Today, the Anchorage Daily News ran an article about a woman who wears a piece of jewelry with a story like no other I’ve heard.

The blue diamond she wears to remember her lost daughter very literally IS her lost daughter. She used a service called Lifegem, which can refine any organic source down to its constituent carbon, then turn that carbon into diamond.

In her case, after wondering for several months what would be the most meaningful thing she could do with her daughter’s ashes, she used them to create the gem. She had it set into a ring (not the one pictured here) which she wears proudly. When she tells the ring’s story, she gets mixed reactions – some admiring, some repelled.

The folks at Lifegem say they can use any organic carbon source for their gems – hair, if the family chooses burial, or animal, if a client wants to remember a pet with a special gem.

The whole concept is really fascinating, it’s like I’ve wandered into the pages of a science fiction story. I can’t decide whether it’s grotesque or beautiful, or a little of both. Families keep urns of ashes on their mantels, or scatter them in various places, and making ashes into artificial diamond is not so big a leap of logic. In the spectrum of funeral customs that exist throughout the world, this is only one of many, many unusual ones. In its own way, it’s fairly symbolic and meaningful – condensing a person’s physical remains into a jewel that is brilliantly beautiful and will last forever.

Still, I don’t know that I would do it for my own loved ones – or pets – even if I did have the money to spare for it.