ashes to ashes

[bronze_ribbons]

Earlier today, I got to thinking about the different post-cremation containers I've seen over the past six years. My dad's ashes were packaged in what felt like a heavy fiberglass brick wrapped neatly in brown kraft paper. I seem to recall covering it with a bouquet of white flowers for the service, but it was long enough ago that I no longer remember the exact details.

The urns for the Cathedral columbarium are metal and sort of multi-agonal (I can't remember if it's pent-, hex-, or oct-); they come wrapped in packing paper, in cartons of six or eight, and when a parishioner dies, someone from the funeral home collects an empty container. They bring it back with the ashes inside, sometimes in a deep purple or crimson velvet bag, and it sits on the altar covered with a linen pall for the service.

Some containers are simpler; others even more ornate. Some mourners want nothing to do with the remains at all.

I don't remember specifying what I wanted for Bat's ashes, other than asking about the process (e.g., would the clinic handle it). I may have said something like, "And I'll pick up the box later?" In any case, they did an excellent job of mind-reading, because the small cedar casket (about the size of a mini-loaf pan) I picked up this afternoon was exactly what I would have requested. It has a brass latch on it; looped through the latch, a small gold-colored lock with two tiny silver keys. The bottom panel inside of the box is lined with a reddish-purple swatch of velveteen.

The ashes are in a Ziploc freezer bag with a purple sealing stripe. Her name, the date of cremation, and the initials of the crematorium employee are scrawled on the bag in black marker. The ashes take up less than 1/7 of the bag (which is kind of a relief, frankly, because my copy of the multi-purpose cremation order also listed someone else's 55-pound dog in the "general cremation" section, and while it ultimately won't matter, right now it does). I just weighed them on my kitchen scale and they add up to 5 3/8 ounces. (During her healthiest years, Bat was between ten-twelve pounds. Her body weighed less than five pounds when the vet filled out the cremation order.)

The grains are the colors of pale sand, for the most part. Some of them are as fine as confectioner's sugar, and some of them larger, like bits of aquarium gravel.

Afte returning the unopened cans of food and picking up the cedar box, I drove to the Humane Association and dropped off the last items: her carrier, her litter boxes, and her sproingy wire-and-paper toy. I'd teared up a bit in the clinic parking lot but had pulled myself together before heading to NHA; I was sort of okay until a friend caught sight of me -- instead of being able to say why I was there, I started crying instead. Fortunately, he's a good guy: he quickly hugged me and let me flee.

Oh, I miss her. I knew I would. It's a shade tempting to turn the ashes into a paperweight, since that's how she often functioned when she was alive (that, or a padded forearm-rest), For now, I'm just going to put the chest on the bookcase that doubles as my nightstand; she slept on the bed with us, so it's not as if her absence doesn't hit me every night anyhow. (She also liked batting loose pencils off of said bookcase. Maybe I should turn the daft beast into a pencil-holder.)

Comments

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

The ashes of my mother-in-law's beloved cat Boots are in a small tea-tin atop the microwave. He's been there since the fall when he died.

I am desperately glad that someone alerted me to this fact before the first time I made tea in her house after his passing. *wry grin*

May the Source of Peace bring you comfort, in time, as you mourn your beastie.

[qrssama.livejournal.com]

*hug* She was such a good kitty.