Before I die...When I've gone... Do me a favour?
"Before I die... I just wanted to say - when I've gone... Do me a favour?" This is what my dad asked me whilst he was in the last few days of his life. He was on Morphine. He'd just undergone an operation to remove a cancerous growth on the exit wall of his stomach - which, in retrospect, was hardly necessary. But he was philosophical and said that it had given him a few extra days of life and that's how he was able to ask me the question... There was something that had been niggling him...
He was very pragmatic. "Will you, when you put my ashes in the ground in the hole next to your mum's, will you open the plastic bag that hers are in - you know, inside the casket - and will you make sure that you mix the two lots together... touching?"
Without giving it any thought - because it was his last wish - and you don't want to spoil the moment - I said, "Of course I will". At the time I wasn't surprised or phased by the question. I don't recall mentioning it to anyone else except the vicar on the day in question. Not my brother, not my wife. The same vicar who, being well known to my dad, had presided over his funeral at the church... the committal at the crematorium, he was the leader of the small, solemn group that joined us a week or so later, after I had collected Bud's ashes from the undertaker's office. We all met up at the church and, as we walked to the garden of remembrance, in the cemetery (it's across a muddy farm track in a farmyard nestling on the Sussex Downs) I had been working out in my mind how, quite, I was going to achieve this feat. I didn't know (couldn't remember) what state the oak casket would be in which currently held just my mum's ashes... was it screwed down glued down... I didn't think so, because I could remember seeing a blue plastic bag and therefore it must be that I had lifted the lid off without any resistance. But I didn't know for sure... It had, after all, been 7 years earlier. So as this procession made its way across the frozen ground... There was another thing... It was February...Frozen ground! I doubled stepped up to the vicar's shoulder... We filed through the lych gate into the cemetery... "Just a quick word" I said. "Bud asked me the day before he died if I would mix his ashes with my mum's. Hers are in a blue plastic bag in the casket and he wants me to push a hole in the bag and make sure that their ashes are intermingled".
"I'm not sure that I heard you" he replied. "I don't think that's the sort of thing I could support"...
"That's probably because it wasn't your dad asking the question" I whispered... "So you're just going to have to give me a bit of time whilst I have a bit of a moment whilst I am placing my dad's ashes in the hole. I had actually done a reccy the day before and I had made sure that the marble slab would lift easily and that the lid of the casket was loose... It spoils the spontaneity of the story I know but you don't really want to have a major delay in front of a dozen people in a stone cold churchyard whilst some idiot kneeling on the ground finds that he can't get the gravestone out of the ground or open an oak casket because it is glued or screwed shut.
The process actually went very smoothly - not only was I able to puncture the bag and pour in my dad's remains so that were 'together again' with my mum's...but I also held some of his back and took some of hers too so that I re-united them not just in space beneath the marble 'head' stone but also in the velvet bag that my dad's had been in and which were now - with me.
So, their combined ashes are now not only in the garden of remembrance at Sullington Churchyard, but they are also under a Camelia bush (which my mum had given to us long ago) but now also in our garden in Brittany. Often, when I am mowing the grass and pass them by, I have a word! The bush, which did go through a bit of a dodgy few months after the ashes were first placed under it is now doing fine and is showing a fine crop of blooms almost all year round!
He was very pragmatic. "Will you, when you put my ashes in the ground in the hole next to your mum's, will you open the plastic bag that hers are in - you know, inside the casket - and will you make sure that you mix the two lots together... touching?"
Without giving it any thought - because it was his last wish - and you don't want to spoil the moment - I said, "Of course I will". At the time I wasn't surprised or phased by the question. I don't recall mentioning it to anyone else except the vicar on the day in question. Not my brother, not my wife. The same vicar who, being well known to my dad, had presided over his funeral at the church... the committal at the crematorium, he was the leader of the small, solemn group that joined us a week or so later, after I had collected Bud's ashes from the undertaker's office. We all met up at the church and, as we walked to the garden of remembrance, in the cemetery (it's across a muddy farm track in a farmyard nestling on the Sussex Downs) I had been working out in my mind how, quite, I was going to achieve this feat. I didn't know (couldn't remember) what state the oak casket would be in which currently held just my mum's ashes... was it screwed down glued down... I didn't think so, because I could remember seeing a blue plastic bag and therefore it must be that I had lifted the lid off without any resistance. But I didn't know for sure... It had, after all, been 7 years earlier. So as this procession made its way across the frozen ground... There was another thing... It was February...Frozen ground! I doubled stepped up to the vicar's shoulder... We filed through the lych gate into the cemetery... "Just a quick word" I said. "Bud asked me the day before he died if I would mix his ashes with my mum's. Hers are in a blue plastic bag in the casket and he wants me to push a hole in the bag and make sure that their ashes are intermingled".
"I'm not sure that I heard you" he replied. "I don't think that's the sort of thing I could support"...
"That's probably because it wasn't your dad asking the question" I whispered... "So you're just going to have to give me a bit of time whilst I have a bit of a moment whilst I am placing my dad's ashes in the hole. I had actually done a reccy the day before and I had made sure that the marble slab would lift easily and that the lid of the casket was loose... It spoils the spontaneity of the story I know but you don't really want to have a major delay in front of a dozen people in a stone cold churchyard whilst some idiot kneeling on the ground finds that he can't get the gravestone out of the ground or open an oak casket because it is glued or screwed shut.
The process actually went very smoothly - not only was I able to puncture the bag and pour in my dad's remains so that were 'together again' with my mum's...but I also held some of his back and took some of hers too so that I re-united them not just in space beneath the marble 'head' stone but also in the velvet bag that my dad's had been in and which were now - with me.
So, their combined ashes are now not only in the garden of remembrance at Sullington Churchyard, but they are also under a Camelia bush (which my mum had given to us long ago) but now also in our garden in Brittany. Often, when I am mowing the grass and pass them by, I have a word! The bush, which did go through a bit of a dodgy few months after the ashes were first placed under it is now doing fine and is showing a fine crop of blooms almost all year round!
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