Empty

All the time and energy of putting my Aunt Nina to rest is coming to a head. Yesterday her house was emptied out by the auction company and I watched as her ashes were placed into a small box at the cemetery. The relief I thought I would feel has not come, instead I feel empty.

When Mark called yesterday to say he was at the house and it was empty and I cried. I was just leaving the cemetery and in my hand I held the empty bag where my Aunt's ashes once rested. Suddenly the burden I had been carrying was lifting and I was overwhelmed with sorrow. I think that I was so full of determination to move forward that I had held my sadness at bay.

Here it is; my sadness out in the open and raw. As I sat with my Aunt's best friend Nancy and her companion/Aide, Anna at the cemetery yesterday we learned that my Aunt had never placed my Uncle Ted or Cousin Dana in an urn. They were still in the plastic boxes that were given to her after their cremation. My Aunts friends were shocked, "How could that be?" they both wondered. I reminded them both about how pragmatic my Aunt had always been and how she had no patience for unnecessary nonsense. I am certain to her there was no need for the foolishness of a special container. The three of us there looking at my Aunt in her little plastic box disagreed and made the decision to purchase for her a small gold metal container. This brought me to more sadness as I made decisions I knew my Aunt would balk at. All I could think of was that her ungrateful Grandson's were going to be wasting her money on much less important things and I just wanted to know that she was treated with love and respect at the end.

All that is left to do now is sell her house, intern her ashes (which the Grandson's may or may not do) and prepare the invites for her friends to join us on her birthday for a memorial luncheon in September. At that point my Aunt will finally be at rest and perhaps my emptiness from the finality of losing her and both my parents will give way to healing my heart. I hope and pray this is how it all goes it is time to let the dead rest and live.