More humans opting to be buried with their pets
Rhona Levy has her burial planned out. She will be cremated, her ashes will be divided into two bright red urns and she will be taken to the cemetery.
Then, half of her will go into a plot with Snow, Putchke and Pumpkin, and the other half will go in nearby with Shaina and Twinkie.
The New Yorker is among what appears to be a growing number of Americans who want to share their final resting place with their best friends — even if those friends were cats or dogs or iguanas — and are getting buried or reserving plots at pet cemeteries.
“I’ve elected not to be married — it just didn’t happen, I was engaged a few times — and I didn’t have children,” said Levy, 61. “And
Headstones mark the graves of some of Rhona Levy’s pets at the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery in Hartsdale, N.Y. Levy plans to have her ashes interred next to her favorite pets. She is part of a growing trend among Americans who are making plans to be buried in pet cemeteries. At the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery, the number of humans interred each year has more than doubled recently. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
these little furry kids, they just became my first and foremost love. So I wanted to be close after I died.”
The International Association of Pet Cemeteries and Crematories, with 200 members, estimates that a quarter of the nation’s pet cemeteries take in deceased humans, and the demand is growing.
“We hear about it all the time in our membership, people asking for it,” said Donna Bethune, the group’s executive secretary. Pet owners “oftentimes maybe don’t have extended family and their pet pretty much was their family, like their child to them. And there’s not a family plot where everyone’s going to be.”
via The Denver Post.
