'I know that he's with me': Orange County widow turns husband's ashes into diamond ring

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — These days, Lori Deveau-Diem enjoys every moment she can get with her grandchildren.

As the Orange County grandmother of 10 starts 2019, her late husband can be there for all the big moments.

“His number one thing in life was his grandchildren,” Deveau-Diem said. “He waited a long time to get children, and they kept coming, and kept coming, and kept coming.”

In 2017, her husband John Diem was on a plane to an educator's conference in Las Vegas when he suffered a heart attack. An Orlando doctor on board tried to save the longtime Orange County Public Schools teacher, but he didn't survive. WFTV Channel 9 reported at the time on Diem's death.

Also read:
'No thoughts of giving up': Doctor describes effort to save teacher who had heart attack on plane

“I relive it all the time,” his widow says.

Months before he died, John told Lori he didn’t want to be buried six feet underground. Nor did he want his ashes to sit on a shelf.

“He said, ‘I want you to turn me into a diamond so that you can have me with you every day – all the rest of your life, until we meet again.’ And that was John. That was just John,” Lori said.

That’s where Adelle Archer comes into the story. The company she co-founded, Eterneva, pulled the carbon from John’s ashes, broke it down into very fine powder, and then mined it in a machine.

“They apply high pressure, high temperature, basically the same conditions as the earth,” Archer said. “That carbon starts crystallizing on top of the diamond seed and over time grows into a raw diamond.”

Then they cut, polish, grade and certify the diamonds.

“Customers [come] back and tell us, ‘You have changed my relationship to my grief,’” Archer said. “That just blew us away.”

The process to have your loved one's ashes turned into diamond can cost anywhere from $2,400 to $16,000. The company said it can also mine pet remains into diamonds.

After about 10 months, John came back to Lori in more than a carat, and a shade of blue that matched his eyes.

“I was just at peace. I felt like this is right,” said Lori, who used diamonds from both her wedding ring and her husband’s in a new ring with John’s stone in the center.

“It connects to my heart instantly,” Lori said. “I know that he’s with me. That he’s watching over me.”