloon shop they run, chatting with family about their last wishes. Out of this conversation, the Eternal Ascent Society was born.

The Eternal Ascent Society sends your loved one’s cremated ashes into the skies in a biodegradable balloon. The ceremony creates a memory out of watching your loved one floating up into the clouds — a calm and peaceful image amidst the turmoil of grief.  For those that find comfort in the idea that loved ones who have died are somewhere in the skies above looking down on them, this service is a perfect way to make that idea concrete.

Credit: Eternal Ascent Society

How-to Suggestion: Once you receive your loved one’s ashes from a funeral home or crematorium, you can deliver them to Eternal Ascent Society, or the company can make arrangements with the funeral home or crematorium directly. The Eternal Ascent Society then places an appropriate amount of ashes in each balloon. They use enough ashes so that you can see them clearly through the bottom of the balloon, but not so much that they prevent the balloon from flying properly. The family chooses the release site. (If the site is more than 100 miles of the company’s flagship office in Crystal River, Florida, there is a transportation fee.) Each balloon is quite large, measuring five feet in diameter. If children are participating in the ceremony, they receive smaller balloons to release after the primary balloon takes off.