A year after Will and Daniel Payne lost their mom, and nearly two decades since their father's death, it was time to follow their wishes for the afterlife. As they board a boat with three generations of family, the brothers slip into flippers and de-fog their masks. Will, who became a certified scuba diver just days earlier, checks his oxygen tank and jumps into the azure waters to secure a concrete marker mixed with their ashes at a memorial reef about three miles out to sea. This unusual resting place is exactly what the Paynes say their parents wanted. Buel Payne, a former Coast Guard member, and Linda Payne, who grew up on the water and loved boating, will spend their afterlife in a memorial modeled after the lost city of Atlantis, among impressive lion statues and ornate gates and pillars that encrusted with sea life.

Finding life in the afterlife at coral reef cemetery. (2018, August 9). The Philippine Star, p. B6.