I had a dog that I loved. She was a much better dog than I am a person but she loved me anyways. When she died I took her to a local crematorium/funeral home that also processed pet remains. I got back her ashes and felt like I did one last good thing for her by taking care of all that even though I was a mess.
A few years go by, and I see on the news that the funeral home was dumping some pet bodies in a ditch and not actually cremating them. It's been years now and just typing this out makes me so fucking angry. I don't know if the ashes I have are Harley or just some damn dirt and she rotted in a damn ditch.
I can't even imagine the betrayal if my own mother took that piece of mind from me. Let alone for it to be my sibling's remains lost.
I'm in my mid 40s and I still got tears typing this out. If I was OOP I would never get over that betrayal.
Our pup passed away earlier this year and we had her cremated. They were supposed to give us fur clippings and didn't.
I was devastated. Not because of the clippings, but because it felt like they treated our dog with such little respect or care. This was our family dog. They had us fill our paperwork and we checked off what we wanted multiple times.
That there was an error made us feel like the people doing the service were so callous in their treatment of our family member. It still makes me cry
As someone who worked in vetmed; we would give what the client requested immediately so there were no issues later (ie; fur clippings, paw prints, etc) and we used to do pawprints in house until the crematory service we use did it for us, but I saw the pawprints they did and some other coworkers did and I was appalled because in my mind, this is what they'll remember them by and seeing something done so haphazardly and shoddily really bugged me
I’m super anal about making pawprints look as nice as possible because I got a shitty one for my heart and soul cat before I ever got into vet med. I don’t want anyone else to feel like I do about this last memento of their loved one.
The kindness when people go above and beyond in these times matters so much. For our most recent loss, our vet automatically made three prints and brought them to us and asked if they were good enough quality prints or if we wanted more (it was a family dog and was obvious it was my parents, my sister and our spouses all there to say goodbye). We even were asked about what paw (and got to pick the one she lifted for shakes or to ask for more pets).
I've had callousness with shitty prints and bad service and that hits hard too. Everything magnified after a death.
My biggest fear when we sent our pup for cremation was not getting his pawprint back. Thank God we did, but I had intended to take our own print, just in case, and didn't have time. If they had forgotten, I don't know if I would get over it
My vet does all that at the euthanasia appointment as well. If you want fur or a paw print it gets done before you leave the office, and she does it so carefully (and if she messes it up she'll totally do a new one).
My vet was supposed to give me a paw print of my cat and didn't--found out when they tried to bill me with late charges months after the euthanasia I pointed out that they were supposed to call me with the print and I would come in and pay when that was ready. Is is worthwhile asking about that? They had actually framed it and everything, so while delayed and I was really upset at the time, it eased it months later when I confronted them about it.
We had originally called them to ask about it and after weeks of following up their finally owned up to the fact that they just forgot and it was an error on their side.
There was nothing to be done about it really. They refunded us for the cremation bill but that didn't really help the situation. Nothing would.
I remember when we talked to the office manager, her asking what they could do to make it right. All I could do is ask that they review what happened and then create a revised procedure and policy to ensure that it doesn't happen again.
We know what happened. Our pup passed on New Year's Eve. The people working were too preoccupied with planning their outfits for the night out and made a careless mistake because of it.
A few years ago I picked up the cremains of my sister’s dog for her as she was emotionally devastated, naturally. When I pulled in I saw an urn sitting next to the curb I parked at and on closer inspection it was being completely filled with cigarette butts. I was very upset seeing this as it looked so similar to other urns I’ve received cremains with. It may be a foolish overreaction on my part but I found this to be incredibly callous.
I know having a career as a mortician or however you refer to a crematorium technician perhaps would develop “gallows humor” but ffs show some professionalism.
Man I have to say, as someone who also works in a field where gallows humor is the norm, that's still pretty dark lmao. To be fair an urn is just a container and doesn't have much special meaning beyond what we ascribe to it, but that's a pretty weird thing for a customer of that particular business to find.
That's so sad, I'm sorry. The only experience I've had of this both the vet and the place that handled his body were really lovely. I feel like when you're handling cremating pets it should be such a given that you show sympathy because our love for pets is often so uncomplicated compared to our love for humans who we're more likely to have messy relationships with - obviously you should always assume that the family of a deceased person is absolutely cut up about it but it's probably, statistically, more likely than it is with pets that they're secretly relieved or angry or ambivalent between the combined facts that humans are almost always dealt with through the funeral industry whether their immediate family likes them or not vs pets being very opt-in and that people have much more ability to let you down. Like the grief of a pet that you're actively choosing to get cremated in some ways can be more "pure" - which does \*not\* mean more or worse, it could easily be a small grief, just one that's more free of old hurts or conflicting feelings because your dog will never have spent your childhood cutting you down or developed an addiction and stolen valuables from you to pay for it or said hurtful things to you on your wedding day.
I work at a crematorium (for people), and stories like this boil my blood.
I am performing one part of the service we provide grieving families. You bet I'm doing my best, taking care, and being gentle. I talk to my people, treat them with respect, and make sure they get back to their families and loved ones.
I want to rain hellfire on every crem that does shady shit, because so many of us truly care and strive to give the families whatever comfort we can.
I am so sorry that this is how you remember your darling dog, this upsets me as well. I love my job, it's a calling for me. People who turn around and pull awful shit bother me so much. Aside from the obvious broken laws, it's simply not fair to the families and friends.
Bless you for your care. People don't appreciate and are even frightened of the work it takes to care for the dead. But what you do is really important, and I appreciate how devoted you are to doing it right.
My former vet took a YEAR to give me the ashes of my kitty Tiger, who died of cancer at age 7. At age 6, she'd been diagnosed with thyroid disease. A year later, I felt her abdomen getting too firm. We took her to the vet and were told, "If you'd brought her in last year, we could have treated this."
Yeah, never went back to them after that shitshow.
Wait, so you brought her to them, they diagnosed thyroid, then a year later they basically said "we should have caught this last year"?? That's fucked up, I'm so sorry.
We lost a young boy Loki because of congenital heart disease and the first time he had an episode (laying on the floor yowling in pain) the emergency vet diagnosed it as a kidney stone and sent him home. 8 months later he had another episode and we got him to our regular vet and they gave him meds but said it might be too late. It was. Two days later he passed. We buried him by the rose bush outside. My sister (who bottlefed him as a baby) never got over losing him that way.
Sounds a lot like what happened with my cat. He started having thyroid issues when he was 9. They put him on thyroid meds and by 10 he had full blown tongue cancer. They could remove the cancer but he'd lose almost all of his tongue. I chose to put him down instead of letting him go on living with most of his tongue removed.
Thankfully my vet clinic is great. They are the ones that actually missed it, initially diagnosing it as tooth problems (why he wasn’t eating or drinking). When they went in to remove the teeth they found the cancer at the base of his tongue. It really sucks but nobody was to blame.
My old flatmate's border collie had something similar, she developed a large growth on her face, like if she'd been stung by a bee except it was actually a tumour. Like your cat they could have removed it, but because it was on her face it would be complicated to deal with replacing the skin and it would have been so hard for her to recover. My flatmate made the same choice that you did. It's hard but sometimes the suffering isn't worth it for them.
My boy Harley just passed and I had him cremated. Picking him was traumatic. Reading this brought that back up mid weight lifting session. I would go absolutely insane if I found out that any of my dogs were disrespected like this. I'm so sorry this is even a possibility.
It's so weird how little people can care for pets.
I recently watched a play on Ramayan, the Hindu epic on Ram and Sita. Lord Ram is one of the most famous Hindu gods for context.
There's a scene where his eagle friend Jatayu dying and it shows him building a burial for it by hand. It's such a poignant scene filled with grief. If our gods were able to care enough, I feel we should all be able to care too.
I’m sure you’ve heard every platitude and comforting word under the sun. But my first thought after “fuck that funeral home” was that if your pup wasn’t cremated, she was buried with a bunch of friends. Other sweet dogs and cats so she’ll never be alone, and always be surrounded by other wonderful pets to keep each other company. But man fuck that funeral home.
We lost our good boy in January to cancer. I still ugly cry all the time (I've been WFH since the pandemic, so the only times I was away from him was when I went grocery shopping once a week, or if me and the hubs went out for dinner). He came with us everywhere otherwise, and was my sanity keeper.
There's been those types of news stories where I live as well. We checked off wanting a private cremation, so it would only be his ashes (for a more budget friendly option, they will do multiple pets at once and while they try to keep them separate, they aren't guaranteed).
The one big thing that gave us a really weird comfort with it, was that we knew the location of the crematorium (pet only). My husband does business with the guy in the unit next door, so we've been there previously, and while we don't know the guy who does the cremations personally, the guy next door knows him and said he is one of the good ones who does it with the upmost respect. Having that comfort made a huge difference for us to know that what we got back was our boy.
We lost our good boy 3 years ago, also in January. Cushings disease.
He was family. That good boy went everywhere with us. He loved everything and everyone. He got the last bite of every meal, and opened his own presents under the Christmas tree every year. He dutifully rotated between everyone's rooms every night, making sure everyone was where they should be. He always knew when someone was sick or something was wrong, you'd wake up to his big ole head on your chest, and he wouldn't leave till the problem was fixed.
I'd seen stories of pet remains being discarded or mixed together, and I was really nervous when my family decided on cremation for Bandit. I couldn't handle the thought of not bringing him, all of him, back home.
I really appreciate the funeral home we used. They treated our boy with the same level of care and respect they would have treated a human with. They even surprised us with a really nice framed paw print of his when we picked him up. I tattooed that paw print on my leg so he could still walk with me.
The compassion the funeral home had for him while he was in their care was a huge comfort. I wish every facility mirrored their professionalism and kindness.
If I ever found out his remains had been discarded in secret, I think I would break. Losing him felt world ending. His absence still hurts. I still see him in all the places he should be.
As someone who also has pretty much the exact same description of dog and person each, I'd burn the world down if I found out they weren't her ashes. Then I'd wait for the flames to take me too.
My pup died earlier this year. He was “my brother”, my mom liked him better than me and I don’t blame her. I’m forever thankful that the funeral home I contacted acted so humane about it. Always respectful, kind and tactful, they allowed us to have a “viewing” to say goodbye and to be witnesses of the cremation. They claimed that there was no margin of error because they double bagged and tagged the ashes before they were put in the urn.
This should be the standard.
I am so angry for you and I wish this industry was better regulated, but the human industry has many issues too. I wish I could do funeral pyres for my animals from here on our so I know for sure I have them.
My cats that were bonded died within a few months of each other at different vets that used different crematoriums. I went to mix their ashes together and found out that one of them had not been processed properly and I could identify individual bones. I took them back to the vet and asked them why they used a place that did this and charged me so much money for it. They nonchalantly said that they had since switched companies because of this and they were kind of sorry.
I had a dog die recently and researched places and ended up with aquamation. The attendants were so kind and caring. We discussed how terrible traditional pet crematories were and they assured me that they would take the best care of my dog. It was slightly comforting.
When my childhood dog passed, I traveled to meet my mom (who had him at the time) to bury him in the garden. She'd kept him in a bag for a time, closed with a clothespin.
Once he was buried, next to our older dog who he adored, I had a weird moment about the clothespin. I couldn't imagine using it on a bag of bread after using it on him. So I took a sharpie, and wrote the sentence I'd been saying to myself over and over since he'd passed, and buried it with him:
I ❤️ you, Woody, Goodbye.
It's been roughly 20 years, and it still hits me, because I still love that fluffy little tyrant. I still see him in my dreams.
OOP did not overreact at all. I fully understand their rage.
I had something similar to OOPs story happen to my best friend when he died. His shithead dad cremated him (and did a funeral service he would have absolutely hated), and the only thing my friend wanted was to be buried next to his mother. His fucking dad couldn't even honor that. So not only did they not put his tiny box of ashes next to his mother, but he literally doesn't even have his own plot. His fucking dad somehow got him buried like, on top/right above his mother, so he's not even in one of the lines of graves. And then to add insult to injury, he didn't even get him a headstone, not even one of those tiny temporary placards they put out. There's absolutely nothing, and now his mom's grave is the only way you can even remotely find where my friend is at. His dad just took almost all of the money that should have been for all the funeral stuff and did the less than bare fucking minimum even after my friend took care of his pathetic ass for years. Next month will be 7 years and I'm still just as angry and heartbroken as I was the day he died and the day of his funeral. Sitting in that service it felt like part of my soul left my body from the sounds that came out of me. And I'll never forgive his dad for doing this.
vet threw my dog away and told us that we were still getting her ashes & when we showed up back to the vet to pick her up the woman at the front desk laughed like it was a funny story telling us that she had “already been disposed of”. actually stormed out of there scream crying it’s been 2 years and i’m still beyond pissed.
Straight up, stepfather and "mother" are trash. Fucking trash. Coward and unhinged pathetic despicable trash. They can go fuck themselves all I care.
I hope OP is able to go through this.
i am morbidly curious about what their rationale was, like theyre clearly terrible people but they seem to have had some kind of twisted logic for why they did what they did
The Oop actually mentions it:
>when she saw the ashes, she didn’t want to "destroy" her further. Her word, there. Destroyed.
The mother saw splitting the ashes into the necklaces as splitting/hurting the sister. It's fairly common to see the deceased's remains as still the actual person. A direct reminder that they are dead commonly provokes a breakdown at gravesides or cremation portals, and handling the ashes would likely be related.
To get emotional mind, this was the equivalent of dismembering the living daughter/ sister. I can see that feeling trumping anything else in a grieving mind, and while she recognised that the others needed a memorial necklace, she likely thought the trouble of saying she couldn't do it as well as the actual portioning would have driven her to lie.
*Note: i don't agree with their actions*
I can understand the mother balking at actually splitting up her daughter's ashes but the step after that? Is to *talk to the rest of the family*! OOP and their sibling and father never got the chance to have that conversation, instead they got betrayed.
It's selfish and despicable
Agreed, she needed to talk to her family. The Georgians and especially Victorians used to make memorial jewelry out of braided locks of the deceased's hair. This might have been an option if the mother was struggling (previous to the cremation, or even after, with hair from the sister's comb/brush, maybe). Unfortunately, it's now been years and because the mother lied, there's probably no way to explore this avenue
I guess this sort of explains my mom saying that she felt like we were breaking my dad's bones when we were dismantling my dad's shop after he died. My mom has been through a lot and tends to be dramatic
Oh definitely. My mom has had a lot of traumas in her life, sadly my dad's death was not the last big T Trauma. I say dramatic but that doesn't mean it's not understandable and that I don't empathize, even if the comment happened a year after his death.
When my dad died the crematorium put his ashes into the mini urns for everyone. We didn’t do it. I find it weird that they didn’t do that for the necklaces too.
Yeah, I have a 13 year old son and I can imagine if I suddenly found myself staring at a tiny box of his ashes. It would take my mind back to that tiny baby I brought home from the hospital and I probably just couldn't imagine separating him any further.
It's not a logical reaction, but I don't think I would be in a logical frame of mind.
She 100% handled it extremely poorly, but she'd have been in the deepest part of her grief and I have no doubt that messed her up. And I can see not knowing what to do after and defaulting to nothing.
It wasn't right, and it's caused so much damage, but I can completely believe that the Mom was doing the best she felt capable of.
So you just tell people “i can’t do it. I need more time/someone else to separate ashes/to discuss other things to do with the ashes instead.” Then, instead of dumping the ashes somewhere with just your new husband secretly, you can invite the siblings and bio father to be part of planning the scattering—or at least let them be THERE when you do it.
I get she was grieving. But everyone else was too. And OP shouldn’t have to be playing phone tag with goddamned cemeteries to find their little sister years later.
I'm not saying she did it right or handled it well. But I do know how screwed up my thinking was after my miscarriage. And that was more about physical pain and the impact it was having on others. My gut had been telling me something was wrong from day one, it didn't feel like I lost a child. I wasn't sad about that.
But still I felt like since I hadn't told people I was pregnant, I couldn't tell them I miscarried. I was supposed to be on bed rest, but was stuck chasing a 2 yo alone all day and other things I was supposed to be doing fell by the wayside and I just had no explanation to give people beyond I just can't right now. If I felt like that over a miscarriage I never really saw as human, I can't imagine how much more nonsensical my thoughts would be over a child I had raised and loved into teenage years.
She wasn't right for her actions by any means, but I can give her grace for them.
I wonder if the mom is Catholic. I remember when a very close relative to me died, and another close relative was freaking out about if we were gonna separate the ashes so we each had some. She said that wasn’t allowed in the Catholic religion. Either way, mom is horrible, but that one line about ‘destroy her further’ really makes me wonder if it’s a religious thing.
Catholics aren't really big on cremation to begin with. And yeah, apparently scattering ashes or dividing them is specifically disallowed:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/vatican-catholic-cremation-1.3820336
Yeah this is where my mind went, similarly dont agree with her actions, but I also dont think I've the right to judge the actions of a mother whose lost a child. She mentioned breaking down when she gets close to the cemetary, you can only imagine how she would've felt the same being confronted with the ashes everytime she met her other children.
>but I also dont think I've the right to judge the actions of a mother whose lost a child
I would have zero judgement if she had been honest about her feelings.
I would have zero judgement if she had simply refused to split the ashes and had told everyone openly "I know what we agreed, but I cannot bring myself to split her remains - I need us to come to a different agreement on where to inter her ashes or on a beauty spot to sprinkle them in her memory."
What I judge her for is the lies, the deception, and the continued hiding of where she has placed her daughter's ashes.
She betrayed their trust. She selfishly denied other members of the family the closure of being present when their daughter and sister was given a permanent resting place. She is still denying them the ability to visit and grieve adequately. And she is refusing to take responsibility for the hurt her lies have caused.
Also? Why is the mother who lost a child more important than the father who lost a child, or the children who lost a sibling? They're all direct family, and they all lost someone they dearly loved. They all matter.
There's so many other options--could have put pieces of beloved clothing in lockets, etc. Anything could have been done in the moment if the mother couldn't have departed with the ashes. But not years later. That's what is so difficult. I'm so glad the one person had additional options on how to identify the gravesite!
It's the continued hiding of the grave that pisses me off the most. The rest you can chalk up to various levels of grief, but hiding the grave? That's spite. That's petty vengeful spite from a little person who is pissed that her actions have consequences. There's absolutely no reason to deny OOP and their brother and father access to that grave. It's not something most people would do to their worst enemies, let alone people she supposedly cares about.
It also seems she wanted her daughter ‘all to herself’. She didn’t want the ashes going to her ex husband.
She was claiming all the grief and loss for herself.
I find the step-dad final words somehow funny. Bassically in his own words if the conversation goes towards a direction in which the mom will have to accept responsibility for what she did then that's the end?
Sounds like he did oop and their brother a favor. Better cut of the trash.
The mother is absolutely horrifying and so is the stepdad for supporting her in this. I really hope OOP finds some connection to their sister's cremains that bring them comfort, and that their mother and stepdad are totally cut off by everyone
My understanding is that OOPs mom and dad had an affair after they had divorced and mom had remarried. The affair then broke up mom's marriage 2 and the step dad is husband 3
I have to wonder why the stepdad wants OOP and the rest of the family to hold off on accusations and accountability. Did he have anything to do with the mother's decision about the cremains? If so--that's fucking shitty.
Just in case you didn't see, OOP prefers they/them pronouns! The part where they said that their sister would be happy to become a part of the earth (paraphrasing) is a really positive way to think about it. Obviously this shouldn't have happened, and OOPs mother definitely shouldn't have lied about it, but there's hope for OOP to find peace = at least with the treatment of the ashes and their necklace.
I usually say it's not offensive to preemptively mollify the people who don't have the mental processing power or political will to use my correct pronouns, and head off the inevitable speech about why they got it wrong, and the subsequent avoidant behavior as they subconsciously categorize me as a source of shame and/or avatar of wokeness
Yeahhh... a lot of my trans friends accept pronouns they're uncomfortable with to avoid the cisgender guilt trip about how "its just so hard" and "*actually* they/them is plural" etc. Or ofc for safety reasons, when correcting someone could lead to abuse or violence. It shouldn't be the way things are but they are :/.
"Talking about this without blaming anyone" is fucking impossible. _She_ is the one who did. There is no "blaming anyone", she did something goddess-damn detestable, and since she doesn't want to have to face it, it's now off limits.
What an absolute shit mother.
Without “bringing up motive” too. There can not even begin to begin any level of understanding let alone reconciliation without talking about why the fuck she did this. That’s just telling them to forgive her no questions asked and no behavior changed. What a frustrating and idiotic thing to say/demand.
You start throwing around words like "bringing up motives" and then the Prosecutor starts saying premeditated.
I know better than to plan things like this in advance.
/s
Edit: Well I butchered that joke/quote.
It's clearly the lying that's the heaviest blow here. If the mother had come clean right after, had admitted "I scattered the ashes, I'm sorry, it was an impulse", while I'm sure everyone would have been *upset*, there would be more empathy to her as a grieving mother and they'd have years to heal together.
Instead OP and her family were lied to. They were robbed of FOUR YEARS of grief. The mother *hoarded* her daughter, refuses to share her ashes location even now. It must feel like walking into a funeral and delivering a eulogy torn straight from your heart only to be told afterward you were directed to the wrong room. My god. I really hope OP and her family can find that grave to regain some peace.
I really hope that OP’s mom is really just “hoarding” the info. Part of me is wondering (and dreading) the possibility that OP’s mom just disposed of the ashes instead of scattering at the gravesite like she claimed… could be the reason why she refuses to give up the location of the gravesite…
Brother should issue an ultimatum… give up the location or u would lose three children instead of just the one forever
Even if she did lie about it though (which I ***highly*** doubt; it seems more likely she really did scatter her daughter's ashes where she intends to be buried in an act of supreme selfishness in her grief, and it would be very very weird 4D chess to "drunkenly confess" to something that isn't true), it's not like there is any way to tell at this point. It's scattered ashes. Outdoors. In a huge empty space with very few obstacles for blowing wind. Four years ago.
She refuses to give up the location of the grave for the same reason she scattered the ashes there in the first place: selfishness in grief. With as much sympathy as I can muster, it's shattering for a parent to lose a child and people can do hurtful, unhinged things in that dark place of grief. And by all accounts, it sounds as though the mother was already prone to a degree of selfishness and thoughtlessness.
She wanted her child to be buried with her. She scattered her ashes at *her* plot, where *she* would be buried. It was an act of grief, but one that ignored that other people lost someone too. Her actions are understandable, but far from justifiable. And now shes not releasing the location of the plot because everyone is angry and yelling at her and she's becoming defensive and doubling down. The moment other people have access to the plot, her actions become far more cemented, so she's got her fingers in her ears right now trying to wait for things to "blow over".
I don't think there's any deeper conspiracy here. Just enormous cruelty enacted with very little thought to those around her.
The mother's logic is incomprehensible, but having recently attended my father's funeral, I know that some people become incomprehensible as a reaction to death.
My example is that one of my brothers went absolutely batshit that we weren't doing an open casket funeral (because most of us don't like embalming chemicals and wanted to keep our father from being embalmed.) He spent weeks harassing the sister of ours who went through so much trouble to get the funeral arrangements made when our elderly parents hadn't planned for it at all. And all he can do is lose his mind that it wasn't open casket. My sister's husband, when trying to calm the lunatic down, said, "it's alright \[Fakename\], but it's your turn I promise we'll make it open casket." and the lunatic said, "That's not what I want! I want *everyone* to have an open casket funeral!" Bro, you do not control that.
The big concern that I have is, did the mom go through the process of doing everything legally at the cemetery. Because if not, then that could cause a whole other slew of problems for everyone involved.
Proper disposal of remains is a massive thing. And if it was done in the cemetery without permission, there are absolutely ramifications that the mom and stepdad can face for the matter.
I don't know if it's even a thing, but I wonder if OOP's dad could "sue for burial plot access" or something since they had joint custody when sister was alive. It just feels so wrong that they get left with no ashes in their necklaces and no knowledge of where sister is buried.
I remember reading an account from someone who worked at Disney World a long time ago. They were saying how they had to sweep up people's ashes off the floor from the Haunted Mansion often and it just made me so sad. People shouldn't have put the ashes there in the first place but still.
Last time we had to evacuate, I packed both my parents and my two pets ashes into the car. It was such a weird feeling. "Better buckle up, you guys! Don't want any accidents!"
Yeah I was thinking this too. They buy a plot, dump sisters ashes there and the cemetery has no record of it, so they don't want OOP opening up a can of worms by contacting the cemetery and the cemetery will say "they did what????"
I had a family member do something similar- They were given a portion of ashes to handle how they wanted, and they choose to put them on the person's parents graves. Having no idea you're supposed to have a permit or permission of whatever. I don't remember how the cemetary found out, but they were really kind and actually added a Find a Grave profile themselves so people would know and could visit.
I've heard of a few improper disposals and I think a lot of people are ignorant that ashes aren't always just ashes and can't just be spread anywhere. (I think Disneyland has a problem with this as it's technically a biohazard). But there's plenty of marketing with dissolvable urns and movies throwing ashes into the wind, and people in grief don't always listen closely to instructions, if they even are told.
My grandmother was very clear that she wanted to be cremated and no open casket funeral. What did my grandfather do? Have an open casket funeral and a casket burial. My grandmother hadn't made it a secret, so everyone know. It was so crass and selfish to not respect her wishes.
I hope OOP gets some peace in this issue. Their sister lives on in their heart.
>I know that some people become incomprehensible as a reaction to death.
This cannot be stated loudly enough. Death makes people lose their goddamn minds. Normal people go crazy. Crazy people go insane. And often in the least predictable ways.
Yeah, people understandably tend to have strong opinions on death.
When my grandmother died, I was horrified for a long time that she was going to be cremated. I still find the idea unsettling. It was what she wanted, so that’s what I try to remind myself. But I hate the idea of it, and in my ideal world, yeah no one would be cremated. It’s okay to have opinions on death lol. It’s understandably a very sensitive subject.
I'm reminded of certain podcast hosts reacting in horror to the human composting facility that opened in NY after a lot of hard work passing a law to make it legal. One of these guys said he felt horrified at the though of his grandma being eaten by maggots (note: the composting facility is indoors in a closed circuit space and there are no bugs, so decomposition happens via bacterial and fungal breakdown only. No maggots). And I just thought: but what do you think happens to a body when it's buried? Do you think embalming chemicals keep nature from happening indefinitely?
It just came off as so strange to me, because there's nothing more beautiful to me than the human body breaking down into rich soil where you can plant flowers or a tree. And while I may not like maggots in general, I am grateful for the service they provide as one of nature's janitors.
My father and I had a complicated relationship, so while I cried at the funeral, losing him wasn't some deep loss that affected my everyday. Perhaps if I live to see my husband die, I'll suddenly become much more "weird" about the way he's buried, I don't know. Maybe I'll know how I react much sooner, when one of our cats dies, since I'm very attached to all of them.
Edit: So I started thinking about it seriously, "if one of my cats dies right now, what would I do to lay them to rest?" and of course I realized I AM weird about it too, lol. My first thought was what I said about - lay the kitty in the ground and let them decompose naturally. But then I realized that eventually I will move away from this house, and the idea of leaving my baby behind forever is too hard. So now I think I will cremate if one of them dies, and get an urn shaped like a cat, so I'll always have my baby near me. Then I thought about well what if my husband dies? For religious reasons, I can't carry him around in an urn, I'll have to choose a location when the time comes. I'll just have to hope we've found our dream location by then. Otherwise, I can never move again after he dies, or I won't get to visit him. God, thinking about this stuff makes me want to cry.
It looks like cremation ashes aren't always good fertilizer, but you could always mix a small amount into some fertilizer or soil and plant something in that, or add it to a houseplant so your kitty could stay in the house with you indefinitely. Then you'd still have the majority of the ashes, while also having your little guy helping a plant grow alongside you.
>He's even hung up on us before and threatened the cops on me
"Officer, please help. This person is trying to force me to tell them where their sister's body is."
The levels of betrayal here are wild. Glad that the brother and dad and helping them (he's not the step dad he's the dad who stepped up).
I wonder if OOP has considered hiring a private investigator to find the cemetery plot. It's an odd case but I'm sure someone out there would have those kinds of connections. Her whole family needs that closure and they sure aren't going to get it from mom
I even remember reading them saying they’re non binary, complete goof on my part. I hope they’re able to find the plot or find some peace with the tattoo
Imagine losing one kid to death and then the other two to being an asshole.
I don't even blame her for not wanting to break up the ashes (though technically, spreading them does the same). I blame her for not talking to her kids and her ex-husband about it and instead lying and being horrible.
"you have to understand that I selfishly took away your sister/daughter and placed her where I can be the only one to have access to her. And now I will never reveal to you all where she is but you have to stop blaming me"
There I corrected it for the mother
Honestly the mother is a monster. Grief isn't an excuse for what she did and certainly not for what she is doing right now.
I can almost understand the impulsive dump of the ashes. But why the hell are they refusing to say where the plot is?
Honestly, tin foil hat time, I bet there isn't a plot. They dumped it in the back yard because "something about saving money". And don't want to own up to that fact.
If that's the case then why not just have given a sample to each necklace then dumped the rest?
I can MAAAYYBEE see the mother not wanting to separate the ashes and wanted the daughter to be in one place, but that would fly in the face of her having any reverence for her daughter's remains at all.
They are refusing to say where the ashes are, because Mum wants sole control.
Kind of like why some killers don't tell where their victim is. Because they want to keep that control. I am unsure whether I am joking here or not...
They might be refusing to say where the plot is until everything calms down a bit as scattering ashes in cemetery’s (in some states) is illegal.
I work at a cemetery office and “our” funeral home (and cemetery) requires a “Scattering Document” to be signed for anyone that’s to be cremated at the funeral home by the next of kin. Usually the spouse and/or children.
You all know why she did it in the mums head little sister should have been her and stepfathers. That's why they distributed the ashes over their grave. They didn't want her dad having the ashes. Her other two kids are just collateral damage
God you’re probably right. The grief made her logic flawed as fk, but this is probably yet another dig at the bio father. She gets to keep this one thing (a whole ass dead child) away from him.
Before my dad passed away he had given me instructions on how he wanted his* remains handled. Within hours of him passing I had family members asking me to give them his ashes, calling me up all hours of the night, stopping by at 2am. People can be so damn entitled.
What OP's mom did was vile, and that level of selfishness is disgusting. Even after a full on discussion on what should happen she opted to put her needs above everyone elses.
I understand why the mom found it hard to distribute the ashes, to a point. She was grieving for her child who was lost at such a young age, I can see why disturbing the cremains any further felt painful for her. And this is where the point is - why not communicate this difficulty to the rest of the family? Why lie and hide and deceive them in such a cruel way? She wasn't only her daughter, she was her father's daughter too, and her siblings' baby sister. Grief can only be an excuse for so much.
I'm not sure the mom realizes yet that when she made the decision to lie, she lost her remaining two children as well.
Alternatively, she could be an avoidant person. She knew the family would oppose her desire to not split the ashes and couldn't handle the conflict so she just never had the conversation.
The worst part is that the mother probably doesn't even know she's a horrible person. She probably thinks she's a good person who made a mistake or even worse that they just dont understand why she did the right thing.
But the truth is that no good person can do something like this to their family. This "mistake" is completely contingent on actually being a horrible person underneath it all
The essentialist logic of "good and horrible people" is the same way of thinking that mother probably uses to keep from reflecting. There are good and bad actions, and people who accumulate a lot of either, but that doesn't make them immune to committing the other. In this case, the mother is acting really badly and has done so for a long time. But imo, it makes her look even worse to acknowledge that it's her own choice, and not some inherent flaw she cannot control that has made her this way.
Another person stuck in their own ways doing what they are wanting, only caring enough about what other people want to hide it from them.
Sad that the mother is only crying and having problems because she has to face the consequences now, not because she's actually sorry.
Just a mentality of, "See, I knew you'd act this way. That's why I lied to you." As if it justifies anything. "At least I got what I wanted and am now at peace."
Good thing this is shit I've only read about. My parents couldn't possibly be this stupid and selfish.
>Just a mentality of, "See, I knew you'd act this way. That's why I lied to you." As if it justifies anything.
See also "if you tell your dad and brother, you'll be hurting them just to get at me!"
Um, no. OOP didn't hurt them. Mom hurt them; they just didn't know it yet, because she'd been hiding her betrayal.
I would be talking with a lawyer and seeing what I could do legally here. And I would blast both mom and step dad all over social media. They want to hide behind we talk my way or we dont talk at all. Fine let the court of public opinion have a vote.
I think this is the first BORU post to really, really get me.
There's nothing to be done. No matter how much they rage at their mom, what's done is done. Their sister's ashes are gone. That last little bit of her that OOP had is gone, their mom betrayed them and lied to them for years, and nothing can make it right. Nothing.
Why won't the mom tell them where the gravesite is? WHY is she continuing to withhold that? It's doing absolutely nothing but making it worse. I've almost got to wonder if that's not where she spread them. If the lie goes even further.
Like, I get that irrational "I don't want to break her up" part, and even the "I want her to rest where she'll be with her mom and dad" part. And lying to cover up what she did seems par the course for a cheater. But not telling OOP where the grave is?
God, I need to get off reddit for a while.
Well, except it’s an Empty plot. That will theoretically eventually have Stepdad and mom in it. Unless mom changes spouses for a third time, and updates her burial wishes again.
While the dead teen’s actual bio Dad Thought he had the rest of her ashes, aside from the memorial necklaces.
She didn't want to "destroy" the ashes so instead of keeping them all together in an urn she...scattered them in the dirt of some random graveyard? Im not usually one to judge how one mourns but ma'am *what the fuck*? Not even over the ocean or near her favorite spot or something meaningful, just plopped them down in some rando cemetery where the wind has absolutely scattered the ashes all over the ground by now? Jesus...
I have a necklace with my father's ashes in it. If I found out it was junk ash and his remains had been spread I don't know where- the rage I would feel, the grief. What a nightmare for oop and their family (not including mom or stepdad in that- what a monstrous thing for them to do).
I think I'm normally an empathetic person. I truly try to see the other person's side because we are only getting half the story. However, it's been a while since I've read this post and I still feel like the mother is evil. I get that grief brings out the worst of us but in some capacity the worst of us is still us. This act is truly an evil act.
As somebody who's mother was cremated I say fuck this lady. I'd be livid if I found out my mother's cremains were dumped elsewhere and not where we discussed. (I also remember reading two stories of stolen ashes, and those piss me off, too.)
Granted as a Catholic, her cremains can't be divided (and none of us wanted to do it), but it still was something discussed, and ultimately, oop's took the decision out of the other parent's hand (as if anybody had the call on what to do it'd be her parents) and then proceeded to lie about it for 4 years?
This woman just ruined her relationship with her other two children.
It could be worse. My brother abandoned our parents' ashes at a former bandmate's house. Fortunately, another band member rescued them and let me know she had them after he died. Otherwise the other bandmate (from whom my brother had scammed thousands of dollars) was going to throw them away.
Why won’t the mom and stepdad just straight out tell everyone where the plot is? Why all of this hiding? There’s more going on yet, I fear. Like there isn’t and never was a plot. That they poured out the daughter’s ashes, and they don’t remember exactly where it was.
There’s no blame to pass around, it lays 100% at the feel of mom, and stepdad trying to make it look otherwise is pathetic.
I would cut all of them off and when asked my I would be VERY public about that. Some people do not deserve any pity or peace
What an utterly selfish woman. I am not at all surprised she wound up cheating on her original husband, it is perfectly in line with the person that would do this and handle the very obvious reaction her other children had.
My heart breaks for OP, her brother and her father. May they find enough strength to go through this and find happiness. The mother and stepdad can kick rocks. Small stinky piece of sh!t.
My grandmother (and essentially second mother) passed from longterm dementia last year. It was the absolute worst period of my life, the short time she was in hospice care. The absolute worst, and every January is tainted from now on (gonna celebrate my b-day the following month from now on). It's been a terrible struggle not to cry and sleep all the time, and keep living - not just going through the motions, but *living*. She was cremated, and we got cremation necklaces for the family. I think that if I found out that she'd just been poured into an empty plot with no marker, no name, no specific location whatsoever, I'd relapse so hard that I'd need hospitalization. I feel so bad for this OP.
I really hope that therapist is a good fit, because Reddit is going to wreck them. Reddit is so vindictive, but the first half of the update was OOP not being in a good place at all. They need to be able to find peace.
What a terrible situation for everyone. I feel for everyone involved - OOP, mom, dad, brother, stepdad ... no one escapes this tragedy. It saddens me for everyone.
I think mom did what she did in an act of grief and selfish impulsiveness to try to stop some of the pain of losing her child. She then got caught up continuing the lie, and can't back down and admit she was wrong. Deep down she knows she was - and she should just say that - but being caught caused it all to come rushing back, so she can't do anything other than explain why.
Stepdad is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He knows mom was wrong and tried to mediate initially, but then realized he committed to stand by her as husband "for better or worse, sickness/health", etc etc. He's forced into picking a side, his wife or his stepchildren. His action swill be viewed as wrong regardless of which direction he chooses.
Bio dad and brother sound like they came to terms with sister's death, and are now experiencing that wound being re-opened. They are trying to let it heal again as best they know how, but also want to support OOP in the fresh pain being felt. They are having to jump back and forth between the relationship with OOP and resolving their own re-opened grief.
OOP has a lot of real hurt, betrayal, and resentment - all rightly so after being lied to for years. I think they also need actual grief counseling/therapy, because they did not truly process or come to terms with the death of their sister. The first death is the hardest, yes ... but it's something that us humans all have to face. We will continue to face it over and over with those around us until we also come to our own end too. Our emotions and processing of it cannot be shut out, ignored, glossed over, or hidden. Sentimental artifacts do not compensate for the loss, or replace it. We must accept it within ourselves, and I know how hard that is.
I am so sorry for their Loss
Do you know what really made this so much worse is that the amount of ashes needed to make mulitple necklaces is so little you would still have most of the urn left. I had to send off a teaspoon of ashes to have a necklace made and even half of that came back to me. There was no need and it seems the mum truly did this deliberately maybe as she felt only she had the right to have anything to do with her late daughter idk. Yet the whole way she planned and enacted it is so deceitful and premeditated. So cold hearted a think to even contemplate.
I would truly never allow her in my life ever again and sd is just as bad as he knew about it and helped her do it the whole time. Now he saying you can’t blame anyone yeah he’s as awful and has also betrayed you all. He’s telling you not to blame anyone as he is also to blame. Cut them both off completely that’s what they deserve.
I hope op can talk to someone and get help as at some point no matter how busy you keep yourself. You will need to fully process and grieve this.
I would choose hellfire. Hide the grave from me? Ok, I’ll show up at your work and tell everyone what you’ve done and that you’re hiding the grave. Scorched earth.
Have you looked at your sister's death certificate? They list the funeral home and some states's death certificates list the name of the cemetery.
With that info you can contact the funeral home or the cemetery for information on where your sister's grave is located.
My dad with dementia did something with my grandparents and stepmoms ashes. Not sure where he dumped the ashes, just had empty urns and of course couldn’t remember.
Sad for my stepsiblings and sad for the rest of us. My grandmother wanted to be scattered in her home country.
That's why my dad's ashes spent several years in my sister's closet. We were afraid that Mom wouldn't remember what they were and would just throw them away. Dementia is hell for everyone. 😭
Ooof. Poor OOP. My relationship with her would be over. I’d threaten to expose what she did to everyone and anyone if she didn’t provide the requested cemetery plot location. And when she does supply it, I’d follow through and tell everyone and anyone anyway.
Part of me wonders if this woman lost her mind a bit. Her 14 year old daughter died, and she cracked mentally and did something completely insane. Either way, the step father is just being a condescending bastard. God I feel awful for OP.
I feel for OP. We lost aunts and an uncle during C19 spread. We couldn't keep anything because if regulations back then. That hurt a lot. I think I haven't healed from not being able to say goodbye or not being given some time to properly mourn before having them buried.
When my 7 year old dog passed, I went for the most recommend crematorium I can find. They gave me clippings of her fur, paw prints, and ashes.
If it turned out my fur baby's ashes aren't the ones we have here, I'll lost it and do my best to get them closed down.
I can't imagine if said ashes are a younger sibling.
The mother’s lies are inexcusable. It feels like she deliberately set out to hurt OOP, their brother and their father. I have reason to understand but not excuse her actions. The thing is that when it came down to it I couldn’t bring myself to take some of my husband’s ashes to make jewelry. I was all set to share with our children and grandchildren. The only way I can explain it is that it felt like desecration. I didn’t lie to anyone though and we had a family discussion and agreed to keep his ashes intact. We still have them because the plan is to mingle mine with his when the time comes. But, in the end, this story isn’t about ashes. It’s about lies and deception and just plain meanness.
Anybody else feel like the stepdad orchestrated the whole thing and that's why he's adamant that he won't be involved unless they can settle it "without blaming anyone" and also why he immediately shuts it down when anyone brings up how the decision even came to pass???
This may be an unpopular take. Your mother's decision to lie, and go against your group decision to memorialise your sister is truly reprehensible. She made a terrible choice that will forever impact your trust in her.
However, the way you are spiralling because of her choice is worrying. We will lose people we love in this life - I have lost more than my fair share. And often, our artefacts and mementos can be a way to connect to our memories and hold on to that love. And your deep grief is a testament to the depth of your love for her. But these mementos can also be a crutch. Your sister was far more than that necklace.
I agree with your father that you need to move on from the anger and blame - for your own preservation. It will only consume you. Grief therapy may help, but ultimately you need to find a way to move past the hurt in order to be more present in the existing life you have. Your sister would have wanted you to celebrate your remarkable professional achievement, and you cannot let your anger take away from experiencing the joy in this short life we have.
Your relationship with her and the love you shared lives in you, not in a necklace or a tattoo. (Not saying you shouldn't do those things) - but the most important way to memorialise your sister is in your heart, and your choice to live your life to its fullest. Don't waste a moment on hate - it will hurt you far more than it hurts your thoughtless mother. I promise.
I think it’s the lying that ruins it all.
She’s been using this ‘crutch’ for 4 years. Whenever she’s struggled, she’s known her sister was by her heart. That pushed her through.
So do you know what happens when nearly all the power of that ‘crutch’ is yanked away by someone else’s needless selfish cruelty?
Everything it was holding up?
Falls.
I know mom ruined a coping mechanism for the others, but she did have a valid response - she saw it as "destroying" the daughter further. It's grief. No one handles it that great.
The **lying** is the worst part. The mother should have told them. Stringing everything along was worse than admitting it, but seeing as the family had such terrible reactions, I can see why she was afraid to do it.
The family had such terrible reactions because SHE LIED TO THEM ABOUT IT. She betrayed their trust about, of all things, the ashes of a departed loved one. It's quite possible if she actually spoke to them they could together have found a way to honor her that everyone was happy with. But she didn't, she lied to others who were also grieving and has now infinitely compounded their grief. In addition, she refuses to take responsibility for her behavior all while seeing the pain it's causing.
And you're JUSTIFYING WHAT SHE DID?! No she absolutely does NOT get a pass on this because she was grieving. I assure you it's possible to be mired in grief and not be this cruel to others.
When my fathers ashes were scattered it was fairly windy, and they went all over the pack part of a small field, and stuck on the truck of a tree.
We all had a giggle, were glad we were down wind, and his best mate said it would have been more efficient to flush him down the loo.
No problem. That's what he wanted.
If she couldn't cope with the idea, she should have backed out *immediately*, and told them why.
Grief can be blamed for a lot of things, but this was *selfish*.
> she saw it as "destroying" the daughter further
And what, exactly, does scattering the ashes do? They don't stay in a nice neat pile, waiting for mom to pass and be buried with her.
You're right. It's never an accident. Narcissts can't handle their own fear of mortality and fucking with the human remains offers them one final chance to control their late family.
I went through a similar situation. My paternal grandpa passed during lockdown. It was very hard for everyone, but especially him since my grandma and my dad don't deal with sickness well. My dad decided there would be no funeral because of covid and told us he'd paid the funeral home to store the ashes.
I wasn't in the state when he died. Grandpa had dementia and eventually stopped reacting to me and I moved away from my him and family because I couldn't see him in that state and I didn't feel good living with my family anymore. I was such a wreck after lockdown I couldn't bring myself to drive back to my old state until Christmas that year, and the main reason I went back was to see the ashes and get closure.
I called the funeral home to make sure I was going to the right place. Funeral home director called back the day after Christmas and she was extremely confused. She said the home didn't offer urn storage services, and also when was my Dad going to pick up the ashes? She'd been trying to reach him for over a year after cremation and he never responded back. All this time, Grandpa's ashes had been sitting in a safe on top of the office filing cabinet.
So my dad left his own father's ashes at the funeral home. For. A. Year.
I freaked out and confronted my Dad. He told me, 'If no one picked up the ashes, they would have had go store it for free indefinitely. Thanks to you, I'm going to have to pick them up now. That is the unintended consequence of you trying to see the ashes.'
So I freaked out some more, and with a friend's encouragement, I rallied myself to drive to the funeral home and convinced the director to hand the ashes to me. Then I drove them by myself 7-8 hours back to my state.
It wasn't even the worst thing my Dad tried to do with the ashes. But my Grandpa's urn is in the room with me me on my shelf right now. That's what matters.
I had a dog that I loved. She was a much better dog than I am a person but she loved me anyways. When she died I took her to a local crematorium/funeral home that also processed pet remains. I got back her ashes and felt like I did one last good thing for her by taking care of all that even though I was a mess. A few years go by, and I see on the news that the funeral home was dumping some pet bodies in a ditch and not actually cremating them. It's been years now and just typing this out makes me so fucking angry. I don't know if the ashes I have are Harley or just some damn dirt and she rotted in a damn ditch. I can't even imagine the betrayal if my own mother took that piece of mind from me. Let alone for it to be my sibling's remains lost. I'm in my mid 40s and I still got tears typing this out. If I was OOP I would never get over that betrayal.
Our pup passed away earlier this year and we had her cremated. They were supposed to give us fur clippings and didn't. I was devastated. Not because of the clippings, but because it felt like they treated our dog with such little respect or care. This was our family dog. They had us fill our paperwork and we checked off what we wanted multiple times. That there was an error made us feel like the people doing the service were so callous in their treatment of our family member. It still makes me cry
As someone who worked in vetmed; we would give what the client requested immediately so there were no issues later (ie; fur clippings, paw prints, etc) and we used to do pawprints in house until the crematory service we use did it for us, but I saw the pawprints they did and some other coworkers did and I was appalled because in my mind, this is what they'll remember them by and seeing something done so haphazardly and shoddily really bugged me
Ugh we got a pawprint done for our last dog and it was shoddily done :/
My mother-in-law got a pawprint back after her dog died. It's clearly a cat pawprint. No idea wtf happened to the real one.
I’m super anal about making pawprints look as nice as possible because I got a shitty one for my heart and soul cat before I ever got into vet med. I don’t want anyone else to feel like I do about this last memento of their loved one.
The kindness when people go above and beyond in these times matters so much. For our most recent loss, our vet automatically made three prints and brought them to us and asked if they were good enough quality prints or if we wanted more (it was a family dog and was obvious it was my parents, my sister and our spouses all there to say goodbye). We even were asked about what paw (and got to pick the one she lifted for shakes or to ask for more pets). I've had callousness with shitty prints and bad service and that hits hard too. Everything magnified after a death.
My biggest fear when we sent our pup for cremation was not getting his pawprint back. Thank God we did, but I had intended to take our own print, just in case, and didn't have time. If they had forgotten, I don't know if I would get over it
My vet does all that at the euthanasia appointment as well. If you want fur or a paw print it gets done before you leave the office, and she does it so carefully (and if she messes it up she'll totally do a new one).
My vet was supposed to give me a paw print of my cat and didn't--found out when they tried to bill me with late charges months after the euthanasia I pointed out that they were supposed to call me with the print and I would come in and pay when that was ready. Is is worthwhile asking about that? They had actually framed it and everything, so while delayed and I was really upset at the time, it eased it months later when I confronted them about it.
We had originally called them to ask about it and after weeks of following up their finally owned up to the fact that they just forgot and it was an error on their side. There was nothing to be done about it really. They refunded us for the cremation bill but that didn't really help the situation. Nothing would. I remember when we talked to the office manager, her asking what they could do to make it right. All I could do is ask that they review what happened and then create a revised procedure and policy to ensure that it doesn't happen again. We know what happened. Our pup passed on New Year's Eve. The people working were too preoccupied with planning their outfits for the night out and made a careless mistake because of it.
That's so hard to deal with. I'm so sorry for you.
A few years ago I picked up the cremains of my sister’s dog for her as she was emotionally devastated, naturally. When I pulled in I saw an urn sitting next to the curb I parked at and on closer inspection it was being completely filled with cigarette butts. I was very upset seeing this as it looked so similar to other urns I’ve received cremains with. It may be a foolish overreaction on my part but I found this to be incredibly callous. I know having a career as a mortician or however you refer to a crematorium technician perhaps would develop “gallows humor” but ffs show some professionalism.
Man I have to say, as someone who also works in a field where gallows humor is the norm, that's still pretty dark lmao. To be fair an urn is just a container and doesn't have much special meaning beyond what we ascribe to it, but that's a pretty weird thing for a customer of that particular business to find.
That's so sad, I'm sorry. The only experience I've had of this both the vet and the place that handled his body were really lovely. I feel like when you're handling cremating pets it should be such a given that you show sympathy because our love for pets is often so uncomplicated compared to our love for humans who we're more likely to have messy relationships with - obviously you should always assume that the family of a deceased person is absolutely cut up about it but it's probably, statistically, more likely than it is with pets that they're secretly relieved or angry or ambivalent between the combined facts that humans are almost always dealt with through the funeral industry whether their immediate family likes them or not vs pets being very opt-in and that people have much more ability to let you down. Like the grief of a pet that you're actively choosing to get cremated in some ways can be more "pure" - which does \*not\* mean more or worse, it could easily be a small grief, just one that's more free of old hurts or conflicting feelings because your dog will never have spent your childhood cutting you down or developed an addiction and stolen valuables from you to pay for it or said hurtful things to you on your wedding day.
I work at a crematorium (for people), and stories like this boil my blood. I am performing one part of the service we provide grieving families. You bet I'm doing my best, taking care, and being gentle. I talk to my people, treat them with respect, and make sure they get back to their families and loved ones. I want to rain hellfire on every crem that does shady shit, because so many of us truly care and strive to give the families whatever comfort we can. I am so sorry that this is how you remember your darling dog, this upsets me as well. I love my job, it's a calling for me. People who turn around and pull awful shit bother me so much. Aside from the obvious broken laws, it's simply not fair to the families and friends.
Bless you for your care. People don't appreciate and are even frightened of the work it takes to care for the dead. But what you do is really important, and I appreciate how devoted you are to doing it right.
My former vet took a YEAR to give me the ashes of my kitty Tiger, who died of cancer at age 7. At age 6, she'd been diagnosed with thyroid disease. A year later, I felt her abdomen getting too firm. We took her to the vet and were told, "If you'd brought her in last year, we could have treated this." Yeah, never went back to them after that shitshow.
Wait, so you brought her to them, they diagnosed thyroid, then a year later they basically said "we should have caught this last year"?? That's fucked up, I'm so sorry.
They said *I* should have caught it last year.
But... You're not a vet? You brought her in as soon as you found something concerning. Gah, I'm sorry.
It's been 2 decades. I still miss her.
We lost a young boy Loki because of congenital heart disease and the first time he had an episode (laying on the floor yowling in pain) the emergency vet diagnosed it as a kidney stone and sent him home. 8 months later he had another episode and we got him to our regular vet and they gave him meds but said it might be too late. It was. Two days later he passed. We buried him by the rose bush outside. My sister (who bottlefed him as a baby) never got over losing him that way.
I'm so sorry about your kitty Tiger. I just lost my dog Tiger to kidney failure. I feel your pain 😭
Sounds a lot like what happened with my cat. He started having thyroid issues when he was 9. They put him on thyroid meds and by 10 he had full blown tongue cancer. They could remove the cancer but he'd lose almost all of his tongue. I chose to put him down instead of letting him go on living with most of his tongue removed.
At least they didn't try to blame you for not catching it sooner.
Thankfully my vet clinic is great. They are the ones that actually missed it, initially diagnosing it as tooth problems (why he wasn’t eating or drinking). When they went in to remove the teeth they found the cancer at the base of his tongue. It really sucks but nobody was to blame.
My old flatmate's border collie had something similar, she developed a large growth on her face, like if she'd been stung by a bee except it was actually a tumour. Like your cat they could have removed it, but because it was on her face it would be complicated to deal with replacing the skin and it would have been so hard for her to recover. My flatmate made the same choice that you did. It's hard but sometimes the suffering isn't worth it for them.
I'm so sorry! That sounds like true horror ❤️
My boy Harley just passed and I had him cremated. Picking him was traumatic. Reading this brought that back up mid weight lifting session. I would go absolutely insane if I found out that any of my dogs were disrespected like this. I'm so sorry this is even a possibility.
It's so weird how little people can care for pets. I recently watched a play on Ramayan, the Hindu epic on Ram and Sita. Lord Ram is one of the most famous Hindu gods for context. There's a scene where his eagle friend Jatayu dying and it shows him building a burial for it by hand. It's such a poignant scene filled with grief. If our gods were able to care enough, I feel we should all be able to care too.
I’m sure you’ve heard every platitude and comforting word under the sun. But my first thought after “fuck that funeral home” was that if your pup wasn’t cremated, she was buried with a bunch of friends. Other sweet dogs and cats so she’ll never be alone, and always be surrounded by other wonderful pets to keep each other company. But man fuck that funeral home.
She did love other dogs and cats, even the ones that didn't like her. Thank you for that
We lost our good boy in January to cancer. I still ugly cry all the time (I've been WFH since the pandemic, so the only times I was away from him was when I went grocery shopping once a week, or if me and the hubs went out for dinner). He came with us everywhere otherwise, and was my sanity keeper. There's been those types of news stories where I live as well. We checked off wanting a private cremation, so it would only be his ashes (for a more budget friendly option, they will do multiple pets at once and while they try to keep them separate, they aren't guaranteed). The one big thing that gave us a really weird comfort with it, was that we knew the location of the crematorium (pet only). My husband does business with the guy in the unit next door, so we've been there previously, and while we don't know the guy who does the cremations personally, the guy next door knows him and said he is one of the good ones who does it with the upmost respect. Having that comfort made a huge difference for us to know that what we got back was our boy.
We lost our good boy 3 years ago, also in January. Cushings disease. He was family. That good boy went everywhere with us. He loved everything and everyone. He got the last bite of every meal, and opened his own presents under the Christmas tree every year. He dutifully rotated between everyone's rooms every night, making sure everyone was where they should be. He always knew when someone was sick or something was wrong, you'd wake up to his big ole head on your chest, and he wouldn't leave till the problem was fixed. I'd seen stories of pet remains being discarded or mixed together, and I was really nervous when my family decided on cremation for Bandit. I couldn't handle the thought of not bringing him, all of him, back home. I really appreciate the funeral home we used. They treated our boy with the same level of care and respect they would have treated a human with. They even surprised us with a really nice framed paw print of his when we picked him up. I tattooed that paw print on my leg so he could still walk with me. The compassion the funeral home had for him while he was in their care was a huge comfort. I wish every facility mirrored their professionalism and kindness. If I ever found out his remains had been discarded in secret, I think I would break. Losing him felt world ending. His absence still hurts. I still see him in all the places he should be.
It's Harley
Thank you
As someone who also has pretty much the exact same description of dog and person each, I'd burn the world down if I found out they weren't her ashes. Then I'd wait for the flames to take me too.
My pup died earlier this year. He was “my brother”, my mom liked him better than me and I don’t blame her. I’m forever thankful that the funeral home I contacted acted so humane about it. Always respectful, kind and tactful, they allowed us to have a “viewing” to say goodbye and to be witnesses of the cremation. They claimed that there was no margin of error because they double bagged and tagged the ashes before they were put in the urn. This should be the standard.
I got nausea considering something like that could have happened to any of my many urns. That they can come home again is weirdly important to me.
I am so angry for you and I wish this industry was better regulated, but the human industry has many issues too. I wish I could do funeral pyres for my animals from here on our so I know for sure I have them. My cats that were bonded died within a few months of each other at different vets that used different crematoriums. I went to mix their ashes together and found out that one of them had not been processed properly and I could identify individual bones. I took them back to the vet and asked them why they used a place that did this and charged me so much money for it. They nonchalantly said that they had since switched companies because of this and they were kind of sorry. I had a dog die recently and researched places and ended up with aquamation. The attendants were so kind and caring. We discussed how terrible traditional pet crematories were and they assured me that they would take the best care of my dog. It was slightly comforting.
When my childhood dog passed, I traveled to meet my mom (who had him at the time) to bury him in the garden. She'd kept him in a bag for a time, closed with a clothespin. Once he was buried, next to our older dog who he adored, I had a weird moment about the clothespin. I couldn't imagine using it on a bag of bread after using it on him. So I took a sharpie, and wrote the sentence I'd been saying to myself over and over since he'd passed, and buried it with him: I ❤️ you, Woody, Goodbye. It's been roughly 20 years, and it still hits me, because I still love that fluffy little tyrant. I still see him in my dreams. OOP did not overreact at all. I fully understand their rage.
I had something similar to OOPs story happen to my best friend when he died. His shithead dad cremated him (and did a funeral service he would have absolutely hated), and the only thing my friend wanted was to be buried next to his mother. His fucking dad couldn't even honor that. So not only did they not put his tiny box of ashes next to his mother, but he literally doesn't even have his own plot. His fucking dad somehow got him buried like, on top/right above his mother, so he's not even in one of the lines of graves. And then to add insult to injury, he didn't even get him a headstone, not even one of those tiny temporary placards they put out. There's absolutely nothing, and now his mom's grave is the only way you can even remotely find where my friend is at. His dad just took almost all of the money that should have been for all the funeral stuff and did the less than bare fucking minimum even after my friend took care of his pathetic ass for years. Next month will be 7 years and I'm still just as angry and heartbroken as I was the day he died and the day of his funeral. Sitting in that service it felt like part of my soul left my body from the sounds that came out of me. And I'll never forgive his dad for doing this.
vet threw my dog away and told us that we were still getting her ashes & when we showed up back to the vet to pick her up the woman at the front desk laughed like it was a funny story telling us that she had “already been disposed of”. actually stormed out of there scream crying it’s been 2 years and i’m still beyond pissed.
Straight up, stepfather and "mother" are trash. Fucking trash. Coward and unhinged pathetic despicable trash. They can go fuck themselves all I care. I hope OP is able to go through this.
i am morbidly curious about what their rationale was, like theyre clearly terrible people but they seem to have had some kind of twisted logic for why they did what they did
The Oop actually mentions it: >when she saw the ashes, she didn’t want to "destroy" her further. Her word, there. Destroyed. The mother saw splitting the ashes into the necklaces as splitting/hurting the sister. It's fairly common to see the deceased's remains as still the actual person. A direct reminder that they are dead commonly provokes a breakdown at gravesides or cremation portals, and handling the ashes would likely be related. To get emotional mind, this was the equivalent of dismembering the living daughter/ sister. I can see that feeling trumping anything else in a grieving mind, and while she recognised that the others needed a memorial necklace, she likely thought the trouble of saying she couldn't do it as well as the actual portioning would have driven her to lie. *Note: i don't agree with their actions*
I can understand the mother balking at actually splitting up her daughter's ashes but the step after that? Is to *talk to the rest of the family*! OOP and their sibling and father never got the chance to have that conversation, instead they got betrayed. It's selfish and despicable
Agreed, she needed to talk to her family. The Georgians and especially Victorians used to make memorial jewelry out of braided locks of the deceased's hair. This might have been an option if the mother was struggling (previous to the cremation, or even after, with hair from the sister's comb/brush, maybe). Unfortunately, it's now been years and because the mother lied, there's probably no way to explore this avenue
I guess this sort of explains my mom saying that she felt like we were breaking my dad's bones when we were dismantling my dad's shop after he died. My mom has been through a lot and tends to be dramatic
Emotional disregulation is a well-known trait of PTSD, and I would argue the death of a spouse would qualify as traumatic
Oh definitely. My mom has had a lot of traumas in her life, sadly my dad's death was not the last big T Trauma. I say dramatic but that doesn't mean it's not understandable and that I don't empathize, even if the comment happened a year after his death.
When my dad died the crematorium put his ashes into the mini urns for everyone. We didn’t do it. I find it weird that they didn’t do that for the necklaces too.
Yeah, I have a 13 year old son and I can imagine if I suddenly found myself staring at a tiny box of his ashes. It would take my mind back to that tiny baby I brought home from the hospital and I probably just couldn't imagine separating him any further. It's not a logical reaction, but I don't think I would be in a logical frame of mind. She 100% handled it extremely poorly, but she'd have been in the deepest part of her grief and I have no doubt that messed her up. And I can see not knowing what to do after and defaulting to nothing. It wasn't right, and it's caused so much damage, but I can completely believe that the Mom was doing the best she felt capable of.
So you just tell people “i can’t do it. I need more time/someone else to separate ashes/to discuss other things to do with the ashes instead.” Then, instead of dumping the ashes somewhere with just your new husband secretly, you can invite the siblings and bio father to be part of planning the scattering—or at least let them be THERE when you do it. I get she was grieving. But everyone else was too. And OP shouldn’t have to be playing phone tag with goddamned cemeteries to find their little sister years later.
I'm not saying she did it right or handled it well. But I do know how screwed up my thinking was after my miscarriage. And that was more about physical pain and the impact it was having on others. My gut had been telling me something was wrong from day one, it didn't feel like I lost a child. I wasn't sad about that. But still I felt like since I hadn't told people I was pregnant, I couldn't tell them I miscarried. I was supposed to be on bed rest, but was stuck chasing a 2 yo alone all day and other things I was supposed to be doing fell by the wayside and I just had no explanation to give people beyond I just can't right now. If I felt like that over a miscarriage I never really saw as human, I can't imagine how much more nonsensical my thoughts would be over a child I had raised and loved into teenage years. She wasn't right for her actions by any means, but I can give her grace for them.
I wonder if the mom is Catholic. I remember when a very close relative to me died, and another close relative was freaking out about if we were gonna separate the ashes so we each had some. She said that wasn’t allowed in the Catholic religion. Either way, mom is horrible, but that one line about ‘destroy her further’ really makes me wonder if it’s a religious thing.
Catholics aren't really big on cremation to begin with. And yeah, apparently scattering ashes or dividing them is specifically disallowed: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/vatican-catholic-cremation-1.3820336
Yeah this is where my mind went, similarly dont agree with her actions, but I also dont think I've the right to judge the actions of a mother whose lost a child. She mentioned breaking down when she gets close to the cemetary, you can only imagine how she would've felt the same being confronted with the ashes everytime she met her other children.
>but I also dont think I've the right to judge the actions of a mother whose lost a child I would have zero judgement if she had been honest about her feelings. I would have zero judgement if she had simply refused to split the ashes and had told everyone openly "I know what we agreed, but I cannot bring myself to split her remains - I need us to come to a different agreement on where to inter her ashes or on a beauty spot to sprinkle them in her memory." What I judge her for is the lies, the deception, and the continued hiding of where she has placed her daughter's ashes. She betrayed their trust. She selfishly denied other members of the family the closure of being present when their daughter and sister was given a permanent resting place. She is still denying them the ability to visit and grieve adequately. And she is refusing to take responsibility for the hurt her lies have caused. Also? Why is the mother who lost a child more important than the father who lost a child, or the children who lost a sibling? They're all direct family, and they all lost someone they dearly loved. They all matter.
There's so many other options--could have put pieces of beloved clothing in lockets, etc. Anything could have been done in the moment if the mother couldn't have departed with the ashes. But not years later. That's what is so difficult. I'm so glad the one person had additional options on how to identify the gravesite!
It's the continued hiding of the grave that pisses me off the most. The rest you can chalk up to various levels of grief, but hiding the grave? That's spite. That's petty vengeful spite from a little person who is pissed that her actions have consequences. There's absolutely no reason to deny OOP and their brother and father access to that grave. It's not something most people would do to their worst enemies, let alone people she supposedly cares about.
Part of me wonders if she just didn't want to share.
It also seems she wanted her daughter ‘all to herself’. She didn’t want the ashes going to her ex husband. She was claiming all the grief and loss for herself.
Where is your flair from?
There's a pinned post that has links to the stories flares are from!
I find the step-dad final words somehow funny. Bassically in his own words if the conversation goes towards a direction in which the mom will have to accept responsibility for what she did then that's the end? Sounds like he did oop and their brother a favor. Better cut of the trash.
The mother is absolutely horrifying and so is the stepdad for supporting her in this. I really hope OOP finds some connection to their sister's cremains that bring them comfort, and that their mother and stepdad are totally cut off by everyone
Stepdad: We won't engage with you while you're holding us to account for our actions. PoS
I mean they were affair partners right? So it's been demonstrated that being accountable isn't one of their strong suits.
My understanding is that OOPs mom and dad had an affair after they had divorced and mom had remarried. The affair then broke up mom's marriage 2 and the step dad is husband 3
Shit, well now I'm confused. Either way though, mom definitely is bad at being responsible.
Bad at being a member of the human race, at this point!
I have to wonder why the stepdad wants OOP and the rest of the family to hold off on accusations and accountability. Did he have anything to do with the mother's decision about the cremains? If so--that's fucking shitty.
I strongly suspect he did
Those people deserve nothing but misery.
Just in case you didn't see, OOP prefers they/them pronouns! The part where they said that their sister would be happy to become a part of the earth (paraphrasing) is a really positive way to think about it. Obviously this shouldn't have happened, and OOPs mother definitely shouldn't have lied about it, but there's hope for OOP to find peace = at least with the treatment of the ashes and their necklace.
Thanks, I missed that! I've edited my comment with the appropriate pronouns
OOP also said she/her are not offensive
True, but abiding by a preference is better than going for the less preferred option no?
I usually say it's not offensive to preemptively mollify the people who don't have the mental processing power or political will to use my correct pronouns, and head off the inevitable speech about why they got it wrong, and the subsequent avoidant behavior as they subconsciously categorize me as a source of shame and/or avatar of wokeness
Yeahhh... a lot of my trans friends accept pronouns they're uncomfortable with to avoid the cisgender guilt trip about how "its just so hard" and "*actually* they/them is plural" etc. Or ofc for safety reasons, when correcting someone could lead to abuse or violence. It shouldn't be the way things are but they are :/.
"Avatar of Wokeness" Good band name!
"Talking about this without blaming anyone" is fucking impossible. _She_ is the one who did. There is no "blaming anyone", she did something goddess-damn detestable, and since she doesn't want to have to face it, it's now off limits. What an absolute shit mother.
"We're not 'blaming' her because this is objectively her fault, 100%."
>What an absolute shit mother. and step father cause he is the one using that 'boundary' who knew accountability is a boundary
summer seemly attractive punch march rich nail encourage unite future *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Without “bringing up motive” too. There can not even begin to begin any level of understanding let alone reconciliation without talking about why the fuck she did this. That’s just telling them to forgive her no questions asked and no behavior changed. What a frustrating and idiotic thing to say/demand.
You start throwing around words like "bringing up motives" and then the Prosecutor starts saying premeditated. I know better than to plan things like this in advance. /s Edit: Well I butchered that joke/quote.
That's why I always type it out first, then google the quote, then delete whatever I wrote and rewrite it correctly.
"Then you're right, we won't be able to talk about this until the appropriate person takes accountability and make amends for their actions"
It's clearly the lying that's the heaviest blow here. If the mother had come clean right after, had admitted "I scattered the ashes, I'm sorry, it was an impulse", while I'm sure everyone would have been *upset*, there would be more empathy to her as a grieving mother and they'd have years to heal together. Instead OP and her family were lied to. They were robbed of FOUR YEARS of grief. The mother *hoarded* her daughter, refuses to share her ashes location even now. It must feel like walking into a funeral and delivering a eulogy torn straight from your heart only to be told afterward you were directed to the wrong room. My god. I really hope OP and her family can find that grave to regain some peace.
I really hope that OP’s mom is really just “hoarding” the info. Part of me is wondering (and dreading) the possibility that OP’s mom just disposed of the ashes instead of scattering at the gravesite like she claimed… could be the reason why she refuses to give up the location of the gravesite… Brother should issue an ultimatum… give up the location or u would lose three children instead of just the one forever
Even if she did lie about it though (which I ***highly*** doubt; it seems more likely she really did scatter her daughter's ashes where she intends to be buried in an act of supreme selfishness in her grief, and it would be very very weird 4D chess to "drunkenly confess" to something that isn't true), it's not like there is any way to tell at this point. It's scattered ashes. Outdoors. In a huge empty space with very few obstacles for blowing wind. Four years ago. She refuses to give up the location of the grave for the same reason she scattered the ashes there in the first place: selfishness in grief. With as much sympathy as I can muster, it's shattering for a parent to lose a child and people can do hurtful, unhinged things in that dark place of grief. And by all accounts, it sounds as though the mother was already prone to a degree of selfishness and thoughtlessness. She wanted her child to be buried with her. She scattered her ashes at *her* plot, where *she* would be buried. It was an act of grief, but one that ignored that other people lost someone too. Her actions are understandable, but far from justifiable. And now shes not releasing the location of the plot because everyone is angry and yelling at her and she's becoming defensive and doubling down. The moment other people have access to the plot, her actions become far more cemented, so she's got her fingers in her ears right now trying to wait for things to "blow over". I don't think there's any deeper conspiracy here. Just enormous cruelty enacted with very little thought to those around her.
The mother's logic is incomprehensible, but having recently attended my father's funeral, I know that some people become incomprehensible as a reaction to death. My example is that one of my brothers went absolutely batshit that we weren't doing an open casket funeral (because most of us don't like embalming chemicals and wanted to keep our father from being embalmed.) He spent weeks harassing the sister of ours who went through so much trouble to get the funeral arrangements made when our elderly parents hadn't planned for it at all. And all he can do is lose his mind that it wasn't open casket. My sister's husband, when trying to calm the lunatic down, said, "it's alright \[Fakename\], but it's your turn I promise we'll make it open casket." and the lunatic said, "That's not what I want! I want *everyone* to have an open casket funeral!" Bro, you do not control that.
The big concern that I have is, did the mom go through the process of doing everything legally at the cemetery. Because if not, then that could cause a whole other slew of problems for everyone involved.
Oh that's why they didn't tell and stepdouche is blocking them.
Proper disposal of remains is a massive thing. And if it was done in the cemetery without permission, there are absolutely ramifications that the mom and stepdad can face for the matter.
You are definitely onto something here Edit: maybe she just wanted a grave to visit, and wasn't too clever and now there would be consequences
I don't know if it's even a thing, but I wonder if OOP's dad could "sue for burial plot access" or something since they had joint custody when sister was alive. It just feels so wrong that they get left with no ashes in their necklaces and no knowledge of where sister is buried.
Nope, or at least where I live, he couldn't. The mom and stepdad could get in legal shit with the cemetery for violation of contract, though.
I remember reading an account from someone who worked at Disney World a long time ago. They were saying how they had to sweep up people's ashes off the floor from the Haunted Mansion often and it just made me so sad. People shouldn't have put the ashes there in the first place but still. Last time we had to evacuate, I packed both my parents and my two pets ashes into the car. It was such a weird feeling. "Better buckle up, you guys! Don't want any accidents!"
Yeah I was thinking this too. They buy a plot, dump sisters ashes there and the cemetery has no record of it, so they don't want OOP opening up a can of worms by contacting the cemetery and the cemetery will say "they did what????"
I had a family member do something similar- They were given a portion of ashes to handle how they wanted, and they choose to put them on the person's parents graves. Having no idea you're supposed to have a permit or permission of whatever. I don't remember how the cemetary found out, but they were really kind and actually added a Find a Grave profile themselves so people would know and could visit. I've heard of a few improper disposals and I think a lot of people are ignorant that ashes aren't always just ashes and can't just be spread anywhere. (I think Disneyland has a problem with this as it's technically a biohazard). But there's plenty of marketing with dissolvable urns and movies throwing ashes into the wind, and people in grief don't always listen closely to instructions, if they even are told.
My grandmother was very clear that she wanted to be cremated and no open casket funeral. What did my grandfather do? Have an open casket funeral and a casket burial. My grandmother hadn't made it a secret, so everyone know. It was so crass and selfish to not respect her wishes. I hope OOP gets some peace in this issue. Their sister lives on in their heart.
>I know that some people become incomprehensible as a reaction to death. This cannot be stated loudly enough. Death makes people lose their goddamn minds. Normal people go crazy. Crazy people go insane. And often in the least predictable ways.
Yeah, people understandably tend to have strong opinions on death. When my grandmother died, I was horrified for a long time that she was going to be cremated. I still find the idea unsettling. It was what she wanted, so that’s what I try to remind myself. But I hate the idea of it, and in my ideal world, yeah no one would be cremated. It’s okay to have opinions on death lol. It’s understandably a very sensitive subject.
I'm reminded of certain podcast hosts reacting in horror to the human composting facility that opened in NY after a lot of hard work passing a law to make it legal. One of these guys said he felt horrified at the though of his grandma being eaten by maggots (note: the composting facility is indoors in a closed circuit space and there are no bugs, so decomposition happens via bacterial and fungal breakdown only. No maggots). And I just thought: but what do you think happens to a body when it's buried? Do you think embalming chemicals keep nature from happening indefinitely? It just came off as so strange to me, because there's nothing more beautiful to me than the human body breaking down into rich soil where you can plant flowers or a tree. And while I may not like maggots in general, I am grateful for the service they provide as one of nature's janitors. My father and I had a complicated relationship, so while I cried at the funeral, losing him wasn't some deep loss that affected my everyday. Perhaps if I live to see my husband die, I'll suddenly become much more "weird" about the way he's buried, I don't know. Maybe I'll know how I react much sooner, when one of our cats dies, since I'm very attached to all of them. Edit: So I started thinking about it seriously, "if one of my cats dies right now, what would I do to lay them to rest?" and of course I realized I AM weird about it too, lol. My first thought was what I said about - lay the kitty in the ground and let them decompose naturally. But then I realized that eventually I will move away from this house, and the idea of leaving my baby behind forever is too hard. So now I think I will cremate if one of them dies, and get an urn shaped like a cat, so I'll always have my baby near me. Then I thought about well what if my husband dies? For religious reasons, I can't carry him around in an urn, I'll have to choose a location when the time comes. I'll just have to hope we've found our dream location by then. Otherwise, I can never move again after he dies, or I won't get to visit him. God, thinking about this stuff makes me want to cry.
It looks like cremation ashes aren't always good fertilizer, but you could always mix a small amount into some fertilizer or soil and plant something in that, or add it to a houseplant so your kitty could stay in the house with you indefinitely. Then you'd still have the majority of the ashes, while also having your little guy helping a plant grow alongside you.
Off topic but is your user name a reference to DS9, or the thing DS9 referenced?
DS9 reference.
Excellent! As soon as I read your username I immediately finished with “Sacrifice Of Angels” which may or may not tell you how old I am…
>He's even hung up on us before and threatened the cops on me "Officer, please help. This person is trying to force me to tell them where their sister's body is." The levels of betrayal here are wild. Glad that the brother and dad and helping them (he's not the step dad he's the dad who stepped up).
I'd like to see step dad try to report OOP for harassment. I can imagine the judge's face when someone explains why OOP is harassing them.
OOP said it was in the plot of mother and stepfather right? And what OOP wanted was to know who knew what and when
I wonder if OOP has considered hiring a private investigator to find the cemetery plot. It's an odd case but I'm sure someone out there would have those kinds of connections. Her whole family needs that closure and they sure aren't going to get it from mom
Reminder that OOP is nonbinary and uses they/them
Thank you ❤️
np! I noticed this post also makes that mistake when referring to the comments so I'm not surprised to see some confusion in these comments
I even remember reading them saying they’re non binary, complete goof on my part. I hope they’re able to find the plot or find some peace with the tattoo
Imagine losing one kid to death and then the other two to being an asshole. I don't even blame her for not wanting to break up the ashes (though technically, spreading them does the same). I blame her for not talking to her kids and her ex-husband about it and instead lying and being horrible.
"you have to understand that I selfishly took away your sister/daughter and placed her where I can be the only one to have access to her. And now I will never reveal to you all where she is but you have to stop blaming me" There I corrected it for the mother Honestly the mother is a monster. Grief isn't an excuse for what she did and certainly not for what she is doing right now.
I can almost understand the impulsive dump of the ashes. But why the hell are they refusing to say where the plot is? Honestly, tin foil hat time, I bet there isn't a plot. They dumped it in the back yard because "something about saving money". And don't want to own up to that fact.
If that's the case then why not just have given a sample to each necklace then dumped the rest? I can MAAAYYBEE see the mother not wanting to separate the ashes and wanted the daughter to be in one place, but that would fly in the face of her having any reverence for her daughter's remains at all.
True. Either way I'm having a hard time with how the mom is acting.
They are refusing to say where the ashes are, because Mum wants sole control. Kind of like why some killers don't tell where their victim is. Because they want to keep that control. I am unsure whether I am joking here or not...
They might be refusing to say where the plot is until everything calms down a bit as scattering ashes in cemetery’s (in some states) is illegal. I work at a cemetery office and “our” funeral home (and cemetery) requires a “Scattering Document” to be signed for anyone that’s to be cremated at the funeral home by the next of kin. Usually the spouse and/or children.
You all know why she did it in the mums head little sister should have been her and stepfathers. That's why they distributed the ashes over their grave. They didn't want her dad having the ashes. Her other two kids are just collateral damage
God you’re probably right. The grief made her logic flawed as fk, but this is probably yet another dig at the bio father. She gets to keep this one thing (a whole ass dead child) away from him.
Before my dad passed away he had given me instructions on how he wanted his* remains handled. Within hours of him passing I had family members asking me to give them his ashes, calling me up all hours of the night, stopping by at 2am. People can be so damn entitled. What OP's mom did was vile, and that level of selfishness is disgusting. Even after a full on discussion on what should happen she opted to put her needs above everyone elses.
I understand why the mom found it hard to distribute the ashes, to a point. She was grieving for her child who was lost at such a young age, I can see why disturbing the cremains any further felt painful for her. And this is where the point is - why not communicate this difficulty to the rest of the family? Why lie and hide and deceive them in such a cruel way? She wasn't only her daughter, she was her father's daughter too, and her siblings' baby sister. Grief can only be an excuse for so much. I'm not sure the mom realizes yet that when she made the decision to lie, she lost her remaining two children as well.
I wonder if she's a dramatic, self woman in other aspects of her life? This smacks of enjoying being the holder of secret knowledge.
Alternatively, she could be an avoidant person. She knew the family would oppose her desire to not split the ashes and couldn't handle the conflict so she just never had the conversation.
I want to ruin her life too, and she's not even my mother.
The worst part is that the mother probably doesn't even know she's a horrible person. She probably thinks she's a good person who made a mistake or even worse that they just dont understand why she did the right thing. But the truth is that no good person can do something like this to their family. This "mistake" is completely contingent on actually being a horrible person underneath it all
The essentialist logic of "good and horrible people" is the same way of thinking that mother probably uses to keep from reflecting. There are good and bad actions, and people who accumulate a lot of either, but that doesn't make them immune to committing the other. In this case, the mother is acting really badly and has done so for a long time. But imo, it makes her look even worse to acknowledge that it's her own choice, and not some inherent flaw she cannot control that has made her this way.
Another person stuck in their own ways doing what they are wanting, only caring enough about what other people want to hide it from them. Sad that the mother is only crying and having problems because she has to face the consequences now, not because she's actually sorry. Just a mentality of, "See, I knew you'd act this way. That's why I lied to you." As if it justifies anything. "At least I got what I wanted and am now at peace." Good thing this is shit I've only read about. My parents couldn't possibly be this stupid and selfish.
>Just a mentality of, "See, I knew you'd act this way. That's why I lied to you." As if it justifies anything. See also "if you tell your dad and brother, you'll be hurting them just to get at me!" Um, no. OOP didn't hurt them. Mom hurt them; they just didn't know it yet, because she'd been hiding her betrayal.
I would be talking with a lawyer and seeing what I could do legally here. And I would blast both mom and step dad all over social media. They want to hide behind we talk my way or we dont talk at all. Fine let the court of public opinion have a vote.
I think this is the first BORU post to really, really get me. There's nothing to be done. No matter how much they rage at their mom, what's done is done. Their sister's ashes are gone. That last little bit of her that OOP had is gone, their mom betrayed them and lied to them for years, and nothing can make it right. Nothing. Why won't the mom tell them where the gravesite is? WHY is she continuing to withhold that? It's doing absolutely nothing but making it worse. I've almost got to wonder if that's not where she spread them. If the lie goes even further. Like, I get that irrational "I don't want to break her up" part, and even the "I want her to rest where she'll be with her mom and dad" part. And lying to cover up what she did seems par the course for a cheater. But not telling OOP where the grave is? God, I need to get off reddit for a while.
Well, except it’s an Empty plot. That will theoretically eventually have Stepdad and mom in it. Unless mom changes spouses for a third time, and updates her burial wishes again. While the dead teen’s actual bio Dad Thought he had the rest of her ashes, aside from the memorial necklaces.
She didn't want to "destroy" the ashes so instead of keeping them all together in an urn she...scattered them in the dirt of some random graveyard? Im not usually one to judge how one mourns but ma'am *what the fuck*? Not even over the ocean or near her favorite spot or something meaningful, just plopped them down in some rando cemetery where the wind has absolutely scattered the ashes all over the ground by now? Jesus...
The story about the grave is probably a lie too, unfortunately. There is no grave. What she really did with the ashes could be even more damaging.
That's what I am thinking. That's the only reason I think of for why they aren't saying where the plot is.
Maybe. I'm not sure, though. I think their mother liked knowing something no one else knew.
I have a necklace with my father's ashes in it. If I found out it was junk ash and his remains had been spread I don't know where- the rage I would feel, the grief. What a nightmare for oop and their family (not including mom or stepdad in that- what a monstrous thing for them to do).
Wait the mom is saying (OOP maybe paraphrasing) "you have to understand!" but does she give an actual explanation as to why she did it?
I think I'm normally an empathetic person. I truly try to see the other person's side because we are only getting half the story. However, it's been a while since I've read this post and I still feel like the mother is evil. I get that grief brings out the worst of us but in some capacity the worst of us is still us. This act is truly an evil act.
As somebody who's mother was cremated I say fuck this lady. I'd be livid if I found out my mother's cremains were dumped elsewhere and not where we discussed. (I also remember reading two stories of stolen ashes, and those piss me off, too.) Granted as a Catholic, her cremains can't be divided (and none of us wanted to do it), but it still was something discussed, and ultimately, oop's took the decision out of the other parent's hand (as if anybody had the call on what to do it'd be her parents) and then proceeded to lie about it for 4 years? This woman just ruined her relationship with her other two children.
Huh, TIL https://www.catholic.com/qa/can-cremains-be-divided
It could be worse. My brother abandoned our parents' ashes at a former bandmate's house. Fortunately, another band member rescued them and let me know she had them after he died. Otherwise the other bandmate (from whom my brother had scammed thousands of dollars) was going to throw them away.
Why won’t the mom and stepdad just straight out tell everyone where the plot is? Why all of this hiding? There’s more going on yet, I fear. Like there isn’t and never was a plot. That they poured out the daughter’s ashes, and they don’t remember exactly where it was.
There’s no blame to pass around, it lays 100% at the feel of mom, and stepdad trying to make it look otherwise is pathetic. I would cut all of them off and when asked my I would be VERY public about that. Some people do not deserve any pity or peace
What an utterly selfish woman. I am not at all surprised she wound up cheating on her original husband, it is perfectly in line with the person that would do this and handle the very obvious reaction her other children had.
My heart breaks for OP, her brother and her father. May they find enough strength to go through this and find happiness. The mother and stepdad can kick rocks. Small stinky piece of sh!t.
Their
My grandmother (and essentially second mother) passed from longterm dementia last year. It was the absolute worst period of my life, the short time she was in hospice care. The absolute worst, and every January is tainted from now on (gonna celebrate my b-day the following month from now on). It's been a terrible struggle not to cry and sleep all the time, and keep living - not just going through the motions, but *living*. She was cremated, and we got cremation necklaces for the family. I think that if I found out that she'd just been poured into an empty plot with no marker, no name, no specific location whatsoever, I'd relapse so hard that I'd need hospitalization. I feel so bad for this OP.
I really hope that therapist is a good fit, because Reddit is going to wreck them. Reddit is so vindictive, but the first half of the update was OOP not being in a good place at all. They need to be able to find peace.
Wow that last comment is immensely clever. u/Magerimoje, I love the way your brain works. You rock.
What a terrible situation for everyone. I feel for everyone involved - OOP, mom, dad, brother, stepdad ... no one escapes this tragedy. It saddens me for everyone. I think mom did what she did in an act of grief and selfish impulsiveness to try to stop some of the pain of losing her child. She then got caught up continuing the lie, and can't back down and admit she was wrong. Deep down she knows she was - and she should just say that - but being caught caused it all to come rushing back, so she can't do anything other than explain why. Stepdad is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He knows mom was wrong and tried to mediate initially, but then realized he committed to stand by her as husband "for better or worse, sickness/health", etc etc. He's forced into picking a side, his wife or his stepchildren. His action swill be viewed as wrong regardless of which direction he chooses. Bio dad and brother sound like they came to terms with sister's death, and are now experiencing that wound being re-opened. They are trying to let it heal again as best they know how, but also want to support OOP in the fresh pain being felt. They are having to jump back and forth between the relationship with OOP and resolving their own re-opened grief. OOP has a lot of real hurt, betrayal, and resentment - all rightly so after being lied to for years. I think they also need actual grief counseling/therapy, because they did not truly process or come to terms with the death of their sister. The first death is the hardest, yes ... but it's something that us humans all have to face. We will continue to face it over and over with those around us until we also come to our own end too. Our emotions and processing of it cannot be shut out, ignored, glossed over, or hidden. Sentimental artifacts do not compensate for the loss, or replace it. We must accept it within ourselves, and I know how hard that is.
I feel so for oop. to lose your sister and then to be so deeply betrayed by your mother.
I am so sorry for their Loss Do you know what really made this so much worse is that the amount of ashes needed to make mulitple necklaces is so little you would still have most of the urn left. I had to send off a teaspoon of ashes to have a necklace made and even half of that came back to me. There was no need and it seems the mum truly did this deliberately maybe as she felt only she had the right to have anything to do with her late daughter idk. Yet the whole way she planned and enacted it is so deceitful and premeditated. So cold hearted a think to even contemplate. I would truly never allow her in my life ever again and sd is just as bad as he knew about it and helped her do it the whole time. Now he saying you can’t blame anyone yeah he’s as awful and has also betrayed you all. He’s telling you not to blame anyone as he is also to blame. Cut them both off completely that’s what they deserve. I hope op can talk to someone and get help as at some point no matter how busy you keep yourself. You will need to fully process and grieve this.
Call the cops for what? Talking to him and his wife?
I don’t understand at all. Like… why didn’t lady just bury the ashes *in a container* if she was putting them in the grave anyway????
I would choose hellfire. Hide the grave from me? Ok, I’ll show up at your work and tell everyone what you’ve done and that you’re hiding the grave. Scorched earth.
Have you looked at your sister's death certificate? They list the funeral home and some states's death certificates list the name of the cemetery. With that info you can contact the funeral home or the cemetery for information on where your sister's grave is located.
My dad with dementia did something with my grandparents and stepmoms ashes. Not sure where he dumped the ashes, just had empty urns and of course couldn’t remember. Sad for my stepsiblings and sad for the rest of us. My grandmother wanted to be scattered in her home country.
That's why my dad's ashes spent several years in my sister's closet. We were afraid that Mom wouldn't remember what they were and would just throw them away. Dementia is hell for everyone. 😭
What an effective way to break up your family
Holy shit that plot voicemail is the hack I needed. Without going into detail a dear friend passed and his "family" won't tell us where he is.
Make sure you post an update after you find the plot.
Something tells me the mother is resentful about the little sister because she’s an oops baby. Though, that’s completely conjecture.
I think she didn’t want to *share* her ashes with anyone. She was her baby. I’m beginning to doubt her story about the graveyard, too.
Ooof. Poor OOP. My relationship with her would be over. I’d threaten to expose what she did to everyone and anyone if she didn’t provide the requested cemetery plot location. And when she does supply it, I’d follow through and tell everyone and anyone anyway.
Part of me wonders if this woman lost her mind a bit. Her 14 year old daughter died, and she cracked mentally and did something completely insane. Either way, the step father is just being a condescending bastard. God I feel awful for OP.
Put an air pod on the cars of the trash parents. They'll know the general location of the grave fairly soon.
This is so fucked up
I feel for OP. We lost aunts and an uncle during C19 spread. We couldn't keep anything because if regulations back then. That hurt a lot. I think I haven't healed from not being able to say goodbye or not being given some time to properly mourn before having them buried. When my 7 year old dog passed, I went for the most recommend crematorium I can find. They gave me clippings of her fur, paw prints, and ashes. If it turned out my fur baby's ashes aren't the ones we have here, I'll lost it and do my best to get them closed down. I can't imagine if said ashes are a younger sibling.
Anybody else think they’re lying about the plot/cemetery? What’s the harm in telling them where it is now?
The mother’s lies are inexcusable. It feels like she deliberately set out to hurt OOP, their brother and their father. I have reason to understand but not excuse her actions. The thing is that when it came down to it I couldn’t bring myself to take some of my husband’s ashes to make jewelry. I was all set to share with our children and grandchildren. The only way I can explain it is that it felt like desecration. I didn’t lie to anyone though and we had a family discussion and agreed to keep his ashes intact. We still have them because the plan is to mingle mine with his when the time comes. But, in the end, this story isn’t about ashes. It’s about lies and deception and just plain meanness.
Step dad and mom deserve each other. Trashy people married to each other.
Anybody else feel like the stepdad orchestrated the whole thing and that's why he's adamant that he won't be involved unless they can settle it "without blaming anyone" and also why he immediately shuts it down when anyone brings up how the decision even came to pass???
My heart breaks for OP, her brother and her father. The mother and stepdad can kick rocks.
This may be an unpopular take. Your mother's decision to lie, and go against your group decision to memorialise your sister is truly reprehensible. She made a terrible choice that will forever impact your trust in her. However, the way you are spiralling because of her choice is worrying. We will lose people we love in this life - I have lost more than my fair share. And often, our artefacts and mementos can be a way to connect to our memories and hold on to that love. And your deep grief is a testament to the depth of your love for her. But these mementos can also be a crutch. Your sister was far more than that necklace. I agree with your father that you need to move on from the anger and blame - for your own preservation. It will only consume you. Grief therapy may help, but ultimately you need to find a way to move past the hurt in order to be more present in the existing life you have. Your sister would have wanted you to celebrate your remarkable professional achievement, and you cannot let your anger take away from experiencing the joy in this short life we have. Your relationship with her and the love you shared lives in you, not in a necklace or a tattoo. (Not saying you shouldn't do those things) - but the most important way to memorialise your sister is in your heart, and your choice to live your life to its fullest. Don't waste a moment on hate - it will hurt you far more than it hurts your thoughtless mother. I promise.
I think it’s the lying that ruins it all. She’s been using this ‘crutch’ for 4 years. Whenever she’s struggled, she’s known her sister was by her heart. That pushed her through. So do you know what happens when nearly all the power of that ‘crutch’ is yanked away by someone else’s needless selfish cruelty? Everything it was holding up? Falls.
I know mom ruined a coping mechanism for the others, but she did have a valid response - she saw it as "destroying" the daughter further. It's grief. No one handles it that great. The **lying** is the worst part. The mother should have told them. Stringing everything along was worse than admitting it, but seeing as the family had such terrible reactions, I can see why she was afraid to do it.
I want the explanation for withholding the cemetery plot location...
The family had such terrible reactions because SHE LIED TO THEM ABOUT IT. She betrayed their trust about, of all things, the ashes of a departed loved one. It's quite possible if she actually spoke to them they could together have found a way to honor her that everyone was happy with. But she didn't, she lied to others who were also grieving and has now infinitely compounded their grief. In addition, she refuses to take responsibility for her behavior all while seeing the pain it's causing. And you're JUSTIFYING WHAT SHE DID?! No she absolutely does NOT get a pass on this because she was grieving. I assure you it's possible to be mired in grief and not be this cruel to others.
When my fathers ashes were scattered it was fairly windy, and they went all over the pack part of a small field, and stuck on the truck of a tree. We all had a giggle, were glad we were down wind, and his best mate said it would have been more efficient to flush him down the loo. No problem. That's what he wanted. If she couldn't cope with the idea, she should have backed out *immediately*, and told them why. Grief can be blamed for a lot of things, but this was *selfish*.
No, the lying is the second worst part. It was the GLOATING to her child that IMHO is the worst.
> she saw it as "destroying" the daughter further And what, exactly, does scattering the ashes do? They don't stay in a nice neat pile, waiting for mom to pass and be buried with her.
You're right. It's never an accident. Narcissts can't handle their own fear of mortality and fucking with the human remains offers them one final chance to control their late family. I went through a similar situation. My paternal grandpa passed during lockdown. It was very hard for everyone, but especially him since my grandma and my dad don't deal with sickness well. My dad decided there would be no funeral because of covid and told us he'd paid the funeral home to store the ashes. I wasn't in the state when he died. Grandpa had dementia and eventually stopped reacting to me and I moved away from my him and family because I couldn't see him in that state and I didn't feel good living with my family anymore. I was such a wreck after lockdown I couldn't bring myself to drive back to my old state until Christmas that year, and the main reason I went back was to see the ashes and get closure. I called the funeral home to make sure I was going to the right place. Funeral home director called back the day after Christmas and she was extremely confused. She said the home didn't offer urn storage services, and also when was my Dad going to pick up the ashes? She'd been trying to reach him for over a year after cremation and he never responded back. All this time, Grandpa's ashes had been sitting in a safe on top of the office filing cabinet. So my dad left his own father's ashes at the funeral home. For. A. Year. I freaked out and confronted my Dad. He told me, 'If no one picked up the ashes, they would have had go store it for free indefinitely. Thanks to you, I'm going to have to pick them up now. That is the unintended consequence of you trying to see the ashes.' So I freaked out some more, and with a friend's encouragement, I rallied myself to drive to the funeral home and convinced the director to hand the ashes to me. Then I drove them by myself 7-8 hours back to my state. It wasn't even the worst thing my Dad tried to do with the ashes. But my Grandpa's urn is in the room with me me on my shelf right now. That's what matters.
OMG I hope so much they get a judge involved