Rhona Levy can now rest easy knowing she will go to her eternal rest in a pet cemetery.
The state’s Cemetery Board has decided that human ashes can be buried in Westchester’s Hartsdale Pet Cemetery, where Levy’s dog and cats are already interred.
“I feel great,” said an ecstatic Levy, of The Bronx. “It was sort of like an early Christmas present.”
Levy’s long-held plan to be cremated and buried with her furry friends was thwarted earlier this year when the state ruled that pet cemeteries could not take in people. The ashes of some 700 people were buried in Hartsdale over the years.
The Cemetery Board agreed this week that Hartsdale could continue with the human burials under certain conditions, including not advertising the service and not charging for it.
The board has also proposed regulations that would allow such burials at all the pet cemeteries in the state.
Taylor York said her family is pleased it can finally bury the ashes of her uncle, retired NYPD Officer Thomas Ryan, who died in April. His wife’s ashes, along with those of the couple’s maltese pups, are already at Hartsdale.
“It’s just unfortunate that so many people had to go through this emotional torture these many months while this was being worked out,” she said.