Now what?
So I'm stuck. There's that adage that those who love us never truly leave us and then there are the remnants of the hope that death is an finality and the end is the end is the end. Fifteen months later and I'm finding it hard to hold onto both or either of those.
Our beloved family friend asked where we had put Heather's ashes. (She's on a bookcase shelf in her lavender bedroom in a ticky-tacky maroon velvet bag provided by the mortuary. I am in the process of designing a purple knit bag for the box to correct the situation. Ghastly color maroon!) This friend advised that the remains would be best interred elsewhere with other remains in a memorial park perhaps.
My thought is that well, she's here. At home where she belongs.
Dad sniffed out one of his most blunt responses, that despite being five words was as touching as he gets: "Wherever we go, she goes." and that does seem about right. My thought is that in my own case, part of myself will go with Mum and the other with the Steven and why wouldn't Heather have wanted to be with those she loved best?
This experience has been so filled with horror, that I am relieved that when I go to the parents house I go in her room to make sure she's right where she ought to be, to have simple affection for what had been a person now reduced down to a dust catching object in a very temporary ugly bag. I miss her.
Our family will not recover from this and I can't pretend to comprehend the magnitude of despair of my parents, particularly Mum, who deserves this ache least of all. What kind of god would do that to a mother?
So. Now what?
Our beloved family friend asked where we had put Heather's ashes. (She's on a bookcase shelf in her lavender bedroom in a ticky-tacky maroon velvet bag provided by the mortuary. I am in the process of designing a purple knit bag for the box to correct the situation. Ghastly color maroon!) This friend advised that the remains would be best interred elsewhere with other remains in a memorial park perhaps.
My thought is that well, she's here. At home where she belongs.
Dad sniffed out one of his most blunt responses, that despite being five words was as touching as he gets: "Wherever we go, she goes." and that does seem about right. My thought is that in my own case, part of myself will go with Mum and the other with the Steven and why wouldn't Heather have wanted to be with those she loved best?
This experience has been so filled with horror, that I am relieved that when I go to the parents house I go in her room to make sure she's right where she ought to be, to have simple affection for what had been a person now reduced down to a dust catching object in a very temporary ugly bag. I miss her.
Our family will not recover from this and I can't pretend to comprehend the magnitude of despair of my parents, particularly Mum, who deserves this ache least of all. What kind of god would do that to a mother?
So. Now what?
Comments
My parents' ashes are spread in outdoorsy places we/they loved including the family firepit, the gravel floor of Dad's shed and the farm where my Mom grew up. It brings me comfort.
Hang in there. Much love your way from MN.