Ashes, urns, and other things I never thought I'd have to consider

When George died during my labour in May and was stillborn, we were weeks away from closing on the purchase of our first home. We've been married for 17 years but we've always been at the wrong-end of the real estate market wherever we were living. This time, we bought when the market was low, when the mortgage rates were low, and when our family was set to grow again.

We had rejoiced thinking that 2009 was going to be our year. And then we lost our fifth child and what should have been a happy, busy, crazy move was insane and sad.

So there we were the Friday afternoon I was sedated and discharged from hospital, carrying my box of baby mementoes instead of our son, driving from the hospital to the funeral home to make arrangements. We had to get things sorted because my father had booked a flight out the next week for a few days (military fathers like things done chop-chop; he didn't realize that this tight timeframe of his visit was a huge obstacle for us, bless his well-meaning heart).

We sat like stunned robots in the rich wooden chairs with the kindest funeral director. We liked him straight away. He told me he was born in Saskatchewan (I was, too!) and he is a bagpiper (that sold my husband). We suddenly realized that we didn't know where to bury a child because we didn't know where we were going to end up ourselves. The remains of my husband's family members are all in the UK and he's always wanted to have his remains rest with his late father's. My family members are scattered across Canada, some here on the West Coast, some in the prairies, and some back east. We agreed we didn't want to leave our baby buried away from us and then there was the very real consideration that we'd just sunk every single bit of savings into our new house.

As Christians in the Roman Catholic tradition, we have the body of the deceased present in the church for a funeral Mass. If the body isn't there it's a memorial service, not the funeral rite. So while we were going to have George cremated, we needed his little beautiful still body present for the service. And so we selected a casket. Even now I shake my head thinking how surreal it was to admire the tiny little boxes and decide which was the one for our boy. We looked at the urns briefly that day but it was too much for me. I wept uncontrollably and nearly fainted. My husband cut that short and we went home, leaving urn selection for another day.

Fast forward through the funeral and to the day I went to pick up George's ashes. Our older children were at school and the younger two being cared for by a friend. I decided that I would drive over and get our baby's earthly remains. As I pulled up to the funeral home there were picketers out front. At first I couldn't figure out what these people were doing and then I realized they were the funeral home workers. On strike. Out front of the gates with signs, lawn chairs, and a sun tent. The former card-carrying newspaper guild woman in me wanted to stop and sing "Bread and Roses" with them, but the bereft mother in me was conflicted to see people picketing outside where my baby's ashes were waiting for me.

I went inside and was met by a woman who was obviously management covering for the regular front-line staff. It all felt wrong. She ushered me into a side room and went to find George's remains, which were in a plastic bag settled into a neatly labelled plastic container with a twist-on lid. I asked if I could look again at the urns and she walked me over to the display room.

There are, it turns out, only two styles of urn available in all of the Lower Mainland for full-term cremated infants. More options for babies lost earlier in pregnancy, but only two for full-term babies. Others for larger children, but ridiculously large for a baby. Neither my husband nor I cared for the two available styles that first visit when we had been making arrangements. I asked her about some little pewter urns that were simple.

"Oh those? No. Those aren't available any larger. But if you wanted, you could buy a few of them and we could break him up into say three or four of them."

She did. She offered to break up my baby. The room shifted and I felt ill.

"But surely we're not the only parents who've had to cremate a full-term baby? Aren't there other options?" I asked, trying not to get hysterical.

"Mmm. No. Most people bury babies. Maybe you could get a teapot or something."

She did. She said that. That I should put my baby in a teapot. I laughed and she looked at me oddly. I thanked her hastily and left wishing that the nice, caring, normal staff members weren't on strike because surely they wouldn't have offered to break up my child or stuff him into a teapot.

When my husband came home and I cried telling him that there wasn't an urn available to fit that we liked, he went online and began looking. We're Canadian and it turned out that of course in the much more populated United States there are many more options for urns for full-term babies. We browsed around and did find a lovely Japanese-inspired urn but it turned out to be meant for an older child as well. There wasn't anything else that we both felt strongly about and I was beginning to go from crying quietly to losing it. I began to putter and my husband kept searching.

I'm usually the granola-loving, crunchy, recycling and composting, all-natural and back-to-basics kind of gal. My sweet husband, knowing this, found two urn options he announced triumphantly would be perfect. He brought me over to the computer and showed me an all natural and biodegradable paper urn, returning the ashes to the earth. The second option, which he thought was the better choice, was a lovely hand-made wooden birdhouse urn that you hang outside for the wind and the elements to slowly scatter the ashes in a special spot.

I began to weep and shake. He was thinking, and showed me as he explained, that we could place George in a little nook in our new home's backyard. He was imagining birds singing, the older siblings playing, and sunshine in a peaceful sanctuary. I was thinking rainy and cold West Coast days and my baby being left outside, alone. It was too horrible.

I felt awful but I told him how I felt. He was so understanding and I reassured him I totally understood why he'd think these options would appeal to me. I do. He knows me so well. But in this instance, well, I need George with us until we know where we're going to end up some day.

We moved and the question of the urn hung in the balance. My husband found a potter online who makes lovely ceramics, but it's never quite worked out to go and see his shop. I've suggested it a few times but it's not the right time for my good man.

So our George is in a plastic container on a shelf in the built-in cabinet in our dining room. I feel like a bad mother that my baby is in plastic. On a shelf. It's too terrible. But it is. And so I wait and wonder, but trust that we will find something suitable in good time and remind myself that George's soul is safe in heaven. These are just his earthly remains. And it was a tremendous consolation to hear from so many other babylost mothers who commented on an earlier post I made hinting at something bothering me about George's lack of an urn that they also took a while to get things arranged for the final resting places for their babies. I love all of you for your support and kindness. I really do.

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Here is a favourite lilting, quiet, Christmas song from Newfoundland - from that lovely CD my friend Wanita gifted to me. I found this version on Youtube. I'm sorry that I think you have to scroll down to pause the CD of George's songs on the left of my blog to hear this one, but I think it's worth it. The visuals are a bit cheesy, but have a listen for a lovely song that you likely haven't heard a thousand times (but we have now!):