Business turns the dead into diamonds
By Ramy Inocencio, CNN
May 24, 2012 -- Updated 0746 GMT (1546 HKT)
Hong Kong (CNN) -- Eva Wu has kept her son's room unchanged ever since he died in January of 2011. Cornald passed away from a rare form of cancer, known as PEComa, at age 17. Divorced and single, Wu recalled his optimism even in his final days.
"He always comforted me. He said 'Mummy, I know what's going on. I'm not afraid of dying. I know where I'm going to. I have Jesus in my heart so don't worry about me'."
To keep him close in death as he was in life, Wu had his ashes made into a diamond. "I feel peace. I feel he's near me. And it's 100% him. Nothing else but him," said Wu, who keeps the diamond on a cross necklace. "And I can recall his smiling face, and I can recall his gentle character."
That peace is thanks to the Hong Kong company Algordanza, which has been making "remembrance diamonds" since 2008, said Scott Fong, local director of Algordanza.
Headquartered in Switzerland, Algordanza's name comes from the local Romansch language meaning "remembrance." An engineer by education, Fong thought there could be a demand for the service after his mother's aunt passed away in 2007, and he found end-of-life services in Hong Kong to be "crude" and options for burial few.
The ashes-to-diamond process is fairly straightforward, Fong said. Algordanza sends 200 grams of cremated remains to its laboratory in Switzerland. The carbon from those ashes is then filtered out to more than 99% purity and refined into silky, black graphite. A machine then applies volcano-like pressure and temperature: Nine hours later, a synthetic diamond -- which has a bluish rather than clear tint, owing to boron found naturally in the body -- is born.
A quarter-carat diamond retails for about $3000, Fong said. A two-carat diamond, the biggest that Algordanza makes, costs about $37,000.
...
|
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.