Dad's Ashes

My Dad came home yesterday.  His ashes, that is.

The Funeral Home had called me last Thursday to say they were ready and it took me a full week to gather up whatever it was that I needed to gather up before I could get them.

What is left of my father now resides in a nondescript rectangular cardboard box about the size of a loaf of bread.

The box came in a plastic bag inscribed with the Funeral Home's name and insignia.   They seem like nice people.  They were the only place I called that did not try to sell me a long list of additional items at exorbitant, some might even say emotionally extortion-al prices.  They were number five on the list.

Why, for instance would you want to cremate someone in a ten thousand dollar casket?  That seems less like a show of "respect" and more like an expression of something I hesitate to hang a tag-line on.

Still, carrying your Father home in a cardboard box inside a plastic bag is an unsettling experience.

Putting him out on the table was something else entirely different.  I was transfixed.  I couldn't take my eyes off the box.  If I left the room, I would find myself coming back just to look at it.

I had to leave the house and have dinner with a close friend because I couldn't be alone in the apartment with the box of Dad's ashes any longer.

Now I just have to find a boat-shaped urn.

But that's a whole other story.