Between Waves

After Woody’s death, I was flooded with emails and phone calls from various people. One of them was the coroner. He was asking me to make such difficult decisions, decisions I never dreamed I’d have to make. One of them was whether Woody would be cremated or buried.
I’d never really given either much thought, even for myself. I had briefly thought that burial sounded gentler somehow, naturally decaying back into the earth, whereas cremation always sounded a bit harsh and frightening to me. I remember lying awake at night, tossing and turning with the anxiety of having to make this decision.
I told my partner my thoughts about burial, but also how I didn’t want to sit in a graveyard to visit his grave. I wanted him with me. He agreed, and preferred the idea of cremation because then we could keep him close.
I remember rolling over one night, overwhelmed with anxiety, and asking Google how I could somehow have both. How could I bury him, but still keep him with me? Google told me gently that this wasn’t possible. But it also explained that my idea of him “going gently back into the earth” wasn’t actually so far away from cremation, just different. Instead of returning to the ground, he would return to the atmosphere.
For some reason, that brought me slight comfort.
In the end, that’s what we decided. Above everything else, the overriding factor was having him with us. We still don’t know where we will eventually settle down, and I hated the thought of one day living hundreds of miles away from him.
What I never thought about, though, was the moment I would receive his ashes. I never thought about how that would actually feel.
Woody was cremated on the same day as his funeral, 1.5.26. May Day. The Flower Full Moon. Beltane, the time when people say the veil between the spirit world and the human world is at its thinnest. Woody being an Aries fire sign somehow made it all feel strangely aligned. None of it was planned.
Woody came back to me the following Tuesday evening. The undertaker told me he would bring him round. I spent the whole day in bed feeling sick with anxiety. When the knock came at the door, I froze. My partner called upstairs asking if I wanted to come down, but I couldn’t do it.
Later, he brought upstairs the black bag with the box inside. I just stared at it sitting at the end of my bed.
I was angry and shouted at everyone to leave me alone. I needed to process it on my own.
Much later that evening, I suddenly had the overwhelming urge to hold him, to cuddle whatever was left of him. But the moment I picked up the bag, I completely broke down.
My beautiful boy. My son. My whole world. Reduced to a bag of ashes.
I couldn’t believe it.
What had I done to his beautiful little body? Had I made the right decision?

I lay there holding him against my chest all night long, replaying every decision over and over in my mind. Why had I never thought about this moment? Why hadn’t I realised how this would feel?
Why hadn’t I bought an urn? Would that somehow have made it easier?
But I hadn’t been able to bring myself to choose one. How was I supposed to choose? How does anyone choose these things?

The next morning, it suddenly came to me that I needed him to be inside a teddy. I couldn’t keep cuddling a bag.
So that’s what I did.
I ordered a special teddy from America, and my undertaker took care of everything for me.
But even now, I still can’t quite believe that the physical remains of my son, the only thing I have left of his body are inside this teddy bear.
It feels impossible. Surreal.
I think, in some ways, you have to separate yourself from the reality of it a little bit. Because if you truly let yourself feel the full weight of it all at once, I think it would drive you completely mad.