Till death do us part? Hardly.

With this ring, I thee wed. With this other ring, I commemorate the life we lived together. Ashes to ashes, dust to diamonds.

‘Algordanza’ means remembrance in Romansh, a language spoken in the Swiss alps — specifically by the owner of the like-named company that turns the ashes of your cremated loved ones into diamonds.

The ashes produced from an average-sized human is usually around 5.5 pounds. From that, somewhere around 0.2 grams of carbon is extracted. For between $5,000 – $20,000, that carbon can be compressed into a diamond and sent to the grieving family. The finished product can be placed into jewelry, such as a ring or a necklace, and is delivered in a beautiful polished wooden box. Inside the box is a pyramid-shaped stand on which the jewelry rests on display.

“It’s a very emotional moment when you are returning a family member,” Rinaldo Willy told The Atlantic last year. “The diamonds always bring back beautiful memories. If there are tears, they are tears of happiness.”

Perhaps most peculiar is the fact that the diamonds take on a color all their own. The hue of the finished product is determined by elements present in the deceased’s ashes. For example, false teeth, metal bone and joint replacements, even chemotherapy can affect the final color of the diamond. If the ashes contained excess amounts of nitrogen, the diamond will be yellow; a blue diamond is a result of a significant amount of boron, while an excess of boron yields a black diamond.

In order to visit a loved one’s final resting place, one usually has to head to the cemetery which may or may not even be in the same town (or state) as the mourning. Other times, paying respects means eyeballing an urn on the mantle here and there and perhaps sharing a word of grievance. The process of turning a loved one’s remains into a diamond takes the somber association of cemetery dirt and sooty ash and gives it a more positive association. Algordanza.ch