We got the ice bucket, ahem, urn, home and cleaned it up with silver polish. It was beautiful! B sawed off the tong holder. The big moment had arrived to put the ashes in the urn. Ashes come in a clear plastic bag inside whatever grade container you get, so all we had to do was put the bag in the bucket. We decided to leave them in the bag because I once heard my dad say that when he died he wanted his ashes and my mom's ashes to be mixed together, which I thought was a very sweet gesture. Even though they separated when I was seven, they were always good friends. When I told my brother about this, his response was, "What about Grandma?" Well, we'd think about that later. For now, we needed to get Dad in his place for the gathering.
K lit some incense a friend had given us, and we turned the TV on to the Opera music channel. Since we are neither religious nor formal, we just awkwardly stood there for a minute, and K said something I don't remember, and B put the bag in the buck...in the urn. We put the urn on the mantel with a rose and some gold leaf.
At the gathering we put up pictures of my dad in chronological order next to the urn, but we didn't make mention of dad's ashes. I figured no one noticed. A couple of days later, I was having lunch with a friend who had been in attendance, and I said in a stage whisper, "You know, my dad's ashes were there the whole time..." and she replied, "You mean in the ice bucket?" Guess it was more noticeable than I thought.
1 comment:
I like it! If you hadn't said it was an Ice Bucket, I might not have though of it. At least not from the photo!
WOW, I cannot believe it has been 17 years since your mom passed away. Where does the time go?
I also didn't know about it being illegal to go on a plane with Ashes. That sucks, because in my will I asked to "whomever" to spread my ashes in the Swiss Alps. I have to make sure that "whomever" is willing to do something illegal! Are you sure about that? DARN
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