Tag Archives: ashes

Chris’s Final Resting Place

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After waiting a year, I finally spread Chris’s remains in front of our house on the anniversary of his death. It felt good to finally put him to rest.

A year ago, I did not want to spread his remains at our current home because I suspected we would not live there much longer. I was right. We moved into our new home the day after Christmas.

At the time, I thought since he never lived at our new home, it would be more appropriate to spread his ashes at our West Virginia home, where he loved hanging out on the catio. Unfortunately, we had problems from the moment we arrived there at the end of May. I soon felt that we would not own that house for very much longer. I didn’t know we would sell it three months later. I suspected we would put it up for sale at the end of our stay in October, or maybe at the end of our stay the following year. In any case, I decided to bring Chris home to Florida.

My wife came outside with me to take photos. I opened the container. A few ashes came out, then nothing.

I looked inside and saw everything had hardened into one clump.

It felt disrespectful but I tapped the container on the sidewalk several times and tried again. It worked.

It felt wrong to throw away the container, so I dug a hole and buried it in front of our catio.

We have a nice front yard. Our driveway is at the back of the house. The front faces an empty lot that is owned by the six homes in our little association. Our house is at the end, so we also have more room on one side of our house. The original plan when the homes were built in the sixties was to have ten homes surrounding a courtyard. There are several associations just like that down our street. For some unknown reason, four homes were never built, leaving us with a unique natural area in front of our house.

What do you think? Do you like the spot I chose for Chris?

What to Do About Chris

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Our stuff finally arrived from the moving company after they held it hostage for 38 days. Rose called them every other day for the last two weeks and got one promise after another. She was convinced we would never see our stuff, and that was a big stress factor for her. For me, there was only one thing on the truck that I would grieve over losing: Chris’s ashes.

His remains are here on my desk now.

My original plan was to spread his ashes in the backyard near the catio here. A place he enjoyed hanging out. Now, I feel I should bring him back to Florida and spread his ashes outside the catio there. Rose thinks that is a bad idea because he has never lived there. My concern is we may not own this house for very much longer and I prefer Chris to be near us.

I know it is not really Chris. I don’t really think his spirit hangs out where his ashes are. It is just symbolic. It would be nice to look out and know Chris is out there, or at least part of him.

There are two reasons why I don’t think we will own this house for a long time. First, we had discussed selling it at some point and using the proceeds to buyto pay down our Florida mortgage.

The second reason is more complicated. We have been working nonstop on this house since we arrived. It’s like a money pit, but it has been rented for over three years, so that’s part of it. We don’t expect it to be as much work next year, but it is an old house.

There was also the stress of our stuff in limbo and then there was the “incident.” A little over two weeks ago on a Saturday, Rose was outside with me helping to do yard work. Foolishly, she was wearing shorts and flipflops like she was in Florida.

Afterward, she noticed two bite marks on her foot, like she was bitten by a snake. Later, there were what appeared to be numerous minor marks on her body, resembling insect bites. She was convinced our house had fleas, but I was not affected, and neither were our cats. She had terrible itching for over a week and a half. During that time, she went to the doctor three times while her symptoms continued to worsen. It was determined she was probably bitten by a brown recluse spider, and her itching caused a bacterial infection to spread. Only during the last couple of days have the symptoms started to diminish.

I know this is a very wordy explanation, but the point is that during those dark days, she kept saying she hated it here and wanted to return to Florida. Now that she is getting better, she is more receptive to staying here, but I still feel that we are far more likely to grow old in Florida, so I think I would like Chris to be there too.

Chris Comes Home

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I picked up Chris’s ashes from the vet today. I wanted to show you, so I took everything out and set it on a cat perch to take pictures.

Frankie jumped onto the perch, so I quickly put everything back in the bag before he knocked it on the floor. He was surprisingly curious about what was in the bag. It was almost as if he could smell Chris or somehow sense it was him. I don’t know.

This is the first time we have ever received the ashes from one of our pets. I plan on bringing him to our house in West Virginia when we go there in the spring. We have a fairly large backyard. I think that would be a good place to spread his ashes.