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Dust to dust day

(I'm walking with my glasses on, writing. Don't look up cos the world is not clear. Head down, emotions contained...)

 
End point (c) Anna Sublet

All that remains is packaged in a box, tied with a ribbon and adorned with a fresh apricot rose. 

That's beautifully presented, says mum as we navigate the box sideways into a funeral home bag. 

It's heavier than we expected it to be. Like a brick. The funeral director guy tells us it's like a 2 kg pack of sugar. In a suction package that you need to break open. That's if we want to divide him up...

I have visions of him exploding like flour, flying over clothes and disappearing into parts of the room where the substance will lie, unaware, insentient, ever-present but diminishing from view, slowly.

When they burn the body, most of it vapourises, I'm told. Back into oxygen the body goes. There must be a chemical reaction I could reduce this to? Something plus something equals something. X2 + y=wv (water vapour) plus what's ash? Carbon? X2 + y=H20 +C. Does that help explain it?

Anyway these are the things you can lose yourself in, reduction to elements being the process here. Reclaiming of remnants the reality now. 

Ashes to ashes. The box lies sideways on his office floor. The carpet is dusty and the apricot rose is dead dry.




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Comments

  1. Sandra Kelly9 June 2016 at 10:45

    Oh, this pulled at my heart so. Much love Xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anna Sublet 9 June 2016 at 11:14

      Thank you Sandra, really appreciate your comment. Grief can be such a blur. x

      Delete
  2. Unknown9 June 2016 at 20:44

    I was also surprised at how heavy the box was with my Mum's ashes. My sister kept referring to her as if she was actually in the room. Mum's now in a wall, her final resting place - which I can't really get my head around.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anna Sublet 15 June 2016 at 09:59

      We have just left Dad on the floor of his study. I think I'd rather scatter ashes than lock them away in the earth or a wall, but I guess it's comforting to have some sort of 'shrine' or marker to visit.

      Delete

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