I collected my husband’s ashes today. How surreal and perfunctory. I walked with him all around our memory places. The lovely funeral director said, it’s quite heavy’. Good gracious, where do I do from here… life feels so quiet and meaningless apart from the audible breathing of our cat, Nigel. No radio or telly for three weeks now. Christmas…what?..
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@Pooka1968 On the 26 November is was my husbands birthday. On an impulse, I called the funeral director and drove round and picked up his ashes, and brought him back home, on his birthday, where he belongs.
Strangely, I don’t really have strong feelings either way, it was of course upsetting when I brought him home, and I cried. But now, it’s a strangely comforting. And here he will stay, until we are both blasted off into space once I join him.
Best wishes
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Thank you. I wanted to be intermingled and it was a gut punch" when my husband said he didn’t want to sit on a mantelpiece for years. I hope and don’t intend to be around for years. Counting down the days until we are reunited
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@Pooka1968
Yes, I understand being intermingled, and hopefully us two will be too, but I have decided we are both going into space, that will be a blast (excuse the pun…).
Aww…sorry you feel so bad, I want to carry on living, but not like this, but I don’t want to be alone either for the rest of my life (I am 59). It’s a tough one, isn’t it.
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I didnt put my dad’s ashes on the mantelpiece. I left them in the plastic container in the cardboard box in thr cupboard. It freaked my husband out and against my wishes he asked an undertaker to bury them in my baby’s grave. Then my mum died and the undertaker said shall I dig them up and put them in her coffin so be buried together? I said no they wouldn’t want that. Wasn’t their wishes at all. But 29 years later i put a joint headstone on my mother’s grave to mark their existence.
I wouldn’t have wanted ashes on my mantel piece. My husband wanted to be buried so I have a place to go where his memorial is sitting on the bench with his name on after i put flowers in the two pots.
I like to look at the photo of him on his pot and sit looking at the sheep like we used to do. I know some people don’t do that.
I collected my husbands ashes this morning and cried all the way home. I wanted him home for christmas.
It does feel very surreal but strangely comforting to know he is at home.
He will stay with me until i can join him.
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@Chezza1
Same as me.
I collected his ashes on the spur of the moment. For me, not planning has helped throughout this process, too much planning means too much thinking, so I am being quite spontaneous.
J too will stay here with me.
Best wishes.
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I found comfort from picking my partners ashes up and bringing him home was going to scatter them straight away but changed my mind and for the first time since he passed away in August i have actually slept for more than 4 hrs .I will be scattering him in the New Year as won’t hold onto him forever as i have a ring with his ashes in so part of him will always be with me
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I want to bring my partner’s ashes home for Christmas but I know I would be in bits at the funeral director’s and so I keep putting it off.
When I collected my dad’s ashes on my own year’s ago I thought I would find it scary but it wasn’t.
My curiosity got the better of me. So I looked inside. Wasn’t like it was him at all.
I suppose if it had been my husband it might have been different. I wish that I had had the ashes of his amputated leg the week before he died but hospital never gave me the option as didn’t know he was going to die. I wish I could have had it.
Then I would have been able to plant a rose in the calcium which would have grown and been living. That is why my husband upset me taking my dad’s ashes away from me. I wanted to do that when I was ready.
I wanted a living rose so it felt he had not died
I understand everyone has to do it in there own time i too thought i would fall to pieces but i didn’t and found bringing home was the best thing i always said i could never have him at home .but changed my mind .now hes back with me and having ashes in my ring helps me to cope a little
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I was the same, but on an impulse I just went to get J’s ashes, and although I cried when I brought him home initially, since then I have been fine, and he’s home where he belongs.
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Hi
I understand what you are talking about , have my husbands ashes in living room , I have photo of him by my bed and I take it downstairs in the morning , life without him is unbearable
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I felt a strange sort of comfort when the funeral director brought my mum’s ashes urn home to me. The first thing I said when I was handed her after a flood of tears was “My god mum you’ve put weight on!” lol. She now has her own shelf, with a candle, I talk to her daily, and say goodnight to her every night.
Before her ashes came home the pain of her loss was overwhelming. Yet now although the pain of her loss is overwhelming the feeling of being near her gives me great comfort. I wear some ashes around my neck, and on my wrist. My mother was not only my mum but my best friend, and having her home is where she belongs. I won’t ever let her be alone.
Take care of yourself. 
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Nice to read how you loved your mum.
I had mixed emotions about
my mum.
She is buried 22 miles away where she lived and my old home for six years.
I have only just erected a headstone after all these years for my parents.
Photos on it. Not many left to remember them but you never know.
I’m due to collect my wife’s ashes tomorrow and I recognise your feelings only too well.
I wish I had a strong faith that we will be together again in some form of afterlfe but for now I can only hope we’ll get to be intermingled before too long.
I have got to the point that I don’t want to wish my life away because as I look out the window and see new shoots popping up and I am getting used to it on my own it doesn’t feel as bad as it did
I get struggle days.
But then grateful times.
I am looking out at the squirrels scampering over the bare branches of the trees behind.
I just cooked a nice lunch of jacket potato with chicken sausages onion tomato and peas with herbs and it was really tasty. The old familiar stuff is being used.
There are photos of us around in happier times. I go on zoom and do craft at the same time. A pigeon sits on the fence.
Yes the moss is still there on the drive. But I sang in the choir and I have got my paints out again.
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I’m glad to see that you’re beginning to find positives and moving forward. I hope life continues to improve with more positives than struggles.
Thank you for such a positive and uplifting post.
We are all suffering and when it’s still raw we don’t want to carry on without them.
I’m glad you’ve reached the point where you want to live, I pray I get there with time.
I have no expectations of it hurting less, or not missing Luie daily, but to lose these feelings of despair would be very welcome.
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