Who Gets The China?

 

Perhaps your parents also have yellow sticky notes all over their house. One day I am greeted with this message on the microwave: Ashes!!

Often I spy one on the fridge at 6:15 with the word “wine!” on it so my dad remembers to take the chilling wine out of the freezer before dinner. Or it has a critical password written on it by the computer.

But this one. This one drives me kinda bananas. 

This is a reminder” to dig a hole and bury the ashes of my beloved childhood dog, Cassie. Who died close to 40 years ago. 3000 miles from here.

Cassie, our sweet, if a bit rambunctious German Shepard mix, died in Connecticut in about 1988. Since then, her ashes, along with her collar and dog tags, have traveled across the country on a moving van and now live in a repurposed plastic Huggies bin in the garage. I feel like her remains should at least be in a beautiful ceramic container after all this time of sticking with us.

Periodically when my sister or I visit, the Huggies box comes out. Recently, it was accompanied by a yellow sticky note on the microwave that says “ASHES!!” This lets us know we need to make time in this trip to deal with Cassie’s ashes. Because there aren’t enough things to do when you visit your aging parents. Burying her 40 years later is now an urgent priority.

I know it’s hard to process the death of a pet. I really do. But carrying this physical and emotional container around for 40 years seems like a lot. Doesn’t seeing the Huggies box of ashes every few months drain a lot of one’s emotional energy? It would have provided much more closure to put her to rest by sprinkling the ashes in the garden or in the woods somewhere. No matter, it’s where we are.

My mom wants a hole dug in the yard somewhere to bury the ashes and collar. But alas, they have an astroturf yard.  

(Of course, they can’t go in the trash which you’ll understand if you read my Talking Trash post.)

There is some natural turf but it’s as hard as a rock and impossible to dig in. So the ashes remain in their plastic bin. Could they have been scattered in our yard in Connecticut where she happily ruled with a fierce bark for her entire life? Yes, they could have. But instead they made it into the moving van for the journey to the other side of the country. So here they sit. 

Honestly, I don’t really want to deal with this either. It bothers me that my mom hasn’t dealt with this over the last 40 years and now it is somehow my responsibility to take care of it. There are so many other ways I’d rather spend time with my mom at this stage – or even other things I’d rather argue over. 

It seems the longer you hold onto these emotional and physical weights, the heavier they become until you just can’t face them and you hope you never have to. But it really doesn’t feel fair to push them off onto your grown children either. I suppose I could sneak them into the trash but that feels wrong and I’d have to answer for it somehow. 

It seems the longer you hold onto these emotional and physical weights, the heavier they become until you just can’t face them and you hope you never have to.

Maybe the next time I am there I will try to strike up a compromise and see if we can scatter the ashes in some shrubbery on the side of their house. We could dig a smaller hole to bury her sweet collar in and mark it with a pretty plant or stone to remember her by. That feels better than collecting dust in the garage.