Can I Keep My Parents' Skulls & Tattoos?

I've got a bone to pick.

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Mortician: Caitlin Doughty
Additional Research: Remy Servis

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Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?
by Caitlin Doughty

"IS PRESERVING THE TATTOOED SKIN OF A CORPSE ETHICAL?"

"Save My Ink Forever: Would you want your tattoos framed as artworks when you die?"

"Illegal and Unethical Selling of Skulls, Fetal Remains, and Mummified Corpses: Under Investigation on Facebook"

"Instagram's grisly human skull trade is booming"

[iain]

My Mother is already going to haunt me so I don’t need her skull.

[veronicahill]

I used to have a customer that had the coolest coffee cup. One day, I commented on it. He replied that it was his Dad. I thought I had misunderstood, but no. He had a coffee cup made from his Dad's ashes for he could still have coffee with him every morning!

[doodlefawn]

My dad told me that he was going to put in his will that I would have his head, and I should keep it in open living spaces so he could judge the people I had over at my house.

[lisabinhawaii]

Keeping someone's tattooed skin seems much creepier than a skull.

[Fuzzy_Spork]

I'm not sure about having my parent's actual skull around, but if a funeral home offered the service of scanning and 3D printing a full size copy for me I'd be all over that.

[SewardWriter]

Just so you know, Caitlin, one of the ads I got on this episode was for bone broth.

Just let that sink in.

[zoebailey]

"now that's what I call I call abuse of a corpse"
me: laughs
caitlin: that's not a good joke
me: hey...

[kieraneustace]

I can't explain why, but I want to be this woman's friend so badly. Her voice is so calming

[louislouis]

What's a skull's favorite song to sing?

"I ain't got no body."

[kallisto]

The question is not "Will my cat eat my eyeballs?" as much as it is "Will it wait until I'm dead?".

[totalrecone]

Was chatting to Dad's skull the other day and told him I had a present for him. He said "It's not another f%@#ing hat, is it?"

[teptime]

My 3rd-great grandmother was so distraught over the death of her youngest daughter, Olive(age 11, we believe, likely from smallpox) that she cut the child's long hair off and meticulously fashioned it into a cluster of tiny braided flowers connected with wire to a clip, which she wore in her own hair always thereafter, and to her grave. She made many similar hair items for friends and ladies in her church in the years after the Civil War.

[af]

I'll never forget the night at the dinner table when my sweet little 6 year old son casually asked if he could have my skull after I died!! My husband and daughter nearly choked. He said he wanted to keep it in the house so I could still be around and thought of. It was actually really sweet and I wrote it in to my death wishes. Hopefully it is legalized by then and they can just give it to him

[tcrmoving]

this is so weird i miss my dads tattoos so much id have actually loved to have had them preserved, glad to know im not as strange as i thought

[savannahs]

So, my grandmother was found dead in her apartment last week. I want to thank you for your page. I have anxiety and limited delusions around death, so spending months slowly normalizing death and building myself towards death positivity has let me mourn my grandma, but also think about what happened without having a total breakdown.

So thank you.

[ruthandjoebarrett]

Years ago we visited a Veterinarian in Eastern Germany who had a display case with skulls. From a little one from a mouse up to a human skull. He proudly said, "That is the skull of my Grandmother!"

[davidshi]

The most surprising thing I learned is that Chef Boyardee was, like, an actually person, not a mascot. The More You Know!

[itwasagoodideaatthetime]

So *that's* how you get a head in this world. 🤣 💀

[trinelangohr]

Oh yeah, the Chinese pauper bones. I remember when I studied anthropology, we had this one small female skeletton in the lab, and one of the students one day asked the professor half-jokingly if he knew who that skeletton used to be. He looked that student dead in the eye and said:

"Well, considering the amalgam-filled molars and how petite she was, and that she's been here since about 1970 - she's probably from the Vietnam war. We used to get a lot of Vietnam war victims in the 70s."

Complete silence in the room. It was some time before anyone laughed again in that seminar.

[saltpepperketchup]

When my mom died my brother and I were discussing cremation and the funeral director asked if we had plans for spreading her ashes. My brother said he might sprinkle over the treetops out of an airplane. The director warned us that any moisture that makes contact with the ashes will turn it into a solid heavy brick, which if dropped from a plane, well, could have bad results if anyone on the ground was to receive impact. He apologized because he chuckled a little while explaining that scenario.