Beautiful Surprise

It had been about two months since my mom passed and I was swimming in grief. I’d just started working again and had been taking days off here and there to manage and cope. One particular day, the Wednesday before mother’s day, I stayed home because my mother’s urn was being delivered that day.

Before my mother passed, I’d planned to pick up the urn before heading back to DC but it took a month and some days until it was ready. I couldn’t stay in SF a single day longer without breaking down so I went back to DC.

Once it was ready, it sat at the funeral home far longer than I was comfortable with and that alone made me feel like I was dying a little inside each day.It was then that I knew the only choice was to have it shipped.

They promised safe handling and that it would arrive at my door in a day or two, that they would let me know when it shipped, and that it wouldn’t be left without someone there to pick it up.

So on Wednesday I waited and then the doorbell rang.

After the mail woman saw that someone was home, she returned to her truck to get the package. I Ieft the door open, and returned to my couch to turn the TV off. I couldn’t stand one more additional sound.

The urn was packaged well, in a box within a box, with a phrase that identified the fragility of what was inside. As she handed it over to me, not knowing whose ashes were in the box, she began to tell me about her mother.

And how her mother had also been cremated, and she’d recently updated her memorial space with a display that included roses.

It was then that I told her, it was my mother’s ashes in the urn and that there was an urn in the form of a rose because my mother’s middle name is Rose.

It was a sweet moment - one I’ll never forget. I don’t remember if I asked or if she offered but we hugged and what I thought would be the most difficult moment of the day transformed into the most beautiful one, a beautiful surprise.