Five years and three months ago, my best friend Eileen left me. It was sudden and unexpected. My partner and I decided to have her cremated. While I kind of liked the idea of returning her to the earth and of having a grave to visit, we were living in a city quite some distance from my home town and I was not sure if I'd always live here or not. I couldn't bear the thought of having to move far away and not being able to visit her grave. So we had her cremated.
Eileen had a favorite blanket. It was brown and plain and it was her favorite. We cut a big square out of it and wrapped her in it when we carried her to the place to be cremated.
We picked out an urn for her. A simple wooden one, larger than the man there said we would need, but I wanted one big enough to have a small plaque put on it one day with her name, the dates, and whatever else I wanted on it.
A few days later, we picked up her urn with her ashes inside. I was told the ashes were sealed in a plastic bag.
I didn't really like the idea of her being sealed in plastic. I decided to make a little bag for her ashes. I used a piece of her favorite brown blanket but I wanted the bag to be pretty, too. I had this pretty green dress that no longer fit me but for some reason I'd been holding on to it. I decided to make the bag for her ashes out of a piece of that dress, and line it with the piece from Eileen's blanket.
It took me forever to get that bag made. Not because it was hard to do or time consuming, but because whenever I just looked at that fabric, I started to sob. Also, I realized that when I had the bag ready, I was going to have to open her urn and take out her ashes to put them in the bag. I would have to see them. I was not sure I could handle that. When I say it took me forever, it was more than a year after her death before I cut out the pieces of fabric to make the bag. It was about five years before I finally sat down to sew the bag.
A few days after the bag was sewn, I decided I was ready to do it. I opened the urn carefully. The ashes were sealed in a small plastic bag and it looked almost like sand. It didn't hurt me to see them. I was ready. I carefully cut open the plastic bag and poured the ashes into the cloth bag I'd made. Then I sewed shut the opening in the cloth bag, sealing her ashes inside. I held the bag for minute, then put it inside the urn.
I feel better now. She is resting on her favorite blankie.