People Keep Loved Ones’ Ashes Close in Special Jewelry, Small Urns as Unique Way to Memorialize Them

By Yukako Oishi / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

18:33 JST, November 29, 2025

With the increase in nuclear families, there is a growing interest in a more personal form of memorializing loved ones, in which people keep a small portion of someone’s ashes close to them.

The market now offers a variety of containers for this purpose, including jewelry and small urns that hold cremated ashes.

“Having this pendant makes me feel like my father is always close to me,” said a 44-year-old woman in Yokohama who cherishes a pendant containing a portion of her father’s ashes.

About 10 years ago, when her father died suddenly, she bought the pendant for herself and one for her mother. She usually keeps it safely tucked away and only wears it on special occasions, such as family events.

Since her father’s grave is located far away, she said: “I might have to consider closing the grave someday. It means a great deal to me to have my father’s ashes physically with me.”

In-home memorialization is a method of honoring the deceased by keeping their cremated remains in a nearby location, such as one’s residence.

According to Memorial Art Ohnoya Inc., a leading funeral service company in Tokyo, the recent trend is to place the main portion of the ashes in a grave, while retaining a small amount in a miniature urn or similar vessel.

Since 2010, the company has offered its “Soul Series,” which includes jewelry and urns to hold cremated ashes. To date, the series has sold more than 200,000 units, with significant sales growth in 2023 reaching about 5.5 times the amount sold in 2011. While the main buyers are women in their 40s and 50s, the number of male customers is also growing.

Ryoko Yanagida, who oversees planning for the series, explains that the reasons for purchasing such items are diverse. “Some customers select jewelry because they wish to keep their loved one close to them at all times, while others prefer a small urn for their home because visiting a traditional grave is difficult,” she said.

Recently, with the increasing trend of scattering ashes, some people are keeping a portion of their loved one’s ashes close to them instead of having a traditional grave.

In July, a 46-year-old woman in Tokyo, for example, scattered her mother’s ashes in the ocean, fulfilling her mother’s wish. However, she felt it would be sad to lose all of the ashes. So, she placed a small amount of the ashes in a small urn in her living room.

She offers her mother tea and talks to her every day. “It makes me feel like I’m living with my mother,” she said.

House Boat Club Co., a Tokyo-based company that conducts ocean ash scattering, offers in-home memorialization as an option when explaining the process.

About 10% to 15% of people who sign up to scatter ashes also request the in-home memorialization option. Before scattering, the ashes are powdered, and a small portion is set aside and given to the family.

The diversification of household altars is also a factor behind the increasing variety of memorialization methods. For example, Gendai-Butsudan Co. in Osaka, a designer and retailer of modern altars and Buddhist ritual items, said that urns made of glass or ceramic are a popular choice.

“In the past, people purchased complete sets of altars and ritual items according to the beliefs of their temple or sect,” said the manager of the company’s Gallery Memoria Tokyo Nihombashi store. “Now, however, more people are combining items to match their home’s interior, and small urns have become a popular choice.”

Tetsu Yoshizumi, the editor-in-chief of Gekkan Shukatsu, a monthly magazine published by Kamakura Shinsho, which provides end-of-life services, said that the societal shift toward nuclear families has diminished the custom of inheriting ancestral graves and altars.

“However, the emotional need to cherish and remember deceased family members — be they parents or spouses — remains,” he noted. “This individual approach to memorialization may be a direct result of that sentiment.”

According to Yoshizumi, there are no legal issues or specific rules regarding in-home memorialization. However, families need to discuss what will happen to the ashes after the person who holds them dies.

If the family later decides to place the ashes in a grave, they may need a certificate of bone division, so he recommends checking with the temple or cemetery in advance.