Sandy Gibson remembers that his mother thought about the end of her life a lot.

When he was 5, his mother found out she had terminal cancer. She was only 39 years old.

"My mom grew up in a very religious family, and she'd ask, 'Why would God do this to me?'" said Gibson. "Why would she have a 5-year-old and an 8-year-old and have a terminal illness?"

One year before his mother passed away — when Gibson was 10 years old — his father died of complications due to a stroke. For most of his life, Gibson never wanted to visit that site where his parents were buried.

"It never felt like the right place for them," he said.

His personal experience with loss is, in part, what inspired Gibson to co-found Better Place Forests — an alternative to cemeteries, where families can claim a redwood tree as a grave marker and scatter their loved one's ashes.

The company currently has two locations in California — Point Arena and Santa Cruz — and is hoping to expand to locations in Oregon, Colorado, Arizona and Washington.

According to Gibson, scattering remains at Better Place Forests involves two rituals. First, selecting a tree. Families come to the forest together to decide which section of the forest speaks to them.

"Because while it's in a 20-acre forest, you might have 50 different sections that feel very different," Gibson explained. "It might be that the birds live in one section, or the fact that rhododendrons are in another."

Choosing a tree also involves deciding if you want to be scattered alone, or with your pets and family members. Better Place offers five different tree options with varying scattering rights.

Once the tree is selected, the second ritual is the spreading ceremony, where family members gather to scatter the ashes.

As part of the experience, Better Place takes the cremains and mixes them with local soil to rebalance the pH.

"That's very important because it's the bacteria in the soil that's going to break down the bone ash to become nutrients for the forest floor," explained Gibson. "That's what starts the cycle of life with that bacteria. And that can only live and thrive in a properly balanced soil mixture."

After the ashes are prepared, a member of Better Place Forests walks with the family to their chosen tree to perform the service.

"We perform the ceremony where they watch the ashes be returned to the earth and remixed with that soil and then be re-covered. Then we spread wildflower seeds, and the family participates in watering the area around the tree," said Gibson.

Scattering ashes in forests or other scenic locations is not a new idea. But California has strict laws on where this can be legally performed.

According to the Health and Safety Code, cremated human remains can be scattered only in places where "no local prohibition exists," as long as they're not "visible to the public."

Those doing the scattering must also obtain written permission from the property owner — be that a private landowner or governing agency.

But the California Cemetery and Funeral Bureau (CFB) warns that scattering cremains on private property doesn't guarantee that a family will always be able to return and visit.

"... as time goes on property status may change. If the consumers' goal is to return to a site to visit their loved ones over the years or decades, they may want to consider a licensed cemetery," said the agency in a statement.

Gibson says the creation of this new option for burial has helped him deal with some of his personal trauma.

"It's all about creating a ritual that connects you to a sense of place," said Gibson. "It's the opposite of my experience. It's the opposite of trying to think about my mother and thinking of a black tombstone. It's thinking about your husband or your father or your mother and thinking about this beautiful place that's full of life."