He hated cemeteries, but Grandpa never agreed to be turned into a golf ball

July 21, 2026 — 3:00pm

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My family has a strange relationship with ashes. My father’s were scattered under a bush in a distant memorial garden years ago. The bush has been replaced a couple of times and now we’ve really lost him. When Mum died much later, and the cost of scattering around an azalea bush had tripled, and the cemetery people demanded to oversee our Christian-Buddhist-Atheist rituals in the same garden, we opted for plan B. A magnificent pine in the local park. We three daughters rounded its massive trunk like a circle of reverend elephants, uttering the words, “You’ll never be alone, Ma … Now we can visit you every week … We love you, Mum” as we sprinkled away.

One year later, lightning split the tree in two. A day later it was wrapped in safety tape. A week later it was chopped down and carted away. We know what we did was illegal and that you’re meant to get permission from the council – untreated ashes can kill plant life – but … really God?

All we wanted was to follow our parents’ wishes to return to nature. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust and all that. We thought we were on trend.

Today, the death industry, in Australia at least, has rung in more changes than the........

© Brisbane Times