Name for the Place Where You Scatter Ashes

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

When someone’s buried, you can go to the cemetery.

But what do you call a place where you’ve scattered someone’s ashes?

This question came up recently on our Facebook group when John said that he scattered his father’s ashes along a trail.

And he has a hard time.

He stumbles over how exactly to describe that.

He can’t really say I’m going to see my father’s grave or something like that.

Some people on the site suggested something like Memorial Park or Memorial Trail.

And that makes a lot of sense to me.

Yeah, or final resting place, that kind of thing.

But then you wonder if there’s a body out there, not just ashes.

Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of hard to talk about, but I think more and more we’re going to need to be able to talk about it.

It’s gotten me to thinking about the fact that I’ve always had this fantasy of being scattered in more than one place.

You know, a lot of people want to be scattered in lots of different places.

Because you hike high spots throughout Southern California.

Yeah.

Well, and North Carolina.

I mean, I have this idea of being scattered in California and North Carolina along a couple of my favorite trails.

And I don’t know.

I guess I would want people to go to Martha’s spot.

Right.

And we had some suggestions that were similar to that, right?

Some people talking about their own family stories.

Yeah.

We had a couple of those, like Kelly said, we scattered grandmama’s ashes in the ocean near Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina.

We call that place visiting with grandmama’s spirit, which I kind of like.

And Monica said, my mother-in-law wanted her ashes scattered on a hill on our property.

We now refer to that as Joanne’s Hill.

And I like that idea.

I do, too.

I like the personal naming the place, and you wonder if it will stick, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, and I also like visiting with somebody’s spirit.

But it’s really different when you start thinking about ashes.

I mean, I didn’t go to my mother’s grave site for a year because I thought it would be too traumatizing for me.

We were very close, and it was really hard to think about.

But I’m so comforted that it’s there.

And I like being able to say I’m going to go visit my parents’ grave.

But I don’t know about ashes.

Ashes feel like they become a part of the environment and the world around us.

Yeah, so how do you differentiate that in a way?

That’s a good question.

If you have a name that you use for a place that you’ve scattered someone’s ashes, let us know.

Let us know how you came up with it and what it is. 877-929-9673.