The funeral is done, people around you are starting to disappear and life is trying to be normal again, of course, it isn’t but the intensity of the last few weeks has to level off eventually.
This is maybe the hardest time though, as until now there has been so much to do, from organising the funeral, dealing with workplaces, insurance companies, financial affairs, telling everyone, visitors and flowers and all the other little bits you had not considered.
Now you are left to get on with life and when the dust settles, all you have is a gaping hole in your life and a loved one that is dead. It’s this brutal shock that is the reason so many p[people at this point break, lean on drugs or alcohol, and why a lot of organisations won’t even talk to you or consider counselling for the first few months. It’s all too raw and volatile
if you buried your loved one, then it’s even more final, however, with around 75% of funerals being a cremation the likelihood is you still have one more job to do.
The funeral directors will hold on to the ashes for almost an unlimited amount of time, but you have to keep in touch. It was 3 years before we picked Dan up. Something done on a whim one day when it just felt right. Until then it was just too hard. we called ahead and given a few hours’ notice he was retrieved from storage and neatly packed up in a nice box with his name and details.
He is now on a shelf in the lounge… the strangest thing… We have not yet decided what to do, A nice urn or have him scattered somewhere? not so easy as permissions are required for almost anywhere if you want to do it right. We have considered having his ashes put in with his grandmother and uncle’s grave, you can have this done by a priest for a charge, or as its “our” grave, scatter him on top or under the surface.
A Memorial? in an ideal world, a full burial with a big headstone, but then reality gets in the way, even if someone is buried you can put a headstone on for at least a year as things have to settle ( never see that in the movies as people are lowered into the ground with it already in place)
In some ways, this project is Dan’s memorial.
At some point we will do something with him… but for now, he is home and we are left to get on with life without him.