'Keep the memory alive': Michigan memorial businesses offer QR codes for headstones

COMSTOCK PARK, Mich. -- Local memorial businesses are offering these QR codes that can be attached to the surface of gravestones and link people who visit the sites with easy access to information on those who are buried and the memories their loved ones want to share.

Seeking to connect with the lives of those who passed, some mourners blending memories of the past with technology of the now, choosing to place QR codes on gravestones.

"It's really a virtual internet presence for a grave site. So, if the customer chooses to activate the minute mark, URL page on the site, it's an opportunity to upload videos, photos, stories. People can visit and leave messages and not visit physically, but can visit virtually," said Patten Monument Group President Andrew Bolt.

Local businesses, like Patten Monument Company in Comstock Park, partnered with memorial code makers, like Monumark, to offer those looking to eternalize their loved ones' memories with a digital database that will give all that visit a chance to know who they were.

"So, it's really just a simple process that people have done many times in their lives, to be able to just enter the information, activate it, upload whatever they want, and it's theirs," Bolt said.

Bolt said the codes offer loved ones the chance to remember and look back on lives well lived.

"Well, it offers them a way to keep the memory alive, a way to have that person's life still be relevant, to still be able to still be able to interact with the memory of that person more easily," Bolt said. "It's just another way to remember and to participate in that person's life with other family members."

These codes aim to connect mourners to memories in the digital age.