People Tell Their Stories:
Death and Dying

Momma's Ashes Jaymie Meyer

 

In 1993, my Gram died, three weeks shy of her 96^th birthday. At the gravesite after the funeral service, my Uncle Louis took my hand the led me into the small family mausoleum to pay our respects. As I approached the open crypt, I looked inside and saw containers holding the ashes for my Grandpa Harry and Grandma Belle. My mother’s ashes were missing.

 

“Where’s my mother?” I asked Lou.

 

Grandpa had died 10 years earlier and my mother had died 7 years earlier and her ashes were supposed to be there too. Louis said he didn’t know where they were, but he promised me that he would investigate. As we were leaving, I noticed the white marble slab bearing the names of deceased family members, but I was shocked to only see my Grandfather’s name, Harry Tepper.

 

“Why isn’t my mother’s name here?” I asked.

 

Louis told me that he’d been waiting for Grandma Belle to die so that we could get a two-for-one. We laughed in that strange way that you laugh at funerals and sad occasions.

 

In the weeks that followed, I had the responsibility of cleaning out my Gram’s apartment. There were ghosts everywhere. I rediscovered Grandpa in one of his leather attaché cases where I found a half-smoked Havana cigar, fragile phillo dough and still stinking.

 

Grandma was everywhere. In her closet, I found 134 silk scarves. The incredible number of scarves became a metaphor for the volume of everything around me, including many beautiful things, but I felt like I was caught in some wild and overgrown garden, trying to weed my way out and not succeeding.

 

In an old trunk, I found evidence of my mom. Held together by kite string were dozens of love letters from Maury Fisher, who had once been her fiancé. On each page, Maury had crossed out his father’s engraved letterhead and scrawled his own name in its place. His pet name for my mother was ‘fluffy’ and his letters were long, rambling things, full of fluffy-this and fluffy-that. I was glad she didn’t marry Maury.

 

Through the cleaning process, I kept thinking about my mother. I was haunted by her missing ashes. My mother was adopted when she was two years old and try as I might — and I tried very hard - I was never able to discover her true origins.  It’s odd, but I never really became curious about this until after my mother died. But when I asked my Gram, she insisted she knew nothing. Finally I stopped badgering her because I felt cruel putting her through so much stress. Still, the depth of her anger made me feel that she must have known something. She would pound the arms of the black leather chair in her den and say, “Are you trying to kill me? Why do you want to know now?”

 

I continued to clean the apartment, hoping I might find some shred of evidence, doubting I would. Three weeks passed. I talked to Louis daily - still no word on the ashes.

 

Finally one day, in total despair, I called Louis and said, “Please, you’ve got to help me find her. See, it’s my mother and I don’t know where she came from and now I don’t know where she went.”

 

Later that afternoon, Louis tracked her down at the funeral home, where her ashes had remained for 7 years in the basement, an apparent oversight of the person who was responsible for transferring them to they crypt. Taking a break from the apartment, I drove to the funeral home, where the funeral director ushered me into a dark, paneled room and gestured towards a leather desk. I saw a black and gold rectangular box. I could feel my heart pounding as I approached the desk. On the side of a very tarnished container, I saw my mother’s name: Jane Todd. The director told me I was lucky; he said the funeral home is required by law to keep ashes for only 2 years, after which time they can be thrown out. He placed some papers on the desk, indicating where I needed to sign to have the ashes transferred and then he left me alone.

 

I sat with my mother. I felt like a grownup and a child at the same time. I was so relieved to have found her. The ashes are not she, I know that. But they represent a part of who she was. I’ll never know where she came from, but finally, I do know where she is.

 

 

Jaymie Meyer, Bistro Award winner, is an actress, singer, writer and spokesperson. Her first solo CD, "What You'd Call A Dream" merited reviews in Billboard and Playbill and is being aired on radio throughout the USA and Europe. Jaymie has performed at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, The Algonquin Hotel's Oak Room, the Russian Tea Room and at the Kennedy Center. As a writer, Jaymie has had a number of personal essays and articles published.
Contact Jaymie at jaymiem@worldnet.att.net or visit her website, www.jaymie.com.