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Beyond the Golden Gate: Adhering to Last Wishes Can Be a Bitch
Remember to bring a big enough bucket
“I didn’t hear you say that.”
Mary, the administrative assistant at the cremation service, looked grave. I didn’t realize she was giving me the old wink, wink, nudge, nudge. She sensed I did not compute.
“Comingling of cremains is illegal in California.”*
What Mary “didn’t hear me say” was that my husband and I intended to mix my in-laws’ cremated remains before scattering them at sea. I nodded in understanding.
We were going to do it whether it was illegal or not. Better to face an unlikely tap on the shoulder from the long arm of the law than to go against my mother-in-law’s last wishes. If she was able to give me grief from the afterlife for anything, believe me, it would be that.
Helen and Jess
My in-laws met at a St. Louis YMCA dance during World War II. Jess’s kid sister Jean had brought him in hopes of setting him up with one of her friends. He was in the U.S. Coast Guard on leave, and the Y allowed…
