I've been shopping a lot these past couple of weeks.
Shopping for a gravestone. I looked online and I ordered catalogues in the mail. Who knew you could order catalogues of gravestones? I didn't. I guess I've been sheltered.
One of the weirdest things is that in these catalogues are pictures of real gravestones that the company made. And I know some of the people on the gravestones. It makes me feel weird inside to think that Eva's gravestone might one day appear in this commercial catalogue.
When Eva first died I wanted to bury her and Mike wanted to cremate her. I say 'wanted' very loosely here because what both of us really wanted was to hold our living, breathing daughter in our arms. I strongly felt like I wanted a place to 'go'. Mike felt otherwise and really I didn't care that much. I just wanted Eva. Eva died in August and that first winter I was 'happy' she was cremated and home with us and 'warm' in the living room and not frozen under a blanket of snow. The mind works in mysterious ways...
So anyway, I'm feeling like getting a gravestone and burying her ashes. Mikes mom and dad and my mom will all be buried there and so will mike and I, when the time comes, so she will be with family. And, you know she's not going to get married or have children so being with grandma, grandpa , Oma, mom and dad...well, that's the family she has, and she will not be cold in winter or scared of the dark because she is warm and blooming in heaven and laughing where the light of God shines always.
But, still, it's weird you know, shopping for a gravestone for your daughter...not something I ever signed up for...and I never thought I would compare prices...but there's over a thousand dollars difference in the places I've looked at for a comparable not very large monument. I hate thinking about the money but, well, why not? If I were helping her shop for a wedding dress the price would be a factor too I'm sure...
I hate this too. When we bought Avery's, I had the same mindset. We wanted something perfect and coat didn't matter. Once we got it, it really set in that it was the last and only big purchase we got to make for her; no proms, wedding, car. But I'm glad we picked out the perfect stone, it fits her (I guess if a stone can fit a child). Hugs. I know it's a hard and very bittersweet process.
ReplyDeleteYeah no prom, no car, no wedding, only a gravestone. The perfect gravestone you never wanted to buy.
DeleteWhere B's ashes are buried there is very little you are allowed to put to mark the plot it's a choice between a metal marker and plaque or a wooden one, one cost £75 one £250 and I really felt strongly that I wanted her to have the metal one because it was the last thing I could really buy for her. I can't imagine really what it would be like to have the choice of what to have as a grave stone and what to have as a monument. It was hard enough choosing between metal and wood xx I did miss having that place to go now we have moved, I keep telling myself that I don't need it but I do. I go every time I'm in the area but it's not the same, although I find a strange comfort knowing that she is buried with my sister
ReplyDeleteIt's weird to think about the money. And I think a lot of people want to maybe spend a lot because it's the last thing we can do for our loves. But I don't get how funeral homes can charge hundreds of dollars for urns. Eva's ashes are actually in a piggybank that I bought for her when she was alive second hand. It's lovely and meaningful to us but wasn't expensive. I'm losing track of where I was going replying to you but I'm kind of 'enjoying' being able to shop for something for Eva that's not just another trinket.
DeleteWe went out in the boat, the water choppy with a stiff cool breeze on a gray day July 22, 2000, what should have been Nick's 13th birthday. Opposite the mouth of Powder Creek just around the corner from the bay where he loved to camp, I poured his ashes into the dark water. The next year I went back to the bay but I didn't go out on the boat. I haven't been back since. He's not really there. He's here, inside my heart and there in a beautiful sunset or sunrise. And he's met your Eva.
ReplyDeleteOn a gray day in July 22, 2000, we went out on the boat in choppy waters. Just around the corner from the bay where Nick loved to camp, at the mouth of Powder Creek, I dumped his ashes into the dark maw of Kootenay Lake. I went back the next year and haven't been back since. He's not there. Nick is in the beautiful sunsets and sunrises. I think he's with Eva.
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