The funeral director kept showing Rose what he called “vessels for the remains of the dearly departed” in a heavy binder, but Rose found each option too expensive; after nearly an hour of negotiation in which she repeatedly asked the director to put the cremains in a plastic bag, “I can carry him in my purse,” which he insisted was illegal, he agreed to sell her—for forty dollars cash—the pine box in which one of his marble urns had shipped. At first my mom had been exasperated by her mom’s stubbornness; by the end, we were all laughing uproariously, cathartically, at her refusal to give an
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What will you do with your loved ones cremains?
