The Sunday Mail, 25th July 2005

LIZZIE Grist always thought her husband Bob was a bit of a rough diamond.

The couple were married for 23 years and after Bob, 52, died suddenly of an aneurism 18 months ago, Mrs Grist could not decide what to do with his ashes.

So when she found out that she could have a diamond made from his remains, it felt like the right thing to do.

Daughter Katie, 22, and sons Chris, 20 and John, 16, agreed.

"They loved the idea of him being in a diamond – he was a diamond of a man – a rough diamond," said Mrs Grist, from the Brisbane suburb of Lota.

Mrs Grist, 45, has paid $7000 to have an almost half-carat yellow princess-cut diamond created by LifeGem, a United States company.

The carbon from the ashes is converted to graphite under extreme heat, then placed in a diamond press where a rough crystal is formed. The diamond is then cut and polished.

When she receives the gem in a few months, Mrs Grist will have it made into a ring created from the couple's wedding rings and her eternity ring.

Mrs Grist said her children had not wanted their father's ashes scattered, and she could not bring herself to bury them or keep them in an urn.

"This will incorporate him, spiritually as well as physically," she said.

"I can carry him with me."

Mr Grist died a week after the couple's wedding anniversary, two days before his birthday and a week before Christmas 2003.

The couple met on a cruise in the South China Sea, on the Fairstar, in 1978.

The romance began after the mid-year cruise, and she and Bob, who lived in Newcastle in NSW, were married 18 months later.

"We had a wonderful life," Mrs Grist said. "He was a big, hairy bear of a man.

"He looked extremely gruff, but he was really quite a pussycat.

"Bob was a very earthy, very warm, very loving man."

Mrs Grist knew she had made the right decision when she told her mother-in-law about the diamond at Easter and she said: "He would have really liked that."

The hardest part was sending off a cupful of her husband's ashes to LifeGem's Australian agent, Bunurong Memorial Park, at Dandenong South in Victoria.

The diamonds are available in yellow, blue and orange-red, and the carat size ranges from 0.25 to 1.3.

Eight Australians so far have ordered or received diamonds made from ashes, and the memorial park's client services manager Michelle Sabau says there have been many inquiries from Queensland.

Mrs Grist can hardly wait to get her diamond.

"If anyone says, 'Where did you get that ring?' I'll point to the yellow diamond and say, 'That's my husband'," said Mrs Grist, who is a university law school administrative assistant.

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