Funeral QuestionsSix years on and my husband's ashes are still in the wardrobe — how did you decide?
Asked by second_sunrise_9 ·
When my husband died six years ago I brought his ashes home "until I decided." They're still on the top shelf of the wardrobe, behind the winter blankets, and honestly, most of the time that feels fine. He's home. But my daughter has started gently suggesting we "do something", and my son thinks his dad would have wanted to be scattered at the beach where we always camped. Both of them say it kindly. Both of them are probably a bit right.
I'm not asking what the options are. I know the brochure list. I'm asking how you actually decided, if you've been here. Did anyone else feel like scattering was losing him twice? Is keeping them forever actually okay, or am I stuck in some way I can't see from the inside?
3 Replies
Six years of ashes in the wardrobe is not a problem to be fixed. I want to say that first, because "still" is doing a lot of unfair work in your question. Many people keep ashes at home permanently and grieve in a completely healthy way. In grief work we talk about continuing bonds: an ongoing relationship with the person, carried differently. For some people the nearness of ashes is that bond. For others, a resting place out in the world does it better. Neither is the correct one.
That said, two things in your post are worth sitting with. You said "most of the time that feels fine," and you're asking whether you're stuck. Those are your questions, not your children's, and they deserve slow answers.
The reframe I most often offer: this doesn't have to be one decision. Ashes can be divided, respectfully, easily, by a funeral director if you prefer not to do it yourselves. Your son could scatter a portion at the beach with his own small ceremony. Your daughter could have a keepsake. And a portion could stay exactly where it is, home with you, for as long as that's where he belongs. Nobody loses; nobody's grief outranks anyone else's.
If, underneath it, the wardrobe has started to feel less like keeping him close and more like not being able to look at the question, that's a gentle thing to take to a bereavement counsellor. One or two sessions, not a project. GriefLine (griefline.org.au) is free if you want somewhere low-stakes to start. (There's more on what helps with grief generally, if it's useful beyond the ashes question itself.)
From the cemetery side, a few practical notes people rarely hear until they're standing at our counter:
- There's no clock. We inter ashes decades after a cremation, regularly. Nothing about waiting narrows your options.
- If part of the appeal of "doing something" is having a place the kids can visit after you're gone, a niche or memorial garden interment can be a partial answer. Keep some at home, inter some with a plaque. We do split arrangements like this all the time.
- If the beach happens: check the local council's page first (most are relaxed, some want a quick notification), go early morning on a weekday, stand upwind, and (the one everyone wishes they'd been told) keep a small amount back. Scattering can't be undone; keeping a remnant can. The full options and rules are laid out well in what you can do with cremation ashes.
Mum was in my linen cupboard for a bit over two years, so you have my full solidarity.
What finally moved us wasn't pressure. It was my brother saying "what if we just take her to the jacaranda park and see how it feels, and if it doesn't feel right we bring her home." Framing it as reversible right up to the last second was what let me walk out the door. We did scatter, in the end. I cried the whole drive home, and then I slept properly for the first time in months. I kept a little in a tiny jar, which I've never regretted. Some days I'm glad it's there, most days I don't think about it, and both feel fine.
The one thing I'd push back on gently: "he would have wanted the beach" is your son's grief talking, and it matters, but your being able to live alongside the decision matters too. Split them. Truly. It was the thing that made everyone in our family right at once.
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