Gritty Business

Ashes to ashes... Something long put off is finally done, with laughter and tears.

By Lindsey Dawson

So, how to cope with my husband’s ashes. Three years after he died, I had still not handled that melancholy task.

This, I have discovered, is not unusual. One person told me how her dad had been on a shelf or at the back of the wardrobe for 10 years or more. A funeral director confided that his own mother’s remains were still in a cupboard at his house, brought out ceremonially to ‘enjoy’ rugby tests on TV with the family. She had apparently been a massive All Blacks fan. “It’s good to have her join us. We still have some great nights with Mum,” he said. Another undertaker talked about multiple shelves in a back room at his premises, loaded with boxes of ash never collected after cremation. Not for weeks, not for months, sometimes for years.

I knew that my Pete detested the idea of graves and headstones. We’d idly agreed once that cremation was a better way to go. We lived in a seaside house then and entertained the idea of wafting ashes from the clifftop to float away on a salty breeze. There would be possible difficulties, of course. We’ve all heard stories about disastrous ceremonies at sea, with erratic wind gusts creating unwelcome blowback.

Trouble was, I didn’t own that house anymore. I could hardly ask the new owners, “Would it be okay to scatter ashes at your place?” They were avid gardeners and ashes are apparently not recommended for plant growth. And besides, the notion was far too intrusive.

I hadn’t told them my dad’s ashes already resided on their land. They’d been poured into a specially dug hole, over which we’d planted a flowering cherry. Sadly, it never flowered. Maybe the ash was to blame. We didn’t mention the tree’s symbolism when we sold. Why should the next residents have cared, after all? Of course, ripping out the cherry was one of the first changes they made after they moved in.

For ages I couldn’t face the thought of ash disposal at all, but finally the time seemed right and I still hankered to go back to ‘our’ beach for a family farewell. I already knew public parks in New Zealand ban random scattering. It’s allowed on any private property, though any areas regarded as sacred to Maori should be avoided. Naturally, you want a meaningful and private place. I had one in mind.

Just below the garden of our old house there was a quiet, little-visited spot where you could push through wild grasses and clumps of flax to an elevated ledge above the sea. We used to love that view. It was as close to our old house as I could get and seemed just right for sharing memories and sprinkling the last little grains of Pete.

First, I asked other people how they’d done their ash ceremonies. Rose decided to take some of her Canadian mother’s ashes around the world to a plot in Ottawa where other female ancestors were buried. But you can’t just pack and go. Official permission has to be sought for the export of human remains. “It sounded so awful at the time,” Rose said.

Off she flew, but when her hand luggage was x-rayed at Vancouver Airport, a border officer asked if she was carrying ‘something special’. Rose said, “Yes, it’s my mum” and burst into tears. Ashes show up on x-rays as organic material and she’d forgotten to present the paperwork. Once that was sorted, on she went and said it felt so satisfying to farewell her mum in her home country. “I put in a New Zealand dollar coin too, because Mum once sold me an old car for a dollar and I’d never repaid the debt.”

Another friend, Jane, decided to scatter her mum’s ashes on the shore of a lake her mother had loved and where the family once enjoyed happy picnics. They got up at 5.30am to ensure they’d be alone.

Nervous about the process, she’d done a trial scattering first at the edge of her own Auckland garden, “just to see how it went”. She also ensured the box would slide open easily (“you don’t want to mess things up in front of crying children”) and bought a small scoop that she tied with a ribbon to make the ritual a little more special. She’d dreaded it but told me how very comforting it had been.

And so, I got to work. Instead of carrying one big box along, I said I’d organise for each of us –myself, two daughters and four grandchildren – to have a small container to handle however we liked. It surely shouldn’t be too hard to divide the stuff up into seven small jars. I found perfect containers on the kitchen storage shelves in a homewares shop. I was dreading the job though. For a long time Pete’s ashes had dwelt in their formal box in the garage. He’d spent endless happy hours at his workbench and its battered top had felt like a good temporary resting spot, taking pride of place between the drill press and the sander. I‘d often patted the box fondly when I went by.

There was no way to lift its varnished lid, so I gingerly unscrewed the base. Inside was a neat rectangular package of sturdy paper taped up with a band of linen-like fabric. Annoying polystyrene beads had been added as extra packing. They spilled everywhere when I peeled back the fabric. I decided to use a big old tablespoon for distributing the gritty stuff inside – not so much ashes as something resembling coarse sand.

Feeling slightly sick, I gave it a tentative poke. Oh, all right, this was going to be okay! Soft and loose, it could easily be spooned into my waiting jars.

But then as I carried on, careful not to spill, I began to feel resistance. The deeper I dug, the harder the ashes became and soon I was staring at something that looked like a brick. Oh God, what to do! Half my jars were full of soft grains and I couldn’t jam solid lumps into the rest of them. Holding the spoon vertically in my fist, I banged its sharp edge onto the block to break it up'. Thud, thud! I felt like howling and laughing at the same time. It filled me with a hysterical kind of sorrow. I had fallen foul of Auckland’s high humidity. Dampness had penetrated the box to turn the ash hard as clay. But finally, it was done. Once the biggest bits were broken, they gave up the battle. I managed to crumble everything down to grit and dust and filled the remaining jars.

Then the day came. It was a glorious Sunday – one of the last golden, shining days of late summer. Sitting on beach blankets, the seven of us told stories and laughed and cried a little. Then we sprinkled our ash portions however we wanted to – under pohutukawa trees and in cliff-face cracks and secret hollows. There was no-one else around to see us. I stood shin-deep in salt water and slid my share into a frothy breaking wave. It disappeared instantly. It felt so right. We’d mingled Pete’s essence with sea, sand and soil, in the place he loved best. We left with full hearts.

Lindsey Dawson used to be a magazine editor, but left that shrinking trade to become a freelancer and speaker and write books. Her latest, Poisoning on Parker Road, is a non-fiction story about an old Victorian murder and the aftermath that played out in England, Canada and California. Available in print and ebook formats. More info at lindseydawson.com