Accessible Gardening: Compassion For Physically Challanged Gardeners #13, 0 by lovemyhouse

lovemyhouse wrote:
My niece's ashes are at my house, waiting until the family is ready to get a plot (meaning until I have the money to pay for it :-). Her kids had decided they wanted memorial jewelry and I got them engraved metal canisters small enough to wear or carry. A couple of weeks ago, I spread a Kroger sale ad on the table, took the tiny glass vials out of the canisters, filled them up, and set each aside for the superglued lids to dry before being dropped back into the canisters. Of course, even though I tried to be cautious, a little ash spilled in the process. After the urn was resealed, I folded up three sides of the paper, carefully carried it out front, and flung the residue over the garden.....forgetting the vials were still on the paper.... ooops! Found two by the Plumbago. The other three? Nowhere. From wherever she was/is, I knew my niece was laughing her BUTT off. LOL Even my sister thought it was funny. So did the kid who dug up the Iris (he looked, too, while digging). And I wish I had a recording of the clerk at the memorial gallery when I called to get replacement vials. She was trying hard NOT to laugh, not wanting to sound insensitive, not too sure what to say. But, they're just ashes, Crystal isn't in them, and it IS funny. I filled the new vials today and made SURE to put them on the glass tabletop instead of the paper. Scraping a little glue off glass if necessary is MUCH better than crawling around on hands and knees in muddy clay, leaf debris, and Cypress mulch, especially when it is chilly outside (for us) and I have a cold. :-) The kids seem to have adjusted well enough to take the canisters now. I showed them right after the box arrived and they are starting to ask my sister when they can have them. Maybe Thanksgiving week. They have a lot to be thankful for, even the fact that she died when she did. She was never going to be well again and there was very little of "her" left in that brain. The kids were miserable and she was going to hurt someone eventually, so it really was a blessing for everyone--including her. The kids have had enough time, now, that they can remember when MOM was still around, not the raging insane alien they had to endure the last few years. Yeah, I think Thanksgiving week...

Crystal's favorite color was purple and some late-blooming Magnus Echinacea are dancing in my yard.

Debra