Morbid Curiosity

Three months ago my husband, Eric, took his own life in rural Indiana while I was sitting at home in central Ohio. While it's emotionally crippling to learn of one's husband's death, in these particular circumstances the first thing the world expects one to do is figure out what to do with the "remains." So, one of my first acts as a newly-minted widow was to decide that Eric should be cremated in Indiana. I never saw his body, and do not regret this decision. For the past three months an improbably heavy plastic black box has sat quietly in a closet waiting for me to decide what to do with it, until last night when I discovered that there is a goth teen living inside me, trying to get out.

It all started when a friend told me that you can get tattoos with the ashes of a loved one mixed into the ink. Dan has recently lost his wife, Staci, to cancer, and was planning on getting such a tattoo. He was even able to tell me with authority that there are four places in the Columbus area that do this type of tattoo. Goth teen got very excited about this idea. What would she get? Where would she get it done? What to do with the ashes has long been an internal debate, since Eric wanted them scattered on the Appalachian Trail, but I wanted to keep some close to me, too. Goth teen thought this tattoo thing was the perfect solution. Goth teen was ready to go out and get a tattoo right now, forget that it was late at night and I was jammie-clad. It’s not like I don’t already have a tattoo, what would be wrong with one more? Goth teen said “now, now, now.” It occurs to me that this goth teen may have been slightly spoiled by the morbid thoughts of a recently widowed woman and that I should probably rein this in, but admit to being a bit curious about where all this was headed. Enter the box of Eric’s remains.

Eric’s ashes are in a black plastic box that measures 8” x 6” x 4.” It weighs 12 pounds. It feels impossibly heavy for its size. (The guy at the funeral home acknowledged that he was surprised by its weight as well.) There is a small white label with Eric’s name, cremation number, and cremation date. The whole thing is wrapped in a rubber band that serves no apparent purpose, though I believe that it at one time held documentation that has since been put elsewhere. Since goth teen (let’s just go with “GT” from here on out) hadn’t asserted herself when the ashes arrived from Indiana, I hadn’t thought to ask the obvious questions such as: “How do I open this box?” or “Are the ashes just loose in there, or is there some sort of secondary container?” or anything else remotely logistical about how and what to do with this ridiculously heavy, not-suitable-for-display thing I now needed to do something with.

GT removed the ashes from the closet. She couldn’t figure out how to open the box any more than I could. However, being less squeamish than I, GT used a butter knife to pry the lid open. I was relieved to find that the ashes inside the box were encased in a plastic bag secured by a twist tie. My mind, horrified by the thought of a kitchen floor swirling with my dead husband’s remains, relaxed a little and decided to let GT get it out of her system. We looked at the ashes together. The color was not a surprise. Gray was definitely what I’d been expecting. I admit the visible presence of shards of bone in with the gray dust gave me pause, though. GT stopped and thought about how the proposed tattoo scenario would play out. How would the tattoo artist deal with the, erm, chunks?

Then the dog farted, and GT, like many teens before her, including the one I once was, decided she’d had enough for the evening and went to bed. While she can deal with the darker stuff surrounding Eric’s death in a way I can’t, she definitely needs me to deal with the regular day to day stuff that can be so hard: taking care of the dogs, and (lord have mercy) dealing with mowing the lawn. We are developing a nice kind of symbiosis, GT and I. I think I’ll keep her around…but I’m not sure if she’s going to get her way about the tattoo, we may need to have a long talk.

Since Rebecca started with Stan's funeral, I think it's particularly appropriate that I had an odd moment with Eric's ashes last night. I am intrigued by both the differences and the similarities in the experiences Rebecca and I have had. As we go, I’m certain interesting parallels will emerge between her mature grief, and my newer/rawer version. I hope that by sharing our experiences we can help others get through difficult times, and help those who have the good fortune never to have experienced such a loss understand better what those of us who have go through. For me, at least, humor is a critical component of my grieving process. People sometimes don’t understand this part of my grief. Please understand that my husband DIED of terminal depression. People who are sad all the time end up, well, where Eric is. Sometimes I need to force myself to laugh, and my laughter hasn’t been the same since Eric died, but it’s an important component of being alive. So, I try to find humor in this dark ride I’m on every day.