The End of the Line

This morning we buried my uncle's ashes at the cemetary. The whole thing was different for us since we never cremated anyone before. I'm so used to TV where they've got the ashes in an urn and scatter them somewhere. In our case it was nice, but pretty unceremonious.

The limosine from the funeral home came and picked us up about 9:30. There were four of us who went: my mom and me, my cousin Erica, who's staying with us, and Aunt Marge, my mom's good friend. The cemetary's about an hour's drive from where we live. It was a pretty nice ride, save for the bumps my mom and Aunt Marge got from where they were sitting. They kept joking about how they were going to lose their babies from all the jostling, which was pretty funny considering you're talking about a couple of 70-something year old women.

When we get there, the funeral home guy gets out and hands this white cardboard box over to this very butch-looking woman who had just walked over from a truck. (My mom totally mistook her for a man.) He then gets back in the car and we pull off. Turns out, the box was Uncle Winston. I'm wondering where we're going and why this woman's standing there holding my uncle. I know we didn't come all the way up here for it to end like that!

Turns out, we just went back to the main office to be checked in. We ended up riding back to the same spot where we left the woman holding the ashes. This time, we got out of the car, and she directed us over to my grandparent's gravesite, where he'll be buried. When we looked down, there was the white box, which was about 8"x6" or so with a shipping label on it, laying on the ground next to what appeared to be a 2-feet deep hole. That box seemed kind of small to be holding the remains of a 6'2" man, but they assured us he was all in there.

We said The Lord's Prayer, and the woman, who turned out to be the gravedigger, placed the box in the hole and picked up a shovel. Before she threw the dirt in the hole, I asked if we could start things off. She said it was no problem and gave me the shovel. I handed it to my mom so she could go first. I was next, and my cousin went last. (Even though she didn't know my uncle, she wanted to share the experience.) Aunt Marge took a pass. Then we watched as the woman threw the rest of the dirt in and completely covered the little white box.

Before we left, I was able to go to my father's gravesite, which wasn't too far from there. Short, sweet and to the point. Uncle Winston's in his new home, and now we can get on with the business of life.