Cremains of the Day.

We had Frank cremated. 

Three times that morning Mom asked me to call the mortuary to see when we could pick him up. She needed closure. Three times they said it would be about an hour. Finally, they said “come by at 2:30.”

Mom and I arrived at the mortuary at 2:30 sharp and were greeted by a sweet girl who told us it would just be a few minutes if we’d like to take a seat. We found two chairs in the waiting room and sat down without a word. Harp music played serenely overhead. I stared and the pink and mint green striped wallpaper and the Lladro knockoffs. Mom fiddled with the strap of her purse. We raised an eye at the lacy white kleenex box cozy.

The girl came out again and said it would just be a few more minutes. More wallpaper, more purse fiddling. The grandfather clock struck Three.

The girl returned, this time with two bottles of water for us and said it would just be a few more minutes. Mom and I both drew deep sighs and looked at each other. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Finally, the girl came back. She was gingerly holding a small grey box. Nothing ornate—just a melamine cube. It was Frank. 

“Now I don’t mean to weird you out,” she said, “but the box is still kind of hot.”

“Well don’t you have complimentary oven mitts?” Mom said, without missing a beat.

The poor girl didn’t know what to say. We both snickered. I took the box and we giggled our way out to the door. “You wouldn’t have married him if he wasn’t hot,” I said. We got into the car and laughed ourselves silly.

I’m sure that somewhere in the bounding waves of the Pacific, Frank is laughing his ass off, too.