Tomorrow we will celebrate the life and love of my Gran’ma as we say our good-byes.
The lead up to this day has been long, weeks of waiting but it’s given us time to prepare. While our kids have now been through two other losses and services, they have yet to go to a proper funeral. The last two were simple graveside memorials followed by a gathering of family and friends at home.
Today’s service is going to be a church funeral followed by a small reception and service at the cemetery and while the ceremonies will be very different from what the girls have experienced so far, what has been hardest to explain is what they are going to see, or rather not see.
Both of hubby’s grandparents who passed this year were buried in simple caskets, lowered into the ground where the girls said their good-byes, I love yous, and threw flowers into the hole. My Gran’ma wished to be cremated and will be placed in a crypt beside my grandfather’s ashes.
A few nights ago as we were laying the girls down for bed, Honeybun asked about Great-Gran’ma’s “dust”. Where did it come from? What is it made of? How did her body turn to dust? Why did they burn her? Why isn’t she just in a big box like The other Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa? How did they get her body in the oven? Did it hurt her? What if they bonked her head? While we giggled at some of the questions, I can understand why the idea is so confusing to her. I imagine her picturing someone taking Gran’ma’s body (presumably alive since she’s never seen a dead body) and folding it up to place in a kitchen oven.
We tried to gently answer her questions without it being scary. We explained that some people want to be turned to dust instead of buried whole and that people have done it like that for all of time, in places all over the world. I considered showing her the pictures of the crematorium we saw at Dachau so she could better understand what the oven is but I didn’t want to explain what those ovens were used for when we are trying to explain that it’s okay that Great-Gran’ma is just ashes now (though I would gladly talk to her about the Holocaust under other circumstances as we’ve already touched on it and had long discussions about Hitler!)
I don’t know how they’ll do with the church service though I’m sure Doodle will spend most of it nursing as he did at the last two (at least this time we will be inside and he wont’t be a giant sweat ball!). There will be a lot more familiar faces which I hope will help them feel comfortable as all the people they usually lean on for comfort and support struggle to keep control.
