Today was our appointment at the funeral home to make arrangements for Mara’s body. It was something we dreaded but had to get done, and it was also my first trip out of the house since Mara died. We chose the funeral home Chris used when his Dad died, because it’s close to our house, and because we already knew of it, and why on Earth would you spend more time researching such a thing than you absolutely have to? We decided that we would go to Costco afterwards just to have a chance to be out and about together, feel the cold air, walk around, hold on to each other, and actually pick up some groceries.
While we were in the hospital, we had some hard decisions to make about Mara. It’s impossible to plan for such a thing, and I can honestly say that we initially had no idea where to begin or how we could even make ourselves speak words about something as horrible as what to do with our daughter’s body. Hearing people ask about “Mara’s remains” was too much to bear. Eventually, we did begin to talk about it while sitting and holding on to each other and crying. At first we could only identify what we didn’t want to do, and then eventually we were able to develop plans.
We didn’t want to visit a baby grave, and we didn’t have a location that was especially sacred to us as far as Mara was concerned. We also knew we didn’t want to have a funeral service for her, especially not in a funeral home that we had no connection to. We wanted a personal way to let Mara’s body go and a way to connect with our loved ones without a tearful service given by an officiant who didn’t know us or our daughter. What we ultimately decided on was inspired by Aaron’s understanding of what happened to his baby sister and an image I had in my mind of sending Mara off. I imagined standing in a high place with my arms stretched up into the sky and wind carrying her away. When I shared that with Chris, it resonated with him and he felt like it sounded like the best possible thing we could do. So we made arrangements for our baby girl to be cremated, and then we would take her ashes into the mountains together, just the two of us, to release them. We wanted to do it sometime in January while my parents were still here so we could leave Aaron with them. After we talked about it, we became more and more comfortable with the idea and it gave us a bit of peace to have it decided.
As far as a service, we decided that instead of something focused on Mara’s body, we wanted a chance to see our friends and let them see us, especially before Christmas. We wanted to help people feel a bit of closure before the Christmas holiday, and we wanted to feel like we had done something in Mara’s honor that was separate from Christmas so that we could try to focus on having a special Christmas with Aaron. We asked our dear friend and department chair to spread the word for us that we would be having an open house on Wednesday evening.
When it was finally time to go to the funeral home, we just wanted to get in and out of there as quickly as we could. Since we were not doing a service our arrangements really did not take very long. The woman who was working with us was efficient and soft-spoken, thankfully. Chris did most of the talking, we paid for Mara’s cremation and we headed out. It was quicker and less awful than I was afraid of. This was, of course, because of shock, because it hard to imagine something more awful than handing over a credit card to pay for someone to take your baby’s body and turn it to ash. Shock and numbness is merciful in this way. It allows you to function through the unthinkable.
We did walk around Costco afterwards, and for reasons that make no sense whatsoever, that hurt me much more deeply than being in the funeral home. I felt completely overwhelmed by walking around a crowded busy place. I felt sensitive and raw and afraid, and I saw pregnant women and babies everywhere. There was one woman in particular with an infant car seat in her cart carrying a very small baby girl, and I couldn’t understand how she could be in every aisle we turned down. By the time we were checking out, my pain was flaring up and I just wanted to hide in my bed. This kind of social anxiety was totally new to me and forced me to do a lot of thinking about how much our lives had changed in such a short time. What the heck is wrong with me, being afraid of walking around Costco? How long can that go on? This is what I mean by not recognizing one’s self when you are lost in grief.
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