Boldly Go

Eternal Image specializes in what I guess one could paradoxically call lifestyle funerary products. If you’re a baseball fan, they have urn and casket designs reflecting the logos and colors of almost every major league team. There are Vatican Library and Precious Moments caskets and urns. And then there is the showstopper shown above: the “photon torpedo” casket that is part of the Star Trek collection. (There is also a fairly nifty United Federation of Planets urn if you chose to have the funeral home set their phasers for “disintegrate”.)

So what inspired this company? I’ll let them tell you in their own words:

[CEO Clint] Mytych challenged himself to find an industry where branding – and licensing – had little or no impact to date. After months of research, Mytych hit upon what may be licensing’s last frontier – the funeral industry. Together with his partners, Nick Popravsky and Donna Shatter, Mytych crafted a business plan to bring top licenses to the funeral business. Then he set out to acquire the rights to key licenses. Almost every company EI approached immediately saw the opportunity.

Their compassion to complete the lives of the dearly departed just brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it?

The more earthly-minded might want to consider a Trappist casket, handcrafted by Iowa monks out of wood harvested from their own 1,200-acre forest. They’re the only source I’m aware of for old-style “shaped” caskets. Their handling of children’s caskets is especially touching.

For the very earthiest is the ultimate in “green” burial: being thrown unembalmed into a grave, sans casket.

I’ve always been partial to my grandfather’s preferred funeral: “Wrap me in a sheet and toss me in the ditch down by the railroad tracks.”