Mirror Mirror On the Wall, Who's the Fucked Up Of Them All?

Many of you have wondered what exactly went down when I went to Salt Lake City to deal with my uncle, the passing of my grandmother, and the ensuing drama.

Here is the update.

On Saturday, my parents will travel to attend the "memorial service" my uncle is having for my grandmother. I use quotes because initially my uncle's idea of a memorial service sounded like he was having a kegger in his backyard.

We arrived in SLC on Monday, checked in to the hotel and had my father drop my mother and I off at the mall. There was no way in hell I was going to my uncle's house. No. Way.

At this point, things had been so awful that gallows humor had started to set in.

Walking around the mall, drinking my Orange Julius, my dad called me to help fill in the death certificate. There was something very surreal hearing the cheerful, shopping music watching families together while supplying names and dates to my father.

After my father took care of business, he met us back at one of the food courts. My mom sat across the table from us, eating her Dairy Queen sundae. I sat next to my father.

Throughout this entire drama, my father has been very anti-cremation. He knew that was what his mother wanted, but he wanted his opportunity to "pat the casket". Being able to say goodbye in this way was very important to him, and I respect that. The only time my father had freaked out in any way at me was when I asked him if he intended to bring any of my grandmother's ashes home.

His response: The ashes are just like her body! I may as well cut her head off and take it on the airplane with me...

I cut him off at that point, explaining that now I knew how he felt, and I wouldn't ask again.

It is important for you, the reader, to know this because after my father took care of the cremation paperwork, death certificate and various and sundry he sat in that food court to tell us how the meeting with his brother had gone.

Apparently, my uncle has no intention of buying an urn. He told my father that he is going to bring one of his ornamental vases to collect the ashes, bring it home to his house and pot her in a plant.

Yes. You heard me correctly. My uncle intends to dump my grandmother into one of his house plants.

I stared at my father. My mother burst into tears.

In the middle of a food court in Salt Lake City, I stammered and stuttered for clarification, my mom sobbed into her sundae, my dad turned to me and asked if I still wanted some of her ashes.

That poor man.

I told my dad that yes, I wanted some of her ashes. My dad commented that he'd better bring some Tupperware to the service, and while we laughed at the horror of it my mom renewed her sobbing.

Ain't it a kick in the head?

The "viewing" was technically the legal identification of my grandmother's remains. It was awful in a sad way, but still very cathartic and much better than we had anticipated. Because we weren't paying customers, they had us in the antechamber to the freezer. We could see the combo lock on the door. At least they had a few beat up sofas in the room, but it was still down in the bowels of the funeral home.

The whole thing was just sad and fucked up.

We did our business, had our ten minutes to pay our respects. Thankfully, my uncle had refused to come. I had not seen him at that point, and I had no intention of doing so.

We left the room, and my grandmother, behind. I can't describe the feeling knowing I am the last person in our family to have seen her. It is both a gift and a burden. I may expound on that some time in the future, but all I know is that I am glad I went.

Because we were in the freezer/basement shopping corner my mom wanted a few minutes to look around. They had beautiful urns, headstones, and the usual tucked into this corner, and my mom wanted to take a look.

Next to the über-expensive urns were the memorial urns. They were $30 and similar in style to their regular-sized counterparts. My parents have always hated the TV shows in which the urn has fallen off the mantel into the fireplace and the characters have had to scrape up the ashes, carpet fluff and the like back into the urn. They have always found it to be crass and disrespectful. I pointed out the memorial urns to my father.

Look Dad! I said. All of that crap on TV is just TV. See how these have screw-on lids? There is none of that bs about the ashes falling out onto the floor.

My dad, his intersted piqued, grabbed one of the memorial urns off of the shelf. The lid? Yeah. It fell on the floor.

Let me tell you, we laughed 'til we cried, and I still haven't heard the end of that one.

After talking to the funeral director about the lids (they use industrial strength sealant, whatever the hell that is), I ended up buying a memorial urn. It was my $32.50 insurance policy, and I'll tell you why.

I do not trust my uncle to give my father ashes. Not unadulterated ashes, anyway. For all we know, he's already dumped her in a pot with potting soil and fertilizer and will tell my dad to scoop out what he wants.

This way, if my dad wants the urn, he can have it. I know my grandmother would hate to sit on someone's bookshelf for decades. My parents have a few ideas of where they should bury or scatter her ashes. And it is a far sight better than my uncle's druggie friends stamping out their cigarette butts in her ashes.

The climax of the trip was having lunch with my uncle. My dad kept mentioning that my uncle wanted to see me. That we should go to the house and visit for awhile. While that was the last thing I wanted to do, I told my father that I was there to make him happy. To make this awful trip as bearable as possible. That if it meant that so much to him for me to spend time with his brother, I would. No drama. No questions. No accusations. And so after the viewing we met my uncle at a sports bar and had a lunch I can only describe as a psychotic break from reality. No one mentioned my grandmother. It was as if we were on winter ski holiday. It was sharing appetizers, Kahlua and coffees, and splitting the check three ways because my uncle refused to pay for anyone but himself. It was fucked up, man. See for yourself:



*A huge thanks to D for letting me call her about the cremation jewelry.