I thought the ceremony, at my mother’s cottage, would pass without a hitch. I don’t think she’d have been impressed by what followed …
If you’re looking for sound, practical advice on what happens when an elderly parent dies – the so-called “sadmin” – then you shouldn’t come to me because all the bits that went OK, my sister did, and all the bits that went unaccountably awry were when I got involved. If, however, you are looking for advice on the ceremony of ash-scattering, then I have loads, all of it learned five to 10 minutes after it would have been good to know.
We’d actually planned this pretty carefully, insofar as we knew where we wanted to go – a cottage our mum rented for years, which is still empty. When my mum died, a friend gave me a lovely hanky, so I took that, in case I got upset. It was a beautiful day; I had my cherished loved ones, a bottle of water and my vape. What could possibly go wrong?