I collected my father's ashes from the crematorium on Saturday.
He died last March. I organised the funeral - a non-religious ceremony led by a celebrant. I'd thought about raising the issue of whether he wanted to be buried or cremated with him over the last several months of his life, but when I approached the subject, he pushed it away. Other friends of his told me they had asked him about religion (he originated within a Catholic family and milieu) and he had pushed that away too. [Ironically, a woman minister was with him when he died. The palliative care nurse at the nursing home had told me this minister had a great way of simply being with people who were dying. I was happy for her to visit him and she happened to come to see him about ten minutes before his death.]
I felt odd arranging for my father to be cremated. Being Catholics, everyone else in my family - my mother, grandparents, great-aunts - had been buried. I'd always assumed that I would be buried, too, though in recent years I've become more aware of the cost and shortage of cemetery land.
A couple of weeks after the funeral, I received a letter and then a follow-up phone call from the woman who would give me the ashes. I would have to travel out to the crematorium, at the restricted times when she'd be there, to get them. I made a mental note to do that - and didn't. I kept the letter from her on my desk in my 'to do' pile - until about October, when it somehow disappeared. (I have no idea where it is). I then completely forgot about my father's ashes.
A couple of weeks ago I had a phone call from Nigel, who was very camp and friendly and invited me to come and get the ashes. When I prevaricated about the timing of a meeting, his tone shifted to no-nonsense - he would have to dispose of them if they were not collected soon. I promptly agreed to a 9am Saturday appointment.
There was a group of four, middle aged women in the waiting room with me, making nervous jokes. A man in his 70s came out carrying a small paper carry-bag (the type you get from fashion boutiques.) Was it his wife? The woman who followed him out then invited the entire group of women into her office, "for moral support". Nigel then appeared, handsome, gay and friendly, and invited me into his office. He checked some paperwork, asking me what I intended to do with the ashes. Scatter them, I guess. He told me this was illegal (except three kilometres offshore) but that of course people do it, so to be discreet. He subtly tried to sell me a memorial at the crematorium for $660. We discussed the relative merits and costs of gravestones, cemeteries and memorials. I declined to buy one. He then showed me a sample of what the ashes would come in (the urn, I guess, though that word was not mentioned) and explained how to open it. He left the room and came back carrying a small white paper carry-bag, with the ashes vessel inside, topped by my father's coffin plate with his name engraved on it.
"This is heavy, for an 82 year old" said Nigel. I was intrigued. My father was an Irish runt, shorter than me, in his old age. And he had wasted away by the time he died. But I had read somewhere that the ashes are not like ashes - in fact they contain a lot of bone. Perhaps my father had a large skull and that did make the container heavier than usual.
I left and drove home, with the ashes on the passenger seat, where my father had sat many times. When I arrived home, I set them down in the hallway and Olle came eagerly to look: "What's that?" It looked a bit like a present.
Only a few weeks ago I first told Olle about cremation, who until then had thought all dead things were buried. So I told him that Grandad's coffin had been burnt and this was the result. He wanted to look inside but I said that would have to wait till another day. We told him we are going to scatter the ashes in the bush near where Grandad lived - "and then he'll be happy". I don't know why I said that. I suppose there will be a certain sense of completion in scattering them, though in one way I don't actually think it would have mattered if I'd left them to Nigel to 'dispose of'.
Later that day I moved the bag into my study, on the floor. This morning as I rushed around getting ready for work, I noticed that a semi-deflated red balloon on a red string which has been kicking around the house for the past week had become entangled in the bag. So now it looks even more like a present.
It's very strange to think that my father's ashes are in that room, in that container. It's so ordinary, yet so weird. So odd, so ordinary. I guess walking around cemeteries can be a similarly surreal experience - and I've walked around more than a few graveyards. No matter how much we contemplate the evidence for death, it's very hard to comprehend.
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