How Their Son ’s Death Drove His Parents to Find an Alternative to Tradition

To John and Susan Garretson, the thought of cremating their son in the conventional way was almost as excruciating as the memory of his death. On March 20, 2021, a police officer in Peachtree City, Ga., knocked on the Garretsons’ door to say their only child, 16-year-old Brighton Garretson, had been killed in a car crash. Brighton, a high school sophomore, had been a passenger in his friend’s newly purchased Corvette for less than a minute before the sports car collided with another vehicle and went up in flames. The occupants of the other vehicle survived, but Brighton and his 19-year-old friend died instantly. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The fire was so intense that it charred the tips of nearby 50-foot pine trees. When the Garretsons asked to see their son, the officer gently said it might be better to remember Brighton the way he looked when he left the house earlier that evening. Courtesy the family Brighton Garretson To subject their son’s body to more fire would have been unbearable, his parents say. And because they often move for work, they didn’t want to bury him in the ground and someday be far from his resting place. So they opted for a little-known and, in some quarters, controversial process known as aquamation, or alkaline hydrolysis, in which a body is soaked in a solution that dissolves practically everything but the bones. Read more: For These Doulas, Death Is a Way of Life “Any other option would have caused m...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Evergreen healthscienceclimate nationpod Source Type: news