It isn’t every day that your mother spoons your father’s remains into a prescription bottle. A new experience, I must admit, and not a bad or a good one. It was odd just to stand there watching her, to see her pull a teaspoon out of the silverware drawer. It was the tiniest spoon in there, the one she probably fed us baby food with in the 70s, the one she used for crème brulee when K and Dad broke out the little torches for fun. It was all improvised, because there are no books on this, after all. She turned the bottle on its head and then used her hand as a funnel so the ashes wouldn’t fly all over the granite countertop. She has Dad all over her hands, I thought. We’re standing in the kitchen and my mother is putting my father in a plastic bottle and he is all over her hands. And it was both sad and funny, because it’s a strange, strange thing to witness.
So a part of my dad now sits in the bottom of my purse, encased in a Target pharmacy bottle. I chose that bottle because it’s bright red, and somehow that makes me think it signals its importance.
What do I do with the bottle once I’m done?
Throw it out.
How odd. Do I throw it out on the cruise ship? Bring it back to the States and put it in my trash? In a separate bag and not with the common trash, right? So strange. Because no matter what there’ll be little bits of dust left in there. And dads don’t belong in the trash.
I talked to my father as I put the rest of him back on the shelf in the den, a dark room meant to be more of a library, the only manly room in their whole house. I’m taking you to Greece, I said. I chat with him like this on a pretty regular basis, because we have no memorial spot for him, no headstone. I like it in the way that I liked being raised a Presbyterian; we never had to go anywhere special to talk to God. We had a hot line that went straight to him, one he answered even when watching football. It’s the same with my father. I can talk to him whenever, which is somewhat of a bonus for the grieving and lazy daughter.
I have yet to talk with him about nearly opening the wrong bottle when going to take my morning meds. I’m pretty sure he saw that part coming.
26 Comments
I like thinking of you chatting to your father in the red pill bottle in your purse while in Greece. You posted beautifully about the bittersweetness of this situation.
Would you get in trouble for throwing the empty bottle off the ship? Because maybe he’d like the ocean.
God is surprisingly busy once the game hits the two minute warning.
I think you should put that bottle on your mantle. It’s not the container; it’s the contents.
This will be all the more poignant when you find your kitties playing with a Viagra prescription some day.
I love every word of this.
I’m way too sentimental. I would keep a few remains in the bottle. I would make a small glass or plexiglass box that would encase the Target bottle with instructions for future onlookers. “Please don’t throw away.” A nice spotlight and a metal plaque completing the view.
delurking to aska stupid question — what about security and/or customs? i like imagining their faces when you explain who’s in the bottle. it kind of makes me giggle, actually. have a great father-daughter trip!
I’m trying to put myself in your shoes to see how I would handle this situation…
I would be absolutely anal about this. It’s driving me nuts just thinking about it. I would not be able to handle the idea that there are still some ashes left in the Target bottle, so I would have to wash it out with some water…now what to do with the water?!? I guess pour it out by the ashes. No more ashes in the bottle means no worries about throwing the bottle out, because you are right. “dads don’t belong in the trash”
…Oh, look at that. Sorry, I think I might have streched out your shoes with my big feet. I’m just glad they weren’t high heels.
I really liked the writing here, and even more, the person behind it. I never talk to my dead father, and I wonder if having a little piece of him in a red plastic bottle would make a difference.
When you’re in Greece, take a dip in the Mediterranean. Rinse the bottle while you’re there. Then your dad will be someplace lovely like Mikanos or something.
That’s probably what I’d do.
Don’t throw it away. You’ll think of something to do with he bottle, I’m sure.
What DO you do with it? I never thought of that. But maybe if we make too much of it it becomes too overwhelming? He might be gone in body but he is never gone in spirit.
That sounded way more corny than I intended it.
I didn’t think of it till I read comment #6… but the TSA checks the weirdest things. I like the idea of rinsing the bottle in the ocean so the ashes are gone and it’s just a bottle again.
I hope you and your Dad have a safe trip.
This is exactly how I feel. And I have always hated the idea of grave sites. People stop going after a while – and that seems so lonely. I’d rather just sit somewhere quiet to talk anyway. And I absolutely want to be cremated – and I hope there is a great moment of hilarity when someone accidentally “gets me on them”. Scattering ashes is a very personal way to say goodbye. Lovely post.
For all the sweet peas who worry about me and my dad:
http://www.aarp.org/leisure/travel/articles/peter_greenberg_human_ashes.html
We dropped Mom off Siesta Key into Little Sarasota Bay in 1996. I have no idea what happened to the box. Now I feel oddly worried about that.
Don’t throw anything from the boat. Greek jails are dark and cold and frequently remote from helpful State Department employees. Do what Finn said; rinse it in the sea at Mykonos.
Hubby and I had the conversation between cremation and burial. He says throw him in a jar and stuff him in a dark closet, no worries. But I think I’d rather be buried next to my sister. That way we can rampage together again in the netherworlds.
You and your dad have a great rampage together!
Do what your heart desires. Your dad loves you no matter what.
Though, I think you should rinse the bottle while you’re in the ocean… but I would worry about getting ashes all over me and … then what?
My Grandpa is in a desk at our house. We talk to him frequently, and I will not confirm nor deny reports that he has gone on tractor rides. He loved riding on that tractor.
These are beautiful thoughts. I’m sending you love and peace from NC.
That’s the stuff I would be thinking. If it were me, I would think of every single solitary thing you just thought of. And it would have bugged me. I think you should throw the target bottle over board. No trash cans of any kind, please.
I’d bring his ashes to Greece, and scatter them in the most beautiful place I could find, rinse the bottle in the Agean and then Recycle it. Your dad lives in your heart, not in those ashes. Those were left over when he Transended his physical form and become the Pure Soul that lived in the body and lives on in you and yours.
Nothing Lasts, but nothing ever ends
What about stuffing the bottle, contents and all, inside of a favorite pillow or something like that? Then you will always have the memory, but not have to worry about the bottle? It will always be safe.
Oh I can really relate to this, my dad died in Sept last year and we decided to put his ashes to sea – the Life Boat Charity did it for us – on the windiest most blustery night of that year! They were very very good indeed – no blow back but we were worried! It’s a strange time and I hope you’re doing ok
Lynette
I can’t imagine how this much feel…I just hope that I don’t have to think about it for a long time.
There’s no protocol on this type of thing, no manual. We spread my parent’s remains together one cool fall day last year in a river in Massachusetts because that’s what they wanted. It was odd when I realized there was still parent dust in the bags from the crematorium and I had to rinse them out in the water further downstream because I didn’t want to throw any of it out.
Just surreal, but so beautiful as they mixed together in the water.
This afternoon I will be booking my flight to Athens, to scatter my Dad’s ashes in the Mediterranean, as was his wish. These posts have made me feel very emotional, but have also brought a smile to my face, for which I am grateful.