Girl Becomes Diamond After Her Death
LOS ANGELES -- Normally when people talk about what happens to their bodies after they die, there are two options: burial and cremation. NBC4's Ana Garcia took a look at another alternative.
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The mother of an 8-year-old girl who died told Garcia about the last moment of her daughter's life.
"We were just praying and singing over her. She was totally awake and totally aware. She was asking questions, 'What's happening to my body, Mommy?' ... But all of a sudden she looked up, grabbed me and smiled like I have never seen her and said, 'I'm in, I'm in,'" said Susi Rowley.
At that moment, Susi's daughter, 8-year-old Hannah Rowley, died.
"She was a great person, and she was always laughing and always knew what to say," said sister Abby Rowley.
Hannah had battled leukemia for five years.
Susi Rowley tried to make sense of her daughter's last words.
"I think it was her reward to get out of this body and be free," said Susi.
Her family brightens at her memory and is overwhelmed by the joy she brought during her short life.
Knowing she was severely ill, just days before she passed, Hannah's few final requests were for her family to give away all but her first guitar, for them not to sell her cherished horse, Dude, and to be made into a diamond.
"She said, 'I think the Lord is going to heal me, but just in case he takes me home, I want you to make me into a diamond.' And I said 'Oh, honey, you are a diamond,'" said Susi.
But Hannah wanted to literally be turned into a diamond, a pretty reminder of her that could always be at her parents' fingertips after she was gone.
"I was very, very skeptical. I was thinking, 'What are you talking about?'" said father Jerry Rowley.
To many people it sounds fantastical, but LifeGem, a Chicago-based company, said technology has made it possible.
"Well, the LifeGem process starts with eight ounces of the cremated remains," said Greg Herro, CEO of LifeGem.
The process works when carbon is extracted from the ashes. It is heated and converted to graphite. The graphite is then put into a diamond press and exposed to tremendous heat and pressure, which creates a rough diamond. This essentially speeds up a process that takes millions of years in nature.
"Lifegems and diamonds are identical in all properties. In order to be called a diamond, you have to be a 10 on the MOS scale, which is the hardest substance scale. They have to have the same brilliance, fire and luster," said Herro.
The color of the diamond is based on individual impurities in the carbon, and for now the size is limited to just under a carat.
Memorializing someone by turning them into jewelry may be new, but is it really that unusual?
Psychology professor Peter Ditto said that people have always had elaborate rituals for marking a death.
"It seemed kind of creepy. But then when I thought about ... It doesn't seem to me any stranger than having your grandmothers' ashes up in an urn on a mantelpiece," said Ditto.
From Hannah's ashes Jerry and Susi had rings made and a butterfly pendant for Hannah's younger sister Abby.
"That is what Hannah really wanted. That is what made it really easier for me. It's neat to be able to see it every day," said Jerry.
"She was so amazing and so beautiful and these diamonds came back so beautiful. We couldn't believe how fitting they were of her to be so sparkly and shiny and so beautiful," said Susi.
The process takes about six months. The price of a half carat at LifeGem starts at $6,000.
LifeGem Web site
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source:
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/9514340/detail.html
for pictures of the story:
http://www.nbc4.tv/slideshow/news/95...;p=news;w=4000
~poor baby
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Girl Becomes Diamond After Her Death
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