#ggma

My great grandma, who was essentially my mom, died September 7, 2013. I think it’s cool that these days, I remember her birthday before I remember her...deathday? It’s a more positive day to remember, and I’m grateful for that.

Suffice to say, when she passed, I was Fucked. Up. She was my role model throughout my entire life...honestly the concept of a “soul mate” isn’t a stretch. In the note she left me when she died, she basically said as much. A month passed where I cried every single day about her, without fail. The first 4 days I basically just hung out in bed. To be honest, I still have an e-mail account I made for her, and when big things happen in my life, I write to it.

I’m doing much better now. But we’re having a situation with her ashes. She had 3 kids: my grandma, my great aunt, and my great uncle.

Great Grandma wanted to by buried by First Lutheran church, way out in the Midwest. Instead, my great aunt took her ashes for herself. Now that my great uncle has been diagnosed with stage IV bladder cancer, he is looking for closure. It’s a difficult time for the family. 4 years later, my great aunt has relented, and we’ve collectively made the decision to send off her ashes. 

I’m in a bit of a moral dilemma here. Some people are talking about taking tiny pieces of her ashes for themselves. I want to respect her wish, but even the tiniest amount of ashes would make me so happy. At the same time, I know her, very well, and what she would’ve wanted. I talked to her about this. tbh... I feel like she was picking First Lutheran partially because we didn’t want us squabbling amongst ourselves. My family members fought and were kicked out by hospital staff right over her hospital bed, so... I totally understand that. I was that constant voice of “guys, not here.” Remarkably, they listened to me.

I’m looking into either an urn necklace or a very, very small urn (talking maybe 0.5-1 gram of ash). Great Grandma had told me throughout her life that I’m her favorite person in the world. If anyone deserves pieces of those ashes, it’s her 3 biological children and me. I wouldn’t take the ashes if no one else is doing it. But if they are... Would it really be so bad if I took a little? I feel like a horrible person though. How are ashes gathered? Did they even get her entirety to begin with?

If I do go through with this, and I will only do so if people are already taking pieces, I think it would be a great time to get the memorial tattoo I’ve been planning forever. It would be a copy of her handwriting in the many letters she sent me. I must have about 50 pages, accumulated over the decades.

In closing... I have no idea what to do. I feel so greedy and wrong for wanting this, but I do want it so badly. It would be my most valued possession, one hundred fold. I can’t even begin to express how much I miss her, and how often, when I’m in a tough situations, I ask myself what she would do. What would she do in this situation? Yet another one of those times that I wish I could speak with her so badly.