Disposal

After my Mother died
by Heleanor Feltham, Australia
Museum professional, Aged 60

After my Mother died, in our home on a Sunday midday, with my sister, my daughter and grandson, our family doctor and long-time friend all with her (but away she went without a word to any of us - it was time, no more pain, no more indignity) we were all strangely dry-eyed. She went with such exquisite courtesy, slipping away without the perceived need for hospitals or pills or intubation (going as she had wished).

My Chinese doctor was most impressed, my Mother had chosen the day of the dead to leave us, and my friend had just come from remembering her Father at the temple.

My daughter and I removed her nightgown, disposed of unclean bed-clothes (no death is without that awful relaxation of the body's holes) washed her from head to foot and combed her hair. We put her best, most beautiful nightgown on, my daughter made up her face. We filled her arms with flowers.

My sister rang the Leura funeral home and by nightfall they had come to take the body away.

The funeral was beautiful. No unfamiliar priest intoning rubbish about the dead, just each of us, in order of age, from 60 to 6, remembering Mum. A truely good tenor singing 'Jerusalem'. Her favourite songs on tape. After the coffin, laden with white flowers, sank out of sight, we all went to lunch, sitting under a tree, and singing an old favourite WWII song 'Oh death where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling'; cheerful, joyous, seeing Mum into another world without pain or punishment.

Later my sister and I split the ashes between us. My sister planted a rose-bush and scattered her share in the garden. I put mine in the Kosta-Boda lidded glass vase Mum chose several years ago (it's sitting in my office).

Mum and I both believe in the immortality of the soul, though we would neither of us ever claim to know just what does happen after death. I tend to think we reincarnate, perhaps after a time of non-physical being. I don't think one life is enough to work the kinks out of a soul, and besides, there are people whom I feel I've met before and need to see again, relationships to clarify, unfinished business of all kinds. Perhaps this is the reality of the Catholic Purgatory. Mum could reconcile with that.

I don't think of her ashes as any kind of an anchor for her spirit, just a focus for me, a comforting way to know she's still around.

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