Celestis, the memorial spaceflight program for cremated remains, recently lost its spacecraft from the Perseverence flight and the 166 cremated remains and/or human DNA carried with it.  This article from MSN states that the remains “. . . have now been spread across the Pacific Ocean after a malfunction caused the recovery capsule’s parachute to fail.”

Interestingly enough Celestis, which has successfully launched and kept orbiting flights for over 20 years, was operating Perseverance as its first flight to return from orbit and offer relatives the ability to reclaim remains that had been in orbit.  All other previous flights through Celestis have, at least from what I can find out, been intended to remain in permanent orbit.

The following statement appears from Celestis co-founder and CEO Charles M. Chafer on the Celestis website:

The Perseverance Flight carrying the ashes and DNA of 166 participants successfully launched and reached orbit today, Monday, June 23, 2025 aboard The Exploration Company’s Nyx Mission Possible spacecraft. 

The spacecraft completed two orbits around Earth, meeting our criteria for a successful Earth Orbit service, and then initiated its return trajectory, as planned, to complete the Earth Rise service intended. However, we regret to share that an anomaly occurred and the vehicle was lost shortly after re-entry; the root cause is under investigation, resulting in the Nyx capsule impacting the Pacific Ocean and dispersing its contents at sea. 

As a result of this unforeseen event, we believe that we will not be able to recover or return the flight capsules aboard. We share in the disappointment of our families, and we offer our sincerest gratitude for their trust. While there were many successful milestones achieved – launch, orbit, and controlled reentry – this was the first Celestis mission designed to return from orbit, and we recognize the bravery and ambition it required from all involved. We also recognize that no technical achievement replaces the profound personal meaning this service holds for our families. 

In the coming days, our team will reach out to each family individually to offer support and discuss possible next steps. Though we currently believe that we cannot return the flight capsules, we hope families will find some peace in knowing their loved ones were part of a historic journey, launched into space, orbited Earth, and are now resting in the vastness of the Pacific, akin to a traditional and honored sea scattering. We remain committed to serving with transparency, compassion, and care.

According to the Celestis website which you can access here, the cost of this memorialization started at $3,495.  Other options listed on the website range from $4,995 to $12,995.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  There are many ways to memorialize a loved one and Celestis is one of the growing options available.  It’s unfortunate that this accident happened, but as we have experienced as Americans, technological issues on space flights cannot be taken for granted.

I’m one that hopes this incident does not set Celestis back.   While burial of the dead with cemetery memorialization was once the almost universally chosen option for humans, I’m of the opinion that the growing number of memorialization options, such as Celestis, Parting Stone, Eterneva, Natural Organic Reduction, and others, offer grief and memorialization solutions for those who believe in something other than earth burial.

It is that growing choice and options that, in my opinion, will give more and more meaning to Memorialization as time moves on.  And, I’m also of the opinion that more meaning to Memorialization will bring greater emphasis and revenue to the growing Death Care community.

More news from the world of Death Care:

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

Like many I learned of the death of Minnesota funeral home owner and operator William L. McReavy, Sr. on Christmas Day.

Here is Legacy.com’s announcement of that event.

The Washburn-McReavy brand goes back to the year 1857 in Minnesota which happens to be one year before Minnesota became a state.  Like many generational family firms still in business the brand started as a furniture manufacturer in Minneapolis who were many times tasked with the job of building a coffin for the deceased.

William L. McReavy, Sr.

William L. McReavy, Sr, age 92, took over the one-roof firm, near the edge of the University of Minnesota campus at the tender age of 17 when his father died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1949.  In 1963, McReavy made his first aquisition. . . today the company has 18 facilities in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market and is still family operated.

Here is the website of today’s Washburn-McReavy Funeral Homes.

An incredible mentor:  You can get the facts on the man I will always call “Mr. McReavy” from lots of places, but you will only get my feelings about the man here.

You see, and I’ve mentioned this in Funeral Director Daily before, at age 19 my father died of a sudden heart attack and if our generational funeral home was to go on it was up to me to carry on.  I had enrolled at the University of Minnesota and, eventually, like a lot of mortuary science students, I looked for a funeral home apartment to live in to save money, and learn part of the business, while going to school.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Turns out, that probably one of the luckiest days of my life was when three of us mortuary students secured an apartment at the Washburn-McReavy “Southeast location”.  Eventually, Mr. McReavy met me and while he never told me, I think he put 2 + 2 together and realized I was starting in the business much like he had — a young son of a deceased owner who was a little scared of what the future held for me.

I did what all students did — answered phones, went on death calls, washed the automobile fleet (over and over and over), but was also fortunate that Mr. McReavy kept his office in the Southeast location. . . and, as busy as he was, told me “If you ever need to talk about school or the funeral business, just come up to my office and we will visit.” . . . . I took him up on those offers and learned invaluable lessons, not only about the funeral business. . . but about life.

I owned and operated our small rural family business for 35 years and much of what I did to build business was modeled after the successful McReavy innovations at his business – the largest funeral home operation in the state.  One of the things I learned was about “building a brand”.  When Mr. McReavy bought a funeral home, the exterior was always remodeled to look like the other company facilities with a unique logo on the building. . . . Also, he had a distinctive look with his vehicles — they were all white in a day when hearses were always black.

One of the first things I did was develop a unique logo for our brand. . . a logo that is still in use today.  And, I put a distinctive look on our vehicles — they were all basic black but I added gold pinstriping to all of them so they stood out from other black vehicles.

There was so much I learned from Mr. McReavy that I know I would not have been as successful as I was without him.

And in kind of an odd twist of fate I kind of feel like I got to pay him back in some small measure in the later years.  Mr. and Mrs. McReavy were big fans and benefactors to the University of Minnesota and as fate would have it I was selected by the Minnesota Legislature to serve on the Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota and it made Mr. McReavy so proud to finally have a funeral director serve on that board. . . a school which offers a 4-year degree in Mortuary Science through the University’s Medical School.

Because of that position, Mr. McReavy and I got to see each other at football games and hockey games and University fund-raising events and even in his advancing age he loved talking the “funeral business”.

I’m very fortunate because a lot of people have been very good to me over the years, but as I told Mr. McReavy’s son and daughter in a text message on Christmas Day, “Nobody has been more kind to me than your father”.

Funeral service has lost one of our pioneers — May God Bless the memory of William L. McReavy, Sr.

Related —  William and Kay McReavy receive the University of Minnesota’s Highest Honor

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

It’s hard enough growing up in today’s world. So many choices, and so many come too soon, it takes both parents focusing hard on a child’s well-being to help them navigate the 21

st

century speed of life. Things our parents never expected us to have to think about at age 11 or age 15 are things they now encounter in their daily choices years sooner.

When a child experiences the loss of a parent due to their sudden passing or as the result of a lingering illness, they have a limited amount of understanding and resilience about how to be strong in the face of adversity and true pain. One of two constants in their lives that they counted on from their beginning is now, suddenly, gone, never to be seen again.

At any point in childhood, the means of coping with a parent’s death depends on three things: a) a faith structure of the family, b) the role of other adults in their lives, and c) the age that the child has to accept the parent’s passing and ability to cope.

The younger the child, the easier the acceptance comes that either Mom or Dad is not here anymore. Sometimes the loss of a parent by divorce is the same as when they pass away if that other parent is no longer going to be a part of the child’s life anymore. Until a real routine gets established, whether it is beginning at kindergarten age and ritual of daily life goes on, or whether in infancy, the absence or presence of one more person going in or out of the life pattern you know is simply a change.

As a child gets older and develops a long-term personal identification and relationship with the person named Mom and Dad and identifies with that person as “theirs,” then that serious bonding has been creating that sets up as a real loss when one of those key people in their life is gone. In fortunate situations, grandparents and aunts and uncles also play key roles in the daily presence of children’s lives to the extent that a child’s world is changed drastically or minimally.

Rationalizing the absence of a parent is a coping mechanism that children use to get through day-to-day life. Emotionally speaking, the absence of a parent is something that a primary surviving parent cannot make up for as if the loss does not seem real. However, the sincerity of love can fill the void of their loss. It’s not a matter of having to double up to make it “not matter” that the other person is not there.

In fact, it is important to acknowledge the loss to that child, from the very beginning of the time where they can understand that there is a loss. Photographs of the missing parent, with the child, help that child to know there was another person in their life who loved them very much. And to understand that the person is no longer there, not because they didn’t want to be, but instead because they could not impact their leaving, is important. The presence of other family members and extended family can also help to fill in information gaps, to teach a child how much they are indeed like that “other parent” in the way they look, or sound, or speak, or are kind, or are talented in one area or another.

In life, we all build a self-image and self-concept based on a series of benchmarks that we see and that we like about ourselves and others. We emulate the good things we see about other people, and we reject things we see that we don’t like. Each of us is an amalgamation of faith and experiences that give us a playbook of things we pick and choose for our own lives when we are of age to make those decisions.

For the sake of closure, if a child loses a parent before the age of 21, there should be a ceremony, formal or informal, in a church or in a funeral home, or offsite on family property, where tribute is paid to the life of the person who was an integral means of bringing that child into the world. Some women die in childbirth, others have chronic diseases that take them away from their family too soon, others can die in a freak accident. Here today, gone tomorrow, with no time to prepare for a loss. In any setting, studies have shown the importance of acknowledging that absence as a true loss.

Some parents choose to skip having a formal funeral because they can barely deal with the grief themselves. They don’t want to be surrounded by people who are trying to comfort them because it makes the loss all the more real to them, and that’s a pain they are not prepared to handle. If you have family members like that, it helps to encourage them to go ahead with a ceremony or service of passage, to begin closure for their child, if not for themselves. Otherwise, there is a continuing sense of “something missing” that the child cannot put their finger on, but they know they didn’t have what others did.

Especially in these days when teenagers are in school with children, who for one tragic reason or another, a parent takes their own life, and the parent who sat to their parents in school assemblies is no longer there every day—there’s a loss that a classmate can relate to with their classmate.

That same parent they may have seen on campus dropping off their classmate for eight consecutive years, that they thought they knew, generally if not well, is gone. A ceremony helps with closure, and in fact, having many children who are friends or even acquaintances of that child can bring a classmate comfort just to see. Hearing from them that they liked or cared deeply about your parent is important, as it validates that they lived.

In cases where someone was harder to get to know or more of a loner, it helps a child to hear that that child’s classmate is sorry for their loss…the life they knew, if even briefly, counted. It cannot be emphasized enough how closure is the prelude to healing when a child loses a parent. Saying that parent’s name out loud, even if preceded with Mrs. Nolan or Mr. Everly or whatever their name, brings a vivid memory back to life.

For a mature child, from high school age to full adult, one published resource is “

” by Edward Myers. Although the book was revised and updated as long ago as 1997, frankly, it remains one of the most logical and practical ways of identifying and coping with all of the variety of emotions and feelings that come over you when that most important person, either by omission or commission in your lifetime with them, is gone. Things left unsaid. Advice not given. Memories not shared. Wisdom not recorded. These are areas of regret that come about when the child/adult is unprepared for the parent’s imminent absence from their daily life.

If a parent is aware that their days on earth are coming to an end, one thing you can do now, today, while you are able, is to write letters, leave notes, make voice recordings, use your phone to save many videos for your loved ones to have when you are no longer here. The gifts you leave like that can be saved back for your loved ones’ special occasions, such as high school graduation, college graduation, future/ultimate weddings, birth of a child, etc. That is something that will also bring someone comfort who finds their lifetime coming to an end more quickly than they had imagined.

Remembering and acknowledging the birthday of a friend’s parent or the anniversary of their passing (at least for the first few years) is also key to helping the grieving child cope. Saying it out loud, that “this is the day” of birth or death helps cement that yes, it is real, and yes, it is sad, but yes, it means that there was an amazing, special person they knew who created a series of memories and shared experiences together with that child that can replayed in their mind. Familiarity and repetition make an impact, eventually. Time brings healing. Time brings smiles where there were once tears. And your patience and ongoing, continuing friendship to your friends who have lost parents will make a difference that only you can make.

For the companion parent, there will eventually be a time when their life and daily routine will change. The process of possibly introducing a second parental figure into a marriage will happen and as long as the child knows that their birth parent will always be remembered and regarded will help ease the pain of what they can easily misconstrue as “taking mom’s or dad’s place,” when in fact no one can take the place of a person you loved who has died. You can add someone into your heart, but no one takes that other person’s place—ever. It takes time and experience to understand that, of course. We all do the best we can when there is a loss. The best case solution for a child who loses a parent, though, is persistence and patience in just simply being there for your friends and family. Friends you know who have been through this process can be a valued asset, so be sure to talk to them for advice if they are willing to share.

Cody D. Jones ‘02

Owner & Community Member

It’s hard enough growing up in today’s world. So many choices, and so many come too soon, it takes both parents focusing hard on a child’s well-being to help them navigate the 21^st century speed of life. Things our parents never expected us to have to think about at age 11 or age 15 are things they now encounter in their daily choices years sooner.

When a child experiences the loss of a parent due to their sudden passing or as the result of a lingering illness, they have a limited amount of understanding and resilience about how to be strong in the face of adversity and true pain. One of two constants in their lives that they counted on from their beginning is now, suddenly, gone, never to be seen again.

At any point in childhood, the means of coping with a parent’s death depends on three things: a) a faith structure of the family, b) the role of other adults in their lives, and c) the age that the child has to accept the parent’s passing and ability to cope.

The younger the child, the easier the acceptance comes that either Mom or Dad is not here anymore. Sometimes the loss of a parent by divorce is the same as when they pass away if that other parent is no longer going to be a part of the child’s life anymore. Until a real routine gets established, whether it is beginning at kindergarten age and ritual of daily life goes on, or whether in infancy, the absence or presence of one more person going in or out of the life pattern you know is simply a change.

As a child gets older and develops a long-term personal identification and relationship with the person named Mom and Dad and identifies with that person as “theirs,” then that serious bonding has been creating that sets up as a real loss when one of those key people in their life is gone. In fortunate situations, grandparents and aunts and uncles also play key roles in the daily presence of children’s lives to the extent that a child’s world is changed drastically or minimally.

Rationalizing the absence of a parent is a coping mechanism that children use to get through day-to-day life. Emotionally speaking, the absence of a parent is something that a primary surviving parent cannot make up for as if the loss does not seem real. However, the sincerity of love can fill the void of their loss. It’s not a matter of having to double up to make it “not matter” that the other person is not there.

In fact, it is important to acknowledge the loss to that child, from the very beginning of the time where they can understand that there is a loss. Photographs of the missing parent, with the child, help that child to know there was another person in their life who loved them very much. And to understand that the person is no longer there, not because they didn’t want to be, but instead because they could not impact their leaving, is important. The presence of other family members and extended family can also help to fill in information gaps, to teach a child how much they are indeed like that “other parent” in the way they look, or sound, or speak, or are kind, or are talented in one area or another.

In life, we all build a self-image and self-concept based on a series of benchmarks that we see and that we like about ourselves and others. We emulate the good things we see about other people, and we reject things we see that we don’t like. Each of us is an amalgamation of faith and experiences that give us a playbook of things we pick and choose for our own lives when we are of age to make those decisions.

For the sake of closure, if a child loses a parent before the age of 21, there should be a ceremony, formal or informal, in a church or in a funeral home, or offsite on family property, where tribute is paid to the life of the person who was an integral means of bringing that child into the world. Some women die in childbirth, others have chronic diseases that take them away from their family too soon, others can die in a freak accident. Here today, gone tomorrow, with no time to prepare for a loss. In any setting, studies have shown the importance of acknowledging that absence as a true loss.

Some parents choose to skip having a formal funeral because they can barely deal with the grief themselves. They don’t want to be surrounded by people who are trying to comfort them because it makes the loss all the more real to them, and that’s a pain they are not prepared to handle. If you have family members like that, it helps to encourage them to go ahead with a ceremony or service of passage, to begin closure for their child, if not for themselves. Otherwise, there is a continuing sense of “something missing” that the child cannot put their finger on, but they know they didn’t have what others did.

Especially in these days when teenagers are in school with children, who for one tragic reason or another, a parent takes their own life, and the parent who sat to their parents in school assemblies is no longer there every day—there’s a loss that a classmate can relate to with their classmate.

That same parent they may have seen on campus dropping off their classmate for eight consecutive years, that they thought they knew, generally if not well, is gone. A ceremony helps with closure, and in fact, having many children who are friends or even acquaintances of that child can bring a classmate comfort just to see. Hearing from them that they liked or cared deeply about your parent is important, as it validates that they lived.

In cases where someone was harder to get to know or more of a loner, it helps a child to hear that that child’s classmate is sorry for their loss…the life they knew, if even briefly, counted. It cannot be emphasized enough how closure is the prelude to healing when a child loses a parent. Saying that parent’s name out loud, even if preceded with Mrs. Nolan or Mr. Everly or whatever their name, brings a vivid memory back to life.

For a mature child, from high school age to full adult, one published resource is “When Parents Die: A Guide for Adults” by Edward Myers. Although the book was revised and updated as long ago as 1997, frankly, it remains one of the most logical and practical ways of identifying and coping with all of the variety of emotions and feelings that come over you when that most important person, either by omission or commission in your lifetime with them, is gone. Things left unsaid. Advice not given. Memories not shared. Wisdom not recorded. These are areas of regret that come about when the child/adult is unprepared for the parent’s imminent absence from their daily life.

If a parent is aware that their days on earth are coming to an end, one thing you can do now, today, while you are able, is to write letters, leave notes, make voice recordings, use your phone to save many videos for your loved ones to have when you are no longer here. The gifts you leave like that can be saved back for your loved ones’ special occasions, such as high school graduation, college graduation, future/ultimate weddings, birth of a child, etc. That is something that will also bring someone comfort who finds their lifetime coming to an end more quickly than they had imagined.

Remembering and acknowledging the birthday of a friend’s parent or the anniversary of their passing (at least for the first few years) is also key to helping the grieving child cope. Saying it out loud, that “this is the day” of birth or death helps cement that yes, it is real, and yes, it is sad, but yes, it means that there was an amazing, special person they knew who created a series of memories and shared experiences together with that child that can replayed in their mind. Familiarity and repetition make an impact, eventually. Time brings healing. Time brings smiles where there were once tears. And your patience and ongoing, continuing friendship to your friends who have lost parents will make a difference that only you can make.

For the companion parent, there will eventually be a time when their life and daily routine will change. The process of possibly introducing a second parental figure into a marriage will happen and as long as the child knows that their birth parent will always be remembered and regarded will help ease the pain of what they can easily misconstrue as “taking mom’s or dad’s place,” when in fact no one can take the place of a person you loved who has died. You can add someone into your heart, but no one takes that other person’s place—ever. It takes time and experience to understand that, of course. We all do the best we can when there is a loss. The best case solution for a child who loses a parent, though, is persistence and patience in just simply being there for your friends and family. Friends you know who have been through this process can be a valued asset, so be sure to talk to them for advice if they are willing to share.

Cody D. Jones ‘02

Owner & Community Member