Aaron Jamison Can Now Afford His Own Cremation
Last week we brought you the heartbreaking story of Aaron Jamison, the terminally ill man selling ad space on his cremation urn in order to raise money to keep his wife out of debt. Well, he succeeded.
Aaron's original goal was to raise a mere $800 to pay for his cremation expenses. Based on the feedback I got, I'd guess that he received that much from Gawker readers alone (including the person who emailed me to say, "I just won $273.00 in the NJ lotto. I would donate it all to this guy."). More specifically, a website called Burialinsurance.org donated $800 to Aaron—he tells us the "first $100 went to the urn and remainder purchased advertising on my webpage/blog." Another, weirder ad buyer on Aaron's urn: PETA. Which kept it classy:
PETA will pay $200 for the space on Jamison's urn. The ads will read "I've Kicked the Bucket-Have You? Boycott KFC" and "People Who Buy Purebred Dogs Really Burn Me Up. Always Adopt."
As morbid and just plain fucking bizarre that is, we should note that Aaron is very much in on his own joke, so who are we to say PETA should have just given him the fucking money and left it at that? In any case, Aaron writes that he's "sold enough ads to purchase and paint a third urn, thus covering the cost of cremation and a little extra to pay down on some medical bills." So that portion of his quest is complete (he's still accepting donations). He also scored some tickets to take his wife to the Ellen show, which was one of his wishes. Aaron says he now has about three months to live.
