Margaux RuyantIt’s almost just like being with grandpa.
No one wants to die. But if you’re going to die (and let us be perhaps the first to remind you today: you will!) then you might as well go on living afterward as something beautiful. No, we’re not talking about being reincarnated as Demi Lovato — this is so much better. A French designer has arranged it so that you can come back as a tree. And, this being a French designer, you will come back as a very tasteful, attractive tree.
Before you get all excited and think you have the death thing beat, let us explain what’s happening here. Designer Margaux Ruyant’s funeral urn, called the Poetree, consists of a biodegradable cork container and a ceramic ring that has your name and the dates in which you were actually alive and not a tree. You also get a baby tree in another biodegradable pot. The tree, which is potted in dirt, gets planted inside the ash-filled urn, and its roots eventually extend through the ashes as its container dissolves. Then you can plant the entire thing in the ground, where eventually the urn biodegrades as well.
But the details of the process aren’t going to matter to you at the time. (Well, nothing is, really.) What’s important is that what remains is this nice ring with your name on it and a tree, and people can come visit it and talk about what a great person you were and how nice it was that you thought to leave something pretty behind when you went. Or, if you actually aim to have your tree be a closely trimmed boxwood like the one pictured in the above image, they can visit it and bitch about how much maintenance you still require.
