Soapbox

Not Authorized

15 months.
That’s how long it has been since my cousin Margaret died and, just as the Covid lockdown was happening, I dealt with her belongings, cleaned out her apartment and had her cremated.

After I picked up the remains, I put them in a nice box and put them in my closet, because obviously, no sort of funeral service could happen then. In the course of my conversations with her step-daughter Elizabeth, she mentioned that Margaret told her she wanted to be interred at what she called “the family tree” where her wife Stephanie and her step-son Nathan’s ashes were buried. I said that Margaret had mentioned the family tree to me as well. We made plans that, some day in the future, we would carry out her wishes together.

“What about her brother Andrew?” Liz asked me then. “Do you suppose he will try to demand her ashes?”
I said I couldn’t imagine that he would care about them, except perhaps as a power play. We agreed that if he did order me to turn them over, rather than start a fight, I would give him some of them. I said I would open the bag and put some of them in a separate container for Liz to take to the tree when she could. It’s not like he has any clue how much the crematorium gave to me.

Fast forward 15 months.
I am standing at Costco, selecting new eyeglass frames, when I get a text from Andrew Hawk:
“Can you call me when you’re available to talk about me getting Margaret’s remains?”
Oh boy. Here we go.

I sent off a quick text to my sister Becky, and to Liz, explaining what was going on.
“Tell him he’s too damn late and block his homophobic ass” Becky said.
“Uh oh, Well, blame it on me” said Liz.

I thought for a few minutes, then replied, “In accordance with Margaret’s express wishes, I gave her remains to her daughter ELizabeth to inter with Stephanie and Nathan. This has been done.”
As indeed it has.
The second week in June, Elizabether and her partner came to Ohio. We drove to the special tree and (amid the screaming of the 17-year cicadas) buried Margaret’s remains. Before we left, at the base of the tree, I left a rock I had painted with a butterfly on the front and on the back, We remember Margaret.

About 20 minutes later, he replied, “The court just recently finalized her case. You didn’t have any authority to do that!
?? Plus you didn’t let anyone of us know?”

Oh the things I could have said.
~”Authority”? What authority did I need? I didn’t open her safety deposit box or empty her bank account: I just gave her ashes to her daughter to bury.
~Your implication that a person’s remains cannot be disposed of until their estate has completed probate is absurd. Try again.
~I think I can be forgive for assuming that, after 15 MONTHS without a word from you on that regard, you didn’t give a damn what happened to her.
~If I had let you know there is every chance that you would have tried to stop me from doing what all Margaret’s friends knew she wanted to have done, just for spite and to be the boss of everythying. Why would I enable you in that?
~Bite me.

I said none of those thing. I simply did not reply.

It is 2 days later Andrew still hasn’t contacted me any further, so hopefully, that’s the last I’ll hear from him. I’m sure my name is now mud in his family, but no more reviled than his is in mine. And Margaret is safely at rest, under the tree with the people who loved her and not the ones who judged her.